I lifted the receiver and sang out our number. There was a little silence, then a voice said,
‘Hello. Is that Kitty or Judith?’
‘Yes,’ I said. (Well, it was.)
There was another, infinitesimal pause. I got the feeling that, if he’d ever been introduced to me in person, he might have come out with something either funny or waspish. But all he actually said was,
‘This is Gerald Faulkner. Please tell your mother I managed to get tickets, and the film starts at eight.’
I said, ‘Oh.’ (I hadn’t realized she’d be going out again. I thought she was going to stay in and help with Jude’s cardboard Roman amphitheatre. We’d promised to knock up a few woolly ravenous beasts.)
‘Thank you,’ he said, and then, after a pause, ‘Goodbye.’
I didn’t say anything back, so after a couple more seconds of silence, he just hung up.
I went into the kitchen, where Jude was sitting with Floss in her arms.
‘That was him,’ I told her. ‘They’re going out again tonight. He called you Judith.’
She made a face but didn’t say anything; and two minutes later Mum came through the door, loaded with shopping and all bright-eyed.
‘Did anyone phone?’
She never comes in asking ‘Did anyone phone?’ If I tell her Granny’s rung, or Simon’s rung, or someone from the hospital office where she works wants a quick word with her, she only groans.
Jude gave me a look, as if to say: See? And I wished that I hadn’t picked up the phone in the first place. But a message is a message. So,
‘Mr Faulkner rang about some film,’ I told her. ‘I expect you forgot to tell him that you were stopping home tonight, to make Jude’s woolly ravenous beasts.’
She got the point.
‘Sweetheart!’ All guilt and glossy lipstick, she swooped down on Jude. ‘We’ll finish your amphitheatre tomorrow, I promise.’
‘Tonight’s the last possible night.’ I poured cold water on this plan of hers. ‘We already put this off twice, remember? She has to take the whole thing into school in the morning.’
Mum went out all the same at half-past seven. Jude didn’t seem to mind. And when I’d finished looking after the babysitter – making her coffee, fetching her reading glasses, finding the Radio Times – we all settled down to watch an old Carry On film and make woolly ravenous beasts, though Jude’s all turned out larger than hairy mammoths, and Mrs Harrison’s looked like dispirited sheep.
Then I went off to bed. I’d had enough. But it was hard to sleep, and I was on my way back from my third trip to the bathroom when I heard Mum push open the front door shortly before eleven.
I leaned against the banisters, and watched her clinking about in her purse.
‘Three and a half hours?’ she said to Mrs Harrison, who was already struggling into her coat.
‘That’s right, dear,’ said Mrs Harrison. ‘Have you had a nice evening out with your young man?’
‘Young man!’ Mum snorted with amusement. ‘Mrs Harrison, Gerald is over fifty.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Mrs Harrison, holding Mum’s shoulder to steady herself as she stepped into her wellies. ‘You know what they say. Better an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave!’
Mum was still giggling when she shut the door. I thought about slipping downstairs and surprising her. She could tell me about the film while we turned off the lights and unplugged the telly and put the milk bottles out on the step. But something about the smile on her face put me off, and I went quietly back to bed instead.
Over fifty!
Old enough to be a grandfather. Maybe he had false teeth and sagging skin, and tufts of grey hair sticking out of his ears.
Next morning when I came downstairs, I asked her, ‘When are we going to meet this Gerald Faulkner, then?’
I was convinced she’d be so embarrassed about him she’d drop the teapot on the spot, scalding poor Floss, and stare at me, wild-eyed. Instead she said,
‘How about tomorrow? He’s coming round here anyway, to pick me up.’
‘I won’t be here,’ I said promptly. ‘Tomorrow is Thursday, and I have a meeting.’
So did she. She’s our group treasurer, in fact. And she’s usually even more fanatical about Thursday meetings than I am. I thought she’d at least blush, letting her private life come before what she always claims is our civic duty; but she just said, ‘Oh, is it Thursday tomorrow?’ and flipped the toast under the grill.
‘Well?’ I asked. ‘Will you be coming to the meeting with me, or going out with him?’
She didn’t take it like the challenge I meant it to be. She had a little think, and then she said,
‘Oh, I think it might be a little late to tell him I’m backing out of our arrangement.’ And then she added brightly, as if I’d be pleased and relieved to hear it: ‘But you’ll still have time to meet him before you go off.’
‘That’ll be nice.’
The coldness of my response intimidated her, I know. She tried to change the subject.
‘How did you get along with the amphitheatre?’ she asked.
‘Splendid,’ I told her between gritted teeth. ‘Mind you, the gladiator is a wreck. His face has shrivelled and his legs are wobbly, and that carpet fluff we stuck on for his hair keeps falling out. I tell you, he looks over fifty.’
The toast was blackening under the grill, but she eyed me very steadily indeed.
‘I hope you’re going to be polite on Thursday,’ she said.
*
I know a storm warning when I hear one. On Thursday I was determined to make sure that there’d be nothing in the bad manners line that she could pin on me. When he rang the doorbell I made as if I simply hadn’t heard, so it was Jude who reached the door to let him in, while I stood in the shadow at the bottom of the stairs.
He stepped inside. He was Mum’s height, a little tubby, and he had silvery hair. His suit was nowhere near as smart as any of Simon’s. There again, he wasn’t a posh banker, though he did have the most enormous box of chocolates tucked under one arm.
He shifted the chocolates, and shook hands.
‘Judith,’ he said. ‘Right?’
She nodded. I sidled out of the shadow.
‘And Kitty.’
He smiled, and kept his hand stuck out for a moment, but I pretended that I hadn’t noticed it. And after one of those infinitesimal little pauses of his, he handed the huge box of chocolates to Jude.
They were those rich, dark, expensive, chocolate-coated cream mints. I’ve had a passion for them all my life. The box was three layers deep at the very least. I saw Jude’s eyes widen to saucers.
‘Are these for Mum?’ she asked.
‘No. They’re for you.’
He could have meant either you, or you two. It wasn’t clear. As he spoke, he was looking at Jude, but he did glance at me briefly. It was terribly clever. It meant that when I didn’t pile straight in with Jude, thanking him lavishly, he wasn’t in the slightest embarrassed. He didn’t have to be, you see. He might not have meant to include me at all.
‘I’ll tell Mum.’
Jude rushed upstairs, clutching her booty to her chest, and Gerald Faulkner and I were left alone in the hall. I thought I’d discomfit him with my silence, but no, not at all. He simply swivelled away as though he wanted to inspect the pictures on the wall, and peered closely at a photo of me as a toddler.
‘What a face!’ he said admiringly. (I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that.) ‘It looks as if it might be you.’