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FIONA GIBSON
The Great Escape
Copyright
Avon
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012
Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2012
Cover design © Debbie Clement
Cover illustration © Lucy Truman
Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © February 2012 ISBN: 9780007461714
Version: 2018-05-11
Dedication
For the fabulous Dolphinton writers
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
Keep Reading
Fiona’s perfect girlie weekends away
Always wanted to write a novel?
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
ONE
Garnet Street, Glasgow, 1998
‘Tadaaa! All hail the party buffet …’ With a flourish, despite the fact that she’s alone in the kitchen, Hannah sets out three bowls on the worktop. She’s wearing an outsized white T-shirt, sipping beer from a bottle and pretending to be hosting a TV cookery show. ‘Here on the left, we have sumptuous tortilla chips, chilli flavour, the ones with red dust on … moving along, we have dry-roasted peanuts and this, the pièce de résistance, is my very own dip, which you can whip together in just a few minutes with some beans, garlic and, er …’ She swigs her beer, and detecting a garlicky whiff on her fingers, tries to remember what the other stuff was.
‘Ugh, has someone been sick?’
Hannah’s flatmate, Lou, has appeared at her shoulder, her freshly washed hair dripping rivulets down her cheeks.
‘It’s our buffet,’ Hannah explains with exaggerated patience. ‘Come on, you’re supposed to be impressed. I’ve finally managed to cook something before I leave. You should be in awe.’
‘I don’t think that counts as cooking.’ Lou winces as if Hannah might have scraped the stuff in the bowl off the pavement.
‘Well, I was going to make hummus but we didn’t have chickpeas, so I mashed up those butter beans instead.’
‘It looks ill. Kind of … beige.’
‘It’ll be fine once everyone’s had a few drinks,’ Hannah insists, mopping up a smear from the worktop.
Lou smirks. ‘Han, those butter beans have been in the cupboard since we moved in. Three years they’ve been sitting there. Your parents brought them in your emergency rations box, remember?’
‘Isn’t that the whole point of canning? They find tins at the bottom of the sea that have rolled out of shipwrecks, and when they open them they’re perfectly fine. These things just don’t go off.’
Now Sadie appears, swathed in a silky robe, dark hair pinned up with an assortment of clips. She peers at the dip from a safe distance. ‘Is that all we’ve got to eat?’
‘Well,’ Hannah says, ‘I was thinking of knocking up a banquet, wild boar on a spit, ice sculptures and all that, but …’ She checks her watch. ‘I kind of ran out of time.’
‘How late is it?’ Sadie asks.
‘Just gone seven …’
‘Hell …’ In a flash of red silk, Sadie flies out of the kitchen to the bathroom where she turns on the juddering tap (the tank only holds a bath-and-a-half’s worth of hot water, so the three girls are accustomed to a water-sharing system that requires a frequently flaunted no-clipping-of-toenails rule). Hannah glances down at the dip. Oh well, she thinks as Lou drifts back to her room, it’ll do for filling in that crack in the bathroom wall. It can be her parting gift to the flat.
Hannah doesn’t want to think of tonight as an end-of-era party. It’s a celebration, that’s what it is: of four years at art school, three spent living with Sadie and Lou on the first floor of a red sandstone tenement block perched on a perilously steep hill around the corner from college. Funny, she reflects, how a place so distinctly unlovely, with its mould-speckled bathroom and grumbling pipes, can feel like the most palatial abode when you’re about to leave it. It’s like getting a haircut. You can hate your hair, absolutely despise it to the point of wearing a hat at all times. Then, as you trot off to the salon, you glimpse your reflection in a shop window and think, actually, it looks great.
She wanders into the living room. It’s oppressively orange, thanks to the embossed patterned wallpaper which the girls’ landlord had said they were welcome to remove – as if three art students would be likely to get around to stripping it off and redecorating. Anyway, orange isn’t ugly, Hannah thinks now – it’s warm and cosy. Her beanbag, too, looks strangely lovely, even though it has long lost its squishiness and now resembles a large cowpat in brown corduroy. There were two beanbags originally; the other burst mysteriously at a previous party, disgorging its beany contents all over the floor. Johnny from the upstairs flat had accompanied Hannah to buy them from a closing-down sale. He’d insisted on carrying both beanbags – unwrapped, clutched in front of his body – with the sole purpose of pretending they were unfeasibly large testicles.
Hannah looks around the room, taking in the dog-eared magazines on the shelves, the film and exhibition posters fraying at the edges on the walls. A rush of panic engulfs her as she tries to imagine no Sadie, no Lou, no Johnny; no orangey living room to hang out in late into the night, no kitchen table to congregate around over breakfast. Don’t be maudlin, she tells herself firmly. This was never supposed to be forever. You’ve got a new job, a new life and it’ll be fantastic … At the sound of running water, Hannah makes for the bathroom and raps on the door. ‘Sadie, you nearly finished in there?’
‘Yeah, won’t be a minute …’
‘Hurry up, it’s nearly half seven …’
‘God, sorry, didn’t realise …’ There’s a squeak as Sadie’s wet feet hit the glittery lino. She emerges from the bathroom, damp dark hair tumbling around the shoulders of her robe. Her toenails are painted fuchsia, her dark brows arched dramatically against her creamy skin. Sexy Sadie, the boys call her, although Sadie is blasé about her allure, a combination of Italian colouring and sensational curves. Catching Hannah’s eye, she pauses in the hallway.
‘You okay, Han? Feeling a bit wobbly about tonight?’
Hannah shakes her head firmly. ‘I’m fine, honestly.’
‘Just wondered,’ Sadie adds gently, ‘with this being our last party, end of an era and all that …’
Hannah musters a wide smile. ‘Yeah. Don’t remind me.’ Her eyes moisten, but she quickly blinks away the tears. ‘Anyway, better make myself look presentable. We’ve still got to sort out the music and I’ve got to get this garlicky stink off my hands …’
‘I’ll do the music. You go and beautify yourself.’
‘Okay. And look, I know you might find it hard to control yourself, but keep your fingers out of that butter bean dip, okay?’ With that, Hannah strides into the bathroom, dropping her T-shirt and underwear onto the floor where they lie next to Lou and Sadie’s discarded clothing. Sadie’s red fluffy mules have been kicked off by the washbasin; Lou’s beaded Indian slippers are neatly paired up by the door. Hannah sinks into the lukewarm water, detecting a prickle of toenail at the base of her spine. Shifting up onto her knees, she fits the pink plastic hose over the taps and lets the water pour over her wavy fair hair. It’s shudderingly cold at first, then come the gurgles as the last dregs of hot water splutter through.
She can hear Lou singing through the thin bathroom wall. Hannah knows she’s probably trying on dress after dress in those weeny vintage sizes that only someone with her doll-sized proportions could ever hope to squeeze into. Hannah is more athletically built, with taut, defined calves from cycling furiously around Glasgow’s hilly streets. Will London be like that? Will it be possible to cycle to work without getting flattened under a bus? She hasn’t even figured out her work route yet. Archway to Islington isn’t that far, apparently, but how will she get from one page of the A-Z to another whilst riding her bike? Hannah doesn’t want to look like a tourist, peering at maps. She wants to be a proper, breezy London girl who belongs.
Her stomach whirls as she turns off the hose. She’s always anxious before a party and this one matters more than most. Drying herself with a towel that has all the softness of a road surface, she can hardly believe she’s leaving. She’ll miss those hungover breakfasts of bendy white toast and Philadelphia cheese. She’ll miss all of them piling into Johnny’s battered pillarbox-red Beetle and planning numerous jaunts to Loch Lomond, but never quite making it because there was always some party to go to instead. She’ll miss whiling away entire afternoons in Puccini’s, the best Italian café in Glasgow. The thought of those ordinary things no longer being part of her life triggers an ache in her gut. Hannah can’t cry, though. Not now.
Glimpsing her wide blue eyes in the tarnished bathroom mirror, she wills herself not to lose it tonight. She’s a grown-up now – no longer a student, but a real woman with a job waiting for her, and a flat, albeit with the dimensions of a Shreddies box. And she’s not planning to ruin her last night here by being a blubbering wreck.
TWO
‘Lighten up, Lou-Lou. Hannah’s not dying, she’s only going to London.’ Spike, Lou’s boyfriend, rolls his eyes and looks up at the multicoloured plastic chandelier in mock exasperation.
‘You don’t understand,’ Lou retorts. ‘It’s a huge deal actually.’
Hannah moves away and grabs her glass from the top of a speaker. For the past five hours she’s been as bright and bouncy as it’s possible to be, and now she’s flagging a little. London, she keeps thinking. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be tucked up in bed in London. Hannah has only been there twice – the first time was on a mini-break with her parents when she was ten years old. All she can remember are monkeys hurling themselves around in their zoo enclosure, and her parents taking zillions of pictures of Big Ben while she tried to understand what was so thrilling about an enormous clock. You don’t get that in a tiny Fife fishing village, she’d concluded.
On her second London trip, six weeks ago now, Hannah had travelled down alone on an overnight coach to meet her new colleagues (the very word thrills her) at Catfish, the small design company that offered her a job as an in-house illustrator after her final degree show. Her new boss, Michael, put her in touch with a property-letting agency, where a Japanese girl who looked about fifteen took her to see a studio flat in Archway. ‘See, it’s all freshly decorated, perfect for someone like you who’s starting out,’ the girl enthused.
Starting out. That’s it, Hannah decides. It’s a new chapter, waiting for her to dive right in. Right now, though, of more immediate concern is the fact that there doesn’t appear to be a drop of alcohol left in the flat. Someone hands Spike a drink, and he’s appalled to discover it’s plain lemonade.
‘What’s this?’ he cries, in a voice that suggests they’re trying to poison him.
‘He’s such an arse sometimes,’ Lou mutters, sidling up to Hannah.
‘You love him really,’ Hannah teases.
‘Do I? Sometimes I don’t know. Sometimes, and I know this sounds awful and I really shouldn’t say it, but …’
‘What?’
‘I wish I was you. God, Han, I do love him, he’s great, but it feels so scary now, having no lectures to go to, no structure, no nothing. It’s just me. Me and Spike.’
‘Hey, you.’ Hannah pulls in Lou for a hug. ‘You’ll be fine. We all will. Anyway, as soon as I’m sorted, you and Sadie are coming down to visit and maybe you’ll move too …’
‘He won’t,’ Lou says dryly.
‘Well, maybe he will.’ Hannah hesitates, then takes Lou by the hand and leads her to the beanbag where they both flop down. ‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘it’s really about what you want, isn’t it?’
Lou nods mutely. Sadie is dancing in front of them, her outrageous curves encased in a black Lycra dress. It’s gone 3 am and around twenty people are still here, mostly dancing, some kissing in corners. It’s a warm June night, and Hannah hasn’t kissed anyone – at least not properly – since their New Year party, which Lou and Sadie regard as a serious snog drought. It’s better this way, Hannah decides now, spotting Johnny locked in conversation with his new girlfriend Rona. Being ensconced in a relationship, like Lou is with Spike, would just be too complicated.
‘Dancing, Han?’ Having managed to detach himself from Rona, Johnny has appeared in front of her, all gangly limbs and dark Irish eyes and clothes that always look a shade too big for him.
Hannah laughs and shakes her head. ‘I’m knackered, Johnny. Completely done in. I’m having a little sabbatical here.’
‘Oh c’mon, lightweight.’ He bobs down and grabs her hand.
‘I’ve been dancing for hours!’ she protests.
He cocks his head to one side. ‘Come on, Han. Last chance.’
Grinning, she allows him to pull her up to her feet. She dances, conscious of Rona watching her intently, as if she might be planning to kidnap Johnny, stuff him into one of her crates and whisk him off to her studio flat in Archway. ‘I’m dying of thirst,’ she announces as the song finishes.
‘There’s definitely nothing left to drink,’ announces Sadie, glossy red lipstick somewhat smeared.
‘We must have something,’ Hannah declares, heading for the kitchen as Rona reclaims Johnny with a sharp tug of his arm.
‘Spike saves the day!’ Spike announces, brandishing a bottle of red wine like a trophy.
‘Where d’you find that?’ Hannah asks.
‘Ah, well …’ He taps the side of his nose. ‘It was hiding at the back of your cupboard behind Lou’s bird food cereal.’
‘Spike, you can’t drink that!’ Lou shrieks from the doorway.
‘Why not?’ He grips the bottle to his chest as if someone might try to wrestle it from him.
‘My parents gave it to me the day I left home. It’s to stay unopened for fifteen years – that’s why it was hidden – and then it’ll be worth a fortune.’
‘Fifteen years?’ Spike looks bereft. ‘How can anyone be expected to wait that long for a drink?’
‘Mum and Dad’ll go crazy,’ Lou laments. ‘God, Spike, you’ll have to jam the cork back in. Quick, before air gets in and ruins it …’
‘Jeez …’ Spike rakes a hand through his hair. ‘Sorry, Lou-Lou. I just thought, seeing as it’s still early …’
Lou pauses, then her small, dainty face erupts into a grin. ‘You honestly think my parents would trust me to keep a bottle of wine for fifteen years? It’s just ordinary stuff we must have forgotten about. Come on, get it open.’ Obediently, and clearly relieved, Spike pours a glass.
‘You’re not actually planning to drink that, are you?’ Rona has wandered into the kitchen, and is gripping Johnny’s hand firmly.
Spike raises his glass unsteadily. ‘Yeah. Why not?’
‘Because it’s disgusting. It’s got bits in it. Look.’ Rona steps forward – she’s all bones and sharp edges, Hannah decides – and prods his glass with a burgundy fingernail.
Spike peers at it. ‘Right. Well, they’re probably just bits of grape, and fruit’s good for you, isn’t it …’
‘… says Glasgow’s top wine connoisseur,’ someone quips.
‘No one would drink that unless they had some kind of problem,’ Rona retorts, glaring at Johnny as if expecting him to agree.
‘The only problem Spike’s got,’ he chuckles, ‘is how to strain out the bits.’
Spike frowns as if faced with a tough mathematical equation. ‘Yeah, you’re right. What can we use?’
‘A colander?’ someone suggests.
‘I know.’ Spike brightens. ‘Get me some tights, Lou. Clean ones, not fishnet, and not grubby old things out of your linen basket either …’
‘What for?’
‘Straining. Rona’s right – there are bits floating about in it. God knows, you girls keep a terrible wine cellar.’
Giggling, Lou rushes off to her room, returning with a pair of black tights, which Spike carefully stretches over a stripey milk jug so a leg dangles down at each side. He pours out the contents of his glass, and then the rest of the wine from the bottle into the gusset. Filtration complete, he removes Lou’s wine-sodden hosiery from the jug and shares out the wine. A disgusted Rona clip-clops back to the living room.
Someone has turned the music down, and a sense of quiet – or, perhaps, hushed respect for Spike’s ingenuity – settles over the group. ‘Where did you learn to do that, Spike?’ asks Sadie.
‘Boy scouts,’ he sniggers, ‘although there wasn’t a badge for it, sadly.’
With a smile, Hannah sips from her glass and lets her gaze skim over her favourite people in the whole world:
Lou, a talented jeweller, who, despite the odd flash of exasperation, is bonkers in love with the most flirtatious man in Glasgow (even now, with Lou in the room, Spike is sneaking quick glances at some friend of a friend with a long blonde plait coiled ingeniously on top of her head).
Sadie, the half-Italian beauty, who’s already had orders for her sensational hand-printed corsets, and on whom pretty much every boy in their year has nurtured an ill-disguised crush.
Johnny from upstairs, a catering student, virtually their fourth flatmate and provider of emergency rations ever since, one bleak winter’s night, he popped down to find the girls stony broke, trying to pretend that Weetabix and lime marmalade constituted a perfectly well-balanced meal. Johnny, whose new girlfriend is, although icily beautiful, a most unsuitable choice.
Hannah knows, too, that Johnny’s love life is none of her business, especially now, when she’s leaving. Feeling her stomach tighten, she glances again at Sadie and Lou who catch the look on her face, and who at once wrap their arms tightly around her. ‘Don’t forget us, will you?’ Sadie murmurs.
‘Are you mad? Of course I won’t …’ Then, as Rona comes in search of her fake alligator bag which someone must have ‘stolen’ – she finds it wedged behind the kitchen door – Johnny grabs Hannah by the arm and says, ‘Great party, Han. The best.’
‘Thanks, Johnny.’ She blinks, not knowing what else to say.
He meets her gaze, and she’s surprised by the flicker of sadness she sees in his eyes. ‘A new start, isn’t it?’ he adds.
‘Guess so. It’s bloody terrifying, though …’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ he mutters.
Hannah frowns. ‘What, London?’
He glances around the girls’ devastated kitchen. ‘Um … yeah. Sort of.’
‘Johnny?’ says Rona sharply. ‘You ready to go now? I’ve got a pounding headache.’
‘Yep, just coming.’ He smiles stoically. ‘So you’re off tomorrow?’
Hannah nods. ‘Mum and Dad are coming with the van at eleven. The way Dad drives, it should only take us about three weeks to get to London.’
Johnny laughs. ‘Bye, then, Han.’
‘Bye, Johnny.’ They pause, and he hugs her before Rona takes his hand and leads him to the door.
The final stragglers leave amidst drunken good-lucks, and Spike totters unsteadily towards Lou’s bedroom, a smear of pink, which doesn’t match Lou’s lipstick, on his cheek. ‘My God,’ Lou breathes, taking in the nuts and tortilla chips crunched into the cork-tiled floor, the gigantic pub ashtray piled high with butts and the table crammed with smeared glasses and empty bottles. ‘We really should make a start on this.’
Hannah nods wearily. ‘Yeah, let’s do it now.’
‘No,’ Sadie declares, ‘not on your last night. Me and Lou will do it tomorrow after you’ve gone.’
‘But I can’t leave you with this!’
‘’Course you can,’ Lou cuts in. ‘It’ll keep us busy – stop us pining for you, sobbing into your beanbag.’
‘Well, if you insist …’ Suddenly, Hannah’s attention is caught by a tissue-wrapped bottle nestling between the bread bin and the microwave. ‘Look, someone’s left this.’ Frowning, she examines the gift tag attached to its neck and rips off the wrapping. ‘It’s from Johnny. Oh, that’s sweet of him. Look, there’s something else too.’ As Sadie wrestles out the cork, and Lou grabs three plastic cups, Hannah peels the lid from a faded Tupperware box. GIRLS – FOR YOUR LAST BREAKFAST TOGETHER MAYBE? J x is written neatly across it in felt-tip. It’s an apple tart, the segments fanning out in circles beneath a golden glaze. Hannah smiles, snaps off a fragment of pastry and lets it dissolve on her tongue.
There’s a card, too, propped up against the bread bin. She studies Johnny’s old-fashioned forward-sloping writing on the envelope and rips it open. The card depicts a wobbly line drawing of Glasgow, with the famous buildings all jammed in together, jostling for space. Dear Han, it reads, So you’re off! We’re all going to miss you like mad, you know. What’s going to become of us? Who knows? And we’ll definitely miss your cooking! Haha. But we’ll be okay as long as you remember us and wear a bloody bike helmet in London. That’s an absolute order, and I’ve alerted the police to keep an eye on you too. Love, J.
‘Oh, Johnny,’ Hannah murmurs as Sadie fills the cups with tepid champagne. Raising hers to her lips, she wipes away the hot tears that have sprung to her eyes. ‘I’d like to make a speech,’ she says.
‘Speech! Speech!’ cry Sadie and Lou.
Hannah takes a deep breath. ‘I just want to say … I love both of you and we’re never going to lose touch, okay?’ She pauses as her friends murmur their agreement, then adds, ‘And there’s another thing.’
‘What?’ Sadie asks.
‘Johnny’s apple tart. I don’t think I can wait till breakfast, can you?’
THREE
The morning after
As Hannah and her parents trundle down the M6 in a hired van, Lou heads back upstairs, breathless and grubby from lugging a third black sack to the wheelie bin outside. ‘Oh, hi,’ she exclaims. Johnny is sitting at the kitchen table, studying Hannah’s butter bean dip into which someone has extinguished a cigarette.
‘That’s horrible, that.’ He looks up and smiles. ‘It’s an absolute crime against humanity. It looked so tempting as well.’
‘Ha. Yeah, disgusting. God knows who did that. Spike, probably. How old is he again?’ Johnny looks at her blankly. ‘Thirty-five,’ Lou reminds him. ‘I’m going out with a thirty-five-year-old man who still can’t use an ashtray because so many other things will do instead.’
Johnny smirks. ‘Where is he anyway?’
‘Went back to bed for more beauty sleep.’ Lou pulls a wry smile. ‘So has Sadie, lazy sods.’ She laughs, suddenly conscious of her limp, hungover hair and shiny face flecked with the remnants of last night’s mascara. She’s still in her pyjamas too – embarrassing ancient fleecy ones, not like the posh silk ensemble Sadie wears. Thank God she’s flung a sweater over her top. ‘Thanks for the apple tart,’ she adds. ‘That was very sweet of you. I’d have saved you some but we scarfed it all down last night.’
‘No problem. It was my first attempt, thought you could give me your verdict. So, left you with all the clearing up, have they?’
Lou grins. ‘Oh, Spike managed to pick up a beer bottle and rinse out my wine-strainer tights.’ She perches on the opposite chair. ‘Are you okay? Feeling a bit fragile?’
‘Er, guess so.’ He looks it, Lou thinks; not mildly poisoned, as Spike currently is, flat on his back in her bed with a saucer-cum-ashtray perched beside it, fag ends piled up like a mini Mount Etna. Johnny’s is a different kind of malaise altogether.
He looks up at Lou, and it fazes her, the way he regards her so intently. She gets up and rinses out the Tupperware box. No one knows – not even Hannah or Sadie – how she really feels about Johnny. She hasn’t said anything because he’s a friend to all of them, a flatmate really, separated only by one floor. Admitting that she’s nurtured a crush on him this past year, since Spike’s less endearing qualities came to the fore, would upset the balance and change everything. Anyway, she has Spike and Johnny has Rona. Spike might be annoying but he’s lived a life that Lou still finds fascinating, and he adores her. Lou has never been so completely adored by a boy – well, a man, Spike is thirteen years older than her. She looks forward to the moment when her Johnny-crush suddenly clicks off, as if by a switch.
‘D’you want an Alka-Seltzer?’ she asks to break the awkward hush. ‘Or something to eat? I might be able to rustle up a bagel if you’re lucky …’
He exhales. ‘No thanks. I’m not hung over, Lou. I hardly had anything to drink last night.’ There’s another pause, broken by Spike launching into a coughing fit in Lou’s bedroom. ‘Listen,’ Johnny adds. ‘I’m … I’m not supposed to tell anyone this. Rona’ll kill me if she finds out because she’s not ready to—’
‘What?’ Lou murmurs, frowning.
‘She … Rona’s pregnant.’
‘Oh God, Johnny.’ No, that’s not right. He might be delighted – perhaps they even planned it – and he’s just a bit shell-shocked and hasn’t quite taken it in. Lou sits on the chair beside him and tries to settle her face into a neutral expression. Johnny doesn’t look delighted, though. He looks like someone whose life has spun out of control.
‘We found out a few days ago,’ he adds dully.
‘So it’s still early?’
Johnny nods.
‘Um … what d’you think you’ll do?’ There are soft footsteps in the hall, then extravagant splashing as Spike pees into the loo, followed by a clanking flush as the flat’s prehistoric plumbing system kicks into action. Lou wills Spike to go back to bed.
‘I don’t know, Lou. Fuck …’ He shakes his head. ‘It’s a mess …’
Lou stares at her friend, a twenty-four-year-old student who loves staying up all night watching Steve McQueen films, and who’ll suddenly be propelled down that mysterious supermarket aisle that she’s only ever found herself in by mistake – the one with gigantic packs of disposable nappies and row upon row of little jars of food, every product bearing a baby’s face.
‘Oh, Johnny. I’m sure it’ll be okay …’
‘Will it, Lou? I just don’t know.’
What he does next shocks her. Capable Johnny, creator of proper meals, incorporating vegetables – obscure vegetables sometimes, like yams and butternut squash – has his head in his hands. Then he turns to her and cries into her grubby old sweater as she holds him and says that whatever happens, he’ll be okay, she’ll help him, she’ll do anything she can. Lou’s eyes are wet too. He pulls away and looks at her, then he’s kissing her on the lips, and her head spins and she knows she should pull away, but just can’t. It’s Johnny who stops, looks at her and pulls her into an embrace. They are holding each other now, not moving or speaking and not seeing Spike who’s happened to glance into the kitchen, hoping to find a cigarette or even a decent-sized butt in the ashtray. Instead, he sees his beautiful girlfriend wrapped up with that tosser from upstairs, who has always had a thing for Lou, he bloody knew it.
Spike turns slowly and pads back to Lou’s room where he’ll rummage through her chest of drawers in case she has a stray packet of cigarettes lying around. Then, once his nicotine levels have returned to an acceptable level, he’ll crawl back into her unmade bed and plot the slow, painful death of Johnny Lynch.
FOUR
Thirteen years later
Hannah steps into her wedding dress and studies herself in the mirror. She’d liked the simple cream shift when she’d tried it on at the department store, or at least she’d believed the persuasive salesgirl who’d said she looked ‘elegant, sort of Grace Kelly-esque.’ Heels were picked out too, plus a matching cream-coloured clutch. ‘It’s an elegant look,’ the girl reassured her, ‘but still lovely and young and fresh.’ Now, though, at 7.35 am in the chilly upper reaches of Ryan’s townhouse, Hannah doesn’t feel young, fresh or remotely Grace Kelly-esque.
She looks like a fat nurse. As if the perfect accessory isn’t the seed-pearl tiara Lou has already made for her, but one of those blood pressure devices that clamps around your arm. Instead of neatly skimming Hannah’s body, as it had in the changing room, the dress now clings a little too tightly to her breasts and hips and bunches up like a carrier bag around her middle.
Either she, or the dress, must have changed shape in the two days since she bought it. Even its shade seems to have altered. The shop girl had called it oyster, but Hannah is now thinking over-boiled cauliflower. She is a fat nurse in a cauliflower dress. You hear of people bolting from the church or registry office in blind panic just before they’re due to exchange vows. She can just picture Ryan glimpsing her in that dress – it’s already become that dress, and not in a good way – and hurtling out of the building.
It’s not, Hannah decides as she tugs it off over her head and throws it onto the bed, the best start to a grey Monday morning.
‘He stole my iPod to look at my photos and now he won’t give it back!’ wails Daisy, Ryan’s ten-year-old daughter.
‘Who cares about your stupid sleepover photos?’ Josh, her big brother, shoots back. ‘I’ve got better stuff to do than look at your dumb friends.’
‘Why were you looking then?’
‘’Cause I wanted to see what you had on it.’
‘Dad. DAAAD!’ There’s a screech, and as Hannah pulls on her black vest top and faded jeans, she detects the soothing tones of Ryan, her future husband, possessor of infinite patience and soon-to-be-witness of the cauliflower nurse dress.
‘Hey,’ he says, ‘come on, you two … isn’t this a stupid thing to argue about? Yes, I hear what you’re saying, Daisy, I know they’re your private pictures, but Josh …’ Hannah pulls her fair hair back into a ponytail and waits at the top of the stairs.
‘Little shit,’ Josh barks. ‘You’re so spoilt.’ Ah, Ryan’s firstborn, just turned fourteen, liberal sprayer of Lynx (preferred fragrance ‘Excite’ – ‘A rare gourmand-oriental mixture of fresh green accords and woody base notes,’ Hannah had read while perusing the can with interest in the bathroom). Although she’s been living here for six months, it still strikes her as completely bizarre that Ryan is responsible for half the genetic make-up of the most life-sapping kids she’s ever met. Occasionally, Hannah wonders if she’s really doing the right thing by marrying him – but then, why should his offspring sabotage her future with the man she loves? This is the sweet, funny, sexy man with whom she exchanged life stories on the night they met. The man who turned up unannounced at her flat one sunny Sunday morning with a picnic for two. The man with whom she’s travelled to Barcelona, lain kissing on a Cornish beach and joked that, if they spent any more time in bed together, they might have to arrange for a delivery man to slide a pizza under the door.
‘Arsewipe,’ Daisy shoots back.
‘That’s enough,’ snaps Ryan as Hannah heads downstairs, gritting her teeth, a vein pulsating in her jaw as she tries to mentally transform herself into a vision of smiles and perkiness.
‘But Dad, all I did was—’ Josh starts.
‘You should respect your sister’s things,’ Ryan barks as Hannah steps over a lone, grubby-soled football sock in the hallway. ‘She doesn’t fiddle about with your stuff.’
‘She nicked my headphones,’ Josh counters. ‘She broke ’em and peeled the spongy bits off.’
‘I did not,’ Daisy snarls. ‘They were broke anyway. They were crap.’
‘Daisy,’ says Ryan firmly, ‘I don’t want to listen to this and I’m sure Hannah doesn’t either.’
‘Huh,’ Josh snorts, clearly meaning, Who cares what your stupid girlfriend thinks?
Pausing before entering the conflict zone, Hannah sees flashes of Ryan through the half-open door as he darts back and forth across the kitchen. Busy Dad, rattling through the morning routine before hurrying off to work. Hannah can’t help feeling irritated on his behalf and, rather than sauntering straight in, she takes a moment to consider what she should do next.
She could face the horrible truth that, despite her fantasies of being a friendly elder sister type to Daisy and Josh – watching movies together, perhaps even advising them occasionally in those rare moments when Ryan runs out of steam – it won’t happen. In their eyes, she will never rise above the status of an apple core they’ve found rotting on the floor of the car. This means she should probably tiptoe to the front door and let herself out, leaving Ryan, his kids and that disgusting nurse dress, and never see any of them again.
Or she could stride into that kitchen, mature and confident like the grown-up woman she is, and seize control of the day.
FIVE
A muffled beeping noise is coming from somewhere in the depths of Sadie’s bag. The bag is enormous and bulging and looks more like a vast quilted navy-blue pillow than anything you’d willingly lug around. It makes Sadie feel unbalanced, although she’s started to feel that way when she’s not carrying the bag, so perhaps it’s her natural state now.
The beeping noise is Sadie’s mobile, gasping for breath beneath the nappies, bottles, hats, wipes, bibs, extra sweaters (lovingly knitted in pale lemon yarn by Barney’s mum), bendy rubbery spoons and jars of baby food. It might as well be in Tasmania for all she can reach it. She stops with the buggy on the damp path in the park and frantically searches for it. Typical. Just as she manages to locate the phone, it stops ringing.
Missed call from Hannah. It’s 8.07 am. Why is she calling so early? Is something wrong? More to the point, what’s Sadie doing, marching around Hissingham Park on a blustery morning when normal people are having breakfast, drinking coffee in their cosy homes and browsing the newspapers? Yet she had to get out. Barney leaves at seven am every weekday, catching the train for his London-bound commute. Dylan and Milo took exception to Daddy leaving today, swiftly working themselves up to inconsolable on the baby mood-scale. Sadie tried feeding them, then carrying them both, one plonked on each hip, through every room in the house. She tried singing and even dancing in their small, cave-like kitchen, then gathered them onto her lap and read Peepo! twice. Nothing worked. She sees her imaginary parenting test paper covered in angry red scrawlings with FAIL written across it in huge capitals. Must try harder, Sadie Vella. Eight months into this course and we’re still seeing little improvement. Now, as a cool wind stirs the branches of a sycamore above her, scattering rain droplets onto Sadie’s pillow-flattened hair, Dylan starts to cry again. This means that returning Hannah’s call will have to wait.
Sadie strides on, hoping that the buggy’s steady motion will soothe her son, and also that Hannah is okay. Of course she is. Her life seems to be going spectacularly well at the moment. She has a great job, having risen through the ranks at Catfish to become head of the entire creative department. She has a gorgeous, caring and enviably grown-up man who loves her to pieces and writes adverts for – actually, Sadie can’t remember who Ryan writes ads for. Hannah has told her several times but it whooshed in through one ear and out the other, as most things do these days. Sadie wonders what’s now occupying the space in her head where her brain used to be. Teddy bear stuffing, or stale air, like the inside of a neglected fridge? Only this morning it took her fifteen minutes to locate her keys before she could leave the house. She couldn’t find the boys’ soft leather baby shoes either, so they’re each wearing two pairs of thick baby socks. Supposedly simple tasks have become virtually insurmountable. Sadie can’t fathom how women manage to hold down paid jobs as well as look after their children, bake cakes and fashion ‘amusing’ toddler meals where the cannelloni look like little people sleeping under a blanket.
‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ she murmurs, parking the buggy next to the café that hasn’t even opened yet, and bobbing down to try and soothe Dylan. A young girl is in the café – Sadie thinks she’s Polish – placing small vases of flowers on each table. Milo, apparently unconcerned by his brother’s anguish, is studying the spindly weathervane on the café’s roof. Sadie unclips Dylan’s buggy restraints, picks him up and cradles him close to her chest.
Rocking him gently, she absent-mindedly jiggles the buggy with her free hand. A ruddy-faced woman, her round cheeks accentuated by a short, choppy hairstyle, is striding along the path towards her. Hannah knows without doubt that this woman will stop and talk to her; it’s what people in Little Hissingham do. As well as motherhood, Sadie is also trying to get to grips with village life where everyone seems to know her as ‘the one with the twins’, even though she hasn’t the foggiest idea who most of these people are.
‘Oooh, you’re the one with the twins,’ the woman exclaims unnecessarily, cocking her head to one side as she fixes her gaze on Dylan’s tear-blotched face.
‘That’s right,’ Sadie says, pulling her lips into a smile.
‘What’ve you got again? Boy and a girl?’
‘No. Two boys.’
‘Aw, shame! Were you awfully disappointed?’
No, of course I bloody wasn’t, Sadie thinks angrily. ‘No, not at all,’ she says firmly. That’s better. She’s managed to wrestle her thoughts under control instead of having to restrain herself from slapping the woman.
‘Well, you got more than you bargained for there,’ the woman chuckles.
Sadie places Dylan, who’s calmed down a little now, back into the buggy. ‘Well, yes, it is pretty busy. Keeps me out of trouble, you know.’
‘IVF?’
‘Sorry?’ Sadie laughs involuntarily.
‘I mean, are they IVF babies?’
‘Er … no … why d’you say that?’ Sadie feels her heart quickening as, for a split second, she wishes Barney were here to tell the woman to mind her own damn business. Even if they had had fertility treatment – which they hadn’t – why would she wish to discuss it with a stranger in the park?
‘’Cause my sister,’ the woman continues, scratching her chin, ‘she and her fella tried for years, the old ovulation kit with the menstrual cycle and all that. Nothing happened. Took all the romance out of it, you know? Became, like … mechanical. Not romantic at all.’ Sadie is jamming her molars together so hard, she fears they might start to crumble. When did she start needing Barney to protect her in situations like this?
‘So it was twins they had,’ the woman rants on, ‘and God, they’re hard work, aren’t they? Not a second to yourself. You’ll know all about that, haha!’ She peers down at the buggy. ‘Don’t they have any shoes?’
‘Er, yes, but I couldn’t find …’
‘It’s a cold day,’ the woman scolds her. ‘Their little tootsies’ll be freezing …’
Phone bloody social services then, Sadie wants to scream. Or make a sodding citizen’s arrest. ‘Sorry, I’m in a hurry,’ she blurts out, charging off with the buggy, and wondering where she can go that’s not the inside of her soul-crushing house – sorry, cottage – but also where that woman won’t find her and start interrogating her on her sex life.
Both the children are crying now, signalling that feeding time is upon them. Sadie is still breastfeeding the babies, although they do, mercifully, also have bottles of formula, jars of food and her home-made concoctions. Determined to up her parenting grade – she’s awarded herself a D-minus so far – she bought a vast array of vegetables yesterday which she chopped at midnight and simmered until 1 am when Barney (and probably the entire Western hemisphere) was sleeping soundly, only to realise that the damn stuff couldn’t be frozen in ice cube trays until it had cooled properly. She found herself blowing on the vatful of steamy mush, then worried that she was breathing stinky adult germs on it and would infect her children with gastro-enteritis. It was too smooth as well – she’d overdone the mushing. By eight months her children should be managing lumps, finger food, great saddles of lamb, probably. Sadie finally staggered to bed at 2.30 am, cursing Barney for the sole reason that he had the audacity to be asleep, precisely ninety minutes before the babies woke up, eyes pinging open to full alertness, ready for their first feed of the day.
Is Sadie feeding them too much, too little or too often? She has no idea. She’s read so many baby manuals that they’ve all merged into one fat, hectoring tome. When she presented her hastily defrosted home-made baby food this morning – realising she needn’t have frozen it after all – Milo and Dylan spat it all out onto their white towelling Monday bibs.
Who could blame them? she thinks now, pushing the double buggy at a determined speed. What’s wrong with shop-bought baby food anyway? It’s made by experts – people whose lives are dedicated to formulating stuff packed with nutrients that babies will actually enjoy and not spit out. Sadie can’t compete with that.
Catching her breath, she heads for the rose garden where she knows there are benches, and which is shielded from the rest of the park by dense, square-cut hedges. For someone who was once body-confident, pouring her luscious curves into corseted lingerie which she constructed herself, Sadie is incredibly self-conscious about breast-feeding in public. She and Barney pored over soft pencil illustrations of possible feeding positions in Twins: Your Essential Survival Guide. It’s okay for the women in those drawings, she thinks now. They don’t have to sit on damp park benches with a baby clamped to each bosom and spot a teenage boy glancing through a gap in the hedge, looking completely appalled. Plus, the women’s breasts in those illustrations don’t overproduce milk until it seeps through their breast pads, making their gargantuan nursing bras wet and smelly (no boned, hand-stitched underwear for Sadie these days). She has never felt more aware of being a mammal in her entire life.
She’s just sat down, and is lifting an agitated Milo from his buggy, when her mobile trills into life again. Clasping him tightly to her lap, she fishes the phone from her bag, quickly enough to take the call this time.
‘Sadie?’ comes Hannah’s voice. ‘Are you okay to talk for a minute?’
‘Yes, sort of,’ she says, phone in one hand, and wrapping her other arm around her writhing son. ‘Just about to feed, though. Boys are a bit unsettled. Oh, hang on a sec …’ Milo squirms in her lap. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks quickly.
‘Er, yeah, I’m fine …’
‘Where are you?’ Sadie asks.
‘Outside. Just outside the house.’
‘What, your house?’
‘Um, yes … just had to get out for a minute. I know this sounds mad …’ Sadie hears Hannah blow out a big gust of air.
‘What’s wrong? Is everything okay with you and Ryan?’
‘Yeah, it’s fine! I mean it’s fine with us. It’s just, um … the kids, Sadie. They’re just …’
‘Has something happened?’
‘Oh, not really … Look, I’m sorry to load this on you at this time in the morning but they’re all in the kitchen right now, bickering, and I just … I don’t know why, but maybe it’s because I’ve just tried on my wedding dress and it’s horrible. Really ugly and plain. What was I thinking? I should’ve asked you to come into town and we could have had a lovely day and picked something together. And I bought a clutch bag. A clutch bag! I’ve never owned one in my life. Will I have to go around clutching it all day?’
‘Well, I’m sure you are allowed to put it down, or someone will look after—’
‘It’s horrible,’ Hannah cuts in. ‘Like something Princess Anne would carry. Can you imagine me with a clutch bag? And I got this fear, you know? This horrible feeling about …’ Her voice falters.
‘What, about getting married?’ Sadie exclaims, unable to work out whether her friend’s distress has to do with Ryan’s kids, the dress or the Princess Anne bag.
‘I don’t know,’ Hannah says. ‘I … I just had to talk to you.’
‘Maybe it’s just the wedding,’ Sadie murmurs. ‘All the organising and preparations … you know what? You should have a hen party. Let your hair down and have a bit of fun.’
Hannah laughs weakly. ‘I’d love one, and the girls at work have been on at me to sort something out …’
‘Well, why don’t you?’ Somewhere in her distant past, Sadie remembers clubs with music playing, drinks flowing and women moving freely without lugging gigantic quilted bags. She pictures a glass of white wine, and her entire body tingles with longing.
‘Oh, I don’t know …’ Hannah tails off. ‘What’s that noise anyway?’
‘It’s the boys, they’re hungry. Sorry, Han, I’d better go …’ Sadie clamps her mobile between her shoulder and ear while gently bouncing Milo up and down and rocking the buggy. She eyes the hedge and wonders if anyone would mind if she crawled under it and fell asleep.
‘God, they sound upset. I won’t keep you a minute. Yes, I’ve thought about a hen party but you know what? I’d only want you – you and Lou, I mean – and that would be impossible, wouldn’t it?’
‘Maybe not. I’m only an hour away and York’s not that far … maybe you’d better speak to Lou. I haven’t talked to her in ages. Look, Han, I’d really better …’ Sadie’s attention is diverted by a large black dog bounding towards her, pink tongue lolling from its mouth.
‘D’you think Lou’s okay?’ Hannah asks. ‘I worry about her and Spike sometimes. He never seems to appreciate …’
‘Uh-huh,’ Sadie mutters, holding Milo tightly as she jumps up and tries to form a human barrier between the buggy and hound.
‘I mean, she’s working all hours at that horrible soft play place and keeping the jewellery thing going …’ Perhaps it’s chronic sleep deprivation, or the fact that becoming a mother has turned Sadie into a lumbering beast incapable of rapid movement. Whatever the reason, the dog shoots past her and proceeds to lash Dylan’s terrified face with its tongue.
‘No!’ Sadie screams with her mobile still clamped to her ear. Dylan squeals loudly.
‘I mean, what does Spike do all day?’ Hannah wants to know. ‘Sits on his arse, strumming a guitar, waiting for a recording contract to drop into his lap …’
‘Stop that!’ Sadie shrieks, shoving herself between the dog and Dylan, whose cries have morphed into hearty wails.
‘What’s happening?’ Hannah asks.
‘There’s a dog here! It’s trying to attack Dylan and there’s no bloody owner and—’ She drops her phone onto the path and its back pings off. ‘Shit,’ she mutters, deciding that her baby’s immediate wellbeing is more important than a three-year-old Nokia. A tall, scrawny man whistles for the dog at the rose garden’s entrance. No apology, no acknowledgement that his slavering beast has nearly devoured her child, or at the very least infected him with some terrible dog-tongue disease, and caused Sadie to wreck her phone. As the dog bounds away, Sadie blinks away tears of stress, unleashes Dylan from the buggy and sinks back onto the bench, clutching both of her boys and panting.
She doesn’t feed them straight away. She can’t, not with her heart banging madly and her children so distressed. Sadie just sits there, conscious of faint drizzle now falling on her hot cheeks, and an empty Bacardi Breezer bottle lying on the ground.
She glances down at her babies, taken aback as she always is by the fierce rush of love that engulfs her. Her sons, all round brown eyes and tufts of dark, fluffy hair, gaze up adoringly at her. The fact that they emerged from her own body still strikes her as nothing short of miraculous. All those years of debauchery as an art student, a lifestyle which continued steadily through her twenties, and she was still capable of incubating these utterly perfect human beings. Dylan is smiling now, and Milo is gazing up at her as if she were the most wondrous creature on earth.
This is what it’s all about, Sadie reminds herself. It doesn’t matter that I’m stained and knackered and every little thing Barney does irritates the hell out of me. It doesn’t matter because it’s all about this – being Milo and Dylan’s mum. Sadie bunches up her T-shirt, frees her breasts from her huge, shiny scaffolding-bra and clamps a child to each nipple. Both babies fall upon her as if they hadn’t been fed for weeks. Sadie inhales deeply, kicks the Bacardi Breezer bottle under the bench, then focuses hard on the cracked screen of her mobile which is lying at her feet.
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