Chapter Sixteen
A bolt of shock runs through me. Have I conjured him up by directing so much mental energy in his direction?
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I found your address on the unit list. Thank God it’s you,’ he says with a sheepish grin. ‘I’m sure I’m the last person your sister would want to see on the doorstep.’
I’m consumed by equal measures of love and rage. Of course, part of me’s thrilled he’s here, but I’m also furious that he’s dragging out a situation which is almost certainly hopeless. I’m not going to be some chew toy that he intermittently uses to distract himself from the nagging pain of love gone sour.
‘What makes you think you’re not the last person I want to see on the doorstep?’
At which point he grabs me, gathering us up into an enormous snog. I melt, of course I do, but then I yank myself out of his encircling arms.
‘Don’t do that!’
‘I’m sorry, Lulu, it’s a Pavlovian response to your general gorgeousness. But you’re right, I shouldn’t.’ I glower at him, trying to hate him and failing dismally. ‘Can I please have five minutes with you in the warm? I promise you can kick me out after that.’
I jerk my head towards the door, unlocking it. He follows me through to the kitchen.
‘Cup of tea? Glass of wine? Orange squash?’ I ask sarcastically.
He’s fiddling with his phone, shifting from foot to foot. There’s a real nervous tension there, which is making me feel even more stressed than I would anyway.
‘Squash sounds delightful,’ he replies, ‘but if you’ve got some wine open I’ll go with that.’
I pour a couple of glasses, then head for the living room. If Alice comes back, I’m a dead woman walking: thank God Jenna’s monologues last a minimum of twelve hours. I need to keep my defences up at all costs (a strategy that’s gone well thus far, I’m sure you’ll agree).
‘What do you actually want, Charles?’ He goes to speak, but I tumble on. ‘I know, I know, you want to talk. But what’s there to talk about? It’s done, it’s gruesomely painful, but it’s done.’
Of course, part of me hopes it isn’t, but I have absolutely no right to ask for the near impossible. Charles puts a hand out towards me.
‘Lulu, Lulu, I know. It’s complete torture for me too and I’m desperately sorry for how thoughtless I’ve been. I should never have put you in this position.’
‘Oh, save it. The best thing you can do now is – is…’ I find myself leaning towards his open arms, desperate for comfort. He reaches out, holding my wet face against his chest. ‘The best thing you can do is give me some space to try and get over you.’
‘I know, I know I should,’ he whispers into my hair. ‘But I can’t seem to manage it. I can’t stop thinking about being with you, having you in my life properly.’
I freeze, flooded with excitement for the brief second before I remember the devastating implications.
‘You hardly know me, Charles.’ I can’t look at him. If I look at him he’ll be able to read how I really feel in a heartbeat.
‘That’s not true, you know it’s not.’
‘Don’t start talking like that if you don’t mean it. And you can’t mean it, you can’t.’
‘But I do mean it. I’m… I’m very, very fond of you, Lulu.’
‘The three little words every girl longs to hear.’
‘What?’
‘Very, very fond,’ I snap, a hint of challenge in my tone.
He looks at me intensely, a smile playing around his lips. ‘Obviously I’m speaking in code,’ he says, turning my face upward and kissing me deeply. This time I don’t even make an attempt at pushing him away. We lose minutes to that kiss – a kiss that, like this relationship, should never have started. It blocks out all the pointless mental wrangling that will inevitably begin once the world’s no longer concertinaed down to nothing more than the warm exploration of each other’s mouths. But when he slips a questing hand under my jumper, I jerk away.
‘Don’t, just don’t. I don’t know what’s going on here, but what I do know is that I can’t carry on sleeping with someone else’s husband. It’s too hideous.’
‘You’re right, darling, of course you’re right. I’m so glad you’re my conscience.’
‘And she’s lovely, Bea…’
‘You’re right about that too. She’s a lovely woman, she’s just not the right woman for me.’
He reaches out to cup my face just as I spot Alice’s white Clio veering past the window. There can’t be any parking spots at this end of the road, giving me about ninety seconds’ grace to smuggle him out of the house.
‘It’s Alice! You’ve got to go out the back.’
I race into the kitchen, finding the keys for the garden gate. I lock and slam the back door, seeing Alice’s outline coming up the front path as I do it. I grab his hand and pull him down the alleyway which runs round the back of the houses, adrenaline coursing through my veins. We emerge at the end of the street, yards away from his bashed-up Land Rover.
‘Jesus!’ says Charles, panting as he holds the door open for me. ‘I’m really not up to this.’
‘Me neither,’ I say, sliding into the passenger seat. And then I take a deep breath and give him a version of the speech that Zelda must’ve given Michael all those years ago. I tell him how I can’t be responsible for taking a father from his children – how no one would ever forgive us, least of all me – but that if he genuinely feels his marriage might end then we can talk about it once there’s water under the bridge. I tell him that it mustn’t be a choice between me and his family: that all he can do is take me out of the equation and see how the cards fall.
‘Will you stop being so right all the time? Besides, there are no equations left in my life that don’t involve you. Even stupid ones like whether to have a cup of coffee in the morning: I find I just don’t want it, because the only way I can imagine enjoying it is if I were on some sun-drenched balcony sipping it with you.’
I grin at him dopily, too frightened to fall off the edge. No one’s ever loved me like this; why does it have to be that the one person who does love me like this is the one person I can’t have? I go for a kiss instead of a cogent thought, which is how we come to crush Theo’s sheep. It’s that nasal, plasticky rendition of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ which brings me down to earth with a bump.
After I’ve scrambled out of the car, I briefly lean back in.
‘I mean it, Charles, we can’t do this. The only honourable thing to do is stay away from each other. It’s too big a decision to make in the heat of all of this.’
‘I completely agree,’ he says soberly. ‘I need to go away and think.’
‘This has got to be goodbye,’ I say, my eyes filling with hot tears, ‘at least for now.’
I slam the door and shakily walk away. I make two circuits round the block, barely conscious of the drizzly rain that’s soaking me. So many competing emotions are swirling around. If I were utterly ruthless in my pursuit of him, would I be best to doggedly hang on, chipping away at the marriage day by day? But to get him on those terms would be an empty, sordid victory. I do want him – I can’t deny it – but not at any cost. This is my sole chance: it’s a high-risk strategy, but it’s the only one that offers any hope of us having a life together that I could bear to inhabit.
I know I’m going to be vulnerable to interrogation, so I stop at Costcutter for an alibi pint of milk, cursing the fact that I’m once again lying to Alice. At least it’s a brief slip off the wagon, not a full-scale recommencement of operations. I childishly cross the fingers of my left hand behind my back as I trot out my ludicrous excuse.
‘But you’re soaking!’ she says incredulously. ‘Did they actually make you milk the cow on the open prairies?’
Luckily the rain’s disguised my tears: it’s all mingled into one big mascara-y mess. ‘Nooo! It’s just really rainy. How was Jenna anyway? And why the hell were you driving? Surely you needed at least a bottle to yourself to drown out the tragedy?’
‘Don’t be mean!’ says Alice. ‘She’s on a detox, so we had smoothies.’
‘Where’d you go for smoothies till ten o’clock?’
‘And dinner as well. Some vegetarian place on Parkway.’
‘What’d you have?’ I say, happy to change the subject.
‘Um, just some kind of vegetable sludge. Anyway, the last thing you need to hear is Jenna’s catalogue of woe. I want to tell you about Friday.’
Alice has gone into organization overdrive, inviting a whole gang of our mutual friends as well as Rufus and Dinah. As she’s rattling through the agenda, I spot Charles’s woolly beanie, lying half under the sofa. Jaw rigid, I sidle over and perch awkwardly on the arm, giving myself just enough purchase to kick it out of sight. I hate being such a sneaky, horrible liar. At least now I’ve sent Charles away I can rediscover some kind of integrity and stop living life like a double agent tasked with international espionage’s most frivolous mission.
The wedding crisis means I’ve got a watertight excuse to stay away from set. I get Gareth to look after front of house, while I get the team working on running up frocks for all the extras. I’m terrified of how my spin on it will go down with Tarquin, but he’s remarkably receptive.
‘We could have a sort of bleached-out background, lots of neutrals. That way our key characters can sing out against the austerity in really vibrant colours. They’ll be like diamonds in the rough.’
Listening to the ridiculous nonsense spewing from my mouth, I realize that I’m trying to manipulate Tarquin with mimicry. Clearly my Russian paymasters have given me a new mission even more ludicrous than the last.
‘Credit crunch chic! Very now, Lulu, very modern. Emily’ll be like the pearl in the oyster.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Oysters,’ he muses, a faraway look in his eye. ‘Do you like oysters?’
‘Erm, I find them a bit slippery, if I’m honest.’ Not that I ever am honest these days.
‘You haven’t had a good one; once you do you’ll never go back. That’s what we’ll do for our night out.’
What – make eyes at each other over slimy molluscs while considering Tarquin’s genius? I should quit complaining: the fact that he’s bought into my plan is a total miracle. Spurred on, I set to work on designing Emily’s wedding dress, briefly toying with some kind of tit-covering polo-neck arrangement to revenge myself for the whole Big Bird incident. Tarquin’s obviously told her what’s afoot, as she comes rushing to the production office to hear more.
‘Promise you’ll make me look like a princess!’ she implores.
A princess, that sounds about right.
‘I promise.’
‘And promise you and Alison will invite me on another girls’ night?’
‘Alice? Yes, of course we will,’ I say, telling the four hundredth lie of the last twenty-four hours.
‘Ooh, I’m excited!’ she squeals. ‘Adios Walford, hello BAFTAs.’ She sniggers. ‘Shouldn’t tempt fate, should I?’
Has she actually read the scripts? It’s more likely Big Momma’s House 5 will get a BAFTA than ‘Last Carriage to Avon’. But then, what do I know? Perhaps I’ll be eating my words once Tarquin’s given me a look at episode one.
I don’t see much of Alice the rest of the week. Post Richard, she seems to be launching herself into a social whirlwind, while all I want to do is curl up on the sofa and watch ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. I’m longing to speak to Charles, desperate to know where his musings have taken him, but I’m determined to find the moral backbone that has failed me thus far. Perhaps it’s the tonic I need. By Friday I do feel more like my old self, a week’s hard work behind me, and no more lying to my sister. We blare out music as we get ready, swilling back cheap Cava from trusty old Costcutter. I’ve missed her this week, reduced to watching the semi-final of ‘America’s Next Top Model’ solo. I’ve been so absent this last couple of months, it’s no wonder she’s got her social life running like a well-oiled machine. I pull out outfits from her wardrobe, making suggestions.
‘Thank God we haven’t got Emily’s bag of neon monstrosities to contend with,’ I say, giggling.
‘No, she’s meeting us there,’ says Alice blithely.
‘What do you mean, she’s meeting us there?’
‘She texted me and said you’d invited her out with us. So I just told her to meet us at Los Nachos.’
Why is Emily so desperate to colonize us? After our wardrobe conflab she sent a twisted version of our conversation to Alice – who’s still distinctly star-struck – and managed to score an invite.
‘She’s sweet, Lulu, and she really likes you,’ justifies Alice.
I sound like the world’s biggest meanie, but Alice doesn’t have to endure Emily’s monologues about her myriad talents on an almost daily basis. I warn her how much hassle we’re going to get from strangers, but I can tell she’s oddly titillated by the idea of being out with a bona fide celebrity, however low rent. When we get to the bar she scours it, looking positively crestfallen that there’s no sign of her. Instead there are a couple of her teacher mates and Rufus and Dinah, who’s primly sipping a glass of white wine.
‘Can I get you another drink?’ I ask her.
‘Thank you, Lulu, but it only comes by the bottle. Couldn’t quite face the house. Feel free to have some,’ she says, waving a dainty hand at Rufus to retrieve it from the ice bucket. He pours me some, muttering proudly, ‘It’s our ten-week anniversary: double figures!’
‘Well done,’ I whisper back, endeared by the thought that he’s only ever managed a ten-week relationship with an Xbox game prior to this. Then I remember that I’ve got no room to patronize anyone, the state my love life’s in.
Jenna’s next through the door, looking ridiculously glammed up for an Islington Tex Mex joint.
‘I haven’t seen you for weeks!’ she says, effusively hugging me. This is Jenna’s curse: she’s fundamentally a good egg, but is blighted by her bottomless neediness. She never has a problem getting a date, but keeping them on the hook once they’ve spotted her Achilles heel is another story. I can see she’s on a mission, as she insists on a round of tequilas, brooking no argument when I tell her that they make me want to projectile vomit.
‘I thought you were on a detox?’ I ask her.
‘No!’
‘But, Alice…’
‘Lulu, just slam your drink,’ she demands, and I soon find myself hanging on to the bar for support, hazy and queasy in equal measure. Can that really be Ali coming through the door or is it simply a tequila sunrise? Nope, it’s him all right. He strides over confidently, way more dressed down than I’ve ever seen him. His jeans are rough and worn-in, and a tight black T-shirt emphasizes defined muscles. It’s no wonder that Jenna’s visibly preening.
‘Hello, handsome!’ she says shamelessly.
‘Hi,’ he says, extending a hand, before turning to me and casting me a look. ‘I answer C.’
‘Erm, C?’
‘To your question.’
‘Question?’ I ask, totally flummoxed.
‘A – Do you want to never see me again because you think I’m a witch? B – Do you never want to see me again cos you’ve fallen in love with a crim? Or C – Do you want to see me one more time to give me a final chance to prove I’m worthy?’
I’m staring at him, my eyes flicking round the room murderously for my treacherous, interfering sister. ‘Oh, my email,’ I say slowly, playing for time. She must’ve hacked my hotmail: Pablo was way too easy a password. It obviously wasn’t Emily she was scouting the bar for, and now, job done, you can’t see her for dust. Ali unexpectedly leans in, pushing my hair back from my ear.
‘D?’ I squeak, thrown by the unexpected physical contact. ‘What was D?’
‘D’s my invention. I want to see you again so I can find out what colour knickers you’re wearing.’
I pull back. ‘You’re not allowed to say that.’
‘Who says?’ he counters.
‘I say.’
‘I think we’ve already established that anything you say is not to be trusted. What are you drinking? White wine or something stronger?’
‘Margarita, no salt, straight up.’
‘Think I’ll join you.’
Jenna’s been studying our exchange, eyes fixed on Ali. Sensing an opening, she jumps right in.
‘Could I trouble you for a teensy weensy drink too? Next one’s on me.’
‘Sure – margarita?’
She gives a coquettish smile of assent, before pinning me to the bar to demand to know who he is. I give her a rundown of events up to this point.
‘So he’s available? You’re not interested?’ asks Jenna keenly. ‘Shall I slow down on the tequila and work on my seduction strategy?’
‘I thought you were on a detox?’ I ask, unreasonably riled by her predatory behaviour.
‘Why do you keep saying that?’
I remind her about Tuesday night’s vegetable sludge and smoothies, but she looks completely blank. ‘I haven’t been out with Alice since the start of half term, when we watched He’s Just Not That Into You.’
But before I have a chance to ask more, Ali’s back with the drinks. His margarita’s salted, but it doesn’t seem to put him off. He swallows it in a few glugs, setting his glass down on the bar. Good intentions out the window, Jenna tries to match him, then elbows her way into the fray to get another round.
‘I thought you weren’t much of a drinker?’ I ask Ali.
‘No, I’m just not much of a drink driver. Breaking the law’s kind of a sacking offence.’
‘Yeah, I can see that.’
He looks down at me, assessing me in a way that’s making me – making me what? Uncomfortable, I guess, but also oddly keyed up. Before I’ve got time to kick him into touch, my meddling minx of a sister appears with Emily in tow. ‘Hi, Ali!’ she says, bold as brass. I try to pinch her arm, but she turns it into a friendly squeeze. It reminds me that her intentions are good – I know she just wants me to be happy – but her methods are downright infuriating.
‘Woo,’ shouts Emily, chinking glasses. ‘The girls are out on the rampage!’
Jenna’s back now, heartily drinking to that, and batting her eyelashes at Ali. Rufus and Dinah have stopped spooning in the corner and the other girls that Alice invited have also tipped up. In doing my social duty I get separated from Ali, which is probably for the best. Anyway, Jenna’s more than happy to regale him with dispatches from the sandpit. Maybe that’s exactly what he wants to hear about: they both do proper, useful jobs which don’t involve negotiating a cash discount for a bulk buy of buttons.
I eventually manage to get Alice on her own, telling her in no uncertain terms that she’s got no right to hack my email. She refuses to take me seriously and the fact that we’ve both consumed a Mexican warlord’s annual quota of tequila is not helping matters.
‘Lulu, have you actually gone blind? He’s gorgeous. Look what sexy hands he’s got.’
‘Hands?!’
‘They’re strong, they’re large, they’re muscular. It can only bode well.’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not buying a horse.’
‘I’d love a horse, shall we get a horse? We could keep him in the back garden and call him Pablo the Second.’
‘Alice, shut up, I’m really cross with you. And I know you weren’t with Jenna on Tuesday by the way.’
She gives a mysterious smile and tries to tap her nose, but misses it.
‘You were with Richard, weren’t you?’
‘Might’ve been.’
‘Oh God, please don’t do this to yourself, I can’t bear it! And why did you lie to me?’
Yes, I know I’m a hypocrite, but who knew how horrible it would feel to be on the receiving end of my twin telling an untruth? Alice rolls her eyes and wobbles towards Emily, who’s bearing down on us from the other side of the room. It’s taking her a while, as the sight of an ‘EastEnders’ star in an Islington bar is causing an unwarranted degree of excitement. She started out revelling in the number of people asking her to sign autographs and pose for phone pictures, but I can see from her body language that it’s starting to grate. She pushes past a couple more with barely a smile and finally reaches us.
‘Let’s go and dance!’ shrieks Alice. ‘You can shake your boobies at Ali.’
What a repellent image. I look over to him, but he’s deep in conversation with Jenna. She keeps clamping and unclamping her hand from around his biceps and giving little shakes of the head which make her curls bounce. She’s looking good tonight, no doubt about it, and she’s working it shamelessly. Good for her. Good for him. Oh good. I decide to go to the loo: I’m not entirely sure I need a pee, but the idea of a moment’s peace feels oddly appealing. I cross back past Ali and Jenna en route, but I’m not sure they even see me. As I’m queuing I wonder momentarily what Charles is up to right now, what he would think if he could see me. He’s probably reading Thomas the Tank Engine to Theo and Max, anticipating his first and last glass of wine of the evening. I swallow down a tequila burp, thinking how entirely different our lives are. Could they ever fit together with any degree of surety? I sit on the seat for a bit, wallowing in pointless drunken reflection until someone even drunker than me raps on the door and demands I hurry up. I touch up my make-up at the mirror, casting a sly eye around the crowded bathroom. All the girls are so dressed up, so eager to please the man they’re with or lure one in. Do men have that same aching need that we do, that incessant longing for connection and validation? I’m reminded of what Zelda said about how important it is to be appreciated for the real you, not the primped and powdered Friday-night version. How great would it be if Charles’s story was a completely different one, if loving him was a simple contract in which I could warm myself in the glow of his gaze? Enough. I give myself a shiny red mouth like an old-fashioned postbox, then squeeze myself back out into the fray.
The corridor’s packed and yet Ali’s somehow managing to muscle his way through the crowds towards me.
‘Hi,’ I say, ‘the loos are just down the stairs.’
‘Not my priority.’
‘What is your priority?’
‘This.’
And suddenly he’s kissing me, hard, right there against the wall. I think I want to stop him, but there’s something addictive about how fierce and determined he is. He grips me tightly, crushes himself against me, and then pulls back. I find myself stretching back towards him, almost involuntarily, but he sets me down.
‘I’ll see you back out there,’ he says, walking off.
‘Oh, OK,’ I say, thrown. If he’s as desperate to see my knickers as he claims (not that I’d let him, but for the record they’re some deeply unattractive mauve ones that I’ve been reduced to by sheer laundry laziness) he should surely stay here and work his undeniably sexy moves. But instead he’s gone, leaving me to wander towards the dance floor, dazed and confused.
Oh no. Alice’s inebriation means that she’s let Rufus loose. Fatal mistake. Dinah’s gyrating elegantly while subtly turning her back on him. And who can blame her? Rufus dances like a mad March hare, punching his paws up above his head then forward, while making a strange skipping motion with his feet. It makes absolutely no difference what the music is, this is Rufus’s dance and he will not be parted from it. What a curious party we make. While Emily attracts whispers and admiring glances, strangers are openly laughing at Rufus’s moves. I can’t bear that a circle’s opened up around him. I jump right in there, grabbing his hand and insisting he twirls me (which doesn’t work all that well with Kanye West, I can tell you). Rufus beams and we carry on strutting our sibling stuff, with absolutely no regard for dance-floor decorum. Truth be told, I’m no disco queen either and there’s something peculiarly liberating about throwing myself around without shame. When Rufus requests ‘Fame’, it feels like the most glorious gift anyone’s ever given me.
‘Where’s Dinah?’ he pants eventually.
‘Er…’ Oh God, she’s at the bar, sipping away at her overpriced white wine and casting us vaguely disgusted looks. And it’s not just Dinah watching us. Ali’s irritatingly absorbed by Jenna, but seems to be casting the odd horrified look at our car crash of a dance display. He must think I am the world’s biggest idiot. But then, who knows if he’s thinking about me at all, judging by how up close and personal he and Jenna look.
‘Shit, I’d better go and talk to her,’ says Rufus, looking cowed.
I cross back over to Alice and Emily, feeling vaguely foolish. Why did he kiss me like that when he blatantly fancies Jenna? Maybe all men actually are bastards and we should just get a bigger house, rope in Rufus, and accept that living in a sibling commune is all we’re good for. Who needs sex when there’s ‘America’s Next Top Model’ and a Minstrels dispenser? Although I’m not sure that Alice would go for it, not now vile Richard’s staging a reconnaissance mission (I’m still smarting about her lies, even though I’ve no right). And judging by the hugging and giggling that’s going on, Emily seems to have ejected me from the number-one spot in the girl charts too. Maybe it’s time to go home. I tell Alice I’m heading off, but she virtually pulls my arm out of its socket, begging me to stay.
‘I’m past my peak, Alice, I really am.’
‘No, you’re not! You haven’t jumped Ali yet. Tell her, Emily!’
And then the chanting begins again. It’s like they’ve formed their own demented cheerleading squad, hopelessly devoted to Team Lulu. ‘Snog Ali, snog Ali, snog Ali!’ they roar. It’s too complicated to explain that I already have. Or rather that he snogged me, but then made it blatantly clear that he had better fish to fry.
‘OK, OK. I’m going to leave, but I promise I’ll go via Ali and say goodbye. That way the ball’s in his court.’
‘Goodnight and good luck,’ slurs Alice as Emily plants a lipsticky kiss on my cheek.
I sway off the dance floor in the general direction of Ali, but I’m too late. By the time I spot him, he’s halfway out the door without so much as a by-your-leave, arm tightly wound around Jenna. I guess revenge is a dish best served cold, with liberal amounts of tequila. I feel winded, like the stuffing’s been knocked right out of me. How can I be such a bad judge of character? All that smug certainty I had that I could read his simple little soul like a book. Is he a bastard or did I just get exactly what I deserved?