When I get back from school, I don’t go in the kitchen. Mum’s in there, recipe book propped up on the Special Thing Simon’s bought to keep recipe books open (she never had a recipe book before, let alone a Special Thing), wooden spoon in hand, chopping board at the ready, probably weeping over the onions.
‘I’m cooking lasagne,’ she calls. I swing my bag across the living room floor. ‘It’s Italian,’ she continues. ‘Minced beef and big sheets of spaghetti. Nothing you won’t like.’
She always cooks fancy things because she thinks he likes them, then tries to sell them to me with these descriptions. But I’ve seen him slide something greasy off his plate into the bin when she’s turned her back to pour him another glass of white wine. ‘I hope it’s dry, Jan,’ he’ll say. ‘Dry white’s the only wine worth a hangover.’
I sit down on the sofa.
‘Did you hear me?’ she asks.
‘I’m going out tonight. Don’t bother with food.’ I open a copy of the Guardian, because it’s all there is to hand. He brought that into the house. I flick the pages. We never used to have a newspaper. Dad liked to watch ITN; Julia Somerville’s his favourite. ‘I’ll just catch the headlines,’ he’d say. Then it would be flicked over.
Mum walks into the living room and stands behind the sofa. I can picture the shape of her lips exactly: stuck out as if she’s got a satsuma in her mouth. Biting on the pith. Probably one eye half closes as she says, ‘Fine,’ in a voice she’d like to think of as crisp. ‘Simon’s got a treat for you tonight though.’ She lets this one out as she walks back into the kitchen. But I don’t move from my spot on the sofa.
‘I think you’ll like it,’ she calls over a clattering of pans. She’s got these massive pans now. They went into Oxford and bought them together. When they came back they were cradling and rocking their Habitat bags as if they were newborns.
I don’t reply.
‘I think you’ll like it, Joanna.’ She comes into the living room and sits on my newspaper.
‘I’m trying to read.’
‘I know you don’t read that.’ She lowers her voice. ‘And I don’t bloody blame you.’ She sticks a long finger into my forearm and wiggles it. ‘Women’s Page. Hasn’t even got any make-up on it.’
She smells of perming lotion. She had it done a few days ago. It makes her face look like a tiny dot in a mass of scribble, like something one of the first years would do in Art. Simon didn’t say anything when she showed him, twirling round, patting it with her flattened palm, making a light crunching sound.
‘What’s the treat, then?’ I ask, not looking up.
‘You’ll see,’ she says, wiggling her finger in my forearm again.
When he comes in he’s grinning. He’s wearing a big raincoat. He thinks it’s sexy, this brown mac with a belt. You can tell by the way he never just hangs it on the peg in the hall. Instead he shakes it out with a huge flap, smoothes it over one arm and takes it upstairs to hang it on a wooden coat hanger.
He stands there with his big grin and big rainmac, making a big thing about keeping one arm behind his back.
‘Hi honey, I’m home!’ he shouts, like he always does, in a fake American accent, and she laughs, like she always does, floating into the living room in her Delia Smith pinny. ‘What’s for tea?’ he says. ‘I like a little woman in the kitchen.’ He gives me a wink. ‘And any other room of her choice.’
‘Lasagne tonight, darling.’ She plonks a big kiss on his mouth.
‘My favourite. Apart from you, that is.’
They snog.
‘Joanna!’ he calls, swooping over. ‘I have something which I think may lead you to abandon your sulk, if only for a few moments.’ I can smell his aftershave as he leans over the back of the sofa. It’s one of those expensive ones that still smells cheap. He sticks out his lower lip and breathes over me. ‘Don’t you want to know what I’ve bought for you?’
Mum stands there, arms folded across her pinny.
‘I hope you like it.’ And he brings his arm round in front of him and places a Walkman in my lap.
‘I’ve taken the liberty of including one of my favourite recordings. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.’
‘You are wonderful, Simon,’ says Mum, hugging him. ‘Isn’t he? Isn’t he just wonderful, Joanna?’
But she’s not even looking at me as she asks this question.