Every Good Girl (26 page)

‘Oh him. When you say “got”, do you mean, like, bed-wise?' Chloe's eager eyes betrayed her interest. She was gleaming for details and Emily felt duly satisfied. She hesitated. ‘How and when and what etcetera,' Chloe finally demanded.

Emily amazed herself with what she left out. She wouldn't admit to the fear-feelings of being out in the Saturday night crowd. Couldn't admit to terror that Simon would laugh at her and march her straight back to Joe's. Skilfully, she glamorized the night, told of a secret midnight arrangement, lied that he'd sent a taxi to wait round the corner while she made sure Lucy was sleeping and slid like a hunting cat out through the door. Sometimes truth crept in. ‘We haven't done it,' she confessed. ‘Not yet. It'll be all the more exciting because of the wait.'

Chloe looked confused. ‘
Why
haven't you? You went to all that trouble and then didn't do it? What
did
you do, have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit and then go home?'

Emily giggled, ‘Well actually, more or less that.' Chloe looked doubtful. ‘It's not because I'm younger, it's not that,' she insisted. It was the man on the Common, that was what it was all about. Lying on
Simon's bed, feeling his warm breath and his fingers stroking the soft tender skin of her stomach under her shirt, she'd curled herself up, away from him, protecting herself in case he suddenly turned animal, tore off his own clothes, confronted her with unstoppable violence that was nothing to do with sex.

She'd told him about it, after he'd coaxed and persuaded. She'd muttered her story into the pillow, not much caring whether he really heard or understood. Later, he was kissing tears from her face gently like a cat tending a sleepy kitten, but his hand was reaching for the phone, calling for a taxi.

‘But next time,' she grinned at Chloe. She crossed her fingers and stroked the wood of the bench beneath her. Let there
be
a next time. He hadn't actually said.

‘Yeah, keep them waiting, make them pant,' Chloe agreed.

‘I think he's up to something. He's got a secret,' Monica told Nina in the chic French coffee shop overlooking the pond. The au pairs were out there again on the benches like match substitutes who just know they're not going to be asked to play, smoking desperately and glaring at their toddling charges.

‘What, Graham? What sort of secret?'

Nina wondered, as she had before, about Graham and sex. It surely played some part in his life; he wasn't neutered like his old grey tomcat. Whatever private affairs he was up to, she couldn't blame him for not letting on to Monica. She remembered, with horrible pitying clarity, when Graham at seventeen had, after much brooding and courage-building, asked a girl called Helen to go to see
The Italian Job
with him. Helen had been meek and blond and had a Saturday job at the sweetshop on the corner. As soon as Monica
knew what Graham planned, she'd made a point of going in for a box of Quality Street and a chat about Graham's favourite chocolate centres. ‘Your Helen' she was referred to in the house, as in ‘Why don't you invite Your Helen round for tea on Sunday' and ‘I had a nice chat with Your Helen at the bus stop today'. Monica couldn't resist involving herself. She would have called it taking an interest, looking out for Graham, making sure he didn't get hurt. Quite soon, Helen was seen on the back of a motor bike, legs and arms wrapped round a new and more thrilling love in her life, one whose mother probably didn't even know her name. Monica, air of disappointment and told-you-so to the fore, referred to her for long after Graham's pride had recovered, as That Helen.

‘Perhaps he's met someone,' Nina suggested. ‘Is he out a lot?'

‘Not so much out, not out like saying he's going somewhere special.' Monica's fork was dissecting a slice of chocolate gâteau into bite-sized pieces. ‘He says he's going out to watch the owls on the Common. He takes his balaclava thing, you know, the one I knitted for him when he first went plane-spotting and used to get earache. So he's camouflaged, he says. Then he's out for hours.'

‘Oh right, I see. Well he's always liked owls, hasn't he? And planes of course, anything that flies.' Nina laughed.

Monica's fork started mashing the cake, as if she couldn't really recall how it should be eaten. It reminded Nina of a child with a lost appetite, trying to hide the food by making it look smaller. She wanted to say something gentle like, ‘If you don't want that cake, just leave it,' but the words stuck, they sounded too parental, as if the two of them were subtly swapping
roles. She hoped she wasn't the only one who wasn't ready for that yet.

Sometimes he takes an extra coat, too, as well as his old waxy one. A good one, as if he's really off to somewhere else. He smiles a lot,' Monica eventually said.

‘Oh does he?' Nina was interested. ‘Then perhaps he
has
met someone. That would be a good thing wouldn't it?' she encouraged her mother. ‘Don't you think it would be nice for him to have someone to go out and have some fun with? After all, it's been a long time coming.'

Monica went silent and started shoving cake into her mouth. She didn't stop till it had all gone, coughing occasionally on the dry crumbs and finally sitting looking sulky with chocolate smeared on her lips.

‘He's all right as he is.
We're
all right. No need for things to change,' she said at last. Nina decided not to pursue it.

‘Look – let's go off somewhere,' she suggested. ‘How's the hip, can you manage to stroll round Harrods? You always used to take me there when I was little and needed cheering up.'

Monica frowned. ‘The hip is fine and I don't need cheering up,' she said. She was taking her time to think and consider. There was the beginning of a smile in her eyes, so Nina knew she was pleased at the idea. ‘All right, if that's what you'd like, we'll go. Just let me go to the Ladies.'

She stood up and made her way to the back of the coffee shop, smiling regally at other customers. Nina had a quick look in her bag to see if she had enough cash for a taxi. Fine or otherwise, she didn't think anyone whose body had taken the battering that Monica's had should have to stand around in a bus queue. ‘Whyever didn't you tell me?' Monica suddenly
appeared in front of her sounding furious. ‘Why didn't you tell me I'd got chocolate all over my face? What I must have looked like, walking past all those people. They must have thought I was senile!'

Nina laughed. The fury was profoundly reassuring.

Joe liked department stores. There was a cosy sameness about them all. The ground-floor cosmetics palaces smelt just like all the world's girls on hotel and office reception desks. The furniture departments all stocked the same outmoded sofas that no-one under sixty would ever buy. Menswear always had an apologetically small range of designer suits as if making a concession to the so-you-think-you're-trendy market. The stereotype only rang true outside central London, though. Here, as he got off the tube at Knightsbridge, the choice was Harrods or Harvey Nichols. He hesitated for a moment on the platform and then took the Brompton Road exit for Harrods.

Harrods had the pet department.

Nina could tell that Monica was feeling very pleased with herself. She'd bought an elegant Italian suit in teal blue which would be perfect for the bridge club annual dinner. Nina was carrying the bag for her, but Monica kept glancing at it as if expecting Nina to put it down at any moment while she looked at clothes and wander away carelessly without it.

‘I wonder about a hat . . .' she said. Then if there's anything formal in the day some time, I've got a suitable outfit there all ready.'

‘Like a wedding, you mean?' Nina suggested mischievously.

‘What wedding?' Monica looked alarmed. ‘You don't mean Graham? Has he said something? It would be just
like him, going and telling you first. And it would be like you, too, not to be able to keep it secret.'

They were in the middle of the carpet department where Nina was hoping to find a new rug to go with her basement repainting. Monica sat down heavily on a pile of tufted Berbers.

‘He hasn't said
anything
to me, I promise,' Nina said. ‘And anyway what's got into you? Graham used to be the one who could do no wrong. Now he can't get anything right. What would be so awful about him getting married? I'd have thought you'd like the idea.' She didn't think that at all and they both knew it. Nina was simply trying, as she so often had, to shift Monica's view of Graham from small, vulnerable child to grown, capable man. It was hopeless, she should have given up years ago. Perhaps she should have quit back at the time when she'd visited the house, she remembered it vividly, with Lucy still baby enough to be in a sling, and found Monica at the kitchen table, carefully filling in Graham's application form for the job at the hospital.

Still slumped dejectedly on the pile of rugs, Monica had the air of someone who'd settled for the day. A smooth young male assistant, sensing that this was not an imminent sale, strolled by and looked at them. ‘If Madam would like the Ladies Rest Room . . .' he suggested.

‘No Madam bloody wouldn't,' Monica got up suddenly and bellowed at him. The astonished young man took a step backwards and tripped over a carpet edge, tumbling gently onto a stack of Assyrian silk one-offs.

Nina and Monica dissolved into giggles. ‘Quick, in here before we're chucked out,' Nina said, grabbing Monica by the arm and steering her through the doorway into the Pets department. In front of her, staring
into a glass tank containing a pair of tiny tortoises, stood Joe.

‘Hello! What on earth brings you in here?' she asked him. She felt quite shaken by how alone he looked, gazing at the two shambling little creatures as if he almost envied their paired-off captivity. ‘Oh it's you,' Monica greeted him with less enthusiasm.

‘Yes it's me,' he agreed jovially. ‘And actually I just popped in to see if they've got any hamsters.'

‘Hamsters?' Nina repeated. Monica wandered off tactfully to watch a large blue parrot carefully picking at its claws. Nina was under no doubt that she'd remain just within earshot.

Joe laughed. ‘Hey, you used to complain about me doing that, repeating words as if I'd never heard of them. Yes, hamsters. I was wondering about getting one for the flat.' He shifted his feet around a bit. Nina remembered him doing that when he was being evasive. She grinned and came closer to him, saying in a half-whisper, ‘Is it because I so nastily suggested getting Catherine a kitten instead of letting her have a baby? Because if it is, trust me, a hamster doesn't even come close.'

Joe was laughing now. ‘Nothing to do with her. It's for Lucy actually, so she's got a hamster in both places. She likes to have pets and I quite miss them too, believe it or not.' He patted his front. ‘I can feel the lack of Ghenghis to drag me out for walkies.'

‘You can walk him any time, feel free. Just come round,' Nina told him. He looked over her shoulder to Monica, who was now inspecting a brood of lop-eared rabbits. He grabbed Nina's arm and pulled her to the corner where fancy rats groomed their fleshy pink tails in a big glass tank. ‘It's not just the pets I'm missing, you know. Will you come out one night next week for
dinner? I'd really like to see you. What about Friday?'

‘More discussions about Emily's gap year?' Nina teased.

Joe grinnned. ‘No. I don't want to talk about the girls this time. I'd like to talk about us.'

Nina frowned. ‘But Joe, there isn't an “us”.' She wished she hadn't said that. It was unnecessary, just a petty dig. He was looking very unhappy. A year or two ago, when everything was hurting, she'd simply have thought to herself that it served him right. Those feelings had long gone. ‘I'll come out with you some time soon,' she relented with a smile. ‘But not on Friday.'

‘Oh. Something special?'

‘Possibly. Some
one
,' she told him, and then wished she hadn't said that too.

Mick was phoning at least twice a day. Sometimes he left messages on Nina's answerphone, quite cheerful ones but with an edge, such as ‘Missed you yet again! Call me if there's a spare moment in your busy life!' He always sounded, Nina thought, as if he didn't really expect her to be able to find one. Although she resisted it, she felt responsible and resented it. She didn't want to be in charge of whether he had a happy time or not. Although she'd agreed to see him again, and she was happy enough to go out for a no-strings drink or to a film, these calls put her off ringing him back.

Sally was furious. ‘You really shouldn't have given him your number. That was crazy. Even if you thought you might want to see him again you should just have taken his. Now you never know, he might turn up at the house. He might turn out to be a stalker or a mad axeman.'

Nina laughed, ‘You can talk! You've been out with more strange men over the past year than most people rub up against in a lifetime of rush-hour tube travel! And anyway I only gave him my number, not the address. And we are ex-directory.'

Sally wasn't convinced. ‘OK but just suppose he's got a dodgy mate in the telephone business? He could have got hold of your address already. He might be lurking under that great thick wistaria that you never
got round to trimming next time you come home late at night. He could be one of those men who carries one of his dead mother's old stockings in his pocket in case he feels the need to do a bit of strangling. You really should take more care, especially with people like that loony on the Common hanging around. Perhaps he
is
that loony.' She grinned. ‘Anyway, what did you get up to after that Knights Out disaster that made him so desperate to see you again?'

‘Nothing! Absolutely nothing! We went to a bar, put the world to rights over a drink like you do and then I took a taxi home. And before you ask, I didn't tell the driver where to go until I'd got safely in and shut the door.'