TWENTY-FOUR
Peter Pryor took the telephone off the hook. Up to a point he was prepared to be led – he looked at the pale blue box and its silver bow. Up to a point. But beyond that point, he would not go. And one of the points beyond which he would not go was in the choosing of where to have dinner. Mrs Hennessy, he felt, had done enough. He touched the box nervously. Quite enough.
He therefore booked a table for them at his new conversion, a one-time gravy powder factory in Wandsworth Old Town. It would be perfect. Quite large, quite noisy, quite good food, and quite expensive. Mrs Rosen would not be there, which was another excellent reason for the choice. He did not want Mrs Rosen to meet Pamela. You had to keep the Mrs Rosens of this world sweet. They liked to think they were the only woman in your life, and Peter would keep it that way. Pamela did not exist. Not yet. If Mrs Rosen was dining out, she would be at his other restaurant, the one with the draped chairs. He was wearing a blue linen suit and a pink tie (bowing to Style and City’s sartorial suggestion of current chic), with which he was not at all comfortable, but which, he hoped, would impress his ex-wife. It was all getting quite urgent on the Pamela front. Mrs Rosen had quite a penetrating look. As if she could see right through him. As if she knew he was fading fast.
So he was making an effort for Pamela. Indeed, during the past few days, making an effort for Pamela had become the only priority. He would talk to her about his plans to take her to Dublin after he gave her the blue box with the silver bow and . . . and. . .
Why did he have the sinking feeling, after imagining that proposed scene, that he would like to run for it? He was not at all sure what the etiquette surrounding the seduction of one’s ex-wife might be. He could not tell her that he loved her, because that would sound silly. And he could not tell her that he was burning with lust for her, because he was not. What he wanted to tell her was that, if she would have him, he would like to come back to her with the minimum of fuss. All he knew was that he needed her. And he certainly could not tell her that, either. Perhaps she would read the signs. Women were supposed to have a sixth sense for these things.
He tapped the box. He relied on his ex-mother-in-law at this point. He had never got it right with Pam before, so his instincts must be faulty. Women were the same throughout history, underneath, was what Mrs Hennessy’s friend said. And red satin and ivory lace, so the woman in the lingerie department assured him, was very acceptable. He was willing to be led.
As soon as Daniel said, ‘Mum. How are you? Sorry I haven’t rung. It’s really nice to hear you,’ she knew something was up.
Now, searching through her wardrobe for something to wear for Peter, she was in emotional turmoil. Up until the very moment when she rang Danny earlier that evening, she was fine. Ready to give him hell, but fine. She had finished the shop accounts, she had finished all her costings, she was on top of everything, and she had given some comfort to Mrs Patel. So she felt really very good and liberated. In her cosy tea-time nest of drawn curtains and teapot for one, with a pile of Christmas cards to write, she had even congratulated herself on how pleasantly surprising life could be when you opened yourself up to it. Exhilarating. As if all the playing cards had flown up over her head when she threw them, and were now falling down into place. That, she thought, yanking open the other wardrobe door and dismissing a nice little black number with a large dollop of something down its front (what? and when?), was what life did to you. She was now a snivelling wreck. For a moment she thought about cancelling the date with Peter. And then she flopped on the bed, put her head in her hands and repeated the mantra, Kids, Kids, Kids.
She had got through three serious relationships, all of which had engaged her heart, and she had survived, regrouped, grown. Was even ready to take one back if it suited her. And that, surely, was growing some? And now this. If she tried to tell Daniel what he had done, he would be stumped. Or laugh. The part of her that felt ashamed tried to tell the other part to grow up. It was as if you had two hearts. One for the other lot, and one for motherhood.
And she could positively brain Daniel for doing it. Just as she was contemplating a flirtatious night out with his father. It must be nearly twenty-five years since she flirted with him. Before Daniel’s conception. There was little time or inclination for flirtation after that. The prospect was interesting . . . And safe. Or maybe not. . .
And then Danny – with all his conciliatory, charming, am-I-talking-to-Mrs-Idi-Amin stuff – the upshot being that they were going to spend Christmas in Liverpool, on their own, which Pamela thought, quite irrationally, was a bit thick, and said so.
She was then treated to a lecture from her son – well, maybe not quite a lecture, more a tutorial – on how they couldn’t go to one set of parents without offending the other. To which Pamela, reasonably, she told herself, pointed out that The Girlfriend’s parents lived in Tenerife, which was not at all the same as slipping down the motorway for a couple of nights. And then Danny said in a hurt, surprised voice, ‘Mum . . .?’ And she was surprised at herself for the sudden sense of abandonment that welled up.
She managed to say she understood, ring off, and weep. Partly at the news, and partly at the effect of knowing that, for the first time since he was born, she would not see her son on Christmas morning. She heard, floating around in the back of her mind, I Gave Up Everything For You. . . Freedom was a double-edged sword. She might look in the laundry basket and gaze happily upon the paucity of two brassieres and four pairs of knickers – but to also have to gaze lonely and forlorn up a dead turkey’s bum on Christmas morning filled her with a shocking gloom.
She could hear – already – Jenny’s kind voice saying, Oh, you must come to us. And there would be the Clarksons’ Boxing Day party. Traditional. And no Daniel to play his guitar and sing carols. It was the thought of all that pity that brought about the final turmoil. She was an object of pity over Douglas, and she did not wish to be so again. Pity was for the disadvantaged, or silly old bats like her mother, she thought savagely, suddenly remembering that she wouldn’t even have her to fall back on because she was in a Home, and Happy To Be There, and because she had a new friend with whom she had already made it quite clear she intended to sip her port and play Scrabble and share the parson’s nose on Christmas Day.
‘Tea and Daniel will be very nice, dear,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think I’d like to be out. It might snow. You and Daniel and Lilian (she even remembered The Bloody Girl’s name) can come and see me when you like.’
Bums, she thought savagely, and ignoring the sensible solution of the little black frock, which could, after all, be sponged, she kicked it across the floor, out of the door, along the corridor and down the stairs. By the time she got to the kitchen and gave it one final shot, so that it skidded across the floor and sent two empty milk bottles into orbit, she was in even more turmoil.
This could be the first signs of madness, she thought, picking up the dress and smoothing it, as if it were a once-beaten child. She peered through the kitchen window into the darkness of next door. Unless they were out in their garden in camouflage kit and sporting binoculars (always possible if someone attractive in the Soaps had taken up birdwatching), Peaches and Bud had not spotted this particular aberration. She returned the milk bottles to upright. And then she felt another clutch at her stomach. If she was here and alone for Christmas, the In Loving Sympathy of those two would be intolerable.
She returned to the bedroom and put on a dreadful saffron silk affair that made her look like a brightly draped piece of furniture about to chant for Hari Krishna. And out into the night she went, ready, just ready, for Peter to wince as she walked through the restaurant door. Just let him, she thought. Just let him.
In Bayswater, Peter Pryor tucked the silver and blue box beneath his arm, tightened his jaw, and set out into the night.