Can't Live Without (14 page)

***

Later, sitting in traffic on the interminable A5, Paul thought back to Sam’s cool welcome. He was quite right to be protective of his sister. Paul knew it would take a while to prove he was around for good now, but he was determined to make a friend of Sam one day.

Just as he was determined to be the best possible dad to Hannah – and to make up for missing the first eight years of her life. Sharon had seemed genuinely sorry for keeping Hannah a secret, but Paul told her he understood, and he meant it. There was no point dwelling on the past now. They had to move on and think about the future. He had a daughter. A beautiful, clever, special daughter. Paul could hardly believe how much his life had changed over the last few days. Couldn’t believe how only a week ago the most important thing on his mind had been arranging a game of squash.

He laughed to himself, and noticed how the laugh sounded a little hollow. So much for wanting to be a bachelor for ever. So much for never wanting the burden of kids. Even though he hadn’t consciously chosen it, he wouldn’t change the situation for the world now. He had felt such a bond with Hannah, such a connection, that he couldn’t imagine a future without her. His mind was filled with plans – places he could take her, things they could do together, the fun they would have. He was a dad. His whole life had been turned upside down and he was loving every minute of it.

Chapter 12

CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT

American double-door ice-maker fridge-freezer

Kenwood food mixer

Cath Kidston Kitchenalia

Furniture! (Sofa, dining table, chairs, beds, wardrobes …)

Clothes: see sub-list

TV – whatever

Lipsy – computer, Playstation, iPod, clothes…

Carpets for entire house

New bathroom suite and towels
√

Tiling – bathroom and kitchen

Bed linen x 4 – Marks & Spencer

When I look at the list again on my break a few days later, I notice that my objects of desire are getting more and more practical as time goes on. I suppose this was to be expected, but it makes me feel further away from all the things that really mean something to me, those little luxuries that make me sure of my place in the world. But I guess first I will have to find the money for carpets and paint and boring things like sheets and duvets – not to mention pans and plates and tea towels and lampshades and curtains and on and on …

All those things we simply accumulate without realising it throughout our lives. I never realised how much stuff I had until it was all gone. To put the contents of an entire house back together again is a mammoth task, and one I am feeling more and more fazed by every day. As fast as the money comes in – which isn’t fast at all, let’s face it – it goes out again on mere essentials. This is a soul-destroying process.

And then there’s my job at Café Crème. The work’s OK, and the customers aren’t too bad, and the boss isn’t around too often. Gina and I have a laugh, which is something I sorely need at the moment. It’s fun to work with a laid-back woman – she’s restored my faith in female colleagues after too many brushes with Loretta.

But the hours are killing me. I hardly get any time to see Lipsy, who’s becoming more distant every day. And during the little time I do have left, I don’t have the energy for decorating or cleaning.

Joshua seems happy enough to help with the cleaning.

And who is tiling my bathroom? Right now as I stare out the window when I should be typing up rental agreements? Hmm, I have to confess. It’s John Dean.

Don’t judge me too harshly – I’ve already had that particular lecture from Bonnie. The way I figure it is, he owes me big time and I really need someone to do my tiling, so what’s the problem? He’s just a resource I’m using, that’s all. I’m using lots of resources at the moment: Joshua’s organising and cleaning abilities, my mother’s laundry services, my newlywed neighbours’ microwave for those handy little meals-in-a-box I’m reduced to living off, and the painting skills of anyone who offers.

So why not the tiling abilities of my long-ago ex? What could possibly go wrong?

***

I wait out the rest of the afternoon and then escape into the late evening sunshine with the last of the shoppers. Milton Keynes’ shopping centre is a beautiful place as the sun goes down – all sparkling glass and soft blue lighting. I’m at a loose end tonight. No shift at Café Crème, thank the Lord. The decorating is at a bit of an impasse until payday, and Bonnie is playing happy families with Marcus and Cory. Lipsy is probably in the arms of pseudo father figure, Robert, and Paul – well, things haven’t improved much since I cast doubt on Hannah’s paternity. Not to mention my faux pas. Why couldn’t I just leave well alone?

With limited choices – and the option of a night in my house alone with no sofa, TV or food not that attractive – I decide to visit my mother. She will, I expect, be disproportionately overwhelmed by this act of generosity. Not that that’s what
I
think, but she always seems ridiculously pleased when I want to spend time with her. Which is, I must admit, pretty rare.

When I arrive at the house I’m surprised to find it empty. No big shock that my daughter’s not here, just a sad jolt when I realise that every conversation I’ve had with her recently has involved me giving her some kind of lecture and her telling me she hates me and I’ve ruined her life. Such is parenthood. It is a joy to find that Alistair’s out, and I waste no time in ensconcing myself on the squashy sofa with a big bowl of crisps and an EastEnders repeat on the telly.

Mum comes in at half ten.

‘Where’ve you been?’ I ask her, my tone just this side of accusatory.

‘Nowhere!’ she says too quickly, which I think makes her sound guilty but what on earth could my mother have done to be guilty about?

I pat the seat next to me and she perches on it warily.

‘I came round to see you,’ I tell her, waiting for the outburst of gratitude.

‘Did you?’ She fiddles with her handbag, which I’ve only just noticed is still clutched on her lap and not thrown on the stairs as usual.

‘Yes, I did.’ This conversation is getting us nowhere. ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Mum?’ I say, standing.

‘I’ll do it.’

She stands too, and we jostle our way to the kitchen, each protesting that they should make the tea and the other should sit down. In my case it’s because I really want to do something nice for her – she seems a bit stressed, and in my mother this is not a good thing. Spending quickly follows stress, unnecessary items piling up around the house like little trophies from her struggle against the vagaries of disappointment.

In her case I get the feeling she just wants to get me out of the way, so I stay and hover and watch her like a hawk, asking questions one after the other in a constant stream: ‘Are you OK, Mum? Where have you been today, Mum? Why are you acting so weird, Mum?’

It isn’t long before she cracks.

‘I’ve been to see your father, OK!’ she snaps.

‘Well,’ I say, in true face the music fashion, ‘I’d better get off now. Early start tomorrow.’

‘Stella, wait!’ She grabs my arm and we both look at her hand in silence for a few seconds. ‘Please wait a minute. There’s something I have to tell you.’

‘Not listening!’ I don’t actually put my fingers in my ears, but the resemblance to a child is hard even for me to ignore.

‘Oh, for goodness sake, Stella. You’re going to have to talk about it sooner or later. He’s coming out in a few months, he’ll be back here large as life and what will you do then? Ignore us all?’

‘If I have to, yes.’

‘Well, that’s impossible. And I know you won’t do it, if only for Lipsy’s sake.’

Damn it but she’s right. Lipsy loves her granddad; she was more upset than anyone when he went to prison and her behaviour problems started soon after, which is yet another thing I blame him for.

‘So?’ I say, sounding a lot like my own stroppy teenager.

My mother walks across the kitchen and opens her bag. ‘So,’ she says, turning to me again. ‘You have to face up to it. You have to stop hiding and face him. And the only way you can do that, Stella, is by going to see him yourself.’

‘Fat chance!’

‘I just can’t talk to you when you’re like this, I never could. It makes me laugh when you have a go at Lipsy. If only you could see how much she takes after her mother. Here.’ She takes a letter out of her bag, walks back to me and pushes it into my hand. ‘Take this and go home.’

I look at the envelope, and although a small part of me knows exactly what it is, I ask, ‘What is this?’

My mother shakes her head. ‘Just go home, Stella.’

Which is, I could have told her, what I wanted all along.

***

Friday 6
th
July

Things I Can’t Possibly Live Without

My own space; Rob; my diaries; access to the internet – preferably on my own computer; insurance against fire – and water, and whatever else could happen; my grandma; my granddad; a belly button ring…

Lipsy tapped her teeth while she considered her latest diary entry. She’d been rewriting her list weekly, although it had never really changed that much from the first one she’d written. This last item, though – she wasn’t so sure about that. It had been Rosie’s idea. That they should go together to the tattoo shop in Stony Stratford and have matching piercings. It would be a massive laugh, Rosie said.

‘Maybe,’ Lipsy had answered. ‘But not matching. That’s a bit sad, don’t you think?’

Rosie agreed vigorously. ‘Whatever. My mum will go ballistic.’

The thought of mums going ballistic might appeal to her friend, but Lipsy had had enough of maternal warfare recently. And it seemed to never end either – even her mother and her grandma were at each other’s throats when they should be acting like grown-ups and sorting things out properly.

Take last night. Lipsy had been creeping in the door around eleven o’clock – only just past the hour her grandma considered an appropriate time for sixteen-nearly-seventeen year olds to come home, but enough past to warrant the creeping. As she passed the kitchen she heard voices and stopped to listen, thinking it might be Alistair with a girlfriend.

She was disappointed, and then a bit worried, to recognise her mother’s voice. Has she come to have another go about me and Robert? she thought. Dropping her jacket and her bag silently onto the floor and slipping off her shoes (she could always pretend she’d been in for ages if she was caught), Lipsy moved closer until her ear was pressed up against the wooden door.

Her grandma’s voice was raised, which was pretty unusual in itself, and then she distinctly heard her mother say, ‘Oh, get a life, will you?’ Lipsy clapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself from laughing. Her mum sounded like a teenager. But a really uncool one.

‘I have one, madam, unlike some. You’d do better than to look down your nose at me. One day…’ Her grandma’s voice lowered so Lipsy couldn’t make out what she said next, but she could well imagine, having been on the receiving end of similar lectures herself from both of them – but mostly from her mother. She didn’t know whether to feel sorry for her mum or not. That would depend on what they were arguing about.

She held her breath and strained to sort the murmuring into separate words. “Bastard” was one, she heard that distinctly, and “Selfish” was another, but who said what was hard to determine. Then she heard her grandma’s voice clearly again.

‘When he comes out, not if,’ she said, her voice loud but thick with emotion. Sure enough, Lipsy could make out the unmistakeable sounds of crying soon after.

So that was it. They were arguing about her granddad. Again. Lipsy had crept away as quietly as she could. She missed him, and nobody ever talked about him in front of her. It was as if the event – and the man himself – had been wiped out of existence. Even though Lipsy knew her grandma went to visit him once a month, and she thought her uncle Billy had been a couple of times too, she didn’t feel she could ask them about it in case it made them sad.

Nobody had ever asked her if she wanted to go.

Her mother refused to talk about him at all. This was just one of the things Lipsy didn’t understand about her. She’d tried to explain it to Rob one night, not long after they’d met.

‘It’s like just because she wants to forget about something, everybody else has to as well. It’s not fair. Like, she never talks about my dad either. Whenever I ask her anything she just shuts up, goes all thin-mouthed and I have to drop it or else.’ Rob was stroking her head at the time and it felt nice, comforting. She opened up more to him than she did even to Rosie. ‘She won’t tell me anything about my dad,’ she said dreamily as Rob stroked and stroked. ‘And I have a right to know, don’t I?’

‘What does your dad say?’ Rob had asked.

‘He just says they were young. But what kind of answer is that?’

Lipsy shook her head now and turned back to her latest diary entry. The one thing she wanted to write, even more than her list of important stuff, was that she had come on her period and all was well. But unfortunately she couldn’t. This was causing her more and more anxiety every day that passed – an anxiety that she tried to hide but which was gnawing its way up through her belly and into her throat. Soon she’d have to tell Rob. What would he say? Would he blame her and never want to see her again? And what would she do then? Never mind what her mum would say. She didn’t even want to
think
about that.

Chapter 13

Paul hadn’t spent as long choosing what to wear for his drink with Stella as he had the day he’d gone to meet Hannah for the first time. In fact, he hadn’t spent any time at all. If the truth be told, he wasn’t looking forward to the evening as much as he would have a few weeks ago. Things had been so strained between them since the day Stella had made what he could only call a pass at him, despite their mutual assurances that nothing would change.