The Boy Who Fell to Earth (23 page)

I felt a warm, firm hand in the small of my back and Archie’s breath on my neck. ‘What’s goin’ on?’ he asked sternly.

‘My ex-husband’s managed to be reincarnated while he’s still alive – I must rush upstairs and email Shirley Maclaine.’

I felt Archie’s body stiffen. ‘So you’re the maggoty dip-shit who deserted her in her hour of need. I think you’d better leave now before I make headlines for doing somethin’ violent.’

The door shivered on its hinges as Archie kicked it shut in my ex-husband’s startled face.

15

Daddy Dearest

BOTANICAL GARDENFULS OF
flowers started to arrive the very next day. The house was soon heady with trumpet blasts of blooms bursting from brightly coloured paper. This was followed by vineyards of champagne. A new laptop for Merlin came next. And then, opera tickets. I returned the tickets with a note. ‘When it comes to the effect these gifts have on me, think of the world stage and then think of yourself as Tuvalu or Liechtenstein.’

Real estate brochures came special delivery, with chirpy little cards:

Why do they call it real estate? They should call it
un
real estate, because who can afford it? Well, thanks to my inheritance, I can! I’m sorry I never fixed up our ‘fixer-upper’. Let me make it up to you now. Call me and we’ll go and view a few properties for you and Merlin.

When I ignored him, Jeremy started turning up ’accidentally’
to
places I frequented – the supermarket, the gym, the local library, the park in our square – pretending it was a coincidence. ‘Hey,’ he’d say, casually, ‘didn’t I marry you somewhere before?’

‘Yes, and haven’t I yelled degrading comments at you somewhere before, too?’ I’d retort, or something similarly caustic, before storming off.

‘Please let me meet my son,’ he pleaded over the phone. ‘I know I don’t deserve any sympathy. But do it for Merlin.’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Has he ever asked about me?’ he begged, his voice quavering with penitence.

‘No,’ I lied, hanging up.

The five-star grovelling went on for weeks. My sister and mother, returned from her travels, were astounded by his contrite reappearance. ‘Jeremy apologized?’ they chorused, agog.

‘I know. Incredible, huh? The only person he’s ever apologized to before was the business partner he once bankrupted – and that was court ordered.’

‘Don’t be fooled,’ Phoebe warned. ‘Your ex is an aggressive, foul-tempered, selfish megalomaniac … And I don’t say that in a castrating way.’

‘She’s right. That man’s moral integrity you could stuff into the navel of a fruit fly and still have room for three caraway seeds,’ my mother stated, eccentrically.

‘He wants to buy us a bigger house.’ I proffered the brochures. ‘How crass to think that he can purchase my forgiveness.’

My sister, who was back on the picket lines, snatched them up and devoured the details. ‘Notting Hill Gate? Have you checked out prices around Notting Hill Gate? I
can’t
even afford to buy enough
drugs
to allow me to
hallucinate
that I could afford to live around there. Maybe you could just take Jeremy’s money but have nothing more to do with him?’

‘Stay away from him, dear,’ my mother warned. ‘If only you’d taken tips from the black widow spider – mated with him once … then eaten him.’

But I didn’t need convincing. If Jeremy tried to wheedle his way into my affections, I told the cat, all he’d be courting was disaster. But my Early Warning Parental Anxiety System must have been on the blink, because I had totally under estimated my ex-husband’s tenacity. To say Jeremy was persistent was the biggest understatement since bin Laden said to his wives in his Pakistani hideaway, ‘I think someone’s at the door.’

Merlin and I were swimming in the local pool the following Saturday, with my son breaststroking in the wrong direction in the fast lane, as usual, bumping into everybody and causing mayhem as lappers capsized all around him, when Jeremy swam straight up and introduced himself. ‘You must be Merlin. Hello. I’m your father, Jeremy.’

Spluttering with rage, I must have swallowed half the pool as I dog-paddled, aghast, beside my son. Like
this
could be a chance meeting, dodging jellyfish globs of phlegm in the deep end of the local verruca-encrusted council baths. What my family calls ‘the cesspool’ is really just a crowd of people with water in it. It’s like sharing your bath with a hundred strangers. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ I finally fumed at him.

But Merlin gave his widest Cheshire cat grin. When my son met his father for the first time in 13 years, he said, in no particular order: ‘Do you remember the day we met? Are you a man of experience? Do you sleep with a teddy bear? Do you
have
any gay friends? Do all women have to have sex to make a baby? So, that means you had sex with my mother? That’s the most off-putting smile. It’s so cringe. Do you moisturize? It’s incredible that you’re my father. Are you getting any fluff lately? Any tang on the side? Do you have children with another woman? Are you living today for tomorrow? Do you have any communist values? When you saw my mother again did you sink to your knees and cry happy tears? Do you like my rambunctious style? Your hair’s so grey and white. Are you a polar bear? Do you perhaps transform through the fridge, to your polar-bear family in the North Pole, which is why you haven’t been around and why I haven’t met you before? Can I meet your polar-bear family? Have you had as many wives as Henry VIII? How many wives have you actually had?’

‘Apart from his
own
, you mean? All his friends’ wives and colleagues’ wives no doubt, judging on past performance,’ I interrupted, my crisp voice peppermint cool with condescension.

‘Are you really my father?’ Merlin asked, still treading water.

‘From now on, all day, every day.’

I would have yelled at Jeremy to fuck off and leave us the hell alone except that Merlin’s every facial expression shimmered with joy. My son had the look of a traveller who for years has read of the existence of the spotted silver-backed mountain cheetah but never expected to be this near to one.

As we clambered on to the side of the pool, I noted that Jeremy’s taut body had filled out only slightly. He wore tight black swimming shorts which hugged a posterior so pert that it would cause cardiac arrest in a sloth. If only he’d gone bald
or
developed hideous eczema all over his body. But the man oozed charm and sophistication. Judging by the admiring glances of the other mums, he also proved an instant antidote to the anodyne, baby-faced pastiness of the teenage lifeguards. I found myself remembering how good my ex looked naked. Shocked, I dashed the image from my mind’s eye and harrumphed on to the bench by the life-rings. I saw Jeremy appraise my figure with what I took to be appreciation, before he draped his arm tentatively around Merlin’s shoulder and asked how he was feeling.

Merlin replied that his mood felt like dense particles from an exploded star which had sucked in all the positive energy from the known universe, only not as fluffy.

‘Oh,’ Jeremy said, ‘right.’ I saw him try to suppress the slight tremor of his upper lip and resolutely steady his mouth.

After Merlin had run off to get dressed, Jeremy exhaled with relief. ‘God, that was nerve-racking. My stomach’s been so knotted I thought I had an ulcer. Ugh …’ He put his hands on his abdomen in obvious pain. ‘I feel as though I’m having a turn right now.’

‘Really? I’m so concerned. I must summon an ambulance. Let me send a message in a bottle,’ I mocked. ‘Or maybe a carrier snail would be faster? How dare you just turn up like this! Merlin will be so traumatized.’

‘He’s so handsome,’ Jeremy enthused, embroidering his comment with ‘Thank God he got your looks … Although I don’t know how he smells anything, walking around with my nose on his face.’

I glared at him with unbridled hostility. ‘For the millionth time, we don’t need you! Just get dressed and fuck off!’ In my mind, each word was a bullet, aimed at his heart. I flounced off to the changing room then dashed towards the showers. I
needed
to rinse off the stench of chlorine, but there was a queue. After an impatient wait, I resorted to a slapdash wash at the sink. With no time to blow-dry my hair, I just scrambled, still wet, into my clothes, as hastily as I could. But I still wasn’t fast enough. By the time I emerged into the café, buttons misaligned, one jean leg tucked into a half-mast sock, Merlin was happily ensconced at Jeremy’s table, gulping down hot soup and thick wedges of fresh bread and butter, babbling away, laughter bubbling into his eyes.

Merlin could feel disproportionate joy at the smallest things, only for his spirits to plummet with vertiginous haste. Anointed by magic as he now was, he could just as quickly be assailed by demons. So I bit back my anger and let Jeremy know of my fury in veiled terms. ‘I’m amazed you haven’t wilted,’ I seethed at him, through a gritted smile. ‘There’s garlic in that salad. I thought vampires couldn’t handle garlic?’

Archie, who’d been pushing weights for the last hour, powered into the café ten minutes later. Since our love affair had begun, Archie had swapped the booze for bodybuilding. His muscular frame now won lascivious glances from the local yummy mummies in our square. Their heavily mascaraed eyes would super-glue to his manly thighs whenever he kicked a football around the communal park with Merlin. When Archie spotted my ex-husband he gave Jeremy a measuring, suspicious look and flexed his biceps menacingly.

‘Archie is commander-in-chief of my mother’s affections,’ Merlin explained happily. ‘He’s the shogun of rock who plays with finesse, flair and flamboyance. He’s a music wizard. The Shakespeare of the guitar.’

‘Accolades indeed.’ Jeremy rose and extended his hand. ‘Nice
to
be properly introduced. Jeremy Beaufort. The commander-in-chief of abasement,’ he added for my benefit. ‘Charmed to meet you.’

Archie looked at Jeremy’s hand as though it were infested with fleas. ‘Who are you again? Oh yeah. Right. You’re the scumbag ex who dumped his wife once he realized his baby had special needs, then ripped her off in the divorce … I’d like to tell you what a piece of scum you are, but of course I would never say anythin’ shitty about you in front of your own son … Come on, kid.’ He shot an impertinent wink in Merlin’s direction. ‘Game’s on in ten.’

‘True love asks for nothing,’ were Merlin’s parting words to his newfound father before bounding out of the door.

As we walked home behind my son, who was leaping ahead of us with giddy abandon like a kangaroo on crack, Archie kicked at the autumnal leaves. They crunched beneath our feet as though we were strolling through a giant bowl of cornflakes. He took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Jeez, that dickhead lays on the charm so thick it’s like having blancmange syringed into your ears. Trouble is, a banker without a forked tongue is like, I dunno, Charlie Sheen without a hit of crystal meth and a hooker. Im-bloody-possible,’ he said, in that crushed-velvety voice of his.

‘I know. I could have killed him there and then … except for the thought of that orange Day-Glo prison jumpsuit. It just wouldn’t match my skin tones,’ I joshed, to mask my uneasy apprehension.

‘Not to mention the pressure of which gang to join once you’re in the slammer … And the agony over what tattoo to get, of course,’ Archie deadpanned.

‘Still’ – I cut the banter and turned to face him – ‘Merlin so enjoyed meeting him. I loathe the heartless bastard. But
surely
a son has a right to know his own father? Maybe I should have a more open mind?’

‘An open mind? That only lets the bloody flies in. Not to mention the cold winds. Slam it shut immediately,’ Archie advised vehemently.

I squeezed Archie’s hand in agreement. He was so right. I believe that everything is possible in life, except maybe skydiving in stilettos, scuba-diving in rollerblades and an ex-husband changing his psychological spots. Hell, I’d rather go on a blind date with Hannibal Lecter than let Jeremy back into my life. Merlin’s father may have thought he was offering a window of opportunity. But I would simply draw the blinds.

16

Paying Lip Service to Love

IN ACTUAL FACT
, my mind wasn’t closed or open. It turned out to be merely ajar. Despite my antagonism, Jeremy rang the next day to suggest driving Merlin and me to his mother’s house for lunch. As the Beauforts are sticklers for etiquette, I tried to phrase my refusal in a polite manner: ‘I’d rather be shackled into a jacuzzi with a school of piranhas.’ Jeremy went on to explain that his mother wanted to discuss setting up a trust fund for Merlin, including payment of all future fees at a top special needs school. I declined. After he’d abandoned us, we’d learnt to cope quite well on our own, thank you very much. We didn’t need help from anybody.

I would have remained resolute, if I hadn’t been called in by Merlin’s headmaster to discuss my son’s imminent exclusion. Merlin, who was repeating Year Eleven, had spent more time on detention and suspension than he had in an actual classroom. Of late, my son was in hot water so often he could have been a teabag. Most of the time, I felt like a sidecar on an out-of-control motorbike. Things had got so bad, I was
contemplating
attending Parent–Teacher night under an assumed name.

Throughout Merlin’s school life, my heart would sink with dread whenever I picked up the phone and heard my son’s name mentioned. But, recently, the situation had become much more serious. When his chemistry teacher had asked the class to name two things commonly found in a cell and Merlin had apparently replied ‘Asian British black and Afro-Caribbean,’ I was summoned to the office.

‘Inciting racial hatred is a crime,’ the headmaster told me coldly.

Merlin turned his dream-clouded eyes upon me and smiled mistily. It was no wonder he liked to retreat into his own world. I rubbed my thumping temples. ‘He’s not being racist. He’s being literal. Merlin regurgitates facts. After Caucasians, that’s an accurate description of the majority of the prison popu—’