As Good As It Gets? Read online

  ‘Charlotte! Whoo-hoo!’

  I scan the hall. ‘Over here!’ I arrange my face into a smile as Sabrina strides towards me, chomping away on a Wagon Wheel.

  ‘Hi, Sabrina. I was just leaving actually—’

  ‘Oh, we can walk home together if you’re heading back. God, don’t you love Wagon Wheels? I’d forgotten how good they are!’

  ‘Actually,’ I tell her, ‘I haven’t been able to give blood. There wasn’t enough iron in it, apparently.’

  ‘Aw, aren’t they fussy these days?’ she asks as we step outside.

  ‘Seems like it,’ I say, wondering if Sabrina took ecstasy the other night too. If so, it seems a little unfair that a whole armful of blood has been drained out of her when mine hasn’t had a sniff of an illegal drug since that measly little muffin in 1996.

  ‘So how come you’re not at work?’ she asks as we make our way home.

  ‘I’ve taken some time off, seeing as it’s the start of the holidays.’

  She smiles. ‘Quite right too. Bet Will’s pleased …’

  ‘Yes, he seems to be. Um … Sabrina? Can I ask you something about the other night? After Zach’s gig, I mean?’

  She nods. ‘Sure.’

  I’m not about to lower myself to admitting that I stood there, sipping my malted drink while my husband flailed about with another woman. Maybe it was Sabrina. I no longer care. Bet they were all off their faces and hardly remember anything anyway. Liza was right – even if it was her, it didn’t mean anything. But I do need to know how Will came to mistake a Thursday night in an ordinary East London terraced house for a rave in a field – twenty-five years ago. I hadn’t even realised people still took ecstasy. According to Rosie, these days it’s all about smoking ‘cheese’.

  I glance at Sabrina who seems perfectly bright and perky, even with depleted blood. ‘It’s just, Will was pretty out of it when he came home that night,’ I venture.

  She glances at me. ‘Oh, God. Sorry about that. I wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle it. But he seemed like he needed to let his hair down, you know?’

  Yep, what he really needed was a pill that would make him cuddle the stairs and cry like a little baby.

  ‘A mate of Tommy’s brought them,’ she adds. ‘We don’t indulge. Well, not often. You can’t at our age, can you?’

  ‘Er, no,’ I say, as if Will and I are faced with a similar dilemma on a regular basis.

  ‘Anyway,’ she adds breezily, ‘as long as he was okay …’

  ‘Well, no, he was sick actually.’

  ‘God, really? Poor Will!’

  ‘He’s recovered now,’ I add quickly.

  She smiles. ‘Well, at least he had fun. I wish you’d been able to stay. We saw quite a different side to him, y’know. He’s a scream.’ He is indeed. ‘Fancy a coffee?’ she adds as we reach our street.

  ‘Sure,’ I say, deciding the wine can wait. Maybe Sabrina will shed some more light on what was going on with Will the other night.

  ‘I think Rosie’s at our place, hanging out with Zach …’

  ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ What are they doing? I want to ask. Will, I notice, seems to have relinquished his role as Highly Protective Dad. This shift in attitude appears to have coincided with his new-found love of leather trousers and dirty dancing. Not to worry, though, because it’s all cheery smiles as Sabrina lets us in, and we find Rosie and Zach in the kitchen, drinking tea and munching toast. The scene could not appear more innocent if a game of Ludo were set out on the table. ‘Hey, Mum,’ Rosie says with a big smile.

  ‘Hi, darling. I just ran into Sabrina at the blood bank.’

  ‘Mum’s got this thing about giving blood,’ Zach remarks with a smirk.

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she retorts. ‘I just needed to get out. Been working on sketches for the new collection since six this morning …’ She grins at me. ‘Want to come up and see?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I say. ‘C’mon, Rosie, let’s have a look.’ We all head up to the loft conversion, which is more grotto than studio – a magpie’s nest lined with snowy feathers and glittery beads. Light floods in through a large Velux window. Wedding dress sketches are pinned on the walls, and lengths of velvet ribbon and lace hang from row upon row of brass hooks. ‘What a beautiful room,’ I exclaim.

  ‘It’s amazing,’ Rosie agrees, touching scraps of marabou feather strewn over a full-length mirror with an ornate gilt frame. Then she flits back downstairs – clearly, Zach is more enticing than drawings of dresses – leaving Sabrina and I alone.

  ‘So what d’you think?’ She shows me her latest sketches on her drawing board. They are lavish creations, frothy with feathers and tulle and intricately embellished. While they’re not quite my taste, for a woman who wanted a fantasy dress – the frock of fairytales – they would be perfect.

  ‘I think they’re gorgeous,’ I say truthfully.

  ‘Well, I hope so. This is the kind of thing we do best – the full-on, traditional bride, really.’ She pauses. ‘Look, Charlotte, I didn’t mean to be flippant about Will being sick the other night. I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have encouraged him.’

  I shrug. ‘He’s a grown man, Sabrina. It was no one else’s fault.’

  ‘Well, he was quite keen, you know, to try one …’

  ‘Idiot,’ I say with a grin.

  ‘They’re all the same, darling.’ She hugs me, and I decide right then that Sabrina wasn’t Will’s saucy dance partner. She just couldn’t be. She’s too open and damn well nice to have virtually copulated with him and then be super-friendly to my face. And if he has a bit of a thing for her, and wants to impress her – hence the leather trouser aberration? Well, we’re all allowed to have crushes. They make us feel young and alive. Which makes me feel slightly better about meeting up with the first man I ever loved.

  *

  I find Will in the garden. His arm, warm and lightly tanned, brushes against mine as we sit side by side on the bench. He looks especially handsome today, his white T-shirt showing off his honeyed skin to best effect.

  ‘Rosie and Zach seem pretty close,’ I muse.

  Will nods. ‘He seems like a decent boy. D’you think they’re going out or just hanging out together?’

  ‘God knows. She won’t give anything away.’ I watch a bee crawl into a mottled pink foxglove. ‘She’s probably snogged him,’ I add.

  ‘What? I’ll bloody kill him …’ Will breaks into a laugh.

  Christ, I thought he was serious for a second.

  ‘I’ll maim that boy if he’s kissed our girl,’ he adds. Our girl. It warms my heart, the way he says it. There’s still time to email Fraser and say I’ve changed my mind about that coffee.

  ‘D’you think you can still get those iron chastity belts?’ I ask with a smile.

  ‘Not sure,’ Will says. ‘I could have a go at making one …’

  ‘It was a hell of a lot easier when all she wanted to do was play Boggle,’ I add.

  ‘Yeah. Is she still over at his place?’

  I nod. ‘He’s probably just showing her his collection of definitive stamps.’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking. Or hoping, at least.’ We dream up more things they’re doing – playing dominoes or Kerplunk – then Rosie texts to say she’ll have dinner at Zach’s, and Ollie heads off for a horror film marathon at Saul’s. So this balmy Saturday evening is all about us, just like those long-ago evenings when we had no one to please but ourselves. Instead of cooking we just eat the sourdough with cheese, followed by mangoes and wine, sitting on the back step in the evening sun.

  Later, we bring out a rug and lie on the lawn, aware of Gerald humming to himself as he scrubs out their bird bath. We fall into a dozy, companionable silence on this beautiful evening. I no longer care about the saucy dance or the drugs; maybe Will wanted to try ecstasy just the once, because it sounded interesting and fun – like the time I had a fish pedicure. God, it was disgusting, those nibbly, slithery things shoaling around my feet. I couldn’t wa
it to get out.

  Anyway, none of that matters now. I rest my head on Will’s chest, deciding to tell him about Fraser as soon as I get back from Caffè Nero on Monday. There shouldn’t be secrets. I must be nicer to him; I still wince at the thought of that salad cream. In fact, if we could enjoy evenings like this more often, I don’t think I’d ever fret about the state of our marriage. Kids, a home to run, Will being out of work … is it any wonder we’ve fallen into a rut? These days, it’s virtually impossible to have a conversation in private.

  Later still, when the kids are home and asleep, I snuggle up to Will in bed. Maybe, I think, he might be feeling more, um, relaxed after our lovely evening together. So I make a move, and for a moment I think, this is good, he hasn’t done that toasting-fork-flinching thing – then he looks at me and says, ‘Still feeling a bit worn out from the other night actually.’

  It would seem that my husband’s hangovers now last two days.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Monday morning, and there’s been a major volcanic eruption in London E11. ‘Look at it, Mum!’ Rosie wails, prodding at her chin. ‘I can’t go out like this …’ She assesses the true horror of the situation in the reflective surface of our stainless steel kettle.

  ‘It’s just a blemish, love,’ I remark. ‘A tiny pimple. You can hardly see it with the naked eye.’ In fact, it’s more medium than tiny, as blemishes go. But still, hardly a national crisis.

  She flumps down onto a kitchen chair. ‘Don’t patronise me, Mum. I can see what it is. It’s not even a flat one. It sticks right up. Why did this have to happen today?’

  ‘I’m not patronising you,’ I retort. ‘It is a pimple, Rosie. What else d’you want me to call it?’

  ‘How about Roger?’ Will says, smirking as he ambles into the kitchen. ‘Or Barry? Or Dave?’

  Rosie scowls and touches it gingerly. It’s her casting today, for the shopping mall, no less. Her face could be on billboards all over London. ‘Very funny, Dad,’ she mutters.

  ‘C’mon,’ he offers, patting her hunched shoulder, ‘it’s really not that big.’

  ‘Look, I know it’s massive, okay? So let’s just leave it at that.’

  Will shrugs and rolls his eyes at me.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ollie says, breezing into the kitchen in his pyjamas, ‘my eyes are naked, and I can see it.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ Rosie snaps.

  He snatches a piece of toast from the plate on the table and rips a bite out of it. ‘You could probably see it from outer space,’ he adds helpfully.

  Rosie splutters. ‘Can you make him go away, Mum? Please?’

  I look at her. ‘He does live here, love. Where d’you expect him to go?’

  She groans loudly. ‘Well, I’m not going to the casting today.’

  ‘But you were so excited—’

  ‘The thing is, Ro,’ Ollie cuts in, munching away, ‘you should be pleased about that spot.’

  She glares at him.

  ‘Spots are good,’ he goes on, ‘’cause there’s this stuff called sebum – oil, basically – and it blocks the pore and gets infected with bacteria. D’you know why it’s swelled up with that little yellow bit on top?’

  ‘What yellow bit?’ Rosie glares at him as if he has slithered out from under the fridge.

  ‘It’s ’cause the white cells know there’s bad stuff happening. They’re all gathering together, like an army, and they’re gonna fight it …’

  Rosie closes her eyes, as if in prayer.

  ‘… and that yellow bit’s keeping it all inside and protected, like a lid.’

  ‘I don’t care what my cells are doing,’ she snaps, ‘and I don’t want a fucking lid …’

  ‘Rosie!’ Will snaps. ‘That’s completely unnecessary.’

  ‘Stop making such a huge drama out of it,’ I add. ‘You want to be a model and put yourself up for big jobs like this?’

  ‘Yeah, ’course I do—’

  ‘Well,’ I charge on, ‘that means being a bit more grown up and not over-reacting to every little thing—’

  ‘Like seeds,’ Ollie chuckles, jabbing at the jam jar on the table. ‘We have to have this horrible jelly-type jam ’cause Rosie hates seeds …’

  ‘Never mind seeds, Ollie.’ I turn back to my daughter. ‘It’s not a big deal. A little dab of concealer and you’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’re not meant to wear make-up on castings,’ she retorts. ‘Remember what happened at the agency when they made me scrub my face?’

  ‘Yes, because that was loads of make-up and we’re just talking about the teeniest dab of cover-up.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Will adds, ‘surely they’re used to seeing teenage girls?’

  ‘Yuh?’ she says with a shrug.

  ‘Well,’ he goes on, ‘they’ll be well aware that spots are just part of life …’

  ‘And if you get the job and you’ve still got the spot,’ Ollie adds, ‘like, if it’s the sort that lasts ages and ages, basically scarring the skin, then they can just Photoshop it out.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she rounds on him, ‘so you’re the expert now?’

  He nods. ‘I know about Photoshop, yeah. We did that photography project and Mr Bailey got it on his computer and showed us—’

  ‘And skin?’ she snaps. ‘So you’re a dermatologist too?’

  Ollie’s face clouds. ‘No, we just did the structure of skin at school, the dermis, the epidermis …’

  ‘Fascinating.’ With that, she flounces out of the kitchen, banging the door behind her.

  ‘Christ,’ Will mutters.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on with her,’ I murmur, pouring a coffee.

  Ollie shrugs. ‘This toast’s a bit bendy, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, that’s because it was made about an hour ago.’ I sigh loudly and drop fresh slices into the toaster. ‘I’m going up to see her. She needs to calm down. If she doesn’t go to this casting she’ll be really upset …’

  ‘But that won’t be our fault,’ Ollie calls after me.

  I find her hunched on her bed, picking at her nails, having freed her hair from its scrunchie so it falls all around her face, like a demented curtain. Perching beside her, I gently push a swathe of it out of her eyes. ‘Hon, it will cover up. Come on, let me help you.’

  She peers at me, bleary eyed. ‘What d’you know about spots? You never get any.’

  ‘That’s because I’m thirty-eight, and I’m getting lines and wrinkles instead. Crevices, basically. Remember that geography trip you went on to Yorkshire last year? To Malham Cove?’

  She nods.

  ‘What was that thing there again? You did a study on it, drew all those cross-sectional diagrams—’

  She smiles, despite herself. ‘A geographic fissure.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s what I’m looking at these days: geographic fissures, running from my nose to my mouth and right across my forehead, like furrows in a field.’ I squeeze her hand. ‘I’d be delighted to just have the odd spot to deal with, to be honest.’

  Her smile lifts a little more. ‘You don’t have fissures, Mum. You’ve got lovely skin.’

  ‘Well, it’s not as fresh as it once was, but that’s okay. I’m not obsessed with looking younger. I mean, it’s not as if I’d dream of spending hundreds of quid on some stupid gold particle serum …’

  She emits an actual laugh.

  ‘So, come on – get your make-up bag and let’s have a look …’

  Reluctantly, she uncurls herself from her bed and fetches a red polka-dot purse from a drawer, from which she extracts a cheap concealer. It’s a worrying shade of pink, like Windolene. ‘D’you have some foundation as well? We might need to blend something to get the right shade.’ She rummages through a box of bottles and tubs, finally pulling out a tube. I blend two products together on the back of my hand, then, using a small brush, dab a little onto the offending blemish. It’s still there – just. But much reduced.

  ‘That is better,’ she says, almost begrudgingly, insp
ecting her face in her dressing table mirror. ‘You can hardly see it unless you peer really close.’

  ‘And no one’s going to do that,’ I reassure her, ‘so you can get ready and go to your casting now.’

  She turns and smiles and, in a gesture that almost causes my heart to burst, flings her arms around me. ‘Thanks so much, Mum. I love you.’

  ‘I love you too, darling.’ And she’s off, amidst good lucks from Will and me, and Ollie yelling after her, helpfully, ‘I hope it erupts when you’re at the casting and lava bursts out.’

  Our house seems to empty very quickly after she’s gone. Will is summonsed by his mother to clean her patio, which is apparently marred by a small patch of moss (sounds like a crisis on a par with Rosie’s blemish). Then Maria and Saul arrive to whisk the boys off to a climbing wall in Victoria Park. Good, dutiful Will, assisting his mother, and good mum Maria, offering the boys a day of fun: so many kind, helpful people, which makes me feel even more despicable, sneaking off to meet Fraser. But it’s only coffee, right? Nothing can happen in Caffè Nero with tons of people about on a rather grey Monday afternoon. I’ll just be curt and polite and find out whether he might be prepared to meet Rosie at some point. Then straight home.

  I’ll be back before Will’s even finished tackling that moss.

  *

  I set off in jeans, a plain pale grey T-shirt and not a scrap of make-up: i.e., nothing that might convey that I am excited about seeing Fraser and want him to find me attractive. In fact, I hope to give the opposite impression: that I’m a busy woman with a happy and fulfilled life and no time for mascara, thank you very much. This man certainly does not deserve lipstick.

  It’s only on the Tube that I start to fear that I may not be able to pull this off. I’m nervous – hand-shakingly nervous, in fact, as if I’m on my way to a job interview which, if I don’t get it, will result in our home being repossessed and us having to give away Guinness because we can’t even afford his dry food.

  Seven years ago, I drove out to Essex to be interviewed for the position of Marketing Director of Crisps. No need to be scared, I told myself, having bought crippling black patent shoes and a rather uninspiring navy blue suit from Wallis for the occasion. It doesn’t matter if you get this job or not. There are plenty of others. Even if they offer it to you, you might not want it.