Courting Trouble (18 page)

‘You’re overreacting, Matilda. I’ve had loads of death threats over the years. Hell, I used to have Scotland Yard on speed dial.’ Roxy padded down the hall behind me, knotting her silk kimono cord. ‘They’ll just tell you to look for car bombs. And have you ever looked under a car?
Everything
under a car looks like a car bomb! So, chillax. Let me make you a camomile infusion.’

All my life, I’d been embarrassed when my mother said ‘chillax’ or borrowed my miniskirts or smoked dope with my mates or rocked up to my law graduation packed into lime-green stretch pants, a sequinned boob tube and ten-inch wedge sandals. In truth, there’s many a time I’ve been tempted to become a Hindu, as there is really nothing in my life that reincarnation couldn’t cure. Sadly, Roxy shows no sign of becoming more conventional or curbing her behaviour with age. Which is why I shouldn’t have been remotely surprised to have found her in bed on a Friday afternoon with a dope grower not much older than her granddaughter. But I was.

‘You know, Mum, it didn’t matter when Portia was little, but she’s hitting her teens. She needs good role models right now,’ I said, clattering down the stairs. ‘Meaning, she needs a normal grandmother, who shops and mops and bakes cupcakes and doesn’t bring home toy boys. I’m sick of playing mother to your irresponsible teenager . . . Which is why I’m grounding you for the foreseeable future.’

My mother honked her amusement behind me. ‘Really? ’Cause I was thinking of opening a toy-boy shop. With shopper loyalty cards. And a boy buffet. We could also sell time-share husbands . . .’

‘I don’t know why anyone would want a husband,’ the Countess piped up from her prone position on the living-room couch. Her face was red raw from the chemical peel, her neck swathed in bandages. ‘They’re so lazy. They’re like “You start the foreplay and I’ll come in and finish off.” Oh, I lost count of the amount of orgasms I faked with the aged oligarch.’ She sighed.

‘Who cares about the orgasms being faked so long as the jewellery is real!’ Roxy snorted.

And they were off, hooting with ribald merriment. I groaned in despair. I now had irresponsible role models in stereo. It’s really saying something when the only other sensible adult member of your household is on trial for attempted murder. I glanced at Phyllis, who was in the kitchen stirring up something hale and hearty in the soup department.

‘Did either of you see anyone suspicious lurking outside just now? Someone’s just chucked a rock through my bedroom window.’

‘No, but it’s after seven. Waaayyy past wine o’clock.’ The Countess checked her watch.

My mother crossed the open-plan living room into the kitchen area to pour them both a glass of wine.

‘Yes, my oligarch was my worst shag ever, not counting the Trotsky dwarf,’ the Countess called out after her. ‘As I was saying, the trouble wasn’t me faking orgasms but him faking foreplay. Who was your worst shag, Roxy, dear?’

‘Hello?’
I remonstrated, pointing at myself. ‘Nauseated daughter in the room!’ I picked up the landline in the kitchen and dialled the police. ‘May I remind you that there are two teens in the house, so can you please stop discussing penises at full volume?’ A voice crackled down the phone line. ‘Oh, hello? No, sorry, I wasn’t talking to you . . . Yes, may I speak to a detective, please . . .’

‘My worst? . . . Do you remember that doctor I dated? He was so afraid of disease, he wore a condom while masturbating.’ Roxy gave a guttural whoop.

I placed a reprimanding hand over the receiver. ‘I’m reporting a death threat here. I’m not sure if the Metropolitan Police need to hear the intimate details of your vaginal déjà vu.’

As I waited on hold for a detective, radio pop music pumped forth from the earpiece which I held away from my head. It was a Chris Brown song and I wasn’t taking particular comfort from the lyrics: ‘All my ladies, put ya hands up if you got that bomb – bomb – ba – bomb – ba – bomb – bomb . . .’

‘When I grow up, I want to be just like you, Grandma!’ Portia had cat-footed down the hall on her soft little paws. She walked straight past me and hugged Roxy hard. ‘You’re so much fun.’

My anger rose like boiling milk. ‘I can be fun!’ I insisted, busting a few moves circa 1989 around the kitchen while still umbilically attached to the phone.

Roxy, Phyllis, Portia and the Countess were gawping at my uncharacteristic performance. My daughter exploded with laughter. Her giggle is totally infectious – which is why Phyllis and the Countess were also rat-a-tat-tatting with machinegun rapid-fire chortles. It was while my daughter’s eyes were squeezed tight with mirth that I noticed she was wearing makeup. Greasy-green sparkly eye shadow and thick coats of mascara. I then watched in astonishment as Portia sat down to strap on high heels before gingerly making her way to the fridge, wobbling like a stilt walker traversing volcanic terrain.

I was still on hold, my ear going numb. ‘Darling, aren’t you a bit overdressed for political activism? I thought you were meeting Amelia and the girls at the Shake Shack before heading off to put up your anti-litter posters?’ I asked in a flap. High heels and make-up was just the beginning. Any day now she’d come home with a nipple piercing, tongue stud and a tattoo in Balinese for ‘inner peace’ which would later turn out to be an order for stir-fried bok choy. And it was all because of my mother’s laissez-faire influence.

My mother and daughter exchanged a glance of condescending complicity, which infuriated me even more.

‘Amelia’s dad’s dropping me home at ten thirty.’ She smiled at me, her head at an awkward but absurdly touching angle that twanged my heartstrings.

‘Sorry, darling, but you are not going out in high heels and make-up.’

Portia shrugged and obligingly changed shoes and wiped off her eye make-up. She bid us a happy farewell and bounced out through the door.

Roxy passed me a glass of wine. ‘You’re so overprotective, Tilly.’

‘I’m not overprotective!’

‘I once heard you explaining in excruciatingly painful detail what to do in case of a tsunami . . . We live in London, for Christ’s sake. At Portia’s age I was in a band called Kamikaze Fellatio.’

I scowled at my mother. ‘I rest my case. And please don’t give me lectures on mothering. You left me with the Countess half the time. Her babysitting technique was to play Hide and Seek. I would hide . . . and she would make herself a gin and tonic and watch television.’

‘It wasn’t easy, you know, after your father ran off. It was just you and me against the world. But wasn’t I always your friend?’

‘I didn’t want a friend. I wanted a mum! Your idea of a lovely summer holiday was to join a female collective and stitch a patchwork quilt in a remote Scottish bothy, chanting runic love poems while renewing your friendship vows in a drumming circle before a druid.’

‘Oh, mental cruelty,’ Roxy mocked. ‘You should have rung Childline.’

‘You thought nothing of telling me all about your boyfriends. How good they were, or weren’t, in bed. And you’re still at it.’

‘Oh, well, I’m sorry for treating you like an equal.’

‘I wanted a mum in a pinny who made shepherd’s pie! Which is why I want to raise Portia differently. I want a proper family meal, eaten around the table. In a clean and tidy, ordered house with no talk of multiple orgasms and Ben Wa balls or
rocks with death threats thrown through windows!
. . . Hello! Hello!’ I yelled down the phone to Chris Brown. ‘Luckily, Portia has taken after
me
, not you. She’s interested in getting good marks. Not in teenage boys.’

‘But she should be interested in boys at her age.’

‘Teenage boys are basically just a grunt with grime. They bore her rigid.’

‘Well, that shows how little you know about your daughter, Tilly. Portia’s very keen on a boy at school.’

I stood stock still, looking at my mother. ‘She told you that?’

‘Yes. She told me about him because we’re
friends
,’ she said pointedly.

‘When did she tell you?’

‘When we were rollerblading.’

‘You went rollerblading with my daughter? When?’

‘Yesterday. When you were working.’

‘You went rollerblading without me? I like rollerblading!’

‘She wanted some advice about a hooch-smuggling bestie who got caught with a spliff at school.’

I felt winded. ‘Why would Portia come to you for advice? Your only previous advice to my daughter was to make sure her future tattoos are spelt correctly. But, fortunately, my daughter’s not like that. Which is why she’s out this evening, putting up her anti-litter posters to make the world a better place.’

‘Um . . . I don’t think Portia’s out puttin’ up posters.’ The timid voice belonged to Chantelle, who, I now noticed, was in a corner of the adjoining living room, sitting in the near-dark like a nervous cat.

‘What?’

‘She’s been meetin’ some old dude. Every afternoon. After school. On Parliament Hill.’

My mother and I dropped our animosity to each other immediately.

‘An old dude? What old dude?’ we said simultaneously.

I was suddenly pitching and rolling in a wild sea, though there was only carpet beneath my feet. ‘How do you know?’

‘When I have nightmares an’ that, Portia lets me sleep in ’er room, on the futon. I hear ’er talkin’ to him on ’er phone, makin’ arrangements an’ that. I asked ’er about him but she wouldn’t say nuffink. I don’t want it to ’appen to Portia . . . Yer know, what ’appened to me,’ she said in a small voice.

I felt panic rear up like a tidal wave. Here I was worrying about boys while my daughter was meeting some
man.
What man? The thrower of the rock? Some nasty predator, spinning his evil, sticky web as he groomed her for abduction? The papers were full of paedophiles pied-pipering teenage girls away . . . I imagined this horror for a sickening second before banishing it, appalled, from my mind.

Chris Brown finally gave way to a female voice. ‘Detective Denise Phillips speaking.’

But there was no longer any time to report bomb threats – a bigger explosion had just been detonated in my life. I dropped the phone as if it had burnt me at the same moment my mother snatched up her car keys. With the synchronicity of Olympic swimmers, Roxy and I were down the hall and out the door. Roxy gripped my hand. I squeezed hers back as we bolted, terrified, for her car. At the bottom of the stairs we collided into two men who were arriving from opposite directions. In all the mayhem, I’d forgotten about my romantic rendezvous with Nathaniel – let alone my dating commitment with Jack.

Jack was looking sardonic and amused – a facial expression he really should copyright. ‘You have way too much energy for someone without a crystal-meth addiction, do you know that, Tilly?’

‘Am I too early?’ Nathaniel asked, extending an artful bouquet of exotic flowers.

‘Planning a
ménage à trois
, are we, Tilly?’ Jack asked, eyebrow cocked, voice low and smoky.

‘Oh God! Sorry. Just introduce yourselves,’ I babbled, rushing by. Nathaniel called something out after me, but we were already in Roxy’s car, careering around the corner on two wheels, nearly taking out a letterbox and a street sign in our race in the dark to the park.

How could I lose my daughter? There I was criticizing Roxy’s maternal techniques when, obviously, I made Medea look like good mother material. One thing was clear, poor Portia needed a Mother Disability Allowance . . . if she lived long enough to claim it.

The beam of Roxy’s torch picked out Portia sitting with a stranger on a park bench on top of Parliament Hill which looked down over London. Her face was vivid with excitement. A bedraggled fox streaked through the bushes in the gloaming. It shivered through the trees, like a phantom.

My startled cry alerted the man, who looked up. He was a ravaged, Indiana Jones type with scruffy hair and haunted eyes. Before either of them could say anything, Roxy lunged, tackling him off the bench to the ground, delivering a quick kick to his gonads for good measure.

‘Grandma! No! Stop it!’ Portia cried.

I hugged my daughter with a relief so intense it was almost painful. I rocked her soothingly, inhaling her sweet smell of soap and chewing gum. I clung to her, paralysed by love. But my daughter pushed me away. Her wind-tangled hair blurred wildly around her face. ‘Leave him alone! Both of you.’

‘Christ Almighty,’ the man said. ‘Is that any way to greet me after all these years?’

‘Who the hell are you?’ I demanded, but he was looking at Roxy.

‘The chiselled features don’t give it away? The rakish charm? The green eyes and impish dimple? . . . Christ, Roxy, you look better than ever . . . Which I would tell you in a deep and manly voice, if you’d just get your stiletto out of my balls.’

My mother gave the man a measuring, suspicious look. Then her mouth opened wide in pantomime astonishment. Now, my irrepressible mother is famously garrulous. She can talk to anyone. The woman could exchange mobile numbers with a corpse. But she was now lost for words.

The mystery man rose to his feet and turned his attention to me. ‘Wow! You have my eyes.’ He grabbed my hand. It was a wrestler’s handshake.

Roxy took a swing at his jaw and knocked him sideways.

‘Gran! Behave!’ Portia squealed, leaping between Roxy and the winded bloke.

‘No, love, your gran is right. I deserved that.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ I reiterated.

‘Just call me Dad.’

Now it was my turn to imitate a hyperventilating goldfish. For the next few minutes, all I could hear was the whumping sound of my blood in my temples. I felt like some traveller who for years has read of the existence of snow leopards or poltergeists but never expected to be this near to one. Gradually, my breath slowed down, my heart stopped knocking about in my chest and I began to regain my senses. So, here he was. Dark as a secret, bright as joy, my mother’s first and last and only love. I shone my torch into my father’s face and examined him with forensic attention to detail.

His hard, strong body was contoured and sinewy, with a light mahogany tan. There was a hint of grey amid his glossy fair curls, which were lassoed back in a ponytail. He had twinkly, world-weary eyes and an affable, gap-toothed smile. His broken nose gave him the look of a Greek god who’d been recarved by a tipsy sculptor, the features slightly misaligned. What’s more, his genetic echo whispered in my daughter’s veins – the high-winged collar bones, the blue eyes, blond hair and strong athletic frame.