‘It’s not a waste. You drink it too, don’t you?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘So what do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘About having him round for dinner.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ said Alison, still unpacking, and not looking up.
‘Of course it’s something to do with you. He was practically your stepfather for a while.’
Alison rounded on her. ‘He was never my stepfather. Never anything like it. OK? He was the bloke you … shacked up with, for a few months. He was the bloke you met on holiday and then changed cities to come and live with, and got dumped by as soon as life started to get difficult.’
‘That is so unfair,’ said Val, her voice already tearful.
‘Have you forgotten already, Mum? When I went in for the operation? What he was like?’
Val glared at her for a few seconds, and then said, through a half-sob: ‘I never get a bit of support from you any more, do I? Not one fucking bit.’ She grabbed one of the wine bottles from the kitchen table, and a tumbler from the shelf, and stormed off in the direction of the living room.
Alison stood still for a moment, stunned by the speed with which this quarrel had blown up. Then she shook her head and resumed her unpacking. She heard the television being switched on in the next room, and a few seconds of each different programme — local news, quiz show, sitcom — as her mother flicked between channels. She imagined her unscrewing the cap of the bottle fiercely and filling the tumbler three-quarters full with wine, drinking it like it was lemonade, which was how she always seemed to drink it these days. Three or four sips, one after the other, without taking her mouth from the rim of the glass.
After thinking about it for a minute or two, she decided that she was the one, as usual, who would have to do the apologizing. Her mother’s capacity to sulk had become pretty much inexhaustible, and Alison didn’t want to spend the entire evening in silence with her. So she went and stood in the living-room doorway and said:
‘Mum? I’m sorry.’
‘That’s OK,’ said Val, not turning around or turning the television down.
‘Did you hear me? I said I’m sorry.’
Val glanced back towards her. ‘Yes. I heard you. All right. Apology accepted. But maybe you should just think a bit more carefully before you say hurtful things.’
This was monstrously unfair, but Alison let it pass. There was no point in carrying on these fights any more. ‘I listened to your song,’ she said instead.
These words, by contrast, had an immediate effect. Val muted the television and turned round, a beseeching smile on her face.
‘You did? What did you think?’
And answering this was easy. However much her mother’s behaviour annoyed her, Alison had always enjoyed her music, never tired of listening to it, never had any trouble sharing her conviction that one day, with luck, with persistence, she would catch the public’s attention again and have another hit. And this new song, which she had listened to ten or fifteen times during the course of the day, was easily one of her best.
‘I loved it,’ she said. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Really? I mean, you’re not just saying that?’
‘No, Mum. I’m not just saying that. It’s brilliant. You know it is.’
‘Come and sit here.’ Val patted the place on the sofa beside her, and as soon as Alison had sat down gave her an impulsive hug. ‘What did you think of the arrangement?’
‘It’s fine. I mean, you know, it’s … getting there.’
‘Well, it’s the best I can do at home, obviously. Do you think it’s good enough to send to people?’
‘I don’t know, Mum. I’m not in the music business.’
‘Maybe if I bought some studio time. Just three or four hours’ downtime somewhere … Then I could record the vocal properly.’
‘Sure. Good idea. If you think you can afford it.’
‘Then I could send it to Cheryl.’
Alison nodded. She never knew what to say when her mother mentioned her so-called ‘agent’, who hadn’t returned one of her calls or messages for about ten years.
‘Do you like the title?’ Val asked now. ‘“Sink and Swim”? Is it catchy enough?’
‘I like everything about it.’ Finding herself caught up in another swift, clinging embrace which threatened to last for some time, Alison pushed her mother gently away and stood up. ‘OK, I’m going upstairs. I’ve got to finish writing to Rachel.’
‘That’s funny,’ said Val. ‘I just got an email from her mother.’
‘Yeah? How’s she?’
‘OK. Depressed about work, like everyone else.’
‘You should ask her what she thinks about you seeing Steve again.’
Val turned back to the television screen and unmuted it. ‘Oh, we don’t really discuss that sort of thing any more.’
The conversation was over, apparently. Leaving her mother to watch adverts for financial services she would never use and holidays she would never take, Alison went upstairs to her room, took her half-written letter out from the clutter of her desk drawer and began reading it through.
Nowadays, when it came to ways of keeping in touch, she and Rachel were spoiled for choice: they emailed and texted, and they talked on Facebook and WhatsApp. In the last few weeks, they’d even started using a newly launched app called Snapchat, which allowed them to send pictures and brief messages which were only visible for a few seconds before being wiped from the screen forever. But every so often, when one of them had something special to say to the other, only a real, old-fashioned letter would do. And what Alison had to tell Rachel now was as special and as personal as could be imagined.
So far she had written two pages and not even started to address the subject. Her last paragraph read:
So, I started at college two weeks ago (yeah, this isn’t Oxbridge, honey, we actually have a term that starts in September) and it’s looking pretty cool so far. Not sure if the course is going to be quite what I want but it’s such a relief to be hanging out with other students and teachers who just want you to do art and nothing else. The pressure to tow the line is off at last!
That was all very well, but Alison was cross with herself for not having come to the point yet. And so, nervously, she took up her pen, nibbled on the end of it for a minute or two and then wrote:
Anyway, none of that stuff matters, really. That’s not why I’m writing to you. I’m writing because there’s something you need to know, something I haven’t told any of my other friends yet. I wanted you to be the first, because … well, for all sorts of reasons. But mainly because you’re my oldest real friend and your reaction is incredibly important to me.
So. Can you guess what it is? Of course not. Why should you? (Deep breath.) I’m gay.
*
On Saturday afternoon Rachel, wanting to add a few things to her wardrobe before she left for Oxford in a couple of weeks’ time, went shopping with her mother. There was a recession on, but you would never have known it from the crowds in Leeds town centre, drifting sluggishly from shop to shop, hungry for consumer durables. Miss Selfridge and Monsoon were milling with customers. Primark was packed. H & M, Topshop, Claire’s Accessories, and Zara were too full to get into. River Island and Lush were turning people away. Rachel and her mother were both hot and exhausted by the time they got home.
As they approached the house, they saw that there was a car parked outside: a bright-red Porsche. Leaning against it, smiling smugly at them as they trudged up the street with their shopping bags, was Rachel’s brother, Nick.