The Queen of New Beginnings (21 page)

Clayton zapped the television with the remote control. “It wasn’t me in the thong,” he repeated as the screen went blank and he stared at it in stunned silence.

“That was pure Tate and Lyle,” Alice said. “Any sweeter and our teeth would be falling out. As an antidote, do I get to hear your side of the story now?”

“You have to understand that I never meant for things to turn out the way they did,” Clayton said.

“I’d decided that had to be the case,” Alice said. “You don’t strike me as being a viciously vindictive man.”

“It just got out of hand. I couldn’t stand to see them constantly parading their smug happiness. Everywhere I looked, there they were, grinning like a couple of idiots. Bazza had never been into all that celebrity crap. The Cult of the Jackass, we used to call it. But with Stacey at his side he changed; he bought into what we’d always despised and he and Stacey became an obscene parody of a Showbiz Couple. Don’t get me wrong, Bazza isn’t stupid, he has talent, but Stacey’s the literary equivalent of a footballer’s WAG. She’s so in there for the main chance.”

“So how did it get out of hand? What was the trigger that caused you to make the phone call?”

“If you know about the phone call, then you know they were on
This Morning
. Bazza was promoting a new film that was about to premiere in the States and saying how much he and Stacey were looking forward to flying out to L.A. the next day. They just looked so infuriatingly pleased with themselves, coyly laughing off the suggestion that they were now part of the Hollywood glitterati. To cap it all, Stacey then leaned forward to the two hosts, dear old Philip Schofield and whoever his sidekick was that particular week, and asked if it would be all right if she could share something important with them and the nation. She actually said, “the nation.” Who did she think she was, the Queen?”

“What did she say?”

“She announced that she and Bazza were expecting a child. The first of many, she added with a wink in Bazza’s direction, as if to say, you’d better pull your finger out, mate. She even said that maybe they would adopt as well, that the world was full of babies in need of a loving home.”

“But why did that matter so much to you?”

He shuffled awkwardly. “I’d wanted children but she’d been dead against it. She’d said she couldn’t think of anything worse than a screaming brat puking over her precious carpets and Italian bed linen. And suddenly, there she was flaunting herself as a nauseating celebrity mother-to-be.”

“So the red mist descended?”

“They were doing a phone in, you know the kind of thing: members of the public call to have their quid a minute’s worth of air time, or whatever the going rate is, so they can chat with a celebrity as if they’re old buddies. Right, I thought, I’ll call in. I’ll have my quid’s worth. I’ll wipe the smirk off their self-satisfied faces.”

“Ooh,” Alice cringed, “with or without the benefit of hindsight, that doesn’t sound like a smart move.”

Clayton pushed his hand through his hair. “Believe me, from then on, nothing I did was smart. I gave a false name to whoever it was operating the phone lines and when they put me through, I congratulated Bazza and Stacey on an outstandingly phoney performance. It was Bazza who sussed my voice first and the look of horror on his face was all I needed to drive home my point.”

“Hang on, aren’t you supposed to be in a different room from the telly or radio when you take part in these call ins? I thought there were feedback problems.”

“You think a little detail like that was uppermost in my mind when I was totally fired up to let them have it?”

“Fair point.”

“And I did let them have it. I gave it to them with both barrels. I didn’t hold back. I told them, and ironically the
nation
, exactly what I thought of them, how Stacey had been sneaking round my back seeing Bazza, how they’d both lied and cheated. And did they really think they’d make such good parents when Stacey had all the maternal instincts of Shannon Matthews’s mother and Bazza was nothing but a social climbing twat.”

Alice smiled. “You got all that out before you were cut off?”

“I can only imagine that somebody in the control room had a sadistic streak running through him or her and must have thought, “Hey this is a bit of lark, let’s see how far we can go with it.”“

“What happened next?”

“I put the phone down before Bazza and Stacey could respond, then sat back and watched them, along with Phil and his sidekick, try to compose themselves. Inevitably, an advert break followed but they still had to resume the conversation, or so I thought. But Bazza and Stacey had legged it by the time the programme returned. Phil apologized and said that owing to being terribly upset by my outburst, Bazza and Stacey were unable to continue. So what did I do? I called in again and said that in future they should choose guests who had more guts and backbone, preferably with a bit of decency.”

“You were one angry man, weren’t you?”

Clayton nodded. “But think about it, if you had been presented with the chance to do the same thing to Rufus, wouldn’t you have done so? Wouldn’t there have been a part of you that wanted to get even by publicly humiliating him?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I’m not judging you. I’d have done something like that in an instant, given the opportunity.” She rubbed at a small faded patch of denim on the knee of her jeans. “But I’ve learned the hard way that revenge leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.” Frowning, she gazed at her knee with studied interest. “Tell me the rest of your story,” she said quietly.

“I will, but first I need a drink. Something with an alcoholic content. How about you?”

“What are you offering?”

“Wine. That’s all I have. Other than George’s grog.”

“A glass of wine will be fine. Thank you.”

Out in the kitchen, Clayton let out his breath. OK, so far, so good. He hadn’t lost it. That was a good sign.

Behind him, on the table, his mobile rang.

“Yes, Glen,” he said.

“You watched the programme?”

“Every heart-tugging second.”

“Quite a performance, I thought.”

“It’s as if they were born to it.”

“But you’re OK?”

“My God, Glen, is that a lump of concern I can hear in your voice?”

“No, it’s a Custard Cream.”

“Well, bugger off and leave me alone. I’m sure you must have far more important clients than me to deal with.”

“All my clients are more important than you, Clay. I forgot to ask earlier, done any writing today?”

“This morning, yes.”

“Progressing OK?”

“Ah, I get it. Your newfound concern for me hangs on my writing again and the thought of yet more filthy lucre coming your way.”

“I have two ex-wives to take care of.”

“No you don’t! You’ve never even been married. You don’t even have a girlfriend.”

“But who knows what’s around the corner for me? How does that song go? Marriage and divorce go together like a horse and carriage?”

“I think you’ll find it’s love and marriage. And no way is any sane woman going to marry you.”

“You’re a hurtful swine.”

“As I’ve told you before, sweetkins, it’s what keeps our relationship so fresh. Now if you don’t mind, I’m busy. I have company.”

“Oh? Tell me more.”

Clayton rang off.

From the last of the bottles of wine he’d bought, he poured out two glasses of Merlot and made a mental note to himself:
another shopping expedition now a matter of extreme urgency
.

He rejoined Alice and found her standing at the window, looking out over the front garden. He wondered how much she could actually see, given that it was dark outside. Perhaps it was the past she was really looking at. On the desk, to her left, was his laptop. Thankfully it was closed. Safe from accidental prying eyes.

She turned, probably at the sight of his reflection in the glass. Shocked, he saw an expression of intense sadness on her face. If he didn’t know better, he’d say she was close to tears. “You all right?” he asked.

She did that jerky head-wobbling thing that people always did when they were far from all right.

He put down the glasses on the coffee table. “I’m no expert in these matters, but I don’t think you’re all right. What’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “I’m absolutely—” Her voice cracked and she coughed, as if trying to hold something back. Then she burst into tears and turned away from him.

Oo
-kay, tears. Right. And the best course of action would be?

“Um…can I get you anything?” he said. She shook her head.

“Tissues?”

This time her head moved in an affirmative direction.

He returned as fast as he could with a box of Kleenex from the kitchen. “Man strength,” he said, holding the box out to her. “Guaranteed to let you down.”

She responded with a choky sob and plucked several tissues from the box. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose and started crying all over again. Only louder this time.

Ooo-kay
. Obviously something more than tissues was required. Reassurance of some kind. He put the tissue box down on the desk. Right. What if he touched her? Would she jump a mile high? He didn’t want to make her feel any worse. On the other hand, if she objected violently, it would at least distract her. But on the other hand—how many hands was he up to now?—what if she thought he was trying something on?

Meanwhile, her sobs and shaking were growing in intensity. He had to do something. He cautiously touched her shoulder. She didn’t react. Not even a flinch. He braced himself for a shove and a slap and slowly turned her towards him, his arms encircling her. She leaned against him awkwardly at first and then sank into him, her head resting on his shoulder. Nice shampoo, he found himself thinking as he breathed in the scent of her hair. Probably not the time or place, he then thought. Say something soothing. But he couldn’t think of anything remotely soothing to say. He’d never been good coping with tears. Stacey used to say it was because he was so repressed and he ignored other people’s emotions so that his own wouldn’t become infected.

With no ready words at his disposal, he started to rub Alice’s back, moving his hands in slow, self-conscious circles. He then held her a little closer. He could feel the softness of her breasts pressed against his chest. That feels nice, he suddenly thought.

It also felt bad. Should he be enjoying himself this much when she was clearly so upset? His hands moved from her back to her shoulders. He noticed she had stopped crying now. Was that his cue to let go? Was his work done? Perhaps just a little longer. Just to be sure.

One of his hands now seemed to be working of its own accord and had somehow found its way to the nape of her neck. He cradled her head gently, stroked her hair. Now the whole of his body seemed to be working of its own accord; he was holding her closer still and his other hand was now heading towards the smooth, warm skin of her neck. He tilted her face up to his and placed his lips very lightly over hers.

He snapped his eyes open. How had that happened? And when had his eyes closed? His mouth still hovering over hers, he found himself staring into the dark, dark depths of her gaze. “Are you going to kiss me?” she asked. “Or just leave me dangling here?”

“I must confess, a mad, crazy part of me was planning on kissing you. What do you think? Good or bad idea?”

“Let’s see how it goes, shall we?”

He closed the tiny space between them and kissed her. And kept on kissing her. “Verdict?” he said, when he finally broke away. “Good or bad idea?”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. Can you kiss me again, please?”

He smiled. “With pleasure. But I have to warn you, I don’t take criticism well.”

“Don’t worry; I think you’ll pass with flying colours.”

There was a split second of awkwardness when they at last pulled apart and after some lowering of eyes, some disentangling of limbs of some throat clearing, Clayton took matters into his own hands. Their kissing might have been a brief and pleasant distraction—it certainly had been for him—but he could see that Alice was still upset. About what exactly, he had yet to discover, although he had his suspicions. “You sit here and have an obscenely large glug of wine while I organize a fire,” he said.

“I’ll do the curtains,” she countered.

“No you won’t. I’ll do them.” He led her to one of the sofas. “Do as you’re told and sit down and relax.”

She looked at him curiously, her head tilted. “Did you have a shot of double-strength testosterone with your breakfast this morning? This newfound manly forcefulness is very unnerving.”

“Is that what’s wrong with me? I thought there was something; I just couldn’t put my finger on it.”

She smiled and he felt a flicker of warmth spread through him. She really did have the most charming and heart-warming of smiles. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

When he had the fire lit and the curtains drawn, effectively shutting out the outside world, he went and joined her on the sofa. He didn’t put an arm around her. He’d taken one liberty when she wasn’t feeling herself; two would be exceedingly unchivalrous.

“Stacey always accused me of being insensitive,” he said, “but you know, I don’t think that was entirely fair of her. For instance, I did happen to notice that you were ever so slightly upset over something a few moments ago. You hid it well, though. To the untrained eye it could have gone unnoticed. Do you want to tell me what it is?”

Again the smile. A little sadder than the previous one, but it still had the same effect on him: a flickering, tender warmth.

“It was what George told me about my father,” she said.

“I wondered if it was that.”

She looked at him over the top of her wine glass. “For an insensitive man, you’re pretty sensitive, aren’t you?”

They were sitting about a foot apart and he was strongly tempted to kiss her once more. On his case again, Captain Sensible roared through a megaphone at him:
Liberties!

“What did George tell you?” he asked.

“She said that my father came back to look for me. According to George he tried really hard. When she told him the name of the estate agent who had sold the house, he went to them to see if they knew where I was. All they could do was pass him on to the firm of solicitors I’d used, but of course they were under strict instructions not to give out any information about my whereabouts. Apparently he gave them a letter to forward to me, but by this time I was in London and I’d moved so many times in the space of two years there was no way anything could have reached me.” She sighed. “He tried to find me, Clayton, and that hurts. More than I ever thought it would.” She wiped away two small tears. “He was a crazy father, a wildly unpredictable and passionate man, but I loved him. Maybe that was why I was so hard on him; I wanted to do something wild and irrational myself to hurt him in the way he’d hurt me. Why do we do that, hurt the ones we love?” She sighed again. “God, what a family we were! You couldn’t make it up, could you?”

Clayton shifted uncomfortably. “Truth is always stranger than fiction,” he said quietly. He took a sip of his wine and in the silence that followed he listened to the sound of logs on the fire popping and spitting. A gust of wind rattled down the chimney and a whoosh of sparks flared. “Did George know whether your father and Isabel stayed together?” he asked.

“No, she didn’t know that. But the fact that my father came here alone probably means they didn’t. It was highly unlikely that they would. She was so much younger than him. It had to have been nothing but a stupid fling.”

“If that’s all it was, he paid a high price for it, losing his daughter. Especially as you were his only daughter.” It was the wrong thing to say. Alice’s eyes filled and she reached for another tissue. “Sorry,” he said, “big mouth syndrome. I’m told there is treatment for it. It’s a tricky procedure, involves having my head removed.”

She blew her nose. “You’re really quite a nice man, aren’t you?”

“That’s not what the newspapers would have you believe.”

“I’ve only read the one piece about you. I didn’t want to read anymore; it didn’t feel right. It seemed too much of an invasion of your privacy. I’d hate for anyone to do that to me.”

Having earlier planned to tell Alice that he had started writing, and more to the point,
what
he’d been writing, Clayton knew that now wasn’t the time to share this turn of events with her. That’s right, Mr. Sensitivity strikes again.

“Take my mind off things by telling me what really happened with Stacey and Barry,” she said, surprising him.

“You’re sure it would help?”

She nodded. “It might not be as effective a distraction as your kiss, but I’ll take my chances.” She then leaned into him, inviting him to put an arm around her.

Who was he to refuse?

• • •

The morning after his telephone outburst on national television, and nursing a fearsome hangover, Clayton felt ashamed of his conduct. He’d gone too far. Having only just heard about his behaviour by reading about it in the newspapers, Glen phoned him. “Had you been drinking beforehand?”

“I might have been,” he’d admitted.

“Is it starting to be a regular thing with you? The drinking?”

“That’s the one thing you can rely upon me for, Glen,” he’d replied. “Drinking to excess on a regular basis is not my thing.” It was the truth; he was a veritable lightweight when it came to alcohol. It was the first thing he and Barry had discovered they had in common when they’d met at university.

He had known in advance that the Golden Couple was due to appear on
This Morning
and so—just to help him get through the ordeal—he had prepared himself accordingly with a few breakfast bevies while watching
The Jeremy Kyle Show
. Common sense would have dictated that watching another channel might have been a better way to handle their appearance. Or not to have switched the television on in the first place.

“Perhaps you could find a way to make amends,” Glen had suggested on the phone. “The public is capricious. They loved it when you outed that tosser and his highly entertaining proclivities, but one look at the papers this morning tells me they’re siding with Bazza and Stacey in this instance. It’s the baby thing. Don’t ask me why, but everyone loves a baby. Perhaps you could make a gesture of deep regret, a touching display of contrition. As abject as you can manage.”

The next day Clayton came up with the perfect apology. He would surprise the Golden Couple with baby presents galore. He would buy up Baby Gap and have everything installed in the house ready for their return from L.A.

But why stop at Baby Gap? he’d asked himself. There was Mothercare, there was John Lewis, there were any number of shops he could use. Moreover, there was the Internet.

That was when it got out of hand, when his imagination took over and all coherent and rational thought fled from his head. All he needed to pull off his apology was access to Bazza’s house.

When they’d been riding high on the success of
Joking Aside
, Bazza had bought an astonishingly expensive four-storey property in Notting Hill. In those days Clayton had been a frequent visitor and had been entrusted with the code for the alarm system—Bazza’s mother’s birth date. Unfortunately he’d never been entrusted with a key, but a little thing like that wasn’t going to stop him.

From reading the papers he knew that the Golden Couple would be returning late the following evening, in readiness for yet another television appearance the next morning so they could bore the pants off everyone about their amazing time in L.A.—and so he had everything planned with military precision. He gained entry to the house in the dead of night by smashing a pane of glass in the French doors at the back. He stumbled through the house in the dark to the hall where he knew the control panel was situated for the alarm system. He also knew that there would be a brief delay before the system would route a call through to the police station, should he not be able to switch the thing off. He was banking on Lucky Bazza not having changed the system, or the number. He tapped in the code and at once the red warning light on the panel stopped flashing. He was in! Operation Baby was all set to go.

He passed the night on the sofa and woke early in the morning. He actually felt excited at the prospect of the next part of his plan. He poured himself a bowl of Coco Pops—Bazza’s favourite cereal—then opened the fridge for some milk. There wasn’t any. Well, of course there wouldn’t be. The Golden Couple wouldn’t have left a pint of milk to go sour in their absence, would they? He made do with a cup of black coffee and patiently waited for the first of the deliveries to arrive.

The van for Baby Gap arrived first. Clayton donned his disguise of a baseball cap and sunglasses and helpfully instructed the delivery driver where to put everything.

Next followed suit.

Then John Lewis, and at the same time as Mothercare, a man came to fix the broken panel of glass in the French doors.

Clayton was no expert when it came to babies and their requirements, but he was quietly impressed with his selection. He reckoned the ground floor of the house was full of everything that a couple could possibly want for their forthcoming offspring to take them from birth through to about four years old. There were clothes galore, a pram, a pushchair, bathing equipment, sit and ride toys, a torturous-looking device to extract breast-milk, bottles, a sterilising unit, a highchair, box loads of toys, a playpen, a miniature table and chair set, a Moses basket, a cot and a lot more besides.

Throughout the busy day of activity Clayton had noticed a few passers-by taking interested glances at what was going on. One of the neighbours actually knocked on the door in the middle of the afternoon and, disinclined to show himself, Clayton persuaded the delivery driver from Mothercare to explain to the nosy old biddy that it was a surprise being organized. Hardly a lie, was it?

He was beginning to get a bit twitchy by five o’clock that the last of the deliveries wasn’t going to arrive, but then ten minutes later, the van arrived. Except it wasn’t a van-about-town kind of van, it was more like a removal truck. A stonking great lorry that was in danger of blocking the street. Oh, shit, Clayton thought when the two enormous delivery men opened up the back of it. He could see now why the two men were so large. They’d have to be to lug these things about.

“I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” he said.

“No mistake, mate,” the larger of the two hulks replied. “Got it all down here on paper.” He thrust the paper at Clayton. “Right then, where do you want them?”

“You don’t understand…I thought they’d be—”

“Come on, pal,” said Hulk Number Two with more than a hint of impatience to his voice. He had a skull and crossbones tattooed around his neck; it was a helpful clue to Clayton not to mess with him. “We ain’t got all day, you know. We’ve got to be in Leamington Spa by eight.”

And with that, they began to unload the delivery. It was as well that the house was positioned at the end of the row and that there was plenty of access round to the back garden. As the two Incredible Hulks manoeuvred the items and put them into place, Clayton tried to convince himself that what he’d ordered didn’t look half as terrifying as it did. The final touch was for Hulk Number One to install the timer device Clayton had ordered. “Unless you’re a qualified electrician, mate,” he was informed, “don’t even think about messing with the electrics. We’ll be back to collect the gear in four days’ time as it says on the paperwork.”

Once again, the neighbour next door was keeping a close eye on matters by pressing her nose up against one of her bedroom windows. She was probably already penning a furious letter to the authorities checking to see whether planning permission had been granted for these monstrous eyesores.

The Incredible Hulks finally drove off, leaving Clayton to review the situation. He wished now that he’d stuck to balloons. Balloons wouldn’t have been so terrifying.

Back inside the house, he sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a carefully worded letter to Bazza and Stacey. Well, letter was pushing it. A ten-word note was nearer the mark.

I hope you like my present to you both,

Clayton.

He simply didn’t know what else to say. And anyway, suffering from writer’s block as he was, they were lucky to get that much from him.

A sudden dazzling light from outside made him go and stand at the window. It was so bright out there in the garden he half expected to see a spacecraft not unlike the one in
ET
to be hovering above Notting Hill.

Ohshitohshitohoshit
! What in hell’s name had he done?

Crammed into the garden, ablaze and each measuring approximately ten feet in diameter, were the grizzliest sights he’d seen in the whole of his miserable life.

Online they had looked cartoon-cuddly-cute. They’d also looked small, not much bigger than your average garden gnome. He’d thought at the time they seemed an expensive novelty to hire, but Holy Moses, how had he missed the measurements? How had he cocked up so comprehensively? These monsters were huge. They were massive. They’d seemed scarily large in their unlit state, but now that the timer had switched on and they were illuminated, they seemed to have doubled in size and hideousness. They stared back at him like a gruesome collection of chilling decapitated heads from a Halloween horror movie. Their nightmarish, manic expressions suggested that any minute, if he so much as looked away, they’d start creeping towards the house to come and get him. There was a pale-blue elephant head, a russet squirrel head, a pink rabbit head, a yellow duck head and a purple pig head, all grotesque and demonically oversized. He wondered if they’d ever had bodies attached. If so, how big would that have made them? And what had been their original purpose? Fairground illuminations, perhaps.