Читать книгу Me and You - Claudia Carroll - Страница 8

Christmas Day, 9.30 a.m.

Hardly slept a wink. Keep waking in the middle of the night to check my phone, in case there might be some message from Kitty. But nothing, still absolutely nada. Tried doing an early morning ring-round of all our mutual buddies yet again, but of course, the morning that’s in it no one’s even thinking about answering their phone. Course they’re not; what was I thinking? My married pal is doing Santa Claus stuff with the kids, my single pals are all still in bed.

On the plus side, I’ve had three texts from Simon so far. One to tell me there’s no news as of yet, but that I’m still to relax and try to enjoy a family Christmas. (Yeah, right. Only someone who hasn’t actually met my family could ever possibly come out with a statement like that.) Second text is to say he’s still with a big gangload of his relations now, and can’t talk, but will call soon as he can. Third says if there’s still no sight or sign of Kitty by tonight, he’s coming straight back to Dublin, as soon as he can reasonably get away.

All three messages stress that I’m to keep nice and calm, that she’ll turn up safe and well. This he promises.

’Course, that doesn’t do anything to stop the sickening worry, but still, v. reassuring to know someone else is taking the whole thing as seriously as I am. Plus, I keep reminding myself Simon works as a trend forecaster. Which is a bit like weather forecasting, according to Kitty, except it’s all about economic projections, ERSI figures, etc. He’s part of the team that waved red flags, wagged fingers and warned us we’d all end up broke, and stay broke, barefoot and living off tins of Heinz beans, till sometime after our great-great-grandchildren all end up emigrating in coffin ships.

(Apparently there’s v. big money in predicting bad news, but then, unlike horoscopes that say you’ll have an utterly magical day, people are far more likely to believe you if you tell them that nothing but horrors and destitution await. Myself included.)

So Simon’s basic job is telling the future.

So if he says Kitty will turn up and all will be well, then somehow, I trust him.

I’ve no choice.

11.35 a.m.

Right then, time to meet the Kardashians. Namely, the annual Xmas Day ordeal chez la famille Blennerhasset. My usual survival plan involves turning up as late as possible without incurring the wrath of Mother Blennerhasset, busying myself in the kitchen under the guise of ‘helping’, then skedaddling the minute the last Quality Street has been gulped down, to get back home in time for a nice juicy Xmas blockbuster movie. (So I’m free to watch it in the comfort and peace of my own flat.)

Except not this year. My usual escape hatch has now been totally sealed off. The official story to the rest of my extended family is that I’m ‘temporarily crashing out with my parents, as I’m in between leases on two apartments.’ Which I thought made me sound like a reasonably together person, not a twenty-eight-year-old no-hoper, newly unemployed, broke and forced into a humiliating crawl home with my tail between legs, etc. The inner circle, however, (Mum, Dad, older brother and sister,) all know the shameful truth, and in the case of my beloved sister, Madeline, rarely miss the golden chance to score a point.

Decide to time her, to see how long she lasts without managing to get a dig in. Just for the crack.

Midday

Mother Blennerhasset’s annual Xmas midday drinkies for aunties, uncles, cousins, friends of parents, freeloading neighbours, etc. Drawing room’s completely thronged. Everyone v. successfully and politely avoiding questions about my jobless state. But you can always rely on Madeline.

Ah, Madeline. Older than me by just two years, but already following in the family footsteps by working for a top law firm and making more money than I’ve ever seen in my whole life; with a mortgage, a pension and a flash-git style Mercedes fully paid off. Weighs approximately same as her coat and keys put together. (And just as an aside, as you’ll see, the whole family have P. G. Wodehouse names. Which has to be borderline child abuse. Who in their right mind lumbers kids with names like Madeline, Toby and Angela when you’re unfortunate enough to have a surname like Blennerhasset?)

‘So, Angie,’ she coos, wafting up to me with a glass of Prosecco in one hand and mobile clamped to the other. (Claims she’s a very busy and important person who’s still working. On Xmas Day. I know, I know.)

Then in full earshot of Mrs Higgins, Mother Blennerhasset’s most competitive friend, with a v. successful daughter exactly my age already running her own business, fires her opener.

‘Any prospects of gainful employment coming your way in the New Year?’

And, ladies and gents, we have a new record. Not ten minutes into the drinks do and already her inner bitch is out of the traps. And yes, Madeline really does talk like this. Like some Victorian matron in a bonnet-y, corset-y, Dickensian drama.

‘Gimme a second, I just want to put out some more of these,’ I smile weakly, indicating a near-empty tray of vegetarian vol-au-vents that I’m trying to squeeze my way back to the kitchen, to replenish.

She follows me though; clearly seeing this as green light to have a go at me. Angie-baiting being what she excels at, like an evil cat toying with a defenceless mouse. Bloody expert at it. Started when we were kids, when she’d go out of her way to make me the butt of her gags just for the laugh, but now that we’re older, it’s somehow got nastier. Then my brother Toby wafts in after two of us, wanting nothing more than grub and to make an escape from the arse-numbing tedium of the party, knowing him. Both come after me into the kitchen and slam the door shut.

‘Come on then, answer the question, Angie, don’t obfuscate the issue,’ Madeline persists, instinctively knowing she’s hit on my weak spot. And now that she has, she’ll keep on and on at it till she’s drawn blood. ‘Are there or aren’t there any jobs coming your way, sometime this century?’

‘I just have to get these into the oven …’ I mutter vaguely.

‘Stop changing the subject,’ she says, perching up on the kitchen table now and elegantly picking at a single grape from corner of cheese platter. Probably all she’ll eat for the entire day. ‘Because sooner or later you’ve got to get yourself back out there into the jobs market. Got to up your game a bit. So you’ve had a few knocks – who hasn’t? Pointless hiding out at home, lazing around the house all day, just passively waiting on work to come to you.’

Look appealingly over to Toby, who’s sitting in an armchair by my mother’s Aga, flicking through yesterday’s Times and stuffing his face with a large batch of cheese frittatas. Toby’s generally far more humane than Madeline. Will tease me to tears, then surprise me at the oddest times by actually sticking up for me.

‘Toby, tell her to back the feck off,’ I say pleadingly to him.

‘Aah, don’t be so touchy,’ he says, mouth stuffed, far more interested in the TV listings than in what’s going on over his head. ‘Mads just wants you to get a bit of work for yourself, that’s all.’ Then he thoughtfully adds, ‘But you know, in all fairness, sis, she does have a point. The longer a gap any potential employer sees on your CV, the less attractive you become in their eyes.’

‘Gee, thanks so much, Toby. “Et tu, Brute”, and all that,’ I hiss over at him, with what I hope is withering scorn.

‘All I’m trying to impress on you,’ Madeline drones on in that affected nasal whine that grates on my nerves so much, ‘is that you’ve just got to get up off your backside, get out there and make it happen. Can’t keep scrounging off the Aged Ps for ever, now can you?’

I’ve been trying v., v. hard not to rise to the bait, but at that, the saliva in my mouth suddenly turns to battery acid. Is this honestly what this one thinks I’ve been at? Arsing round watching daytime soaps, when in fact I’ve practically been hammering doors down trying to get some work? Any kind of work?

Oh, to hell with her anyway. I snap up from the oven, where I was shoving in yet another fresh batch of mini beef Wellingtons.

‘Excuse me,’ I tell her v. firmly, hands on hips, like a character out of a spaghetti western. ‘I’ve already had a job interview this week, I’ll have you know, thanks very much.’

‘Oh, really? What for?’ she scoffs. Can practically sense her getting riled up to test out what she thinks is her rapier wit on me.

‘For … a position. A really good one, as it happens. Something secure, just till I get back on my feet again.’

‘Where?’

‘Never you mind where.’

I turn and bury my face deep in the fridge-freezer to avoid eye contact, pretending to rummage round back of it. Needless to say there’s absolutely no offer of help from Madeline, but then because she’s a lawyer, she clearly considers herself a cut above menial labour. Whereas, in her eyes, I may as well be the hired help with an apron on, saying ‘Just hand me a broom and call me Daisy from Downton Abbey.’

‘Stop avoiding my question, Angie, and just spit it out!’

‘No, now go away and leave me alone. The mini pizzas won’t defrost themselves, now will they? Toby? Call her off, will you?’

‘Jesus, I came in here for a bit of peace,’ Toby mutters disinterestedly, this time between gobfuls of mini gherkins. ‘So for feck’s sake, just tell Mads what your big interview was for and then the pair of you can shut up. Besides, bar you applied for a job as an exotic dancer, what’s the big deal anyway?’

Deep sigh. Because he’s right: I know only too well that Madeline won’t let up with the third-degree questioning till I come clean. She’s worse than the KGB like that. I fully realise from years of dealing with her that it’s easier just to let her have all the jibes she wants at my expense, and get it over with. Quicker in long run.

‘Right then, have it your way. The job I applied for is in a catering company, if you must know.’

‘A catering company?’

Then a short, two-second time delay while Madeline puts two and two together. ‘Oh my God, don’t tell me you mean like, buttering batch loaves in one of the sandwich bars your friend Sarah runs!’

If I’d said the interview was for a job scrubbing public toilets and that the main perk was that after two years I’d be issued with my own brush and a bottle of Domestos, Madeline couldn’t possibly sound like she’s enjoying this any more. She guffaws at me, like an Ugly Sister from Cinderella as I look pleadingly over to Toby for back-up, but no such luck. He’s far more interested in the sports pages now, not to mention the plateful of mince pies he’s devouring.

Thank Christ, am saved from further torture by Mum briskly swishing in, all swingy scarf, big, bosomy tweed suit and sensible shoes, looking even more like Ann Widdecombe than Ann Widdecombe herself. In she breezes, not a scrap of make-up on her, despite having a houseful of visitors to entertain. But then, Mum’s proudest boast is that she hasn’t put on foundation for minimum of forty years. No time.

As usual, her eyes are like hawks, taking in everything in one quick up-and-down glance.

‘So here you three are!’ she eye-rolls at us. ‘Now come on, girls, stop all your bickering. I need some help. Chief Justice Henderson has just arrived; Toby, would you be a pet and entertain him? And, Madeline, I know Douglas McGettigan has to be the single most boring man in the Northern Hemisphere, but he’s sitting all alone; anyone that’s actually met him before won’t go within six feet of him. Can you look after him for me, please? Chat to him about his golf handicap, he enjoys that.’

As the other pair scarper, I get thrown a familiar, vaguely exasperated look.

‘Angela, you let your sister goad you, and you really shouldn’t, you know. You just got to stop rising to the bait every single time. How often do I have to tell you?’

I mumble something vague into dishwasher along the lines of Madeline being a back-knifing cow and Toby being worse than useless, but Mum swishes off, too much in distracted hostess mode to pay much attention.

The minute she’s out door, I pour myself a very large glass of Prosecco and knock it back in a single gulp.

Then check that there’s plenty more bottles in fridge. If I’m to survive today, I’ll be needing lots, lots more where that came from.

Dining room chez Blennerhasset, 3.45 p.m.

Dinner served. Determined somehow to survive and live to tell the tale. Mum and I jointly cooked, but then we’re the only ones round here who eat normally and still gain weight. The other three are like bleeding rakes.

3.55 p.m.

Conversation turns to a personal injury case Dad presided over in the District Court few months back, where Toby was a junior counsel for plaintiff. Toby won, record settlement. Got in the papers and everything, one or two scuzzy tabloids even lapping up the whole father/son thing. Dad was utterly mortified by all the fuss, but I’m prepared to bet good money Toby still has all press cuttings framed and mounted in his downstairs loo. Strongly suspect he thinks it’ll boost his chances of landing a quick shag.

But if you weren’t involved in said case, and if you don’t happen to get the legal terminology, it’s all deeply, deeply boring, so while Toby’s telling yet another ‘hilarious’ lawyerly anecdote, I surreptitiously whip out my mobile from my jeans pocket and check it. Just on the off chance Simon has news. Or better still, in case Kitty herself has miraculously resurfaced. Who knows? Maybe having crashed out on someone’s sofa for past twenty-four hours? And now with nothing more than a minging hangover and a hilarious tale to tell?

Course I’ve tried to check if Kitty is by any chance visiting her foster mum, but can’t. Already made two sneaky phone calls to Foxborough, Mrs K.’s nursing home, when I was holed up in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. No answer, though. ’Course not, it’s Christmas Day. Who in their right mind would be working on reception Christmas Day?

Mum’s straight on to me. Asks me why I keep glancing down at my phone every few seconds. Then tells me to put the phone away, that it’s rude.

3.56 p.m.

Golden chance for Madeline to get yet another jibe in.

‘You know, Angie, you can just say if all this legal chat is a little bit above your head. We can always change the subject and talk about, ooh, let’s see now … what’s happening in the lives of the Kardashian sisters? Would that be a little more up your street? Or maybe the latest news from the catering industry?’

‘I was actually checking to see if there was any word from Kitty,’ I fire back, throwing her what I only hope is a scalding look.

The whole table give long sighs and eye rolls. Yet again. All in lawyerly agreement I’m totally overreacting to whatever’s going on. The gist of what they think is that Kitty’s spending the day doing whatever suits her and clearly has better things to do than making phone calls. Yes, even to the best friend she stood up on her birthday.

Relations between la famille Blennerhasset and Kitty are as follows: both Mum and Madeline are the only people I’ve ever met totally and utterly resistant to her laid-back, chaotic charm. Instead, the pair of them have her down as a notoriously unreliable, uneducated, lunatic flake-head from the wrong side of the tracks, whose worst crime in their eyes is that she’s a bad influence on me and has been ever since the day we first met. They hold her wholly responsible for my not obediently trailing after every other Blennerhasset since the Civil War and subsequently spending my days mouldering away in the law library. (Where I’d doubtless have ended up either an alcoholic by now, or else on hard drugs. Fact.) Mainly because it was Kitty who first encouraged me to stop always doing what was expected of me, but instead to follow my own dreams, and to live my best life.

Which is why, not long after graduating, I took myself off to post-grad film school, to study as a freelance director. Which is kind of why, after years of great gigs coming in, I’m now suddenly unemployed. (Film production is what you might call a soufflé business, and this is not a good economy to be in the soufflé business, trust me.)

Dad and Toby tend to be slightly more under Kitty’s spell, though every now and then Dad will remind me he still hasn’t forgotten about the time she filched a bottle of his Château Margaux for a piss-up we were both going to. Happened when I invited her to stay here one Christmas all of four years ago and he still hasn’t let it go. And I know right well Toby has a crush on Kitty, I can tell by way he blushes like a wino whenever she’s here and he keeps asking her if she’d like to swing by his flat sometime, to check out his fifty-two-inch Blu-ray plasma screen.

‘She’s clearly gone to visit that foster mother of hers down in Limerick,’ Mum is telling me, ‘so just relax and don’t let that girl ruin your Christmas, like she ruined your birthday.’

‘She didn’t ruin my birthday,’ I say loyally, to an exasperated eye-roll back at me.

‘I’m sorry, love, but it’s no secret that Kitty Hope is not exactly my favourite of your friends.’

‘Mum’s quite right, you know,’ Madeline pontificates, ‘so just stop harping on about what did or didn’t happen to Kitty and wait till she gets back to you. Knowing her, she probably forgot all about you and spent the day at some more interesting Christmas Eve do. Be perfectly typical of that nutcase you insist on hanging around with. Oh God, will you ever forget the time that she—’

But Dad interrupts. ‘Scan not your friend with microscopic glass; you know his faults, so let his foibles pass.’

Dad’s a great man for quotes, but I rarely have the first clue where they come from. Nice, though, to think he’s temporarily forgiven Kitty over the nicked Château Margaux incident.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I smile gratefully back at him.

‘You know, I’m certain there’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about, pet,’ he says, leaning forward and gently patting my hand. ‘One of a thousand things could have happened to Kitty yesterday, you know. She’ll be in touch, you just wait and see. Never assume something is wrong until you have concrete evidence in front of you.’

Subject dismissed as far as everyone concerned.

Long pause, the table filled with sounds of nomnomnom noises, then Mum suddenly pipes up, sounding worried now.

‘Are you absolutely certain that you and she didn’t have some kind of falling out?’

I nearly splutter on a Brussels sprout.

‘Mum! There was absolutely nothing like that, I promise! Come on, you know how close Kitty and I are. We’ve never had a single cross word in all the years I’ve known her!’

Almost the truth. Only ever had one tiny blip with Kitty, in seven otherwise row-free years. In my defence, it wasn’t entirely my fault either. It was Kitty’s idea to shoplift two lip glosses from the Top Shop cosmetic counter just for the laugh, when she thought the place was so packed, no one would notice.

Bloody CCTV cameras.

It was v. scary, we were taken into a security office and threatened not only with the police being told, but even more intimidatingly, with being barred from every Top Shop branch on the planet for life. I was all of twenty-one years old at the time and while Kitty brazened it out with all the swaggering confidence of someone who’s had to fight all her own battles from a young age, I collapsed under questioning and just sat there, bawling hysterically. End result? We were let go with a caution, but to this day I still can’t cross threshold of any Top Shop without breaking into a cold, clammy sweat.

Mum’s implication is v. clear though. That somehow, even without realising it, I did something to piss Kitty off, and now she hasn’t disappeared at all. She’s just not speaking to me.

7.35 p.m.

Dinner over, thank Christ. And now we’re all sprawled round the fire with Mum point-blank refusing to switch on the telly, even though I’d kill to see lovely, life-affirming It’s A Wonderful Life and banish the horrendous shittiness of last twenty-four hours temporarily out of my head. The others are all back to chatting about mutual colleagues that they know and I don’t, to the background track of Dad snoring like a passing Zeppelin.

So, so bored. And still so worried about Kitty.

I’m just thinking about her when my mobile rings … Simon! Suddenly wide awake and on high alert, I race out to the hall to take it, away from the riveting background debate on the gripping subject of Flynn vs. Sullivan and whether or not sentencing was overly lenient.

‘Simon? Can you hear me?’

My heart’s nearly walloping off my ribcage by now, cartoon-like.

Please have news, please, please have good news, please can Kitty somehow have surfaced and be with you and please tell me that all is well …

‘Hi, Angie, look I’m so sorry to bother you on Christmas night, when you’re with your family …’

The line’s v. bad, he’s already cracking up on me, but even so, I can clearly hear the deflation in his voice. Not a good sign.

‘Simon, are you still there?’

Have to shout this a few times before he comes back into coverage again.

Come on, come on, come on!!!!

‘Yeah, look, Angie,’ he almost has to yell now to be heard, ‘I’m still with my parents down in Galway and the signal is rubbish at their house … Have you heard anything yet?’

Oh shit. If he’s calling me to see if I’ve any news, then we’re really in trouble.

‘No, not a word, I was hoping you might have by now! What about Mrs K. in the nursing home? Did you have any luck getting through there? I tried earlier but no joy.’

‘Me neither. So look, here’s the plan …’

Good. A plan. I’m a big fan of plans. Everything works better with a plan. Weddings, murders, everything.

‘I’ll keep ringing every friend Kitty has that I can think of tonight,’ he says, sounding more and more crackly by the second, like he’s calling from inside the large Hadron Collider at Cern.

‘Great, I’ll do likewise …’

‘… And if there’s still no sign of her by first thing in the morning, I’m going to drive straight to the nursing home in Limerick, to find out exactly what’s going on for myself.’

‘And … well, what if Kitty’s not there either?’

My voice is sounding tiny now, like a small child’s, and the worry sweats have restarted with a vengeance.

‘Then I’ll just come straight back to Dublin and I guess we’ll take it from there. The main thing to remember, Angie, is not to panic. I’m sure she’ll turn up safe and sound and that there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation for this.’

As ever, when told not to panic, my shoulders seize and my breath starts to come in short, jagged bursts.

‘But, Simon, what then? What’ll we do if we still can’t find her?’

Too late, though. His phone’s gone totally out of coverage. Line’s now totally dead.

And he never even answered the question.