Playing with the Grown-ups (19 page)

'What have you done?' she said. 'What is that?'

Her mother held her arms out and tried to pull Kitty to her. Kitty spun away and ran backwards into the bathroom. Her mother
cornered her there, until she felt that her back was embedded in the wall, sconce-like.

'I didn't mean to,' her mother said. 'It was all from the doctor; I was just in so much pain - it was my headaches. You can't
understand the pain.' She went to lift up her nightdress again as if to illustrate her point.

'Please, don't - I don't want to see again,' Kitty said.

'You must see, you must see how bad the pain was to understand, look what my pain has made me do to myself.'

She showed her once more, and Kitty retched.

'Please don't show me any more, Mummy.' Kitty began to cry.

'Shush, don't cry. Everything will be all right, I just need to go to the hospital for a few days and have a little rest.
That's all I need, a rest. We won't tell anyone why, OK? But you have to promise me, cross your heart you won't tell.'

'I don't have anyone to tell,' Kitty said, and she realised this was true.

'You must not tell Nora or Bestemama or Honor or anyone.'

'I won't,' Kitty promised.

She made her mother a cup of tea, and helped her pack her bag. They packed with purpose. Clean nightdresses, knickers, scented
candles, and cold cream. Kitty put in a copy of The Borrowers, but she knew her mother wouldn't read it. They sat in the back
of a cab, neatly, and when the cab driver asked how they were today, her mother said, 'I'm not very well.' Kitty squeezed
her hand.

He dropped them off at a dark Gothic building in Chelsea, and took her mother's hand, saying, 'Feel better soon, love.' He
looked at Kitty almost sternly and said, 'Take care of your mum, she's the only one you'll ever have.'

She helped her mother check in at the reception, writing her name and her date of birth, and in the column where it said 'Reason
for seeking treatment', her mother took the pen and wrote 'GRIEF' in big black letters.

When Kitty left her mother cried out like she was homesick, until a broad nurse led her away. Kitty could hear her mother's
thin cries in her ears, and in the cab home she rubbed at them fiercely, to banish the sound from her head.

In the letter her mother left for Nora, she said she'd decided, on a painful whim, to seek treatment for her migraines at
a special clinic that used bio-feedback.

'What is a migraine anyway?' Nora said. 'When I was young it was just called a headache. I tell you, she's something your
mother - always got to have one better then everyone else. Why did she decide to suddenly go today?'

'I don't know,' Kitty said. 'It was a really bad one.'

'Well, at least Violet and Sam will go to bed on time. Now it's just boring old me.'

Kitty buried her face in Nora's neck.

'You're not boring. Don't ever say that. You're the best.' She felt like crying.

'Oh Pest,' Nora said. 'It's not easy, is it?'

'No, it's not,' Kitty answered. 'I don't know why.'

'God, that dog is noisy,' Ingrid says, laughing on the doorstep.

'She's not, she's just excited,' Violet says. 'She leads a quiet life.'

Ingrid scoops Little Dorritt up into the grey downy nest that is her coat and the dog collapses on her back, offering her
stomach up in blissful surrender.

'She's such a slut,' Sam says.

'Don't call my dog a slut, Sam.' Violet swats him. 'You'll hurt her feelings.'

'She's not your dog, she's Mum's dog.'

Kitty comes down the narrow stairway, carefully holding on to the banister.

'Please don't fight,' she says warily.

'It's how we express our love for one another. Calm down.' Violet points to Kitty's stomach. 'Look, Ingrid, Kitty's had sex.'

Ingrid takes Kitty into her arms.

'Not my eldest niece. As a doctor, I can tell you for sure it was an immaculate conception. Hello, my love,' she says. 'Are
you tired?'

'I'll go and see her in the morning,' she says, getting into her Volvo. 'What a bloody mess. Will you do me a favour, Kitty?
Don't mention it to Bestemama when you see her. She's fragile, and she's got enough on her plate with Dad's stroke. I don't
think she could take it. They have become very old suddenly. I want them to have peace. They both deserve it. God, the order
of life is so strange, isn't it? One's parents who have spent their lives caring and protecting are almost overnight reduced
to vulnerable children who need looking after themselves. But I suppose you know all about that.'

'Different,' Kitty says, kissing her aunt goodbye.

'I need to keep fit, darling,' she said. 'My bum is starting to hang. I don't like it. I walk out of the room backwards when
there's a man in my bed, which is rare these days, to be perfectly frank.'

She was a member at a ritzy health club in South Kensington, and she could take a guest for twenty pounds. Kitty liked the
thought of being on Candy's health plan.

Candy wore a white string bikini, and her belly button had a diamond in it. Kitty looked at her bum to see if it truly was
hanging, but to her it looked perfectly round and high.

'Do you want to know something I do?' Candy asked.

They floated lazily on their backs in the empty pool, looking up at the ceiling which was a pastel mess of cherubs. If you
stuck your head under the water, music played. Kitty wondered if Candy thought she looked awful in a swimsuit.

'What do you do?' she asked.

'If there's no one else here I go over to the jets, open my legs and I make myself come.'

'Oh my God, that's so sick!' Kitty said. 'How?'

'Have you never read Nancy Friday?' Candy said. 'It's so funny; it happens really quickly. Do you want to have a go?'

'What if someone sees us?'

'Who do you see, darling?' She laughed. 'Don't be frightened, there's nobody here.' She was right. There were two jets next
to each other. 'Move up,' she said. 'I have to get the angle right. One, two, three, go.'

Kitty kept her eyes wide open in case someone was watching. The feeling she had was deeply impersonal; she felt removed from
it, and how quickly it happened.

'I can't believe you beat me,' Candy said, splashing her as the cherubs looked on. 'Oh that was lovely. Let's go out tonight,
but don't tell your mum.'

'She's away anyway,' Kitty said. She saw her chest was flushed.

'I wondered why she hadn't rung me. Normally she rings me for a chat?' Candy said like a question.

'Can you lend me a dress? I don't feel like going home. Where do you want to go?' Kitty didn't want to talk about her mother;
she wanted to revel in having Candy to herself. In those brief moments it was like normal life was suspended, and by talking
about them, real things would break the spell.

Kitty felt excited. Maybe she was being discovered. Maybe he was a talent-spotter. She tried to make her eyes look tragic.

'My name's Scarlet,' she said.

He had kind eyes. Kitty looked over at Candy who was kissing a boring Swedish student from the LSE with straight teeth. The
nightclub passed them by like a cami-val. She sighed.

'People aren't going to understand you till you're older. I bet boys your own age don't get you. I bet that it's primarily
older men who chat you up. Am I right?' He gazed at her intently.

'How do you know that?' Kitty said. She felt quite giddy and drunk. 'Are you psychic?'

'Yes, I am. You should be drinking champagne. Shall we order a bottle?'

'Can it be pink?' she said.

'You're adorable. Yes, it can.'

The waiters were cleaning up around them. Rusty Lude lit her cigarette.

'I don't know whether your girlfriend's going to be going anywhere with you.'

Candy was in a banquette with the Swede, who had his hands in her knickers. She arched her back and bit his neck. The waiters
muttered excitedly. Kitty felt ashamed for her.

'Do you think we should go home?' she asked Candy. 'Everyone's left.'

'No. I'm having a really, really, really good time. I'm going back to mine. You can come home with me if you like, in a bit.'
Candy's lipstick had slid around her face.

'I'll take her home,' the Swede leered.

'Who is that man, darling?' Candy squinted at Rusty Lude. 'He's ancient.'

'He's really nice,' Kitty said severely. 'And he's giving me a lift.'

'What a beautiful view to have. If I were you I'd never stop looking out of the window,' Kitty said.

'Yeah, it's great. Shall we smoke a joint?'

'I don't know. I get paranoid and hungry. I don't know if I really like the way it makes me feel.'

'It's good stuff. You won't get paranoid. We'll relax.'

'You could go out with my mother.'

They sat on the floor listening to Cat Stevens. Rusty Lude made a face.

'I don't know about mothers,' he said.

'You should. She likes Cat Stevens too. She's really pretty, and young.' Much younger than you, Kitty thought.

Rusty's Siamese cat wove around her legs. He had his eyes shut.

'My daughter doesn't speak to me,' he said. 'I really miss her.' He passed her the bottle of champagne. Kitty took a greedy
gulp and it went up her nose.

'Why?'

Tears ran down his long cheeks.

'Says I was a bad father. I bet you speak to your dad.'

'I don't, actually. He's dead. I didn't know him,' Kitty said.

'That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.' He reached for her hand.

'I want to know you,' he said.

'I have to go to the loo,' Kitty said.

His bathroom belonged to a seventies film. Brown carpet, smoked brown mirrors, and misty photographs of a little girl with
serious dark eyes. He had a lot of hairspray and Badedas. Kitty imagined him getting ready for a night out and she felt a
bit sick, then guilty, because it wasn't his fault he was old and lonely.

The sitting room was darker, and Barry White lowed from the stereo. She looked down at the floor, where a pair of leather
trousers lay like dead slugs in the rain.

Rusty Lude, pale and blue as skimmed milk, was naked, clutching his flaccid penis in his long fingers.

'Oh my God,' Kitty said. 'What are you doing?'

'Waiting for you, baby. Can't you feel the sex magic? Scarlet, baby, please?' He sounded like he was begging.

'That's not even my name,' she said.

'You're lucky I was around,' Tommy said. 'I could have been with a girl and I might not have answered the phone. Then where
would you be? Stuck with no money outside a naked elderly man's house wearing hooker shoes, that's where.'

'Shut up, OK? It was a traumatic experience. Don't mock me.' Kitty glared at him.

'You're such a fool. Some octogenarian with a ponytail picks you up in a nightclub, tells you that you have STAR stamped all
over you, and you go HOME with him? What's wrong with you?'

'I thought he was interested in my mind,' she said tightly.

'Your mind! Ha! That's brilliant. Brilliant.'

'You'll love Tommy, now you're meeting him properly,' she said. 'And Ollie and Naim. They all go to college together, they're
so funny. You and Tommy are my best friends.'

They linked arms and she pulled up the collar of the Afghan coat she had bought that morning at Camden Market. She felt like
Julie Christie in it.

Honor's mum laughed at them as they got ready.

'Why don't you wear blusher? You look like you have moon faces, with all that pale foundation. Kitty, does your mother mind
if you go out in a dress that short? I don't think it's safe. It sends a message. I don't know how I feel letting you leave
the house in a dress like that . . .'

'She says it's fine as long as my coat covers the dress.' Kitty smiled.

'Oh Mum, you couldn't possibly understand,' Honor said. 'We look wildly glamorous.'

Naim and Ollie eyed Honor up.

'All right?' they said.

'Yes.' She looked around the room.

'What do you want to drink?'

'Sea breezes,' they said in unison.

The first taste was syrupy sweet, and then you got used to it. Her mother said Kitty had a predilection for Essex-girl drinks.
Her mother was a considered drinker of serious drinks, gimlets and Martinis. Kitty liked things with childish frivolous names
- fuzzy navels, sex on the beach - or peach schnapps with fizzy lemonade, which made her eyes bum.

She stood and tried to look bored, her lips thrust forward. Honor and she spent many hours practising their pouts; Honor thought
a pout was crucial to looking both truculent and alluring.

'Why are you making that stupid face?' Tommy asked.

'Other people may not find it stupid,' Kitty said mysteriously, pointing her finger to a group of suited bankers who were
looking her over with some vague muttering interest.

'They're not looking at your face; they're looking at your tits, which are hanging out for all to see.' He pointed to the
top of her scarlet dress, festooned with roses.

'Can you just stop it for one minute?' Kitty hissed. 'You may not find me sexy but other people miraculously do sometimes.
You make me feel really bad, like I'm dirty or sluttish and you disapprove of me.'

'Sorry,' Tommy said.

'You should be. Honestly.'

The others laughed, but she said it in a mean way. Her pupils were very small.

'I bet you've got some grass, Tommy. Why don't you make a big joint?'

'Mummy!' Kitty said.

'Oh come on. Don't pretend you've never done it. I thought you all longed to be grown-ups. Well I'm inviting you to a party
in my bedroom, and we're going to have fun at the party. Come on, Honor, don't look so disapproving.'

Tommy's eyes were on Kitty, as if he were asking her permission. She nodded. From his pocket he took the bag and a packet
of Rizlas.

'Bingo,' her mother said.

Kitty had only smoked pot three times before. It made her mouth buzz, and her head feel like it belonged to another body.

'Your mum is so cool,' Ollie said.

'I am cool.' Her mother laughed. 'Now I think we should all dress up, and do a play. Honor, you can be the director. I will
be the make-up artist, and the audience.'

Tommy had velvet red lips, Naim striking bronzed cheekbones, and Ollie black-ringed eyes; he looked like Balthazar. Standing
at the end of her mother's bed, the boys were no longer scuffed teenagers, they were beautiful. They began to walk differently,
like peacocks.

'Fine,' Honor said. She rolled her eyes at Kitty.

Kitty was wearing her mother's long linen nightdress, and her hair was down.

'Action!' her mother said. 'All right, Kitty, the carpet is the river, and you're going to kill yourself. You're in despair
. . .'

She turned the lights off, and the room was lit with scented candles. Kitty came out from behind the bathroom door with a
tormented expression on her face, and walked slowly over to the edge of the carpet. She looked around at their faces, strangers
in the light, and she felt the joint coursing through her, filling her with laughter. She began rocking with it. The boys
and Honor all laughed too.

'For goodness sake,' her mother said. 'That's not very suicidal. I'm going to have to relinquish my role as director and show
you myself.' She ran into the bathroom.

Kitty went to sit on the floor with the others.

'Your mum is so funny,' Naim wept. 'She's completely mad.'

Her mother had powdered her face until it was like a kabuki doll's, and her eyes burned out through the white. She wore her
wedding dress, but it was too big, and the layers of tulle seemed like they would swallow her. Her eyes were half shut, and
she sang a song, in a clear voice. She knelt at the river, looking at her reflection, and she trailed her fingers through
the water. Tears ran down her powdered face, and it looked as though she was melting. Then slowly and deliberately she lowered
herself in. She lay still on the carpet river and her breath fluttered from a rasp to a stop.

The others had stopped laughing, and the room seemed to move with the heaviness of wax and water.

'Is she OK?' Naim said in a whisper.

Tommy looked frightened.

Marina pulled herself out of the river, quite suddenly, jumping up, and gave a long sweeping bow. They applauded in relief.

'Your mum is a brilliant actress,' Ollie said.

In day's slatternly light, her mother's bedroom looked like a group of wild hijras from Bombay had been dancing there, dropping
scarves and belts, cigarette butts, hats and rouge, scraps of paper scratched with poems and notes, as they surrendered to
night.

Now they were gone, and lying in the storm's eye was her mother sleeping, still wearing her wedding dress.