Guilty Feet (15 page)

She was obviously speechless, so I decided to enlighten her further. Cautiously, in a vague sort of way, because I didn’t want to end up with egg on my face if it all fell apart. I didn’t mention any names, either. The last thing I wanted was Nicola contacting Sid behind my back and cutting me out of the picture. It might be Sid’s money and brains that were behind the venture, but this was my moment and I was determined to enjoy it.

‘So you see, Nicola,’ I said rounding up, ‘much as I appreciate you suggesting to my mother that I contact you about a possible job...’ I left the sentence hanging in the air. To rub her nose in it any further would be overkill. It had given me a great deal of pleasure watching the changing emotions on her face. The scornful disbelief, the uncertainty, and, finally, the big-time squirm, the awful realisation that she could not afford to turn business away. Not even mine.

‘And I promise to bear your firm in mind if everything goes according to plan,’ I concluded in my best business-like manner. ‘So long as you put in a favourable bid for supplying the staff that we’ll need.’

‘I’d be only too delighted to talk again when you have something more concrete to discuss,’ she said importantly. She folded the newspaper carefully when we moved off after the latest stop, and twitched her small nose. It was hot in the train with so many bodies, and I guessed she was becoming increasingly aware of the aroma of spaghetti sauce that clung to the clothes I hadn’t had time to change. Which dented my confidence a bit, and made me more vulnerable to the sly look that appeared on her face. Somehow I just knew it was payback time.

‘I’m not in the habit of listening to rumours, Joanna, and correct me if I am wrong—’

Yes, of course. She’d heard about my father moving out and now it was her turn to gloat. I agreed that he had indeed moved out, but I didn’t answer any of her probing questions. I said that I didn’t know anything, and that was why I was going home.

We were silent after that, but just as we were arriving at the terminus it occurred to me how odd it was that she was on her way home too. That we’d both chosen this particular evening to visit our parents—or
parent
in my particular case.

‘There’s nothing wrong at your place, I hope,’ I asked in an unguarded moment of genuine concern. As far as I knew it was no more like Nicola to go home in the middle of the week than it was for me, and, much as I disliked the Dicks, I wouldn’t wish any real harm on any of them. We were making our way to the exit now, swept along by dozens of commuters all keener than I was to reach their homes.

She turned and gave one of her superior looks.

‘Of course there’s nothing wrong at my home,’ she said, as if the very suggestion was absurd.

***

Dan put down his book and glanced at his watch. It was just after seven, and as usual the train was running late. He’d hoped to be back in Leeds by now, but it looked as if it would be another half an hour at least. The day, as far as he was concerned, had been a complete waste of time. It had been nothing more than a charm offensive on his publisher’s part, now that there was a very good chance of the book doing really well. There was even talk now about the single staying at the number one spot till Christmas, which was a bit premature as far as Dan was concerned—especially since it hadn’t even been released yet. On the back of the hype, his publishers had decided to up the initial print run of the book from twenty to fifty thousand, which was very encouraging as far as potential earnings went, but they could easily have told him that on the phone.

He’d had a good lunch in a trendy restaurant, but he’d found himself thinking about Sarah a lot. He’d been disappointed not to hear from her. It would have been a great opportunity to meet up with her, though he wasn’t quite sure what his motives were. He told himself that he just liked the sound of her, that they seemed to have a lot in common and that it really would have been good to talk face to face with someone who’d been through a similar experience as himself. That was what he told himself anyway, but now and again he couldn’t help wondering if there might just be something more to it than that.

He sighed and turned back to his book. It was a recently published biography of Bob Marley. Not bad, but he couldn’t help thinking that he could do better.

***

As our parents’ homes were both on Piper Hill, it would have been natural for us to walk home together part of the way if circumstances had been different. But that would have been very awkward for both of us, and thankfully Nicola solved the problem by heading straight for the taxi rank on the High Street, leaving me free to walk home alone.

Staley is one of those places described by estate agents as ‘extremely sought after’. There are three main types who live there. The locals—people like Cass’s parents, the Fosters—ordinary working people who were usually born and bred there. Then there are the seriously wealthy, who may have been born and bred there but probably didn’t attend the local schools. Finally, there are those who aspire to rub shoulders with the seriously wealthy—my mother and Barbara Dick being two good examples of this particular category.

It was originally the location that made the town so popular with the Victorians, whose stout architecture dominates the town. Just half an hour from the centres of both Leeds and Bradford, Staley High Street is within champion spitting-distance of a stretch of beautiful high moorland that looms over the town and gives it an almost Swiss mountain appeal.

Large terraced houses, many of which have been turned into flats, make up the lower reaches of Piper Hill, then eventually give way to more modern homes. These were built in the last twenty years or so, to accommodate the town’s ever-growing appeal for the group of individuals to which my mother and Barbara Dick belong. These houses vary in size quite a lot. The Dicks’, for example, is larger than ours, but, as my mother never fails to point out, the fact that ours is practically on the edge of the moor makes it more desirable—i.e. valuable. And the fact that it is on the edge of the moor—i.e. a hell of a hike up the hill—no doubt explained why I was at near passing out point by the time my sadly out of condition body staggered through the front gate at about twenty past seven that evening.

The place was in darkness and I was annoyed. I knew I should have telephoned first, but somehow, even now, I expected someone to be at home whenever I happened to show. But I knew that I could get in. I still had my old key, so even if I had to hang around for a while at least I could do it in comfort. And with some time to myself I might even be able to work out what I wanted to say.

The house was dark and silent, and I felt a bit spooked till I found the switch and turned on the hall light. I had absolutely no reason to feel remotely fearful in a house I was so familiar with, but a definite chill came over me briefly, which I managed to laugh away only when I’d assured myself that all was well. Once I’d slipped off my trainers out of habit, this involved calling upstairs and turning on lights in all of the ground-floor rooms.

Despite its familiarity, I couldn’t say that I liked the house very much—this insipid, unimaginative shrine to revolting knick-knacks and chintzy sofas that no one but guests dare sit upon for fear of squashing the cushions and upsetting my mother. It was never a place to feel really comfortable in.

By the time I got to the kitchen I was feeling better, and the warmth from the Aga completed my recovery. I’d thought my mother had completely flipped when she’d insisted on having the thing installed. It was something I’d always associated with farmhouses and vicarages. But the minute Barbara Dick announced that she was having one it was a matter of honour for my mother to go one better. She’d achieved this with a red four-oven model, as opposed to Barbara’s cream meagre two-door version. It had meant ripping the new kitchen apart in order to accommodate the monster, but she had been determined. It threw out so much heat that the relatively small kitchen was practically unbearable in summer, but now, on a cold November night, with me in definite need of some comforting cheer, it came into its own.

The really ridiculous thing was that my mother didn’t even cook very much. She preferred Marks and Spencer ready-made meals, and I was certain her crudely obvious one-upmanship, her rip-off designer suits and her pitiful attempts at a BBC accent served only to make her the laughing stock of the neighbourhood.

I lifted the lid off one of the plates and rubbed my hands together over it until I felt the circulation return to my extremities and a residue of unease finally left me. Then I went to the phone that was fixed to the wall and called up my dad. It had occurred to me that I shouldn’t have lied to him, that it all might backfire on me if my interference came out at a later stage, so I decided to tell him where I was.

‘I’m at home,’ I said when he answered.

‘What are you doing there?’ He sounded distinctly uncomfortable.

‘I’m not going to tell her about Giovanna, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘I take it your mother’s not in earshot at the moment,’ he said anxiously.

‘Of course not. She’s not here, as a matter of fact. Any idea where she might be?’

‘None at all. She’s usually home on Thursday evenings.’

I hadn’t intended doing it now, but it seemed as good a time as any to voice my concerns about Giovanna. I began by telling him how she’d once been badly let down by a married man.

‘And I know it sounds a bit old-fashioned, but she is Italian and she is of a different generation. And the point is that she doesn’t know
you’re
still married.’

‘I am separated, though,’ he said defensively.

‘For two weeks! I’m not even sure that counts. I’m sorry, Dad, but you’re going to have to be up front with her. It’s only fair. It was OK when she was coming to my place as a guest with you there as well, but taking her out for a meal on her own makes everything different.’

‘I don’t know what you think my intentions are, Jo,’ he said with a smile in his voice, ‘but I do consider myself to be an honourable man.’

I knew what he was getting at, and I was glad he wasn’t there to see me blush.

‘I’m sure you are, Dad, but that isn’t the point. What is, is that I’m pretty sure she would never have agreed to go out with you if she knew the situation.’

There was a slight pause as I listened to the cogs in his brain turn over.

‘So you want me to ring and tell her. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes, it is. She might think you’re trying to deceive her otherwise. Which wouldn’t be a very good start.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have to do it tomorrow—unless you have her home number.’

‘No, I don’t.’ But I wasn’t going to let him off that easily. And, because I didn’t want her taking any awkward calls when I was around tomorrow, it was best that he got it over and done with tonight. ‘But I’m sure you’ll find it in the book.’

I finished the call and, feeling a little overpowered now by the heat from the Aga, I closed the plate lid and decided to take a look around, to see if I could find any clues as to where my mother might be. For all I knew she could be out for the whole of the evening, in which case I’d be wasting my time hanging around.

There was nothing obvious downstairs, so I turned off most of the lights and headed up the stairs on my way to her bedroom. On the way there I stopped off at what had been my room until I moved to Leeds. I switched on the light and felt immediately depressed by its cream and pink blandness. My mother hadn’t wasted any time in removing all trace of my former presence and turning it into a dull and uninspiring spare bedroom-cum-study.

She’d set a desk up in there for her computer, which she used to send her Hotmails to me and my brother Matthew. I don’t think it had any other purpose until she started on the Family History search, and after recent events my guess was that would fall by the wayside soon. I thought about Barbara Dick, whom she’d been trying to outdo as usual, and I shook my head in despair at their so-called friendship. No wonder Dad had put his foot down about seeing so much of the Dicks. It must have been a nightmare listening to the two of them trying to better one another all night long, in between criticisms about his Yorkshire accent.

I moved on to my brother’s room, that was more or less as he had left it three years ago. It was still crammed with his boyish bits and pieces, a mute testimony to the fact that Matthew had always been our mother’s favourite child.

I was beginning to feel quite sorry for myself, so I switched off the light and went on to my parents’ bedroom, where I received a major shock. Every other part of the house had been in its usual spick-and-span order. But here, in the very heart of my mother’s powerhouse, disorder reigned. And it reigned magnificently. There were expensive paper shopping bags everywhere, all over the floor and bed. Wardrobe doors were gaping and drawers were erupting, revealing my mother’s vulgar taste in fashion and underwear. Some things were even strewn on the floor. A black bra, for example, and a pink chiffon thing I’d never seen before. I crossed the room to pick it up and discovered that it was
almost
a dress, the like of which I’d never seen my mother wear in her life. It was the sort of thing I might have chosen myself for a night at a club if I was feeling particularly sassy—far, far too young for my mother.

It occurred to me that she had been collecting for a jumble sale, from her rich would-be friends, but then my eyes fell on the bags again. Harvey Nichols, Karen Millen, Ted Baker for Women—top end of the high street, not her usual naff, gold-braided stuff that she erroneously believed was
designer
.
These
were the sort of shops I like to go to when I can afford it, that rarely give change from a hundred quid per item. I scanned the room quickly again and realised there had to be a thousand pounds’ worth of carrier bags there.