Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Acknowledgements
Copyright
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781448150144
www.randomhouse.co.uk
First published by Arrow Books, 2014
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Andrew Clover 2014
Andrew Clover has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
Arrow Books
The Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA
www.randomhousebooks.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099580454
I rowed with Simon last night. He went off and slept in his special room above the garage. Alone in the marital bed, I have a fitful sleep, and a confusingly beautiful dream which involves Hugh Ashby, my first real love.
Bang. I’m woken when the front door slams shut.
Now … I’m not a Morning Person, even at the best of times. Stumbling from bed, I see it’s dark and windy outside. As I tramp downstairs, all the bad words of the row fly back to my head like bats. I feel tense and twisted with guilt.
But then I reach the kitchen and see Simon, who seems absolutely fine.
He’s a cheery, unflappable man, my husband. He looks a bit like Jean-Paul Belmondo in À Bout de Souffle, and a bit like a human Staff Bull Terrier. He’s got a wide mouth, and a strong square jaw, and he sticks his chest out and does everything with a swaggering, bustling gusto. As I enter the too-bright kitchen, he’s busy cooking a giant Man Breakfast. He turns from the stove, brandishing a spitting pan of bacon, which he crunches down on some eggshells.
‘Morning, babe!’ he calls happily.
I’m wondering … should I say sorry for last night? Should he? Where should I start? Then I notice the time, and I start there.
‘Darling!’ I begin. ‘It’s five forty-eight in the bloody morning!’
‘I know!’ he says. ‘We should have gone twenty minutes ago!’
I whimper: ‘What?!’
‘It’s Saturday!’ he explains. ‘I really need to open up!’
Simon got sacked three months ago – he was an analyst in renewable energy – and he coped in brusque manly style: he got spectacularly pissed, then disappeared. He returned four days later, saying he’d had a ‘literally amazing time with Edmundo’, and he’d bought a café called Kiters’ Paradise. (It’s not how any woman would picture Paradise. It’s in Hythe on the Kent coast. It sells coffee and flapjack to a crowd of kite-surfers.)
‘There should be quite a few people out,’ Simon assures me. ‘It’s high tide, and there’s a very strong wind!’
He places a coffee in front of me.
‘Anyway,’ he tells me, ‘I’ve got the boys up.’
What?! The day has just got significantly more complicated. ‘The boys are up!’ I say, a bit squeakily.
‘Yeah!’ confirms Simon. ‘They’re eating breakfast.’
I lean round the corner into the dining area, and there they are – my boys.
Hal (8) is eating toast, while reading Cooking is Fun – his favourite book. He’s a gangly boy, with the large watchful eyes of a deer. Tom (5) is sitting next to him, eating Cheerios. His nose needs wiping. Seeing me, he pauses with milk dripping off the spoon and he grins. He then begins doing what he normally does on glimpsing Mum: he starts discussing dogs.
‘Mum,’ he begins, ‘can we get another dog?’
I look at the one we have already. He’s a beagle called Kipper who’s got a habit of running head first into doors. I can see an argument for replacing him; it’s not something I want to get into now.
‘We’ve already got a dog,’ I say. ‘And a newt.’
‘But we could get another dog,’ suggests Tom. The subject of dogs is something of a hobby-horse for him. Once started on it, he doesn’t leave off.
Simon pours milk in my coffee.
‘Hang on,’ I whisper to him. ‘Why are the boys going to the beach?’
‘They love the beach!’ he says. ‘I thought you all did!’
‘We do,’ I agree. ‘But not when there’s a high wind, and it’s still dark. What are they going to do?’
‘Oh …’ He shrugs. ‘You’ll think of something!’
‘What?’ I say. ‘Do you think I’m coming?’
‘Why wouldn’t you come?’ says Simon.
He seems surprised. His eyebrows are thick and black like caterpillars. They are raised in innocent astonishment.
‘What am I supposed to do?’ I plead.
‘Whatever you want,’ says Simon. He beams at me. He is almost insultingly cheerful. ‘Or don’t go, if you don’t want.’
‘Actually I’ll have to go!’ I reply. ‘Because otherwise you’ll just leave them!’
‘No, I won’t!’
‘You’ll say you’re keeping an eye on them,’ I whisper, ‘but you’ll go kite-surfing off!’
‘It’ll be fine!’ he says. ‘Edmundo will keep an eye on them.’
‘Exactly,’ I say.
Edmundo is Simon’s partner in the Kiters’ Paradise project. He’s a very talkative Spanish man, with a shaved head and a thick beard, who used to deal weed on an impressively large scale. He’s not an ideal nanny.
‘Give me five minutes,’ I say. ‘I’ll come.’
Simon beams. He’s ludicrously proud of Kiters’ Paradise. He’s delighted I’m coming.
‘Excellent,’ he says. He gives me a brief manly hug.
I’m still trying to be cross with him, but for a moment I do feel good.
Eight minutes later, I’m heading for The A-Team van.
Simon adores The A-Team, and, six months ago – ‘so I can carry all my kite-surfing equipment’ – he bought an exact scale model, which is parked outside the house. It is black, with a side door, and, for some reason, it’s a left-hand drive.
As I walk over, the back door slides open.
Hal is smiling at me from the middle row of seats. With his left hand, he’s cuddling Kipper, who’s sitting on the seat beside him. He gives me no trouble at all.
Trouble comes from Tom.
As I lean in through the windowless sliding door, Tom shouts: ‘Mumma!’ He is on top of his car seat, squatting like a mad snotty frog. ‘Mumma!’ he shouts again, and he spreads his arms wide. He’s playing a game that Simon taught him. ‘I am de Love Monster!’ he says in the Love Monster accent (slightly Polish). ‘Take me! I am yours!’ he shouts, and then he launches himself at my neck.
It’s flattering, of course. I’m glad he’s pleased to see me.
But it feels less like a hug, and more like a tackle. And it makes me smack my skull on the doorframe. I’m actually really cross, but I don’t say. I detach myself from Tom, and put his seat belt on. No one this irritated should have to contend with a child’s seat belt, but I manage. I go round to the front seat, where Simon is turning on the radio. It’s Jeff Buckley singing ‘Lilac Wine’, one of the most heavenly songs of all time.
‘DJ Monster!’ shouts Tom. (At school, Simon’s name was DJ Monster. I don’t know why.) ‘DJ Monster! I. Don’t. Like. This. Music! Play the Monster Mix!’
Simon was asked to do the music for my brother’s wedding – a job to which he’s been touchingly devoted. And, yes, that’s sweet, but he’s been working on it for two months. On the rare moments he is home from Kiters’ Paradise, he disappears to his room above the garage, where he works on the Monster Mix: he remixes classic TV tunes, to a very phat drum and bass.
As I put on my seat belt, Simon presses play.
The Monster Mix starts with The A-Team theme. Drums beat. A chopper sounds. Simon turns and catches the boys’ eyes and they listen excitedly to the famous voice-over introduction. When it gets to: ‘If you have a problem …’ they start lip-synching along. Simon loves this line. The Monster Mix repeats it twice more.’
Bloody hell, I think, I really do have a problem; I don’t think it can be solved by the A-Team.
The chorus kicks in … ‘DUM Dum DUMMM …’ Simon shows off by revving the car backwards very fast. I instinctively turn to check the boys are all right. It’s fine. They’re in seat belts. But Kipper isn’t. As Simon zooms backwards, the dog slips from the seat, his head crashes into mine and he gives me a big French kiss. I get slobber on my mouth.
‘For God’s sake!’ I shout. ‘Can you stop?’
Simon cuts the engine. The music stops.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asks.
‘I have just been snogged by a dog!’
Obviously I’ve said the wrong word.
‘But we could get a new dog,’ suggests Tom.
‘We cannot get a new dog,’ says Hal, speaking for me. ‘Because we’ve already got one. And a newt. And you promised to clean out the newt’s tank!’
‘I have started,’ snarls Tom, ‘to clean out his tank.’
‘What?’ I say. ‘Have you?’
‘Yes!’ he growls. ‘I have put him in the bath!’
What?! There’s a bloody newt in the bath?!
‘Look,’ says Simon, ‘are we going to the beach?’
‘No, we are not!’ I shout. ‘Boys, get out of the van!’
‘I should have opened up already!’ pleads Simon.
‘Just go on your own!’ I snap. ‘Be back by twelve!’
It’s now 1.42. Simon’s not yet home.
The whole house is in chaos. Action Men are fighting on the floor. Plastic dinosaurs are roaming each surface. The boys are now fractious from their early start. They’re also hungry. We’ve so far eaten a whole packet of HobNobs. (I ate most of them; I need to deal with that.) I’m now trying to cook corn, fried chicken and rice, though I’m hampered by a significant factor …
I have no rice.
I texted Simon and asked him to bring some home. ‘OK,’ he replied, ‘I’m just having a quick chat with Edmundo. Bit of work to discuss.’
Simon and Edmundo are in the throes of a full-on Man Crush. They spend all hours excitedly discussing Kiters’ Paradise. They want to Expand. They have Grand Plans to do more food. They want to project the football on to an outside wall, so men from all around can gather to watch, like a herd of curious cows.
I really need to work myself.
I’m a painter. I teach art three days a week at a secondary school in Ashford, but in six months’ time I’m having an exhibition at the Horsebridge Gallery in Whitstable. They’ve been e-mailing all week. They’re doing their brochure. They want me to give them the title of my exhibition, and a few words about it. The trouble is, it’s hard to give the title when you haven’t got one. And it’s hard even to think of one when you’re being followed round by two small boys, and one of them is cooking, and the other has been discoursing, for several hours, about dogs.
He’s just paused.
It’s delicious, like having a pneumatic drill outside, which suddenly stops. I see what’s happened. Sitting on the floor stroking Kipper, he’s just found a felt tip, and he’s now started drawing a dog. That’s no surprise. That’s all he ever draws. The trouble is, he’s drawing on the cupboard door. I should probably stop that, but right now I’d let him burn the cupboard door, if he stayed quiet.
My phone rings.
I can’t find the phone, of course.
I try all the normal places. I look on the shelf. I look in my bag. I look in the bathroom. (There’s a bloody newt in the bath!) I’ve just found the phone in my studio, when it stops ringing. I feel a stab of rage about that.
But then I see it was my mum who called, and I feel relief.
I look round the studio. I’ve barely visited in three days, and the air is thick with reproach. There’s a dried earwig stuck to the window. My old paintings are lolling, unloved, against the wall. They’re shit. Well … They’re technically good, I can see that, but they lack that haunting Peter Doig quality that tells the viewer these pictures mean something, that there’s a story behind them. I’m sure my pictures used to have that. How do I find that again?
I don’t think I can find it in a phone.
I eye the greasy screen guardedly. I want to check my messages. The voices in my head are shouting: ‘Don’t check your messages! No good comes from checking your messages!’ But I can’t resist it. I open my e-mails.
It’s like unblocking the pipe under the sink. I’m blasted by a toxic torrent. I’ve got twenty-eight e-mails. They’re mostly spam. There are two from students who want to consult me about uni. There are three from the Horsebridge. They really want that title. I see instantly that most of the messages are asking me questions I can’t answer; all of them make me tense. One of them is actually from my mum – the arch maker of shame. She’s marked her message ‘Urgent’. Ugh … I hate it when people do that. It means the messages are already stressful: I don’t want to look at them.
It’s as if my mum senses I’m near. She rings again. I get a mental image of her, hovering by her phone, with her short grey hair, modelled on Judi Dench’s. Bracing myself, I answer.
‘Hi!’ she says, already sounding manic.
‘Hi, Mum,’ I say, going quiet and still. I do that with Mum. I’m like a vole hiding from an owl.
‘Do you want me to pop over later?’ she asks.
The short answer to that of course is: no.
Mum pops over two or three times a week, and she very rarely pops without bringing crap. Last week, it was two deckchairs and a Breville sandwich maker.
‘I’ve got this stuff of Dad’s for you to look at,’ she explains.
I admit it: the word ‘Dad’ raises a crumb of curiosity. But Dad left in 1976: whatever he left behind – I’m sensing it wasn’t his best stuff. I’m seeing a squash racket, The Joy of Sex, and some shoes.
‘Mum,’ I tell her, ‘I don’t want Dad’s things. They’ll depress me.’
‘Why?’ she answers, much offended.
‘Because they’ve been in your attic forty years, and they were Dad’s.’
‘Oh,’ ripostes Mum. ‘Your dad could be quite fun sometimes.’
This is one of Mum’s themes: that Dad could be fun. He loved his squeezebox, apparently. Used to play it at parties. Now … I’m sure Dad could be quite a card, playing his squeezebox at parties. The point is, he wasn’t playing it at my parties.
‘Mum,’ I say, ‘I don’t even remember the man.’
‘Well, I think that’s a shame. Don’t you think you should?’
I ignore the words ‘should’ and ‘shame’ – the classic Mum words, her prime weapons in her campaign to hand out blame.
‘And I don’t want his stuff,’ I continue, ‘clogging up my house.’
‘The thing is,’ sighs Mum, ‘it’s in the car now. I’ll pop over and just show it to you.’
Bloody hell. There’s no holding her back.
‘Great,’ I say, with as much warmth as I can muster. ‘I’ll look forward to it!’
‘’Bye then!’ she calls.
‘’Bye!’
I’ve been squatting to take the call.
Standing up, I have a brief white out. I think it’s because I’ve always been tall, and, let’s be honest, a bit overweight: I have a lot of white outs. I quite like them. They feel like a brief holiday from reality. But as my head clears, my unease returns. Why should I remember my dad? I think I’ve forgotten him for a very good reason.
‘Mum!’ the boys are shouting. ‘The cooking is burning!’
I snap out of it, and hurry back to the kitchen. I take the pan off the hob, and then turn back to the boys, who are eyeing me expectantly. There’s a brief silence.
Then Tom fills it.
‘But if Kipper dies,’ he says, ‘we could get another dog!’
Oh, God. We’re back to this.
I look at the clock, and I realise Simon should have been home almost two bloody hours ago. I could kill him. I just know he’s stopped to have a drink. I’ve told him not to do that.
‘Mum,’ says Tom, impatiently. He’s assuming I haven’t heard him. He’s incorrect about that. I hear everything. That’s the trouble. ‘Mum!’ he repeats, even louder. ‘I said … if Kipper dies, we could get another dog, and I think he could be a brown dog, and he could be a hairy dog, and he could be so big I could ride on him, Mummy!’
The corn on the cob is boiling over.
‘He could be so big,’ says Tom – again – ‘I could ride on him, Mummy. Do you think that’s a good idea?’
‘No!’ I say suddenly. I manage not to shout.
‘But why?’ says Tom.
‘Because I don’t want a bloody big dog!’ I reply, and I’m sorry, but I am shouting now.
Tom goes quiet.
For a moment I feel good. My rage has overawed him. But then, two seconds later, coming like rain after thunder, the guilt bursts over me, and I’m showered in shame. I feel like I’m a child again, and my mother is standing over me shouting: ‘YOU are a very SPOILED little girl, and I need you to GO to your room!’
Both sons are looking at me, worried.
‘Mum,’ says Hal, ‘are you all right?’
His big sensitive eyes are full of concern. He’s wearing his new chef’s hat, which I find incredibly endearing. I feel very bad I just shouted.
‘The trouble is,’ I say evenly – I’ve got myself back under control – ‘I’m struggling to think up the title for my new exhibition.’
‘I could help!’ says Hal.
‘Thank you,’ I say. By which I mean: no, you couldn’t. I can’t work out myself if I should be thinking up some fancy idea to attract interest from the art world, or if I should just paint things I like, which would end up looking more commercial. ‘Also,’ I continue, ‘we need rice. Let’s get in the car, and we’ll go to the garage and buy some.’
‘Mum,’ says Hal, giving the Standard Child Objection, ‘do we have to?’
His brother is more blunt. ‘I do NOT want to go in the car,’ warns Tom.
I sigh, and weigh it up in my mind. This is the trouble with living in deep countryside: the garage is two miles away. But if I hurry, I could get there and back in twelve minutes. That should be fine. And anyway … I really need to escape. If I could just have twelve minutes on my own, I could think up a theme for this exhibition. If I go one more day without one, I’ll have to shoot myself.
‘All right,’ I say, ‘you two stay here. I’ll put the television on.’
Now … I know I’m proposing a plan which is technically illegal. But my children give it their most enthusiastic support.
‘Televizioneeee!’ says Hal, in a kind of cod Italian accent, waving his arms around like a chicken. ‘Televizionnnneeeee!’ he says again. Then he realises that Tom has already run off: he’s in danger of losing control of the remote. So he sprints for the living room, as if he were the fastest chicken in all Italy and he’s just seen a fox.
In the hallway, I pause by the big mound of shoes.
As you leave the house, there’s that Magic Minute where you suddenly remember your wallet, and the letter you promised to post last week. My whole life is like that Magic Minute. Trouble is, it’s always interrupted.
The dog arrives.
Kipper is mad keen on trips in the car, especially if we’re travelling alone, which means he can go in the front. He likes to see himself as navigator. ‘All right, you can come,’ I say in my special doggy voice, and Kipper waggles his tale pleasingly. I open the front door, the sunshine spills in, and the two of us trot amiably towards my battered old Ford. It’s not in good shape. One wheel’s a bit flat, and a wing mirror has come off, leaving a nest of wires.
‘Up!’ I command, opening the door.
Kipper leaps up obediently, and he goes over to the pasenger seat. He places his paws on the dashboard, and he looks out, like a navigator of old, surveying the open sea. I stroke him fondly. The top of his head is delightfully soft.
‘Good boy!’ I tell him, and I set off.
There are three houses in our little hamlet. We live in the first. Mrs Eden lives in the second – a bungalow. She’s very old, and rarely seen. The third house is a new farmhouse belonging to some actual genuine farmers called the Newsomes. As we pass, Kipper eyes the front yard. He seems mystified as to why chickens are running round in it, when logically they should all be being bitten by dogs.
I glance at the clock. It’s now 1.59.
I drive as fast as I can up the hill. Unfortunately, I meet a jeep coming down. I slow down, I edge round the jeep carefully, giving a wave. This is a strange country tradition … When passing someone, you must always flash a friendly wave, which is not easy, when you’re trying not to slip down the steep slope into the field alongside, and you don’t feel friendly.
Setting off again, I punch on the music machine.
Amy Winehouse is singing ‘Back to Black’, which I like even more than ‘Lilac Wine’. Amy and I start singing along: ‘We only said goodbye with words …’
But we’re interrupted.
‘This is travel,’ announces a self-important man, who starts talking excitedly about a traffic jam outside Dover. ‘Shut up,’ I yell – it feels good to take out my frustration on some inanimate objects! – and I hit the radio so hard I break a nail. I then step on the accelerator again.
As I roar off up the hill, my head is filling with questions.
How do you stop those traffic updates?
Why do I feel such rage?
How bad is it leaving young children with a TV as a babysitter? And how long will Tom stay watching? He’ll sit there three weeks if he’s watching CBeebies, but what happens if Hal has put on CBBC? If that’s happened then Tom could have been driven away from the TV, and he could, even now, be heading to the kitchen, with a plan of building a bonfire out of knives and electrical equipment. Is that stupid? Because I’ve imagined it, does that mean it’s more likely to happen?
With these unruly thoughts bouncing round my head like a car full of underage footballers, I hurtle up the hill towards the bend. And, yes, yes – OK! – I see I’m committing a number of errors, but that’s the thing with errors: once you make one, more follow in quick succession. My actions are one long list of mistakes …
I am reaching the point where the road climbs through a copse of trees, clinging to the side of the hill. At this point, the road turns sharply to the right.
I glance at the clock, which now says 2.00.
I have reached the bend.
I don’t slow down.
I turn the corner, travelling fast, and, as I do, a van appears, and that’s travelling fast too.
I attempt to step on the brake.
I miss it.
I step on the accelerator instead.
I swivel the wheel hard to the left. I still fail to miss the van, however, and it smashes me, hard, on the right side of the bonnet.
Whereupon time seems to slow right down.
My car, however, does not.
It soars, at speed, off the side of the road, into the trees.
For a moment, I think: Oh my God, I’m flying! It seems ordinary. It seems fine.
And then the car hits a tree. The windscreen shatters, and Kipper dives through it. And then we hit another tree. Then another. We’ve now sailed through the little copse of trees. They have slowed our momentum. And the car lands on its bonnet.
I hear a most almighty smash as the front end concertinas.
The car still has momentum, though. It does a head-over-heels and it lands, with a further smack, on its roof. For the tiniest of moments I see the ground cramming over my head. I see a plastic dinosaur that had been on the dashboard. It leaps upwards as the green ceiling closes down.
Everything disappears.
It’s like a TV being switched off. I can’t see anything. I can’t feel anything. I hear a ringing in my ears like tinnitus. Then I have a brief floating feeling, and hear a faint echo of choral singing. Then I stay in absolute silence for several seconds.
And then, very slowly, I regain my sense of smell.
I smell lilac. It smells of early summer. It smells of hope. I also smell dusty floorboards.
Very carefully, I open my eyes, and I see a glass of water which contains a small sprig of white lilac. It is standing on floorboards of dark brown wood. I’m on a mattress on the floor.
I know where I am.
I’m in my room in Isis House, the place to which I moved in my third term at Oxford. A mirror is leaning against one wall. I see myself in it. My hair is thick, and badly cut. My skin however is unmarked as fresh snow. I’m nineteen. I am young and effortlessly beautiful. There’s an old digital clock by the mirror, which I’ve not seen in many years. It says 5.08 a.m. Turning slowly, I notice that the door is ajar, but I can see my old poster – the self-portrait of Filippino Lippi. I also note that the curtains are open, and dawn light is creeping softly into the room.
Lying beside me, on his back, is a man.
‘What’s going on?’ I try to say, but my voice sticks in my throat. I feel that I’m a passenger in my nineteen-year-old body, but I can’t talk. This seems to make sense. I take a slow breath in, and, as the lilac-scented air reaches my lungs, I start to hear, quietly at first, the thoughts of my nineteen-year-old self … I am thinking of the party that Gemma and I threw here last night. When I slipped away at 2 a.m. it was still going strong, but I was alone. Why is this man in my bed?
I look at him. He is huge and quite astonishingly attractive.
It’s not just that he looks handsome, though he does. He has long eyelashes, and good cheekbones, and full lips with a pronounced Cupid’s bow. It’s more that, even in sleep, he looks charming. He has a small smile, and his eyebrows are slightly raised. He looks like a music lover, who’s hearing some Bach, played better than anyone’s ever heard it before. He’s leaning his head on his right hand and his bicep is thick and hairless. He’s wearing a white t-shirt which has ridden up at his waist, so that I can see the bottom of his giant ribs which jut out, like the cliff top over a little bay. I look over the cliffs to his flat stomach. He’s wearing black dress trousers, tied at the waist with a red tie. That has come undone. I can see the tops of some white pants, and a naked hipbone, and a little bit of muscular stomach. As my younger self takes a slow breath in, I catch a whiff of his scent – musky and manly and with a trace of wine – and I am suffused with a sense of longing.
His eyelashes are fluttering.
His head turns towards me, and a lock of brown hair falls over his face. I decide that I will brush it back. Very tentatively, I reach forward and lift the hair with the backs of my fingers.
His pale blue-grey eyes sweep open and look at me.
I know what he’s going to say. I’ve been in this scene before.
Smiling, he says my name: ‘Lucy Potts!’
I know his name of course. It’s Hugh Ashby.
‘Hello!’ says, my nineteen-year-old self. ‘I didn’t know you came to the party.’
‘I came at three,’ he says, ‘a bit more than fashionably late. I brought you flowers.’
‘I just found them,’ I say, ‘and then I found you, in my bed!’
‘I suddenly felt really tired. So I crept in here and fell asleep.’ He smiles gently. ‘Forward, I know, to creep into a girl’s bed. Excuse me.’
My nineteen-year-old self is doing the sensible thing: she’s smiling at Hugh Ashby. My feelings are fusing with hers. I feel calm and expectant and light with love.
‘That’s OK,’ I breathe. ‘I’ve not seen you since your birthday. Been revising?’
‘No. To tell you the truth, I’ve been mainly in bed.’
‘Have you fallen in love with someone?’
‘You’d be the first to know about that,’ he says. That gives me a quick flutter in my heart. I remind myself he flirts with everyone. ‘No,’ he continues. ‘I’ve just … been a bit tired recently. The nurse thinks I might be developing ME.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s that new condition,’ he explains. ‘The one known as the Yuppie Disease.’
‘What’s a Yuppie?’
‘Young Upwardly Mobile Professional.’
‘Shouldn’t that be Yumpy?’
Hugh laughs at this. It’s a happy baritone chuckle.
‘What causes it?’
‘No one knows,’ he says. ‘It could be viral. It could be provoked by some trauma. It could be depression.’
‘You always seem fine to me,’ I remark.
‘That’s because when I am with you, Lucy Potts,’ he says, his eyes sparkling with affection, ‘it’s like having a robin sing outside my window.’
‘You’re such a poof,’ I say.
He chuckles again.
‘I’m not actually,’ he says. ‘And I could prove it.’
I look into his eyes, and I feel peaceful and extraordinarily happy. I can’t help it. I must kiss him. But then something happens, as, somehow, I know it will. Beyond the foot of the bed the door is open, and suddenly music starts up. It’s the thud thud thud thud of house music. Technotronic.
‘Is the party still going on?’ I ask.
‘It was when I crept in here,’ he says. ‘Simon’s brought over his new decks, and he’s determined to use them. Gemma was dancing, which, alas, was encouraging him.’
Abruptly, Technotronic disappears, there’s a pause, then some cows start mooing to an ambient beat. Hugh grins. ‘Bloody KLF!’ he says. ‘Simon plays it every night. It’s his Come Down album.’
‘Do you like it?’
‘I enjoy all his music,’ says Hugh.
‘Do you?’ I ask.
He smiles. ‘I’d prefer it if he played Liszt. But I love Simon, so he can do no wrong.’
‘Do you really?’ I ask.
‘He wears ridiculous baseball caps,’ he says, ‘and he over-uses the word “basically”. But you’ve got to admit, he’s sweet.’
‘I suppose so,’ I acknowledge.
I can’t even think about Simon right now. I’m actually lying in front of Hugh Ashby, and staring into his blue-grey eyes. It’s like looking down into a rock pool. I feel a strange lurching sensation, as if I’m about to fall into him. I feel as if something amazing is about to happen.
The KLF is turned up louder.
‘I’ll shut the door,’ I say, sitting up.
‘Don’t,’ says Hugh. He holds my left hand.
That stops me, and I look at him. He folds both his big hands round mine. They are very warm manly hands. Looking at me, a trace of a smile on his lips, he squeezes the base of my thumb. I never knew a hand squeeze could be so lovely. I don’t hurry him. I feel calm, I feel in love, and the older part of me knows this isn’t going to last. I’ve been in this scene before. It’s one of the memories I revisit most often. I explore around in it, always thinking the same thought: why oh why oh why oh why did I not just kiss him?
‘What’s the matter?’ I say, smiling.
‘I’ve waited so long to be in a bed with you, Lucy Potts, and now you’re getting up.’
‘I’m just going to the door. Though I could venture further. I could get us tea.’
‘Tea?’ he says. His eyes light up. He likes that idea.
‘Would you like tea?’
‘If you made me tea, Lucy Potts,’ he says, ‘I would like it.’
‘Would you like anything else?’
‘I’d like a glass of chilled rosé wine,’ he says. ‘But more than that, I’d just like to hold your hand.’
I smile at him. Hugh Ashby has a foppish, poetic way of talking, but he somehow does it so he sounds sincere and manly. It’s partly because his voice is so lovely. It’s deep and smooth like melted chocolate.
‘One moment,’ I say.
I’m about to go when on an impulse I lean down, and brush the hair from his majestic brow. I leave my hand on his cheek. It’s a hot night, and his skin is just clammy with sweat. I enjoy the feeling of his broad cheekbone under my palm. I consider him a moment. I want to kiss him, but I know I shouldn’t. He is not in my bed, I realise, because he likes me. He’s here because it’s a party and he might have ME, and he needed to crash. I mustn’t get this wrong. Every girl fancies Hugh Ashby. He’s way out of my league.
Kiss him, I whisper to my younger self. For God’s sake, just kiss him.
I am thrown into turmoil. I am startled by hearing a strange voice whispering inside my head, and I feel dizzy and confused. My vision briefly bleaches away as if I’m having a white out. But I still have my hand on Hugh’s cheek, and it seems to anchor me. After a few seconds, his face swims back into focus. I see him, looking at me, all handsome and strong and understanding.
I see I’ve got him captive. And I sink my mouth to his Roman lips, and I kiss him.
Did I do that? Did I really kiss Hugh Ashby?
I know I did kiss him once, but it definitely wasn’t now. I feel I’ve torn myself away from reality, and as a result I feel immediately faint again. But then I’m grounded by the warm feel of his cheek beneath my hand. I’m excited by the curve of his beautiful lips.
I sink slowly towards them again.
A tiny jolt of electricity runs through me as my nose rubs against his. I can smell a trace of wine on his breath. I press my lips to his, and I feel their surprising softness and warmth. I withdraw. But already I feel like an addict. I must kiss him again. I press my lips sensuously to his, and then I reach forward the very tip of my tongue, at the very moment he reaches forward his, and we touch. I pause, as the ecstasy of love explodes slowly like an orange firework in my heart.
I don’t believe it! I’ve just kissed Hugh Ashby!
We’ve declared our love. It’s happening! It’s an absolutely thrilling start. I decide I shall make tea, I’ll brush my teeth, and then we’ll see where this leads. Maybe we won’t just kiss each other. Maybe we’ll finish the night triumphantly making love. I get up quickly.
‘No!’ says Hugh, but I bolt away. I hurry towards the door, with its poster of Filippino Lippi. I dodge through it, and pull it closed behind me. As it shuts with a slight bang …
Everything changes.
The door has changed. The smell has changed. Now it smells of lawnmower and wood and dust.
I’m in a shed.
But where is it? It seems familiar. I look round. Leaning against the wall there’s a dirty old mirror, and I look into it.
I am five.
My face is round, but it’s pretty. My hair is in a disordered bob with a short fringe. My eyes are round too and very watchful. My whole body is endearing and childish and I can’t help but notice that I’m wearing some superb clothes. I’m wearing my best blue dungarees – the ones with the embroidered flowers on the chest. I’ve combined them with my favourite white blouse, the one that has bunchy sleeves that are a tiny bit like Snow White’s. It’s a joyfully childish ensemble, and I’m delighted to note I’ve set it off with suitably eclectic footwear: Wellies. And not just any Wellies. Oh, no. I’m rocking my All Time Favourite Wellies: the red ones, with the ladybird spots, and the little eyes that peep out of the toes. Seeing them again gives me a rich warmth inside.
What is going on? I think. Why is this happening?
But my five-year-old self isn’t thinking that. As I look around, I become aware of my thoughts. At first a quiet whispering, they quickly grow louder. I am very interested in the spider on the window. She’s sleeping in the middle of her web. She’s got a sort of cocoon nearby her, and that’s filled with a dead fly. I would not want to sleep next to a dead fly. Ooh … The spider is moving slowly towards me. This feels scary. What’s going to happen?
Suddenly, the door behind me is slammed open.
A smirking girl comes marching in. She is the same size as me. She is wearing red boots. They are Kickers. She’s also wearing some orange stretchy shorts, and a hat that belongs to my dad.
I am thrilled to see her.
It’s The Amazing Gemma Weakes, the greatest friend of my childhood. She lived just three doors up the road. She went to the same primary school as me. Even after I left it, we stayed friends. We stayed in touch as teenagers. We even went to the same university. She’s been the greatest friend of my life, and, seeing her now, my five-year-old voice just erupts out of me.
‘Gemmaaaaaaaaa!!!’ I shout.
She bustles into the shed. ‘I knew you were in here,’ she says busily. I remember this. Gemma was always busy, even when playing – especially when playing. No one on the planet takes play more seriously than Gemma.
She grabs the bike pump.
‘Ah, good!’ Gemma informs me. ‘I need this.’
‘Why?’
She looks me straight in the face. ‘When I get in the orchard,’ she declares, ‘there might be monsters.’
‘Monsters?!’ I ask. I need to know more.
‘Yes,’ says Gemma, nodding. ‘Ones that are big and hairy and have got big … BIG … chicken feet.’
‘Chicken feet?!’ I enquire. Somehow that is not the detail I was expecting.
‘Yuh!’ she says. ‘Have you seen chicken feet? They are big and scaly and scratchy! My dad says that chickens are dinosaurs! He’s getting chickens at his new house!’
‘Chickens are dinosaurs?!’
‘YESSSSS!’ says Gemma, and she nods her head up and down even quicker. This is quintessential Gemma. Whenever she talks to me, she always acts as if I’m a half-wit – albeit a much-loved one whose heart is in the right place – whereas she is in full possession of the facts. ‘And,’ she carries on, ‘I am pretty certain that some of the monsters ARE going to be dinosaurs.’ She looks at me like she knows I might not believe her. She attains full certainty. ‘DEFINITELY dinosaurs!’ she concludes.
‘But …’ I begin. I look at the bike pump. ‘Why do you need that?’
‘To shoot them!’ explains Gemma, as if anyone would know that. And to show how it works, she pumps it three times. ‘Come on!’ she commands.
We both run out of the shed.
She turns to the side, to the gap in the hedge that leads into the orchard. You are not allowed in the orchard. Gemma, however, goes straight through.
I don’t. I stop where I am.
My young self looks towards the hole in the hedge. I’m longing to go through it, but I’m sensing Mum could be watching. Meanwhile my older self is looking round in wonder. It’s extraordinary. I’m in the garden of The Old Vicarage, Linton Hill, Kent. I was born in this house. This was my first garden. And I realise anyone will remember their childhood garden as Paradise, but, seeing it all again now, it is even better than I remembered. I can just see the roof of The Old Vicarage. It’s a rickety, wizardy, half-timbered house, and from where I’m standing, the wonky line of its roof is just visible. My gaze caresses down the half-timbered walls and into the long lovely garden which flows down the hill into several terraces. You go down jaggedy stone steps between the levels. I’m at the best bit – the last one. It’s a wild meadow area. It has long grass, and dandelions, and a weeping willow tree, and if you go under it, you feel like you’re in a cool sun-dappled cave.
I turn and I look again for Gemma.
The hole in the hedge looks like a magic archway into a better world. I can see a long line of apple trees, which stretches down into the valley, and then up to the wood at the top of the hill. I know that wood! It has squirrels leaping from every tree. And in front of it is the white cottage of Mrs Lindhurst. She is the mum of Miss Lindhurst, a very pretty lady, who plays the guitar at Sunday School. We all went to that house at Christmas and Miss Lindhurst played the guitar, and my dad played the piano, and we were allowed to eat as much cake as we wanted. It wasn’t horrid granny cake either (fruit cake). It was delicious springy sponge cake, and it had jam and soft lemon-flavoured icing which had tiny lemon shapes which were sweet and sour all at once.
Gemma pokes her head back through the hedge.
‘I have not seen any dinosaurs yet,’ she assures me.
I’d forgotten about the dinosaurs. But I don’t want Gemma to know that. So I nod.
‘Stay there!’ she orders. ‘I will FIND OUT what is going on, and then I will come back, and I will REPORT!’ She is pleased with that last word. She says it again. ‘I will REPORT. Do. Not. Move!’
At this, Gemma holds out her finger at me like it’s a wand. She looks like a small but very busy witch.
‘Stay there!’ she commands again.
I nod at her. I want to tell her there’s no way that I’m going to move. My young eyes are noticing that a dandelion has just released three seeds and they’re floating up like fairies off to seek their fortunes. My older self is relishing the miraculous novelty of all this. I am five again, and I’m at the bottom of The Old Vicarage garden, waiting for Gemma to return with her REPORT. I would not move from this spot, not for all the cake in Kent.
But someone arrives. It’s Mum. She’s standing at the edge of the highest level of the garden. She already looks cross.
‘Lucy!’ she calls.
‘What?’ pleads my young voice.
She looks young too and very strange. She has blue eye shadow, and blusher, and her hair is blonde and permed. It has been tied back by a green Clothkits headscarf. I remember that scarf. For years it lay in a box under the sink, and we used it to clean windows. She also has her hands on her hips, and she’s staring down at me like an angry giant.
‘I have told you we need to go and buy shoes,’ she says. ‘Haven’t I? Haven’t I?’
I nod quickly. I want to placate her, but at the same time I’m confused.
‘Why do I need shoes?’ I ask.
‘You are starting school soon,’ she reminds me, furiously.
‘Can’t I wear my Wellies?’ I ask.
‘Of course you can’t wear your Wellies!’ scolds Mum. ‘We don’t have much time. We need to go.’
She turns and strides off towards the house. She’s wearing a shiny red skirt and it’s tight round her surprisingly shapely bottom. My young self is now boiling in confusion. I don’t understand why I can’t wear my Wellies to school. Mum seemed to imply I’ll get into terrible trouble if I even attempt it, and this makes me think that school is a terrifying and alien place, where you must do everything correctly or you’ll be subjected to terrible punishments. Is that true?
It’s OK, I whisper to my young self.
But my young self isn’t reassured at all. I was already scared because Mum seemed angry for no reason, and now another strange voice has appeared in my head, and that’s made me feel terrified and dizzy and a bit sick. I feel like I do when I get a nose bleed. My legs feel weak. Terrified, I’m desperate to get to Mum. I know she’s cross but I’m sure she can help. I hurry after her. But of course the steps are jaggedy and hard to climb at the best of times – even when you’re not wearing Wellies, and feeling faint.