Gimme More (15 page)

‘Hi, Mrs Emerson,' Alec said, still wearing the lopsided love-me-do grin.

‘Hi,' said Robin, thinking, and who the hell are you? ‘We were eating scrambled eggs in the kitchen.'

‘We? Is Jimmy home?'

‘No. It's Lin …'

‘Lin!' Grace shouted. ‘Lin, Lin, Lin. Alec, come and meet my Auntie Lin.'

Meeting Auntie Lin was an event. Meeting Mother Robin was not, Robin thought, moving a bag out of the way with one foot and following along to the kitchen where she found Lin and Grace doing a short Lindy-hop routine by way of greeting – a couple of spins, a couple of slides. It was something Lin had shown Grace when she was nine and recovering from chicken pox. Lin was fun, fun, fun. Lin Lindy-hopped. No one else's aunt did that.

‘Wow!' said Alec. ‘You guys really
move.'

Robin slid past the dancers and took eggs, bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms out of the fridge. There was a bowl of Grace's favourite king prawns marinating in ginger and garlic on the middle shelf but she wouldn't cook those until she knew whether Alec was a fixture or a fitting. Temporary food till then.

She listened while Lin effortlessly asked all the right questions and provoked Grace into a stream of chatter about her new job, her friends, her shared house. Grace, within minutes, was feeling like the most fascinating creature in the world and showing off. Robin, quietly cooking, hung on every word. Why wasn't it a conversation a mother could have with her daughter? Stories, jokes. No defences. Robin, the cook, was like a beggar at the feast, snacking on leftovers. And grateful. She didn't have to ask any direct questions and watch Grace clam up. She didn't have to feel intrusive and hear the dreadful, ‘Don't worry about it, Mum,' which was supposed to be the all-inclusive answer to each and every question. Thank you Lin, but why do I need you? I should be able to do this for myself.

She sighed and laid plates of food in front of the kids.

‘Thanks, Mrs Emerson,' Alec said, dutifully, hardly daring to take his eyes off Lin and Grace, afraid of missing any sparkle.

And then, ‘Mum, can Alec stay in Jimmy's room for a couple of nights? When's he coming home? Next week? There's a party in Camden Town we want to go to.'

All the questions she should ask, like, ‘Who the hell is Alec? Where's he from? Does he suffer from any communicable diseases?' All those sounded like clunkers and she didn't ask them.

She said, ‘I suppose so,' and watched Grace slip from her chair and run out to show Alec his new quarters.

Lin said, ‘Who the hell is Alec?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Boyfriend?'

‘Don't know.'

‘Hasn't Grace mentioned him before?'

‘Not that I remember. Why?'

‘I don't know,' Lin said. ‘Something's wrong. They don't seem to know each other at all.'

‘Do they have to?' Robin asked. ‘At that age …'

The sisters looked at each other. Two women of the same generation now, Robin thought. Two old broads fretting about the youngsters. She smiled. ‘We'll sort them out. He'll be no match for us.'

‘I should bloody well hope not.' Lin smiled too. ‘Grace seems to be doing all right, doesn't she? You're not worried, are you?'

‘Not really. She's settling in, getting used to real life.'

‘Well, then?'

‘No worries.'

‘Mama's little baby?'

‘Oh, I'll get over it,' Robin said. ‘I just wish she'd tell me more.'

‘Don't be absurd,' Lin said. ‘How much did
you
tell?'

‘A damn sight more than you did.'

‘So will she – you'll see. Give her time. You're the best friend she'll ever have.'

‘Oh Lin,' Robin wailed, ‘I feel so old and impotent.'

‘Well, you're not, kid. It's her. She's big and bouncy and feeling her oats. Making her mother feel like an old mare is part of the thrill.'

‘She must be thrilled to bits,' said Robin.

‘All the same, let's check Alec out, mmm?'

Robin got to her feet and said, ‘I'll go up and be the mother from hell, shall I? Embarrass the shit out of both of'em.'

‘Whoa,' Lin said, catching her hand. ‘I had something a little more oblique in mind. Let's just see if there's anything to embarrass them for.'

‘You're not going to … ?'

‘Leave it to me, Ms Clean,' Lin said, and wandered away to read her mail and go through the phone messages.

Robin, alone in the kitchen, cleared up, rinsing pans and stacking dishes in the washer. She made another pot of tea, but she didn't go back to the attic to drink it. She stayed at the kitchen table. She wanted to be at the hub of the house in case Grace decided to come down and talk. Fat chance, she thought, but you have to make yourself available.

Paralysed at the hub of the house but on the rim of her own life, waiting, watching, listening. Like when the children were small. Or when her mother was going doolally. Always reactive, never active. I'm a counter-puncher. I'm the girl who can't get out on the floor and dance. I have to wait to be asked. Why?

This was the house Jack gave her mother when her father died. This was the house she moved into when her mother began to need care and her man left her. She wore it like a coat against the weather. It represented shelter and defeat – almost as if she'd come into the world unprepared and Jack had lent her his coat. She sat in it, perpetually wondering what would happen next.

At last she heard footsteps on the stairs. But no one came to the kitchen. The front door opened and shut, and then there was silence. Grace? Grace and Alec? Lin?

Once, years ago, when the twin forces of her children and her mother were keeping her prisoner in the house, Lin came to stay. Out of the blue, she turned up with a single bag and camped out in the attic.

‘Why?' Robin asked. ‘Where's Jack?'

‘In the States,' Lin said, answering the second question first, and the first one not at all.

For nearly a week it was as if the doors and windows had been left open. Lin came and went. Sometimes she went alone. Sometimes she took one or both of the children. She even took their barmy mother to buy hats and handbags. She made Robin go to the movies or to visit friends. It could have been a holiday for Robin except that, for the whole time, she felt as if she were
holding her breath. She was in suspense, tied by a skein of silk threads to the phone and the doorbell, waiting.

For what? For Jack to call? For Jack to come? Why? He wasn't going to call
her.
He wasn't going to visit her. It was as if she were waiting on Lin's behalf. Which was a complete waste of her emotional energy because Lin didn't seem to be waiting at all.

It was clear to Robin that something had gone badly wrong between Lin and Jack. But Lin never said what it was. And Robin was afraid.

Lin wasn't waiting, she wasn't afraid. She stepped out and danced. She didn't seem to give a damn if Jack phoned or if he didn't. It was Robin who cared desperately that he didn't. And when at last he did, Lin was out and she didn't ring him back.

Then a long white car arrived at the door and the driver came in with a letter. Lin was out then too. Robin, aching with tension, gave the driver lunch. The letter sat on the table between them like an unexploded bomb.

Lin came home three hours later. She said, ‘Hi, Mr Peters,' to the driver, and took the letter up to the attic. She came down again a few minutes later and said, ‘Thanks, Mr Peters. There's no reply. Would you like another cup of tea?'

Mr Peters declined the tea, but used the phone and then left.

Robin said, ‘What's happening, Lin? I don't understand. Are you breaking up with Jack?'

‘Maybe,' Lin said.

‘Maybe?' Robin asked pathetically. ‘Don't you know? Mr Peters said he had instructions to take you with him.'

‘Instructions,' Lin said. ‘My, my. Look, Robin, do you want me out of your hair? Are there too many people here? Is that the problem? Because I can easily find somewhere else. I can go if you want.'

‘No,' Robin said. ‘It isn't that.' But there she was, wanting Lin to go running to Jack as if her own life, freedom and happiness depended on it. Waiting, holding her breath for Lin to make the right move, or for Jack to say the right thing. Wanting to say, for Christ's sake Lin, resolve this so that
I
can breathe again. Lin, it seemed, was on the brink of throwing away something which was
crucial to Robin. And Robin couldn't even begin to explain it. It wasn't her life – Jack wasn't her man.

‘It's
my
life,' Lin would have said, had she known. ‘Am I supposed to live it by your criteria?'

‘Yes!' Robin would have howled. ‘Don't leave Jack. Be faithful, honest and true. Put up with anything he does, but
keep
him.' Because that's what Robin would've done if she'd been given the chance. Oh yes she would. Without question. Then maybe things would have turned out differently.

Jack arrived in the dead of night when Robin was already in bed. He was tired, his eyes were ringed and sunken – not the angel boy in her photograph. He asked for Birdie, and Robin realised with horror that Lin had not come home from a date with someone almost as beautiful as Jack. Someone, Robin realised, she ought to have recognised from the glimpse she had of him through a Porsche windscreen.

She couldn't tell Jack that, so she asked him in and sat him in the living room, offering him tea, coffee, alcohol, whatever she could think of, chattering uncontrollably. Finally he asked for hot chocolate, more to shut her up, she thought, than because he wanted anything. And when she came back with it, she found him asleep on the sofa. So young, too young to be so weary. It nearly made her cry to see the drooping head and long eyelashes. She covered him with her patchwork quilt as if he were an orphan she'd taken in from the street. And yes, she would have kissed his eyelids if she hadn't been afraid to wake him. Because if she woke him she'd have to talk to him and she never knew what to say. She didn't know what interested him – or rather she didn't know what didn't bore him, and she suspected that she was boring.

So she crept out of the living room and went to sit at the bottom of the stairs waiting to warn Lin. At first she was angry with Lin. How could she go off with someone else? Then she was angry with Jack. Who did he think he was – turning up unannounced and putting her in this embarrassing situation? Last, she was angry with herself. Why was she getting in a state about her sister's boyfriend? That's all it was – her sister and her boyfriend had a row. It wasn't the end of the world. Lin going out with another guy wasn't high treason.

But it
was
the end of the world. It
was
high treason. Because it was Jack. That was the last unreasonable thought Robin had before she too nodded off.

Much later something disturbed her, and she woke cold, stiff and gummy-eyed. It was after five in the morning. She got up and peeped round the living room door. Jack was gone.

She tiptoed up to the attic. The attic was empty. Lin's bed was unslept in. Her bag was gone. Downstairs in the kitchen she found a note on the draining board. It said, ‘Thanks for everything. Talk to you soon. Love, L.'

Desolate, Robin went into the living room. The quilt was half on the sofa, half on the floor, like a sloughed snakeskin. The sofa was dented and rumpled. The mug of hot chocolate had been left where she put it, untouched, cold. She picked up the quilt, meaning to fold it, but it felt a little warm. A little heat was all that remained of Jack's visit. She wrapped herself in it and lay down where he had lain. She buried her face in the cushion on which he'd rested his head. And smelled her sister's perfume.

Sitting bolt upright she said aloud, ‘You stupid, stupid cow.' And then she went to bed. Something important had happened under her roof – under her nose – and she had missed it.

Always losing the thread, Robin thought, always missing the punchline. Enough. There was work to be done, so do it.

She went slowly upstairs and walked quietly past closed doors. She wouldn't intrude. Lin was in her mother's old room. Alec was in Jimmy's. Grace was in her own. Maybe. The only open bedroom door was Robin's. Was she really the only one in the house with nothing to hide or no one to hide from?

As she passed her room she caught sight of an alien shape. She turned quickly and saw Alec in her bedroom.

‘Hello,' she said. ‘What're you doing in here?'

‘Oh, sorry,' he said. ‘I was looking for Grace.' He smiled at her, apologetic, but not guilty. ‘Love your masks. Is that a picture of The Legend? His music's incredible. I only got into it recently but I'm hooked.'

‘Yes, that's Jack,' Robin said, warming to him. She sat on the
edge of her bed. ‘Do you live in Bristol like Grace?' Alec might have been looking for Grace, but he'd found her, so he was going to have to put up with a few questions.

‘Actually, no,' Alec said. ‘And, before you ask, we met on the Net. We've been corresponding for months.'

‘No. Really?' she said, alarmed and fascinated. No sex yet, she thought. Is that good or bad?

‘She signs on as g.ace, so it was a long time before I found out if she was male or female. We just hit it off, if you know what I mean. I suppose, in your day, it would've been a pen-pal thing.'

In my day? Robin thought. Cheeky bugger. But Alec seemed to be too young to know he was insulting her.

She smiled and said, ‘So, this is the first time you've met? In person?'

‘We decided that I'd meet her train and we'd let an element of chance take over. She'd described herself to me and I'd described myself to her. And we thought, if we recognised each other from the descriptions – like, if neither of us had been telling porkies – we'd be off to a good start.'