Читать книгу It’s A Man’s World - Polly Courtney - Страница 11

Chapter 5

‘Just remember, don’t mention my job.’

Matt rolled his eyes, glancing sideways through a wisp of blond hair as they waited for the lights.

‘Sorry.’ Alexa waited for him to look round again, so she could show him how grateful she was for putting up with her neuroticism today, but the lights were about to change and Matt was clearly intent on making a quick getaway. Not that any getaway was ever slow in the Aston Martin DB9.

The lights went green and Alexa’s head jerked back against the seat. She wondered what her parents would think when they saw the car. Her mother would instantly want to know one thing: was it paid for with earnings or family money? She would probably spend the whole afternoon trying to work it out. Her father would probably pretend not to care, while secretly yearning for a ride. Maybe Alexa would engineer some sort of outing for Matt and her father, if the opportunity arose. That might give her a chance to break the news to her mother about the job, too.

‘Why are you so stressed, anyway?’

‘I’m not stressed.’

Matt gave a half-smile and put his foot down, propelling them onto the motorway.

Alexa closed her eyes, feeling slightly sick. Annoyingly, Matt was right. She felt stressed. It was partly the new job, but mainly, she knew, it was the prospect of telling her parents about the new job.

‘You’re jiggling,’ he pointed out.

Alexa looked down at her bare knees and clamped them together, forcing the involuntary movement to stop.

‘Why is it such an issue, telling your folks?’

Alexa shrugged. ‘It’s just . . .’ She tried to think of a way of putting it. ‘They’re quite old-fashioned.’

‘So? Shock them. No big deal.’

She said nothing. Matt hadn’t met her parents. He hadn’t met her mother, or witnessed the power that she still exerted over her daughter. To be fair, it was Alexa’s fault that Matt didn’t understand. She was the one who had put off the introduction for so long. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her boyfriend. Nor was she ashamed of her parents – despite her mother’s overbearing manner and embarrassingly loud voice. No, she was ashamed of herself and the crushing sense of impending failure she felt every time she saw her mother. She knew how absurd it would seem to a handsome, confident city lawyer that a twenty-nine year old woman still lived by her mother’s rule book and that was why it had taken seven months for her to summon the courage.

‘Would it be better if I wasn’t here?’ asked Matt.

‘Of course not!’ Alexa recoiled at the thought. ‘That’s the whole point of the barbecue. Mum and Dad want to meet you. Anyway, I want them to meet you. I think Mum’s worried I might be gay.’

Matt whipped round, his blue eyes squinting at her in the sunlight. ‘Why would she think that?’

Alexa forced a shrug, wishing she hadn’t said anything. ‘I dunno.’

She did know, but she wasn’t going to tell him.

Matt accelerated up the slip road and onto the dual carriageway that led to her parents’ village. He still looked perplexed.

For a moment, Alexa considered explaining the truth – that he was the first boyfriend to meet her parents, the first to make it past the two-month mark. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Again, it was something she couldn’t explain – not just because she didn’t want to ruin her chances with Matt but because she didn’t know. She was as keen as her mother was to work out why her relationships had never lasted more than a few weeks in the past.

It wasn’t that Alexa chose to break up; she didn’t get through men in the same way that Kate did. This was something that happened to her. It was like a recurring nightmare, always ending the same way: a note or a text message or a painful conversation to say, ‘it’s not working out.’ Never a full explanation, never an opportunity to patch things up.

Alexa reached out and touched the sun-bleached hairs on Matt’s forearm, stroking it as he changed down a gear to turn into Elm Rise. This time, there would be no note or text message or painful conversation. This time, it was going to last.

The satnav was lost, she noted, smiling. There was no reception of any kind in the village. Usually, that annoyed her, but today it seemed like a blessing. Her mother thought Alexa’s BlackBerry addiction was bad, but she hadn’t seen Matt’s.

They drew up outside the pebbledash exterior of number twelve.

‘So.’ Matt turned to her. ‘If in doubt, talk Girl Guides or band camp, right?’

Alexa smiled. He had obviously been listening. Her mother was involved in just about every community activity within a twenty-mile radius of the village: Averley Youth Club, the Green Streets project, North Surrey YMCA, Kids’ Canoe Club and the local nature reserve. And those were just the ones that Alexa could remember. She secretly wondered whether her mother was attempting to fulfil her own ambitions through the members of her various groups in the same way she had done with Alexa.

‘I don’t think there’s a band camp, but I may be wrong.’

‘Can’t hurt to ask.’ Matt pulled on the handbrake, smiling. Then he placed a hand on her thigh, pinned her back against the seat and gave her a quick, hard kiss. ‘You should wear dresses more often,’ he said, glancing down at her legs before swinging himself out of the car.

The front door opened before they’d even reached the garden gate. Alexa’s mother had clearly been waiting.

‘Hi!’ she cried, at a volume that might, thought Alexa, feeling anxious and paranoid, have been more for the benefit of alerting the neighbours to the expensive car than for greeting them. Averley was a reasonably affluent village, but nobody here drove an Aston Martin.

Alexa raised her right hand, feeling grateful for Matt’s hot, strong grip around her left. Her mother had had her hair done for the occasion, she noted, taking in the flash of auburn between the wands of wisteria around the door.

‘How are you, darling?’ cooed her mother, before they had even made contact. ‘And you must be Matthew? Lovely to meet you! Did you have a good journey?’ There was the briefest of pauses for air-kissing. ‘Goodness! Is that your car out there? Super! Is it new? Are you hungry? Shall we go through to the garden? Let’s go through to the garden.’

Alexa squeezed Matt’s hand as her mother led the way through to the small patio at the back of the house, which appeared to be filling with a bluish smoke. She tightened her grip on Matt’s hand and felt her way over to where her dad was haphazardly fanning flames on the barbecue.

‘Hi, Dad.’ She put her spare arm round his shoulders and squeezed. She was taller than him now, she noted. Either he was shrinking or – God forbid – she was still growing. ‘This is Matt. Need a hand?’

‘Darling! Come and meet Matthew!’ cried Alexa’s mother, unnecessarily, adding, in a noisy hiss, ‘I think you’ve used too much charcoal!’

Alexa grimaced, wondering why her mother had been so intent on holding a barbecue in the first place. A pub lunch would have been perfectly adequate and they all knew that Dad wasn’t famous for his culinary skills. In fact, thought Alexa, he wasn’t famous for much at all, now that he was retired – except perhaps being the most hen-pecked man in Averley.

Poor Dad. She didn’t remember things being like this before, when she was growing up. Although, thinking about it, Alexa realised that this was probably because he’d spent most of his time at the office, preferring company accounts to the company of his wife. Alexa felt bad for thinking such things, but it was true. Her mother was a control freak. She had never been able to trust other people to get things done. Alexa had learned this at an early age. One of her earliest memories was of her mother dropping her off at a gym lesson and then reappearing in the doorway, giving pointers to her daughter from the back of the room. Eventually, the instructor had asked her to leave, but that hadn’t seemed to deter her. Music, swimming, art and virtually every other extra-curricular activity that had featured in Alexa’s privileged upbringing – as well as most academic ones – had involved input from her mother. She meant well, Alexa knew that, but she had trouble letting go.

Matt had moved over to the barbecue and was talking quietly to her dad.

‘. . . the air vents . . .’

‘. . . wasn’t sure . . .’

‘. . . slide that along?’

Alexa smiled as the air began to clear.

‘Well! Marvellous!’ Alexa’s mum clasped her hands together in jubilation. ‘I’ll go and get the drinks! What would people like?’

Drinks were served, with only a small mishap involving the wobbly garden table, and after a couple of glasses of Pimm’s, Alexa felt herself starting to unwind. Her dad also looked more relaxed, she noted. In unspoken agreement, Matt had taken the seat nearest to the barbecue and was discreetly tending to the smouldering coals as he sipped his drink.

‘So, Matthew! That’s a very nice car out the front. Is that a family heirloom?’

Alexa felt like screaming. She wanted to launch herself at her mother and tell her to stop being so obvious. How could a DB9 be a family heirloom? How, mathematically, given the model of car, would that be possible?

‘No,’ replied Matt, unable to resist a little smile. ‘I bought it with my bonus last year.’

‘Oh!’ Alexa’s mother gave a nervous laugh, clearly impressed and a little overwhelmed. ‘Gosh.’

‘I was lucky,’ he explained modestly. ‘We had a bumper year for deals last year.’

‘Yes. Right.’ Alexa’s mother nodded, raising her eyebrows at her husband, who was trying to look through two sets of windows to catch a glimpse of the car.

More questions followed. Where had Matt grown up? What had he studied? Did he have brothers or sisters? Which area of law was his focus? Matt passed with flying colours. He kept up with the questions, laughed at Alexa’s mother’s jokes and masterfully down-played his lifetime achievements, even managing to weave in a reference to his time doing pro-bono work for a local children’s charity. The only slight hiccup came when Matt had pulled out his phone to check the name of his old scout group and noticed the lack of message alerts.

‘Oh. Don’t you have any reception around here?’

‘No,’ replied Alexa’s mother, suddenly caustic.

‘Amazing.’ Matt shook his head, clearly not picking up on the vibe. ‘I didn’t think there were places like that left . . .’

‘I hope you’re not addicted, as well?’

Alexa took it upon herself to step in. She hadn’t warned Matt about this. ‘It’s not an addiction, Mum; it’s communication. It’s the way things work these days. ’

Her mother leaned over to Matt, speaking directly to him.

‘She’s addicted,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t you think? She can’t stop looking at that thing.’

Matt smiled tactfully.

Alexa said nothing. She knew that she ought to move on, to think of a neutral topic of conversation, but she couldn’t. She was so angry with her mother.

It wasn’t simply that she was imposing her old-fashioned views on people who didn’t want to hear, or that she was insulting her guest for doing something as innocent as checking his phone. It was that she was so damned contradictory.

If there was one personality trait that Alexa attributed to her mother, it was her drive to succeed. Where else had it come from, if not the woman who had allowed her only educational toys as a child – the woman who had withheld her evening meal until her homework was done? Alexa could still remember the time her mother had denied her a place on the Year 11 post-exam holiday to Barcelona – could still feel the wrench of disappointment in her gut as she took in her mother’s words. It was all because of the B she had attained in her Geography coursework – and it hadn’t even been her fault. The teacher had slipped up and set an unsuitable piece of work. Nobody in her class had got anything higher than a B grade. It was no wonder Alexa had found herself working her way into a top university, desperately seeking out a top graduate job and flinging herself into every piece of work in a desperate attempt to succeed. It was no wonder that now, ten years later, she was still feeling the same compulsion to achieve, achieve, achieve – yet her mother did wonder. She wondered why Alexa was continually checking her email. It seemed so hypocritical that Alexa wondered whether she might have missed something along the way – whether she had misinterpreted her mother’s words of ‘encouragement’ over the years.

She reached out and topped up her father’s empty glass. Her hands were shaking.

Matt stoked the coals on the barbecue. He had picked up on it now.

‘Nearly time to put the meat on,’ he said, cautiously. ‘Five minutes, I’d say.’

Nobody moved.

Eventually, Alexa could bear it no longer. The pressure inside her was too great. She got up and stormed inside, locking herself into the downstairs bathroom. Flipping down the lid of the toilet, she sat, head in hands, waiting for the rage to pass.

Her mother didn’t say those things to annoy her, she knew that. That was the ironic thing. She said them because she cared. She was worried about her daughter turning into a workaholic and failing to keep hold of Mr Right – risking a life of lonely, work-fuelled celibacy. Like most mothers, she just wanted her daughter to have it all. She couldn’t see, of course, that it was she who had created the workaholic. Alexa was addicted to her BlackBerry. She was wedded to her career. She did have trouble holding down a boyfriend and, frankly, it was unlikely that she would succeed in ‘having it all’. Did anyone, these days? What did that mean, anyway?

She thought about her friend, Kate – the only person she knew who stood a chance of having it all. In a year’s time, barring disasters, she would be a partner at TDS. She would continue to churn through men, keeping an eye out for husband material and then once she decided on ‘the one’, she would engineer a proposal and a year later, they’d be married with their first kid on the way. Knowing Kate, she probably had it all mapped out in an Excel spreadsheet.

It wasn’t so simple for Alexa. At least, it didn’t feel simple. Matt was the only man she had been with for more than a couple of months and every day, she felt privileged to still be with him. She couldn’t pick and choose like Kate. Ironically, from her mother’s perspective, Alexa had become so afraid of failure that she found it almost impossible to focus on anything other than upcoming challenges in the workplace. She tried to loosen up when it came to relationships, but it wasn’t something that came naturally.

Alexa breathed deeply and exhaled, slowly. She felt calmer now; the shaking had subsided. Rising to her feet, she studied her face in the mirror. The sun had brought out the freckles on her cheeks and her eyes looked paler in comparison. She watched as her reflection started to smile back at her. She was ready to face the world again.

The scene to which she returned was unexpected. It was as though she had turned up at somebody else’s party. Matt and her father were chatting happily by the barbecue, her father threading kebab meat onto skewers while Matt turned the slabs of steak, and her mother was flitting from kitchen to garden, humming as she arranged the salads.

‘Can I help?’ Alexa asked lamely.

The men were lost in conversation and didn’t reply. Her mother stood for a moment, appraising her handiwork on the table. Then she turned, as if suddenly remembering something.

‘Yes – yes, you can. Come and fetch a couple of things from the kitchen, will you?’

Alexa was familiar enough with her mother’s tricks to know that there was no urgent barbecue-related mission awaiting her in the kitchen. She trampled inside, wondering which of her mother’s lectures she was about to hear. On the plus side, she thought, at least by being alone together in the kitchen, there might be an opportunity to tell her mother about the job.

‘So!’ Alexa’s mother pressed the kitchen door shut behind them ‘Oh, Alexa, you’re stooping.’

Alexa straightened up, pushing a wisp of fringe out of her eyes. It was a criticism she had heard so many times, over the years. She tried so hard to be proud of her looks – all five foot ten of them – but too often, it just felt more comfortable to be at eye level with others. Not that that was an argument worth having with her mother.

‘I just wanted to say,’ her mother began, in a whisper that equated to anyone else’s normal speaking volume, ‘I think Matthew is wonderful. So does your father. He gave me the nod, just now.’

‘Good. I’m glad you think so.’ Alexa smiled hesitantly. The nod. It was as though Matt had come under scrutiny by virtue of his association with her. ‘I think he is, too.’

She waited with trepidation as her mother continued to wring her hands.

‘And . . . well, I just want to say . . . try to make time for him, won’t you? I know what you’re like, always rushing around, working all hours . . .’

Alexa frowned. She couldn’t quite believe these words were coming out of her mother’s mouth. Make time? Time? Coming from the person who believed that productivity was the ultimate goal, that life was all about using time efficiently?

Alexa found herself nodding, too stunned to object. ‘He seems like a perfect match,’ her mother went on. ‘Obviously very ambitious.’

Alexa nodded again. The hypocrisy was astounding. What did they want from her? Was ambition seen as a good thing or not? Throughout all of her life so far, Alexa had been working on the assumption that ambition was good – that it was an essential ingredient of a fulfilling life. Matt’s ambition was being lauded and yet, here was her mother, effectively telling Alexa to take her foot off the gas and to ‘make time’. Making time meant borrowing it from other activities, of course. There was only a finite number of hours in the day and Alexa’s waking ones were already filled – her mother had made sure of that. So what exactly was her mother trying to say?

‘You’re coming to the end of your contract at the magazine now, aren’t you? Perhaps you can take it a bit easier for a few months?’

Through the blur of confusion, Alexa spotted an opportunity.

‘Actually, my contract has—’

‘Have we got any more peppers?’ Her father appeared in the doorway. ‘Just need a half or so for the last kebab.’

‘Try the bottom of the fridge.’ Alexa’s mum moved over to the sink and started scrubbing a burnt pan – a good use of six seconds, thought Alexa, watching in annoyance.

‘Alexa, don’t leave your guest out there on his own. Go on – you go and entertain Matthew. We’ll sort out the food.’

Alexa toyed with the idea of telling them now, both at once, but it didn’t feel right. Her mother would overreact, she would get angry again and her dad wouldn’t know how to respond, and all the while Matt would be outside on his own.

‘Oh, Alexa?’ Her mother called out as she made her escape. ‘I meant to ask. You remember Lara Fielding, don’t you? The little girl you used to babysit, from the village?’

‘You mean the spoilt brat who would only eat food that was pink?’

‘Well, yes. I’m sure she’s grown out of that now. I was talking to Janice the other day and she mentioned that Lara has just finished a Media Studies degree and is looking for work! So, naturally, I said that you might be able to put in a good word with the ladies at Hers.’

Alexa sighed. She wouldn’t inflict Lara Fielding on anyone – especially not her friends on the third floor.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Matt raised an eyebrow as she re-emerged.

She shook her head. ‘Got interrupted.’

He looked unimpressed.

‘I will tell them,’ she said, ‘just—’

‘Tell who what?’ her mother asked breezily, reappearing with a bowl of chopped peppers.

‘Oh.’ Alexa panicked. ‘Just . . .’ She couldn’t say it. Not yet.

‘Alexa has some news,’ Matt said, unhelpfully.

‘I . . .’ Alexa said the line in her head, but she kept getting stuck on the word Banter. ‘I have a new job,’ she managed.

‘Do you?’ cooed her mother.

‘Do you?’ her dad echoed.

‘Yes.’ She pressed on. ‘It’s a managing director role, a bit like my last one, but for a men’s title.’

‘Oh! Congratulations!’

‘Which title, darling?’

‘Um . . . it’s . . . well,’ Alexa looked at the patio. Matt was looking at her, eyebrows raised. ‘It’s . . .’ She tried again to push the word out, but she just couldn’t do it. ‘A niche magazine,’ she said, eventually. ‘You won’t have heard of it.’

‘Well!’ cried her mother, clearly perplexed that the news wasn’t more significant, given the build-up. ‘That’s . . . fabulous!’

She didn’t look as disappointed as she might have done, thought Alexa – presumably because she saw the role as offering more potential for her daughter to make time for Matt. Within seconds, she was popping the cork on a bottle of champagne.

‘Well done, Alexa!’ she cried, filling the glasses.

‘Hear hear!’ said her dad. ‘Well done.’

‘Yes,’ Matt added woodenly. ‘Well done.’

Alexa held up her glass as the toast was made, feeling shaky and slightly sick.