And he could at least try and get on with my friends. Although they all hated him.
I phoned Fran again.
‘Leave me alone. You are no longer my friend. You fraternize with the untouchable ones.’
‘Fraaan.’ My genuine panic was beginning to show through.
‘OK. Here’s one test. He’s been away for ten months, right?’
‘Yep. I’ve had my hair done.’
‘Oh, that’s pretty subtle … Anyway, he’s been away for ten months. After vanishing completely and never contacting you again …’
‘Apart from the postcard.’
‘The postcard you got two days ago when he remembered he’d left Charlie in the shit and needed to find somewhere else to stay.’
‘Mmm.’
‘OK. Those are the facts. You are dumb enough to be there waiting for him. As a hypothetical test, one might think it would be the least little considerate thing he could do to buy you a present, right?’
‘Oh, Alex doesn’t really believe in giving presents. He thinks it’s bourgeois.’
Now what was she sighing for?
‘God, Mel, what are you doing? Tell me you’re not putting him up.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Fantastic. Have you told Linda about the new addition to your jolly little Kennington family?’
‘Oh, she’ll be fine. She won’t say anything.’
‘That means the same thing, does it?’
I was getting too upset to talk. I mean, what did my best friend since age four know about my life anyway?
‘Mel, you know I wouldn’t say anything if I wasn’t worried about you and if I didn’t care about you, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled ungratefully.
‘Give me a ring when he gets in then. When’s that going to be?’
‘Ehmm, anywhere in the next fifteen hours.’
‘OK. Cool. Bye.’
It was true. Alex did a horrid, horrid thing to me. It’s just, oh, Alex’s problems – where to start? Public school, weird distant parents who divorced early, that whole deal. I was psychologically-tastic when it came to Alex. When I’d met him he’d just emerged from his last finding-his-own-anus phase in Goa. Well, I wasn’t going to be his doormat any more.
Oh good, only six hours to go.
Wanting to avoid another ear-bashing, but desperate for someone to talk to, I phoned Amanda. Some bloke picked up the phone.
‘Hello, is Amanda there?’
‘No, she’s not. Can I take a message?’
I recognized that accent!
‘Frase! Hi, it’s Melanie!’
There was a pause.
‘Melanie …’
‘Melanie Pepper. You remember! Mel!’
Jesus.
‘Oh, hi, hi there. Yes. What are you up to these days?’
Oh, I’m just sitting in Heathrow Airport, where I’ve turned up fifteen hours early by mistake, having my hair set and waiting for my selfish ex-boyfriend who left me in shit nearly a year ago, and whom I still haven’t got over, to – possibly – return from America, having walked out of my job this morning with no explanation.
‘Oh, you know … usual stuff.’
‘Right, great.’
God! Could we be any more scintillating?
‘So, congratulations!’ I said heartily. ‘You’re marrying my old buddy!’
I tried to imagine him bending over to kiss Amanda, but I couldn’t make it fit. His curly hair would fall in her eyes. She’d hate that.
He laughed nervously. ‘So it seems.’
‘And you’re a laird!’ I added, helpfully.
‘Yes, right, yes. Anyway, can I give her a message?’
‘Ooooh … no message, actually. Just phoned for a girlie chat.’
‘Right. OK. Bye.’
I often had romantic dreams of what it would be like to bump into an old crush from the past, when their eyes would be opened and they would see me anew: suave, sophisticated and thrillingly desirable. Although played out in a variety of exotic locales, the two things the fantasies had in common were that they normally included the crushee remembering who I was, and then giving a shit. Me, and my hair, were starting to flop.
Stuff it. I was going back to basics. I called my mum. I owed her a call. Well, about nine, actually. My mum was sweet – really sweet; I mean, she bakes – but definitely a traditionalist in every sense of the word. She had looked like Miriam Margolyes since even Miriam Margolyes hadn’t looked like Miriam Margolyes. I was convinced that really she was only about forty and deeply frivolous but put an old mum costume on every day and got the rolling pin out. It was the only way to explain me, anyway.
‘Hi, Mum. How are you?’
‘Melanie, I’ve just this second been talking about you.’
Given that talking about me and Stephen, my elder brother, was my mother’s favourite thing after baking, this wasn’t surprising. Other non-surprising things she could have been doing: watching television, playing bridge, talking non-stop to my father, who could only grunt. I seldom spoke to him on the phone, as the grunts couldn’t be accompanied by comprehensible gestures (macaroni cheese; beer; remote control – really, my dad’s Homer Simpson without the deep self-awareness) and was therefore pointless.
‘Is it true what I hear – that Amanda Phillips is getting married to that nice young man you brought home?’
‘Yes. Oh, and Alex is coming back.’
‘Well, he was a lovely boy. Scottish, wasn’t he? Such a nice smile. And so well behaved.’
‘He’s not four,’ I said crossly. ‘He doesn’t have to be well behaved. Anyway, Alex is coming back.’
‘… it’s sure to be a big wedding – that family never do things by halves. You should see the new swimming-pool extension Derek’s put on the manor house. Of course, I haven’t seen it, but apparently it’s nearly as big as the house!’
‘That sounds great. Anyway, Alex is coming back.’
‘Are you going to be a bridesmaid? Maybe there’ll be more polite Scottish boys there and you could meet a nice one.’
My mother didn’t mince her words.
‘I’m not going to be a bridesmaid. I might not even get invited. But I’m at the airport …’
‘Of course you’ll get invited. Great little friends at school, you three were. How is Fran? Met a nice man yet?’
‘No. But …’
‘Well, maybe the both of you can go to the wedding and get lucky this time. OK, darling, have to go, I’ve got bath buns on the go, and you know their temperementiality. Speak to you soon. Bye, darling.’
It drove me mad when my mum used the word temperementiality. It wasn’t even nearly a real word. She did it to annoy me. Perhaps, I thought, musing on the conversation, she did everything to annoy me. That would explain a lot.
One of the cleaners, whom I’d noticed earlier for some reason, came past and caught my eye. He stared