Cleo’s return is as much of a production number as you might imagine. Firstly Elena is roped in for an extra few hours to clean the house from top to bottom. Abi insists that the girls do their own rooms and they agree without too much fuss when she tells them that Elena almost certainly had plans to have breakfast with her own family this morning, but she couldn’t say no to coming in for fear of losing her job. And all because they’re too lazy to clean up after themselves. She almost reduces them to tears, actually, so convincing are her descriptions of Elena’s humble home and her sick husband and skinny, undernourished children. She’s making it all up, of course. She has no idea if Elena is even married, but she always wears a very nice line in cashmere cardigans so Abi thinks she does OK and she seems perfectly happy to have signed up for an extra shift. Plus the chances of her having children under the age of about eighteen are pretty slim and, if she does, she’d be in the Guinness Book of Records. Despite Abi’s misgivings about having someone wait on her hand and foot she has no doubt Elena is well compensated and that this is a pretty good gig as far as unskilled labour goes. Still, it doesn’t hurt to try to instil the beginnings of a social conscience into her two nieces.
Jon left at the crack of dawn to go and get the car checked over before heading off to Heathrow, or so the girls tell Abi. She suspects he’s probably hiding in a café somewhere, keeping out of her way until he returns with her sister as ballast. She’s grateful to him. The less they are alone together the better. She and the girls do a quick sortie down to the deli to stock up on all Cleo’s favourite essentials and then there’s nothing to do but wait for them to return. Abi tries to keep occupied to stop herself from imagining their reunion, Jon kissing Cleo hello, telling her how much he missed her. Despite his profession of love for Abi, he has never said that he didn’t still have feelings for Cleo. And she wouldn’t have wanted him to. What kind of a person would she be if she did?
They finally turn up at about quarter past one, hours late because the flight was delayed. Cleo is her usual brittle, bright self. A little too desperate to have them all believe how wonderful everything was. The hotel may have been in Midtown, but it’s the new hip young place to be seen, she and the other ‘girls’ ate at Le Caprice and the Park Avenue Café and A Voce and drank cocktails on the roof terrace at 60 Thompson, she even got papped when they were filming on the High Line, which just goes to show she’s still got it.
Cleo has an old habit, by the way, that she thinks Abi doesn’t know about, of having one of her people tip the paparazzi off about where she is going to be and when. In her heyday she even cut a deal with one of them to give him exclusives and split the profits. The photographer once gave this away to Abi after he had seemingly randomly popped up outside a café in which they’d been having lunch. Cleo had made a big show of being annoyed, but as she had climbed into a cab ahead of Abi he had tapped Abi on the shoulder and said, ‘Tell her to give me a call later and I’ll let her know where I’ve placed them.’
She didn’t say anything to Cleo then and needless to say she doesn’t bring it up now, but she’s a little suspicious that the New York wandering paparazzi brigade have nothing better to do than amble around Manhattan randomly in the hope of bumping into a washed-up former supermodel. Still, she’s glad Cleo’s in a good mood and seemingly completely oblivious to the rampaging hormones that are infecting the air. Plus the girls are clearly thrilled that she’s back, which makes it fine by Abi.
They settle down to lunch. She can tell that Jon has gone into overdrive to show both her and Cleo that everything is fine, business as usual. He chatters away about all the stuff that’s happened in the days she’s been away (with one notable exception), making them sound like the Brady Bunch’s slightly more wholesome cousins. Abi starts to wonder if, in fact, she’s living in a parallel universe, one where this man didn’t declare his love for her only days ago. She’s even less prepared for what he says next.
‘So, Abi’s got a new boyfriend.’ As he says this, he looks round at the others triumphantly.
‘Abigail!’ Cleo says, amazed, and why wouldn’t she be?
Tara and Megan start giggling. ‘Who is he?’ Tara says. ‘Is it Richard?’
Great. Still, Richard is the only man other than their father that Tara and Megan have seen her speak to since she’s been here, so it could have been a lot worse. She shrugs.
‘Who’s Richard?’ Cleo will be delighted at the prospect of Abi, her weird loner sister, dating.
‘It is, isn’t it? It’s Richard!’ Megan squeals.
Oh god, is she really going to have to keep this up?
Jon turns his manic grin on her. ‘That’s right. Abi is going out with Richard.’
‘Who is Richard?’ Cleo laughs, and looks at Abi. ‘Tell me!’
‘He’s Abi’s boss at the bookshop, isn’t he, Abi?’
She nods miserably.
‘We’ve met him. He’s nice,’ Megan says.
‘He’s hot,’ Tara adds helpfully. ‘Considering he’s so ancient.’
Abi can’t help it; she looks at Jon. He doesn’t look at her.
‘So,’ Cleo says. ‘Tell me everything.’
This is torture. ‘There’s really nothing to tell.’
‘That is so typically you. I go away for less than two weeks and when I come back you’re seeing someone, but you try to make out there’s nothing to tell. There must be a story behind it. Did your eyes meet across a pile of books? Did he seduce you in the stock room after you closed up one night? What?’
‘Yuk, Mum!’ Megan pulls a disgusted face.
‘No,’ Abi says. ‘Of course not.’
‘Well, what then? Something must have happened. God, I can’t believe you’ve met someone.’
Abi feels a prick of resentment. Why is it so hard to believe? She tells herself not to pick a fight with Cleo on her first day back.
‘I don’t want to talk about it. It’s early days. It’ll probably come to nothing.’
‘Naturally, because that’s your default way of approaching a relationship. Write it off before it’s even properly begun. Save yourself the heartache later on.’
She’s right, of course. Except for the fact that this time it’s not Richard she’s scared of getting too close to. ‘That is so unfair.’
‘But not untrue. Tell you what, why don’t you invite him over for dinner one evening? Not tonight because I’m jet-lagged and I’ll probably fall asleep in my food at about eight o’clock, but later in the week? That way we all get to scrutinize him. Make sure his intentions are honourable.’ She laughs to show she’s joking, but Abi knows that the part about inviting him over was deadly serious.
‘I don’t know …’ Actually, she does. She knows that it’s not going to happen. In fact, she’s not even going to mention it to Richard because knowing his obsession with all things Cleo he would say yes like a shot. And she also knows that she couldn’t trust him to just get through the evening without her deception being detected. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. He’d say or do something stupid just so he had a funny story to tell down the pub later on.
‘It’s a good idea – you should,’ Jon says, looking sort of at her but through her at the same time. It’s like if he doesn’t focus on her then she’s not quite there. If they don’t make eye contact, it’s as if nothing ever happened.
‘Let me think about it,’ Abi says. ‘Now can we talk about something else?’
Later, when she goes up to her room to read she hears Megan in her bedroom singing loudly enough so that Abi can hear: ‘Auntie Abi and Richard sitting in a tree. K.I.S.S.I.N.G.’
Thankfully Jon goes back to work on Monday and Abi resumes her solo childcare routine while Cleo drops right back onto her punishing gym/nails/hair/casting treadmill. The atmosphere in the house is, to say the least, forced. Cleo is desperate for them to believe that her trip was a huge success and that her career has been successfully relaunched – and, who knows, maybe it has. Abi has no evidence to the contrary, Jon is manically trying to act like he doesn’t have a care in the world while at the same time refusing to look her in the eye and she is exhausted from trying to pretend that everything is fine, that they’re all as happy as can be. That’s always been the way in her family. So long as no one ever acknowledges there’s a problem out loud, then they are all experts at pretending that there isn’t. They suppress things, bury their resentments and irritations deep enough so they never see the light of day, but not so deep that they can’t feel them festering away in the depths. It can’t be healthy, but it’s the Attwood way. She wonders if Jon has picked up symptoms over the years.
He is studiously avoiding being alone with her, which can only be a good thing, although she occasionally catches him looking at her or, just as often, finds herself looking at him. For just a moment too long.
The hint of hurt that she thinks she can see in his eyes tears at her stomach every time. She wonders if he can see the same in her, because she can’t imagine she is disguising it well. It’s all she can do not to reach out to touch his arm when he walks by her and, at one point, she almost stretches out a hand to stroke his head when she passes behind his chair. There’s a point where the hair stands up from his crown rebelliously – a cowlick she thinks it’s called – and it’s all Abi can do to stop herself smoothing it down.
On the surface, though, everything is just as it should be. If they can just keep this up for another few weeks they’ll be home and dry. She might have an ulcer, but that seems like a small price to pay. She can go back to seeing Cleo once or twice a year and Jon almost never. She’ll miss the girls, though. They’ve definitely bonded, so she’ll invite them down to stay with her in Kent once in a while. She finds herself daydreaming little scenarios whereby Tara, Megan and Phoebe are all running in and out of the house on a beautiful sunny summer’s day. OK, she knows that Phoebe, at eighteen, is too old to be playing like a child and, anyway, the house is sold and the fantasy doesn’t work quite so well with an above-ground-level flat, but she indulges herself anyway.
This, by the way, has been one of her more successful coping mechanisms throughout her life: if things aren’t going well, inhabit a whole other existence in your head that you can control. It’s a bit like playing Second Life, but you don’t even need a DS. Tragically, even in her daydreams, she holds herself back. She can’t just imagine she is successful or rich or happily in love. She gets bogged down by the detail. She has to rationalize each step. How did she become successful? What qualifications did she get? Did she work her way up from the bottom and, if so, how did she get her foot in the door? It’s exhausting. It still works as a distraction, but as escapism it’s doomed.
Somehow she gets through to the relative sanctuary of work on Tuesday. Word seems to have got round the neighbourhood about Richard and Stella, because all day there’s a steady stream of distraught-looking young mums giving him disappointed looks across the bookshelves. Almost no one buys anything. They just stare mournfully, waiting for him to come and tell them it isn’t so, which, of course, he doesn’t. He soldiers on regardless, greeting them in the same way he always does, relentlessly flirtatious and friendly while they make Bambi eyes and sigh miserably. Richard steadfastly refuses to acknowledge their pain. Abi is grateful that in deference to Stella he doesn’t play out the charade of her and him in front of them, but when they’re on their own he’s merciless.
‘Darling,’ he says, sidling up to her during a brief quiet period. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to pop out back for a quickie while the shop’s empty?’
‘Fuck off, Richard.’
‘What’s wrong? Don’t you love me any more? Have you gone off me already? I’m devastated!’
‘Not funny,’ she says, shaking off the arm he has snaked round her.
‘Oh, come on, it is. And, besides, you have to be nice to me or I might be compelled to go round and tell your handsome brother-in-law the truth.’
She knows he’s only joking and, to be honest, usually she’d laugh. She definitely would if it concerned anyone except her. But she seems to have had a sense-of-humour failure. Richard must be able to tell that from her expression, because he drops both his arm and the joke.
‘God, you have got it bad, haven’t you?’
‘No … yes, OK, I have. But can we just pretend I haven’t? Please?’
‘You only had to ask,’ he says, and Abi smiles for the first time today.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘OK, well, you only had to ask in that miserable tone of voice and look suicidal, how’s that?’
She grants him a quick peck on the cheek. She really is fond of him and she tells herself she has to remember that he is doing her an enormous favour. ‘Thank you.’
She is sticking to her resolution not to tell him about Cleo’s dinner invitation, though. Her plan is to keep up the pretence at home while fighting off all attempts to integrate him into the family, and then in a week or so, once the equilibrium is restored at home and she thinks Jon has firmly got the message that she’s not interested, she can announce that it’s all over – she and Richard have broken up. She can cry pitifully for a couple of days, which shouldn’t be too much of a stretch, and then announce her intention to swear off men for the foreseeable future. There’s no reason for them not to believe her; they are both aware of her tragic track record. She’s just allowing herself to think that everything might work out OK when the door opens and Tara and Megan come running in, followed by Cleo at a more stately pace, who gazes around the shop with an amused expression on her face. Abi moves forward to greet them, hoping that she can head them off at the pass and, maybe, suggest that they all go straight out for something to eat when Megan points a finger across the room and shouts, ‘That’s him!’
Too late. Richard looks up from whatever he’s doing. Abi sees the brief moment of delighted recognition when he spots Cleo and then he turns his charm straight on to the girls, welcoming them as if they were members of his own family.
‘So … back again so soon. Did you enjoy the books? How was the Jacqueline Wilson, Megan?’
‘Fab,’ she says, and then she turns to her mother. ‘This is Richard. This is Auntie Abi’s boyfriend.’
‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Cleo,’ Cleo says, and holds out a hand for him to shake. Richard does a phony double take.
‘I know who you are,’ he says, charm offensive back on. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
Abi finds herself getting annoyed. He’s supposed to be pretending to be her boyfriend. What’s he doing flirting with her sister? Now Cleo will think she’s a complete loser whose new beau is already looking around to see who’s next.
‘And you,’ Cleo says. Is she flirting right back at him? Does no one have any morals today? Abi needs to save the situation. She links her arm with Richard’s.
‘Cleo is my sister.’
‘Your sister? I had no idea,’ he says disingenuously. ‘You don’t look alike.’
Abi pinches his arm where she’s hanging on to it. He flinches then remembers who they are all meant to be playing in this little drama, and puts the arm round Abi’s shoulders proprietorially.
‘What I mean is you’re both beautiful, just different. Actually, now I look closer, I can see some similarities.’ Nice try, but he’s fooling no one. Abi and Cleo both know that he was bowled over by seeing her in the flesh. She’s used to having that reaction from men and Abi is used to her having it too.
‘She’s our mummy,’ Megan says conspiratorially.
‘Well, I can see that, because you’re just as gorgeous,’ he says, and half of Abi hates him for still going on about the way Cleo looks even though it’s in a roundabout way, while the other half is happy for Megan that she’s been given a compliment while she’s still young enough to take it at face value. Maybe if anyone had ever told Abi she was as beautiful as Cleo when she was seven she wouldn’t have grown up to be such a fuck-up.
‘So, what brings you in here? Checking up on me and Abi?’
‘She wanted to get a look at you,’ Tara says.
‘She said most of Auntie Abi’s boyfriends always sounded as dull as dishwater, but we told her you weren’t like that, so she wanted to see you for herself.’
‘I don’t think I said that, Megan …’
‘Yes you did. You said that exact thing, dull as dishwater, because I had to ask you what it meant and –’
Cleo, to give her credit, blushes a little. ‘I think you’ve got confused. What I said was we should go and see Auntie Abi and see if she’s remembered to ask Richard to come to dinner yet.’
‘No, you didn’t …’
Tara, realizing that things aren’t quite going to plan, jumps in. ‘Yes, she did, Meg. Stop being stupid.’
Abi looks at Richard, trying to communicate ‘don’t even think about it’ with her eyes, which is harder than you might imagine, but he’s got a smirk on his face and she knows she’s lost him. The kudos to be earned from having gone round to Cleo’s house for dinner far outweighs his feelings of loyalty towards her.
Before she can stop him he’s saying, ‘That would be amazing. Thank you. And, no, Abi hadn’t mentioned it …’
He looks at her, mock scolding. She looks back at him like she hates him, which at the moment she feels like she does.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to,’ Abi says with what she hopes is the right amount of threat in her voice. ‘It seems a bit early to be meeting the family and all that.’
‘Nonsense, darling. You know I’ve been dying to meet your family.’ He turns to Cleo. ‘When would you like me?’
‘Well … how about tonight? That is unless you have other plans?’
Abi has one last-ditch attempt. ‘Weren’t we going to go and see On the Waterfront tonight? He’s never seen On the Waterfront and it’s on at the South Bank somewhere. A Marlon Brando retrospective.’ She realizes she is sounding slightly desperate and forces herself to shut up.
‘Were we? I don’t remember us deciding that. We can do that another night.’
‘Yes, come to dinner,’ Megan chips in. ‘I can show you my room.’
‘And mine,’ Tara adds. ‘It’s much better than hers.’
‘Well, I think that settles it,’ Richard says. ‘What time?’
When they’ve gone, having agreed that Richard will show up at the house at seven thirty, Abi turns on him even though she knows she has no right to.
‘What the fuck? Why didn’t you say we were busy?’
‘Listen,’ he says, ‘you want them to believe we’re going out together, this’ll convince them, OK?’
‘But we can’t keep it up all evening. Not with them all looking at us …’
‘This whole thing was your idea. I didn’t ask you to involve me in your domestic dramas.’
He’s right. She knows he is. ‘I know you didn’t. I’m sorry. I just … You don’t know what she’s like. She’ll see through it in a moment.’
‘Well, I’m clearly a cut above all your other boyfriends,’ he says, and he raises one eyebrow James Bond style. ‘I mean, what was it she said? Dull as dishwater. All of them?’
‘Yes. All six of them. Well, since Phoebe’s father, anyway.’
‘And she’s … what? Eighteen? Wow, you’ve lived an exciting life.’
‘I’m not looking for excitement. I’m looking for reliability and responsibility.’
‘Dullness …’
‘Excitement’s overrated, OK? And, anyway, I’m fine on my own.’
He gets her in a bear hug. ‘Well, don’t worry, you’ve got me now. I’ll save you!’
‘Just behave tonight. Please.’
Richard holds her at arm’s length, a hammy look of horror on his face. ‘I’m devastated you could even doubt it. Don’t you know I love you?’
OK, he’s got her. She can’t help herself. She laughs.