‘Now that is a shame,’ came his reply. ‘I was wanting to have a private chat with you . . . very private.’
No mistaking the sauciness in his voice. That kind of phone call . . .
‘Sounds very interesting,’ she told him, ‘I think I’m definitely going to phone you back later.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’
‘Bye for now.’
‘Bye.’
‘How’s your auction website going these days?’ Annie asked Lana, who was still hovering by the door, neutral questions were best when Lana was sulky.
‘Great, you should check it out some time, there’s stuff even you’d consider buying,’ came the offhand reply. ‘That was the dentist, wasn’t it?’ Lana said next, throwing herself over the available space on her mother’s silky lilac bed.
‘It was
Gray
, yes, Lana,’ Annie said pointedly and smoothed her hand over the head that was now lying level with her elbow.
Lana gave a deep sigh and told her: ‘I don’t like your boyfriend. But I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you. I’m trying to do the same for your boyfriend.’ Annie tried to leave it there, but then several moments later felt the irritated need to ask: ‘What don’t you like about Gray?’
‘Well, his name for a start,’ Lana told her. ‘You do know he’s called Gary really, don’t you?’
‘Oh.’ No! Much as she’d suspected Gray was too exotic, too suave to be a real first name, she hadn’t suspected quite so mundane a reality. Gary??!
‘How do you know?’ Annie wondered, a little suspicious that Lana had made this up just as a strike against Gray.
‘Gran told me.’
‘When?’
‘When I asked her.’
Hmmm. Annie would check with Fern. Find out her source. Maybe it was a guess.
‘Gary is just a bit full of himself, don’t you think?’ Lana added, scratching one bare foot with the black painted toenails of the other.
‘He’s a successful man. He’s proud of himself and he has a certain confidence,’ Annie told her. ‘Don’t say “full of himself” because that sounds nasty and really, I think he’s pretty nice.’
Lana’s sulky response was the inevitable: ‘He’s not the same as Dad though, is he?’
‘No,’ Annie told her gently. ‘But your dad isn’t exactly here right now, is he? So you’ve got to give someone else, someone like Gray, a bit of a chance. Please?’
This almost made Lana smile.
‘I think we could all be happy with someone who is nice and caring, and who could look after us all. Someone who’d make me feel a lot less worried . . .’
‘Someone rich,’ Lana interpreted.
Annie turned to her daughter so she could speak to her eye to eye: ‘You know, that’s another nasty thing to
say, Lana. Do you honestly think the only thing that interests me about Gray is his money?’
‘I can’t see what else there is.’ Lana was definitely sulking now, her arms were crossed so tightly over her black vest top that her many silver wrist chains and bangles must have been digging into her skin.
‘He’s handsome, he’s caring, he’s interesting. I like to talk to him. He’s got really good taste. We have lots of things in common.’ None of this was convincing Lana, who was staring straight ahead over her crossed arms now.
‘I don’t know . . . He makes me feel interesting too . . . appreciated . . .’ Annie said with some exasperation. ‘Unlike some people I could mention,’ came the little dig.
‘He’s so
old
!’ came Lana’s scornful response. ‘And it doesn’t exactly sound like mad passionate love.’
‘No. It’s not!’ Annie was trying not to raise her voice. ‘I’m not expecting that. I’d be happy with something a bit more comfortable and companionable.’
‘You still have to sleep with him though,’ came Lana’s retort. ‘Wonder if he’ll take his wig off. Have you had sex with him yet?’
Annie felt a surprisingly powerful flash of anger at this
and snapped back: ‘He doesn’t have a wig! And how would you fee
l if I asked you a question
like that?’
She regretted it immediately. This wasn’t the way she’d rehearsed the close and confiding mother and daughter chat she’d been mentally preparing for, ever since Seth had come onto the scene.
Lana offered a scornful scowl in response to this.
‘Look,’ Annie began, trying to find the reasonable, friendly voice she knew she should be using: ‘I haven’t slept with Gray. But if I do, it will be for all the right reasons.’
‘Ditto,’ Lana said.
‘Fourteen is too young for sex, Lana.’ Annie tried to keep her tone friendly and encouraging. She couldn’t believe that she was already discussing the very real possibility of her little girl . . . well, they’d had all sorts of sex talks before in the past, but they’d been so much more abstract. Much easier to deal with. Annie was trying to reason with her instinctive desire to shout out:
No
! Don’t do this. It’s too soon, for you and for me.
‘Did I ask you for advice?’
The pale little face beside her was pointy, facing away and closed off from her for the moment.
‘I’d be so happy if you came to me for advice, Lana. And I will try to be as open-minded about it as I can be,’ Annie told her as calmly as she could. She felt as if she’d just aged about five years.
After a burning silence, Lana decided to air a different sore point: ‘Why do we have to sell this flat, Mum? I don’t want to move again. I don’t want to be living in some grotty dump all over again with rotten carpets and a hideous toilet and a horrible bedroom. I don’t want to do it. And this isn’t just any old flat! This was our home with Dad!’ she burst out. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you?! Don’t you think me and Owen might like to stay in our family home? All you can think about is yourself and how to earn more money for yourself.’
‘I don’t think that’s very fair, Lana,’ Annie warned, ‘I have to look after you both on my own and that’s very expensive.’
‘Yeah well, but you’re very expensive too.’ With that Lana got up, flung open the white door of Annie’s fitted wardrobe and pushed all the clothes on the rail over to one side.
‘Lana!’ Annie’s warning not to go any further was clear now, but Lana began flicking through the hangers one by one.
‘Gucci!’ she read from the label of the first top. ‘Valentino, Nicole Farhi, Paul Smith, Westwood, Diane Von Furstenberg, McQueen, Farhi, Smith, Smith, Westwood, Whistles, Karen Millen – you were slumming it that week – and back to Gucci. My God, this one’s Chanel! Do I have to go on or do you get my point?’
‘Lana!’ Annie could barely contain her fury at this little lecture: ‘You know how hard I work and you know where I work. You know perfectly well I get a great deal on all the clothes I buy and that I have to dress really smartly for The Store. Yes, we might have to sell the flat, just to be practical, just to make sure there’s plenty of money in the bank to pay for the great school I send you to, which you are s
o determined to annoy all the time
. You know what? Maybe one of these days you should try working hard too. No-one’s going to give you great exam results because you’re cool, Lana! No-one’s going to give you a great job because you were one of the school rebels! You get out what you put in, Lana, and maybe it’s about time you understood that!’
A furious ‘Huh!’ came back from Lana. ‘And I suppose you’re planning to solve all your problems by marrying Mr Rich Dentist, are you?’
‘Shut up, Lana!’ Annie shot back. ‘I’ve been on some dates with Gray and I like him. Who said anything about
him being rich? Because I haven’t asked to see his bank accounts . . . And who has said one word about marriage? Don’t you think that maybe you’re being really rude?’
‘I’m not moving out of here!’ Lana shouted at her. ‘You can’t make me. I am not leaving this flat and that is final. I’d rather leave school!’
‘Oh, you would, would you? Well, that’s fine, tomorrow morning I’ll take you along to . . .’ Annie shoved in
the name of the worst comprehensive in the area she
could think of and watched for her daughter’s reaction.
‘Yes, that will be fine. Suzie’s boyfriend goes there and he says it’s cool.’
‘Enough about
cool
,’ Annie practically shrieked. ‘No-one cares what’s cool.
No-one gives a . . . a . . .’
But
Lana stormed to the bedroom door, slammed it shut behind her and shouted: ‘I’m getting out of here!’
Annie stayed on her bed, heart pounding.
Twenty minutes or so later, when a bit of vigorous nail filing had calmed her down slightly, she decided to go out of the bedroom to see what was happening.
In the sitting room, Owen had turned off the TV, tidied away the pizza and popcorn debris and was reading on the sofa.
‘Hey, Owen,’ she ran her fingers over his hair, ‘you’re a star for clearing up. I’m really sorry about all that. I’m sorry. We spoiled the film, we spoiled the evening . . . and we shouldn’t have done all that shouting.’
‘I know,’ Owen said. He didn’t look up from his book. ‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you know that jellyfish have been on the planet for five hundred and thirty million years?’
‘Well, babes, that could be because you can’t eat them, you can’t burn them, you can’t wear them and you definitely can’t make them into shoes. Is Lana in her room?’
‘No. She went out,’ came the reply.
‘What?! Out of the flat?’
‘Yeah.’
‘When?!’
‘Not long after the fight.’
‘Did she say where she was going?’
‘She didn’t say anything.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You sounded scary,’ was Owen’s answer to this and now Annie felt like the worst parent in the world.
She hurried to the telephone, dialled Lana’s number and got straight through to voicemail: ‘Lana, don’t be so stupid, phone me up and let me know where you are.’ Clunk. She put the phone down and began the ringround of all the home numbers of Lana’s friends.
An hour later, Annie was almost in tears. Despite the soothing words of the six parents she’d spoken to, she was panicking about her daughter.
‘She’ll be fine,’ Greta’s mother
assured her. ‘Greta did this a few weeks ago, stormed off to someone’s house and didn’t come back for hours, just to scare me. There isn’t any big problem, is there?’
‘No,’ Annie had assured her, ‘I don’t think so. It was just one of those usual stupid arguments.’
‘Could she have gone to her boyfriend’s?’ Greta’s mother asked.
‘H
e lives in Essex. She’d have
to go to the station, catch a train . . . I don’t know,’ Annie admitted, ‘I don’t have his number, his mobile . . . I don’t even know his surname!’
‘I’ll see if I can find out, and if Greta hears anything at all, I’ll phone you, OK. Try not to worry too much.’
But when Annie put the phone down after leaving another message on Lana’s mobile, she realized she was scared and flooded with guilt.
It was 11.40 p.m. when the phone rang.
Annie snatched it up with a hopeful ‘Hello?’
‘You’re alone now, aren’t you?’ came the husky voice. ‘I’m alone too and I can’t stop thinking about you and all the things I’d like to do with you . . .’
‘Gray, now’s not a good time,’ she told him briskly. ‘Sorry. Lana’s gone out . . . without permission and I’m waiting for her to phone and tell me she’s OK.’
‘Oh.’
There was a pause.
‘Sorry,’ she repeated. ‘Can I speak to you tomorrow?’