Breaking the Chain (19 page)

She opened her suitcase and took out the clothes which needed hanging up. All the wardrobes turned out to be full, and she could only find two spare coathangers. She compromised by hanging several things on each one. She took her nightie over to the bed with a view to putting it under the pillow until later
on. The bottom sheet was grey with dirt! Phoebe recoiled in disgust. Then she pulled the duvet back for a proper look. It was not only grey, it had
stains
on it.

‘Yuk!’ Phoebe exclaimed. ‘How could Rick leave them like this, knowing I was coming?’ She went down to the airing cupboard in the basement and found herself some clean linen and a towel. Then she carried them up two flights of stairs and remade the bed. She realized she was very hungry indeed. It must be time for supper.

She went downstairs again. At this rate, she thought, I’ll get enough exercise anyhow. Rod was on the telephone in the hall as she passed.

‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Great. No, we won’t forget them. Yes, I’ll tell her. Okay. See you.’

What shall I cook? Phoebe thought. Something easy. She found a large deep-pan pizza in the fridge and decided to cheer it up with some added vegetables and a few black olives. There was no shortage of fresh food. Rick had seen to that, at least. When it was almost ready, Rod ambled in.

‘That was Poppy, just now,’ he said. ‘She’s taking us out for the day on Saturday, tomorrow. She told me to tell you.’

‘Oh …’ Phoebe said. Rick hadn’t briefed her on this possibility, but then she remembered Fay mentioning it.

‘She’s calling for us at ten.’

‘Right.’ Phoebe looked forward to meeting her. ‘Will you tell Pete supper’s ready?’ she asked. Rod nodded and went.

The table in the kitchen was small, but big enough, Phoebe reckoned. She didn’t feel like going to all the trouble of laying the formal table upstairs in the dining room. By the time both boys turned up, Phoebe had cut the pizza into thirds and was making a start on hers.

‘Only one problem,’ Pete said, sitting down beside her, ‘I’m allergic to mushrooms and Rod hates tomatoes.’

‘But your father bought both the tomatoes and the mushrooms. I naturally thought …’ Phoebe said, exasperated. ‘Why would he do that?’

‘Dunno,’ Rod said, scraping his chair over the floor.

‘Well,
he
likes them both,’ Pete said, as though that were a perfectly rational explanation.

‘But he surely knows you don’t?’

‘Doubt it,’ Pete said. ‘He doesn’t know much.’

‘Well, just leave the bits you don’t like,’ Phoebe said. She was beginning to wish she hadn’t taken on this job at all. She examined the faces of the two boys as they all ate. Rod was single-mindedly wolfing his food and looking neither to right nor left. He was even more spotty than at Christmas. His nose was coarsening into its adult form and there were dark hairs on his upper lip. His hormones were clearly working overtime. He looked sulky and self-conscious. He could be a good-looking young man, Phoebe thought, if he would learn some charm from his dad. Pete was more disposed to be sociable. His voice had not yet broken, and he still had a baby face and the unabashed self-centred candour of childhood. If anything, he would be even better-looking than Rod eventually.

‘Last time I ate mushrooms,’ Pete said, ‘I was sick ten times. It was brown with orange bits in it.’

‘Shut up!’ Rod said.

‘Don’t waste them,’ Phoebe said. ‘I’ll eat them.’ She held out her plate and Pete, after a moment’s hesitation, shovelled his mushrooms onto it.

‘You might get AIDS,’ he said. ‘You can catch it from spit.’

‘You can not!’ Rod said.

‘Yes, you can. Spit’s a bodily fluid, isn’t it?’

‘Well, yes,’ Phoebe said, ‘but it’s blood contact that’s dangerous, and you have to be infected with HIV in the first place.’

‘Who says I’m not?’

‘Well, it’s unlikely,’ Phoebe explained. ‘It’s passed on from one person to another when they sleep together …’

‘I know a lot about sex,’ Pete said with authority.

Rod’s ears flamed. He gulped down the last of his pizza and stood up abruptly. ‘Garbage!’ he hissed at his brother.

‘Have you had enough to eat?’ Phoebe asked him anxiously.

‘Yeah.’

‘Sure?’

Rod picked an apple and three Clementines from the fruitbowl,
nodded, and went out. Phoebe heard him clumping upstairs. He was still wearing those unnecessary boots.

‘I do,’ persisted Pete.

‘Good,’ Phoebe said, hoping this would shut him up.

‘Don’t you want to know how I know?’

‘How?’ She was resigned.

‘From videos,’ Pete said triumphantly, ‘sex ‘n’ violence.’

‘Are you allowed to watch such rubbish?’

‘’Course,’ Pete said scornfully. ‘Everybody does.’

‘Doesn’t your father mind?’

‘He’s never here.’

‘I expect your mother will have something to say about it?’ Pete suddenly looked shifty and shut up. ‘Rod tells me you’re going out with her tomorrow,’ Phoebe continued. ‘What will you be doing?’

‘Dunno.’ It might have been Rod sitting there. Phoebe realized she’d made a tactical error. Pete swallowed the last of his pizza, rooted in a drawer for a bar of chocolate and made for the door.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Phoebe asked him.

‘Watch the TV,’ Pete said. ‘There’s an ace film on. You should come too.’

‘Don’t you or Rod ever read books?’ Phoebe asked.

‘Nah. I’m going to invent computer games and Rod’s going to be a film director and boss brainless actors about. Who needs books? They’re history.’

Phoebe woke next morning with a start and wondered, for a full second, where she was. When she remembered, it was without pleasure. Rick’s clock radio told her that it was 7.30. She switched it on, got the
Today
programme and lay back for a while, smiling at Brian Redhead and wondering what Macclesfield was really like. She wished someone would bring her a morning cup of tea in bed. Fat chance! At eight o’clock, reluctantly, she got up and had a shower in the beautiful blue bathroom. Then she put on her clothes; unaccustomed tights and a skirt and her best shoes. She made up her face carefully in front of one of Rick’s many mirrors. She brushed her hair into shape and glued it in place with hairspray, and having thus
polished her self-confidence to its highest attainable shine, she emerged to deal with the business of getting breakfast.

Pete was in the kitchen already, demolishing a cheese and marmalade sandwich.

‘Are you having cereals,’ Phoebe asked him, ‘or an egg or anything?’

‘No,’ Pete said, with his mouth full. ‘This is what I always have.’ He was eating it standing up, and he waved it about as he spoke. Phoebe made herself a pot of tea and some toast. She didn’t expect Rod to be around for some time yet, so she was surprised when he wandered nonchalantly in at nine o’clock. His slicked-back hair was wet as though he too had had a shower.

‘Didn’t expect to see you up and about so early,’ Phoebe said to him pleasantly.

‘Mmmm,’ Rod said, wandering over towards the bread bin and elbowing Pete out of his way.

‘He usually sleeps until lunchtime,’ Pete said, ‘but today’s diff – OW! What did you do that for?’ He appealed to Phoebe: ‘He kicked me!’

‘To stop you gabbing on,’ Rod said. He was holding his younger brother’s arm. tightly, too tightly by the look on Pete’s face. ‘I got up because
she’s
here, okay?’

‘But that’s what I was going to say,’ Pete said, aggrieved. ‘I wasn’t going to tell …’

‘SHUT UP!’ Rod said.

‘What are you having for breakfast, Rod?’ Phoebe asked, hoping to distract them. She wondered if they ever called a truce.

‘This’ll do,’ Rod said, catching sight of her toast, and sitting down. ‘Marmite! Pete!’

Pete opened a cupboard, got the pot of Marmite out and threw it sulkily at his brother. Rod caught it, just.

‘Look,’ Phoebe said, ‘could we forget all this aggressive stuff while I’m here? It’s not something I’m used to, and I don’t like it.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Rod said, not looking at her.

‘It’s normal,’ Pete told her.

Phoebe sighed. ‘What will you be doing today, Rod?’ she asked.

‘Sports,’ Rod said.

‘Yeah,’ Pete said. ‘We go to this massive leisure centre and they have everything there, even a dry ski slope. I’m going to swim and ski and lift weights and –’

‘You couldn’t lift a freeze-dried toad!’ Rod said scornfully.

‘I wouldn’t want to!’ retorted Pete.

‘Sounds like a great place,’ Phoebe said quickly. ‘I love swimming too.’

‘You can’t come today!’ Pete said urgently.

Rod gave his brother a warning look. ‘He means we don’t know our mother very well yet …’ he explained.

‘No, of course not,’ Phoebe said at once. ‘I didn’t mean today.’

There was a silence whilst they chewed their breakfast. Rod poured himself half a pint of orange juice from the fridge and downed it like beer.

‘Right,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Things to do. Come on, Pete.’ Then they got up and went out together. So far, Phoebe thought as she washed up the breakfast things, I haven’t exactly got through to those two boys. I wonder what it takes?

At ten past ten the front doorbell rang. Phoebe was in her bedroom looking in her handbag for Fay’s telephone number. The boys had been closeted upstairs in their rooms since breakfast, but at the sound of the bell they exploded downstairs. Phoebe walked down after them and found them in the front hall with two enormous bags and a large attractive woman dressed entirely in red.

‘Well, hi!’ the red woman said, beaming. ‘You must be Phoebe. I’ve heard so much about you. I’m real glad to meet with you at last. I’m Poppy, these guys’ mom.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you too,’ Phoebe said. Poppy wasn’t a bit as she had imagined. She was fat and cheerful and outgoing, with not a hint of neurosis. She didn’t look or act anything like the lathlike bimbo whom Fay had described to her.

‘Not like you expected, huh?’

‘Well …’ Phoebe struggled for the right words. ‘I knew you were good-looking, but …’

‘That’s neat! You Brits are so damn polite; real classy! Put it this way – I weighed 98 pounds only; I was
thin,
and I was so screwed up. Now I’m liberated from male-oriented sex-rôle stereotyping and I’m great!’

‘You certainly are,’ Phoebe said in admiration. ‘Good for you!’

‘Are we going then?’ Rod said, shuffling impatiently.

‘Sure thing, honey. Have you-all got everything you need now?’

‘Yep,’ Rod and Pete said together. They picked up their bags and heaved each one casually over a shoulder. The bags looked heavy.

‘What
have
you got in there?’ Phoebe teased. ‘Several kitchen sinks?’

‘Sports kit,’ Poppy said, smiling widely. ‘Kids have every damn thing nowadays, don’t they just?’

Phoebe smiled back. ‘It seems so,’ she said.

‘Well, I guess we’ll hit the road then,’ Poppy said.

‘What time will you be back?’ Phoebe asked.

‘Hard to say – 8 p.m., maybe later. Don’t you worry about a thing, Phoebe. These guys are safe with me.’

‘Right.’ Phoebe watched them as they went down the steps to the waiting taxi. ‘Have a nice day!’ she found herself calling after them.

Pete opened his window and shouted something as they drove off. It sounded suspiciously like, ‘Missing you already!’

Phoebe was talking to Fay on the telephone. ‘Is Jack back yet?’

‘No,’ Fay said. ‘He’s doing so well in Cornwall, I decided to leave him for an extra week. I’m driving down to get him next weekend. I could give you a lift home then?’

‘Great idea.’

‘Why don’t you come round this afternoon and see this amazing flat?’

‘I’d love to, but I must be back by eight,’ Phoebe said. ‘That’s when the boys are due home. They’ve gone out for the day with their mother.’

‘I didn’t know Poppy was over here again?’

‘I thought you said she often was?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’ A small unease stabbed Phoebe briefly, but she sat on it firmly.

‘I’ll run you home in good time,’ Fay said. ‘Shall I collect you as well?’

‘No, I’ll be fine. I’ll come by tube. OW! Gerrofl’ Phoebe found herself unexpectedly engaged in an undignified tussle with a sudden brown cat which had been intent on sitting on her shoulders and had, in the process, dug his claws painfully into her back.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s Rick’s cat. It’s the first time I’ve seen him and he’s just leapt at me from behind. Ouch!’

‘Like a leopard up a tree,’ Fay said, laughing. ‘He’s an upmarket beast, you know, pedigree chocolate Burmese and all that. See you about three then?’

‘Lovely,’ Phoebe said, rubbing her shoulder. ‘ ‘Bye.’ She put the receiver down and regarded Geronimo with disapproval. He was certainly very handsome, with clear green eyes in a dark brown face, and short sleek fur which changed colour in subtle gradations from pale coffee round his shoulders and neck to a deeper brown on his back and tail. He was sitting on the carpet in a rejected huff and as she watched him, began a little paw washing in an affectedly unconcerned manner.

‘You may be a snooty pedigree,’ she told him reprovingly, ‘but your manners are pure mongrel.’ Geronimo got up slowly, wound himself round Phoebe’s legs and began nipping her ankles in a confident but entirely friendly manner.

‘Mind my tights!’ It occurred to Phoebe that he might be hungry. They went downstairs to the kitchen together, Geronimo leading the way with his tail in the air. Phoebe opened a tin for him and he sniffed at his bowl disdainfully for several seconds before condescending to eat what she had put out for him. How different from dear Diggory who would eat the bowl as well if he could, Phoebe thought, warming to him. She wondered where he had been all this time. Where had he slept, with the boys? Phoebe had been reading more of Nancy’s diary
the previous night before she went to sleep. Nancy had been desolate without her cat for months after she had left home. She wrote about him a lot, remembering his funny ways and his irritating habits, now rendered charming by their enforced absence and the passage of time. Phoebe discovered that he had been called Claude as a joke because, as a kitten, he made Nancy feel well and truly clawed whenever she engaged him in jollification. Phoebe wondered if Claude had been a Burmese too.