The Boy Who Fell to Earth (16 page)

‘You see, that is exactly the kind of crack you make in
front
of Merlin, which he thinks you’re saying seriously.’

‘Babe, I
am
saying it seriously. Hey, I understand the concept of feminism, but just not how it applies to me.’

‘Well, see how
this
applies to you.’ I raised a combative eyebrow. ‘You are on a one-day probation. If I don’t see an improvement, you’re out on your arse.’

As I was jogging back from the park the next morning, I paused to text Phoebe, who was on an overnighter to Berlin. ‘That’s it. I’ve put a sign on Archie’s door with his check-out time.’

But, turning the key in my lock, I was astounded to see the old rocker up and about and not in his boxers. ‘Well, what do you know. It walks and it talks.’

‘Housework’s bloody exhaustin’.’ I watched him disembowel one of the croissants I’d just put on the table. ‘I haven’t stopped since I got up this mornin’.’

A glance at my watch told me that it was 7.30 a.m. I curled a disapproving lip in his annoying direction. ‘Don’t forget to wipe your mouth, Archie … there’s a little bit of bullshit on your lips.’

‘I even took out the rubbish. So, can I stay now?’ he asked, spraying crumbs.

‘That’s what I hate about men. Unstack one dishwasher and you practically take out an ad in the paper proclaiming your huge achievement.’ As he took another croissant, I wished I’d purchased a home autopsy kit instead. ‘I’ve got to get to work. Why don’t you get Merlin up and off to school today, do the laundry, get supper and then we’ll see, eh?’

Archie stopped eviscerating his pastry in alarm. ‘Dinner? Christ. Would Madam like her Vegemite on toast medium or rare?’

‘Vegemite can be used as a toast spread, yes … or an industrial solvent,’ I griped. ‘No, I mean a balanced meal, Archibald.’

I staggered home after six hours of trying to teach iambic pentameter to a classroom of kids who couldn’t even read their antisocial behaviour orders to find the whole house pulsating with bass notes. The windows of my ramshackle Georgian terrace were rattling as if reliving the Blitz. Angrily subduing my umbrella, I marched into the living room, silenced Led Zeppelin on the stereo, then strode past a recumbent Archie to the washing machine.

I felt the beginnings of a headache zigzag across my cranium. ‘I thought I asked you to do the washing?’ I demanded, mentally rehearsing my eviction speech.

‘Toots, I figure you’re about fifteen weeks behind in the washin’ department. No point launderin’ all Merlin’s clothes now, as he’s probably outgrown them.’

‘And what about dinner?’ Seething with resentment, I stomped around a kitchen littered with bowls enamelled with crusty food.

‘I thought we’d have leftovers,’ he called from the couch.

‘Left over from what? Where is the original meal? Who cooked that? And when?’ I was shaking so much I might well have been in the advanced stage of Parkinson’s disease.

‘Hey, behind every successful woman is a microwave and a ready meal.’ He laced his fingers behind his neck and flexed his muscled arms. ‘Oh, and a bloke checking out her arse,’ he added, craning to get a good view of my rear.

I looked with contempt at the shepherd’s pie packaged in plastic on the counter. ‘Do you remember what I said about a balanced meal? Where are the vegetables?’ I pulled on the
rubber
gloves and started slamming plates into the sink.

‘We had a very balanced lunch, Merlin and me. We had both white
and
dark chocolate, didn’t we, Merlin?’ he called.

I was about to berate him over the chocolate meal when I realized what I’d heard. ‘For
lunch
?’ I froze. ‘You mean he didn’t go to school?’

‘Hey, don’t do the dishes today – you’ve been hard at work.’ I thought for one irrational moment that Archie was going to offer to wash them, but then he added with a sly grin, ‘Why not do them tomorrow? Or, better still, let Merlin do them. Hey, Wizard!’

‘Wizard?’ I cringed.

My son bounded into the kitchen and squeezed the breath out of me in his typical bearhug, his face vibrant with exhilaration. ‘You are such a gorgeous woman!’ he enthused, but then his expression changed into puzzlement. ‘But are you my real mother?’ Emotions chased each other across his face. ‘Is this whole house a set? Are you all actors playing people from a rehearsed script?’ The blue eyes transferred their focus from my face off into infinity. I often felt he could drown in his own brainwaves.

‘Merlin, why didn’t you go to school?’ I began, but then stopped short, astonished, as my son picked up a knife and sliced through a tomato. Four, five, six slices. I watched agog as he made himself a sandwich. I wasn’t just
a
gog, I was several gogs. I was thrilled at his accomplishment but also detected a small ache of unexpected jealousy.

‘That’s fantastic,’ I said in a brittle voice. I tried smiling at Archie, but it was just a waste of facial muscle, because I didn’t mean it.

But to Merlin, I said, ‘Darling, that’s the most beautifully sliced tomato I have ever seen.’ I hugged him, with tears in
my
eyes. Anyone would have thought he’d just completed a round-the-world solo yacht trip.

‘ “You say tomato, I say tom-ate-o …”’ Archie sang in a surprisingly mellifluous and melodic voice. ‘You say fellatio, I say fell-atio. Tomato, tom-ate-o, fellatio, fell-atio … So, can I stay?’

My instincts screamed no, but I nodded yes. A humble tomato had won Archie a stay of execution.

‘Is fellatio some kind of gelato?’ asked Merlin curiously. ‘It would be mesmerizing to try it.’

‘You kill me, kid. I love the way you think outside the box.’

Merlin looked at him, mystified. ‘There’s a box?’

This set Archie off again. He slapped his thigh with mirth. ‘After dinner, how ’bout I teach you a few more chords on the guitar? Maybe even how to play with your teeth.’

I groaned inwardly. What had I done? I knew even then that letting Archie stay was as logical a decision as opening a glassware shop in downtown Baghdad. All I could do was wait for the crash …

10

A Walk in the Park

SINCE MERLIN’S DIAGNOSIS
, I’d often got the feeling that the whole world was against me, even though, in my more rational moments, I knew it wasn’t true … I mean, Switzerland is neutral, right? I had thought Archie would prove to be some kind of saviour, but the opposite had turned out to be true. His reprieve lasted exactly four days.

‘He has to go!’ I grizzled to my sister yet again. We were in the garden hosing out Merlin’s school backpack, in which I had just found five rancid sandwiches, whose ‘use by’ date, judging by the pong factor, obviously read ‘
When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth
.’ ‘Do you know what he said to Merlin yesterday? He told him that women have evolved smaller feet because it allows them to stand closer to the kitchen sink,’ I said in a froth of indignation. ‘He asked my son how many men it took to open a beer, and answered, “None. It should be open when she brings it.” He told him that the tattoo above a girl’s arse is called a beer mat … Merlin takes these things literally. He’ll repeat it to
some
woman and end up on a sexual harassment charge.’

I upended the rucksack to drip-dry in the warm June sunshine.

‘So, do you think Ape Man will swing down from the forest canopy long enough for me to meet him?’ asked Phoebe, intrigued.

‘He’ll be at Merlin’s sixteenth birthday party. But I have to warn you, Moronica is coming. Her ladyship has taken to seeing her grandson once a year on his birthday. She wants to give him his gift … Hopefully, his father’s head on a plate.’

‘And you still never hear from Jeremy?’

‘No.’ Merlin’s father never rang or wrote to his son. I tried to minimize the pain with a glib remark. ‘When a woman marries, she should pause and think – is this the name I want to see on my monthly maintenance cheque?’

But my loving sister wasn’t fooled. She suddenly held me close; her warm arms wrapped me tightly, as though I were a present. ‘I don’t know how you do it, Lulu.’

‘Alcohol and drugs,’ I replied flatly.

On the afternoon of Merlin’s sixteenth birthday party, I set the table with sombre sadness. There were so few people to invite. Merlin and I were now to social occasions what myxomatosis is to bunnies.

Apart from me, my sister and her husband Danny and their two children, who came under sufferance, there would be my snooty ex-mother-in-law, Merlin’s addled and raddled teacher Penny and her boyfriend and Archie the interloper. It broke my heart that Merlin didn’t have one friend his own age. He should be roaming the streets in a noisy whirlpool of boys, chiacking and having shenanigans. But, I gave a
melancholy
sigh, there was only ever Merlin and me.

‘So, where’s Cro-Magnon man?’ my sister asked, as she employed her years of intensive trolley-dolly training to fold napkins into swan shapes. I’d been in Doris Day overdrive, cooking and cleaning since the early morning, and Phoebe had just dashed in to lend a hand. She’d come straight from the picket line at Heathrow, where BA employees were striking for better pay conditions.

‘Archie promised to help, but he’s so unreliable. If he says he’ll turn up at two on 21 June, that means four o’clock some time in September.’

It was actually five o’clock when Archie finally staggered into the living room, wearing little more than a smirk. ‘Thanks for all your help,’ I said scornfully.

‘Sorry. I was suddenly taken drunk,’ he replied, hoicking up his skull-and-crossbones board shorts. ‘I seem to remember waterin’ your lemon tree with vodka. That means all we need to do in future is squeeze the lemon into the glass.’

‘Pure genius,’ Phoebe laughed.

Archie turned to eye up my sister. ‘Boom chicka wah wah,’ he exclaimed suavely, giving a whistle. ‘And
you
are?’

‘Lucy’s little sister,’ Phoebe lied, scoring an eyelash-batting average which would put Donald Bradman to shame.

I looked at her askance. I couldn’t believe she was flirting with the old fart. She was suddenly the Flirt Master General.

‘If I’d known we had company,’ he drooled, ‘I wouldn’t be free-ballin’ … No Speedos under me board shorts,’ he explained.

‘Archibald, do you think you could try not to be an arsehole for five minutes and help set the table or peel the potatoes or put out the nibbles or something?’

‘Hey, being an arsehole is all part of my manly essence …
My
housework technique is to answer the door to guests and say, “Shit! We’ve just been robbed. And the house has been trashed. Look at the bloody mess they’ve made!” With any luck, the guests then clean up, out of sympathy.’

Phoebe, still in her BA uniform, giggled coquettishly as she perched up on a kitchen stool to show off her shapely legs.

I groaned. ‘I’m warning you. The reason Archie likes sophisticated women is because opposites attract.’

‘So, Phoebe, tell me all about yourself, toots. Everything you’ve heard about
me
is true, includin’ the slander and lies.’ He spluttered into a hacking cough, which slightly ruined his Casanova routine. ‘Bloody hell. There has got to be a better way to start the day than coughin’ your lungs up.’ Archie reclined on the kitchen armchair, muscly arms knotted behind his neck, the hair on his chest sprouting from the V-neck of his white sleeveless vest.

’It’s evening, actually,’ I said curtly, thrusting the potato peeler into his hands. ‘And it would be nice if you could get dressed before Merlin’s grandma arrives. Oh, and by the way, excessive use of the tongue when kissing my ex-mother-in-law hello could cause a drop in your popularity.’

‘So, where’s birthday boy? He’s been showing me his lists of cricket scores. The kid’s memory’s bloody awesome.’

Where
was
Merlin? Whenever my son was quiet in his room, I worried that he was hacking into the Pentagon and sparking a computer-generated international missile exchange which would herald the next world war. Dashing upstairs I found him writing pages and pages of his cricket-related facts, every run from every match catalogued from memory, every batting average remembered down to the last decimal point. I knew nothing about cricket, except that my own marriage seemed to have lasted less time than a test
match.
But my son’s complicated head was teeming with numbers. Which was ironic, as he could never get the right change from the corner shop. When I let him get his hair cut on his own, he left a tip big enough to send the barber and his extended family on a trip back to the old country.

‘Merlin, darling, I want you to try to be nice to people today. Try to do what people ask you, even if you don’t want to, because that’s the polite thing to do. That’s what a good host does. Put your shoulders back, make eye contact and when people ask how you are, reply “Fine, thanks, how are you?” Can you do that for me, love?’ I ruffled his hair affectionately before going into my maternal mantra. ‘Thanks, darling. You’re a very good boy, you know. And a lovely person. And I love you very, very much.’

‘Don’t sneak up on me, Mum! I’m really sensitive to noise because I think people are after me … Are you really my mother?’ he reiterated for the thousandth time. ‘You still haven’t told me if you’re being paid by a TV studio.’

An expression of fondness mixed with fatigue suffused my face. Déjà vu – the gift that just keeps on giving, I thought wryly to my weary self. Of late he’d become so paranoid that if I was walking in front of him, he’d think I was following him the long way round. ‘If you’re really paranoid, Merlin, you should move to Iran or China, so that your fears are justified,’ I joked, kissing the crown of his poor, addled head. ‘Of course I’m your mother, love.’ Me and whatever alien life form beamed you down to planet earth, I mused, descending the stairs.

I returned to the kitchen to find Archie pre-boarding an air hostess. No more potatoes had been peeled but, following my orders to smarten up, he’d changed into the tracksuit he’d bought from the local charity shop. It was so fluorescent I was
worried
guests would assume he was an exit sign and leave early. He was leaning on the counter next to my sister and smiling lasciviously.