When We Were Rich Page 5

  But she said you were nice in your own way, she lies.

  Colin suddenly meets her gaze.

  I don’t know anything about you, he says.

  Roxy picks up her discarded pair of knickers and examines them critically. There is blood on them. She now looks down at the sheets. They are heavily stained.

  Oh shit. I’m really sorry.

  Colin smiles shyly.

  It was worth it.

  I’m so fucking embarrassed. No, I really am now.

  It doesn’t matter.

  Why is it that girls in tampon commercials are always laughing and dancing? Shouldn’t they be burning things down? I don’t suppose you have an old pair of boxers I could borrow?

  I’ll have a look.

  Colin roots around in the pine chest of drawers next to the bed.

  I haven’t been to the laundry for a while.

  His eyes dart guiltily towards a wicker basket at the foot of the bed with a lid on but a shirtsleeve spilling from the top of it.

  I’ve only got these.

  He produces a pair of boxer shorts with the logo of QPR emblazoned on them, three interlinked blue capitals enclosed in two blue circles.

  I can’t wear those.

  They’re clean.

  I’m sure they are. But I’m a Chelsea supporter.

  Oh. Okay. I’ll see if I can . . .

  Roxy reaches out and takes the boxers from his hand.

  You’re quite gullible, aren’t you? I like that.

  She pulls them on. Then she takes a fold of fat on her stomach in her hands.

  I should stop eating so many cakes.

  She wobbles the fold of flesh back and forth.

  Why don’t you, then?

  Because I like cakes.

  Colin’s last girlfriend – four years ago – had been pale, skeletal and terrified of food. He smiles at the sight of Roxy jiggling her belly. She pulls on her bra, then her ski pants and halter top, and glances at herself in the mirror that is attached to the inside of the wardrobe.

  I’ve looked better, to be honest.

  You look pretty.

  I don’t know about that. At least I look like I’ve had sex. We did have sex, didn’t we?

  Colin looks startled.

  Got you again. You were okay last night. Good even. I didn’t expect it, to tell you the truth.

  Thanks for the five-star review.

  Actually I was too drunk to expect anything much.

  She pauses.

  In fact to be even more honest, I wasn’t entirely sure who you were at one point . . . Mind if I smoke?

  I’d rather you didn’t.

  Oh well. You’ll get over it.

  She finds the packet of Marlboro menthols in her handbag and lights one.

  We didn’t, says Colin.

  What? she says, inhaling and coughing.

  We didn’t have sex.

  We didn’t?

  You would have. But you were too drunk, I thought.

  Roxy pulls on the cigarette thoughtfully.

  That’s very gentlemanly of you. If it’s true.

  It is true. And it’s not all that gentlemanly.

  Why not?

  You gave me a blow job just before you passed out.

  She bursts out laughing.

  Did I? How was it?

  A bit rubbish if I’m honest.

  Never been my speciality. Even worse when I’m sober.

  * * *

  Nodge wakes up alone in his council flat. His final argument with Fraser at Heaven was a bad one. It came to a head when he told Fraser that his Dalmatian, Harvey Milk, was a cliché. He said it out of pique, after having been ignored for so long, but he is remorseful now.

  ‘A fucking cliché’ is the phrase he used. ‘A poof with a Dalmatian. What a joke.’

  This was after Fraser told him he was a crappy dancer and that he should go and sit down, after which Fraser started dancing with someone else again.

  Fraser was furious. Fraser loved Harvey Milk. Nodge, in fact, didn’t like dogs at all, although he tried to keep the fact hidden from Fraser. Any dogs. The way they licked your crotch. When he had complained about it, just before they left his flat for the Embankment, Fraser had said something silly like, If you won’t let Harvey lick your crotch, I don’t see why I should bother. Nodge had sulked, even though he knew Fraser was joking. Or at least he thought he was joking.

  Since he’s come out, Nodge hasn’t quite known how to behave. Is there some stance he should adopt, some covert body language? Some particular attitude? Nodge still doesn’t know and he isn’t sure he is learning very fast. He had watched Queer as Folk that year as an education as much as anything else, but Fraser said that it was a load of shit and queers weren’t anything like that, in fact they weren’t anything like anything in particular. But Fraser said that at the same time he acted up the whole gay thing. He bitched, his voice lilted, he camped it up. Even to Nodge, a newcomer, this performance seemed old-fashioned, but who was he to judge? He didn’t have a clue.

  Nodge isn’t interested in becoming a clone and joining any of the various sub-groups that seem to comprise the Scene. He just wants to feel at ease. To feel, ironically, normal. Or perhaps ironically normal. But he rapidly realized that the gay scene, although it could be fun and it could be friendly, was also scary, wracked, frenetic, particular, codified, strangely formalized.

  He just wanted a boyfriend. And when Fraser laughed at him for dancing badly and they had had the argument, he walked out and got himself a minicab home, not back to Fraser’s flat as they had planned, but his own place in Shepherd’s Bush. A black cab driver himself, he usually avoids minicabs on principle, but on Millennium night he had little choice. He took the minicab home, bullying the Somali driver all the way about the best route. When Fraser phoned his Nokia at 3.30 a.m., Nodge ignored the call and went back to sleep.

  Now it is 9 a.m. and he is getting ready to go out on a shift in his cab. None of the other drivers whom he meets in the cab shelters and taxi drivers’ cafés know his secret. He feels no urgent need to tell them.

  The phone rings. Fraser again. He ignores it. He feels lonely, and needy, and angry. Next time, he knows, he will pick up the phone and make it up with Fraser. He is too scared of loneliness to do anything else.

  * * *

  Frankie and Veronica do not wake the next morning until gone eleven. Frankie pulls himself out of bed first.

  Come on. We’d better get our skates on. We’re meant to be at your parents’ house at one. We have to pick up Flossie as well. And she won’t be ready.

  How do you know?

  She’s never ready.

  Why did we agree to this? sighs Veronica, pushing her face into the pillow.

  Guilt. The reason you mainly do things when it comes to your mother.

  What’s your excuse then?

  Duty.

  Do you think Flossie will be alright with my mum and dad?

  No. It’s going to be a car crash. But we’ll get through it.

  Although they have been married four months, Frankie’s mother, Flossie, and Veronica’s parents, Michael and Cordelia, have never formally met except for exchanging a few greetings at the wedding ceremony. They had avoided one another at the reception entirely, despite sitting at the same table, albeit at different ends.

  Frankie showers. When he emerges from the bathroom, Veronica is sitting on the side of the bed, still naked. To his eyes, she is stripped now of last night’s sexuality, and seems forlorn. She looks up at him as if she’s about to cry.

  Should I go and get a morning after pill?

  I thought you said you were, you know, not at that time of month. Where you going to get one, anyway?

  I’ve got a friend with a prescription pad. A doctor. Mind you, she lives in Clapham.

  Clapham? There and back’s going to take two hours at least. We’re already running late. That’s going to ruin the lunch. Although obviously it’s ruined already. Just by virtu
e of it happening. You know what your mother is like. She’s bad enough as it is without us putting her precious schedule out.

  I don’t know, Frankie. Minty, my friend, she’s going away on holiday tonight.

  You’ll be alright. I pulled out at the last moment.

  He indicates the broad stain on the sheet.

  Do you know who texted me last night? he says, trying to change the subject.

  He turns away, pulls on his trousers, fiddles with his belt, checks his watch.

  Veronica, seemingly preoccupied, doesn’t provide the necessary follow-up question.

  Tony Diamonte. He’s got some front.

  She continues to ignore him, instead fidgeting nervously with her wedding ring.

  We have to go, Vronky. If we don’t leave now your mother is going to be a total bitch all afternoon.

  She nods, silently rises and presses her lips together as if for safety, to stop wrong words escaping.

  * * *

  Frankie draws the car up in front of Flossie Blue’s un-renovated workman’s cottage in the grubby terrace behind Shepherd’s Bush Green. She and Frankie’s father, Joe, bought it for £2,000 in 1963 and, a century old, it looks its age. Frankie’s urgings for his mother to modernize have fallen, always, on deaf ears.

  There are hanging baskets on either side of the door, now stripped of their blooms by the punishment of winter. There is a bunch of vivid, unnaturally upright red plastic tulips which, as far as Frankie can remember, have always been there.

  He lets himself into the house with the latchkey.

  Mum!

  Yoo-hoo! comes the answering song from upstairs. Be down in a mo.

  Skates on. We’re running late.

  Walking through to the kitchen, he flops into one of the four chairs, the same ones he remembers from childhood, with the splayed backs, now patchy with worn varnish. There’s a cellophane-wrapped bunch of orange carnations in a plastic jug of water on the table. He notices, to his surprise, holiday brochures spread on the Fablon-covered surface. ‘Morocco – Land of Dreams’. ‘The Nile and the World of the Pharaohs’. ‘Beach Life in Malaga’, ‘Cruises in the Mediterranean’.

  Veronica appears in the doorway.

  Flossie’s planning a trip, looks like.

  Good for her.

  Did you lock the car? There’s some right herberts around here. Don’t know why she doesn’t move to Eastbourne like a normal old duck. Free up some capital.

  Veronica tosses him the car keys, which he catches deftly. Now Flossie bustles into the room. Her hair is lank on her shoulders and the buttons at the top of her blouse are undone, showing an inch of yellowy bra. Her face is like serrated dough, her lips are dry. But she has made an effort, Frankie notices. She is wearing her best skirt, midnight blue serge from John Lewis, and a good pair of polished flat black shoes.

  Hello, Frankie love. Happy New Year. Hello, Veronica.

  Hello, Mrs Blue.

  She embraces first Veronica, then Frankie, kissing his cheek wetly.

  You had a big night last night? says Flossie, recoiling slightly. Smells like you did.

  What’s all this? Frankie ignores her, vaguely indicating the glossies on the table.

  I made some resolutions. About time I had some fun.

  Flossie is all bustle, her solid bulk moving with the grace and purpose of a linebacker. She hauls on a coat that looks like it has been cut out of winter curtains, heavy and dusk-blue with a mangy fur collar.

  Resolutions to get a suntan?

  To spend some money. Have a nice time.

  What money?

  Your dad left me a bit of a nest egg. You know that. I told you that. Money he’d saved. Life insurance. Not much, but better than a poke in the eye with a burned stick.

  You don’t want to go mad, Mum.

  Don’t be daft. I don’t need much to get by. Anyway there’s ekerty in this house. I could always top up. Downsize or whatever the word is nowadays. You’re always telling me. Thought I might spend some of the savings on a bit of fun in the sun. Just what the doctor ordered.

  Frankie picks up a cruise brochure – ‘The Wonders of the Far East’ – and flicks through it.

  You’ve never been further than Southend on Sea. What’s come over you?

  That’s what I’m saying. I’ve never really done much in my life. We never had the money when your father was alive. And Joe didn’t like to go places. I’m sixty years old this year. Not so long left when you think about it.

  Don’t be silly. You’ve got thirty years yet.

  I’ve not made old bones just yet. Not quite in my prime – but still. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Veronica? You’re only as young as you feel.

  Wouldn’t you get lonely? On a cruise by yourself?

  What makes you think I’d be going by myself?

  Frankie notices a slight preen in her stance. He glances at the bunch of carnations and notices that there is a small card attached. He picks it up and reads it.

  ‘To Fab Floss, Love and Hugs, G x.’

  What’s this then? Who’s G?

  To his surprise, Flossie blushes deeply.

  It stands for Gordon. He’s a gentleman friend.

  Who’s he when he’s at home?

  None of your beeswax.

  Oh, come on, Mum, why don’t you come clean. ‘Gordon’. Sounds like a real stud-muffin.

  Stop it, Frankie! You’re embarrassing me in front of Veronica. But she looks pleased with herself all the same.

  Good for you, Mrs Blue, says Veronica. You’ve only got one life.

  I thought you believed we had shedloads of them, snaps back Frankie, obscurely irritated. Veronica’s belief in reincarnation has always chafed with him. She ignores the jibe and picks up one of the brochures, one for the ‘Marvellous Mediterranean’.

  This one looks nice, says Veronica.

  I do fancy Spain. I’ve got a cousin with a place out there. Do you remember your Aunt Betty, Frankie? Lizbet?

  Not really.

  Thinking I might retire there myself one day. You can pick up houses for buttons, Gordon told me.

  He’s all over the international property markets then. Quite the catch.

  Frankie tries to square this new vision of his mother as a pleasure-seeking adventurer and coy lover with his accustomed picture of her. Flossie has always been a home bird. A shy woman, with a strong sense of pride. She still scrubs her doorstep from time to time and keeps her small house, with its Ercol furniture and G-plan sofa and rubber plants in the hallway, clean and tidy. But the swirl of the carpet is distressed, and the wooden chairs around the kitchen table are scratched and rickety. On one of them, a chair leg is held together with crudely knocked-in nails.

  Perhaps the travel fever will pass. A fad. ‘Gordon’ likewise.

  Frankie checks his watch, becoming increasingly anxious about the time and so he clucks at Flossie until she is ready. After ten minutes, they leave, Flossie triple-locking the door behind her. She is grasping the bunch of orange carnations, still wrapped in cellophane.

  What are they for?

  You’re meant to bring something, aren’t you? Gordon wouldn’t mind me . . . what is it? Re-gifting them.

  It’s not necessary, says Veronica.

  All the same.

  Carnations, though, Frankie mutters.

  What’s wrong with carnations?

  Orange ones.

  Veronica touches him firmly on the sleeve.

  Nothing’s wrong with carnations, he says.

  Just before she gets in the car, as if by reflex, he hugs his mother. She smells of Eucryl and lavender. She lowers herself down into the cream-coloured leather seat and immediately, and loudly, breaks wind.

  I do beg your pardon, Veronica. I had some baked beans for breakfast. Sometimes I never learn.

  Don’t worry, says Veronica, although the stench is foul, like burning rubber and compost.

  Frankie winds down the windows and frowns. He is not look
ing forward to the lunch. He knows that Flossie is going to be uncomfortable. He knows because the moment he enters through the ancient oak door of Veronica’s parents’ cottage in Chalfont St Peter he will also feel discomfort, however much he tries to feel nonchalant, relaxed and worldy-wise.

  But Michael and Cordelia have invited him, Veronica and his mother – the reverse, with Flossie entertaining them at her old terraced workman’s cottage would be unthinkable – and they must all suffer the ceremony. This is the meaning of family, thinks Frankie. Mutually agreed suffering.

  The drive takes less than an hour, after the muddle of West London gives way to the primped greenery of Buckinghamshire. Veronica’s parents’ cottage lies down a short gravel driveway. The tyres crunch as they approach.

  Very chocolate-box, isn’t it? Did you grow up here, love? Flossie asks Veronica.

  Top right-hand bedroom. That was mine.

  Her eyes go up to a sash window, the frame surrounded by tendrils of green ivy.

  Very old, isn’t it? Must be quite a bit of upkeep. Looks dead posh.

  Posh people don’t actually say ‘posh’, Mum. They say ‘smart’.

  Well, you would know all about it, wouldn’t you? says Flossie, an edge creeping into her voice.

  I wasn’t saying that you—

  Oh, don’t worry, love. You’re probably a bit nervous.

  I’m not nervous.

  She turns to Veronica.

  When he was a little boy and he got nervous he used to get ulcers. Didn’t you, Frankie? And piles. Those piles were a trial.

  Frankie brings the car to a halt. He helps Flossie out, and they all cluster together around the beautifully aged, red stone doorstep. The front door is painted a deep glossy English green, which looks about ten layers thick, with a worn, heavy brass knocker. Veronica raises it, then lets it drop. After maybe thirty seconds, the door can be heard to unlatch. Veronica’s mother, around the same age as Flossie, but skinny, stretched and dressed in black, performs a welcoming smile. Her smile is wide enough to span the contrasting emotions it both advertises and conceals.

  Lovely. Lovely, is all she says.

  She ushers them in, kissing Frankie and then Veronica, but merely shaking hands with Flossie, who seems confused.

  Can I take your coat, Mrs Blue?

  It’s Flossie, love.