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.’

Then my gentle sister, who has only ever won an argument with herself, rounded on our stunned mother. ‘Taking your advice on love is like taking flirting lessons from a eunuch. Or, I dunno, discretion lessons from Wikileaks. At your age you should be radiating a mix of authority and dignity, not bellydancing with naked toyboys in Tibetan ashrams.’

‘Phoebe …’ I placed a calming hand on her arm. ‘What on earth’s the matter with you? You’re starting to make Vlad the Impaler look like a librarian,’ I joked.

But my sister refused to be mollified. ‘I’m serious, Mother.’ She shook me off. ‘What kind of financial security can an ageing, fading rock star give your poor destitute daughter?’

‘I’m not destitute. And, anyway, Archie does have a job now,’ I defended him. ‘Plus he’s working on an album.’

Phoebe squawked a laugh. ‘The gap between Archie’s aspirations and his achievements has the same cargo capacity in metres as, say, Idaho. You’re exhausted from single motherhood, Lulu.’ Under fizzing brows, she glowered at our mother before adding vehemently, ‘And the reason she needs financial security is because you’ve spent all our inheritance, flitting around the world like an irresponsible teenager.’

My mother’s pale complexion went an even more arctic colour. ‘As you will one day discover, Phoebe, the difficult thing for women my age is not downshifting a career but upshifting. Just when a mother comes blinking out of her murky, milky years, liberated from the school run, the three meals a day, the laundry and taxi services and housework slavery, all ready for action, society hands you Invisible Man bandages. I don’t want to be a runner-up in the human race.’

‘Why not?’ Phoebe rejoindered bitterly. ‘Your daughters are. Thanks to you.’

A chasm opened in our tight-knit little family circle. My mother was stricken with anguish. After a few minutes of staggered silence, she tried to defuse the situation.

‘I think I’ll write a screenplay next, dears. Everybody else is. Mine will be the touching, autobiographical story of a hardworking woman with a philandering husband who raised her children and then tried to forge a small life for herself before she kicks the bucket but whose daughters don’t appreciate all the wonderful things she’s done for them. Julia Roberts will play the mother and the kids will be played by hideous, troll-like George Lucas special effects.’

But her attempt to heal the rift with humour fell flat. My mother is a one-woman task force. It was unnerving to see her emotional resilience faltering. In our family, we usually just argue and argue until my mother is right. But not today.

‘Phoebe, darling, I’m sure all this anger and negativity is merely because your hormones are leaving the building. The good thing about the menopause, dear, is that you can warm your own dinner plate on your forehead. The bad thing is it turns you into a raving maniac.’ She smiled, attempting one more stab at levity, but her lovely singsong Somerset lilt had lost its spring and sounded uncharacteristically dull and flat.

‘You have fun all the time, but when we get a little pleasure you rain on our happiness parade. How I wish it were you leaving the building instead of my hormones.’

My mother bade her grandson goodbye and left before dinner … And Phoebe wouldn’t let me run after her.