Playing with the Grown-ups Read online

  Marina looked over at him lovingly; he was pretending to be frozen in the forest, as Violet waved a wand around his knees.

  'Three cheers for Sam and Violet! Three cheers for you all! And three resounding cheers for my divine assistant, Mrs Marina Jenkins!'

  Her mother looked stunned.

  'Do you mean it?' she said quietly.

  'I mean it more than I've ever meant anything. You, this, Violet wellington boots, you're all my life. We're a family now. But do let's buy a new house; Sarah-in-Poona's really won't do for all the babies I'm going to give you, the menagerie we'll have.'

  'Oh Jenkins,' her mother said, melting into him.

  Violet was waiting for Kitty by the garden gate.

  'Jenkins has gone home to get his suit,' she said, 'and Mum won't stop crying. She says he won't come back but I know he will, because he loves us. I said don't worry, Mum, Jenkins will come back tomorrow, but that made her cry more. Do you think you can make her stop? I said she could have my pocket money, but that made her cry more as well. She's being very difficult.'

  'She'll be all right,' Kitty said automatically. 'I'm sure she will. It's probably a joke or something. It was nice of you to offer her your pocket money though.'

  'I thought so too.' Violet remained by the gate, like a cat waiting watchfully for its owner.

  Kitty walked into the house. Her mother lay in the sitting room on the huge lily-pond rug, Thumbelina dissolving. She barely looked up when Kitty walked in.

  'He's gone,' she said to the wall. She scratched at her arms, and made a noise that was so dark and deep Kitty shivered.

  'What do you mean "gone"? He hasn't gone far. he's a wanderer. He'll come back in a few days, like always. Shsh, Mum, you're going to frighten the little ones.' She sat down on the floor next to her mother and stroked her back.

  'I don't give a fuck about anything except for Jenkins, don't you understand? Nothing. Without him there's no point.'

  'Well, what did he say? How do you know he's gone?'

  Her mother looked through her.

  'He said nothing. He said he was going back to get his fucking suit. Then he left. I just know in my heart that he's not coming back. I just know.' She made the animal noise again.

  Nora opened the door and looked at Marina with a mixture of sorrow and disdain.

  'I'm taking the children to the park, Marina,' she said.

  Kitty put her mother in bed. She made a facecloth cool and laid it on her brow, and brought her a tray with a boiled egg and soldiers.

  'I don't want it,' her mother said. 'I just want Jenkins.

  Please turn out the light and make it really dark in here, my head hurts so much. Can you call the doctor and get him to come; my head feels like it's going to explode.'

  'Dr Cartwright?'

  'No, the other doctor, his name is in my Filofax, under doctor. Call him now, please.'

  The other doctor was smooth and handsome, and he came as quickly as a snake in the night. He carried a leather bag that rattled.

  'Would you like a cup of tea?' Kitty said.

  'No, I'll just pop up.'

  They went into the darkness together.

  'Is that the doctor?' her mother said in a small voice.

  'Hello, Marina. What's the problem? A migraine again?'

  'A terrible one. I can't bear the light.'

  'I'm going to have to turn it on so I can give you an injection, OK?'

  'Kitty, can you leave me with the doctor now, please?'

  Her mother pulled herself up and squinted at her.

  Kitty didn't want to go, and she hovered by the door.

  'I can take over now.' The handsome other doctor smiled at Kitty.

  'What's wrong with her?' she asked him twenty minutes later as she showed him out.

  'Just a migraine. Your mother suffers from them periodically. She'll be fine tomorrow.'

  'Good,' Kitty said. 'Thank you.'

  Kitty watched him get into a clean navy-blue Renault as he prepared to zip off to wherever he came from. She saw him look in the mirror before he drove off, and adjust his tie, and she wondered if he had a date.

  They are gathered in her mother's house at Strand on the Green. Kitty looks in the fridge trying to find something to make for supper. It is empty save for four half-opened bags of rocket, and a chunk of Parmesan cheese. She feels that she has stumbled into something intimate and private; the barrenness of the fridge intimating something more than the lack of a visit to the supermarket.

  'There's some risotto rice,' Sam says hopefully.

  'That's ambitious,' she says. But she takes it, and opens the cupboard to find a pan.

  Violet sits on the Aga as Kitty stirs. She remembers a childhood story, 'Stone Soup', in which a group of people come together and make a feast out of nothing. There is a bottle of Pernod on a shelf, and she pours it into the pan, filling the kitchen with a definite aniseed life.

  'Will you ring Nora?' she asks Violet.

  Violet dials Nora on speakerphone.

  'Hello?' Nora says.

  Kitty imagines her walking to the phone in her navy-blue cardigan, faintly annoyed at someone with the gall to ring in the middle of Question Time.

  'It's us!'Violet says. 'All calling you from Mum's kitchen.'

  'What are you doing there? Who's us?'

  'All of your babies, me, Sam and Kit.'

  'Hi, Nora!' Kitty and Sam clamour in the background.

  'Are you on that bloody speakerphone thing? I can't hear you; you sound like you're in an aquarium.'

  'We're cooking,' Kitty shouts. 'Nora, Mark is so excited that you're coming in January; he thinks we'll have a tidy house and an immaculate, well-mannered Anglo-Irish baby.'

  'More fool him,' Nora laughs. 'New York again, after all this time. Who would have thought?'

  'Don't you want to know why we're all here?' Violet says.

  'I suppose so,' Nora says guardedly. 'I know you shouldn't all be there.'

  'Mum had a black dog day,' Violet says.

  As they lay the table Kitty sees one of her mother's yellow legal pads on which is written in black ink 'Do I dare disturb the universe, in a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse . . .'

  They sit in their mother's kitchen, surrounded by her things. Her pug Little Dorritt sits on Violet's lap.

  'Does she need clothes?' Kitty asks Violet.

  'Yeah, she was taken away in a negligee. The ambulance men were thrilled.'

  Upstairs Violet does pliés in her mother's bathroom as Kitty opens the wardrobe.

  Chapter Eight

  We need an infusion of fun, Magpie,' Marina said. She and Kitty were lying on the sofa watching Camelot. 'I think you should have a birthday party, a belated one. Christ knows, you and I could use a party.'

  'But, Mum, I don't know anyone that well yet, just Dylan and Honor . . . what if no one comes, and where will everyone fit?'

  'Those are just petty logistics - we'll make everyone fit. It'll be cosy and intimate. We must make the best of the space we have. It's called imagination, and I know you have lots of it. Maybe I should dye my hair the same colour as Guinevere's, what do you think?'

  'No,' Kitty said. 'It's really far for everyone to get here, and what if they trash the house?'

  'Of course they'll come; that's how you get to know people, you throw parties. No one will trash the house, I'll be here. We'll have a disco, and all your girlfriends can stay the night.'

  Tommy from three streets away was invited with his friends Ollie and Naim so the boy-girl ratio was equal.

  'Tommy has lovely manners,' Marina said. 'It's good for you girls to meet boys with good manners. He wrote me a thank-you letter after Sam and Violet's birthday.'

  Kitty didn't care about Tommy's manners. She was in love with Nicky, the sexiest boy in her year, who didn't have any.

  Nicky didn't talk to her exactly; he placed her in a headlock in biology and watched as she froze under his touch, lik
e a lab rat hypnotised by fear.

  'You're having a party, innit?' he asked, his pale arm right next to her mouth. Kitty wanted to lick it.

  'Yeah,' she muttered, sweat stinging her eyes. He had a gold tooth, and she wondered whether the dentist put it in, how it got there, into his wide smiling mouth.

  'Am I invited?'

  'Yes. Of course.'

  'Wicked. See you there.' He bobbed off leaving her so weak she had to go and see Ruby, the progressive school nurse, for some Rescue Remedy.

  Kitty wore a Lycra wasp dress to her party, with her mother's Donna Karan tummy-control tights. The DJ played songs that she had heard on Top of the Pops and the girls swayed like wildflowers in a field, while the boys stared mutinously from a dark corner. Bryan Adams's summer hit song from Robin Hood was playing. The girls looked desperately over to the boys, but no one moved. Except Nicky. Nicky swaggered over to her as the hired smoke machine belched out a plume of dry ice.

  'Kitty do you want to go for a walk?' he asked, his voice curiously normal.

  'All right.' Kitty smiled up at him, on fire.

  Outside it was cold. She heard the buses rumbling towards Clapham Junction. They walked halfway down the street, silently. Nicky guided her by the elbow into a neighbouring driveway. He pushed her up against a black Saab and kissed her, his tongue darting in and out of her mouth. He smelt of vodka, horniness and pizza. My first French kiss, Kitty thought, concentrating on what exactly to do with her tongue.

  With moist hands he grabbed the straps of her dress and pulled them down, swiftly exposing her breasts to the street.

  'Please?' Kitty said in weak protest.

  'Sorry,' he said. 'It's just you've got really beautiful tits.'

  'Do you want to go back inside?' she said covering her nipples.

  'Yeah. We can be private.' He looked excited.

  In the house he propelled her towards the cellar.

  The darkness was black and thin like Indian ink.

  'Hello,' Kitty said, wanting to be like a romantic heroine.

  'Stop talking. Just kiss me,' he said, his hand burrowing insistently up her dress.

  The Donna Karan tummy-control tights caused a thankful passion intervention. They were impenetrable.

  'Can you just take those off?' he asked.

  'I think I have to go back upstairs, I can hear the doorbell. People will be leaving. I have to say goodbye.'

  'Fuck's sake.' He sounded disgusted.

  Kitty bolted through the blackness upstairs to see her mother dancing alone, her eyes shut dreamily, like nothing else mattered.

  'Mum, the pizza man needs to be paid,' Kitty said.

  'Jenkins was an incredible dancer,' Marina said.

  As all the girls lay on Kitty's bedroom floor, Camilla said to her, 'Did you get off with Nicky?'

  'Yes.' she said.

  'Well, you're a really bad friend - I've liked him since the first year.'

  'She didn't know that,' said Honor. 'It's not her fault if he fancies her and not you. Don't be such a drama queen.'

  Camilla lay in silence and refused to speak to anyone.

  'He took my top off on the street. I was so embarrassed,' Kitty whispered to Honor.

  'I hate it when they do that,' she answered wearily.

  Kitty walked into the kitchen after everyone had left and found her mother staring at the lovebirds with tears in her eyes. Kitty put her arms around her.

  'Thank you for my party, Mummy,' she said. 'Everyone had fun; they said it was the best party all year, much better than Greta's and she's got a swimming pool.' She searched her mother's face for a clue, but it was closed.

  'I told you no one would trash the house. They're not very wild for a bunch of teenagers.' Marina sounded disappointed.

  A week after the disco Kitty woke to strains of fun coming from her mother's room. It sounded like somewhere she wanted to be. Along the hallway drifted the ghost of her mother's scented candles and Marlboro reds. She got out of bed and padded down the hallway, knocking at the door, excited.

  'Enter!' her mother said.

  She was in bed, VH 1 blaring, and she had a pleased look about her.

  Lying next to her, prone, was a ravishing woman, fast asleep, a tangle of baby blonde hair and whistling snores. Kitty gazed at her in fascination. She began to grind her teeth so ferociously Kitty jumped.

  'Stop that!' her mother commanded. Kitty held her breath. The jaw quieted. Her mother looked smug.

  'Poor darling, it's a wonder she has any teeth at all . . . Morning, Magpie.'

  'Morning,' Kitty said faintly.

  There was a bellow down the hall.

  'Marina! I do hope you're not decent,' followed by Violet imploring, 'Billy, have you bought me a chocolate croissant?'

  Her mother's friend Billy swaggered in clutching a paper bag, shadowed by Violet and Sam whose eyes were round with longing like hungry orphan children's.

  'Mum, why is there a lady in your bed?' asked Violet.

  'That's no lady,' said Billy.

  'Woman. Not lady, Violet,' corrected her mother.

  'It's my friend Candy. We went to a party and she came to stay the night afterwards, because we were far away from her house. Isn't she pretty?'

  'Suppose,' said Sam.

  Billy rocked with laughter, and muttered, 'You are the end. The end. I know who that is, she's a deal . . .'

  'Tais-toi, Billy. . . les enfants ,' her mother said, looking at him innocently.

  'Je comprends, Maman,' Kitty said, because she didn't want to be left out.

  Candy slept on, resolute as a soldier after battle won. Violet and Sam sat at Billy's booted feet, pretending to be dogs as he threw them scraps of chocolate croissant. They played Pictionary until four, when Marina decided it was time to get dressed.

  At four-fifteen Candy rose like Lazarus, rolling one brown eye lazily around the room. She didn't seem alarmed.

  'Mornin',' she said cheerfully. She had teeth sharp and pointed like a little vampire's. 'OHHHI, could murder a cup of coffee.'

  'Darling, you're SUCH a sleeper,' Marina told her admiringly.

  Kitty smiled at her.

  'I'll make you a cup of coffee,' she said.

  'Would you? You're an ANGEL. YOU must be Kitty, your Mum's told me all about you. I must say you really are sweet, look at your little face.'

  Kitty decided in the kitchen that Candy would be her new best friend, after Honor.

  At the end of the road there was an Italian restaurant called La Dolce Vita. Kitty was dispatched to get pizza for Sam and Violet. Candy came with her.

  'I love pizza when I'm hungover,' she said. 'That and a Coke with loads of ice for breakfast.'

  The pizza boys were in raptures at the sight of Candy.

  'Is that your sister, bella?' they asked Kitty, making hot eyes at Candy.

  'No, she's my friend.'

  Candy giggled.

  'My sister and I want a big pizza,' she said. 'Avery big one, with lots of cheese, and a bit burnt, if you don't mind.'

  They set them up at a table while they waited, and brought Candy a Malibu and Coke on the house. Kitty ordered a Coke, but she didn't drink it.

  'What do you do?' Kitty asked her. 'Are you an actress?'

  Candy smiled.

  'I'm in between jobs. I used to be a dancer. I've just had my heart broken by this guy I was going to marry. So I'm taking some time off, discovering myself. I've been reading lots of good books . . . Have you read Women Who LoveToo Much?'

  Kitty shook her head.

  'Epic, it's like it was written for me. I try and fix people. I keep attracting bastards, though. . . Oh well. . . I'm trying to concentrate on going out and letting life happen.'

  'How did you meet Mummy?' Kitty said.

  'Oh I met her last night at this mad warehouse party. She's brilliant - it must be really fun to have a mum like yours,' Candy said. 'My parents are really boring and middle-aged. You're so lucky; your mother's very bohemian, being a
n artist and all that. She's a bit tragic, in a good way.'

  'What do you mean tragic in a good way?' Kitty said, trying to imagine her mother at a warehouse party.

  'Like Judy Garland was tragic, or Virginia Woolf. Really creative people are sometimes; they just carry it with them. You can see it in their eyes. It helps if they're beautiful.'

  'Do I have tragic eyes?' Kitty asked her.

  'No, sweetheart. Clear happy eyes, with a bit of mystery to keep things interesting. I'm an only child. I bet you never feel lonely, being surrounded by so many people. What's it like?'

  'Not very private,' Kitty said.

  'Oh darling, privacy's really overrated, trust me. One day you'll realise, you and your brother and sister, you'll link each other together. Explain things to each other. It's like the archaeology of family; you'll be each other's pasts. The only link to my past is a blind Labrador called Dolly. Oh, that is so sweet!' The pizza boys presented her with an enormous pizza in the shape of an oozing burnt heart.

  On a frowsy day, from the phone box by her school, she rang the number Candy had given her. She was put through to the switchboard of a hotel. 'She's sleeping,' the northern voice on the other end of the phone said, thick with cigarettes and warmth. 'She's a bit poorly.' Kitty decided she would bring Candy some chicken noodle soup.

  The Admiral Crichton Hotel was a crooked Georgian house off Camden High Street. The hallway was the colour of a miner's lungs, and behind a Perspex window sat a birdlike woman painting her nails electric blue.

  'I've come to visit Candy,' Kitty said.

  'Well, let's see if we can rouse the dead.'

  The woman got up and led her through a maze of corridors. They arrived at room 109 and the woman thumped loudly on the door.

  Kitty heard a shuffling from within followed by a sulky, 'What?'

  'You've a visitor, darling.'

  'Who is it?' Candy sounded angry. 'I'm not expecting anyone. If it's Stu tell him to bugger off. I told him not to come till eight.'

  'It's Kitty,' Kitty said apologetically. 'I bought you some soup.'