‘You slept with Tony?’ Meg asks me, sitting next to me in the car.
‘If you mean, did he pleasure me in a pub toilet, then the answer is yes.’
Meg flares her nostrils and I grin back with all my teeth on full show, hoping it will better her big sisterly disapproval.
‘Dad was in the car outside that pub, waiting for you…’ she answers.
‘He also gave him a lift to the train station after…’ I say. ‘They spoke about the weather, it was so civil.’
Meg shakes her head at me, which is her automatic response to most things these days. But I don’t care as the memory of that evening makes me smile. The beer in our systems helped us evade the football muppets but it also gave us the bravado to sneak off to the bathroom. Tony took my hand and led me into a cubicle. I don’t feel any shame, any guilt, because it was a nice moment where someone wanted to be intimate with me, who wanted to make me feel good. He didn’t push the agenda; I saw the penis. I admired the penis. I didn’t touch the penis. We took it as far as I wanted and there seemed to be a need there to protect me more than anything and it was appreciated. It also made me grateful for thongs because, hey, access.
‘You two aren’t…’ Meg asks.
‘Dating, no? He’s gone back to his corner of the world and I know what happened there now.’
I sense Meg’s disappointment as all my family love Tony but to me it was a perfect moment. Since the accident, I haven’t felt that way towards anyone, I haven’t felt attractive or sexual, so it was beautiful for that to re-emerge in a way, for me to connect to myself again like petals unfurling on a very nervous flower.
‘And seeing him brought back nothing?’ Meg asks.
‘Unfortunately, no… But he gave me some names of people to track down, talk to…’
‘Any joy with the Oscar conundrum?’
I shake my head. The Oscar Mystery remains a puzzle in our house that the sisters have all committed time and energy to solving. Oscar, 9th February. The pinned note on my phone meant something but there was no Oscar in my contacts or even in my Facebook friends. I followed Instagram people called Oscar but, after some random messages, it turned out that I knew none of them very well. Except one who wanted to change that. It’s all right, love. You still live at home and kiss your dog on the mouth. The agency confirmed that I’d not done any parties for an Oscar on that date either. So he was either a one-night stand or maybe he was someone else. We all had fun imagining who he might be: maybe he was a sculptor and I’d posed for him on that day (nude obviously), maybe he was a debt collector, maybe he’d done me wrong and I had a plot where I was going to avenge his wrongdoings. The sad fact was he probably wasn’t anyone that important at all but, still, the sisters dig, they rake through my browser histories and have made it a fun project. It makes me think that if the inclination was there, we could start our very own Charlie’s-Angels-style detective agency and take on the world.
‘Well, maybe there will be clues in your bedroom,’ Meg says as she takes a turn into a leafy suburban road in South East London, terraces of townhouses reaching into the sky, the street punctuated by 4x4 cars and impeccably kept gardens. Today, Meg and I have come over to my old neck of the woods, my manor in Herne Hill where I used to live a sketchy existence in my commune/shared house. There’s the hope that sifting through my room may bring something familiar to mind or indeed give us some key clues to the identity of the mysterious Oscar. As she reverse parks (badly and with much swearing), I’m not horrified at my street. It’s quite leafy and normal, I think I hear actual birds chirping and we’re parked next to an Audi, which is the hallmark of reliability.
‘Have you been here before?’ I ask.
‘No. I’m almost surprised…’ Meg replies, looking around, but then our gaze falls on the house we’re searching for. Oh. The one thing that gets my attention is that the house number has been written on a coaster and hammered into the front door with a single nail, but even without that you can tell the place is in some state of disrepair from the makeshift curtains, peeling paint and the old toilet in the front garden. We take a slow, hesitant walk towards it, pangs of teen disappointment that this is the house where I end up as a nearly thirty-year-old woman.
‘You!’ a voice suddenly pipes up from behind me.
Meg and I turn to see a man in a suit wheeling in a bin, an impeccably numbered bin, as I glance over to ours, which seems to be labelled with a spray can.
‘Hello?’ I reply tentatively.
I hope I haven’t slept with this dipstick. For one, no one does pinstriped suits with a patterned shirt. It’s like he deliberately wants to hurt my eyes.
‘How many times do I have to tell you lot to stop putting your bottles in my recycling bin? You don’t rinse them. Christ, you don’t even empty them sometimes.’
I will assume this man is our kindly neighbour and there may be a reason we gift him our recycling.
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Of course it is. I can’t believe you have the gall to lie about it now!’ he continues ranting. I notice his kids and their noses pressed up against a living room window to take in the drama. I can’t give your dad a swift kick in the nads with you looking, eh?
‘I mean, it wasn’t me because I’m not living here at the moment.’
‘You’ve moved out?’ he blurts out hopefully.
‘She was ill,’ Meg pipes in, the man’s tone and demeanour obviously riling her too.
‘Oh…’ he says, not a hint of compassion in his voice. Methinks we didn’t quite get on, you were not the sort of neighbour who we borrow sugar from.
‘I thought I hadn’t seen your demon beast around for a while…’
‘Pussy?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘That’s her name.’
Meg now twists her lips around trying to keep in the laughter.
‘Well, she used to defecate in my kids’ sandpit. We caught her on camera.’
‘Then cover your sandpit?’ Meg suggests.
‘And who sits there and films a cat having a poo?’ I ask.
He eyeballs us both, knowing that he will lose this fight but needs the final word.
‘Well, tell your “friends” too that band practice and singalongs at three in the morning are not appreciated.’
He turns and drags his bin away. I hope they went super heavy on the bass.
‘Nice to see you made a positive impact in your community,’ Meg sniggers.
‘Glenn got his knackers in a twist again?’ a voice says from my front door. It’s Cass standing there. I smile to see her and give her a hug. So this is where I lived? I peek my head through the doorway and it’s as I imagined, a shelf to the side of the front door that seems to be a display for takeaway menus and ashtrays, and a bizarre collection of items: a cello case, a pub umbrella, a very dead potted plant and the legs of an old mannequin.
‘I guess Glenn doesn’t like us much then?’ I ask, following Cass through the hallway.
Cass remembers that I have no idea who he is. ‘Oh god. Him and his wife, Sarah, are City types and, naturally, we don’t fit in with their townhouse-Wisteria-Lane vibes so he raises a fuss to try and move us out.’
‘Are those your bottles in his recycling?’ Meg asks.
‘Maybe?’ she replies, winking. ‘But Maureen the other side of him does it too because he objects to her smoking weed for her glaucoma. Ignore him, we all do.’
Meg links her arm into mine as we walk the corridor, looking up to a naked lightbulb swinging quite precariously. As we enter the kitchen, a smell of melted cheese greets us first but then Meg and I take a step back slightly to see the person standing over the hob. Firstly, the man is a giant, easily six foot eight. I see glimpses of tattoos under a black T-shirt but he’s also wearing boxer shorts, sliders and socks. I do like that he has an apron on to protect himself though. I’ve seen pics of him before but, in person, the man is quite a presence.
‘Luce! Mate!’
He has tattooed eyeballs.
‘Bill,’ he says, coming over to hug me, a stainless steel fish slice still in hand. I hug back, nestling myself into his black beard.
‘Bill the housemate?’
‘Correct.’
Meg doesn’t quite know where to look given the man needs to throw some trousers on but she smiles.
‘Sorry, I didn’t know we was expecting company.’
This implies Bill went about the place in his boxers on a regular basis, which makes me glad he was that comfortable around me.
‘This is my sister, Meg.’
‘Pleasure. Well, I’m making a frittata. Your fave… with beetroot and feta. Fancy it?’
Meg looks to me and Cass realises, again, there are gaps in my knowledge.
‘Bill is a sous chef,’ Cass tells me.
‘So you always eat incredibly well under this roof,’ he tells me, reaching over for some plates.
Meg shrugs and sits herself down as I take in the room around us. Nah, I don’t know this place but there’s a wonderfully warm and inviting feel to it. Bill obviously has all his chef equipment, spices and jars about the place, but I like all the mismatched mugs, the photos and flyers stuck to the wall with Blu-Tack, the random Persian rug in the middle of the stone floor.
‘So how many of us live here?’ I ask, looking out the window to the garden where we seem to have quite the allotment out the back, an assortment of hula hoops and three old BBQs.
‘Eight including you,’ says Cass. ‘I used to waitress with Bill and he told me about this place and we nabbed a couple of rooms. We created a mezzanine level so we could get two extra people in and that helps with the rent.’
‘That’ll explain the ladders,’ Meg says, having heard what a health and safety nightmare this place is from Emma. ‘Is it just mega parties every week then?’ Her eyes shift to a very impressive wine bottle collection on one of the counters.
‘Just every other week,’ Bill jokes. ‘We all have a range of shifts so the schedules are a nightmare. Most of us start and finish our days quite late. But it’s cosy, it’s all very like-minded. We’ve missed you, Lucy.’ He sprinkles some pea shoots on a frittata and puts it in front of us with a bowl of bread. Is he the reason I lived here? Because this looks bloody decent.
‘We’re all mates. You’ve met my mum. You and her went to one of my gigs together.’
Gigs. This feels more in keeping with his look.
‘Remind me of names…’ I ask.
‘My mum is Gwen, the band is called PissHammer.’
He takes out a photo on his phone. On it is a picture of a woman with a blonde bob, wearing beige pedal pushers. Bill and her bandmates stand around her looking like they’re about to sacrifice her to their rock gods. Oh, and that’s me. I went leather, knee-highs and eyeliner for the event at least.
‘And how is Gwen…?’ I ask.
‘She’s perfect, mate. She says hello. She’s glad you’re OK.’
I smile and take a mouthful of frittata. It is hot as balls but, damn, this is tasty shit. Bill then pushes a mug in my direction. I pause to see the quote on the mug: Strong as Tits. Meg smiles to see it too. It’s a family motto of sorts, one I’m glad I put out into the world in my teens.
‘This is mine?’ I ask.
‘One of our housemates is a potter. She got a special set made for your birthday once,’ explains Cass.
Bill clinks my mug and smiles broadly. I think his gums may also be tattooed with crucifixes but I say nothing.
‘Damn you, Bill,’ says a voice from behind us. ‘You made frittata and didn’t say anything?’
The tone of the voice is posh old man and I turn to introduce myself, but not before Meg shoots a mouthful of egg across the table. The old man is naked. Not a thing on him, sixty-year-old balls out in the kitchen.
‘I’m Nigel. I’m a lawyer.’
‘And a nudist,’ Cass mumbles. We hadn’t noticed.
After we meet the very lovely nudist and eat the frittata, Meg uses the toilet and gets all judgy (It smells of weed and fruity shampoo, Lucy) and we finally climb a ladder and get to see my room, which as imagined does look slightly like a modern art installation where bras seem to be hanging off every conceivable door, radiator and chair. What is quite warming is to see the many photos I have all over the walls and a seventies floral duvet on my bed that I had as a teen so some things stayed, the best things. Meg stands in the middle of the room, looking properly mumsy, hands on hips, not knowing whether to gather the dirty laundry or have a go at me.
‘Looks like your cat slept in here too,’ she says, rolling a toe through the cat hair on the floor but pointing to a cat bed on the window sill. It overlooks the garden next door so I like the idea Pussy watched over the neighbours and possibly laughed about using their sandpit as her toilet. Meg walks over to a makeshift dressing table and picks up stacks of paper on it. ‘I see there was a very good filing system in place here.’
I grit my teeth, more distracted by a very nice vintage Reebok zip-up top that I want to take home with me. Meg picks up a receipt that I used to dispose some gum in.
‘Grace was going through your accounts by the way. You should keep some of these receipts if you’re self-employed, it’s all tax-deductible.’
Scrap everything – that is possibly the most grown-up thing a sister has ever said to me. My blank look tells her everything she needs to know there and she sifts through the pieces of paper.
‘You spend a lot of money at ASOS,’ she tells me before pausing. ‘And you got a distinction in your master’s… this is a certificate! Hell, why isn’t this in a frame, Luce?’
I shrug, silently impressed by my latent genius though.
‘This is also a handwritten letter…’ she says, scanning the words. I go over and put my head over her shoulder.
‘Is it from the mystery Oscar?’ I ask jokingly.
‘No, Christ – my eyes… It’s a love letter. The boy’s grammar is appalling. I’d be the first to object if you wanted to date this… Who refers to their penis as a member…?’
I yank it from her hands as she then opens drawers in the dresser, all stuffed with similar random pieces of paper. She sighs then opens the wardrobe but takes a step back as half of it seems to be human hair.
‘For the love of crap, I thought that was filled with cats.’
She pulls one out and it seems to be a wig. It’s bright red with shells attached so I will assume this was part of my party princess stash. She shakes it out and puts it on, looking at herself in the mirror.
‘I look like Ariel in her baby-weight-and-takeaway years…’
I saunter over and pull out a brown one with a built-in beehive to the top. I put it on and brown tresses fall about my shoulders.
‘Belle. Beauty and the Beast. The joy of having three daughters is that these things are now my specialist subject,’ Meg informs me.
I glare at myself in the mirror. ‘I look like Marie Antoinette.’
‘The Topshop version.’
I want to laugh but it’s a strange thing to see me in hair and my eye is drawn to all the wigs and costumes inside that wardrobe. Reminders that I’ve spent the last decade just playing dress-up. Meg has a look through all the other costumes until she gets to a leather catsuit.
‘I never saw a princess dressed like this.’
‘Apparently, I also diversify. The agency told me I did the occasional superhero party and I’m a very good Black Widow, whoever that is.’
Meg raises her eyebrows. She digs through the cupboards to find more boxes of books and lecture notes, intermingled with receipts and the like. I continue to look at myself in the mirror, holding a sunshine yellow Belle dress up to my frame, swishing the skirt.
‘Did you ever see me do the parties, Meg? Was I good?’
She turns from the mess that is my wardrobe to look at me, smiling.
‘You came up to do Eve’s sixth birthday party as Elsa. You made her year. Kids still go on about that party in her class. They thought I paid hundreds of pounds for a proper impersonator, they didn’t realise you did it for a bottle of wine and a tube of Fruit Pastilles. I think you also shagged one of the dads from that party but we don’t go there.’
‘Was he at least fit?’ I enquire.
‘Builder, divorced, you told me he had a dick that pointed due north-east when erect, still asks about you at parents’ evenings…’
I should cackle loudly at this but Meg senses me staring blankly into the mirror, my mood low.
‘Smile, Belle. Remember you end up with the Beast and have a French candlestick as your best mate.’
‘Yeah, maybe. Just feels like a slightly shit job to be having at my age. Did I tell you when I was at the posh rehab gym, I bumped into that girl who wrote me the thank you note. Ophelia. Apparently, I was quite the hit at her party too. I taught her some excellent turns of phrase.’
‘I can imagine.’ We both sit down on the edge of my bed. ‘Look, I can’t picture being in your line of work is easy but you were very good at what you did. You were born to entertain, to dance and sing. You worked very hard, you did all sorts of rubbish jobs to supplement it, put yourself through courses. All I ever saw was someone who grafted.’
‘But what do I have to show for it, Meg? Half a wardrobe of costumes? I can’t even remember the songs, the routines. If this is what I was doing to build a career then it feels a bit crappy. And now what do I do, start again? Do this for another ten years? Who wants to see a forty-something princess prancing about?’
‘I would. Anyway, by the time you’re forty, you’re not a princess any more. You’re a queen.’
I smile and rest my head on her shoulder. Queen. The best sort though. She rules alone, she takes on many suitors, she throws the best parties and wears killer gowns.
‘We’ll take some of this paper home and sift through it. It’ll give Grace something to do. She can get out her highlighters. Maybe it will give us some clues. To Oscar, to everything. It’s not just wigs though, is it? It’s a master’s hidden on your desk. You were much more than a wig, Lucy Callaghan.’
Only the biggest sister could bolster me in such a way. That said, I may take the wigs home, for the fun, to cover up my in-between hair and annoy our mother. Meg shuffles where she sits and reaches beneath her to pull out something bulky from under my duvet. She reveals a pair of men’s pants that must have been lurking there for at least two months, so much so they’re stiff like cardboard. She shrieks and throws them in the air then wipes her hands down on my sheets.
‘Lucy, who the hell left here without any pants? That’s so gross.’
‘Maybe they’re Nigel’s.’
‘I really hope not. I feel that naked image is etched onto my retinas now.’
She bends down and also finds a used Strong as Tits mug that has an inch of cold tea in the bottom. I like that I have a set of them for every day of the week.
‘It’s grim that this is still here but this is you, all over. Strong as Tits. It’s even yellow. You always said that was your favourite colour…’
‘…As the others were far too dull and sad.’
Strong as Tits. Look at how I inspired pottery. Look at all the photos on the wall, all those costumes and joy. I glance down at the mug. Let’s take you home too as a reminder of who I was, who I still am. I open the window to my room and throw the remaining tea out of it.
‘What the hell… FERAL! ABSOLUTELY FERAL!’ I look down and it’s our good neighbour again, the tea landing on his laundry drying on an airer outside.
‘Time to leave?’ Meg asks.
I nod, very very quickly.