The Secret Intensity of Everyday Life (33 page)

He has brought a bottle of his own.

‘I’ve only just put the potatoes in,’ she says.

‘It’s called evil potato,’ says Alice. ‘They’re smashed up with butter and grated cheese and put back in their skins and sort of toasted.’

‘What’s evil about that?’

‘The butter and cheese. Obviously.’

Alan Strachan finds the corkscrew and opens her bottle, and even finds some clean glasses. They make conversation as Liz maintains her customary slow-motion panic.

‘Someone said you’re a journalist.’

‘Yes. The
Telegraph
. Sorry.’

‘Why sorry?’

‘Mum’s put me in the paper loads of times.’

‘Can you see a cheese grater anywhere?’

‘She wrote a huge article on being a single parent and I helped a lot, didn’t I, Mum?’

‘The beast must be fed.’

‘I’m not a beast!’

‘Not you, darling. The feature pages.’

‘Well anyway,’ says Alan Strachan, ‘the good news is Alice and I think we have her problem sorted. Right, Alice?’

‘You said not to kill Chloe,’ says Alice.

‘Upon reflection.’ He raises his glass. ‘To Chloe Redknapp, who will never know how close she came to an early death.’

Alice giggles. Liz finds the cheese grater under a food-stained copy of
Vogue
.

‘What I don’t understand, darling, is why you never told me about this before.’

‘I’m fine, Mum. Honest.’ She meets Alan Strachan’s eye and blushes. ‘Now, anyway.’

‘Chloe Redknapp! The pretty girl with blue eyes.’

‘She’s a monster,’ says Alan Strachan. ‘Not her fault, needless to say. Blame the monster parents.’

‘Father likes the ladies, mother likes a drink or two,’ says Alice.

‘Hey, hey!’ says Alan Strachan hastily. ‘I made that up.’

‘Quite a talk you two had,’ says Liz.

‘Can I watch
Friends
, Mum?’

The school teacher checks his watch. It’s almost six-thirty.

‘Re-run of Series One,’ he says. ‘Which one is it?’

He turns pages in today’s
Telegraph
. Finds the television listings.

‘The one with the lasagnes. Okay.’

Alice is goggle-eyed.

‘Have you seen it, sir?’

‘I have.’

‘Is it a good one?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Watch it with me, sir! Please, please!’

‘Not tonight.’

‘Then can I have some Kettle Chips to eat while I watch, Mum?’

Off she goes to the TV in her bedroom clutching a crinkly bag. This is deeply strange, this secret passion of an English teacher. Shouldn’t he be telling Alice the plots of Shakespeare plays?

‘You seem to know a lot about
Friends
.’

‘Yes. I’ve become a bit of an addict, I’m afraid.’

‘God, this kitchen is a mess. Let’s get out of here. The potatoes’ll take another forty-five minutes at least.’

Into the living room. Always fun to watch the faces of strangers entering this room. The walls are deep red, almost blood red, everything else is white. White curtains, white shelves, white sofa and armchairs, white painted floorboards. The great thing about striking décor is no one ever notices the chaos the room’s in.

‘Wow!’

‘It’s a bit much, I know.’

‘No, it’s great.’

‘People think just because I’m a writer I have no visual sense. But I do. What I don’t have is a cleaning lady. Other than me.’

She throws miscellaneous items off chairs, gym kit, flip-flops, pencil cases, used mugs of tea. She settles herself into the deep sofa, her guest into an armchair.

‘That episode of
Friends
she’s watching,’ Alan Strachan says. ‘It has some quite frank moments.’

‘Oh, it all goes over Alice’s head.’ Not that she’s ever asked her, she reflects as she speaks. ‘What sort of frank?’

‘Well Rachel has this Italian boyfriend called Paolo, and he shows up at Phoebe’s massage parlour—’

‘Massage parlour!’

‘Herbal massage. Shiatsu.’

‘Oh, okay.’

‘And he’s naked on the couch, and he finds Phoebe sexy, and she’s looking down at him – we only see her face, of course – and her line is something like, “Boy scouts could camp under there.”’

‘Under where?’ Then she gets it. She laughs because she’s embarrassed that she didn’t get it. ‘That won’t mean a thing to Alice.’

‘That’s fine, then.’

She stops laughing, realizing she sounds like a moron.

‘Have you memorized every episode?’

‘Not deliberately. But I have an odd sort of memory. Nothing ever seems to go away.’

‘So what is it about
Friends
?’

‘Well, it’s fun. It relaxes me.’ He’s pushing his hair about with his hands. ‘Okay, if I’m being honest I think
Friends
is a work of genius. I mean, I really do. The best dialogue on television today.’

‘Wow.’

‘I know that makes me what the children call a saddo.’

‘A saddo? No, not at all. It makes me want to know what you see that I don’t see.’

‘Okay.’ He rises to the challenge. ‘That episode Alice is watching, the lasagne one. Rachel breaks up with her Italian boyfriend—’

‘The one with the tent-pole.’

‘Right. She dumps him because Phoebe tells her he’s come on to her.’

‘In the massage parlour.’

‘Right. And Phoebe feels bad. And Rachel comes out with this classic
Friends
line. She says, “It’s better that I know, but I liked it better before it was better.” Isn’t that perfect?’

It’s slowly creeping over Liz that this teacher of Alice’s is unusual. All slight and slender, with an innocent untouched face and hair you want to stroke. And the things he says.

‘I think you’re a writer, Alan.’

He blushes. Bullseye. He’s so sweet she wants to lick him.

‘Not really. Not yet at least.’

‘But you want to be.’

‘Look, I’m a school teacher. We’re here to talk about Alice. Who’s great, by the way. I mean, if I was a writer would I be stuck in a little Sussex prep school? Not that it’s a bad school in its way. No. I’ve done nothing. Nothing at all.’

So that touched a nerve.

‘More wine, please,’ she says. ‘For me too.’

‘I haven’t apologized properly for taking my eye off the ball,’ he says as he fills their glasses. ‘I should have caught this Chloe Redknapp business much earlier. I’m really sorry.’

‘So should I.’

‘I think things will improve now. Anyway, I’ll be watching.’

‘So what sort of writing do you do?’

‘Oh, you know. The kind that gets rejected.’

A quick look to catch her reaction. A lop-sided grin. But there’s anger there too. Why wouldn’t there be?

‘Television?’

‘More stage stuff recently.’

He doesn’t want to say more. She doesn’t press him.

They eat supper together in the kitchen, the three of them. The evil potato is a big success.

Alice begs and begs to be allowed to stay up to watch yet another
Friends
, which is showing at nine o’clock. It turns out to be a new one, and the hundredth episode. Phoebe is going to give birth to triplets. Both Alice and Alan get so excited that Liz gives way, and they all watch together in the living room, with Alice in her pyjamas ready for instant bed when the credits roll.

Liz finds the experience surreal.

‘I don’t get it. Who’s the father?’

‘Oh Mum! She’s being a surrogate for her brother.’

‘Why?’

‘Shhh!’

The doctor in the delivery room keeps talking about Fonzie. Who’s Fonzie? Joey seems to be going into labour too. Then Chandler does a dance and Monica says, ‘Don’t do the dance!’

Alan punches the air.

‘I love it! You saw that? She never even turned round. She just knew he’d do the dance. These people just know each other so well.’

Then at the end Phoebe is allowed to hold her new-born triplets for a few private moments before handing them over. This isn’t comedy at all. This is heartbreak.

‘Jesus!’ says Liz. ‘I thought all they did was sit in a café and make jokes.’

‘That last line of Phoebe’s,’ says Alan. ‘She’s being strong, then one of the babies starts crying, and she says, “Well, if you’re going to cry”, and she cries too. Have you any idea how brilliant that is?’

‘I’m totally lost here,’ says Liz. ‘Did you like it, Alice?’

‘Of
course
.’

‘Giving away her babies?’

‘Phoebe’s like that.’

Alice goes up to bed. Liz tucks her up.

‘Mum, can he stay for ever?’

‘I don’t think so, sweetheart.’

‘Don’t you just love him?’

‘I think he’s a bit odd.’

‘Yes, but
lovely odd
.’

Downstairs again Alan Strachan is ready to leave.

‘I’ve a friend who works at the Royal Court,’ Liz tells him. ‘Why don’t you let me see one of your plays? Maybe I could show it to her.’

‘I’ve only got one ready to show. It’s a bit more, well, frank than
Friends
.’

‘Too frank to be staged?’

‘Oh, no. Anything goes these days.’

‘Are you afraid I’ll be shocked?’

‘I suppose I’m afraid you’ll think it’s no good.’

‘I expect I won’t even understand it. I seem to be much stupider than I thought.’

He doesn’t say he’ll show her his play but he doesn’t say he won’t, and then off he goes and she stays up for a while thinking about it all. Liz is the kind of person who doesn’t know what she thinks about anything right away. She needs time for her feelings to settle.

By the time she goes to bed she finds she agrees with Alice’s summary. Alan Strachan is lovely odd.

40

There’s no school thank you Jesus this Saturday but Jack wakes at the usual time and can’t go back to sleep so he goes down to the kitchen and has breakfast all on his own. He reads
Red Rackham’s Treasure
while he eats his Weetabix, the cereal only he likes, plying the spoon with practised rapidity to catch the most of the lingering crunch before the milk penetrates to the biscuits’ core. The Tintin book, read a hundred times before, is as much part of the ritual of Jack’s breakfast as the deep striped bowl, the caster sugar, the full cream milk, the pyramidal arrangement of the three biscuits. In this way he prepares himself each morning for the stress of the school day.

‘It’s a home weekend, Jack.’ His mother is surprised to see him down so early.

He nods. He knows.

Laura fills a kettle for her tea and a coffee percolator for Henry’s coffee. She stands over a list she’s written on a big lined pad.

‘You know we’re going to Glyndebourne this afternoon? The Clemmers’ au pair is coming to babysit.’

‘Okay.’

Jack finishes his breakfast and gets up, leaving the Tintin book and the bowl on the table.

‘Thought I’d go for a ride on my bike.’

He tries to say it as idly as he can, not wanting his mother to ask questions.

‘What? It’s half-past seven in the morning.’

‘I know.’

‘You can’t go out on your bike at half-past seven in the morning.’

‘Why not?’

‘Honestly, Jack! Where would you go at this hour?’

‘Into the village.’

‘No. It’s ridiculous.’

Jack raises his voice a little, instinctively steering the issue away from its particulars onto the principle at stake.

‘That’s not fair. You never let me do what I want. You say I should take more exercise. You’ve let me ride my bike into the village before.’

‘Yes, Jack, but not early in the morning.’

‘What’s so different about early in the morning?’

‘I don’t know. There’s nobody about.’

This is precisely Jack’s motive for wanting to go now. He has a letter to deliver and he does not want to be seen delivering it.

‘Well, I’m going anyway,’ he says.

‘Jack!’

The phone rings. He could walk away while she’s on the phone but that would be outright disobedience. Also he believes that he has right on his side; so he uses the interruption to marshal his arguments.