Playing with the Grown-ups (21 page)

'We like the same things,' Kitty said. 'We both like reading and going out . . . We talk about everything.'

'You're making this difficult. My parents think your mother is irresponsible.'

'Your parents don't even know my mother. They don't know anything about her!'

'Kitty, it's obvious. They don't need to know her. Your house is not normal.'

'What's normal? It's completely normal. Maybe not compared to your house but yours is extraordinarily normal. Why are you
being so judgemental?'

'I'm trying not to be. I'm trying to tell you it's not going to work.'

'I feel like you're breaking up with me. I still don't understand what I've done wrong.'

Honor started to cry.

'Please, Kitty. You haven't done anything wrong. We're not the same. I feel bad about myself when we go out and do the things
we do. It used to be fun when we just went to the cinema, and you stayed the night, and we went to the market. It's not fun
any more.'

'So should I ignore you when I see you, and that's it? Should I forget we were friends?'

'I don't know,' Honor said. She hid her face in her hands. 'I'm sorry. I don't know what to say.'

'I think you're boring,' Kitty said, 'and I think your parents are really boring. My other friends are far more adventurous
then you, anyway. I'll have much more fun without worrying about you sitting there glowering at me all the time, making me
feel self-conscious. Don't worry about it. I'll see you around. And by the way, Candy thinks you sound really prim and dull,
and I have far better conversations with her than I ever have with you: proper adult conversations, and we laugh about your
stupid boring life and how often you wash your hair!'

'Kitty, please!' Honor said as Kitty ran.

Outside school she kicked the bus stop so hard her heel came off and fire shot up her leg.

'Fuck you, Honor!' Kitty said at the top of her voice.

'Language!' the lollipop lady on the other side of the road muttered, thrusting her eyes at Kitty through the dark. 'Language!'

'Oh leave me alone,' Kitty said.

She hobbled up the hill, looking as dignified as she could, with her skirt flying up in the wind, as flimsy as a handkerchief,
one crippled patent stiletto tapping an angry war march against the cold pavement.

'Do you mind if I lie down for twenty minutes before we go? I can't move all of a sudden. I promise I'll be twenty minutes.'

'It's fine,' Sam says. 'We're in no urgent rush to go -we're bonding.'

Violet half smiles, but decides against it. Instead she nods, pointing her elegant little foot in the direction of Sam's balls.
She narrowly misses.

'Oh for God's sake,' Kitty says.

'But what about your husband, little Magpie? And your babies?' her mother said, stroking her hair out of her eyes. 'What about
what they want?'

'They're just going to have to like trees,' Kitty had answered.

'And Bestemarna and Bestepapa,' her mother said. 'Don't forget them.'

She told Tommy this and he said very seriously, 'Jake's a real fuck-up, Kit, and he's weak.'

He didn't look weak. He looked like a film star. He was broody and silent. She felt maybe if she tried hard enough she could
make him fall in love with her.

Her mother had called her earlier to find out where she was.

'Oh my God,' Kitty said. 'You're so neurotic. I'll be home at one, OK?'

'You're at Wondering Alice's though, yes?'

'It's Alice's Wonderland, Mum. Yes, that's where I am.'

Tommy and Kitty were standing by the bar doing shots. 'Playing with Knives' was vibrating from the speakers. She kept sneaking
looks at Jake, who was chatting up a girl who looked like Kate Moss.

Tommy was boring her with the story of the German girl who'd broken his heart. He always did this when he was drunk.

'And so then she gave me the Leonard Cohen album . . .'

'Yes,' Kitty said testily. Jake was getting the Kate Moss girl's phone number.

'And then . . . Oh my God, I think your mother's just walked in.'

Kitty burst out laughing, but she looked up and saw it was true.

Her mother was standing at the top of the stairs with Naim and Ollie holding an elbow each. She was laughing. Her hair was
in her eyes and she flicked it back with impatient hands. Every man in the room looked up, or so it felt, and looked again.

'Oh my God! Mortification,' Kitty hissed at Tommy. 'Why is she here? I am so embarrassed.'

Her mother saw them and walked slowly over.

'Hi, Marina,' Kitty said. She didn't feel like calling her Mummy.

'Hello, darling. I thought I'd drop in for a drink. Why don't you introduce me to your friends?'

Con Brown leapt to attention.

'How do you, Mrs Fitzgerald. I'm Con Brown. Can I get you a drink?'

Suck-up, Kitty thought.

'Actually, I'm not married. It's Larsen. Call me Marina. I'm too young to be a Mrs, don't you think?' She looked at him mockingly,
and he seemed very young.

Jake looked through her and mumbled, 'Jake,' then turned away lazily. Kitty loved him for it.

Her mother stood in her Armani dress and they fought for her attention in droves. Whenever she reached for a cigarette a thousand
lighters were flourished. Kitty sat sulking, and held her B & H which was bitterly unlit. Yet her mother was so funny that
night, funny and alive, and everyone was so clearly entranced that Kitty was proud that she belonged to her.

Looking straight at Con Brown her mother said, 'So -who can get me some coke?' Kitty looked at her incredulously and she shrugged,
gave a throwaway smile.

'I can handle that for you Mrs - Marina.' Con was sure and smooth and cocky all of a sudden. Kitty didn't know how he could
possibly be related to Jake.

'Yes, I thought you could,' her mother said.

A look passed between them and Tommy elbowed Kitty. Watching it made her feel as though an army of ants was crawling in her
skin.

At 3 a.m. they went to the flat the Browns shared in Soho. Kitty had been there once before to an after-hours party. The flat
was squalid. But tonight her mother cast her Lux glow on everything she touched. She made the flat look bohemian and intelligent.

'What a sweet little flat,' she said generously.

Con positively blushed under her gaze.

'Oh well . . .' he said modestly.

Kitty's mother followed her to the bathroom.

'You don't mind, do you?' she asked Kitty anxiously as Kitty crouched over the loo seat.

Kitty looked at the bath. That's where Jake lies naked, she thought in wonder.

'What?' she said.

'Do you mind?' Her mother said.

'Oh. . . No; it's all right. I was just a bit surprised, that's all.'

Kitty rubbed the eyeliner from under her eyes.

'I like your friends,' her mother said.

In the sitting room her mother racked out lines of coke expertly, chopping them like a surgeon, and everyone sat at her feet,
the lost boys to her Wendy. Kitty couldn't take her eyes from her.

Her mother did it so smoothly. Kitty waited for black hailstones to come pouring through the ceiling, but none did. The world
didn't stop. Her mother passed the tray to her. Kitty bent over it, and Tommy grabbed her hair back as she leaned into it.
She was glad the straw had only been up her mother's nose. It didn't seem sanitary sharing. She followed what her mother had
done. The powder smelled acrid, like a household cleanser, something to get rid of rings round the bath, and it made her nose
feel very empty inside.

When Kitty was finished she looked up to see if her mother was staring. She wasn't. She was in the middle of a story, gesticulating
and making Con laugh.

'Thanks,' Kitty said, as she passed the tray on.

No one stopped talking, so she thought she must have looked natural, and she was pleased for that. She took a sharp swig of
her drink to make the chemical taste go away.

Con fussed about her mother like an old maid. Dispensing drinks, offering omelettes, anything, anything just to keep her there,
the only spark in that dark little room.

Con's girlfriend Suzette didn't like it. She began to whine and rub up against him.

'Con?' she said. 'Con, I'd like an omelette.'

'Shut up, will you. I'm listening to a story.' He nudged her away from him.

Her mother stood up.

'Thank you for having me, but I really should go.'

Kitty half stood, her eyes questioning.

'I've got to go and see someone,' her mother said apologetically. 'You stay, have fun.'

Kitty sat down heavily.

'But do TRY to go to school tomorrow, darling.' Her mother kissed her goodbye.

'Bye, Marina,' Kitty said casually.

When she'd left the room, there was the sound of a collective exhale.

'Your mother is a brilliant woman.' Con Brown smiled at Kitty for the second time in her life.

'Yeah, I know.' She bathed in this reflective glory.

'Yeah, I know.' She bathed in this reflective 'You look a bit like her. The eyes . . .'

Suzette rolled her eyes at him.

'No, she doesn't. They look totally different. Katie's more interesting,' she smirked.

'It's Kitty,' Kitty said.

Jake sat smoking, half looking at her. When she dared to look back he had dropped his eyes. If I can just wait, Kitty thought,
for everyone else to go, we'll be alone. Minute by hour, she willed them, leave.

At 7 a.m. as the cruel dawn crept in and she was beginning to despair, Tommy, the last man standing, said, yawning, 'I've
got college. Kit, shall we share a cab?'

She gave him a pointed stare.

'Oh. Right. Bye.'

He stumbled out, and she was alone, with him.

Jake and Kitty sat on the sofa like wooden matches. Con had run off after Suzette, who had left with a face threatening tears.

They sat, the silence unbearable.

'Do you want me to give you a massage?' Kitty asked, her voice sounding alien in the empty flat.

'Yeah, OK,' Jake said.

She rubbed his back under his shirt. It was smooth and warm. Awkwardly, he grabbed her face and kissed her, eyes squeezed
shut. His mouth dry, their teeth mashing together.

I'm kissing Jake, her brain said triumphantly. He held her in a stiff embrace that had potential.

'I should go to school,' Kitty said, wanting him to say, No, don't, skive, we'll go to the park and have a picnic.

'Yeah, I need some kip,' he said. 'Do you want a jumper?'

She looked down at her dress: her breasts were more suited to a nightclub than a classroom. She felt cheap.

'Get one from my bedroom,' he said.

'Goodnight. Sweet dreams,' Kitty said.

Wardour Street was grey and drizzly, but the light was forgiving. She walked all the way to school, early for once, too elated
to be paranoid or tired. She had kissed Jake Brown, essentially stayed the night with him, and taken drugs with her mother
and her friends. This was life, Kitty thought.

When she got home her mother was taking a nap.

'She's got a headache,' Nora informed her.

Kitty was desperate to wake her mother and go over the night, reliving it, detail by detail. She kept pacing loudly past her
bedroom door, coughing like an old harridan.

Violet passed her.

'You look like a dead fish,' she said. Violet gave her a suspicious look and marched into her bedroom.

'I thought we could have a little dinner party.' Her mother lay with a packet of frozen peas on her face. 'On Friday, with
those friends of yours. Maybe Con could leave that annoying girlfriend at home.'

'Maybe,' Kitty said distractedly. The thought of Jake at the kitchen table was foreign and frightening. She'd never seen him
eat.

'I'd have to get Tommy to ring them,' she said. 'I mean, I don't know them that well, to ring them, you know.' She felt worried.

Her mother lifted the peas up and smiled.

'I think that Jake really likes you, Magpie. He kept looking at you.'

Kitty telephoned Tommy immediately.

'My mother wants everyone from last night to come to dinner,' she said, 'and she wants you to call the Browns.'

'Your mother is a real weirdo. Why would ANYONE want the Browns to come to dinner? They're really uncivilised people. The
Browns don't have dinner, they just go to nightclubs and cane it . . .'

'Well, they're your friends. Just do it, please?'

Tommy thought for a moment, as Kitty bit her nails.

'Fine,' he said darkly. 'Weirdo.'

Her mobile rang at eleven o'clock. She didn't know the number, but she knew in her tremulous heart it was Jake. She let it
ring three times, as her mother taught her, holding her breath until she picked up, blushing.

'Helllooo?' Kitty breathed low into the phone like Marilyn Monroe.

'Kitty, it's Con Brown.' Her heart swam down to her feet like a bottom-feeding fish.

'Hi, Con,' Kitty said, trying to keep the defeat from her voice. 'Hi.'

'So - yeah, we'll come to dinner,' Con said.

Kitty told him the address. She felt nauseous. Who was the \NE he spoke of?

'By the way, Kitty,' he said in a hushed and silky voice. 'I know you like Jake.'

She felt the panic bubbling in her like a pan of milk about to spill over.

'Jake knows too. And here's the thing - if you put in a good word with your mum, I'll sort you out with Jake, OK?' He laughed
a little bit. 'See you on Friday - bye!'

She tried to sound cheery as she hung up.

Her mother walked into her bedroom. She didn't look remotely hungover. She looked wan and charming.

'So are they coming?' she asked smugly as one who knew they were.

'Yes,' Kitty said. She started to cry.

'What is it?' her mother said. 'I thought it would be good if they came. I thought I was doing you a favour, inviting Con
and Jake.'

'It doesn't matter,' Kitty shouted. 'And Con Brown fancies you.'

'Don't be silly, Kitty,' her mother said. 'He's a young boy.' But her eyes glittered. 'I'll cook lamb,' she said. 'That's
good boy food.'

'I don't care!' Kitty wailed. 'I'm a fucking vegetarian! Please turn the light off on your way out.' She buried herself under
the covers. After a while she heard her mother leave, saying sadly again, 'I thought it would be good . . .'

Kitty could not sleep. Her side of the bed was too hot and close, the other side achingly empty.

The memory of Jake's kiss, so real an hour ago, had shaken away from her, now shadowy like paper, something that was not hers
to begin with.

'So it's just us girls,' she said, her tone suggesting that Kitty would know what she was talking about.

She called a beautician named Julie who came and painted both their nails, Kitty's blood red, near black, and her mother's
a soft baby pink.

'I think you should wear your hair up,' her mother said. 'It looks so beautiful when it's up. And I think you should wear
that little pink knit dress I got you from Ralph Lauren. Con left a message to say Suzette can't come. She's busy. It was
so sweet, he sounded so gruff and grown-up on the phone.'

Jake never arrived. Con kept saying, vaguely, 'Yeah, I spoke to him earlier - he said he's definitely on his way.'

But when he hadn't shown up by three she knew he wasn't coming. She had made a chocolate mousse for him. It sat uneaten in
the fridge. The sight of it depressed her. The next day, Kitty wanted to ring Honor and tell her, but as she dialled the number
she remembered that they weren't friends any more.

Her phone rang but it was never the voice she wanted. Jake eluded Kitty, like the night creature he was. She went to all the
old familiar places and saw glimpses of him in other people, the curve of his nose, a glint of burnished brown hair, the quick
smile, but they were all imposters. Con, she saw everywhere. It made her hate him more than she had previously. In his smirk,
Kitty saw a million judgements, conversations she had not been privy to. She hated him for knowing the secrets of her heart.

When she was on her own, in her room at night, she thought that someone else's fate had entered her like an incubus. Crept
up in the night, and stolen into her soul, breathing badness through her blood. Sometimes she washed her face with her mother's
holy water from Lourdes. She wanted to be a good sister and take Violet and Sam to Ed's Diner for chocolate milkshakes on
a Saturday morning, but she could never wake up in time. They knocked on her bedroom door and Kitty pretended she couldn't
hear.