The Godmother (21 page)

Sasha saw a bus. “Come on, it goes straight home.”

“A bus?” said Ben.

“Don't be such a snob. Come on, run, you lazy sod.”

He turned back to me.

“Come on!” Sasha was already halfway to the bus stop, waving her hand madly.

“Go,” I insisted, smiling.

“I don't want to leave you here by yourself,” he said.

“I'll be fine.”

“Sure?”

“Go,” I said again, pushing him slightly.

“See you at the launch?”

The launch?

“Neil's TV thing.”

God, I'd completely forgotten he was going to that. “Absolutely.”

“That's a date.” He blew me a kiss, turned and ran. They waved at me from the top deck, smiling drunkenly. I waved back, swearing as I did so. My days of using Ben as my walker were supposed to be over. My days of filling Sasha's shoes had to end. This was my promise to myself. I pulled my jacket around me.
I don't want to leave you here by yourself. I don't want to leave you here by yourself. I don't want to leave you here by yourself.
I stared after the bus.

“Then don't,” I said, lowering my hand. Finally, it too rounded the corner, taking the last of my friends away. And then there was only one.

I awoke on Monday morning feeling despondent. The week stretched ahead of me with nothing in the diary but an interview with a headhunter on Wednesday and a meeting with my accountant on Friday. Whoop, whoop. Throw in a couple of yoga classes, some chores and food shopping and there was still a vast expanse of time to fill.

I missed Claudia and Al. Not that I saw them on a weekly basis, but I missed their presence. Sasha had told me she was away all week, which meant avoiding Ben at all costs until my mind had stopped tripping. Helen said she was taking the twins and Rose to her house in the country for the week so she was well rested and looking her best for Neil's launch on the weekend. Helen always looked so glamorous at large events, but I knew she did not find them easy. For such a beautiful woman, she was incredibly self-conscious and strangely shy. Reading between the lines I thought that Neil was probably being punished for doing an all-nighter the night before Claudia and Al's leaving lunch. Despite his resistance to getting his hands dirty with the twins, there was no doubt he loved his sons and heirs, as he referred to them. Well, if not loved them, then loved the fact of them, which would probably do until they were older and a little more rewarding as companions. I was pleased that Helen seemed to be finding a little backbone.

Outside the sky was bright autumn blue. I refused to sit on my arse and stare out at the world any longer. I watched bikes cross the bridge. That's what I'd do—I'd get my bike out of storage, and go for a ride. I quickly dialed Fran's number before I changed my mind.

“Hey, Fran, you busy?”

“Funny.”

I didn't think I was being funny.

“Where are you?”

“About to cycle home from school.”

“Great, do you want to meet me instead? Battersea Park, go for a cycle, then have coffee?”

“Um…”

“It's a beautiful day.”

“Sod it, why not. The laundry can wait. It'll take me about twenty minutes to get there.”

“Perfect, it'll take me twenty minutes to get the cobwebs off my bike. I'll see you at the gate, Chelsea Bridge end.”

“Brilliant,” said Francesca. “Just what I need.”

Roman laughed at me when I appeared in my helmet and reflective strip. My bike hadn't moved since the week I'd purchased it following a decision to cycle to work every day. It would save me paying a fortune to a gym just to cycle on the spot. The craze lasted one day. Cycling to work was great; it was cycling home that was the problem. I met up with friends in the City that night and after a few drinks got lost in the backwaters of Aldgate East and ended up, I still don't know how, descending into the Limehouse Link tunnel and being forced to cycle madly in the carbon-monoxide gloom for miles before I resurfaced at Canary Wharf. Unable to face the fumes and fear again, I Zingoed a cab and spent a fortune getting myself and my bike home. I had bruised buttock bones for a week. The bike was banished to the basement, and I hadn't ventured out since. But this was a new me.

Francesca was sitting atop her old-fashioned bike, a basket full of God knows what and clips around her trouser bottoms. Her wavy brown hair was cut sensibly short, her clothes hid her figure, but her skin was still youthful and smooth. I guess that came from a life of not burning the candle at all. She did look a bit barking though, in a nice, eccentric, but homely sort of way. I was about to tease her, but she laughed at me before I had a chance to laugh at her. I guess it did look a bit sad, all that brand-new bicycle kit on a girl who didn't bicycle. We turned our bikes through the gate and pedaled off at a nice,
sedate, ladylike pace. I wanted to talk to her about Caspar, but I thought I'd beat around the bush for a while first.

“How's Nick?”

“In Saigon.”

“Lucky thing. I loved Saigon.”

“He doesn't get to see much more than inside a hotel. He's at an international conference about child labor—you know, kids making flashing trainers. On the other side of the universe, I'm in Woolworth's doing battle with a five-year-old over those same flashing trainers.”

“Is this a rhetorical discussion we're having?” I said, feeling my cheeks start to glow as I pedaled.

“Oh no. Poppy screamed and screamed and screamed when I said no. You should have seen the looks I got from the other mothers. £4.99 would have brought me peace. It's the principle of the thing. You cannot give in. If you do, you're doomed. Your word means nothing; your children will run you out of town. I only went in for a tin-opener.”

I had to laugh.

“It's all right for you, you're not being forever humiliated in public by your children.”

“No,” I replied, speeding up a bit to chase a squirrel. I turned back to Francesca. “But then I can do that all by myself.”

Fran caught up. She didn't look remotely out of breath. “She told me I was ruining her life! Five years old! I could have killed her,” she said. I hid my smile. I'd be hopeless at the discipline bit. I'm sure I'd get the giggles.

“I'm turning into a sour puss. It's the summer holidays, they don't half drag.”

“Summer holidays? Fran, it's October.”

“Exactly. And I still haven't recovered. Nick has been away so much; Caspar, as you know, has been a bit of a challenge; the girls know exactly when to tighten the screws. I'm bored of it, bored of fighting on all fronts.”

Fran had given me the perfect segue into the next topic of conversation. Caspar. I grabbed my moment. “How is my charming Caspar?”

“Full of it. He honestly thinks I don't get it. That I don't understand, that I never had a youth. It's so annoying, because it's all just repeat, repeat, repeat. Yeah, kids today probably are under more pressure than we were, but to
think I don't understand.” Francesca shook her head under her helmet. “It's so stupid. They're so indignant and whatever I do is wrong. Thanks again, by the way, for bailing him out the other night. He does listen to you, actually, which is one thing.”

I phrased my next question carefully. “He told me you grounded him over the beer thing.”

“Really? Did he?”

“He called for a chat the other day.”

“A chat?” She pulled on the brakes. I stopped pedaling too and cycled back round to face her. It was obvious that Francesca hadn't bought his social call either.

“Did he tell you it wasn't our beer?”

“Er, no.”

“I bet he didn't. He only sneaked into the neighbors' kitchen and took it. They have kids the same age, so we have a kind of open house policy, and we were having lunch together…But all the same, I was so embarrassed. Anyway, I told him he couldn't go out. Lots of slamming doors followed. I really can't face thinking about it.”

“Little toad. No, he failed to mention all of that.”

“I don't know what's got into him, I really don't.”

I thought about my own bad behavior as a child. It was all fairly mild but I recalled holding a grudge against my parents for months because they hadn't let me go to a party and, like Poppy, I thought they'd ruined my life.

“Anything you've done that he's punishing you for?”

Francesca looked at me, horrified.

“I don't mean anything you deserve, just something he thinks you've done?”

Francesca shook her head slowly but, without actually answering, pedaled away. She turned her bike towards the pond and picked up speed. I followed a few paces behind. I hadn't meant to insult her. Halfway round the pond, she slowed down and I caught up.

“That's better,” she said. “Get some air in the lungs.”

“Maybe you need a couple of days away, leave Nick at home coping with all of this. We could go to a spa. They do really good deals mid-week. In fact, I think I still have a voucher that I won at some charity auction. I could take
you! Maybe you're just knackered.” Talking of knackered, I noticed I was now definitely puffing. And she definitely wasn't.

“I need some more ginseng,” she said, ignoring my spa invitation. I didn't know whether it was because she hadn't heard me over the cacophony of geese around the pond, or that she wasn't taken in by my voucher story and hated accepting charity.

“To hell with the ginseng, you need a night out. I mean a proper night out. Get dressed up, wash your hair if that's not ruining the ozone too much, put on some heels, get your lovely legs out and come out on the razz with me.”

“Prop up a bar and get chatted up?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a proper party. One without jelly and tedious women discussing MMR.”

I got a kick for that. It's good to know one's boundaries.

“Celebrities, free booze, live entertainment and enough shallow conversation to drown in. What do you think?”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Great. Come to Neil's Channel 4 party on Saturday.”

“Neil as in Neil and Helen?”

Francesca was a bit intimidated by Neil and Helen.

“He can't bring himself to look at me, let alone remember my name; he certainly won't be inviting me to his party.”

“It's not his, and anyway, he doesn't have to. You can come as Claudia, Nick will make a fine Al, and I'll bring Billy as my date. She could do with a laugh too, I suspect.”

“You're on. I'll ask Caspar to babysit.”

“I thought you were against child labor.”

“God, you're annoying.”

I smiled and increased speed, cycling through another glut of fat pigeons pecking away at half a loaf of Hovis. Was that the whiff of an endorphin rush or something else? I was pleased.

With Fran, Nick and Billy, I would go to Neil's party armed with a buffer zone of my own.

When I got back to the flat I called Caspar. The poor unfortunate boy has a mobile phone of his own. I had to wait until I was thirty-two.

“Hello?” came a whispered voice.

“Hi, Caspar, it's me, can you talk?”

“No. I'm in class.”

“Why are you answering your phone, then?”

“Why are you calling me during school?”

“Don't be cheeky.”

“You like it really.”

“Why are you in such a good mood?” I didn't mean it to sound so suspicious.

“Christ, can't win, can I?”

“Sorry, bollocks—listen, Caspar, the beer thing—”

“Here we go. Look, Tessa, you're not my mum, so please, back off.”

“But—”

“What?”

“I'm trying to help. Please call me after class.”

Half an hour later I stepped dripping out of the shower, threw a towel around me and answered the phone. But it wasn't Caspar, it was Billy.

“Sorry to disturb you,” said Billy. Billy always apologizes for everything. “Are you busy?”

“Far from it,” I replied, wrapping another towel around my hair and lying on my bed to dry.

“I have a huge favor to ask of you,” Billy said.

“Fire away.”

“I'm having some problems with money and—”

“How much do you need?”

“I don't need to borrow any, um, but it's Christoph, he hasn't made some of the payments he's supposed to, and I've been trying to talk to him for a while, but you know what he's like, always traveling, so…”

“How long has it been?”

Billy hated telling me when Christoph had been behaving badly. Her loyalty to the man who'd broken her heart, ruined her life and turned his back on one of the finest children I know was anathema to me. “Four months.”

“And he's not returning your calls?”

“Well, as I said he's been away and—”

“Billy.”

“I know, I know, so that's why I need your help. I've got an appointment with the solicitor tomorrow.”

“Great, that's great.”

“Would you mind collecting Cora from school?”

“Not at all, I'd be delighted. It will be the highlight of my week.” Which was true. “Honestly, you're doing me the favor. Listen, if it's all right with you I'll take her over to play at Nick and Francesca's house. Katie and Poppy love her so much.”

“Perfect. Thank you.”

“That's what godmothers are for.”

“You're the best, Tessa, thanks.”

The following day at half past three I was outside Cora's school gates. The mixture of people milling about with prams and bikes, dogs and scooters was amazing. Cora was lucky, her school only went up to age eleven, so she didn't have to venture through throngs of older, intimidating kids who had a tendency to flex a little muscle when it came to the smaller ones. Cora was slight; although she was seven, she looked only five and I always feared she would be picked on. Since birth she'd always been below the bottom percentile on the charts. Whenever she mentioned this I told her it was better than being average.

She grinned at me and came running out, her long hair straggling behind her. She looks like a gypsy, with her pale skin, large brown eyes, missing tooth and narrow limbs. I crouched down, spread my arms wide and waited for the bundle of energy to hit me at full pelt.

“Hello, beautiful,” I said.

“Hello, Godmummy T, you've gone a funny color,” she said.

Ah yes. Fading tan, too much time on my hands and an old bottle of the fake stuff found while tidying out my bathroom cupboard can do that to a person.

“I was hoping it wasn't that obvious.”

“It's stripy, not obvious.” Cora took my hand. “Like the zebra, you can hide in the bush and not get eaten by a lion.”

So, one positive to come out of this. I look like a freak but at least I won't get eaten by a lion.

“Did you bring my elephant with small ears?” Nothing gets past this kid.

“It's in the car.”

She beamed.

We chatted about school and friends of hers whom I'd never met in minute detail, and had a lengthy dispute about socks that got mixed up at gym time. Cora clearly found it hilarious. I found it hard to follow what she was saying, but it didn't matter, I let her easy chit-chat wash over me and was soothed by the sound of her voice.