Authors: Clare Mackintosh
I stare at the advert as I walk home, oblivious to the rain plastering my fringe to my forehead. Perhaps it isn’t me at all. Perhaps I have a doppelgänger. I’m hardly the obvious choice to advertise a premium rate chatline: you’d think they’d go for someone younger, more attractive. Not a middle-aged woman with two grown children and a bit of a spare tyre. I almost laugh out loud. I know it takes all sorts, but that’s some niche market.
Between the Polish supermarket and the key-cutter is Melissa’s café. One of Melissa’s cafés, I remind myself. The other is in a side street off Covent Garden, where her lunchtime regulars know to phone ahead with their sandwich orders, to avoid queuing, and the tourists dither by the door, deciding if the panini will be worth the wait. You’d think Covent Garden would be a licence to print money, but the high rates mean that
in the five years it’s been open it’s struggled to turn a profit. This one, on the other hand, with its tatty paintwork and unlikely neighbours, is a gold mine. It’s been here for years, raking in the cash long before Melissa took it over and put her name above the door; one of those hidden secrets that appear occasionally in city guides.
The best breakfast in South London
, says the photocopied article Sellotaped to the door.
I stay on the opposite side of the road for a while, so I can watch without being seen. The inside of the windows are steamed up around the edges, like a soft-focus photo from the 1980s. In the centre, behind the counter, a man is wiping the inside of the Perspex display. He wears an apron folded in half and tied – Parisian waiter style – around his waist, instead of looped over his head, and with his black T-shirt and dark, just-got-out-of-bed hair he looks far too cool to be working in a café. Good looking? I’m biased, I know, but I think so.
I cross the road, watching out for cycles as a bus driver waves me across in front of him. The bell above the café door jingles and Justin looks up.
‘All right, Mum.’
‘Hi, love.’ I look around for Melissa. ‘You here on your own?’
‘She’s in Covent Garden. The manager there’s gone off sick so she left me in charge.’ His tone is casual, so I try and mirror it in my response, but I feel a swell of pride. I’ve always known Justin was a good boy; he just needed someone to give him a break. ‘If you give me five minutes,’ he says, washing his cloth out in the stainless steel sink behind him, ‘I’ll come home with you.’
‘I was going to pick up a takeaway for tea. I suppose the fryer’s off now?’
‘I’ve only just turned it off. It won’t take long to do some chips. And there are some sausages that’ll be thrown out if they’re not eaten today. Melissa won’t mind if we take them home.’
‘I’ll
pay for them,’ I say, not wanting Justin to get carried away with his temporary position of responsibility.
‘She won’t mind.’
‘I’ll pay,’ I say firmly, getting out my purse. I look up at the blackboard and calculate the price for four sausage and chips. He’s right that Melissa would have given them to us if she’d been here, but she isn’t here, and in this family we pay our way.
The shops and businesses peter out as we walk further from the station, giving way to terraced houses in rows of around a dozen. Several are boarded up with the grey metal shutters that mean a repossession; graffiti adding red and orange fireworks to their front doors. Our row is no different – the house three doors down has missing tiles and thick ply nailed across the windows – and you can spot the rented houses by the blocked gutters and stained brickwork. At the end of the row are two privately owned houses; Melissa’s and Neil’s, in the coveted end-of-terrace spot, and mine, right next door.
Justin’s fiddling in his rucksack for his keys, and I stand for a moment on the pavement by the railings that run around what might generously be called our front garden. Weeds poke up through the wet gravel; the only decoration a solar-powered lamp shaped like an old-fashioned lantern, which gives off a dull yellow glow. Melissa’s garden is gravelled, too, but there are no weeds to be seen, and either side of her front door sit two perfectly manicured box trees, shaped into spirals. Beneath the lounge window is a patch of brickwork a shade lighter than the rest; where Neil scrubbed off graffiti left by someone in South London still narrow-minded enough to object to a mixed-race marriage.
No one has bothered to pull the curtains in our own lounge, and I can see Katie painting her nails at the dining table. I used to insist we all sat at the table for meals; used to love the
opportunity to catch up on what they’d done at school. In the early days, when we first moved in, it was the one time of day when I felt we were doing all right without Matt. There we were, a little family unit of three, all sitting down to a meal together at six o’clock.
Through the window – coated with the ever-present layer of grime that comes from living on a busy road – I notice that Katie has cleared a space for her nail kit among the magazines, the pile of bills, and washing basket, which has somehow chosen the table as its natural home. Occasionally I clear the mess so we can eat Sunday lunch together, but it isn’t long before a creeping tide of paperwork and abandoned carrier bags pushes us on to our laps again, in front of the telly.
Justin opens the door and I remember what it was like when the kids were little and they’d run to greet me when I came home, as though I’d been away for months, instead of stacking shelves at Tesco for eight hours. When they were older it would be next door I’d call on, thanking Melissa for the after-school care the kids claimed to be too old for, but secretly loved.
‘Hello?’ I call. Simon comes out of the kitchen with a glass of wine. He hands it to me and kisses me on the lips, his arm sliding around my waist to pull me closer. I hand him the plastic bag from Melissa’s café.
‘Get a room, you two.’ Katie comes out of the lounge, her fingers spread out and her hands in the air. ‘What’s for tea?’ Simon releases me and takes the bag into the kitchen.
‘Sausage and chips.’
She wrinkles her nose and I cut her off before she can start moaning about calories. ‘There’s some lettuce in the fridge – you can have yours with salad.’
‘It won’t get rid of your cankles,’ Justin says. Katie hits him on the arm as he ducks around her and runs up the stairs, two at a time.
‘Grow up, you two.’ Katie is nineteen and an easy size eight,
with not a hint of the puppy fat she still had a few years ago. And there is nothing wrong with her ankles. I move to give her a hug, then remember her nails and kiss her cheek instead. ‘I’m sorry, love, but I’m knackered. The odd takeaway won’t do you any harm – everything in moderation, right?’
‘How was your day, honey?’ Simon asks. He follows me into the lounge and I sink into the sofa, shutting my eyes for a brief moment and sighing as I feel myself relax.
‘It was okay. Apart from Graham making me do the filing.’
‘That’s not your job,’ Katie says.
‘Neither is cleaning the loo, but guess what he had me doing yesterday?’
‘Ugh. That bloke is such an arsehole.’
‘You shouldn’t put up with it.’ Simon sits next to me. ‘You should complain.’
‘To who? He owns the place.’ Graham Hallow comes from the breed of men who inflate their egos by belittling the people around him. I know this, and so it doesn’t bother me. For the most part.
To change the subject I pick up the
London Gazette
from where I dumped it on the coffee table. It’s still damp and parts of the print are blurry, but I fold it in half so the chatline and escort ads are showing.
‘Mum! What are you doing looking up escort services?’ Katie says, laughing. She finishes applying a top coat to her nails and carefully screws the lid on, returning to the table to push her hands under an ultraviolet lamp to seal the varnish.
‘Maybe she’s thinking of trading Simon in for a newer model,’ Justin says, walking into the lounge. He’s changed out of the black T-shirt and jeans he was wearing for work, into grey joggers and a sweatshirt. His feet are bare. In one hand he carries his phone; in the other a plate heaped with sausage and chips.
‘That’s not funny,’ Simon says. He takes the paper from me. ‘But seriously, why are you looking at chatlines?’ His
brow furrows and I see a shadow cross his face. I glare at Justin. Simon is fourteen years older than me, although sometimes I look in the mirror and think I’m catching him up. There are lines around my eyes I never had in my thirties, and the skin on my neck is beginning to crepe. I’ve never had a problem with the age difference between us, but Simon mentions it often enough for me to know he worries about it. Justin knows that, and takes every opportunity to stick the knife in. Whether he’s getting at Simon or at me, I can never be sure.
‘Don’t you think that looks like me?’ I point to the bottom advert, beneath Angel’s ‘mature’ services. Justin leans over Simon’s shoulder, and Katie removes her hands from the UV lamp so she can get a proper look. For a second we all stare at the advert in silence.
‘No,’ Justin says, just as Katie says, ‘It does a bit.’
‘You wear glasses, Mum.’
‘Not always,’ I point out. ‘Sometimes I put my contacts in.’ Although I can’t remember the last time I did. Wearing glasses has never bothered me, and I quite like my current pair, with their thick black frames that make me look far more studious than I ever was at school.
‘Maybe it’s someone playing a joke,’ Simon says. ‘Find the one dot com – do you think someone’s signed you up to a dating agency as a joke?’
‘Who would do something like that?’ I look at the kids, wondering if I’ll catch a glance passing between them, but Katie looks as confused as I am, and Justin has gone back to his chips.
‘Have you called the number?’ Simon says.
‘At £1.50 a minute? You must be joking.’
‘Is it you?’ Katie says. Her eyes are mischievous. ‘You know, for a bit of pocket money? Go on, Mum, you can tell us.’
The uneasy feeling I’ve had since I first saw the advert starts
to subside, and I laugh. ‘I’m not sure who would pay £1.50 a minute for me, love. It really does look like me, though, doesn’t it? It gave me quite a start.’
Simon fishes his mobile out of his pocket and shrugs. ‘It’ll be someone doing something for your birthday, I bet.’ He puts his phone on speaker and taps in the number. It feels ridiculous: all of us crowded round the
London Gazette
, calling a sex line. ‘The number you have dialled has not been recognised.’
I realise I’ve been holding my breath.
‘That’s that, then,’ Simon says, handing me the newspaper.
‘But what’s my photo doing there?’ I say. My birthday isn’t for ages, and I can’t think who would find it funny to sign me up for dating services. It crosses my mind that it’s someone who doesn’t like Simon; someone wanting to cause problems between us. Matt? I dismiss the thought as quickly as it arrives.
Instinctively I squeeze Simon’s shoulder, even though he shows no sign of being bothered by the advert.
‘Mum, it looks nothing like you. It’s some old bird with bad roots,’ Justin says.
There’s a compliment in there somewhere, I think.
‘Jus is right, Mum.’ Katie looks at the advert again. ‘It does look like you, but lots of people look like someone else. There’s a girl at work who’s the spitting image of Adele.’
‘I guess so.’ I take one last look at the advert. The woman in the photograph isn’t looking directly at the camera, and the resolution on the image is so poor I’m surprised it’s being used as an advert at all. I hand it to Katie. ‘Stick it in the recycling for me, love, when you go and dish up for the rest of us.’
‘My nails!’ she cries.
‘My feet,’ I counter.
‘I’ll do it,’ Justin says. He dumps his own plate on the coffee table and stands up. Simon and I exchange surprised glances and Justin rolls his eyes. ‘What? You’d think I never helped out around here.’
Simon
gives a short laugh. ‘And your point is?’
‘Oh fuck off, Simon. Get your own tea, then.’
‘Stop it, the pair of you,’ I snap. ‘God, it’s hard to know who’s the child and who’s the parent, sometimes.’
‘But that’s my point, he’s not the …’ Justin starts, but stops when he sees the look on my face. We eat on our laps, watching TV and bickering about the remote, and I catch Simon’s eye. He winks at me: a private moment amid the chaos of life with two grown-up kids.
When the plates are empty of all but a sheen of grease, Katie puts on her coat.
‘You’re not going out now?’ I say. ‘It’s gone nine o’clock.’
She looks at me witheringly. ‘It’s Friday night, Mum.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Town.’ She sees my face. ‘I’ll share a cab with Sophia. It’s no different from coming home after a late shift at work.’
I want to say that it is. That the black skirt and white top Katie wears for waitressing is far less provocative than the skin-tight dress she is currently sporting. That wearing her hair scraped into a ponytail makes her look fresh-faced and innocent, while tonight’s do is tousled and sexy. I want to say that she’s wearing too much make-up; that her heels are too high and her nails too red.
I don’t, of course. Because I was nineteen myself once, and because I’ve been a mum long enough to know when to keep my thoughts to myself.
‘Have a good time.’ But I can’t help myself. ‘Be careful. Stay together. Keep your hand over your drink.’
Katie kisses me on the forehead, then turns to Simon. ‘Have a word, will you?’ she says, jerking her head towards me. But she’s smiling, and she gives me a wink before she sashays out of the door. ‘Be good, you two,’ she calls. ‘And if you can’t be good – be careful!’
‘I can’t help it,’ I say, when she’s gone. ‘I worry about her.’
‘I
know you do, but she’s got her head screwed on, that one.’ Simon squeezes my knee. ‘Takes after her mother.’ He looks at Justin, who is sprawled on the sofa, his phone inches from his face. ‘Are you not going out?’
‘Skint,’ Justin says, without taking his eyes off the tiny screen in front of him. I see the blue and white boxes of a conversation too small to read from where I’m sitting. A strip of red boxer shorts separates his joggers from his sweatshirt, the hood pulled up despite being indoors.