Getting Over It (20 page)

Tom starts cracking eggs into a bowl. Tom has already been to the new Conran restaurant, which irks Marcus. He says rudely, “But you’re a vet!”

My jaw drops. Tom swallows a laugh and says, “I know! Can you believe it! My coat was the glossiest it’s been!” Marcus scowls.

I collapse into a chair. “What time’s your reservation? Shouldn’t you get going?” I say to Michelle.

She glances at her thin gold watch. “No rush,” she says to me, and “Yes, go on!” to my mother. I suppress a sigh. My neck is so tense it aches. By the time Tom starts placing omelettes in front of my mother and Nana, the tension has spread to my shoulders and jaw.

Marcus hovers by the table. “Michelle,” he says tightly, “we ought to set off.”

Michelle sticks out her lower lip and says, “Five seconds, honey! Mrs. Bradshaw’s at a really exciting bit!”

Marcus slumps into the chair next to Tom. I can see Nana gazing at him. “Same height,” she says, “I’ll give her that.”

Marcus smiles an unhappy smile. I grit my teeth. Tom winks at me.

“Ketchup, anyone?” he says.

“Yuck,” sings my mother.

Nana shakes her head, “Not for me, dear.”

Pardon. I don’t wish to be picky, but I, her granddaughter, am rarely accorded the courtesy of being addressed by name, whereas Tom, a man she didn’t know existed until an hour ago, is “dear”? “Helen,” says Tom, “ketchup?” I shake my head.

“Just me, then,” he says cheerfully. He holds the bottle upside down, gives it a hefty whack on its bottom, and a large red gloop shoots through the air and lands
splat!
on Marcus’s yellow shirt.

“I am sorry,” says Tom happily, as Marcus leaps up with a bellow of dismay. “Can’t take me anywhere.”

I clamp a hand over my mouth and swallow a bit of omelette faster than I meant to. Michelle’s mouth is a perfect scarlet O of dismay. My mother and grandmother gaze mesmerized at Marcus, as he shouts “You idiot!” at Tom. Michelle escorts him to the bedroom to change. “We are going to be so late!” she spits at Tom on her way out.

Nana Flo pats Tom’s hand—don’t tell me she fancies her chances, too! “My word, what a fuss about nothing!” she snaps.

I grin weakly at Tom. Much as his ketchup trick makes me want to hug him, I feel unable to rise from my chair. Because at the moment Marcus’s mouth and eyes thinned in anger, a sickening jolt of perception hit. Why, how, didn’t I see it before? It’s undeniable. Not so much the features as the posture, the temperament, the volatility. My father, the very image.

I run to the toilet and throw up the omelette. I’ve only eaten two bites, but I can’t stop retching.

Chapter 27

L
IZZY ENDEARS HERSELF
to me in many ways, but the sweetest thing she ever did (in my opinion) was to fall asleep bang in the middle of a romantic evening with her then boyfriend—before any actual banging had occurred. She’d just returned from a family holiday in France and the poor man was desperate to welcome her home in, as he termed it, “traditional fashion.”

“He was so sulky about it. It was the final straw,” she says. But I was impressed that Lizzy was so relaxed about the prospect of sex that she could conk out before her darling had even stripped off. I’m usually so thrilled to be considered, I’m a human martini—anytime, anywhere. Or is that a Bounty bar?

Anyhow, soon after I spew up my omelette, Michelle and Marcus vroom off in the RAV4 for a showcase meal, and my mother and Nana Flo depart in the Peugeot to catch a Clint Eastwood film on Channel Five. Before she leaves, my mother tells me, “You needn’t bother coming round tomorrow, I’m going shopping with Vivvy!” and my grandmother wags her finger at me and says, “You’re overexcited! You need an early night.” I nod and say, “Okay, Mum,” and “Yes, Nana.” When they’ve gone, I lean against the door and shudder at Tom. And the turncoat says, “I’m with Nana Flo!” What is this, a conspiracy?

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I lie. I’ve got to be fine. Tonight, I am blearily certain, we’re seeing some action! I should clean my teeth and floss. Tom suggests I lie on the sofa for a few minutes while he stacks the dishwasher.

“All right,” I say, “but only as a favor.”

I wake up four hours later when he carries me to bed.

Never in my life did I imagine that exhaustion would overpower my libido. I feel drugged. I can’t even move a leg. “Stay,” I murmur sleepily, as Tom lowers me on to the bed.

“Here?” he whispers.

“Mm,” I breathe. I lie unfetchingly limp as Tom wrestles off my boots. A dilute fear washes over me—what if he sniffs them?—but I’m too comatose to care.

He leans close and whispers, “Can I undress you?”

I reply—and I swear I wouldn’t have said this had I been conscious—“Yeah.” Which is how I wake up on Sunday morning at 10:22 starkers and squashed right up against Tom’s naked—I’ll say that again, N-A-K-E-D—chest.

My eyes ping open and I marvel at him sleeping. His hair is even more tousled than normal and his cheeks are flushed and he is breathing deeply. Broad shoulders. I lift the duvet a little to inspect his chest and, whew, I’ve seen worse. Not too muscled but defined, solid. Nice nips. And not scarily hairy like Marcus. I wonder if he’s naked all the way down. I also wonder if it would be possible to sneak into the bathroom—which would entail clambering over him knickered but otherwise nude—and brush my teeth. I run my tongue over them. They feel like suede. Should I chance it?

I glance at Tom to check he’s still asleep and he snorts gently through his nose, so I reckon it’s safe and I am lifting the duvet higher so I can peer lower when a hand shoots out and grabs mine and he shouts “Gotcha!” and I scream. He grabs my other hand and rolls on top of me—at this point I realize he’s wearing boxer shorts—and pins me to the bed. “So!” he says, blue eyes boring into mine. “Thought you’d sneak a preview!”

I am writhing and squealing—part shock, part horror—not least because my own chest is on full wobbly view and we haven’t even slept together yet. In the rude sense, I mean. This is wrong! I envisaged a slow tantalizing striptease, my prize lace Wonder-bra teasingly unpeeled, his trembling hands caressing my skin, me unbuttoning his shirt to reveal his beautifully toned torso, his taut sinewy biceps, slowly undoing his belt buckle, feeling his, ah, arousal bulging beneath his Calvin Kleins (pref, gray cotton, unfussy). Damn and damn again.

“Do you mind!” I shout primly, trying to obscure my breasts with my shoulders (don’t bother trying—it’s physically impossible). “I need to brush my teeth. They’re filthy!”

Tom laughs and murmurs, “But I like filthy,” and he bends and brushes his lips to my left nipple and a great whopping thud of desire whips through me and I arch against him and we’re kissing and I say, “Woof!” to excuse my dog breath and he says, “Helen, you’re fucking gorgeous, god, you’re sexy,” and I think,
Me. Are you talking to me? I don’t see anybody else around here… .

And you know what, I do feel sexy, very sexy, the sexiest woman in the room, and suddenly I’m grabbing at him and kissing and sucking and licking and he’s kissing and sucking and licking—I haven’t been so delirious since I discovered that Dime Bars occur in mini form and I’m attacking Tom in the same greedy, passionate, must-have way and he’s grabby and ravenous and all over me, too, and when I pull at his hair and nibble at his neck, he groans and runs his fingers down my back and over my stomach and down, and oh god, that feels promising. “Get these off!” I hear myself saying, and he’s yanking off my black knickers and I’m pulling at his boxers—navy, but would I care if they were orange pantaloons, well, maybe for a second but not—whoa-ho!

And I make no apology for our appalling lack of originality, I say, “Oh god, that’s big!” and he gasps and says, “Oh, Helen! You feel so good!” and it’s wonderful and I hope my father isn’t listening in and Tom and I are so desperate to—as I think I say—“get it in,” his penis boinks against my inner thigh and we snigger and he says “Ow!” and I giggle “Nearly snapped!” and then… Oh. My. God. It feels indescribably delicious and I’m oohing and ahhing fit to burst, and we’re kissing and moving together and we’re so together, I don’t want it to end, and even when I do a loud fanny fart and squirm with embarrassment, he grins and says “Wahey!” and kisses me harder, and I think in all my slapping around and in all my practicing alone (and until Dad died, may I say I was fairly studious) I never thought it could be like this.

So of course I have to ruin it.

I come first. “Ladies first!” jokes Tom, before joining me five seconds later and the soaring rapture drowns in a fierce, inexplicable wave of sorrow. I bite my lip to stop the sobs. Tom flops out like a starfish, one arm flung warmly over my stomach, and says plaintively, “Can we do it again?” I start laughing and say, “It’s like all my bones have been removed!” and he grins and rolls over and kisses the nearest bit of me—my chin—and says, “Gorgeous Helen.”

He looks into my eyes and it’s not the sweep of desire that’s killing me, it’s the—ugh ugh, I hate this word—tenderness of our connection, it’s new and stupefying, it makes me recoil, so raw and exposed like an open wound. Then the weepiness is back with a vengeance, and the tears start falling until they fall out of control and, stupid stupid girl, I’m blubbing and whimpering and wailing like a great big baby and Tom looks horrified and says, “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” and I laugh but I’m still crying. I’m crying so hard my teeth are chattering. He hugs me and rocks me and says, “Tell me, Helen, please tell me what it is.”

Tom shouldn’t have asked, he really shouldn’t. It’s nothing to do with him. But he does and it all pours out. Stuff I didn’t even know was in there. It gushes madly out like sewage out of a burst pipe. And he lets it happen. He just listens while I rant.

“He’s gone he’s not coming back, oh god I can’t believe it and no one understands, I’m so alone I don’t know who I am anymore, who am I in the world and why is it like this, we weren’t even close, I never understood him he hardly knew me, who I was and now it’s too late, too late to make it right and we never talked and I never asked why didn’t you care, I just couldn’t and I don’t know why I feel like this, and no one understands it’s all her, it’s all about her and how she is and she never thinks about me and I thought I was over it, I didn’t cry at the funeral I was numb I felt nothing, so out of place and even Lizzy cried and I couldn’t cry, I didn’t deserve to cry and I failed him and I wasn’t good enough and he died and I never said I loved him and he never said he loved me, he said I was a grinch, oh god I can’t bear it I need him back, and why won’t he come back, I want to see him again I hate him I hate how he makes me feel I feel so bad, adrift, it’s the worst, it’s worse than I ever imagined I’m a fraud I’m so angry, the anger won’t go, how can I feel like this I don’t even know what I should feel and I feel scared I’m so scared, what if Mummy dies too, and Nana she’s on the way out and Tina and Lizzy and Luke and Fatboy and now you, and I’m so scared they will and I can’t say because they won’t understand and oh god I can’t believe it, he’s my dad it’s so not fair I’m so tired I can’t even dream about him, other people dream about dead people and they come back and hug them and smile and say it’s okay and be happy and they love them and they’re in a fucking white room and I can’t even do that, he won’t appear in a single dream he won’t even tell me how he’s doing, it’s all too late it’s so fucking typical, he’s never there for me he’s never been there so why do I miss him, oh god help me it’s all my fault… .”

Beat that for embarrassing.

Chapter 28

I
’M SO MAD AND DISTRAUGHT
, the horror of it doesn’t dawn on me till later. When the words run out, Tom rocks me and hugs me. He doesn’t tell me to shush, he rubs my back and he listens. All he says is, “Helen, don’t you think you’ve got, um, stuff that needs sorting?”

I shake my head because I don’t know. I feel ashamed. “Please pass me my clothes,” I say stiffly. Tom leans down, grabs a baggy shirt lying on the floor, and helps me into it. I am sapped. “Sorry,” I mumble, “I don’t know what happened.”

He replies, “Doesn’t matter. But, Helen, I just, maybe… Lizzy, Tina, me, we’re not going anywhere. And you mustn’t think you’re not good enough. I don’t know what to say—you’re great and”—at this point Tom’s voice becomes fierce—“your dad should have let you know that.”

This is kind of him. Although I’m not sure I appreciate him dissing my father. I feel tired and teary again and I say, “Do you mind if I have a quick nap?” Tom kisses me and then I curl up. Every time I think of what I said, my heart bobs in my chest like a gull on a rough sea. I was nothing with my father and I am nothing without him. What is the point of me? I am not a positive force. What is the point of anything? I want to shrivel up and cease existing. I could cry, but there aren’t enough tears in the world to extinguish this pain. I shrink into the smallest ball that I can and sink into a deadening sleep.

When I wake up, it’s twenty past two and I’m starving. I’ve also got a throbbing headache. The craziness of the day seeps back into my consciousness and I cringe. I can’t begin to think about the sex because I can’t stop thinking about the blathering. I prefer to keep my basest instincts to myself. Deep dark Daddy emotions included. They are personal, too intimate, too infernal to share. How could I let Tom tease them from me? I feel like I’ve vomited up my soul.

I lie still for a long time. The room is empty except for Fatboy, who’s perched on the windowsill. He hears me rustling, says “Prrt!” and trots over. Must want something. I lie flat on my back and stroke Fatboy and think,
Oh, Jesus, what did I say?
I feel woozy, as if I’ve drunk too much wine, and oddly flat. I wonder if Tom has gone, and I half hope he has. But no. I can hear a bark of laughter in the lounge. I tiptoe to the door, open it a crack, and realize he’s talking to Luke. The conversation seems to be about the longest they’ve ever driven their cars with their eyes shut.

Tom managed three seconds before “bottling out.” Luke trumps him with seven. From what I can gather, they were both teenagers at the time, but even so! I pull on some sweat pants tiptoe in, and say “How could you!” They both jump and start bleating “It was the middle of the night” and “There was no one on the road” until I hold up a hand and say crossly, “I don’t want to know. You could have killed someone!”

I can’t bear to look Tom in the eye. As of this morning, he knows me stripped bare in every sense, and it’s too awful to contemplate. So I focus on Luke instead. This is a mistake, because he peers closely at me and says, “Why are your eyes so puffy?”

I snap, “No reason!” To deflect further interrogation, I say, “Is there anything to eat?”

Tom jumps up and says, “Let’s go out and get something!”

I look withering and say, “What, with me like this?”

He lifts a hand, tilts my chin, and says, “But, Miss Bradshaw—you’re beeoootiful!” And then, in a more serious tone, “You are, though.”

I wrinkle my nose and say, “Hang on while I get some shoes and sunglasses.” Ten minutes later (after a detour to the bathroom to try and make myself look less like a gargoyle), I am ready.

“Can I come?” says Luke.

“No,” says Tom meanly. “It’s a boy-girl thing.”

Luke’s eyes saucer. “What!” he says. “You and Helen!”

I’m not sure if I should be impressed or insulted that Tom hasn’t told Luke about balling me. So I joke, “Why are you so surprised, Luke? Is Tom out of my league?”

Luke shakes his head frantically and says, “No, mate—you’re out of his.”

His delightful compliment is tempered by the appellation “mate.” I don’t wish to set feminism back, but I’d rather be called “darlin’.” But I say gallantly, “Luke, that is very sweet of you,” even though I’m tired and hungry and sick of banter. Tom repeats cheerily, “Luke, that is very sweet of you.” Luke gives him the finger. It’s a relief when Tom says, “Ready?”

It’s a freezing winter’s day, but we speed to Golders Green, buy four cream cheese and smoked salmon bagels, and drive to the heath extension. I eat my first bagel in Tom’s rusty old Honda Civic EX. “You don’t have a name for it, do you?” I say suspiciously.

“No, I do bloody well not,” he replies. “It would be like naming your willy!”

I giggle. We discuss our ideal cars. “I’m not really a car person,” I say, “but if I had the money, I think I’d have an S-type Jag. A car with cheekbones. The only thing is, they look a bit claustrophobic.”

Tom says, “So you’re not hard to please or anything?” Tom is fond of Jags, too, but was put off them when his thirty-two-year-old cousin got an XJ8.

“What’s that?” I say.

He says, “You know, the big luxury wood interior sort. He was boasting about the ‘front suspension’ and my sister suddenly said dreamily, ‘Faaa-ther drives a Jaag-uarr’! She’s hilarious like that! She just says things! I love it! My cousin went quiet. I think she ruined the moment for him.”

I giggle and say, “Well, the big sort is for fifty-year-olds really, isn’t it?”

Tom hum-hahs: “Yeah, but it’s still class.”

We fall silent in brief contemplation of the unobtainable. “Which do you think is worse,” I say, “a Honda Civic or a Toyota Corolla?”

Tom shrugs and says, “They’re two rats eating out the same chip bag!” We are snorting with laughter (even though I pat the Honda’s dashboard and say “Poor car!”) as Tom pulls up.

The Heath Extension is a higgledy assortment of green fields plonk in the middle of smart northwest London. I love it because it’s mostly scruffy and overgrown and has a less commercial feel than Hampstead Heath. We walk to a wooden bench, clutching our bagels and discussing our ideal cars. The sky is pale blue with skeins of cloud and our breath fogs in the dry air. There are frozen puddles along the path and I dig my heels into them to crack the ice. We sit on our bench and eat our bagels and watch people walking their dogs—one brown dog makes us laugh by dragging his bottom along the grass while his owner shouts “Brandy!” and pretends not to know him.

“It’s so peaceful.” I sigh.

“Mm,” says Tom with his mouth full of bagel. “Gissa kiss.”

I kiss him chastely on the cheek. “Your nose has gone pink,” I say.

“It’s so cold I can’t feel it,” he replies.

I finish my bagel and he hugs me to him. We look at the view. Pale sky, bare trees, frosty ground, silence. Stillness. I sigh. A boxable moment of happiness. I begin to think that maybe I did need to tell someone about my dad and I am marveling at how easy it is to be with Tom, how undemanding, how effortless, and what a bloody miracle he is in bed, when he spoils it by saying, “Helen, about what you told me about your dad. I know it’s hard for you to talk about your grief, but you were, are, were so sad and I thought that maybe you were punishing yourself—for something that wasn’t your fault and maybe it would help to—”

No no no no no no no. “No, don’t,” I snap, more sharply than I mean to. Tom stops. I hesitate. Then I say, “It’s kind of you but—”

This time Tom interrupts me. His tone is annoyed: “Helen, this isn’t me being charitable, this isn’t some holy po-faced exercise in making myself feel good—it may sound stupid and incredible to you, but I like you and I’d like you to be okay, but I don’t think you’ll ever be anything but miserable if you keep on denying what you feel about your father and how he was and keep pissing around with wankers like Marcus, it’s pointless, why be a martyr, wh—”

I jump up from the bench and shout, “Stop it! Stop it! You don’t know!”

And how the hell does he know about Marcus?! Tom shuts up. He looks thunderous. I take a deep breath, sit down again, and pat his leg. “I’m sorry,” I say. Then I say grumpily, “How did you know about Marcus?”

Tom snaps, “You’d have to be stupid not to.” I chew my lip.

Then I say, “It was ages ago and just once. A mistake. I’m sorry I shouted. Forgive me. I’m fine, I don’t know what got into me—hah!—I mean, I don’t know why I got so upset this morning, or rather, I do know”—and here I whip out my heart for a second and shove it on my sleeve to show the extent of my sincerity—“I got upset because my father died and it’s weird, but it was mainly because, in fact, I’m sure it was because… well, I’m being kicked out and I’ve got nowhere to go. And it’s just another stress on top of everything.”

This, I admit, is a bad habit of mine. I don’t state what I want, bluntly, like Laetitia. I hint. Hinting is not, I know, the bravest way of asking. But at least if you hint and are rejected, the rejection is blurable rather than blistering. Whereas if you ask outright and are refused, the humiliation is as stark as a streaker on a football field. Anyhow, unless Tom is an imbecile, he surely will take the hint and if he likes me as much as he claims, he will sweep to my assistance like a guardian angel and ask me and Fatboy to come and live in his flat. I pause. Tom says nothing. What is he, dumb? Then he says—and do I detect a hint of coldness—“Didn’t your mum say you could live with her until you found somewhere?”

I reply crossly, “Yeah, but you’ve met her—she’s a nightmare! And I’m twenty-six! I can’t live with my mum and my gran, for chrissake!”

I expect Tom to understand but he plays obtuse. He snaps, “It’s better than being homeless. Can’t you look for another place to rent?”

When he says this I lose my temper. “Take me back to the flat!” I shout.

“Fine, if that’s how it’s going to be,” he growls.

We stomp back to the car in silence. All that blarney and he can’t even bail me out when I need him. He knew what I meant. We don’t talk apart from once when Tom blurts out, “If you ask me, it’d do you good to shack up with your mother—you could tell her some of what you told me.”

I roar, “I did not ask you!”

He screeches to a halt outside Marcus’s flat. I jump out, spit “Bye!” and slam the door. Tom clenches his jaw and roars off with as much haughtiness and speed as a Honda Civic EX F-reg can muster. Which, I am spitefully thrilled to note, isn’t much.

I get in, shut the door, shout “Bugger!” and see Marcus storming toward me. He roars, ‘That’s it! That’s it that’s it that’s it!”

I watch his tempestuous approach with detachment. This, I think to myself, is a truly remarkable day. I feel no emotion at all. I scream at the top of my voice (and in this respect I’m my mother’s daughter), “What is it, you great big twittering ninny!”

Marcus’s face turns purple. He bellows, “You dare speak to me like that, you vicious little cow! Your fucking cat brought in a pigeon! A great big frigging pigeon flapping round my kitchen, shitting on the surfaces!”

Even though I loathe Fatboy’s bird-catching habit, I roar, “Don’t you know anything, you big fat fool, a pigeon from a cat is a present! He brought you a present!”

Marcus is screeching so loudly his voice cracks. “It took me two hours to catch it! Two hours! I was meant to be at the gym!”

I yelp, “For what! To make your pecs bigger and your pecker even smaller?” This strikes me as funny and I start laughing.

Marcus shakes a hammy fist in my face and snarls, “I want you out tonight! Do you hear me, tonight! And that fat slug of a cat—because if I catch him, do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to step on his fat orange head and crush it to a pulp!”

I say in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “Hey, big man!” and then, in my normal voice, “Marcus. Guess what. You don’t scare me. You and your threats. Shout as much as you like. You’re powerless. Impotent.”

It’s true and he knows it. He can’t touch me anymore. I march past him. Then I retrieve Fatboy from Luke’s wardrobe—his favorite hiding place, because it’s full of warm, soft, dirty clothes—and carry him to my bedroom. “Angel baby,” I say, “pack your things, we’re moving out!” Fatboy catches sight of himself in the mirror and hisses. I hate to say it, but he’s as thick as a brick. I suspect he’s a warning that I should never have children.

I ring my mother and ask if she minds if I move in tonight. She says, “Oh. Okay. I don’t know where you’ll sleep, though. There’s no bed in the study and Florence is in the guest bedroom.”

I reply, “I can sleep in the lounge on the sofa.”

She pauses. Then she says, “But me and Florence are watching
The Horse Whisperer
.”

I sigh and say, “Well, I won’t go to sleep until you’re finished then, will I?”

Pacified, she replies, “No, good.”

I put down the phone. I rest my head in my hands and think if only my mother had owned a cat, we’d have all been spared a lot of grief.