A Perfect Life (7 page)

‘Ready?' he says, grinning.

Angel imagines a parallel scene where he pulls her towards him by the belt loops on her shorts until they are touching all the way up their bodies, and their eyes meet and then their mouths.

‘Almost.' She suddenly realises she hasn't got a towel or her handbag or anything.

‘I've just got to get my stuff,' she calls, retreating into the house again, needing to escape the intensity coursing between them.

Nineteen years ago Angel was escaping something else the day she met Nick Stone. A wrong love affair that lasted three weeks, so never had real wings on which to fly. Angel didn't know she was pregnant when she got on the train to return home to her parents, having said goodbye to Ranim. He was returning to India, he was never coming back, he lived in an ashram there and his expansive views on free love got Angel into bed the first night she met him. There she stayed, consumed, falling, and allowing no safety net in herself, cut off from her friends and family, drunk on headlong sex and passion,
pretending to herself it was safe because he was going away. ‘Three weeks won't hurt,' was her promise to herself, ‘and then I'll get on with my life.'

The man opposite her on the train that day was the antithesis of sleek, small-boned delicate Ranim whose liquid dark eyes promised everything, whose sensitive hands and smooth body gave her pleasure she had not known before. She mistook pleasure for love, and was yearning to see him again even as he kissed her goodbye and boarded his plane. She never did. The shock of his going numbed her, and she could only measure the extent of her pain some years later, when she noticed it had gone. Life was too big and full for her to dwell on a memory, no matter how lovely, and the affair with Ranim was more a memory than anything else.

Out of the fantasy of what she wanted to believe at the time was the biggest love affair of her life, she allowed Nick to rescue her, a damsel in distress. He seemed strong and sure and he wanted her in his life. The distress became self-disgust when she found that she was pregnant, and Nick asking her to marry him was affirmation that she was lovable. She found it hard to believe he could still want to have anything to do with her, but Nick was drawn to complexity, and the more Angel revealed of the mess she believed herself to be, the more he loved her for being herself. And without noticing it happening, over the first year of knowing him, Angel fell in love with Nick's courage, his willingness and his determination. Nick stopped the raging voices in her head, and in the
silence she heard her own heart and was amazed it was still in one piece. And relieved to have a father for her baby. She would never stop being grateful to Nick for that.

Searching in the kitchen for her sunglasses, Angel cannot get the grin off her face. She feels reckless and young. Desired. Just the way Jake looks at her is waking up her body, and sparkling energy runs through her, making her want to sing and dance and kiss and touch. In this moment she cannot connect with the notion that she has four children and a husband, and she runs out of the door and into Jake's car, more or less not touching the ground but floating in a pink-tinted fantasy.

If she wasn't my mother and therefore beyond sex, I would swear that Mum has been shagging when she arrives at the beach. She's got Jake the Spaz with her and she's wearing one of Coral's T-shirts which says ‘Bitch 1' on it and is tiny so a lot of Mum's suntan is showing and more of her tits than I ever want to see. Ruby sees Mum first and she runs back past the beach huts and up the steps to where Mum is at the top of the dunes, her back to the pine trees, shading her eyes to look for us. She knows where she is looking though, because we always go to the same place on this beach. Ever since we saw the poo floating by, we have made our encampments well away from the popular stretch where the sand is soft, and instead we have gone for the Neolithic option with giant pebbles and sand like a mosaic with broken razor shells.

Quality of life on the beach is not about texture, it's about waste levels and pollution. Or escaping them. I like to tell Mum that we are eco-warriors. I
tell her because it's true, but also because it puts her in a really good mood to think of us having any sort of conscience or cause. Sorry to be cynical, but it's true. We have given up buying one make of cereal completely because the company exploits African babies, and even Foss knows to look at the brand before he chooses an ice cream and he boycotts the bad one.

Ruby has adopted an African child to make up for the wrongs of this cereal company. So far she has written her child ten letters and sent biros, pencil cases and three pairs of my old trainers. She hasn't had anything back yet but Mum says life is all about giving, so it's supposed to be fine. Mum's given two hundred quid for this baby. I wish she'd dish it out to me – I could do with some new speakers.

Anyway, Ruby makes Mum and Jake swing her, so they come across to us like some perfect family three-some. Mum's eyes are sparkling and her cheeks are flushed; she looks amazing, and completely different from how she looked when we left the house earlier. It is a bit like a facelift. I have to say, I am not the one who notices this; it is Melons who whispers to me, ‘Hey, look at your mum, she's cheered up,' and Coral adds, ‘She could do with growing up a bit. I don't know why Nick puts up with it.'

Coral always calls Dad ‘Nick'. I think it makes her feel grown-up, like swearing at him, which she does as well. He never shouts back like he does at me, but I guess that's to do with her being a girl. Mum always says so anyway.

‘Oh my God,' says Mel, ‘but she's your mum, she wouldn't. Would she?'

Coral turns her back on Mum. She looks furious. ‘She's wearing my T-shirt as well. She should just get on with being grown-up and leave the teenage behaviour to us lot.'

Mel is anxious now, it was supposed to be funny and it's getting ugly. ‘Let's go and swim,' she says, handing Coral a cigarette. They both light up from the same match cocooned in Matt's hand.

Foss trudges up with his bucket slopping with seaweed and water. He is doing his heavy breathing thing, but it's just concentration, not a special need. Mel and Coral scoop him up on to Coral's back and make sure they are off before Mum reaches us. Matt follows them more slowly, after having a good look at Jake. I don't know what I want to do right now. The problem with going down to the sea with Mel is that when she swims her bikini is see-through and everything – like EVERYTHING shows. I don't know how girls can cope with being so full on. Maybe she doesn't know, but Mel is better than any poster from a magazine. It's just as well she isn't my sister.

Luckily, and maybe because it is what I am related to, I don't go for the slight dark type at all. Coral is like a tube. All her limbs and her body are round but narrow. She looks like she weighs nothing, and she is quite short, like Mum, and very exotic-looking, like no one in our family. Her hair is so black it often looks green. She could come from Mars. Or Tibet. But actually I suppose she was born in King's Lynn
hospital with Dad standing around looking anxious like when Ruby was born, which I can remember because Coral and I had to go too. Luckily there was a Nintendo machine in the waiting room. It took the length of time needed to complete Golden Eye for Mum to give birth to Ruby. Then we went home.

Ruby is yakking away as usual. ‘So, Mummy, we made this castle and the fairy stables are at the back but a bit smaller than I wanted because Matt and Jem got bored, but there is still enough room for three Brat ponies – did you bring them?'

‘Err no, was I supposed to?' Mum isn't even looking at the castle; she's playing with her hair and glancing at Jake sneakily from behind her shades.

‘Ooooh, Mummmmyyyyy!' Ruby's voice can rise on a crescendo like a dentist's drill. ‘I sent a text from Coral's phone to you TELLING you to bring my Brat ponies. So why didn't you look at your messages?'

A lot of the sparkle leaves Mum's eyes now as she tries to talk Ruby down from her flight of fancy.

It is never easy, and particularly when Ruby is hot and thirsty, and Mum feels guilty. ‘My phone is off. Actually, I haven't seen it since you had it in the tree house yesterday, Ruby, when you were texting Daddy.'

Ruby's mouth is screwed up so tight and red and witchy it looks like a sea anemone in the middle of her cross little face. She whacks Mum right in the stomach.

‘Ooff!' Poor Mum reels back and looks like she wants to kill Ruby. ‘Don't. Hit. Me,' she says through clenched teeth, and walks away towards the sea.

Ruby starts howling, ‘Mummmmyyyyy' and runs off after her. Before she can catch up, Mum starts jogging and then she is in full flight escaping from Ruby. No one is having a good time. I lie down on the sand and put my hat over my face – the bloody sun is still shining, even though it must be four or five by now. There is a sigh and someone else stretches out beside me, and without taking my hat off my eyes, I work out it must be Jake. It's the smell of his aftershave that tells me. Quite weird. I hope he doesn't speak.

He does. ‘How old is your little sister?'

‘Err, dunno . . . maybe seven or something,' I mutter and feign sleep, but he is not going to be shaken off.

‘Where's the other one?'

‘The other what?'

‘You know, the other small kid – you've got two, haven't you?'

‘Well, I haven't – Mum and Dad have got two as well as me and Coral. I dunno where he is. I think Coral took him somewhere with her friends – I was only supposed to be in charge of Ruby.' I tell him all this in an energy-saving monotone and I hope it is enough to shut him up. I don't dislike him, it's just that I want to chill out now I am finally horizontal on the beach with no small children dangling off me, and I can't chill if I have to talk to some bloke I don't know.

‘It looks like fun being part of a big family,' he says, and I realise that there is nothing I can do to shut him up, unless I actually get up and move further away. I
am flat out, with warm sand shored up around me. I suddenly remember this book Mum used to read about five children and some little creature with eyes on stalks. ‘Can you remember that psycho little thing that lived in sand in a gravel pit in some old children's book?' I even prop myself up on one arm to squint over at Jake. He puts his sunglasses on his forehead and squints back, looking confused.

‘The first book I ever read was the
Highway Code
when I took my driving test.' He laughs. It doesn't sound to me much like there was a follow-up, so I don't ask what the second was.

Anyway, I have remembered by myself now. ‘I think the swivel-eyed creature was called It. I dunno why I just thought of it.' I pull my hat over my face more and try to burrow down a bit because I can hear Mum and Ruby on their way back and on to a smooth bit of the emotional ride.

‘Here we are,' Mum puffs, staggering up to us with Ruby clinging with all arms and legs around the middle of Mum, which seems very small. ‘I think you could walk now, couldn't you?'

‘Or fly or dance or do anything like holding hands with you,' agrees Ruby, schizophrenically altered from ten minutes ago.

Jake leans up on his hand and mutters to me, ‘Blimey, is this normal?'

‘Yeah – don't you know anyone this age?'

‘I suppose I don't – but I like them, they're crazy.'

‘Stir her up and watch her spin,' I say, and Jake and I snigger for no reason. Mum, kneeling by the castle,
looks over at us; her hands are on her hips and her sunglasses are on her head and she is doing her sixties impression which would be quite good if it wasn't so dated. She nearly speaks then changes her mind. I wish Dad was here to play a game of beach cricket. I don't really want to ask Jake – it would please Mum too much.

The hotel has walls like suede or fudge but they are not soft. Nick's back is against the wall – literally more than metaphorically. He is lounging in the lobby waiting for Carrie to come out of the Ladies' lavatory. She could have used the one in his room, but she didn't even glance through the door at it – quite unusual for a girl.

Is it unusual for a girl to come and have sex in the afternoon with someone she has just met? Maybe not in America, which just shows how excellently his instincts were functioning when he conceived the plan of buying the apartment. Nick has never experienced this version of adultery before. It seems a lot more practical and sensible than dating, and it's exciting, too. Three hours in his hotel room with shadows from the tops of trees outside moving on Carrie's back when she lay on her elbows on the bed, looking at him, not talking, but playing with her hair and propping her feet one on top of the other. She had a
bikini mark slicing high across her arse and a tiny scar like a hidden pocket zipped shut on her hip bone and her skin was golden, soft and taut, everything skin should be. She smelled of fruit and daisies, not exotic and sultry, but clean and preppy. And what she could do with her mouth, her tongue, her lips, her hands. Mmmmm. This is what Nick is in New York for, affirmation that he is alive and successful. He may not have cracked the deal with the US elastic manufacturers, but he can fuck and ejaculate as well as the next man.

Probably better, he thinks, remembering Carrie's second orgasm, when he had her up against the hard-backed yet soft-surfaced suede wall. Oh yes. That was what it was all about. And she was so yielding, so open. Mmm, lust is a great feeling. With a flourish he turns his phone on and it beeps with a message. He listens to it, turning towards the window as Carrie comes out of the Ladies and stands next to him, fresh lip-gloss shining on her smile. He blinks at her and steps away a little, instinctively wanting his own space now he is focusing on the rest of the world again.

‘Daddy, it's Ruby and Foss. Please can you ring us? We want to know when you will be back and how do you make the car work when Mummy left the lights on? Also Jem isn't letting us watch the big TV and Mummy says we have to sort it out ourselves. Love you.'