Guilty Feet (26 page)

I wasn’t tired at all, so I switched my computer on again and played around for a while on the Internet. With Christmas in mind I checked out a few gift sites, and when I got bored with that I clicked into my Hotmail system.

I’d been thinking about what to say to my mother on my way home in the taxi, and now that I’d made a decision about living arrangements it seemed a very good time to respond.

Dad is still living here at the flat, and because you’re not coming back now I’ve decided to move into the family home for a while. I gave a copy of your e-mail to Dad, by the way, and I expect he will be in touch with you soon re the divorce.

Thanks for the invitation, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it for Christmas.

Best wishes to Angelica, and good luck with your ‘explorations’.

Love

Jo

I sent it off immediately, smiling to myself as I imagined her face when she read it. How furious she’d be at not getting the reaction she’d expected to get. I knew perfectly well that she’d intended to shock us, and the cruellest thing I could do to her was to wish her well.

I tapped out a quick message to Matthew then, advising him on a similar course. I was certain this ‘new phase of her life’ would lose its glamour the moment we all appeared to accept it. Which didn’t mean I’d changed my mind about her and Dad. Their marriage was well and truly over, but I did think it was high time that my mother grew up.

And, yes, OK, maybe it was time that I did as well.

Chapter Twenty One

Dan got up early and went into the city. He might have been worried that music was becoming a substitute for what was missing in his life, but some of his CDs still needed replacing. And now, thanks to Aisling, he was able to indulge in an orgy of buying. By eleven o’clock he’d ticked thirty-three titles off his list and decided he’d had enough for one day.

He was just heading for the bus stop, through hordes of Christmas shoppers, when something in Waterstones’ window caught his eye. He did a double take at the astonishing sight of dozens of copies of his book piled in a huge display. And he couldn’t resist it. He turned round and went into the bookshop. There was another display just inside the door, and the feelings he had now were mixed. In the minute or so that he stood there he saw five copies disappear from the pile, and he had to admit to a certain amount of pride. But he thought too how ironic it was that something that had taken him a few short weeks to put together was selling like this, while the books he’d worked hard on for months had been largely overlooked by the public.

He left the shop and continued on until he turned into the Briggate, one of the main thoroughfares through the city centre. He crossed the road towards Harvey Nichols, where he intended to cut through to the Victoria Quarter. He glanced sideways and saw the store doorman, kitted out in his grey livery, and then he saw a shock of red hair. But before he realised that it belonged to Jo the doorman did what doormen do and she disappeared through the store entrance.

He still had the image of her in his mind when he got back to the flat. She’d been wearing the chunky cream sweater he’d bought her last Christmas, and remembering how good things had been then had left him shaken.

He put on a CD straight away—the very same CD that he’d been going to play the night he discovered that Libby had been there before him. He shrugged now at the memory. At least she’d left his hi-fi unharmed, he thought as he lay down on the sofa and let the soothing sound of Miles Davis’s music flow over him.

For about ten seconds. Until the telephone cut through the peace he was hoping to find.

He’d forgotten that she was coming round to pick up the books, and for a moment he couldn’t work out why Cass was ringing.

‘I’ve got another favour to ask you,’ she said.

***

I found the perfect dress in Harvey Nicks. It naturally cost me an arm and leg, but that didn’t seem to matter—especially now I was earning good money again. I chose something tasteful, something very unlike what I’d worn to the club the previous weekend. I wanted to feel elegant for a change. And elegance, as everyone knows, doesn’t come cheap. I didn’t mind that there wouldn’t be any eligible men at the party. Apart from the two families I was the only other guest, and I felt very privileged. That in itself was good enough reason to make an effort.

With the help of my flexible friend, I bought some shoes as well—medium heel in impossibly impractical ivory, to match the dress. I’d already told my dad that after tonight I would be moving back to the family home until I could find something else. He’d been surprised but, Dad being Dad, had found it hard to hide his delight that I was moving out. In fact I think he was disappointed that I wasn’t leaving immediately. Tough! I’d thought as I left him to do some tentative packing, and it had suddenly occurred to me that my mother’s life had not been a bed of roses either. My father could be very annoying at times—as living with him for the past few weeks had revealed.

I was obviously responding well to retail therapy, and as I toted my carrier bags around the city I bought four copies of the
Big
Issue
, one from each vendor I saw, to make me feel less guilty about my Harvey Nicks purchases. And because the city was alive with Christmas promise, because the weather was bright and sunny, despite being cold, because everyone looked purposeful and happy, I felt fleetingly purposeful and happy too.

I spent another small fortune on an engagement present in a nice little specialist gift shop. I bought a beautiful set of wine glasses—six for red, six for white. They came in a fancy box, which I had gift wrapped in silver paper with matching ribbon. And I bought a congratulations card, and an expensive new lipstick, and then I went home for a very long soak in the bath with a novel that had been hanging around unread for far too long.

I was a third of the way through it when the telephone rang and I had to get out of the bath to answer it.

Chapter Twenty Two

I arrived fashionably late. Well, ten minutes late, to be precise, but enough to be the last to get there. Belle greeted me at the door, and she held the gift I’d brought for the happy couple while I took off my coat. She looked me up and down as I took the present back.

‘You look so...er...grown up,’ she said, a bit disapprovingly.

‘You mean I look old?’ I said, worried. I wondered if I’d overdone things by sleeking my hair up with some straightening serum.

‘Not old
old
,
’
she said, frowning, ‘but, like I say,
grown
up
.
’

They were all there in the sitting room when I followed Belle in—Cass’s and Sid’s families—and from what I could see they were getting along pretty well, considering. Considering they hadn’t met before. They’d divided up into predictable groups: Sid’s mother was chatting away to Cass’s mother, and Sid’s dad was listening to Cass’s dad. He didn’t seem to be saying much back, but he was nodding politely and looked fairly comfortable from where I was standing.

Marinda and Darinda were shamelessly flirting with Cass’s two younger brothers, and her sisters, Mel, Sophie and Abigail, were occupying one of the huge sofas and talking animatedly amongst themselves. Sid and Cass seemed to be playing host, and were currently handing out plates of delicious-looking nibbles.

I assumed that the choice of music playing was Jennifer’s. It was some sort of grand opera, I think, which seemed inappropriate for the occasion, but it was turned down quite low and nobody seemed to be objecting.

They all stopped talking when they noticed me, and while most of them waved a welcome the two mothers came over and gave me a hug. They both seemed to like my ‘new look’, as they called it—especially Sid’s mother, surprisingly. She was looking very bohemian herself, dressed in an orange caftan with her hair flamboyantly wrapped in a matching scarf. There was no bum bag today, but her black Doc Marten boots were a bit of a surprise.

Cass’s mother, who was as ever warm and affectionate, was dressed in more conservative style, and made a special fuss of me as the odd one out of the family gathering. I hadn’t seen her for ages, but I got the impression she knew what had happened with my parents. I was relieved that she didn’t refer to it directly, however, and when I’d exchanged my gift with Sid for a glass of champagne, I squeezed onto the sofa with Cass’s three sisters. I hadn’t seen them for a long time either, and I was always struck by how different they were from Cass.

They were dressed in a rainbow selection of flimsy slip dresses and were as lively and silly as most young women in their late teens and early twenties. Their conversation was a lot like Sid’s sisters’—celebrities, clothes and men, in that particular order. As I quickly bored of their prattle I realised that Belle might well be right—maybe I really was growing up at last.

While they talked about the contents of the latest copy of OK magazine, I thought about the call I’d had from Aisling. She’d told me about getting a cheque out of Libby, about what she’d been up to in the past, about her new bloke and how she’d moved in with him. And then, I don’t know why, but I got the idea she was fishing for something. I think she was trying to find out how I felt about Dan. But after my little talk with Cass the night before I thought it safest to keep my thoughts to myself.

Eventually Sid’s sisters sidled over to us, and I left them all while I went to say a proper hello to Cass’s younger brothers. They’d always been just kids to me in the past, and it shocked me to realise that they weren’t any longer. David, I realised, must be twenty-four by now—the same age as Matt. I discovered that his girlfriend was pregnant, and that he was hoping to save enough for a deposit on a house for his new family soon. Mike, the nineteen-year-old baby of the family, was still at the local college, and a few words with him confirmed Cass’s long-held suspicion that he was probably gay.

Which, all in all, no doubt explained the girls’ sudden loss of interest in the two young men.

I managed a word with Sid’s and Cass’s fathers, and Sid himself, but despite several attempts I did not succeed in getting Cass on her own. I wanted to tell her how great she looked in her lemon dress, with her hair tousled a bit. If I didn’t think I knew better I’d have suspected that she was avoiding me. And, although it couldn’t possibly have been deliberate, she managed to go on avoiding me right up until Jennifer announced that food was about to be served in the dining room.

In fact it was more of a serve yourself situation. The table had been splendidly laid out with a very extravagant cold buffet that I learnt from Sid’s mother was mostly down to Sid himself. There was salmon, beef and ham, all of which had been so wonderfully decorated that it seemed a shame to spoil the effect by actually eating any of it.

Sid’s father did the carving with great aplomb, while the rest of us looked on in awe at the fabulous display of colourful salads. By now the girls had taken over the music, and VantagePoint were singing their cute little hearts out in the background. We’d just got the go-ahead from Sid’s mother to tuck into the buffet when the old-fashioned doorbell sounded.

There were a few puzzled glances exchanged, but Cass was hot off the mark.

‘I’ll get it,’ she said, plainly very much at home, and proceeded to do so with considerable speed.

I was fourth in the queue for food, and with my plate in my hand and my eye on the salmon it took a moment to realise that the boy band were now doing their number one version of ‘Careless Whisper’. Which, of course, made me think of Dan.

‘I’ve got a surprise,’ I heard Cass announce just as I got to the salmon. I carried on spooning it onto my plate, but when I noticed that everyone had gone a bit quiet I looked up and felt dizzy with shock. Dan saw me at about the same time, and although it was obvious that he was shocked too, he was a lot better at covering it up than me. By now my face had turned crimson, and my cutlery was rattling so much on the plate I had to put it down carefully on the table.

‘This is Dan, everybody,’ Cass went on. ‘He has something for the girls,’ she said to Sid’s mother, ‘and I thought it would be nice if he gave it to them himself.’

By the startled look on Jennifer’s face she obviously had no idea what it was all about—but, clearly used to dealing with the unexpected, she managed a regal nod. Then Dan, prompted by Cass, opened one of the books I’d just noticed that he was holding.

‘This one’s for Darinda,’ he said, a hint self-conscious, and Darinda, as if she was being called onto the platform to receive an unexpected school prize, slowly stepped forward and took the book. Her anxious features softened as she looked at it, and then broke into a smile when she opened it up. The other two sisters didn’t need prompting. They trotted straight over to Dan in their high heels and were soon whooping with pleasure.

Because everyone wanted to know what all the fuss was about, the food was temporarily forgotten. When all was made clear someone drew attention to the music playing, and the girls got excited again and insisted on turning the sound up.

And throughout all this Cass steadfastly avoided eye contact with me.

Sid’s father stepped over to Dan and shook his hand. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I got the impression that he’d asked him to stay and join in the party. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but Cass, who was still at his side, joined in the persuasion and he eventually nodded his acceptance.

As he did so he glanced over at me. I glanced elsewhere.

Of course the time inevitably arrived when I was forced to come into contact with him. I’d been snatching looks in his direction as I picked at my food, thinking how good he looked in his best black jacket, but I hadn’t got as far as preparing myself for what I might say.

It was Sid’s sisters who finally brought us together. They’d been clinging to him like limpets since he’d given them the books, hanging on to his every word. And he must have said something about me, because they all turned and looked at me in stunned silence. I coloured again when they let out little squeals of delight, and then Belle came and dragged me over towards the group.

‘We were just telling Dan that you’d been kissed by Jamie Astin,’ she said dreamily.

‘And he said he knew about it,’ enthused Darinda.

‘His friend told him,’ Marinda gasped excitedly. ‘And she said that he’d asked for your telephone number!’

‘Only she didn’t know it.’ Belle sighed tragically.

‘Well, no one told me,’ I said, trying to sound normal while wishing I were anywhere else at the moment. But I had to admit that I felt flattered, and I suppose I swaggered a bit. When I caught Dan’s eye I saw that he was smiling wryly at me. And I felt a fool, as if I’d been caught kissing my own reflection in the mirror.