The Other Family (13 page)

In the bathroom mirror, he looked at himself with revulsion. Being so dark meant a navy-blue chin most mornings. Today, his skin was yellowish grey and there were bruises around his eyes and he looked ill. Which he was. Poisoned. His liver must be in despair.

‘You are,’ he said to his reflection, ‘too old for this. Any day now, you’ll just be sad. Sad, sad, sad, sad.’ He shut his eyes. This was the moment self-pity usually kicked in, the self-pity which had lain in wait for him ever since a history master at school – who had had his own reasons for ingratiating himself with the better-looking boys – had taken him aside, after Richie had left, and put an arm round his shoulders and said, in a voice intense with understanding sympathy, ‘I am very, very sorry for you, my boy.’ Scott had broken down. The history master had been very adept at comforting him, had made him feel there was no loss of manliness in weeping.

‘Just not in front of your mother,’ the history master said. ‘She has enough to bear. Come to me, when things get too much. Come to me. It will be our secret.’

The word ‘secret’ had alarmed Scott. But the feeling of warmth, of understanding, remained. All his life since then,
Scott could summon up, at will, the adolescent desolation of that moment, and the permission he had been given – whatever the motive – to grieve for his loss, and for the loneliness it left him in. Now standing naked in his bathroom, feeling disgusting and disgusted in every atom of his maltreated body, he waited to be given the pardon of self-pity. But it wouldn’t come.

‘Fuck,’ Scott said to the mirror.

He picked up the spray can of shaving foam, and pressed the nozzle. Nothing happened. He shook the can. It rattled emptily. He flung it furiously across the bathroom and it clattered into the shower tray. He picked an already used disposable razor out of the soap dish, and, with his other hand, attempted to lather a cake of soap onto his chin. He was two unsatisfactory stripes down the left-hand side when his phone rang.

Of course, he couldn’t find it. Last night’s clothes – his work suit, a shirt, socks, underpants – were in a shameful stew on the floor. From somewhere inside the mess, his phone was ringing. It would be Donna. Not content with the gentle hint of the Alka-Seltzer, she would be ringing to make sure he was awake and would not be late for work. She would also, no doubt, be after some little reference to last night, some little reassurance that he had wanted what had happened, that she had, somehow, reminded him of what he had been missing, that they might now—He found the phone, in the back pocket of his trousers, just as it stopped ringing. ‘One missed call’, said the screen. He pressed Select. ‘Mam’, the screen said helpfully.

Scott went back to the bathroom, and found a towel. He wound it round his waist, and then he took the phone into the sitting room, to look at the view rather than at his own dispiriting face. It was seven-forty in the morning. What could Margaret want, at seven-forty in the morning, unless
she was ill? Scott dialled her number, and then stood, leaning against the windowsill, and looked at the rain outside, falling in soft, wet sheets through the girders of the Tyne Bridge and into the river below.

‘Were you in the shower?’ Margaret said.

‘Sort of—’

‘Sorry to ring so early, but I’ve got a long day—’

‘Are you OK?’ Scott said.

‘Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m off to Durham in ten minutes.’

‘Oh,’ Scott said. If he didn’t concentrate on focusing, he would see two Tyne Bridges, at least. He wondered if his mother had ever had a hangover.

‘I wanted to catch you,’ Margaret said, ‘before you got to the office.’

‘Are you OK?’ Scott said again. He shut one eye.

‘Perfectly fine,’ Margaret said. ‘Why d’you keep asking? I’m fine, and so is Dawson, and I’m about to drive to Durham to see a new club. I could do with more venues in Durham. Scott, dear—’

‘Yes?’ He closed both eyes.

‘Scott, pet,’ Margaret said. Her voice was warm and he could tell a request was coming. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

‘What—’

‘It’s for you, really. It’s about the piano. I want you to make a call, about the piano.’

Scott opened his eyes and made himself focus sternly on a single bridge.

‘Who to?’ he said.

Tamsin worked in the oldest estate agency in Highgate village. There were a great many estate agencies up the hill, but the one where Tamsin worked prided itself on its antiquity, and
the famous houses – famous both for their beauty and for the celebrity of their inhabitants – that had been bought and sold over the years through their good offices. Tamsin, after failing to get into art school and declining either the cookery course or IT skills course suggested to her, had found herself a job in the estate agency, with which she declared herself perfectly satisfied. It was, basically, a reception job with the added task of arranging all the appointments for viewings of the properties, and it was becoming plain to the five partners of the company that Tamsin possessed the kind of competent attention to detail, as well as an admirably together appearance, that made her, especially in the present perilous times, good value in every sense. Rather than promote her, or increase her pay, the partners tacitly decided that the initial tactic to prevent her beginning to think that she might be better off somewhere else was to flatter and thank her. Tamsin, deftly managing the office diary, and answering the telephone and enquiries in person, to perfection, was well aware that the smiling compliments that came her way on a daily basis were not without ulterior motive. In return, she declined to reassure the partners that, for the moment, aged twenty-one, with a boyfriend who was the definition of steady and the recent loss of her father and the effect of that loss on both her mother and sisters, she had no intention of going anywhere.

All the same, it was nice to be treated as valuable. It was nice to have the attention she paid to hair and clothes obviously appreciated. It was nice to know that, as far as representing the firm was concerned, she was giving a good impression. All these reassurances were contributing to Tamsin’s sense that, amidst all the family grief and insecurity and anxiety, she was emerging as the one member of the family who could be relied on to think straight even in the midst of emotional turmoil. And so, returning home one evening from work, and
walking into the empty kitchen to find Amy’s phone jerking its little jewelled dolphin about and ringing, unattended, on the kitchen table, Tamsin did not hesitate to pick it up and, after a cursory glance revealed an unfamiliar number on the screen, say crisply into it, ‘Amy’s phone.’

There was silence at the other end.

‘Hello?’ Tamsin said, still using her office inflection. ‘Hello? This is Amy’s phone.’

She waited another second or two and then a voice, a man’s voice with a distinct North-East accent, said, ‘It’s Scott here. I was hoping to speak to Amy.’

‘Scott!’ Tamsin said in her normal voice.

‘Yes—’

‘Why are you ringing? Why are you ringing Amy?’

‘Because,’ Scott said, ‘she’s the only one I’ve spoken to.’

‘When?’

‘When what—’

‘When,’ Tamsin demanded, ‘did you speak to her?’

‘Look,’ Scott said, more belligerently, ‘I’m not bothering her. And I’m not saying anything that might get her into trouble. I rang her because we’ve spoken and I’ve got her number. Who are you, anyway?’

‘Tamsin,’ Tamsin said frostily.

‘Ah Tamsin.’

‘And what did you want to say to Amy?’

There was a sigh the other end of the line.

‘I didn’t want to say anything to Amy. In particular. I just wanted to ask one of you something, and Amy was the one I’d spoken to.’

Tamsin found she was standing at her full height, as if she was in court, giving evidence.

‘What did you want to ask?’

‘Well,’ Scott said, ‘I want to ask when it would be convenient to collect the piano.’

‘
What
?’

‘When would it be—’

‘I heard you!’ Tamsin shrieked.

There was a scuffle behind her. Amy appeared, holding out her hand for the phone.

‘Gimme—’

‘How
dare
you,’ Tamsin said to Scott. ‘Have you got absolutely
no
sensitivity? How—’

‘Give me that!’ Amy said, trying to reach her phone. ‘What are you doing on my phone? I’d only gone to the loo. Give it—’

‘Take it,’ Tamsin said furiously. She flung it across the table, where it skidded to the far side and fell down beside the radiator. Amy darted after it.

‘Who is it?’

‘That man,’ Tamsin said between clenched teeth. ‘That
man
. From Newcastle—’

Amy was under the table. Tamsin bent down so that she could see her.

‘What’s he doing, ringing you? What’ve you been up to?’

Amy retrieved her phone and held it to her ear.

‘Hello? Are you still there?’

‘Are you OK?’ Scott said. ‘Is that Amy?’

‘I’m fine,’ Amy said. ‘I’m under the kitchen table.’

Tamsin straightened up. She thumped hard on the table above Amy’s head.

‘What was that?’ Scott said.

‘My sister—’

‘Don’t talk to him!’ Tamsin shouted. ‘Don’t have anything to do with him!’

Amy took the phone away from her ear. She shouted back, ‘We’re not all witches like you!’ and then she said to Scott, ‘Why are you ringing?’

‘Sorry if it’s not very tactful,’ Scott said, ‘but I was wondering when it’d be OK to collect the piano.’

‘Oh.’

‘Have I rung at a bad time?’

‘It’s all pretty bad just now.’

‘Look, forget it. Sorry. Leave it. I’ll ring another time. In a few weeks. It was just my mam—’ He stopped.

Amy watched Tamsin’s legs move very slowly towards the door.

Scott said, ‘Are you really OK?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you still under the table?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look,’ Scott said, ‘I’ll ring off now. You’ve got my number. You ring me when things have calmed down a bit.’

Amy said, clearly so that Tamsin could hear, ‘It’s your piano, you know.’

Tamsin’s legs stopped moving.

‘No hurry,’ Scott said. ‘I’ll leave it to you. OK? You ring me when you can.’

‘Cheers,’ Amy said. She clicked the call to end. Then she sat crouched and still under the table.

Tamsin came back and bent down again.

‘What are you playing at, you disloyal little beast?’

‘Nothing,’ Amy said.

‘I heard you,’ Tamsin said, ‘I heard you. Talking to him all nice as pie. I
heard
you.’

‘He said to leave it. He said he didn’t mean to upset anyone. He said he’d leave it till we’re ready.’

‘We’ll
never
be ready.’

‘We’ve got to be,’ Amy said. ‘We’ve got to, one day. It’s
their
piano.’

Tamsin straightened up again.

‘Come out of there.’

Amy crawled slowly out from under the table, and stood up. She was wearing a green sweatshirt and cut-off jeans, since her school did not require uniform in the sixth form.

‘You wait,’ Tamsin said. ‘You just wait until Mum hears about this.’

Amy raised her chin, just a little.

‘OK,’ she said.

Donna, having left Scott in bed that morning with what she felt was admirable sophistication, found that she couldn’t concentrate at work. It seemed that the price of being mature enough to leave a sleeping lover without a word of affection from him was that the maturity was only temporary, and the need to be reassured came back later, in double measure, as a result of being initially repressed. So, after two hours of fiddling about pointlessly at her computer, Donna made a plausible excuse to her nearest colleague, and headed for what she hoped would be the reward for her early-morning restraint.

Scott shared a room at work with two others. The room was at the back of the building – only the senior partners’ and the boardroom looked out on the river – and they needed to have the lights on, even in summer, on account of the new building behind it being constructed so close that Scott and his colleagues could see if the people working across the way were playing games on their computers. They had been provided with blinds, heavy vertical panels of translucent plastic, but by tacit agreement the three of them found it more amusing to have the blinds at their widest setting, giving a clear view into the opposite office. In any case, there were some good-looking girls in the opposite office, and, for Scott’s gay colleague, Henry, there was a particular guy, who, Henry knew, just knew, was aware of being watched and liked it.

When Donna came into the office, it was empty. She had checked that both Henry and Adrian were at the Law Courts that morning, and she had reckoned on finding Scott alone. She had spent ten minutes in front of the mirror in the Ladies on her floor, and was planning to breeze in, kiss Scott’s cheek, wink, say something like, ‘Just fabulous,’ and then swing out again, leaving a seductive and tantalizing breath of Trésor on the air, which would drive him to seek her out later in the day and hint that she might like to cook him supper.

But Scott’s chair was empty. His jacket was not even on the back of it. But his screen was on, and his mobile – not one she recognized – was lying in the chaos of papers across his desk. There was also a tall takeaway cup – cold, when she touched it – and a half-eaten Snickers bar, the wrapper peeled roughly back like a banana skin. Donna sat down in his chair. The document on his screen showed a series of mathematical calculations, one column entirely in red, and was no doubt something to do with one of the VAT cases in which he was becoming something of a specialist. If Scott had taken his jacket, he’d gone to do more than have a pee, but if he hadn’t taken his phone then he hadn’t left the building. Donna sighed. If he came back and found her in his chair, he would be able to assume the initiative in any future development between them, and that was absolutely not what Donna wanted. From past experience, Donna knew that, if Scott had the initiative, he just left it lying about without using it until it ran out of its vital initial energy, and simply expired. She lifted one leg and flexed her foot. What a waste of spending all morning in four-inch heels it might turn out to be.