Going Home

TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

Summer (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

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TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

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THIRTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

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THIRTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

THIRTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

THIRTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

Excerpt from Happily Ever After (#litres_trial_promo)

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Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

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Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Epigraph (#ulink_d43e4876-ad31-5a9a-8b79-ecc4f36f6fee)

‘But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice,’ I said. ‘He was the great love of her life, you know.’

‘Oh dulling,’ said my mother sadly. ‘One always thinks that. Every, every time.’

Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love

Christmas (#ulink_0bdcfe6f-eb7e-52c0-80ed-b53f1cddc70c)

ONE (#ulink_93e55dad-2436-5e47-ac69-f8be9a12f82a)

The bus ground its way slowly up the Edgware Road as I sat, like a mad old bag lady, gripping my last-minute Christmas shopping between my legs and on my lap, casting angry glances at those who tried to sit anywhere near me. It was Christmas Eve and I’d only just got round to buying my presents. With the depressing predictability of riots on May Day, rain at Wimbledon, and stories in August about hamsters who can play the kazoo, I promise myself every year that I will have bought and wrapped all my presents by 15 December, and every year I end up in Boots with an hour to go, buying my father a small, slanting glass toothpick-holder, my mother a furry hot-water-bottle cover endorsed by the Tweenies, and my sister Jess a gilt-edged notelet set that says, ‘Happy Christmas!’.

I jumped off at the lights, closed my eyes and ran across the road, praying that this would not be how I met my death. I had half an hour before Tom, my cousin, and Jess arrived to pick me up. We were going home, home home, in one of thousands of cars setting forth from London, after their occupants had put in a half-day at work, bags hastily packed, driving into the twilight. It was only three p.m., but dusk already seemed to be descending over the city.

My flat is just off the Edgware Road, behind an odd assortment of dilapidated shops that are a constant source of delight to me. There are the usual cut-price off-licences (‘Bacardi Breezer’s at 75p!’) and poky newsagents, neither of which ever stock Twiglets but promise they’ll have some next time I come in. There’s also an undertaker, a computer shop selling ancient Amstrads, a joke shop called Cheap laffs – handy when you’re in urgent need of a pair of fake comedy breasts – and Arthur’s Bargains, which, incongruously, sells pianos and keyboards. I would not personally spend my hard-earned cash on a musical instrument from a place called Arthur’s Bargains but chacun à son gout, as the French say. Off a tiny alley, so nondescript I have frequently noticed people not noticing it, away from the roar of the cars and lorries that thunder up and down the Edgware Road day and night, is a small cobbled street with tall, spindly houses, one of which is mine. Well, one of the shoebox flats on the top floor is mine.

The noise of traffic faded as I turned into my street. I could even hear the faint rumble of a tube beneath me, full of passengers escaping from work to enjoy the usual bout of indigestion, seasonal belligerence and disappointing new episodes of Only Fools and Horses. The flowers I’d bought for Mum, fiery red and orange ranunculas, crackled in their brown-paper wrapping as I grappled with the temperamental locks on the front door. I hauled myself up the stairs, struggled with my own front door, nudged it open with my bottom and lowered my bags on to the floor.

I headed into my tiny bedroom, which I love despite its size, sloping roof and lack of light. The view isn’t uniformly picturesque, unless you call Wormwood Scrubs picturesque. But it’s my flat, my view, so while other people look out of the window and say, ‘Oh, my God – is that a dead body in your street?’ I say, ‘You can see Little Venice from here, if you stand on that chair and use a periscope.’

The packing I’d been so smug about at one o’clock this morning was not at the advanced stage I’d imagined when I rushed out of the door, hung-over and dishevelled, a handful of hours later. I’d packed all my socks but no shoes, seven pairs of trousers and no jumpers, and had obviously been in a nostalgic mood because Lizzy the drunk had seen fit to pack three teddies (bears, not lingerie), a collection of Just William stories, and just one pair of knickers.

Expecting to hear the beep of Tom’s car horn at any minute, I rushed around the flat, plucking Sellotape and knickers out of drawers, contact-lens solution and moisturizers from the bathroom cupboard, shoving one plastic bag of presents inside another, watering plants picking up the papers and magazines that lay strewn across the floor and dumping them beside the sofa. The flat had a dusty, neglected air. Christmas cards had fallen over and not been picked up, videos and CDs lay out of cases, and there was a collection of unopened, unthought-of statements from BT, the bank, my mobile phone company. I loved my flat. I’d bought it two years ago from the old lady I used to rent it from. It had been painted by me, the pictures and photos were put up by me, and the hole in the plaster by the front door had been made by me kicking the wall when I was cross. It was my home. But it was at times like this, as I dashed around, longing to get away, that I knew it wasn’t really a home, not in the way Keeper House always had been, since long before I was born.

As I was cramming some old newspapers into the wastepaper basket, I heard a car horn and leaned out of the sitting-room window. Tom and Jess were waving up at me.

‘I’ve got fags!’ Tom shouted.

‘And I’ve got mags!’ Jess chorused.

‘I’m coming!’ I yelled down at them, and scooped up my suitcase and bags, pausing at the door as I spotted the answer-phone flashing. Like a cross between a t’ai chi instructor and a Russian weightlifter, I bent my knees slowly and elbowed the play button.

‘You have two messages,’ said the machine, as Tom leaned on his horn.

‘Well, come on, then,’ I said, in frustration to the machine.

‘Message One. Hi, Lizzy, it’s Ash here. I’m just ringing to say you left your chequebook at work. Anyway, happy Christmas and have a lovely time at home and I’ll speak to you when you get back. Oh, and I forgot to tell you this today and it will really annoy you but you know Sally? Press-department Sally? Well, she saw Jaden on Sunday and he told her you still haven’t told him whether you’ll go out with him or not and he thinks you don’t like him any more. He also thinks you’re not over your ex and you’re holding on to negativity in your life and all women have these flaws and essentially hate men, which is why their menstrual cycles club together when they live in the same house, to exclude men from the life of their women. But he also said he’d still like to sleep with you and that you have great boobs. I agree. ‘Bye.’

‘Oh, God,’ I said.

‘Message Two. Lizzy, it’s Tom. I’ve got this week’s heat, so don’t buy it. Also, can you bring some CDs? I’ve got a new streaming system in the car and you can play about fourteen or something at the same time. Also, I just spoke to Jess and she spoke to your mum and last they heard Uncle Mike said he couldn’t come back. He’s been out of town and has to work in a couple of days. Bye then.’

I clenched my teeth at the first message and moaned at the second. Jaden. Oh, Jaden. He was a scriptwriter and I met him at work. He lived in LA and was bloody gorgeous but totally insane, ringing me at seven on a Sunday morning to tell me that the wheat I ate was clinging to my lower intestine and poisoning my bowels, which was why my liver was wet and I felt drained all the time. When I later explained I felt drained because I kept going out and getting drunk by mistake, then waking up in the middle of the night lying on my sofa fully clothed, he simply shook his head. I’d reserve judgement about whether to see him again till the hell of New Year’s Eve was over. And as for not being over my ex, well…ha.

And it was gutting about Uncle Mike. Even though we’d all known he probably wouldn’t be able to get the time off, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without him. Uncle Mike is one of those people who makes everything brilliant the moment he walks into a room.

The horn beeped long and loud, and I roared, ‘Coming – flipping heck!’ waved goodbye to my poor neglected flat and locked the door on my London life. My heels clattered on the cobbles as I slung my bags into the boot, kissed Tom and Jess, then flung myself into the back seat.

After a heated discussion about which radio station to listen to, and having plumped for Capital, we argued about what time we’d get home and whether or not we were late. Then, once we’d reached the motorway, we argued about Jess’s request to go to the loo. I pointed out that, while she was my younger sister, she was twenty-five now and should have learned to control her bladder for the duration of a two-hour journey. Tom pointed out that it was his car and if she peed on the seat he would personally skin her alive, so we stopped at the first service station we came across.

By this time it was dark, nearing five o’clock, and a light drizzle was falling. Capital had long since gone out of range, and we were listening to a CD of carols Jess had produced ‘to get us in the mood’. Tom and I called her tragic for buying it, then sang along for the rest of the motorway, quarrelled again, then played Shoot Shag Marry, yelling rudely at each other’s choices.

‘OK, OK, OK!’ Jess shouted, as we passed the last exit before ours. ‘Tom, this is one for you. OK. Janet Street-Porter, Esther Rantzen, Lily Savage. Shoot, shag or marry?’

‘Good one, Jess,’ I said. ‘Tom, that’s easy, I know who I’d pick.’

‘But you’re weird,’ said Tom. ‘Right. I’d shoot Esther Rantzen. I’d shag Janet Street-Porter. And I’d marry Lily Savage.’