Going Home Read online

  ‘Sure am, bro.’

  ‘Well,’ said David, advancing towards me, ‘I’m sorry for being a bit heavy earlier. It was lovely to see you, as ever.’ He kissed my cheek and shook Jaden’s hand again. ‘Great to see you, Jaden. Take care of this one, eh?’

  Jaden and I followed him and Miles into the hall. I stood in the doorway and waved them off. They waved back, as if Jaden and I were their parents sending them off to school.

  Well, that’s that, I thought, as I shut the door. Great. At least I know where I stand. ‘Sorry for being a bit heavy earlier.’ Yes, we shouldn’t have kissed drunkenly in the kitchen, but somehow I felt as if a weight had been lifted off me. Yes, that was it.

  NINETEEN

  Chin and Gibbo’s wedding was at the end of May – perhaps the best time of year for it. If the sun shines it’s warm, but not too boiling so you’re sweating in complicated underwear and seeking shelter under a tree where you sink into the ground on your high heels, get stuck and have to be pulled out by someone who is laughing at you. As spring arrived, even in London, my feeling of dread about the house was harder to ignore. The signs that summer was on its way were evident, the wedding was close, and things were coming to a head in my relationship with Jaden. Decisions had to be made, things had to be said, and yet I buried my head in the sand, hoping it would all sort itself out without my intervention.

  I began to find myself thinking more and more about my grandmother, the most efficient woman known to womankind, who tried – mostly in vain – to instill this discipline in me. When I was little and my grandparents still lived at Keeper House, Grandmother always went into town on Thursdays. If I asked to go with her, she would take me by the wrist and lead me into the kitchen. She had a little notebook in a National Trust slipcase that she used as a kind of to-do and shopping list, and throughout the week she would jot notes in it. Last year I’d found one in an old Tupperware box of keys and string. She had curiously childish handwriting, clear and open. ‘Upholsterers – price for stuffing dining room chr. Linseed oil. Seeds: pots, lettuce, radish, check last yrs. Tacks. Lightbulbs – Robert’s study lamp, side room x 3. Culpepper’s. Sheets in spare rm. Candles, lots. Nuts. Check w R when Wine Soc to deliver sherry. More Campari.’ And so on.

  I would sit at the kitchen table, swinging my legs, thighs sticking to the faux-leather seat, and watch Grandmother translate her notes into a concise shopping list on the next page, and we would sail into town in her ‘little runaround’. Grandmother’s motto was, ‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today’, and that was why Keeper House was always polished, waxed, scented, tidy and well cared-for, even if it tried its best to foil my grandparents’ and later, my parents’ efforts to keep it so.

  My motto is almost exactly the opposite: I’ll worry about that tomorrow, because tomorrow is thankfully another day – to paraphrase Scarlett O’Hara. But as March went on I realized the status quo would have to change fairly soon, whether I did something about it or something happened to change it.

  I love Saturday morning. It’s my favourite time of the week, without a doubt. If I’m out a lot in the evenings during the week, Saturday morning is often the only time I have to potter about in my flat, water the plants, drink coffee and read the papers in an aspirational lifestyle way.

  Actually, most of that’s a lie. I do drink coffee and potter about, but then I lie on the sofa and watch TV, and it’s an absolute luxury, because lazing around is my favourite thing to do. Some people get their jollies from opera, football or bonsai trees. I like lazing around, and Saturday mornings is when I indulge myself. The closest I get to doing housework on Saturdays is pushing some old magazines into a pile on the floor with my toe or transfering an empty wine bottle from the kitchen counter to the place on the floor where empty wine bottles go. Then I stand up, brush my pajamas off as if I’ve been doing heavy manual work, and say, ‘Phew!’

  About two weeks after the dinner party, I was lying on the sofa reading a magazine, when the phone rang. It was a lovely spring day, cold and clear, and the sun was shining through the skylight, helpfully illuminating the dust on the floorboards. CD:UK was on, and I was eating a huge chocolate croissant I’d bought the night before on my way back from the pub (I love Sainsbury’s Local, I really do). The flat was warm: Spanish Brian had heeded the call of his erstwhile client and done a sterling job on a blocked pipe. Jaden had been gracious in defeat.

  Who is it? I thought indignantly. I wriggled my toes in their pink bedsocks to test how much they wanted to swing off the sofa so I could answer the phone. Not very much. I took another swig of coffee. The phone continued to ring. Jaden had said he’d call me over the weekend, but I was feeling cheerful and relaxed and didn’t fancy being told otherwise. Screw it, I thought, and carried on reading. They’ll leave a message or try my mobile. What if it was Jaden? I reached over and turned off my mobile.

  I ran through my mental checklist for the weekend. One, finish croissant. Two, tidy flat. Three, have rest. Four, meet Chin in Harvey Nicks. Five, Ash’s birthday party in gastropub in North London. Six, do not call Jaden when drunk.

  Jaden was going back to LA in a couple of months, and while I should have thought it was a good thing, I was surprised to find I didn’t. I was trying to wean myself off him, but it was harder than I’d thought. Strangely, the more time I spent with him, the less bonkers I found him.

  The phone rang again. I sighed, rammed the rest of the croissant into my mouth and heaved myself off the sofa to answer it.

  ‘Lizzy?’ It was Tom.

  I swallowed fast. ‘Hi. Did you just call?’

  ‘What? No. Listen.’ Tom was out of breath and I could tell by the odd sounds he was making that he was jumping up and down, as he often does when he’s excited.

  I sat down again. ‘What?’ I asked, and settled back to hear some long involved story about what had happened to him the previous night. The change in my cousin over the last couple of months was subtle but noticeable. He wasn’t camp, he didn’t go around trying to make up for time wasted in the closet, but he was clearly keeping himself busy.

  ‘You’re never going to believe it – well, actually, I don’t think it’s going to come as that much of a surprise, come to think of it—’

  ‘What?‘ I said, annoyed.

  ‘Rosalie’s left Mike. No one knows where she is.’

  I stood up and stubbed my toe. It was agony. ‘What?‘ I repeated.

  ‘Rosalie and Mike!’ Tom was still jumping up and down: his speech came in gasps. ‘Mum rang me this morning – she’d just spoken to Mike. Rosalie left, she didn’t tell him where she was going but she says she wants him out of the flat in a week. And he hasn’t got anywhere to go.’

  ‘But – what do you mean, she’s left him?’ I asked, turning off the TV. ‘She wants to end it?’

  ‘Yup. Mum didn’t say much, except Mike’s totally cut up about it. Apparently he got home from work and she’d packed her bags and was standing in the hall, waiting for him. She said she was going to stay with a friend and she was giving him a week to get out.’

  I thought back to my conversation with Mike a few weeks ago and Rosalie’s snappish intervention. Well, what a surprise. She had thought she was marrying her very own romantic hero, and he had turned out to be an overgrown schoolboy. I felt no sympathy for her. But then I remembered Christmas Eve, the look of adoration on her face. I’d thought it was the real thing. But obviously she’d been wrong – and what did I know about judging the real thing? ‘I don’t understand it,’ I said. ‘Did she tell him why?’

  ‘You know what Mum’s like. That’s why I was ringing. You’ve got to call your mum or Chin. They’ll know. All Mum said was Rosalie told Mike it had been a mistake. The marriage, I mean.’

  ‘I’m meeting Chin for lunch. I’m going to help her do some shopping for the wedding,’ I said.

  ‘What kind of shopping?’ Tom sounded suspicious, with good reason.

  ‘Er…bride apparel,’ I s
aid vaguely, because these days I had no idea what Chin was talking about most of the time. ‘She needs bits of material. And stuff. Meet me there. Harvey Nicks café, one thirty.’

  ‘OK. Can you believe it, though, Lizzy?’

  I thought about it for a minute. ‘Actually, even though it sounds silly, I can’t. I know he was mad about her, but I really thought she loved him too. Just goes to show, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Ye-es.’ Tom sighed. ‘It’s…it’s strange.’

  A couple of hours later, I hurried into the Harvey Nichols café to find Tom and Chin already there. I’d forgotten to tell Chin Tom was coming, and now I hoped she wouldn’t mind. She nurses a grudge for ever, and I didn’t suppose that Tom was out of the doghouse yet for his ‘advice’ to Gibbo over Christmas. Given all that had happened since, you might think she would have decided to let it lie by now, but through the whole of January she had not been on speakers with Tom. Then Gibbo had worked his magic: he’d asked Tom to be an usher at the wedding, as well as giving him responsibility for the stag night. (Singalonga Sound of Music had been jettisoned in favour of Tom’s latest plan: Morrissey in concert followed by a meal at a Polish restaurant in Soho. Talk about gloomy.) I’m sure the fact that Gibbo has virtually no close friends in the UK had nothing to do with his being asked. Since Chin was exhibiting early signs of being a total Bridezilla, she called Tom to get his measurements for the waistcoat the ushers were to wear because she didn’t trust Gibbo to take them down correctly. Talk of fabrics had led to reconciliation, and now all was sort of OK between them.

  They looked up as I approached and Tom raised his eyebrows. ‘Have you talked to Suzy?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, and she says—’

  ‘Hello, darling,’ said Chin, jumping up to kiss me. ‘Thanks so much for doing this with me. Sit down.’

  I sat down. Tom kissed me. ‘Hello,’ he said, and made a face in the direction of Chin, rolling his eyes, turning down the corners of his mouth and dropping his jaw. ‘That bad?’ I mouthed at him, as Chin fished around in her bag.

  ‘Now,’ said Chin, getting out a huge A4 lined book and a large fat fountain pen. ‘Let’s talk tulle.’

  ‘What?’ I said simultaneously with Tom, as I took off my jacket. We giggled. I picked up the menu.

  Chin bit her lip and started to write. ‘Order a drink, darling,’ she said. ‘I thought Peter Jones first. That new haberdashery department’s fucking awful, but it’s still Peter Jones. Also, I saw some beautiful pink ribbon with pretty little polka dots in John Lewis last week, so if they don’t have it there, we’ll have to pop to John Lewis. Or maybe you could and I could go on to Selfridges to see about those shoes.’ She drew a vigorous line through something and frowned. ‘Tom, we may need to divide and conquer even more. How are you at bartering?’

  Tom was bewildered. ‘Where? What?’

  ‘Perhaps you should go to Berwick Street market and get the material.’

  ‘What material?’

  ‘Come on, people!’ Chin slammed her book on to the table. ‘Let’s focus, OK?’

  Tom and I stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’ my cousin demanded.

  ‘Tulle for the underskirt of my dress,’ Chin said. She closed the book and stared at Tom. ‘I thought you said you were here to help?’

  ‘Why would I say that?’ Tom asked aggressively. ‘I’m gay, I’m not bloody Danny La Rue. I’m here to drink wine and find out what happened with Mike and Rosalie, and I haven’t done either yet.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s just charming, isn’t it?’ said Chin, snappishly. ‘Typical of you, Tom, you’re just so selfish.’

  I thought it wise to intervene. ‘Hey, Chin, shush. You can’t ask Tom to barter for tulle in Berwick Street market. They’d eat him alive. Remember the church fête last year?’

  We always go home for the Wareham church fête in June. Last year it was on Midsummer’s Day, which was beautiful and hot. Kate sent Tom off to buy fir-apple and parsley jelly, or something like that, to have with our barbecue that evening. She told him to barter, because the Prufoots always over-charged. The chutney and jam stall was always run by hairy Lila Prufoot, who ran the village shop, and this year her daughter Mavis, aged ten, was helping her. To cut a long story short, Tom tried to barter with Mavis and ended up with a fat lip and a broken toe, as little Mavis threw him a punch and dropped a pot of damson and apricot jam on his foot.

  Chin smiled self-consciously at Tom, and put her hand on his. ‘Sorry, Tom.’

  ‘’S okay, Chin. Thanks for letting me be an usher.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, thank Gibbo. He really likes you. All of you. Which is weird, considering how mad you were at Christmas.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom and I answered ruminatively. We sat in silence for a few moments. The spell was broken only as a waiter walked past, and all three of us snapped to attention and tried to catch his eye.

  ‘Oh, Chin, I keep meaning to tell you,’ I said, as Tom twisted in his seat and flashed his pearlies at the waiter, who had ignored us. ‘Guess who I bumped into at that Monumental party at the V and A a couple of weeks ago?’

  ‘Who?’ said Chin.

  ‘You’ll never guess,’ I said, enjoying myself.

  ‘No, I won’t. I don’t do the “guess” thing. Tell me.’

  God, Chin was a pain sometimes. ‘Sophia Gunning. And,’ I added maliciously, ‘she looked fantastic.’

  Chin ground her teeth. ‘That bitch,’ she said. ‘What a whore! What did she say?’

  ‘Actually, she was OK,’ I said. ‘She told me she missed you.’

  ‘Like a hole in the head, which is what I’ll give her if I ever see her again,’ Chin muttered. ‘God, I really need a drink now. Hello,’ she said, as the waiter approached. ‘Wine, please. Red?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Tom and I together.

  Ah, the simple gift of wine that brings families together.

  ‘So ever since they got home after Christmas, Rosalie’d been totally different,’ Chin said. ‘It’s hard for Mike – he doesn’t want to slag her off, but he’s terribly upset about the way she’s behaved. And, of course, he’s worried about her. Where the hell can she have gone?’

  We were standing at the counter of one of the great wonders of the Western world: the haberdashery department in Peter Jones. Which, on a Saturday in March, was full of people buying things for summer weddings and thus emitted a high-pitched frequency of stress that only dogs, brides and their mothers could hear. Apart from a short, violent row when Chin lost Tom and me and found us five minutes later, laughing hysterically at the novelty buttons, we had shopped together in remarkable harmony for hooks and eyes, ribbons, lace trimmings, Wundaweb magical hemming gauze and normal buttons, and were now waiting to hear about the mystery of tulle from one of the nice ladies who worked there.

  Tom was stroking the cream ribbon and blue lace garter he’d bought Chin as her ‘blue and new’. ‘I just don’t understand,’ he said finally. ‘I really liked Rosalie. I thought she was lovely.’

  My phone buzzed with a text message. I opened it. ‘Hi, Lizzy, I would like to hook up tonight. Give me a call and I will come round. I will call you later. Jaden.’ Not for the first time, I wondered why we were employing as a writer a man whose text messages read as if they were written by a Vulcan.

  ‘I know you did,’ Chin was saying impatiently, but not unkindly. ‘I did too. At least, I was starting to warm to her before…this.’

  ‘Actually, she was great after Dad said the thing about the house,’ I said.

  We were silent. None of us had mentioned SOKH yet, and no one had discussed the scenes that ensued that night after Dad’s announcement. Mainly because there hadn’t been any.

  Anyway, Rosalie had been great that night. She made everyone tea – yes, really. She drew Dad apart from the group, sensing that he was the one from whom everyone wanted answers, which they weren’t going to get. She got him chatting earnestly about church architecture and the finer points of Norm
an fonts, and never once looked glazed and bored. We, however, all sat around stunned and Mike, devastated, slunk off early to bed.

  Chin shivered and straightened. ‘She’s nice, I’m not saying she isn’t. It’s just…’ She tailed off as a sales assistant walked past, carrying a roll of sequins destined for someone else.

  ‘What?’ Tom said.

  ‘Well, don’t get me wrong. I want Rosalie and Mike to be happy. I just wonder, perhaps, about…’ Chin paused, as if she was choosing her words carefully. ‘I don’t know. Why she married Mike, maybe. It was very quick, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, what?’ Tom demanded. ‘Are you saying she only married Mike for a reason?’

  ‘Don’t be naïve, Tom. Everyone marries someone for a reason. It’s the reason in question that worries me.’

  ‘Well, Mike married her for a reason, didn’t he?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, of course he did,’ Chin said, opening her fist to count the pearl buttons she was holding. ‘Mike’s Mike. He’s my brother and a hopeless romantic who loves the big gesture. And what’s bigger than deciding you’ve fallen head over heels in love with someone you’ve only just met and that you’re going to marry them right away? It’s typical Mike.’ Her expression softened. ‘OK. I reckon Rosalie married Mike thinking she was getting the English-lord-in-the-stately-home thing, and then she comes over to England, sees that the house isn’t really Mike’s, then hears three days later that it’s being sold to some thug who owns a dodgy biscuit company and that in future the Walter family home isn’t some Elizabethan manor house, it’s – well, take your pick,’ she said, sliding the buttons on to the counter and ticking off each possibility angrily on her fingers. ‘Kate’s box-like cottage, which has two hundred back issues of Horse and Hound but no shower. Lizzy’s box-like flat, which is dusty and full of empty bottles. Tom’s minimalist yet box-like loft, which is full of broken gadgets. My house, which is a house but still the size of a box. Or your mum and dad’s box-sized new bungalow.’