Queen Mum (2 page)

Conclusion: 30–45 points
– You might find it difficult making friends initially, but once you have decided you like someone you are very loyal
. That was normal. No worries
there, then.

‘I came out as Alice Average,’ I told Tom over the evening meal. Ben was on the phone, letting his chops go cold.

‘There’s a surprise,’ Tom said. ‘Have you heard any more details about this malarkey next door? Is it one of those shows where they come in and lecture you, or the sort
where they just give you the rope to hang yourself and let you get on with it?’

‘Don’t be so bloody pompous,’ I said, getting up and swiping him on the back of the head as I went past. ‘Juno printed out the Web page for me. Here. It’s the show
presented by Abby Cavanagh. Don’t pretend you haven’t watched it.’

‘I’ve seen it. Not the same thing.’

I leant my head on one side trying to read the text upside down. ‘Funny, it sounds like an African TV company, Umanzu. I wonder if the producer’s got African connections or
something.’

Tom scanned the page, then looked up, half-smiling. ‘Not U-
man
-zu, silly.
Yoo
-man-
zoo
. Human Zoo, get it?’

‘Oh.’

Ben walked in, yawning. When he stretched I could see the tendons in his neck and the blue veins under his skin. He was as tall as me now. ‘I know it’s a stupid idea,’ he said,
‘but is there any chance I could go diving with Felix in the summer? No? Didn’t think so.’

‘Just eat your chops,’ I told him.

*

We were in the front room having a row when we spotted the TV van arrive. I saw Tom’s expression and I thought, that’ll add fuel to the fire.

He thought the
Queen Mum
stunt was pure attention-seeking, he’d told me as we lay in bed one night, and it would all end in tears. He actually used that phrase.

Now we were arguing about Ben.

‘You have to let him go,’ Tom kept saying. ‘All his mates are going. You’ll make him look like a complete loser if you say no. What’s he going to tell them at
school, Ally? Mummy says it’s too dangerous, I’ve got to stay home and hold her hand?’

‘But he doesn’t want to go.’

Tom sighed and flopped back against the sofa. ‘Jesus. He’s only saying that because he knows it’s what you want.’

‘He wouldn’t do that. He’s got a mind of his own, for God’s sake. You should hear him when I ask him to take a break from his PlayStation.’ I tried a little
laugh.

‘It’s not quite the same thing, is it?’ Tom drew a hand across his eyes. ‘Ally, he’s scared of you.’

‘You what? You must be kidding.’

‘I mean he’s scared of hurting you. He knows what you’re frightened of, he’s an intelligent boy. But he does want to go away with his mates, which is perfectly
reasonable.’

I knew it was, but I couldn’t get past the fear. ‘Look, if it was just a day trip to look at a rock formation or something, that would be fine.’

‘Would it?’

‘Yes! But they’ll be, what did it say on the letter, climbing, abseiling, building bloody rafts . . . That’s the whole point of an adventure holiday, isn’t it, the risk
factor? Otherwise it would be a lounge-about-in-comfort holiday. And five days away from home. God knows what they’ll get up to. There’ll be booze, there always is, no matter how
carefully the teachers check the luggage. Lads, drunk, at night, with mountains and lakes all round; you can’t expect me to slap him on the back and say, Off you go, Ben, I’m
thrilled.’ I came over and sat on the arm of the sofa, but not so near I was touching Tom. He shifted over, though, and placed his hand gently on my thigh.

‘They’ll have qualified instructors. Good God, schools are so twitchy about litigation these days, they won’t go exposing them to any real danger. Anyway – ’

I knew,
knew
what he was going to say. Don’t! I wanted to shout. Stop now!

‘ – daily life’s risky enough. You don’t have to throw yourself down a mountain to . . . ’

By a huge effort of will, I made myself not think about the day Joe died; instead I saw him sitting on the bottom stair the day we moved in, gouging pellets off the blown-vinyl wallpaper to
create a localized snow shower on the floorboards. I’d said to him, Stop that, but Tom had walked past and muttered, It makes no odds, we’ll be pulling it all off soon. Then Ben had
joined in, sitting on the step above, only Joe didn’t realize that his brother was secretly scattering chips of vinyl in his hair. Little flecks of white in the dark blond. It’s his
hair I miss the most, in tactile terms. It’s the part of an infant you see and touch the most.

‘Have you seen that?’ When I came back to earth, Tom was turned round on his seat, staring out of the bay.

The van parked on next door’s drive had the Umanzu logo on it and two young-looking men were climbing out. One was carrying a briefcase or a laptop; both wore black sweaters.

‘So she’s really going ahead with it?’

I shrugged, defensive. ‘Looks like it. I don’t see what your problem is with it. It’s their life, not yours.’

‘It impacts on ours,’ said Tom darkly.

‘I don’t see how. It’s not
Neighbour Swap
. You don’t have to be anywhere near a camera.’

‘But our street’ll be on national TV. You’ll have burglars tuning in to check the layout of the house, passers-by gawping . . . No one’s asked us if we mind, have they? I
feel as if my privacy’s been invaded, and all so Manny and Juno can show off how bloody marvellously functional their family is.’

‘You know what you sound like?’ I began.

But then Ben walked in.

‘Wow,’ he said, edging past me to go right up to the window, so close his breath made a mist.

‘Come away.’ I pulled at his shoulder. He stepped back about six inches.

‘You and Dad are having a good look. It’s cool. Soph says she’s having her hair cut for the filming. Juno’s been on at Manny to get the downstairs loo repapered quick as
well, I heard them arguing about it.’

‘They should have gone on
Changing Rooms
, then, shouldn’t they?’ said Tom.

‘You heard them arguing?’

Ben detached himself from the view and wandered over to the armchair opposite, where he dropped and sprawled. ‘Not really arguing. I dunno. Can I get a job, Dad?’

Tom glanced across. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘I thought it was about time. Jase’s got a paper round, Chris does gardening with his uncle. They’ve got cash to spend; I haven’t.’

‘So is this, in fact, about a pocket-money raise?’ I asked, smiling.

‘No, it’s about getting a job, Mum.’

That told me. ‘I don’t know . . . ’

‘Sounds a good plan to me,’ said Tom. ‘Let me know when you’ve sorted something out. I can give you a lift at weekends, if you need one.’

‘Excellent.’ Ben swivelled and put his long legs over the arm of the seat. He looks older than fourteen sometimes. He grabbed the TV guide and started to scan the listings.

‘Would you like to be on telly, Ben?’

‘No, Mum,’ he said without looking up.

Tom shot me a satisfied sort of glance, then rose to his feet and went out. I heard the kitchen radio start up.

‘Ben?’ I said. ‘Do you really want to go on this Lake District holiday with school?’

He raised his eyes for a moment, and they were the saddest eyes I thought I’d ever seen. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

I took myself upstairs to our bedroom and sat at my dressing table for a while, imagining it was me on screen being interviewed about family life. Don’t anyone think about swapping with
me, I told the mirror.

When people ask me how many children I have I always want to say two: sometimes I do. Joe might be dead but he’s always around, memories of him pinging up suddenly, the way leaves do after
a heavy shower.

I wondered a lot about Ben these days, how he’d have turned out if Joe was still alive. He was always going to be a quiet one; six when his brother was born, used to playing alone. But
there’d never have been this weight at his centre.

And Tom was always angry; with me, it felt like. Everything he did was shot through with fury, so that opening a jam jar became a vicious fight in which the solution might be shattering the pot
against the edge of the unit. He laced his boots in anger, shaved in anger, cleaned the car like he wanted to scrape the paint off the metal. Yet I remembered his careful movements wiping blood
away from Ben’s lip after a tricycle accident; I could see Ben now, sitting on the kitchen worktop with his legs dangling, a pile of screwed-up tissues next to him. And the way Tom had lifted
back my hair from my face the first time we ever kissed. Years and years ago. His fingers curved round Ben’s baby skull, round Joe’s.

The phone rang and it was Mum, to check we were coming up on Saturday and also to ask whether I’d heard about the terrible school-bus crash in Austria. ‘They’re still fetching
bodies out,’ she said. I swear she keeps a scrapbook of disasters.

‘You wouldn’t want to come into my home,’ I told the camera as I put the receiver down. ‘I promise you. I’d stick with next door and normality.’

Juno celebrated the good news from Umanzu by holding a small drinks party for the street. ‘A PR exercise, if ever there was one,’ said Tom when I showed him the
invite.

‘You’re not going, then?’

‘Depends what’s on telly that night,’ he muttered, bending back over his computer keyboard. He surfs bike sites, creates mammoth Watch lists on eBay motors. There are pictures
of Ducatis and Kawasakis all round the shed walls; a pennant over the door,
Free with every bike: you
. I live in dread of him ever actually buying one.

‘Don’t you think it’ll look rude if you’re not there?’

He didn’t answer, so I turned to go. As I was walking through the door I heard him say, ‘OK, then. But let’s not be the first to arrive, eh?’

In the end, we were the last by miles; the party was all but over by the time we got there. I’d been ready at eight but then a huge sense of depression and tiredness came over me and I had
to lie on the bed for a while till it passed off. Ben poked his head in the room at one point and said, ‘Have you got a migraine?’

‘Yes,’ I said because it was easier than trying to explain that I’d lost my nerve.

‘Shall I get Dad?’

I told him no, and he clicked his tongue and went out again.

I lay there and wished Juno had said, ‘Just you and Tom for drinks,’ rather than inviting twenty-odd neighbours. Tom had been right. But when he came up at ten, saying it was too
late to make an appearance now, I felt a huge surge of irritation and jumped up, miraculously cured.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ I snapped.

He looked hurt. ‘I was only downstairs, not halfway up the bloody Amazon. Do you really want to go now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, then. Jesus. I’m not putting a tie on. Or changing.’ So what’s new, I nearly said, but I couldn’t cope with an argument.

Walking into Juno’s house is like stepping off a plane into a warmer country. Ben went off to find Sophie and Pascale, while Tom and I stood about in the hall, wondering who was going to
be in the living room.