Behaving Like Adults (42 page)

‘Holly,' he signalled, waving a hand vaguely in my direction. ‘My girlfriend. We're having a baby.'

Mrs Nick – well, that's how I thought of her – smiled vacantly and said, ‘Hello.' Suddenly her smile took on strength and she added, ‘I'm going to be a grandmother!'

She led us through a dark corridor and into a kitchen. It was big, but plainly hadn't been redecorated since the
fifties. None too clean, either. If I let loose Gloria in here, her teeth would itch. ‘Sit down,' cried Mrs Nick, pressing her new-found son into a chair. She fumbled for her Lambert & Butler, stuck one between her lips and waved the packet at us, ‘Smoke?' she said, making the cigarette in her mouth jump. We shook our heads, although I could sense Nick not wanting to refuse her anything.

‘Tea, I'll make you tea – and there's cake, and biscuits – and bread – and pickled cucumbers – cheddar cheese . . .'

She ransacked through the fridge and cupboards as she spoke, the cigarette in her mouth bobbing up and down as she did so. Bit by bit, she piled the random edible contents of her kitchen onto the table in front of us. She reminded me of a dog digging a hole to find a bone, kicking the earth into a mound. I fought to keep my mouth in a smile. This is two-star treatment, why didn't you go shopping
specially
? I beamed cheesily at Nick, but he didn't notice. She clanked down plates and knives, and Nick tucked in immediately, although I noticed he chewed each mouthful of sandwich fifty times. I ate a slightly soft chocolate biscuit – I didn't feel like taking my chances with her cutlery.

‘It's incredible, to see you,' he hesitated, ‘again.'

Her eyes narrowed as if she didn't understand. ‘Again!' she cried finally. ‘Yes, incredible!'

She lit another cigarette as the old one smouldered. ‘It was different then,' she blurted. ‘More of a stigma. I didn't know what to do. I was eighteen. Mum and Dad wanted me to go to secretarial school, make something of myself. You obeyed your parents in them days. It was difficult. I cried for weeks. It was a difficult time. Rumours went round, even though we kept it quiet. Everyone knew, pretended they didn't. I say it was only the swinging sixties if you swung but was careful about it, left no trace. I never finished secretarial school anyways, I met Malcolm, and he was happy to take me on. Mum said I couldn't afford to be choosy, not after. We're still together though, he's stuck by me, and I've stuck by him. I've thought about you, over the
years, growing up, wondering how your life turned out, if it was for the best. It was difficult, as I say I cried a lot, but as Malcolm says, these things happen, it's no one's fault, you've got to get on, you can't brood on what might have been.'

I sat through this whirlwind of self-justification and repressed emotion, my hands tucked under my sizeable bottom to prevent them from slapping her face. What was it? Had she been bullied into believing this pap, or was she just . . . not that bright?

I glanced at Nick. ‘You cried,' he repeated. ‘You thought about me. You didn't want to give me up. They made you.'

‘That's right,' she gasped, shaking her head, rubbing her eyes. I rubbed mine too, the smoke was stinging them. ‘They made me. You do understand that, don't you? It was different in them days. You did what your parents told you. My father was a strict man, religious strict.'

Those
days, I wanted to thunder.
Those
days! I shovelled another soft biscuit into my mouth to keep it occupied. And then I smiled, and tried not to fidget while Nick and his birth mother talked. I noticed that she talked a lot about her life,
her
disappointments, less about his. She listened while he spoke, and she did ask questions, but she fidgeted and smoked as if to hurry him up. I couldn't tell what he was thinking. I can usually, but that evening I couldn't. Only that he seemed to be filtering the unwelcome information and clinging to the positive.

At ten thirty, her fidgeting took on a new urgency. ‘Malcolm'll be home soon. He's on the late shift. No earthly idea where Russell's got to. He said he'd be here. You never know with him, up to no good I expect, ah, kids, what can you do, eh?' She laughed sadly.

You can set your children a good example, I thought.
That's
what you can do. No wonder Russell was a loser, with this limp lettuce leaf of a parent. God only knew what her husband was like. An eternal discontent, I imagined. A man who watched Bernard Manning rant about wives and
mothers-in-law and agreed. She was nervous of this Malcolm, didn't want Nick to be in her kitchen when he got home. Thank heaven that boy had been adopted, I thought, he'd have been wretched, stuck in this house, with these unimaginative people, they wouldn't have understood him, appreciated him, he would have been so,
understimulated
.

I hardly dared look at him as we scurried up the garden path. ‘Here,' she'd said, as Nick had stumbled out. She'd snatched a green ceramic frog off the windowsill and pressed it into his hands. ‘Have this!' As though he'd asked for it. He didn't speak, started the car, still not a word. Halfway up the hill, I could bear it no longer. ‘How, how did you think it went?' I whispered.

He nodded, dumbly. ‘Incredible,' he replied. ‘Indescribable.' He touched the frog, which was resting in his lap, mussed his hair over his eyes. ‘Possibly the most amazing three hours of my life.'

I stared at him, alert for the sarcasm of bitter disappointment. But no, not a trace. His face was aglow with beatific wonder. Already, this ineffectual little woman was seen as a lifeline. Oh
shit
.

I invited him in, as there was no way I was letting him drive home alone in this post-alien-abduction state of mind. He allowed himself to be led into the kitchen. Gloria had been – I could only tell because she stuck cryptic Post-it notes here and there – ‘
more Flash Holly
', ‘
bleach run out
' – that kind of thing. She'd propped a crisp white envelope addressed to me against the toaster. It must have been there when I'd come in from work, but in my rush to scrub up for Nick, I hadn't noticed it. I ripped it open without a thought. The officious typeface loomed from the page. I made a choking sound. It snapped Nick out of his trance.

‘What?'

I flapped the paper at him in disbelief. ‘It's a writ from the High Court. Stuart
is
suing me for defamation.' I felt
self-control whoosh from me in a rush. Stuart sticking pins in my new airtight life. I crumpled the paper into a tight ball and screamed, ‘I HAAAAATE HIM, I FUCKING WANT HIM TO DIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE, HOW DARE HE DOOOO THIS TO MEEEEE, I HAAAAAAATE HIM!' That was the gist, I screamed it over and over, screaming ‘AAAAAAAAARRR' when I ran out of words. Nick jumped up and tried to calm me, but I batted him off, I was so angry I couldn't be touched. I was too angry to be scared. I screamed until I turned hoarse and then I curled over, raucous sobs tearing out of me. Nick grabbed hold of my hands and this time I let him. I felt myself slide towards madness, gibbering, ‘I'll kill him, I'm going to kill him, he's going to die, I mean it, I want to burn his house down.'

This struck me as the perfect solution and I stood up straight. ‘I'm going to burn his house down,' I announced. I scowled at Nick, daring him to defy me. ‘I'm going to burn it down.
Now
.'

Nick mussed his hair over his eyes, then mussed it away again. He cleared his throat. ‘I see,' he said in a normal voice. ‘And might I ask how you intend to do this?'

I glared back, defiant. ‘Yes. You might. I'm going to take the cans of barbecue lighter fluid we, I have in the understairs cupboard. And I'm going to take a match. And I'm going to drive my car to Stuart's house. I have the address, from his Girl Meets Boy membership application, and I'm going to wait until he's asleep. And then I'm going to break a window round the back, so no nosy neighbours can alert him, and set fire to his, I imagine, battered leather armchair from a junk shop . . .'

I
despise
people who buy battered leather armchairs from junk shops. Why can't they get them new from Heal's and pay fifteen hundred quid like the rest of us?

‘And then I'm going to retreat to my car, which will be parked across the street, and watch him die.'

‘Well,' said Nick. ‘You seem to have it all worked out.'

‘I will do it,' I said. ‘You think I won't, but I will.'

‘I don't think anything,' he replied, pleasantly. He watched as I rattled about in the understairs cupboard and retrieved two metal cans and my tool kit. I thundered upstairs, wrenched off my clothes and changed into black trousers, a black jumper and flat black shoes. I also found a black woolly hat in my underwear drawer, so I took that too. ‘Checklist,' I said loudly, on returning to the kitchen. ‘Petrol, yes, matches . . . yes, address, yes, hammer, yes, dishcloth, to muffle sound of smashing window, yes, car keys—'

I knew he'd try to stop me after the hammer bit, so when he opened his mouth, I gave him a cold stare.

‘
I'll
drive.'

I'd misheard. ‘What?'

‘I said, I'll drive.' He smiled sweetly.

I nearly dropped the hammer. ‘You
will
?'

‘Hol,' replied Nick – à la Prince Charming bending his gracious majesty to fit Cinderella's dainty foot in her glass slipper – ‘It's the least I can do.'

‘Oh. Okay. Thanks.' I mean, what do you say in such a situation?

Grudgingly, I fetched my coat, and checked that the A–Z was in my bag.

‘Have you planned a route?' enquired Nick. His refusal to disapprove was starting to annoy me.

‘No.'

‘I think you should. After you've set fire to his house I suggest we make a quick getaway. I'm afraid watching him die is a luxury. You might be spotted. Have you checked the location for CC cameras?'

‘No.' Jesus. Couldn't I carry out a simple bit of arson without Nick going all
Magnum, PI
? ‘Look, let's just go. It's half eleven.'

‘I reckon we should wait.'

‘Why?'

‘Half eleven! It's the middle of the afternoon! Three a.m., when he'll be sound asleep, and the Mrs Busybody
across the road will be snoring in her hairnet. That's the time to start a fire.'

He was doing it on purpose. He thought the anger would dry up or I'd nod off on the couch. ‘Alright,' I said. ‘Three a.m. it is.'

I caught his gaze. He had a glint in his eye that was vaguely familiar. What was it? Oh lord –
sex
. Perhaps my ego is fragile, but I've never liked it when I suspect a lover has been warmed up, so to speak, by an outside influence. I prefer the credit to be all my own. Plainly, Nick was
excitable
from meeting his mother. Freud would have been jubilant. Me, I felt a little disgusted. If there was one pastime I wasn't in the mood for, sex was it. Since that rather significant lapse with Nick, two months previously – of which the essential function was to prove to myself that I was normal – I'd cut off from carnality. Love, I could just about tolerate. As long as I didn't have to witness any of the touchy smoochy sticky kissy smacky chopsy gunky musky stuff that went with it.

I jumped up. ‘We'll have to do something to keep awake,' I said briskly. ‘We'll watch . . .' – what, in my fearsome arsenal of passion killers, could I pull from the bag? –
Lord of the Rings
.

I pried the DVD out of its case and, for the first time ever, blessed Issy's taste in birthday presents. Three long hours later, an unsullied me and a very sullen Nick crept to the car. I'd put the hammer, the matches and the fuel cans in a Selfridges bag, so as not to look suspicious. Nick drove in silence until we reached Stuart's road. A smug white row of tall thin yuppified town houses in an area so grotty that any tramp with sense would walk miles to avoid it.

I'd sat through
Lord of the Rings
, but it might as well have been a dead TV screen, because I'd registered none of it. The rage and hatred churned. All I could see was Stuart, plotting to sue me. Nick turned off the engine and my face contorted with viciousness. You're dead, Stuart Marshall, and I will laugh as you burn.

‘Here we are,' said Nick brightly. ‘Well. Better not hang around. It's my number plate they'll be running through the police computer. It won't take a genius.'

I clicked open the car door. My head was screaming. Fuck. Stuart lived in a bloody
terrace
. How the hell was I meant to reach his back window? I'd have to climb over about ninety fences. I hesitated. Nick started whistling under his breath. I booted the door wide open with my foot and slid out of the car.

‘Back in a minute,' I said, and walked into the road.

‘Careful,' screamed Nick, as a car zoomed out of the dark from nowhere, blasting its horn. I jumped back, trembling, on jelly legs. Shit,
shit
. That reckless bastard must have woken the entire street. And he'd
seen
me. My heart thundered. I cringed, my breath fogging the sharp air, waiting for lights to appear in windows. I had no choice. I'd have to soak the cloth in lighter fuel, post it through his letter box, followed by a lit match, or ten. It wasn't ideal. How fast would the fire spread? Fast enough for Stuart to dial 999? I could feel a thousand eyes boring into me from every house. With potatoes for fingers, I wrestled the cloth, fuel and matches from the bag – the sodding rustling bright yellow beacon of a Selfridges bag. Nick whirred down his window and stuck out a hand. I passed it to him. Then I looked left, right and left again, and sauntered across the road. Head down, I padded past number seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three, until I stood in front of Stuart's shinily painted black door with its gold lion-head brass knocker, evil, evil, evil –
flash!
and I was bathed in a security light like the criminal I was. A squeak of fright escaped me and I staggered backwards, dropping the cloth. I crouched to pick it up, fumbling, shaking. Then I dropped the matches. I sank, gasping, onto the pavement. Can't do it, can't do it, ‘I can't fucking do it,' I gasped, as Nick lifted me to my feet, gathered the incendiary devices and supported me to the car.