I put in an SOS call to Ben. Dinner with him was exactly what I needed. Sasha picked up his phone. I asked her whether they could join me in a decompression tank of vodka somewhere. The excuse I gave was that I’d been with babies all day and needed to talk to a grown-up.
“I’m going out. Ben’s not doing anything, but I’m not sure he fulfils the criteria.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You said you needed to talk to a grown-up.”
“Yes. Oh…” I walked back up to the tube station against the tide of commuters heading home. “Everything all right?”
“Don’t ask.”
“OK.”
“Men are babies. I’ve been away on business for four days and get back to no food in the fridge, though he did remember to restock the beer; he hasn’t thought to take out the rubbish or put on a wash, or make the bloody bed, or put a new loo-paper roll on. So yes, you can borrow my husband and no, I’m not sure I want him back.”
Normally I ask to borrow him, normally Sasha says, “Only if you give him back,” to which I normally reply with a jaunty, “Don’t I always?,” but Sasha sounded exasperated.
“Anything I can do?”
“Can you reprogram the male species?”
“No.” I stopped outside the tube station. My travel plans were affected by the outcome of this conversation.
“Then I doubt it. Don’t worry, Tessa, we’re fine really. All I need is to go out with my girlfriend and slag him off for a couple of hours.”
“Come out with me,” I said, getting in the way of people hurrying up the stairs. “Either Harding will do.” I felt the uncomfortable tweak that comes with a lie and quickly slathered it with something else more truthful. “I love our girly catch-ups.”
“You won’t do, Tessa. You always defend him.”
“How annoying.”
“No, it’s very admirable, but this evening I need to spit some venom and get pissed. As some wise woman once said to me, ‘Just because you have a husband, doesn’t mean you can’t have boyfriend troubles.’”
“Who said that?”
“You did, you daft cow.”
“Did I?” I was amazed. That sounded far too intelligent for me.
“You underestimate yourself, Tessa. I’ll get Ben for you.”
“Thanks. You sure everything’s OK?”
“Course. Ups and downs, that’s what it’s all about. The trick is trying to remember that on the down bits. By the time I get home I’ll love him again and no doubt rip his clothes off and—”
“Thanks, you can save me the details.”
“Anyway, he’s always nicer to me when he’s seen you. You’re a good influence on him. So yeah, borrow him for the evening, but however reluctant he is to return, please send him back when you’re done.”
“Don’t I always?” I said. We’d been having these sorts of exchanges for seven years now, usually without the spitting venom bit, but fundamentally the same.
I’d been home just long enough to phone my parents when Ben called me from the car and said he was outside my building. I told him I’d be straight down, which I was. That’s what I like. Being busy. Keeping moving. The smile that spread across Ben’s face when he saw me was the perfect tonic to Neil’s insalubrious wit, the yelping twins and Helen’s nipples. In fact, Ben is the perfect antidote to almost anything. He is tall, broad and though slightly thicker around his middle these days, still as handsome as he’s always been. Dark hair, blue eyes…Need I say more?
“No sprucing up for me then?”
“Sorry, you get the dog-end. I’ve been with my godsons and I need a drink. Now.”
Ben opened the car door for me. “What are you talking about? You look great. Sasha said you would.”
“What’s going on with you and Sasha?”
“Nothing. She just went off on one because I’d forgotten to buy some milk. She does this sometimes when she’s been away on a long trip. Far too used to hotel-living and having men bow and scrape to her. Once I folded the loo paper into a little triangle to piss her off when she was being so finicky.”
“That must have smoothed things over,” I said sarcastically.
“We get there in the end. You know what they say about arguments…”
“All right, all right, no need to rub my nose in it.” He closed the door and walked around the car. When he got in he looked at me again, more carefully.
“You really do look terrific, Tess,” said Ben. “A million times better than when you left. I hated it, but it was obviously the right thing to do. You’re glowing.”
“The benefits of a diet of dried apricots.”
“I bet your tepee hummed.”
“And vibrated.”
“I’ll open the window,” he said.
He put on his seat belt and started the engine. “So, you been busy on your first week back?”
I smiled at him.
“What? I don’t believe it! Already?”
I nodded. I can’t keep anything from Ben.
“Actually, I do believe it—look at you. God, I’m jealous. Was it a good one?”
“Don’t be mean,” I said. “I love your wife.”
“So do I. I’m not going to get into a who-loves-my-wife-more competition, but you know, occasionally I miss the excitement, the frisson of it. It’s not as if I’m doing anything or even thinking about doing anything, I’m just remembering.”
“As long as it’s not too wistfully.”
“I’m allowed to miss it, aren’t I?” he asked.
“You’re asking the wrong person. I don’t know the rules.”
“Was it one of those can’t-get-the-clothes-off-quick-enough?”
I had to smile. “Exactly. Though my pants came off.”
“Naturally,” he concurred.
“His trousers too, but only as far as his knees.”
We were both laughing when we pulled out into the traffic and still laughing when we entered the bar. This was why we were such good friends, because we can talk about this sort of stuff. In fact, we can talk about anything. Unless it’s ourselves.
We went to a bar that was within Ben’s parking permit. He planned to leave the car there and pick it up in the morning. This was why I was borderline alcoholic. When anyone wanted to escape from their domestic bliss for a moment they called me, because I flew solo. I didn’t have to phone home and ask anyone permission to go out with my friends. I didn’t have to book a babysitter a month in advance. I didn’t have to “do diaries.” When my single mates felt like a blast, they called me, because they knew I was entrenched in singleton and could always be persuaded to go out and drop some coin in a hotel bar. Even my eighty-four-year-old father calls me when he fancies a night out in the big smoke, which is indecently often for a man his age. I suppose I could say no to all the offers of drink. But why would I? Anyway, there are some people you never tire of seeing. And Ben was one of them.
“So what about a bottle of champagne to welcome my old mucker home?”
“Are you paying?”
“Only for the first two bottles,” he said. “Then the cocktails are on you.”
See. I watched him walk to the bar. I watched other women watch him walk to the bar. I watched other woman watch him turn back to me and smile, and then I watched them fail in their best attempts to get noticed by him. I’d been experiencing that sort of devotion from him all my life and it warmed the cockles of my heart.
Ben leaned against the bar and winked at me. He had laughter lines around his eyes that had crept up on me over the years, but he was still essentially the same blue-eyed boy with the aquiline face who’d walked into our classroom a million drinks ago. It was halfway through the summer term, we were eleven. I remember his ridiculous long hair. Hair his gloriously unkempt hippy mother had been proudly growing his entire nomadic life, hair that Claudia and I chopped off a week later, at his behest, with a stolen pair of nail scissors. His mother had taken him wherever the mood suited her, or as we learned later, where the men suited her. The constant uprooting canceled out the vastly wider life experiences he’d had, and it was quickly apparent to Claudia and me that he was both naive and in need of some mothering. There was nothing Claudia and I liked more than a good project to get stuck into. We got him when he was weak and didn’t know his own potential. Our friendship survived puberty. Nothing could break it now. If there was ever a child of the universe, it was Ben.
My phone vibrated. It was Helen’s home number. Talking of former children of the universe…I put it on to answerphone. I’d had enough of Helen’s happy little home for one day. Ben returned with an ice bucket. He poured out two glasses. We drank to health and happiness, as always. It was an old habit; only the content of the glasses had changed. To health and happiness. God knows, it’s a big ask.
I told him about my depressing visit to Helen and Neil’s house. Ben knew Neil through work. Because he worked for a media PR company their paths occasionally crossed. Usually late at night, in private drinking clubs. That was how I knew certain things about Neil that I wished I didn’t.
“So you’re still not feeling the love for the twins?”
Ben knew me far too well.
“For the whole lot of them, frankly. He makes my skin crawl and she’s just so damn grateful. I don’t know what’s happened to her. You didn’t get married and become an arsehole.”
“That’s coz I’ve always been an arsehole.”
“How dare you. I won’t have a bad word said against you.”
“Actually, I saw Neil the other night…” Ben grimaced at me. “Up to his old antics.”
“Not again.”
“’Fraid so.”
I blocked my ears. “I don’t want to know.”
“I’m just saying, you know, maybe you shouldn’t be too hard on her.”
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? They both decided to have kids; her life changes irreversibly, while he continues, unchecked, doing exactly what he did before.”
“Now you know why Sasha doesn’t want kids.”
“You wouldn’t be like that.”
Ben shrugged. “Maybe not disappearing down corridors with drunk actresses, but…” He shrugged again. “I like my life as it is, playing football in the evenings, tennis in the mornings, going out with you and getting pissed. I don’t want to have to change all that for equality’s sake. Then we’re both sitting in, bored out of our minds.”
“But what about having children?” I stressed. Feeling he was missing the point.
“For once I am in complete agreement with my wife.”
“Really? You really don’t want children?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes. Of course I do.”
“Why?” asked Ben.
“Don’t be daft. Because I do.”
“But why? Look at the grief they cause.”
“You are just being selfish. A typical selfish male.”
“Actually, I think I’m being selfless.”
I laughed. “You’ll have to explain that one.”
“Sasha travels a lot, she doesn’t want to end her job, and children do that unless you’re happy to have full-time care, which she doesn’t.”
“You could become a house-spouse.”
“House-spouse? What Daily Mail article did you get that from?”
I was deeply offended. “I don’t read the Daily Mail. I made it up.”
“I’m not the type to be a house-spouse. Rule number one, know yourself. Sasha and I are not good parenting material. Better we know that than have children we don’t really want, don’t really know and therefore can’t really love.”
Ben had a point, I thought. After all, parenting skills didn’t run high in the Harding household. Why continue the misery? Still, he really was a lovely man, and they were a rare breed. It seemed a shame to me that there would be no more Ben Wards of this world.
“For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a great dad. Considerate and charming and generous, all the things that you are and more.”
“You’re just biased.”
“Horribly, it’s true.”
“My children would love you more than they love me, like everyone else I know. Even my wife. It would be annoying.”
“You’re right. And anyway, I can’t afford any more bloody godchildren.”
Ben refilled the glasses. “How do you know you want kids?” he asked, after clinking glasses again. “I mean, other than just social programming? Coz from where I’m standing, your life looks pretty perfect to me. You know that, right?”
Good-time girl. Little Miss Positive. Happy. Happy. Happy. That’s me. “I got to thinking,” I started tentatively. “You know. In India—”
Ben put his head in his hands, mocking me. “Oh no, you are going to go all hippy on me and join an ashram and have a brood of sniveling, knotty-haired children with a bearded fellow called Tree.”
“Falling Tree. And not an ashram, a Native American Gambling Reserve. I’ll be the one in the fake nails, diamonds and excessive leopard print.”
Ben let out a bellowed laugh. “I can just see it. You’ll smoke cigarettes and have a boob job and think nothing of feeding your children popcorn for dinner.”
“How dare you. I don’t need a boob job!”
Ben threw his arm around me and kissed me on the cheek.
“Oh, Tessie-babe, can’t we just keep on doing this, getting pissed together and having a laugh?”
“You’ll leave me eventually for a younger drinking partner. Someone with more liver capacity, and fewer broken blood vessels.”
“I’d never leave you,” said Ben.
“That’s what they all say, until the liver spots appear.”
“No amount of healthy hemoglobin can take the place of history.”
“And boy, do we have history,” I said. It came out before I’d had time to rethink my words.
Ben’s arm tightened around my shoulder. “Don’t we just.”
I pulled away. “Are you drunk?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” I smiled.
“Are you?” he asked.
“Definitely.”
“Excellent,” said Ben. “More booze.”
As I said, there are some subjects best avoided.
Awash in champagne, we finally called it a night. At my building Ben jumped out of the cab and opened my door. As he always has done. He asked the driver to wait a few moments so he could walk me to the door. He needn’t have worried about my safety, Roman was on duty, but Ben has always walked me to my door. He hugged me.
“I missed you,” he said. “Please don’t go off navel-gazing again. My life deteriorates.”
I smiled into his shirt. That cottony smell I knew so well. “Didn’t you get the postcard of my long deserted beach?”
“You put a cross under a palm tree and wrote, ‘Send more supplies’—three words, Tessa King, three words in a month. Not impressed.”
“But funny.”
“Always that.” He kissed me on the lips. “Night, gorgeous,” he said.
“Night, Ben.” The door closed. I turned and walked to the lift, feeling an early comedown. Suddenly I remembered the Channel 4 party. I turned back. Ben was walking slowly to the cab. I yanked open the door.
“Hey, piss-head, you going to the launch of Neil’s new comedy series?”
He turned around. A deep frown fading as he did so. “The party? Wasn’t going to, but if you are…”
I nodded. “Helen has asked me. I think she wants someone to hold her hand. You know what Neil can be like.”
“Great, let’s make a night of it,” he said, now smiling. “I’ll see you there.”
I kept on nodding. “Will do. And Ben, thanks for my welcome-home party.”
He put his hand to his heart, bowed his head and climbed into the cab. My second walk to the lift wasn’t so gloomy. I went to bed happy.
The next day I walked into Sticky Fingers restaurant on High Street Kensington at one o’clock. There was Caspar, slouched low in his chair, but present and correct. I felt the iPod box in my bag, glad that I’d had faith enough to wrap it. Sixteen is a big age for a boy. I think it marks the birth of a man. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes for all the banoffi pie in the world.
There was another boy sitting next to him, taller and slimmer than Caspar. His name was Zac. He stood to shake my hand. His jeans hung so low I could see his boxers. I wanted to yank them up and tuck in his shirt. Shit, I was getting old. Caspar, on the other hand, mumbled something that could have been anything from a greeting to a veiled mafia death threat. I winked at Francesca to stop her laying into her son. I didn’t think that would help matters. Caspar’s two sisters, Poppy and Katie, were there, sucking on milkshakes that were bigger than them, and Nick and Francesca, and Nick’s unmarried brother Paul, whom I liked but didn’t fancy. This set-up has been going on for fourteen years; luckily, Paul and I have been in cahoots since the third attempt, so, it doesn’t matter. To us, anyway. I think Francesca and Nick are still holding out, though.
“Would you like a glass of wine, Miss King?” said a sultry male voice to my right. “Or a Bloody Mary?”
“Please call me Tessa. In my head I’m your age; try to remember that when you talk to me.”
He smiled. “Coca-Cola, then?”
I smiled back. “Perhaps not that young.”
Zac leaned closer to me, his leg touched mine. “You’re as young as the person you feel,” he said quietly.
Surely I had heard that wrong. This boy, this child, was flirting with me? I looked at him again; he lowered his eyelashes coyly. Well, I never…Was I set to become the Joan Collins of my friends? I saw an image of myself in a few years’ time: convertible car, a jewelry-wearing, snake-hipped youth lounging in the passenger seat who looked uncannily like a young Robert Downey Jr. (he often pops up in my fantasies). I was beginning to enjoy the scene playing out in my head until I took a closer look and saw that the young stud in my passenger seat was filling out his college application. I quickly ordered a medium-rare cheeseburger with chips and onion rings and, as a nod to health, some coleslaw. But firstly, a bottle of Mexican beer with a lime in the top. Bliss. I was in a good mood. If there were family tensions, I bulldozed my way through them, resolutely cheerful.
“I’m glad you got my message,” I said, smiling, to Caspar while the rest of the table busied itself with a milkshake spill. Then I lowered my tone and leaned closer. “But perhaps you didn’t read the subtext. Turning up was one thing, but a smile clinches the deal. And while we’re on the subject, I’m adding another clause. Sit up straight right now or I’ll return the iPod and buy myself the pair of shoes which your birthday gift just barely beat out.” It is what my mother did with me when I was a baby, apparently. She said it was all in the tone. Tone and expression, the words didn’t mean a thing. It must have worked with Caspar because for a moment he looked afraid and sat up. Francesca looked over just as I moved away and her son joined his party.
As far as conversation went, it felt like I was in sole charge of the ball. I dribbled and sashayed, passed and quickly retrieved, but if I dropped the ball, the table went quiet again. By the end of lunch I was exhausted. The monkey was all performed out. The only reward for my dazzling verbal dexterity was the attention I received from Zac, who, it turned out, was unquestionably flirting with me—terrifyingly successfully, at that. He was good with Francesca too, polite and charming, but always deferring to Nick. But I had no Nick to defer to, so he could let rip on me. The sly innuendoes were always delivered solely in my earshot, the personal questions disguised as polite conversation—it was impressive, to say the least. I thought it best to return to “batty aunt”–style conversation before I crossed a line, so I put a questionnaire to the table, hoping that the family bond I knew so well would return.
“To the table, in no particular order: who was the last person you kissed?” I looked at Nick.
He turned to Francesca and kissed her on the mouth. “My wife,” he said.
“Quick thinking,” I replied.
“Caspar?”
“This is a stupid game.”
“Oh dear, I don’t think Caspar has kissed anyone,” said Nick.
The girls giggled. I pointed at the youngest. “Snoopy,” Poppy replied, without a moment’s hesitation.
“Francesca?”
“The gardener, but don’t tell Nick.”
“We haven’t got a gardener,” said Poppy.
“Dad is the gardener,” said her elder sister. “Derr.”
“Zac?”
“In real life, or in my imagination?”
I had a horrible feeling I was blushing. “Real life.”
“Jen Packer.”
Caspar sat up. “You said you hadn’t.”
Zac shrugged. “What can I do, mate? She threw herself at me.”
“Paul?” I asked quickly. “What about you?”
He took a deep breath. We waited. “Gary.”
Nick and Francesca swung round to face him. Paul shrugged. There was a nervous silence.
“Ice cream anybody?” I asked and winked at Paul.
As we walked down High Street Kensington, Zac caught up with me. “You didn’t answer your own question.” Although only sixteen years old, he was taller than me, and I’m not short. His legs were so long and his jeans hung loose over jutting hipbones. I had a crazy desire to clench his belt hooks between my teeth and rip the jeans off. I couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say. So I said nothing.
“I know who I’d like it to be.”
“And who would that be?” I asked before I got control of my tongue.
“I think you know, Mizz King.”
The laughter exploded out of me. “Sorry,” I said, and held my breath. It didn’t help. The laughter erupted again. I couldn’t speak. He looked so crestfallen, but I had terrible schoolgirl giggles and they would not stop. I tried to apologize, but the earnest look on the boy’s face kept returning to me, the lick of his lips. I imagined him practicing in front of the mirror in the privacy of his own home, working on his lines, his long, languid looks, and the laughter would not stop. I tried to take his arm to offer some sort of physical apology, but he shook it off. I was in trouble now, and that made it even funnier. Just when I thought I’d got control of myself, the explosion came again, sending spittle flying into the pedestrian in front of me. Zac stopped walking. I continued, absorbed in my own mirth. Perhaps that was why I never had a boyfriend when I was that age. Perhaps that was the reason I still didn’t. I guffawed all the way home, intermittently over the afternoon and many times in front of the mirror as I got ready to go out that night.
I opened a bottle of wine and treated myself to a long bath. Every person needs a constant in their lives, this was mine: lying in hot, oily water with wine.
I rang Billy. “Hey, Billy, it’s me.”
“At last. How are you? When am I going to see you? Was it great?”
“Seems like years ago already. What about one evening next week? Are you busy?”
“Ha, ha.”
Billy was a single mother with no money to go out with and even less inclination. I should have known.
“I’ve got a movie out if you want to come over tonight?” asked Billy.
“Thanks but I’m…”
“Course you are, being stupid. Um…” Billy paused. “So, was it great?”
“You could come if you want, tonight?”
“Thanks but I can’t. Madga is out, so…But have a good time.”
I knew the answer would be no. It always is. Probably a good thing in this case since I didn’t think Billy and Samira were a good mix. Billy wasn’t robust enough for the likes of Samira and, if I was being truly honest with myself, I didn’t feel like carrying Billy that night. I had a hard enough time holding my own against Samira’s exceedingly forceful gravitational pull.
“How’s my baby girl?” I asked.
“Wonderful.” Billy’s voice softened as it always did when she was talking about her child. We chatted about Cora, how school was, her health, her latest favorite teacher.
“I’m sorry,” said Billy. “This is boring. You’ve got a party to go to.”
“Nonsense,” I replied in jest. “Knowing this stuff makes me feel part of the human race.” I didn’t realize the accidental truth of my words. “But I am beginning to wrinkle, which will not help my ever-diminishing ability to pull.”
“You’re gorgeous—stop it.”
“I’ll see you next week.”
“Love to. Bye, Tessa. Thank you so much for calling.”
I made a real effort with my clothes and make-up for one reason and one reason only: I imagined there was a slim chance Sebastian would be at the party. One friend of Samira’s was likely to know another, right? The hair was straight, the boobs were out, the legs were on show. Normally I don’t do legs and boobs, it’s a little over the top and I’m the wrong side of thirty-five, but I was feeling daring. No, not daring. Hopeful. I would not use the word desperate. Earlier in the week, I had sat in front of my laptop and flicked at Sebastian’s card. The one he gave me before we shagged. The one he probably wouldn’t have given me after we shagged. But I wasn’t thinking like that. I was hopeful. He’d reawakened my taste for lust. Fuel for the soul, which I feared I would never have an appetite for again.
I don’t want to go over and over what happened with my boss. I’m bored of it. But there were times when I thought I was wholly responsible, just for being the way I was. It was noted that I had been out to drinks with him. I had, that was true, but only ever with the rest of our department. It was said that I sometimes dressed provocatively in the office. Every working girl has an outfit that transforms itself into evening attire. The hours I kept didn’t make room for time to go home and change. With a different top and fabulous shoes I often tottered out of the ladies to meet friends. I knew I had not done anything to lead the man on, but sometimes I doubted myself.
In the fallout of the whole debacle, there was rage. Pity. Sadness. Guilt. Disbelief. Meeting anyone during that time was not going to be successful because I wouldn’t have let it. But then that thing with Sebastian had happened. And now my taste buds were alive again, I wanted more. One sweet wasn’t enough. I wanted the whole damn factory. I had “recovered” so well that I could even see the fuzzy outline of a fairy-tale ending to a story that hadn’t yet made it to print.
Eventually I had succumbed and typed in his email address and started writing a jaunty “don’t worry I’m not crackers, I’m a perfectly well-adjusted, independent (but not aggressively so) woman.” It didn’t work. Even the “Hi” looked suspicious. I deleted it and threw the card in the bin. It was not a particularly rash act as I knew I could get his number from Samira at any time. But perhaps I wouldn’t have to. Perhaps he’d see me, looking fabulous, at the party, come marching up to me and tell me he couldn’t get me out of his mind, and how did I feel about the suburbs, since his salary wouldn’t be able to buy a place big enough for the kids…
The taxi pulled up outside the address given to me by Samira. I glanced up at the illuminated five-storey house in Belgravia, and wondered if the driver had got it right. Excited, I opened up my wallet to pay when I remembered I had completely forgotten to get cash out. It didn’t matter. I always had a £50 note stashed away for emergencies. And for times when I forget to go to the ATM. It had been there for ages. I looked but the fifty quid wasn’t there. I checked again in case I’d missed it the first time, but it was not there. Was I going mad? Had I spent it and forgotten?
I offered the driver a card; he told me his machine was broken, and drove around for another £3.80, locating a machine. The red lights on the way back put on another couple of quid, and when I paid I noticed that the light on the card machine was on. I think someone was taking the piss. Did I complain? Make a fuss? No. I handed over the fee, and because I am an idiot who wants to be liked, I tipped him too. As the taxi pulled off I wanted to run after it and demand my hard-earned money back, but, as if by magic, all the lights went green, and anyway, I was in heels. I had hoped that India would stop these silly setbacks affecting me so; that I would see them for the city-life trifles they were and not take them as proof that the world was conspiring against me. But watching the tail lights fade into the night, like watching Helen being pulled back home by her loving husband, just made me feel alone.
I walked into an amazing house, which promised to hold an amazing party, but saw nothing except that Sebastian was not there. All the glitter of potential faded. The party spirit in me vanished. I had to admit to myself then, my first night home had not been a blip: all that brown rice had counted for nothing. No amount of downward dogs was going to change how I felt. All the immaculate miniature food and vats of champagne weren’t enough any more. A tall, dark, handsome (young) waiter approached me with a frosted glass of champagne. I took it. It was delicious. Well, maybe champagne would have to do for the time being, I thought, taking another large sip.
Despite my initial grouchiness, it turned out to be a fun party. There were people there I hadn’t seen for a long time who were from different aspects of my life. Old colleagues. People from college. Even an old boyfriend, which was satisfying, because I knew I was looking good, and I could tell he thought so. When he later asked me why we’d split up, I caught myself putting an imaginary red line through that chapter and scrawling “Finished business” on it. What he’d done many moons ago was tell me over a pint that he didn’t fancy me. He liked me a lot, he had insisted, just didn’t fancy me. That was no longer the case. I made my excuses and moved towards Samira. I looked better now than I had when I was twenty. Perhaps that was something to celebrate. More champagne, please.
We were flying when we left the house in Belgravia. There was a plan to go to a private members bar in Soho. There was a nice-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair who asked if he could come in the same taxi as Samira and me. He was on his own. Then two silly girls made a fuss about being split up and wanted him to go in another. He looked so sad standing on the pavement that I got out too and said I’d wait with him for another taxi, at which point someone else shouted there was a space in another cab and pulled me in. So salt-and-pepper man had to get back in my original cab. It all happened in a matter of minutes. But it is quite crucial for later, so I am giving disproportionate amount of attention to that merry little taxi dance.
Salt-and-pepper man was waiting in the medley of people outside a nondescript door. Apparently, there was a private party on and even the private members couldn’t get in. We would have to cross Soho to go elsewhere. Remember—I was in pretty impressive shoes. Walking was not pleasurable. I was beginning to wonder whether gallivanting around town was a good idea. I’d had a great night, it was late. Did I really have to go on somewhere? I certainly didn’t need another drink. But the wavering ended when salt-and-pepper man offered me his arm. Of course I needed another drink. I am a weak, weak woman.
Halfway across Piccadilly Circus, my evening took a dramatic turn. We’d actually been discussing the sorry state of modern life which saw kids, boys and girls no older than sixteen, sleeping rough. There was a scary-looking posse of hooded lads sitting around the base of the Statue of Eros. The boys carried cans of lager, the girls sucked on bottles of Bacardi Breezer. And over them all hung a pall of dope. That’s when I saw Caspar. A can of Red Stripe in one hand. A spliff in the other. Suddenly nomenclature didn’t matter so much as that it was in Caspar’s hand, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
I stopped walking and swore quietly beneath my breath.
“What is it?” asked salt-and-pepper man, looking concerned.
“That’s my godson over there, and I am pretty sure he’s not supposed to be.” Caspar was easy to pick out because of what he wasn’t doing. He wasn’t chewing some girl’s face off with his hand up her skirt. He wasn’t crashed out on the ground. He wasn’t in any leery group of tracksuited boys challenging tourists to fights. He was sitting on his own, looking glazed, taking intermittent swigs of lager and long tokes of spliff. It didn’t look right to me.
“I’ll catch you up,” I said, pulling my arm away and heading into the throng.
I sat down on the cold stone. He didn’t respond until I spoke.
“Happy birthday, Caspar.”
He jumped, scrambled to his feet and threw away the nearly burnt-out spliff.
“Settle down, I’m not the police.”
“What are you doing here? Did Mum send you?”
“Charming! Do I look like I’d go trawling the streets for wayward teenagers in these shoes? Have a little fashion respect.”
He stared at me nonplussed, swaying gently, like a poplar tree in the summer breeze.
“I’m with friends,” I explained slowly. “In fact, there’s a bloke with salt-and-pepper hair who seems quite nice, so please don’t puke up on me, it may put him off.”
He tried to fight it, but the smile escaped.
“Then again, I’ve probably had enough. Maybe it’s time to go home. Do you want to come with me?”
He shook his head.
“You’d be doing me a favor. I’ve promised myself no more one-night stands. You’d be a perfect contraception.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“What?” I eyed the nearest couple to us; they were getting steamy right there on the pavement. “Am I too old to have sex?”
“Shut up, Tessa.”
“Don’t speak to your elders like that.”
He laughed at the hypocrisy of my statement. I was pleased. I wanted him on my side. I wanted the amusing, clever little boy back, the one that took the piss out of me and got away with it.
“Sure you won’t come with me?”
“Sure.”
“Where are your mates?”
“Around,” he said, getting defensive again.
“Do Francesca and Nick know where you are?”
He shrugged. I didn’t want to lose what ground I’d won, so I passed him my card with my mobile number on it, and held my nagging tongue.
“Don’t tear that up for roaches,” I said as he slipped it into his back pocket. “And don’t give it to Zac either.”
Caspar smiled again. I had obviously scored highly with Caspar for not falling for Zac’s charms. Having a very good-looking friend can be difficult and I wondered if that was the cause of his moodiness. Caspar had a sweet face, but he wasn’t very tall, and he had curly hair. He was more cherub than sex-god, but I knew his looks would catch up with him again, and he’d be fine in the end. His father was the same, and now he was a very handsome man. But I don’t suppose that mattered to Caspar; what mattered was now. What mattered was that Zac was probably somewhere surrounded by girls and Caspar was sitting here all alone.
“Have you got money to get home?”
“No,” he said straightaway. I opened my wallet. That was when I remembered the missing £50 note and the day I’d asked Caspar to watch my bag, but I put the unbelievable thought aside and handed him a twenty. He practically snatched it out of my hand.
“That ain’t a gift, boyo. You have to clean my car for that. Inside and out. Twice.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled. And I knew I’d lost him again.
I found the club eventually, but not salt-and-pepper man. Every time I was about to leave, someone brought me another drink. And just another fifteen minutes turned into another hour. I finally found salt-and-pepper man but the way the group had gathered it was difficult to get near him. It didn’t matter; I was having a grand time without him, but it was nice to occasionally catch his eye and share a smile.
I was having a nice little fantasy about him when he appeared before me and asked me to dance. I must have been really pissed, because I thought that was a great idea. To the dance floor we went where some pretty steamy dirty dancing followed. He was very tall and nimble and could do all those spinning around moves that only work if you’re a professional or drunk enough to go floppy. I fell into the second category. God only knows how I managed to stay upright. At one point I remember walking backwards over the dance floor, beckoning salt-and-pepper man to follow me. I’m not sure who I thought I was—but I fear it might have been Cyndi Lauper. Even so, it was fun and when I wasn’t pouting suggestively, I was grinning like an Olympian.
Only trouble was, I didn’t know his name and was too embarrassed to ask. He somehow knew mine, which made it worse, and made reference to a time we’d met before. I had no recollection of this whatsoever, but because I’d pretended to remember, I was now buggered. My one piece of luck was that he knew Neil, so I stopped asking investigative questions, hoping I could get the low-down on him through Helen. Perfect. Back to dirty dancing.
Eventually we ran out of fuel, and sort of fell into a slow dance that I would not normally do, but it was dark, and I didn’t think anyone was watching, and actually it was nice. I knew a second before it happened that he was going to kiss me. I wasn’t going to stop it. Unfortunately the Lord had other plans.
“Tessa! Your phone is ringing off the hook, do you want me to answer it?”
Samira was standing on the edge of the dance floor, holding my phone.
“Honestly, it’s rung four times in the last few minutes. Whoever is ringing isn’t leaving a message, they’re just trying again and again.”
It was three o’clock in the morning; phones don’t ring off the hook for any good reason. I pulled away from salt-and-pepper man. It was Caspar’s number.
“Caspar? Are you all right?”
“Tessa?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Zac.”
Dear God. “Isn’t it a little past your bedtime?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I thought someone ought to know that Caspar is puking his guts up, but fuck it, I was just trying to help.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh, so now you want to talk to me?”
Children. These boys were children and men were babies. I was rapidly going off the idea of conjoining myself to one.
“Where are you?”
“Corner of Wardour Street and Old Compton Street, there’s a club, we’re going in.”
“Don’t leave him, I’m coming now.”
“I’m not fucking babysitting him again.”
Again? “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s your friend. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“He’s covered in puke.”
“Just stay with him.”
“Whatever.”
Bloody idiot. Salt-and-pepper man found me at the coat check. I rapidly explained the situation and ran.
I decided against calling Nick and Francesca as I assumed some cover-up story had already been concocted. I’m staying with mates, my mates are staying with me; the sort of thing parents fall for again and again. So there was no need to alarm them in the middle of the night. But I was alarmed. I should have made him come with me. Sixteen years old for all of one day, and I had left him alone, already under the influence, in Piccadilly Circus. Easy pickings. I knew in my heart how he’d gone from stoned to passed out and covered in puke. My twenty-quid note. Why had I given him that? He was never going to use it on a cab. The sly little toad probably had a bus pass anyway. I had given him that note because I wanted to be popular. For the first time in my life I understood why my mother said parents had to be prepared to be hated by their children. I felt guilty as I ran through the deserted streets of London. Guilty as a parent. It was not a comfortable feeling.
I was angry with myself and right up until the moment I saw him, furious with Caspar. Soporific, he’d collapsed into a dark, dank, urine-stained corner. He was drunk and stoned, that was obvious; he was also alone. Zac was nowhere to be seen. Then I noticed the female officer. She was standing some way off from Caspar, but she was looking at him and talking into the radio on her shoulder. I ran, in those bloody heels, I ran.
“Hello? Hello?”
She turned to me.
“He’s mine. I’m so sorry. I’m taking him home.”
She looked at me. “How exactly? He’s passed out.”
Shit.
“Taxi?”
“As long as he doesn’t get hypothermia before you find one that will take you.”
I looked at Caspar. She had a point.
“Is he all right?”
“He’s been very sick, so I shouldn’t think pumping his stomach will help.”
Oh hell. “What shall I do?”
“Well, you can’t leave him here. Frankly, he looks a little too young to be here in the first place. Did you know he was here?”
“He turned sixteen today, yesterday.”
“Sixteen?”
I knew immediately I’d said the wrong thing. He could have sex, he couldn’t drink. Was she going to arrest him now?
“He must have got his hands on some beer from home…”
“And where were you?” She didn’t have to wait for an answer, she just looked at my get-up. I was about to protest but then I realized if I did, she wouldn’t let me take him home, so I took the disapproving looks and the sanctimonious tone.
“Do you have someone who can come and get you?”
She was just punishing me now. Would I be staggering around Soho in killer heels in the freezing cold wearing next to nothing if I had someone to come and get me! No. I’d have been in bed since eleven with a good book and maybe, if I was lucky, I would have had easy, uncomplicated sex before switching off the light. I would have had someone to hold me in the dark and chat until sleep took hold of me. I would have woken to find a cup of tea on my bedside table—
“Are you all right, madam?”
I snapped out of my reverie.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. I’ll cope. I do that. I called the taxi firm I used to use with work. I still knew the account number which meant they couldn’t refuse. I knelt down in front of Caspar and tried to get his head up off his knees.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said the WPC, a fraction too late. The movement set Caspar’s retching off; he vomited all down my front. He didn’t even have the politeness to apologize. He didn’t even open his eyes. That alarmed me more than the stinking streak of his stomach’s contents on my dress.
“Is he unconscious?” I asked.
I think that was when the audience’s sympathy turned in my favor. The officer checked him over for me. His eyes didn’t respond when we shone a torch in them. He was catatonic. A dead weight. She helped me lower him on to the ground, then put him in the recovery position. People stared at us as they walked past. The jeering would have been worse if it had not been for the presence of the policewoman.
“I could call an ambulance,” she said.
“An ambulance? I wouldn’t want to take up their time.”
“He might have taken something.”
“Taken?”
“You could search his pockets.”
I must have looked terrified because she became much more reassuring. “Let’s ignore the legal side of this for a moment. And worry about his health.”
I thought for a second and then decided to take the woman at her word. She’d know more about this than any parent. She must have seen kids in this state all the time.
“We’ve been having a bit of a problem with cannabis recently.” The imaginary “we.”
“Do you know how much?”
I shook my head.
“Is he experimenting with anything else?”
“Like?”
“Amphetamines, cocaine…”
“He doesn’t have access to that sort of money,” I said, then swore loudly.
“What?”
“I don’t believe it.” I looked at Caspar, my sweet, cherubic boy, lying in his own vomit and other people’s urine. “The little bastard stole fifty quid off me.” I went through his pockets at that point and quickly found the tin I’d seen during his sister’s birthday party. I’d been fooled by the beanbag, the teen posters on the wall, the remnants of childhood on the shelves, but here, against the backdrop of cold, hard cement, the tin didn’t look quite so innocuous as it had before. I opened it up. It was nearly empty, but the accoutrements were all present and correct. Rizla papers. Torn cardboard. A pouch of tobacco. And a smattering of grass. The policewoman took it from me. She sniffed the tin.
“Skunk,” she said. “I think you need to talk to your son.”
My son…My son…I couldn’t tell her now.
“This is a very high-strength variant of cannabis which could be responsible for the increase in psychotic episodes among adolescents. The anecdotal evidence is fairly damning. It’s expensive too, which may explain the fifty quid.”
“Psychotic episodes?”
“Have you noticed any changes in his behavior?”
Francesca had. “I thought it was just puberty.”
“It could be. But skunk is a bad sign. I think that statistics are something like of all the children referred to doctors with mental problems, 85 per cent of them are smoking skunk.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“The government is considering a rethink.”
“I read about it, but didn’t think it related to me.”
“No one ever does.”
She was right, of course. It wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed the change in Caspar, but that I had chosen to ignore it. Francesca and Nick were having an impossible time with him and I had disregarded them both. Some godmother I was. Caspar started retching again. This time nothing came out.
“Keep him in the recovery position so he doesn’t swallow his tongue,” said the policewoman.
Nice.
Finally the cab arrived. It took all my legal powers of persuasion to cajole the driver into accepting the fare. It took the three of us to get Caspar into the taxi and lie him down, on his side, on the floor. That was when I saw the small rectangle of folded paper peeking out from his back pocket. I looked at the policewoman; she’d seen it too. I bent down and pulled it out. I passed it straight to her.
“Are we still forgetting the legality of things?”
She didn’t answer. I didn’t blame her. I’d already asked enough of her. We watched as she unwrapped the paper. She shone her torch on its contents, put her finger in it and rubbed it between her fingers. I saw the white powder and felt my heart break. Grass was one thing, even strong grass which turned children into schizophrenics, but this—this was worse.
“Looks like I won’t be taking you home after all,” said the cab driver.
“Yes, you will,” said the policewoman.
“He will?”
She held open the packet.
“Talcum powder,” she said.
“Damn,” said the driver, under his breath.
I peered at it more closely. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. The young ones often get duped like this.”
“Thank God,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be too relieved,” she said, holding open the taxi door. “Your son didn’t set out to buy talcum powder this evening.”
Roman had seen me come and go in many states with numerous people, but until now he hadn’t seen me drag my prey across the lobby floor. The taxi driver had taken his enormous tip and scarpered.
“Good grief, who is this?” asked Roman, taking an arm.
“My godson.”
“Young Caspar? No!”
Yes, my doorman knew the name of my godchildren. At the time I thought there was nothing wrong in that.
“He turned sixteen today.”
“Well, he’s learned now. Yes?” Roman nodded encouragingly. I was not encouraged.
Roman helped me get Caspar all the way to my bedroom, then left me. I stripped him and lay him on an old towel on my bed. He’d soiled himself and was sick again. I cleaned him up, wiped his bum, squeezed his nostrils free of debris, wrapped him in a clean white towel and put him back in the fetal position to await the next projectile vomit, terrified he would choke or swallow his own tongue. I was up all night. As dawn broke I felt as though I’d given birth to a teenager.