Undeniable (16 page)

Nish:
How?? Was she watching?

Mia:
NO! She Facebooked me about it. In detail.

Rosie:
Isn’t it a bit soon?

Gabi:
We are getting on really well. He was filming this scene and I had this great idea for what he should do in it (actually, I gave him loooooads of
great ideas for it) and then he did them all and everybody is raving about him!

Nish:
But he told them that you helped him, right?

Gabi:
No, but I mean, I’m just the runner, aren’t I? He’s the actor man.

Nish:
You should think about your career too.

Gabi:
More excitement about my NEWS please!

Mia:
ARGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Rosie:
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Gabi:
Thank you, everyone. (Not you, Nish.) I am going to meet his mum and brother tomorrow!

Nish:
Wow, you move fast!

Rosie:
Yeah, sounds serious! What’s going to happen when you finish the internship?

Gabi:
Argh, sorry got to go – have to take the lunch order.

Gabi:
LOVE YOU BYE x

Gabi has left the conversation.

There is a ramp going up to the door. It’s the bottom flat of a Victorian house, a bit like Spencer’s. It is a bit weird that he and his friends have the whole
thing and his mother just has a floor. I assumed he came from quite a rich background to be living somewhere so nice. Spencer has his own key and lets us in.

It’s all a bit last minute and I sort of invited myself. Spencer was supposed to be going to some industry party with other people his agent represents. He didn’t sound very excited
about it.

‘Who wants to sit around talking to a load of reality TV stars?’ he said.

‘Yeah, sounds rubbish,’ I replied, thinking,
ME. I do!

Then he remembered he’d made other plans and told me he was supposed to go to his mum’s for dinner.

I said, ‘That would be lovely,’ and he didn’t uninvite me, so here I am.

A woman’s voice calls, ‘Spencer?’ from a back room and a blur rushes past me to stop beside Spencer. It turns out to be a small boy who kicks him in the leg.

Spencer shouts, ‘Hey, Monkeyboy . . .’ and grabs the boy by the back of his T-shirt as he tries to run away and then tickles him. While he’s doing that, a woman comes into the
hallway using a crutch.

‘My boy! And you must be Gabi. Come through, come through.’

In the kitchen she gives me a kiss on the cheek. The boy comes bombing into the room again and slides across the kitchen floor, just avoiding bashing into her crutch.

‘Joel!’ Spencer snaps.

‘Oh, I’ll get him back.’ His mum waves her hand dismissively and then points the end of the crutch at Joel. ‘Good for a swift crack on the shins, this thing,’ she
says confidentially to me. ‘You should get one to keep him in check,’ she adds, nodding at Spencer.

Spencer’s mum has MS. She tells me about it while Spencer takes over getting dinner ready. He stands with his back to us as he chops some tomatoes on the kitchen side. I can’t see
his face as his mum talks about the illness and I think his shoulders look tense.

His mum is totally relaxed though as she arranges some cushions on a kitchen chair and then sits and leans back. She tells me to take a seat at the table.

‘It’s a bugger because they don’t think I’m fit to work. I told them I used to manage this building place – that the lads know me and will take turns carrying me
when my legs are bad. No sense of humour!’

She says the pain comes and goes and the last time she spoke to Spencer it was a bad time and she was having a moan. He’d said he’d come round tonight because ‘he
panics’.

The whole way through we are interrupted by Joel, who is making George’s Marvellous Medicine in a bucket because he is doing the book at school. He makes me promise to try some when
he’s finished, but I’m hoping he’ll forget because earlier he absent-mindedly told us he was stirring the slugs in, before asking his mum if she had any yogurt she didn’t
want any more.

Me and Spencer’s mum start talking about who we fancy most in soaps, despite Spencer complaining that we are talking rubbish. She tells him not to be such an old fart, and then clinks her
wine glass with mine.

I feel like I’m beginning to map out his life and a clearer picture of him is coming into view.

I’m thrilled when she gets onto the subject of
The Halls
. When she found out Spencer had a line in it, she bought the first series on box set and watched the whole thing.

‘That Harry’s a sort, isn’t he?’ She nudges me.

‘OH MY GOD, YES!’ Definitely feeling a little bit tipsy now.

I can see Spencer is grinning as he drains the spaghetti and then when we tell him to hurry up, he comes obediently over with the food. I tell her spaghetti Bolognaise is my absolute favourite
and she says, ‘Who knew?’ and winks at Spencer. I finish my plate, and the rest of Joel’s too because he is not looking too marvellous after his medicine, and then I get
seconds.

Spencer’s mum says she likes a girl who can eat. That was also how I impressed Max’s mum – with my appetite. I think I put on about a stone just being in their house. But it
was a stone that included lots of yummy cakes, so totally worth it.

Spencer’s mum is constantly embarrassing him, so I can see where he gets his sense of humour from. She tells me she was very excited I was coming round because she doesn’t usually
get to meet the girlfriends.

‘Er, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s just some girl that keeps following me round. I can’t shake her off,’ says Spencer.

‘Oh don’t be like that,
babe
,’ I reply. Our eyes meet and I see him trying to fight off his smile.

After dinner, his mum gets down a photo album and I discover that Spencer went through a stage when he was about six of wearing only a bow tie. His entire childhood keeps us entertained for
ages, only stopping when Joel demands I sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him, even though it’s not his birthday. Then he asks me to sing the dead cat song. I tell him I don’t know
the words, but I can join in soon because the words are apparently, ‘Dead cat, dead cat’, over and over. When he says he is going to get the cat to join in too, I give Spencer a look of
fear, which puts him in hysterics. Thankfully the cat Joel comes back with is very much alive and surprisingly tolerant about being dragged around the kitchen by a five year old. Spencer intervenes
only at the point when we hear Joel say, ‘Tilly wants medicine.’

I ask to see Spencer’s bedroom and he says, ‘Steady on’, which sets his mum off into cackling. I try to say that I am just nosey about his life, not suggesting anything, but
they aren’t having any of it.

I get a flashback of Max’s dad glaring at me whenever I went anywhere near Max’s bedroom.

Spencer does give me the tour though. His bedroom is just the box room because they moved here after his mum was diagnosed, which was only a few years ago. I think of the man in the photo album,
who is there in all of Spencer’s photos. I probably shouldn’t ask about him, but I do, because the question is hanging in the air. And I’ve had two glasses of wine.

He looks at his feet and then across at me. And then he talks. Their dad freaked out over the whole MS thing and then it turned out he was having an affair with his boss. He lives with her now
in this big house with her kids, who are Joel’s age. Spencer’s mum won’t take any money from his dad, but he pays Spencer guilt money that he uses for rent. He bites the inside of
his cheek.

‘Once they pay me my first big film cheque . . .’ He pauses, giving me a look as if to add, Which I know sounds ridiculous. ‘. . . then I’m buying her a house.’

On the Tube back, Spencer puts his arm round me. ‘Thank you for coming.’

‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘I get paid for this, right?’

He doesn’t seem to hear that and carries on talking. Sometimes I think he doesn’t appreciate my comedy gold. And he also doesn’t seem to appreciate that I had an absolute blast
at his house. I love hanging out with people’s families. When I knew I had to break up with Max, one of the things stopping me was that I wouldn’t be able to hang out at his house any
more. I was always texting his mum. His dad not so much because there was the incident where he told Max that going out with me might hold him back in life.

‘When are you going back home again?’ says Spencer.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘I could come with you.’

‘OKAY!’

He pretends to wince at how loud my voice is, but then he smiles.

Thinking about it, I should probably have shrugged and said something more chilled like, ‘Yeah come, or don’t.
Whatever
.’

But I didn’t.

I did text telling him the train time. He replied saying,
I’ve got an interview!
Which was nice, but irrelevant. He’s got a minute to
arrive or he’s going to miss it. I hover near the barrier watching the escalator that comes up from the Underground. Should I just get on the train? He’s only got thirty seconds now.
And that’s the guard’s whistle. I’m going to have to just go. I run across the platform and leap onto the train. I’m there. And the doors stay open. A few people look up
from their seats as I catch my breath. I so need to do more exercise. Or just some exercise.

I look up and see Spencer is behind me, doing a casual stroll up the platform. And just before he gets to the door he does an impression of me running. In my head I thought it was a swift,
elegant sprint – a bit like Usain Bolt; according to Spencer’s impression it was Usain Bolt with no control over his limbs or face.

On the train he keeps yawning. It turns out he went to a party last night. Apparently his agent called him up and forced him. I’d like to just casually drop into conversation, ‘Why
didn’t you invite me?’ but I think it goes against my ‘trying not to seem too keen’ plan. There is the danger I’ll just blurt it out the next time I’m annoyed
though.

Then Spencer moves to the seat next to me and kisses me and strangely I forget about it, along with forgetting all the thoughts that I have ever had.

They are in the usual spot in the park. I see the manic waving as soon as we walk through the entrance. There is a slight pause and a moment when they turn to each other, which
must be them realising I’ve brought Spencer with me. A few metres away, I start running. I aim straight at Nish and attack her with a massive kiss on the cheek. She pushes me off.

No Max, thank God, but there are a few other people from college. There is a bit of an awkward silence as we get sat down.

Then I do the introductions, obviously not including Nish and Rosie, who he’s already met. And I show him a picture of Mia on my phone and prop her up against a lemonade bottle.

‘So how’s all the filming going?’ Nish says, while Rosie is looking at her mobile.

‘Yeah, it’s—’ Spencer’s phone starts ringing. ‘Oh, I need to take this. Sorry, Nadia, I’ll be back in one sec.’

‘It’s Nish,’ she snaps.

He is on the phone for ages. Everyone smiles politely and carries on the conversation, but I keep looking over at him, wondering when he’s planning on coming back over.

I pick up pretend Mia from the lemonade bottle and text actual Mia.

She replies in a few minutes. I love Mia.

She is right. For the first few times Jamie came out with us as Mia’s boyfriend, I would only glare at him. And make deliberate comments about how lovely Dan, Mia’s ex, was. Then he
bought me some shoes after hearing me go on about how much I wanted them. So I said I hoped he didn’t think shoes would make me think he was a nice person (although I did keep them). I only
really started liking him when we were in New Zealand and Mia was telling me what he’s like when he’s with her.

I reply.

And so does she.

While I’m chatting I have my phone in my hand and I fire off a quick text to let Mum know that I’m back for the day. I’m sure we could fit in a visit to the house before we
have to get the train back. She replies immediately as well. I do have them all well trained.

Spencer is over by a tree. Still talking on the phone. Then Rosie says she’s going to use the loo in the café. So I jump up as well. A good opportunity to check that she has
definitely forgiven me.

As she sees me get up, she smiles. So I give her a big hug and say, ‘You love me again, don’t you?’

She says, ‘Yumf’, because her head is a bit trapped in my boobs. She frees herself. ‘Of course, it was fine. I just wanted you to be there! And you’ve got your
exciting
summer hanging with the celebs! I’m so happy for you, after the year you had.’

‘It has been SO COOL.’ I jump in quickly. ‘Specially as it’s turning into a summer of lurve!’

Rosie doesn’t say anything.

‘What?’ I say, even though I know I shouldn’t push it.

‘Don’t you think it’s . . . a bit . . . insensitive?’

The guilt is like a dead weight on my stomach.

‘Max has been doing really well,’ Rosie goes on. ‘I just think he’d be really upset if he knew you’d brought Spencer here.’

I swallow. What I should say is, ‘I know. I haven’t been thinking about Max. Because it hurts to think about Max. And so I pretend there is nothing to think about.’