Take Mum Out (36 page)

He blushes and blows out air. ‘Er, yeah, she’s all right.’

‘Think you’ll see her again?’

‘Uh, maybe.’ He pulls a face that says: subject closed. So we wander up the street to Clemmie’s, where Logan’s new tooth is admired in the manner of a curious artefact, while Blake skulks about like a scolded dog.

‘Thanks for having Fergus to stay over,’ I say, giving Clemmie a hug. ‘And thanks for the party, too. It was brilliant – the best one I’ve ever had.’

She pulls back and glares at Blake. ‘Just a shame it ended like that. I can’t tell you how furious I am with him for getting off his face like that.’

‘
Viv
was drunk,’ he growls. ‘Loads of people were. All we had was a few meringues—’

‘Yes, and Viv’s an adult,’ Clemmie snaps back.

‘So that’s all right then. It’s okay to dance like a loony with your arms in the air and run around telling everyone you love them when you’re
forty
…’

‘Blake!’ Her lips turn pale and a vein juts from her neck. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that. You can forget your clothing allowance—’

‘It was both of them, Clemmie,’ I say quickly. ‘Logan’s to blame as well.’ I glance at him; he is picking at his fingers, clearly wishing he could spirit himself far away.

Clemmie sighs, then takes me by the arm and guides me into the conservatory. ‘You don’t think it was that Kayla girl who put them up to it?’ she whispers. ‘It just seems so out of character for Blake.’

‘Of course not,’ I say firmly. ‘She doesn’t even go to their school. They’d never met her before last night.’

‘It’s just, I’m so, so
disappointed
, Alice,’ she declares, her face flushing pink. ‘Richard and I are still figuring out what sort of consequence there should be. I mean, imagine doing that, in our house! Cooking up drugs …’

‘You make it sound like crystal meth,’ I say, trying to calm her down.

‘Well, who’s to say that won’t be next? After all the expense in having the conversion done …’ Maybe he didn’t really need the cooker, I think darkly.

‘Come on,’ I say, ‘I can’t imagine they’ll be doing it again. They both seem pretty shell-shocked and I can tell Logan is mortified as he’s actually been quite civil today.’

She smiles wryly. ‘Well, that’s one good thing.’

‘I’ll get Fergus,’ I say, stepping back into the hallway and calling him down from upstairs.

‘Cool,’ he says, checking out his brother’s tooth. Then he frowns and shudders dramatically. ‘Your lip’s still horrible and crusty though. What’ll Kayla think of
that
?’

*

Back home, I reiterate to Logan that his little meringue enterprise wasn’t at all smart and must never be repeated.

‘If you’re smoking grass,’ I say firmly, ‘I want to know about it.’

‘I’m not, Mum, honestly.’

‘You had some, though – it was a completely stupid thing to do, Logan. If you weren’t moving to Dad’s, you’d be grounded, you know? And you can forget about me giving you any money over the next few weeks.’

‘All right,’ he murmurs, not flying on the defensive for once. Perhaps he’s grateful for the swift dental repairs, or feels guilty for being jointly responsibly for the premature end to my party. ‘Clemmie’s really mad at Blake,’ he adds.

‘Yes, and no wonder.’

‘But it was his idea—’

‘I don’t care whose idea it was,’ I snap, anger bubbling inside me now. ‘You’re sixteen, Logan – you can’t just say, he made me do it. Take some responsibility. It could have been far, far worse. You think you know everything but you had no idea how strong those meringues would be or what the hell you were doing …’

‘I know it was stupid,’ he says, eyes filling with tears now as he indicates his lip. ‘Look at the state of me, Mum.’

‘Okay.’ I exhale slowly. ‘We’ll leave it at that. But I hope you’re going to be helpful from now on, and not roll your eyes every time I ask you to do something.’

He nods, and we start to tackle the flat together, with him wielding the Hoover and lugging an enormous pile of newspapers down to the recycling bin. He even washes the kitchen floor and sorts out a mountain of laundry.

Jobs done, he slopes off to his room. I’m filled with a burning urge to follow him and talk to him about moving to his dad’s. For one thing, does he definitely have a place at that school? And is this likely to be a short-term thing, or is this
it
, until he goes to college? I knock on his bedroom door.

‘Huh?’

‘I just wanted to chat about something.’ I push open the door and walk in.

Logan swivels round from his desk. ‘I’m revising,’ he offers with a meek smile.

‘It won’t take a minute. We need to talk about your move to Dad’s, okay?’

He winces and passes his phone to me. ‘Yeah. You should probably see this, Mum.’

I take it and peer at the image on the screen. It’s a photo of what looks like the inside of a farm building. ‘What’s this?’

‘The barn.’ He pulls a wry smile.

‘You mean the one at Dad’s?’

He nods, lips twitching as he holds in a laugh.

‘It’s not exactly
Grand Designs
, love.’

‘Yeah, I know. He only sent it ’cause I’d been on at him, wanting to see how it was coming along.’

I squint hard at the picture. ‘It’s hard to make it out properly but I’d say there’s a way to go before the cushion-choosing stage.’

‘Yeah,’ he snorts. ‘Just a bit.’

‘And what’s that big dark shape at the far end?’

‘That’s the horse.’

I splutter. ‘You mean it’s still there? Is Dad getting the place ready or not?’

Logan shrugs and gets up from his chair. ‘He’s promised he will and there’s still a few weeks to go.’

‘That’s a hell of a lot of work though,’ I remark. ‘I mean, he hasn’t even started.’

Logan nods. ‘Yeah, I know.’ His hopeful expression is heartbreaking to witness.

‘Think he’ll manage it?’

‘Well,’ he says, ‘he
did
promise, didn’t he?’ As I can’t find the words to respond to that, I leave him fishing out his chemistry textbooks from his bag.

While I prepare our stir-fry in the kitchen, I try to figure out why Logan is so trusting of Tom. If ever I suggest a trip out – to the cinema or the coast – it’s all, ‘What for? What are we going to
do
there?’, as if I have some ulterior motive and am actually planning to take him to the BHS lighting department. Yet his father promises him his own self-contained home and, even when there’s no evidence of him making that happen, Logan is confident that it’ll all come right in the end. I’m so riled by Tom’s ineptitude, yet can’t face calling him and being subjected to feeble excuses as to why our firstborn’s future home still appears to be filled with hay.

Over dinner, the conversation switches back to the party last night.

‘What I think’s funny,’ Fergus announces, ‘is you believed we were staying in and ordering pizza.’ He grins at how easy I am to fool.

‘Well, you were very convincing,’ I say.

‘Yeah, we even had the menus out …’

‘It was incredibly well done,’ I agree. ‘I had no idea.’

‘
And
Pascal came,’ Logan adds, shooting his brother a sly glance.

I munch a forkful of vegetables. ‘Yes, I couldn’t quite figure that out at first, but you know Clemmie – likes to be in the thick of things, organising everyone …’ Logan and Fergus are sniggering now, sharing a secret joke. ‘What
is
it?’ I ask.

‘Nothing,’ Fergus says with a snort.

‘Boys …’ I set down my fork. ‘What’s so funny about Pascal?’

‘Nothing!’ Fergus repeats.

‘I mean, he’s just the guy from the deli …’

‘Yeah,’ Logan chuckles. ‘That’s right, Mum.’

‘The guy from the deli whose name you wrote on a big piece of paper with a heart around it,’ Fergus announces.

‘What?’

‘That thing you wrote …’

‘I don’t know what you mean—’ I stop, realising what he’s talking about: when Ingrid was here on Friday night, and I scribbled down his name to communicate my excitement over his call.
PASCAL THE DELI MAN!!!
in massive letters, with a cluster of exclamation marks, enclosed in a pulsating heart. Jesus, I am
forty years old
. ‘That was just a joke with Ingrid …’ I mutter, cheeks burning.

Logan arches a brow. ‘Have you written his name on your pencil case too?’

‘Oh, stop it!’

‘Mum, you are
so
red.’ Fergus is laughing so much, a noodle shoots out of his mouth.

‘I’m not. It’s just hot in here with all the cooking—’

‘Anyway,’ Logan goes on, ‘were you pleased when
Pascal
’ – he loads the word with significance – ‘came to your party?’

‘Um, yes, I suppose I was.’ I get up and dispense Fairy Liquid into the sink with a loud squirt.

‘That sounded like a fart,’ Fergus points out helpfully.

‘Thank you, Fergus.’ I exhale loudly. ‘So what happened exactly? Is this going to be mortifying for me? I’m meant to be supplying meringues to the deli, you know. We’ll be having a
business arrangement
…’

‘We just asked him,’ Fergus explains, ‘when we went to buy you that chocolate yesterday.’

‘What did you say? You didn’t …’ I’m starting to sweat now. ‘You didn’t tell him about that bit of paper, did you?’

‘Yeah,’ Logan gloats.

‘You didn’t!’ I shriek.

‘We said you
luuurve
him,’ Fergus cackles.

‘Oh my God.’ I lean back against the sink, heart banging against my ribs.

‘Nah,’ Logan says, rolling his eyes as if I am an errant child, ‘we just asked him to the party and said you’d love it if he could come.’

‘Oh.’ I stand there, wondering if my heartbeat will ever return to its normal speed.

‘And he said great, he’d be there,’ Logan adds.

I nod, taking this in, pretending to clear up the worktop but just repositioning things really; the kettle, some spice jars, a pot of sesame seeds from the Chinese supermarket. I clear my throat and turn back to the boys.

‘So what was your plan there? Were you trying to set us up?’ They both shrug. ‘Ferg,’ I say with a smile, ‘didn’t you once say you couldn’t understand why I even wanted a boyfriend? “You’re a mum”, I think were your exact words.’

‘A French one’d be good though,’ Logan smirks.

‘Yeah, we could go to France all the time,’ Fergus chips in. ‘Maybe this summer for a holiday.’

‘I think that’s jumping the gun a bit,’ I say, laughing now.

‘Well, at least we’d get loads of free stuff from his shop,’ he adds. ‘Like those hot chocolate sticks you never got us last time.’

There’s more sniggering, and Logan adds, ‘Anyway, Mum, we didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything. We’ve talked about it and we just decided you really should get out more.’

Wednesday evening, and Fergus and I are over at Kirsty’s for tea. Logan didn’t want to come; said he had ‘stuff to do’, which I hope means a bout of intense revision, as exams start on Monday, but fear may be code for ‘packing my things for moving to Dad’s’. And I’d rather not be around to witness that.

So here we are, in Kirsty’s garden, which is just the right shade of wild with many child-pleasing accoutrements of the natural variety: a small wooden treehouse and a temporary teepee fashioned from branches and twigs. Her children are being chased around by Fergus, who’s being an especially good sport today. We’ve already eaten homemade burgers made to Kirsty’s impeccably high standards, and are now installed on an ornate wrought iron bench at the back door.

‘I feel horribly out of practice with children’s parties,’ I admit.

‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ she says, pushing back flyaway hair. ‘Just make yourself incredibly useful by handing out drinks and snacks.’ She grins. ‘Of course, you’ll gain extra points by taking charge of a couple of games as well. What’s the theme again?’

‘It’s a Medieval party.’ I pull a mock-horrified face.

‘God. What does that entail, d’you think?’

‘No idea.’ I chuckle and sip her homemade lemonade. ‘Maybe I should ask Mum. She’d enjoy that – being consulted …’

‘And, obviously, you and Stephen are getting on really well.’

‘He’s lovely, but …’ I shrug. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘
What
don’t you know?’ she laughs. ‘He invited you to his daughter’s party, didn’t he?’

‘No, I invited myself.’

‘Yes, but he was pleased you did,’ she insists.

I watch the children running around, all clustering around Fergus as he pulls something from his pocket. Its tinny squawk triggers gales of laughter from the children. ‘Make it say something else,’ Hamish demands.

‘What’s that?’ Kirsty asks.

‘That’s his translator, one of his charity shop finds …’

‘Make it say sperm,’ Alfie demands, at which Kirsty leaps up and yells, ‘That’s enough, Alf!’

Fergus looks over and smirks. ‘Don’t worry, Kirsty, it doesn’t have that in its vocabulary.’

She sits down again, shaking her head. ‘Anyway, Stephen …’

‘You know he has a trouser press?’ I say, grinning.

‘Really?’

I nod. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird? Sort of precise and a bit anal?’

She throws me a bemused look. ‘You know what Viv would say, don’t you?’

‘That I’m far too fussy.’

‘Yeah, because you allow yourself to be put off by one little thing—’

‘Like Charlie stuffing a hotel vase into his pocket,’ I add, ‘and Giles prowling for grannies …’

‘And a trouser press could be quite practical,’ she points out.

‘If your oven was broken,’ I suggest, ‘and you needed to heat up a pizza …’ I look at her, expecting her to laugh, but her eyes have clouded and something serious is obviously weighing on her mind.

‘Kirsty, is something wrong?’ I murmur.

She nods, her pale grey eyes filling up now. ‘I can’t talk about it in front of the kids. Come inside and I’ll tell you.’

Leaving the children all congregated in the treehouse, we decamp to her kitchen where the tears start to flow. ‘Dan says it’s my fault,’ she blurts out as I hold her in my arms.

‘
What
is? What’s happened?’

‘He says I’ve always put the kids first, and he’s felt pushed out, and that’s why he did it—’ She breaks off, her face streaked with tears.