Finn was gloating.
It was only very rarely that he managed to attain the moral high ground, and now that he was there, he showed little inclination to vacate it. It didn’t take long for Alice to decide that a sulking teenager — which was the kind she was more accustomed to—was infinitely preferable to this new, self-righteous one.
“You were stoned!” he crowed. “My mother was stoned! How cool is that?”
“Leave it, can’t you, Finn?” Two days after the event, Alice was still feeling tired and very foolish. “Okay. So I was stupid. But can we let it go now?”
“Let it go? Oh no! This is too good to let go. And Trot says that after what you did to his plant, he —”
“You’ve been discussing this with Trot?”
“Course I have. After all, he rescued you. If it wasn’t for Trot, you’d still be staggering round that park.”
“He told you that, did he?”
“Yeah. He thinks it’s hilarious.”
“Oh, does he?”
“He’s told all his friends.”
“How sweet.”
“Yeah. He says he wonders whether you’re fit to be a mother.”
“So he’s going to take you on, is he?”
“Well, he didn’t exactly say that.”
“I bet he didn’t.”
“Oh, come on, Mum. Where’s your sense of humour?”
“You’re beginning to sound just like him.”
“Well, Trot likes a laugh. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Provided it’s at someone else’s expense.”
“I had to put you to bed,” Finn said.
“Finn, you took off my shoes. That hardly constitutes putting me to bed.”
“Sounds good, though, doesn’t it?” Finn grinned.
“No, it does not. And now, if you’ll just leave me alone, you could perhaps do some homework and I can finish this article.”
Aside from her adventure in the park with Mavis and Gabs, Alice was having problems at work. The colour supplement for which she worked was struggling, there had been several redundancies, and an increasing amount of work was being given to those who remained. Alice had hitherto written features, but now she found herself in charge of ‘Beauty’ as well.
“Beauty? I don’t know anything about beauty!” she’d said when her editor had informed her of the decision.
“Then find out. You’re a journalist. Finding out’s what journalists do. We’re all having to adapt.”
“But I like features. They’re what I’m good at,” Alice had wailed.
“That’s just as well, because you’ll still be doing features. These are difficult times, Alice. We’re all having to work harder. You’re lucky to have a job at all.”
So Alice was now officially Beauty Editor.
Beauty. Sucking her pencil, Alice reckoned that the very least of her readers probably knew more about beauty than she did, and no doubt cared more, too. She surveyed the pile of make-up samples that had been sent by various companies for her to try, and wondered what on earth she was supposed to do with them. She herself wore little make-up, relying on her clear complexion and nice eyes (she had been told that she had pretty eyes, and it suited her to believe it) to do the work for her. As for exfoliating and facial scrubs, she had never tried either.
Who did she know who might be able to help?
Within five minutes, she was on the phone to Gabs.
“I need help,” she told her.
“More weed?” suggested Gabs, who sounded in excellent spirits.
“No, definitely not more weed. But I need advice about make-up. I’ve got all these samples, and I have to write about them, and I haven’t a clue.”
“I’m your woman,” said Gabs. “Want me to come round?”
“Oh, would you?”
“Sure. No problem.”
“Haven’t you got — work?”
“Nearly finished.” There was a barking noise in the background.
“Have you got a dog?” Alice asked.
“Not exactly,” said Gabs. “That’s right, Gerald. Die for the queen. Good boy. Mummy’s on the phone. She won’t be a minute.”
“You have got a dog!”
“It’s complicated.” Gabs lowered her voice. “I’ll tell you later. Gotta go. I’ll be round in an hour.”
When Gabs saw all Alice’s samples, she was beside herself.
“You got all this stuff free? You lucky cow.” She picked up a lipstick. “D’you know how much one of these costs?”
“Well, I’ve got it written down somewhere.”
“Twenty-five quid! Twenty-five quid for a lipstick! Mind if I try it?”
“In a minute. I need to do this methodically. Now, cleanser. Would you mind having a go with this?”
“Sure.” Gabs sat down in front of the mirror and removed her make-up with a pinkish solution in a rather fetching woman-shaped bottle. “Mm. This is quite good. Not as good as mine, though. You got another?”
Alice handed her another. And another.
Then there were the foundations, the concealers, the blushers, the eyeliners.
“Are you writing about all this at once?” Gabs was applying navy eyeshadow, and Alice wondered idly why it was the women — herself included — always opened their mouths when applying eye make-up.
“Not all at once. This week it’s skincare. But if I watch you doing it and you try them all out, then I can make notes, and I won’t have to ask you back.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m happy to play with make-up anytime. You know, this would suit you.” She showed Alice a shimmery green eyeshadow. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
“Would you — I mean, would you mind showing me how to do it properly? I always just slap it on, but you do it so well.”
“Love to. Come and sit here where the light’s better.”
By the time Finn came home from school an hour later, Alice had been exfoliated, cleansed, and made up to Gabs’ satisfaction (and her own astonishment).
“I don’t believe I’m seeing this.” Finn leaned in the doorway, watching them. “First my mother gets stoned in the park, and now she and a friend are painting each other’s faces. Something to do with War and Peace, is it?” He sniggered. “War paint. Geddit?”
“Finn! Don’t be so rude!”
“Oh, I don’t mind.” Gabs winked at Finn, and Alice wondered whether her flirtatiousness was deliberate or whether she simply couldn’t help it. “Doesn’t your mum look great?”
“She’s okay. Would you — would you like a cup of tea?”
“Please. Isn’t he just the sweetest?” Gabs said when Finn had gone to make the tea.
“Only when he thinks there’s something in it for him,” Alice said.
“What a shame I’m not ten years younger.”
Alice thought it was a very good thing that she wasn’t but forbore to say so. She was fond of Gabs — it was difficult not to be — but she wouldn’t want her involved with Finn.
“Who — what was that dog I heard?” she asked as Gabs put the finishing touches to her face.
“That was a client.” Gabs applied a final layer of mascara to Alice’s lashes.
“You have a client who barks?”
“Yeah. That’s what turns him on.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Why should I? He’s the one who’s paying. It’s his call.”
“I still don’t really understand why you do it, Gabs. There must be so many other jobs you could do.”
“None that pay as well, though. And I quite enjoy it. It makes the clients happy, and I’m not hurting anyone.”
“Except the wives.”
“You sound like Father Cuthbert. Anyway, the wives never find out. It’s not like you and your bloke. These guys don’t love me. Some of them think they do, but it never lasts. They soon get over it. And it gives their marriages a little boost. It’s a win-win, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
“Each to her own, eh?”
Finn returned with a tray of tea (Alice didn’t know they even possessed a tray), and the conversation turned to more mundane things.
“You got a girlfriend?” Gabs asked him.
“Nope.”
“Good-looking boy like you — I’m surprised.”
Alice gave her a warning look.
“Okay, okay.” Gabs laughed. “I just hate waste.”
“Is there anything else I can get you?” Finn asked. “A biscuit?”
“No biscuit, thanks. Have to watch my figure,” Gabs said.
The cue for a compliment — had it been deliberate? — hung in the air but remained unanswered, and Alice was relieved. Apparently even Finn had his limits.
“What about you and Father Whatsit? How’s the plan going?” Alice asked when Finn had left the room.
“Augustine. Father Augustine.” Gabs sighed. “Not well. I’ve done all I can short of stripping off and showing him my assets.”
“So you’re giving up?”
“Oh no. I never give up.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“Do I look that ruthless?”
“More — determined, I’d say. So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to bide my time. Not much else I can do, is there? But you mark my words, Alice. I’ll get there in the end. I always do.”
“What — always?”
“Yep. Always.” Gabs lay back on Alice’s bed and rested her head on her arms. “But for now, I’ve got other things on my mind.”
“Like what?”
“My sister’s pregnant.”
“Your holy sister?”
“That’s the one.”
“Goodness!”
“Quite. It seems to have been a sort of virgin conception. You could say it was a miracle, but not quite the kind Steph usually goes for.”
“Oh dear. What’s she going to do?”
“The silly cow’s going to have the baby.”
“And you don’t approve?”
“Nope. But it doesn’t matter what I think.” Gabs paused. “Did you ever think of — of not having Finn?”
“Oh yes.”
“But?”
“I guess I was a coward. And by the time I really faced up to it, it was getting a bit late.”
“And you don’t regret it?”
“Sometimes.” Alice laughed. “But no, I don’t regret it. And as it turns out, it was my only chance of motherhood. I never really thought about children before I had Finn, but I think I’d feel — impoverished now if I’d never had a child.”
“I’m not having kids,” Gabs said. “Far too much hassle.”
“Not even Father Augustine’s kid?”
“Ah. Father Augustine’s kid… That might be different. Especially if it had his eyes.”
“Gabs, you’re incorrigible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Later on, when they were having their evening meal, Finn asked Alice why she and Gabs were friends.
“She’s so not your usual type,” he said.
“What is my usual type?”
“Oh, you know. A bit posh, interested in politics and things. Not sexy, like her.”
As it happened, Alice wasn’t particularly interested in politics, but she read the papers and watched Panorama, and that was probably what Finn meant. And it was true. Gabs certainly wasn’t the kind of person she would have made friends with in the usual way, but circumstances had thrown them together, and on the whole, Alice was grateful. The evening in the park had been a bit of a disaster, but no one had forced her to smoke or to drink so much. In retrospect, it had been quite fun, although she wouldn’t care to repeat the experience.
The following week, Alice had a date with Jay.
She had been dreading this, because by now Angela would have had her scan, and in spite of herself, she wanted to know all about it. It made no sense; it would be like poking a stick into a wound to see how much it would hurt, and she knew this was going to hurt a lot. But she also knew she had to do it.
They had been together for nearly an hour and were sitting chatting in Jay’s car when she finally asked.
“Well? How was the scan?”
“You really want to know?” There was a mixture of anxiety and relief in Jay’s voice.
“Of course I want to know. It’s a big part of your life. You can’t just keep everything about the baby — well, secret. After all, I tell you things about Finn.”
“Well, it’s the right size for the dates. All its organs appear normal. There are no problems.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What is it? Boy or girl?”
“Oh, Alice! It’s a girl!” There was no mistaking the joy in Jay’s voice. “I didn’t know I wanted a girl until we found she was — is — a girl.”
“But you know now?”
“Yes.”
Alice thought miserably that, until now, she hadn’t realised how much she didn’t want this baby to be a girl. A baby girl; pink and frilly and vulnerable; twisting Daddy round her little finger. She imagined Jay with his daughter in his arms, carrying her on his shoulders, holding her hand on the way to school, comforting her over her first heartbreak, giving her away on her wedding day. Jay and his daughter. Whatever happened to Jay’s marriage, his daughter would be there for keeps.
“Are you painting the nursery pink?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, we — oh, Alice! I didn’t want to talk about this, but you did ask.”
“Yes, I did ask.”
“And now?”
“And now, as you’ve said so many times, we just carry on.”
“I’m so glad you see it like that.” Jay took her in his arms. “Thank you for being so generous, so, well, accepting. It’ll make things — us — so much easier.”
For you, thought Alice, returning his embrace. It’ll make things easier for you. For herself, she felt only a dull sense of misery. For whatever Jay might say, things would never be the same again. How could they be? From now on, he would be juggling three women instead of two, and she knew who was most likely to be the loser.
“I expect you’ve got a photo. Of the scan,” she said now.
“I think I have,” Jay said. “They gave us each one at the hospital. But I’m sure you don’t want to see it. After all, they all look the same at this stage, don’t they?”
“No. I’ll see it. I — I’d like to see it.” After all, she might as well start now. In due course there would, no doubt, be other photos: baby photos, toddler photos, school photos. Perhaps if she saw enough of them, she would eventually become immune to the pain.
Jay got out his wallet and produced a grainy grey photo, and he was right. It looked more or less identical to every prenatal photograph Alice had ever seen. And yet she found herself examining it carefully. The dome of a head, a face half-hidden by a tiny arm, a curve of belly, miniature knees. Alice scrutinised the picture but could find nothing particularly significant. She handed it back.
“I told you,” Jay said, replacing the photo. “They might have been scanning anyone’s baby. I certainly wouldn’t have known the difference.”
“There’s no need to sound like that,” Alice said.
“Like what?”
“As though you couldn’t care less. Jay, this is your baby. Your daughter. Of course you think the photo’s special. How could you not?”
“Well, okay then. We do, but I don’t expect anyone else to be interested.”
We. There had been no “we” when Alice had had Finn. She remembered the photo of her own scan — the wonder and excitement with which she had gazed at it. But there had been sadness, too, because there had been no one to share it with, and her mother (“very nice, dear. Which way up is it?”) hadn’t been at all the same. She still had that photo stuck in an old medical folder somewhere. It hadn’t seen the light of day in years, but Alice thought that when she got home, she would look it out and perhaps show it to Finn. Even at that early stage, his manhood had been in no doubt. That at least ought to please him.
“Are you all right?” Jay asked her. They had left the car and were walking along a canal bank. It was a beautiful summer’s evening, and they had brought glasses and a bottle of wine.
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem yourself.”
“Don’t I?”
“No. Come on, Alice. It’s the first time we’ve been able to spend an evening together for ages. Try to — oh, I don’t know. Try to be a bit happy.”
“I can’t. I just can’t. I’m sorry. I don’t want to spoil our time together, but I’ve never been any good at pretending.”
“Alice, darling. If it’s the baby, it was you who started all this, asking about the scan, discussing the photo. I was quite prepared not to talk about babies at all.”
“How can we not talk about babies when I’m sure you spend a lot of your time thinking about yours? Of course you’re preoccupied with it; how could you not be? And if it’s a big part of your life, then I have to accept it and share a bit of it. Otherwise our relationship isn’t real.”
Jay spread his jacket on the grass and sat down. “Why do you have to make everything so complicated?” he asked. “Why can’t you just enjoy us — our relationship — and leave my home life out of it? I very rarely talk about it myself, but you keep bringing it up.”
Alice sat down beside him, hugging her knees and looking out over the muddy brown water. A pair of swans glided serenely past, and she wondered whether these beautiful birds, which were supposed to mate for life, were ever tempted to stray.
“I’m not making things complicated; they just are,” she said. “We can’t take our time together out of its context and pretend that everyone and everything else doesn’t matter.”
“We’ve managed so far.”
“We’ve never had to face anything as big as this before. Besides, you’re a man. You can pigeonhole me neatly away when we’re not together. With me, it’s different. You — you leak into all the other areas of my life. I can’t get away from you.”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes, in a way. Then this wouldn’t hurt so much.”
Jay uncorked the wine and poured them each a glass, and for a while, they were silent. Eventually he spoke.
“Alice, the last thing I want to do is cause you pain. You know that. But with the best will in the world, it’s inevitable. And I have no more control over this situation than you do.” He rescued an insect from his wine glass and released it into the grass. “I want the baby — of course I do — because she’s mine. My daughter. I can’t not want my own child. But Angela… Angela’s different.” He sighed. “I wouldn’t choose to spend the rest of my life with Angela. But now I have to. I have to stay on and make the best of things.”
“Did you really feel you had a choice before?”
“In a way, yes. Before the baby, I had a — well, I had an escape route, I suppose. The fact that I could give up on my marriage if it really came to it made it possible to carry on. I’ve had patients who’ve told me they would never seriously consider suicide, but they know it’s there if they ever need it. Of course, this isn’t suicide — nothing like it — but it’s the opportunity for a way out, a choice.”
“You’ve never said any of this before.”
“I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t think I realised how much I needed that tiny element of control until I didn’t have it anymore. But you —” he turned to look at Alice, and she was surprised to see that there were tears in his eyes — “you still have that choice. You could go — I certainly wouldn’t blame you — and give yourself another chance, maybe find happiness with someone else.”
Happiness with someone else. Briefly Alice considered what he’d said, and then shook her head.
“There is no happiness with anyone else. There can’t be,” she said. “It’s you I love.”
“Darling Alice, I don’t deserve you.” Jay pulled her down beside him and kissed her. “But I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”
When Alice got home that evening, Finn was watching a late-night film.
“I thought you were staying with Kenny,” Alice said.
“He’s been grounded.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Same thing, with Kenny’s dad.”
“Poor Kenny.” Alice had seen Kenny’s father once — a great bull of a man, with the aggressive stance of an alpha male gorilla and, by all accounts, a temper to match.
“So,” said Finn, “where’ve you been?”
“Does it matter?”
“Not really, but you’re very late, and you’ve been crying again.”
“I’ve got a bit of a cold, that’s all.”
“Not true.” Finn swung his legs off the sofa and sat up. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Finn, no. I’m entitled to my life, and my — my secrets, if you like.”
“Mum, I’m not stupid. I know you’ve been unhappy recently. I know you’ve got some weird new friends. And I’m pretty sure you’ve not read War and Peace. So, what’s up?”
“As I said, it’s complicated.”
“I can do complicated. I’m not a kid anymore.”
Alice sat down beside him. “I’m not sure you’re ready for this kind of complicated.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you. It’s just that there are some things you’re better off not knowing.”
“Does Trot know this — whatever it is?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Well, then, you can tell me. I’m much more sensible than Trot.”
“That’s true.” Alice laughed.
“Okay then. Are you going to tell me?”
Alice looked at Finn. He had grown a lot in the last six months. His profile had lost the softness of childhood, and he was already more man than child. He could be very mature when the occasion demanded it, and he could also be discreet.
“If I tell you some of it, will you let me leave it at that?”
“Have you told Trot everything?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Finn folded his arms.
“Right, then.” Alice wondered for a moment whether she was being very unwise, but there was no going back now. “I’ve been — seeing a man for some time. It’s not a relationship that will ever go anywhere, but I’m — I’m very fond of him. Sometimes it’s painful. My ‘weird new friends’ as you call them are people I can talk to. They’ve got problems too — different problems — and it’s good to be able to offload a bit.”
“No War and Peace, then?” Finn seemed amazingly unfazed by Alice’s revelations.
“No War and Peace.”
“And no more pretending? No more — lies?”
“Definitely no more lies.”
“I thought it was man trouble,” said Finn with satisfaction. “Poor old Mum.” He squeezed her shoulder, then stood up and stretched. “I’m going to make a sandwich. D’you want one?”