The Boy Who Fell to Earth (26 page)

Archie must have picked up the slight softening of my attitude to my ex, because he suddenly developed a passion for housework. Watching Archie trying to be domesticated was like watching a Masai warrior attempting to Morris dance. But he persevered. Vegetable stews and curries were suddenly simmering and sheets flapped on the line. He also took up gainful employment as a guitar teacher.

Jeremy retaliated by sending round a handyman. Within a
week,
nothing in the house leaked oil, spilt water, smoked when you plugged it in or made a funny clunking sound, and all without WD40 or duct tape.

Archie, who had always suffered from a terminal case of languor, responded by vacuuming the carpets so thoroughly he practically sucked the skirting boards right off the walls.

Even lunch became an opportunity for one-upmanship. At a Sunday barbecue, Archie bayoneted a hunk of fried chorizo.

‘Can I have a bite of your sausage?’ I asked him.

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ he replied lasciviously.

‘I take that entendre and I double it,’ Jeremy said tightly, handing me a whole snag.

Every time the two men met, the conversational version of jousting ensued, minus chainmail and medieval hosiery. When they weren’t scoring verbal points off each other, Merlin became the football they tossed about between them. While Jeremy took Merlin to Paris, polo matches and film premieres, Archie whisked my delighted son off to a Pink Floyd reunion concert, a paintballing park and camping. When they got back on the Sunday night they were both so desperately in need of a shave they resembled a two-headed Yeti. But despite emitting a damp fungal reek of eau de mildewed sock, my son was effervescent with joy.

The average wait for a table at one of the country’s top restaurants is, oh, about 35 years. But not for Jeremy. He took Merlin to Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, twice, in one week.

Archie responded by queuing in the cold for five hours to get tickets to the taping of
Top Gear
. ‘The taping is three bloody hours long. I’ll die of boredom,’ Archie texted me from the TV studio. ‘Yeah, the show is filmed in front of a live audience – at first!’ he joked. But, upon their return, it was
clear
that Merlin’s obvious rapture had meant Archie had secretly enjoyed the jaunt.

Jeremy enrolled our son in a private special needs college. When my ex came over to discuss Merlin’s assimilation (and who wouldn’t assimilate into a classroom of only six pupils?) Archie’s guitar would plaintively twang a pointed medley from my living room. ‘While my Guitar Gently Weeps’ melted into ‘I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right out of My Hair’ or ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E.’ When that ploy failed to move me, Archie started making up his own songs with lyrics along the lines of ‘I’ve got tears in my eyes from lying on my back crying over you’.

When I insisted that my boyfriend come along on Jeremy’s planned family excursions to Greenwich or Hampton Court, Jeremy would unlatch his car door with the reluctant generosity of a kid whose parents are forcing him to ask if anyone else wants the last hot chip before guzzling it down himself. But even though his eyes were screaming ‘Must This Caveman Come Everywhere with Us?!’ Jeremy was so determined to prove how much he’d changed, he just smilingly acquiesced and invited Archie to ‘climb on in’.

Archie’s testicles were also in a twist. ‘Must that needle-dicked, pillow-biting ponce hang around us all the bloody time?’ he finally exploded when I told him that Jeremy was coming over for Sunday lunch, again.

But Merlin was determined to make a happy family of the four of us. We hadn’t even finished the entrée when he pushed up on to his feet to make another of his famous speeches.

‘People with Asperger’s have trouble recognizing other people’s feelings. I have a scheduling problem. I also have trouble organizing my thoughts and processing information. Breaking things down is more convenient for me. So, let’s
break
down our intriguing family. First, there’s my mum. You are the best mum in the whole world and I love spending time with you and your lovely clavicles.’ He squeezed my shoulders until my head nearly popped like a pimple. ‘I like squeezing. It helps me to think.’ He then addressed the two men. ‘Mum brightens up my day and she makes my day. She does this by making my dreams come true. Meeting my father is a dream come true. I never thought I would be so fortunate in my life. I cherish my life that my lovely mum and dad gave to me.’

His words dripped honesty, like clear honey. I was touched by the sweetness. A wash of autumnal sunlight, pale as the flesh of a lemon, fell on his beautiful face, and I blinked back a tear.

‘And Archie has taught me to embrace life and live in the moment. I am allergic to history and I have also been diagnosed with a serious case of an allergy to mathematics. But Archie says that I don’t have to be the top, star student. I just need to give it my all and pursue life robustly. So, I just wanted to thank you all for this mesmerizing, spectacular and sublime day.’ He sneezed then and rubbed his nose vigorously. ‘My nose keeps attacking me. It has feelings. Sometimes I can show my feelings and sometimes I can’t. But I do think I’ve given a flawless performance over the past few weeks, don’t you?’

I leant over and kissed his sweet head, tenderly. ‘Yes, darling, you really have.’

The same could not be said of Archie and Jeremy. On the personality palate, they were oysters and custard. And no amount of meltingly sweet Merlin monologues could give them a taste for each other.

‘So tell me,’ Jeremy asked Archie two nights later when he
came
in for a drink after taking Merlin to the opera, ‘are those clothes donated?’

Jeremy was clad in one of his immaculate pinstriped bespoke suits. I knew for a fact that Archie only ever ironed the backs of his shirts if he planned on taking off his leather jacket.

‘Spoken by a bloke who can’t find his prick without a pair of tweezers. Mind you, there’s nothin’ wrong with you that a hitman couldn’t cure.’

Jeremy opened a bottle of Montrachet. He poured a glass for me then half-turned in Archie’s direction. ‘Would you like a taste?’ he asked, before adding sarcastically, ‘Although drinking straight from the wine bottle might bruise the bouquet and could lack a little
savoir faire
.’

‘
Savoir faire
… That’s knowing which fork to use to dig out your earwax at the dinner table, ain’t it? Shame we can’t all be sophisticated banker types like you. So, tell me, which particular slug do you base your business techniques on?’ Archie enquired contemptuously.

‘Please, no fieriness!’ Merlin begged, putting his hands over his ears. ‘Fieriness makes me nervous. It’s so Latin American.’

I rounded on both men. ‘Merlin’s right about the pointless arguing. You’re both so megalomaniacal it’d be impossible to dent either ego without a year or two of carpet-bombing.’

I might have taken a relationship raincheck on them both, except that very night I found a curious score sheet in Merlin’s room. At first I thought it was his cricket calculations. But, upon closer inspection, I realized he’d been rating Archie and Jeremy as Possible Fathers, using tennis-scoring techniques. 15–love to Jeremy. Then 40–15 to Archie. Then deuce. And so, despite the tensions, I allowed our
contrapuntal
existence to continue. Jeremy took Merlin and me to string quartet concerts at the Wigmore Hall and orchestral recitals at the Festival Hall, and penned poems full of atonement, secreted in bouquets of fragrant red roses.

Archie telling me he wanted to be reincarnated as my G-string was about as romantic as the Aussie rocker ever got … but who needs romance with a sex life so hot you require asbestos condoms? In bed, Archie was clit-tinglingly, tantrically, erotically eccentric to the point of orgasmic female blast-off. I felt such a heated attraction for the man that, as soon as I saw him, I wanted to shove him back on to the sofa and ride him rodeo style, with an insouciant toss of my hat in the air.

My mother always said that the only time a woman could change the male of the species was out of nappies when he was a baby. But it seemed to me that both men had changed substantially. Jeremy had become a born-again human being. And Archie was such a new and improved version, I found myself scanning his temples for electrode scorch marks.

But the situation was proving very confusing. I needed some advice. But I was about to learn an important lesson. Advice is like herpes – better to give than to receive.

18

A Rip in the Designer Genes

WHEN MY MOTHER
realized that I’d allowed Jeremy back into my life, she told me that I should be documented in one of those Oliver Sacks books on weird psychology cases, as I obviously had a rare head injury. It was a Friday night in late October. Phoebe, Mum and I had just sat down to dinner when Jeremy’s next shipment of Harrods hampers filled with truffles, exotic olive oils and oysters arrived. An iPad for Merlin had been couriered over earlier.

Merlin was so excited he spun me into his arms as though we were dancing the flamenco. ‘What do they mean on TV when they talk about a free gift? Aren’t all gifts free?’ he asked, puzzled.

I laughed. Sometimes there was an epic simplicity to the things he said.

‘I’m going to my room … When you’re on your own, all your annoying habits disappear. Have you ever noticed that, Mum?’ And then he was gone, in a blur of hair and limbs.

I cracked open the can of caviar. ‘It’s funny, you know.
When
Jeremy left me I lost faith in my own judgement. But he’s been so charming and kind, so thoughtful to Merlin, that it’s a, well, it’s a relief to remember why I loved him. I mean, do you remember how hard I fell for the man?’

‘Yes, like a condemned building,’ my mother stated crisply.

‘But you liked him too in those early days. And he’s back to being the man I remember, Mother. He’s changed.’

‘Light bulbs change, tampons, minds, weather – but men, never.’

‘Well, this caviar has changed
my
mind about Jeremy. I’ve been thinking, Lulu … would it be so bad to take up with him again?’ my sister chirped pertly, her teeth blackened with roe. ‘He’s obviously still attracted to you. And
I
am very attracted to his bank balance!’ she squealed, discovering a tin of foie gras at the bottom of the wicker basket.

This comment was so out of character for my sister that I commandeered the vintage Veuve Clicquot that had arrived thoughtfully pre-chilled, presuming she’d drunk too much. I offered my mother a glass. But she shook her head abstemiously and pointedly filled her glass with tap water or ‘Château Thames’, as she called it.

‘I still don’t trust Jeremy,’ she said emphatically. ‘His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.’

‘Oh, Mother. Lighten up.’ Phoebe eye-rolled. ‘You’ve become such a social worker of late. It’s a wonder you’re not wearing Birkenstocks and a cheesecloth smock.’

‘Talking of cheese, free cheese is only found in a mousetrap,’ my mother philosophized. ‘Believing a man like him can change, well, you might as well believe in UFOs, fairies and politicians’ promises. And what about Archie?’

‘Gosh. What’s that sound?’ My sister put a hand up to her ear in melodramatic shock. ‘Oh, it’s the sound of the bottom
of
barrels being scraped. Look, I like Archie, but what can he offer you, security-wise? Zilch. We’re not young any more. BA are laying off staff. An old cart tart like me will be the first to go. We girls need to become more pragmatic.’

‘How much have you actually drunk, Phoebe?’ I enquired, seriously disturbed by the change in her.

‘It’s true you can’t keep stringing both men along, darling,’ my mother admonished.

‘And the decision you make should be based on one fact – what is best for Merlin. And the obvious answer to that is Jeremy,’ Phoebe added.

‘You’re undervaluing Archie. He’s been wonderful for Merlin too. I know I didn’t like him in the beginning. But over the past few months, feelings for him have seeped into me, like tea from a teabag,’ I said fondly.

‘Switch to coffee,’ my sister advised, retrieving a bag of expensive Colombian beans from the hamper.

My mother and I studied Phoebe with concern. All my life, my sister’s buoyant spirits had known nothing of Sir Isaac Newton and his gravitational theories. She’d always been optimistic, happy, bounding with energy. But, of late, my beloved sister had been in danger of having to remove the trophy for Patron Saint of Loveliness from her mantelpiece. Phoebe was now like a domesticated, docile family cat that suddenly starts flashing claws and going feral.

‘I like Archie,’ my mother stated. ‘He’s a durable man. And honest. What you see is what you get. Jeremy, on the other hand, should have a Buyer Beware sticker stamped to his forehead.’

‘That was the old Jeremy,’ I corrected her. With each bite of mouthwatering pâté and sip of vintage champers I felt a pleasurable emotional vertigo, tugging me towards a defence of my ex.

‘But Archie has made you so happy,’ my mother counselled. ‘And if his song lyrics are anything to go by, dear, he can do a lot more with a Mars bar than the packet implies.’ My mother winked. ‘Actually, I never understood what your cousin Kimmy saw in Archie, until I glimpsed him eating oysters … But, oysters or no oysters, even these ones from the Harrods food hall’ – she speared a mollusc from its shell and regarded it suspiciously as it dangled from her fork prong – ‘if you let Jeremy back into your life, you’ll require worming tablets. The man is vermin.’

‘Even if Jeremy doesn’t speak from the heart, he speaks from the hip pocket,’ Phoebe declared, gulping the mid-air oyster with greedy relish. ‘And I’m liking the language.’ She paused to rummage through the rest of the hamper and squealed with delight at the discovery of individually wrapped crême brulées. She cracked a toffee top with the back of a teaspoon and savoured a bite. ‘Mmm. If this crême brulée were a man, Mother, you’d whip your clothes off and make love to it. Don’t you want a nibble?’

She thrust a spoon of dessert into my mother’s face. There was an uncharacteristic aggression in Phoebe’s action which my mother, although startled, chose to ignore. She gently pushed my sister’s hand aside then added earnestly, ‘Lucy, dear, listen to me. If someone betrays you once, it’s his fault, but if he betrays you twice, it’s your fault. And your fault alone.’