Size Matters (17 page)

‘And your gran used to look po-faced and say “So are chips”.'

Ellie didn't laugh. ‘You're really horrid about Auntie Delphine. I thought she was really nice.'

‘You haven't seen her since you were six,' Jay reminded her.

‘So? She let me play with all her make-up. I remember her showing me how to put lipstick on properly.
And
she smelled nice. You shouldn't be so rude about her.'

Jay and April exchanged glances, recognizing a teenager in holier-than-thou mode.

‘And we
don't
smell nice?' April teased, pushing her luck.

Ellie didn't reply, but simply raised her eyes heavenwards and shoved her chocolate croissant into the microwave, tutting that the oven was already occupied with potatoes and a hunk of beef.

‘Well that's telling us,' April whispered to Jay as Ellie crashed around the kitchen in her pyjamas, assembling a plate, cup of coffee and an extra chunk of butter for the croissant which, brutally miked, was destined to be a scalded-chocolate disappointment.

From upstairs came the announcement that Freddie and Rory were now awake, in the form of an ear-splitting blast of heavy metal. The bathroom door slammed, the hum of the shower pump started up and Jay could already picture the thrown-down heap of soggy towel, the puddles on the floor, the outline of damp foot on bathmat and toothpaste splodges in the basin. Still, at least upstairs had rooms in which you could close the door on the shambles. When they'd bought this house and Greg had insisted on knocking down so many of the downstairs walls, she should have had a bit of a think about the all-exposed nature of open plan.

‘Oh God, what will Charles make of this place?' Jay groaned, stirring the egg yolks into the vanilla cream and surveying the already mounting cooking fallout. ‘It's practically a war zone. His flat looks as if no-one has so much as toasted a slice of wholemeal in it. And,' she added, scooping eggshells into the bin, ‘I can just imagine Delphine giving me that look and telling me I could have made this ice cream days ago instead of leaving it to the last minute. I can't deny she'd be right.'

She'd done her best, down here in what an estate
agent would call the big kitchen-stroke-family room, but sometimes she could see the point of the days when you parked the guests firmly into a separate dining room and kept your culinary chaos way out of sight. Then you could legitimately leave them to converse politely among themselves while you retired to sob into the sinkful of debris in private.

‘OK, so Delphine was the original domestic goddess,' April said. ‘You can afford to be when you've got no kids and no job. It's what she was good at. You're good at . . . at other things.'

‘See, you can't think of any.' Jay pointed the wooden spoon at her.

‘Yes I can. You've made a lovely family and you run a successful business and you're a brilliant sister. Now stop moping and feeling sorry for yourself, open a bottle and pour us both a livener. You can face anything after a teensy glass of fizz.'

There'd just be time, Rory was sure, just time to go and check out if it really was the same house before they had to be home for the compulsory lunch. He was glad he'd got Freddie with him – a lone bloke hanging about would look extremely iffy, even with the alibi of the football he'd brought along to kick around. Two could just happen to be there. They could look more credibly on their way to somewhere else, even if they stopped walking and had a bit of a kick-around with the ball. If it
was
a hookers' hang-out, a lone man (OK, a lone
boy
) would look as if he was hoping to be invited in for a bit of business but was too scared (too right) to make an approach. And if it
wasn't
, well he'd probably have some old Neighbourhood Watch geezer coming after him and trying to give him the kind of good old-fashioned beating-up that never did
him
any harm back in the plod-on-the-beat days.

‘There's the tree, the one with all the yellow flowery fluff stuff on it.' Rory slowed down as they turned the corner. The two of them stopped and consulted the picture in
Out for the Lads
. You couldn't see much of the building, just part of the tree, a bit of hedge and some of the gatepost which might be blue but had a lot of paint flaking off.

‘Looks very ordinary.' Freddie was not impressed. ‘I bet they've got it wrong. Either that or we have. From what you can see in the picture it could be more or less anywhere.'

‘Well they could hardly paint it bright pink and hang a sign up, could they? Come on, let's get nearer and see what we can see.'

Freddie shrugged and sauntered along behind Rory, throwing the ball up and catching it. Rory sensed his cousin's lack of interest and felt a bit embarrassed. Freddie was currently on his second long-term girlfriend, which implied (though Freddie hadn't said) a genuine, grown-up, regular sex life, the sort that's so well established you take it for granted and don't get over excited about – except during
the
moments, presumably. The furtive curiosity of a virgin adolescent must seem light years behind him.

‘OK, slow down.' Freddie surprised him by suddenly paying attention. ‘We'll give it a good slow look, check it out for clues. It's probably just a family house with bikes and stuff and an off-roader full of baby seats parked in the drive.'

‘But you never know.' Rory was still hopeful.

‘No, you never do. Lucky we chanced to bring this football along.' Freddie grinned at him, running into the quiet tree-lined road and kicking the ball around, proving himself quite hopeless at keepy-uppy.

‘God, you're crap at that,' Rory shouted, tackling him for the ball.

‘Let's see you do better!'

‘No worries, man.' Rory grabbed the ball and bounced it from his knee to his left foot and onto his right, keeping it going for several seconds.

‘Hey not bad! You in the school team?'

‘Shit, no. It's full of heavyweight jocks who are all wannabe sports coaches. Gym rats, always comparing six-packs.' He kicked the ball in a high arc, landing it just beside the flaky blue gatepost of Halcyon.

Freddie ran to get it, passing it back to Rory and narrowly missing the silver Porsche parked at the kerbside.

‘Shot, wanker,' Rory shouted with sarcasm. ‘If you'd hit that we'd have had to leg it.'

Aiming carefully, Rory kicked the ball back towards Freddie and managed to land it in Halcyon's garden, close to the left of the two downstairs windows.

‘You or me? Or both?' he asked Freddie.

‘Both. In case you need back-up. In case you're lured to the clutches of a big-breasted motherly type with a heart of gold and a leather whip.'

‘Sounds like our history teacher,' Rory said as he took a deep, calming breath and pushed the gate open. ‘Here goes nothing.'

Rory walked up the path followed by Freddie. He tried to walk in a nonchalant, don't-care sort of way, but when he heard Freddie tittering behind him he realized he was overdoing the swagger.

‘Gosh, look, Rory, there it is, in that bush!' Freddie called loudly, making an overdramatic show of pointing towards a hydrangea bush beneath which sat the black and yellow football.

‘Right! I can see it! You fetch it Freddie and I'll knock on the door and tell the owners what we're doing. We wouldn't want anyone to think we had no manners!'

He couldn't look at Freddie for fear of his face
cracking into helpless laughter. He tried to compose himself as he walked up the two front steps and rang the bell. He could hear it sounding somewhere far inside the house. Possibly, he imagined, in a little office somewhere where a uniformed maid sat waiting to greet customers, or where a spike-heeled madam did the accounts, stashing away wodges of cash out of sight and the snooping of the tax authorities.

Nobody answered. Freddie now stood on the path, looking slightly foolish and clutching the ball. They were both, it suddenly occurred to Rory, too old to be there, waiting like little lads to make sure it was all right to retrieve their ball. He waited a bit longer, trying to look into the front sitting room, past the heavy cream curtains. All he could make out was a big round gilt-framed mirror over the fireplace, a mantelpiece with what looked like birthday cards on it and walls painted the earthy orange-red colour of flower pots. There were pictures, but they were wishy-washy landscape efforts, nothing promisingly erotic. Disappointingly normal, really. Rory longed to open the letterbox and have a gawp into the hallway. He felt around inside his pocket and pulled out one of his mum's Dishing the Dirt leaflets that he'd written Samantha Newton's mobile number on. He didn't need it now – the number was committed to his own mobile and to his memory. Gently, he lifted the letterbox and leaned down for a quick shufti. A grey striped cat sat on the long blue rug in the hallway. It had its back leg up and was washing its bum. It gave him a look that was a complete sneer. Flustered, he pushed the bit of paper through and retreated down the steps.

‘They're probably all asleep,' Freddie commented as together they walked back down the lavender-edged path. ‘I mean, they must work mostly at nights, especially Saturdays.'

‘Yeah. Either that or we've got it so completely wrong that they're actually a normal family who are out because they've all gone to the park or the pub or . . . oh I suppose to church.'

Bored now, the two boys half-heartedly kicked the football to each other as they ambled back towards home. Rory turned as he heard a gate click behind them.

‘Hey, look there's someone coming out. I'm sure it was that house.' The man was medium height, greying, wearing a three-quarter-length dark brown coat and carrying a bunch of flowers. He pointed a remote-key at the silver Porsche and the lights flashed once, then he climbed in and drove away.

‘Did you see that?' Rory said, immediately wishing he hadn't, as even to him he'd sounded like an overexcited small boy. Of course Freddie had seen – wasn't he standing right beside him?

‘I did. I wonder why he didn't open the door when we rang. Probably in the bog.'

‘Or on the job.'

‘Nah, it was only a couple of minutes back. Unless he was just zipping up. He doesn't actually look . . . well like he's up to anything he shouldn't be.'

‘True, though possibly a front. Perhaps he didn't want to be seen. Anyway, if he was a punter it wouldn't be up to him to answer the door, now would it?'

‘Good thinking Rory, but, you know, I don't want to be a downer but I really don't think it's a knocking shop.'

Shame, Rory thought. To have been able to confirm it would have livened up the day no end. He smiled to himself as he walked, imagining astounding the family at lunch by telling them about it.

Reactions would vary, obviously, starting with Dad. He'd come out with something funny and rude, like:

‘Ooh good – must pop round, ask if they fancy a nice extension.'

Mum: No comment but that ‘not in front of (insert name of choice)' look.

Gran: A down-to-earth sort. ‘Oh well, it's a job like any other. Someone's got to do it,' but old Auntie Win, she'd probably drop dead with shock.

Oh God, he was early. Terrific, no time for the last-minute lipstick. Jay heard voices in the hallway as she was transferring the ice cream from its churner to the freezer box. Ellie was, at last, dressed and showered and sweet-smelling and making a good job of laying the table prettily. She'd discovered some long pink narrow glasses that no-one ever used and placed them in a line down the centre of the glass table, each one containing a tulip from the bunch April had brought with her. They complemented the pink linen napkins very effectively, and for a fleeting moment Jay found herself considering whether or not to have a bash at napkin origami. Naff as it was, it would be so suitable a reminder of the absent Delphine, who could fold fabric squares into fans, swans and quite possibly a selection of the kings and queens of England.

‘'Scuse me, Mum, budge over, I need serving spoons.' Ellie shoved herself against Jay to get at the cutlery drawer.

‘Careful, Ellie! You'll . . .' Too late. Caught off balance, Jay swerved with the ladleful of ice cream and it tipped, dropping a big pink dollop into the drawer, all over the sundries at the front: whisks, bottle openers, garlic press, lemon zesters and such.

‘Shit,' she muttered, trying to scoop out a usefully salvageable amount of ice-cream. She plonked as much as she could into the bowl and slammed the drawer shut on the smeary mess, trusting that as most of the
cutlery she possessed was already on the table, no-one would need to go looking for more.

‘Granny moment again, Mum?' Ellie whirled away, laughing.

‘. . . meet the others and have a drink . . .' Instead of installing the guest in the sitting room, out of harm's way, Greg was bringing Charles through to the kitchen. Briskly Jay grabbed a cloth, whisked it over the pink-smeared worktop and turned to her guest with her best, most welcoming smile fully installed.

‘Charles! Hello, lovely to meet you.' Jay found herself shaking hands with a mid-height, mid-weight man with plenty of badger-grey hair and the kind of crinkled tan she'd always associated with leathery expats who scorn avoidance of the tropical midday sun. It wouldn't be the death of him, she thought, not now he'd got Delphine making sure he never left home in the sunshine without a hat. Disappointingly, he didn't in the slightest resemble either Roger Moore (as Saint or James Bond) or the Duke of Edinburgh, but, in a slightly formal though lightweight tweedy suit beneath a dark wool coat, he reminded her of the kind of MP who doesn't do ‘casual' very convincingly.

‘This feels like a blind date,' he said, smiling (nice teeth, well kept and presumably his own) and handing Jay a heavy bouquet of strongly scented lilies.