Neve had spent most of the week in her room steadily rereading all her Jane Austen novels (such a joy to read for pleasure now that her Finals were over), crying because William had flown out to California days before and eating her way through packets of chocolate fingers dipped in vanilla ice cream. But she’d had a ringside seat at the dining table, when her father staggered back from the Hat and Fan drunk.
Her mother hadn’t even had time to put down an over-cooked lamb joint on the table before he’d torn into Celia and Douglas. ‘The pair of you make me sick,’ he’d shouted, his face red raw with anger and alcohol as he kept banging the electric carving-knife on the table to make his point. ‘If it was up to me you’d be out on your ear.’
Douglas had shouted right back, Celia had cried, her mother had kept saying, ‘Barry, that’s enough! Barry, will you just stop!’ and Neve had just sat there waiting for it all to be over so she could barricade herself in her room and disappear to a world where there was never any shouting, just barbed remarks from behind fans at Regimental Balls.
‘It was awful,’ Celia was saying. ‘But that’s the thing with Dad. He’s so quiet and he bottles stuff up, then he just explodes. He was really sorry about it afterwards, sent a huge bunch of flowers over to Auntie Catherine’s house in New Jersey. Must have cost him a packet.’
Douglas picked up the thread. ‘Yeah, he slept it off, then he took me to the pub to say he was sorry and give me this speech about manning up and accepting responsibility. I preferred it when he was shouting at me.’
‘And what about you?’ Max asked Neve, who was sitting there silently, hands curled around a mug of peppermint tea. ‘Did you escape all this paternal wrath?’
‘Kind of. Well, no, not really,’ Neve said quietly.
‘At least he didn’t shout at you,’ Douglas said, as if that had made it better. It hadn’t. It had made it worse.
Because Neve had been sitting there, tuning in and then tuning out as the row raged on and maybe she’d even been feeling a little superior because she’d been awarded a First and been accepted on to her MA course with funding from the British Academy. Those were achievements that any parent would be proud of.
Yes, she’d definitely been feeling a little superior and then relieved, as her father stopped shouting, sank down in his chair and put a hand to his ruddy forehead and …
‘He said to me, “As for you, I can hardly bear to look at you. You’re eating yourself to death.”’ When her father had said it, the words had been underpinned by a flat, resigned anger that was far more terrifying than anything he’d directed at Celia and Douglas, but after years of practice, Neve could repeat the words without any emotion, her face a perfect blank. Max, however, managed to look outraged and appalled and sympathetic on her behalf.
‘He shouldn’t have said that. He had no right …’
‘He had every right,’ Neve retorted sharply. ‘It was the truth and he did me a favour. Yes, it hurt and yes, it was a shock, but it was a shock I needed. So here I am at just over twelve stone.’
‘Really? You don’t look like you weigh that much,’ Douglas said, earning himself a slap from Celia and an anguished, ‘Don’t tell Charlotte how much I weigh,’ from Neve. ‘Well, she doesn’t. And Dad did do her a favour. He did all of us a favour. Neevy isn’t fat any more, Seels found her work ethic and I made an honest woman out of Charlie.’
‘Take more than that to make an honest woman out of her,’ Celia muttered darkly, and maybe the snide remarks and the picking of old scabs that should have been left to heal was just as much a part of having dinner with your family as all the giggling over long-ago trips to the seaside. She turned to Max, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Neve though she refused to look at him. ‘Despite what Neve might have told you, Dad isn’t so bad.’
‘I know it might be hard for you to understand, Brat, but Neve and I have lots to talk about that doesn’t involve you or your family,’ Max said, and Neve still didn’t understand how he could say something really obnoxious but do it in such a light, playful tone that people didn’t take offence.
Celia certainly didn’t. She just nodded and said, ‘Well, Neve doesn’t like to talk about it because then she’d have to admit that she hasn’t spoken to Dad since it happened.’
‘That’s not true!’ Neve said, uncurling her hands from around her cup, so she could place them flat on the table. ‘I am speaking to him. I see him and Mum when they come into town. Honestly, the stuff you come out with sometimes.’
‘You don’t speak to him,’ Celia insisted. ‘Mum says that he emails you all the time …’
‘Only to ask if anything needs fixing around the flat, which it doesn’t.’
‘And you always call her on her mobile, rather than the landline because Dad always answers that phone.’
‘Yeah, and all he ever used to say was “I’ll pass you over to your ma,”’ Neve said furiously. ‘I’m not not speaking to him. He could always call me, but he doesn’t, and even if he did, he hardly says anything anyway.’
‘Whatever,’ Celia drawled, leaning back in her chair, so she could meet Neve’s glare with one of her own. ‘You’re both as stubborn as each other. That’s what Mum says.’
‘Yeah, she does,’ Douglas agreed, and if Neve was as stubborn as her father, which she wasn’t, then Douglas and Celia were just like her mother and never stopped talking about things that were best left unsaid.
There was a tense stand-off as the three of them sat with narrowed eyes and folded arms until Max coughed. ‘Well, I guess there are some benefits to being an only child.’
‘Sorry, mate.’ Douglas patted Max on the back. ‘Sisters! Worse than having a wife.’
‘How is dear Charlotte?’ Celia asked sweetly, then launched into an account of how they’d been having their usual ‘Fucking shut up’, ‘No, you fucking shut up’, row a couple of evenings ago, when Yuri had opened the front door of their flat to scream up the stairs, ‘Why don’t both of you fucking shut up?’
‘Charlie’s not so bad,’ Douglas said stoutly but without much conviction, and when Celia opened her mouth to contradict that statement, he scraped his chair back and stood up. ‘Well, this has been great, but I should probably get going.’
Neve stood up too so Douglas could give her an awkward one-armed hug. ‘I’d say thanks for coming but I don’t remember actually inviting you.’
Douglas just grinned. ‘Great dinner, Neevy. We should do this again some time. Maybe you and Max, me and Charlie …’
Celia made a great show of choking on her last sip of coffee. ‘You do know that dear, sweet Charlotte absolutely terrorises Neve?’ she spluttered, but Douglas was already striding out of the kitchen, saying, ‘Come on, Seels, I’ll let you take me to the pub and buy me a drink.’
Grumbling, Celia got to her feet too. ‘I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone so you can do whatever it is you do when you’re alone,’ she said with a theatrical wink that made Max laugh and Neve hustle her towards the front door.
‘You really are a brat,’ Neve said with one hand at the small of Celia’s back to keep her in forward motion. She opened the door and pushed Celia through it. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’
‘Can we do something tomorrow night, just the two of us? Even if it’s just one of your foul steamed haddock and rice combos and a DVD?’ Celia pleaded. ‘You never have time for me any more.’
That wasn’t strictly true but Neve was only too happy to agree, with one proviso. ‘As long as you realise that I’m going to lecture you for at least ten minutes about things we say in polite company and things we don’t.’
‘I’m counting on it,’ Celia grinned. ‘You go back to Max and make some pancakes.’
Celia thudded down the stairs and Neve shut the door and walked slowly back to the kitchen so she could talk some more about stuff she really didn’t want to talk about.
Chapter Twenty-one
Max was still sitting in the kitchen and as Neve walked past hi
m with a weak smile on her way to finish the last of the clearing up, he caught her round the waist and tried to pull her on to his lap.
‘Are you crazy? I’m too heavy,’ Neve insisted, as she tried to get free. ‘I’ll break your legs.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Max said, hoisting her up and stretching his legs out so there was no way that Neve could rest her feet on the floor and ease the pressure on his thighbones. ‘Look at me, Neve. Please.’
Unwillingly, she lifted her head so she and Max were nose to nose. ‘What?’
‘Thank you for my lovely birthday dinner,’ he said in a perfectly serious voice and Neve couldn’t see even the flickeringest flicker of amusement in his eyes.
‘It wasn’t lovely,’ she groused, ducking her head again. ‘Celia and Douglas ruined everything and you had shop-bought Yorkshire puddings because my batter kept going lumpy. It was a rubbish birthday dinner.’
‘God, don’t be such a Debbie Downer,’ Max said sharply.
‘Can I get off your lap now, because I don’t think it’s very comfortable for either of us?’
‘No,’ Max said, and he put one hand on her chin so he could keep her still as he kissed her for just long enough that Neve happily began to kiss him back, but not nearly long enough before he was pulling away and Neve was sighing just a little. ‘You promised me presents before we got invaded,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes! God, that feels like days ago.’ Neve jumped off Max’s lap, relieved that he didn’t immediately start rubbing his legs as if he was trying to coax the circulation back, and pulled a star-patterned gift bag out from behind the kitchen bin. ‘Happy Birthday,’ she said, shoving it at Max.
Max didn’t just dive in, but pulled out each package and piled them on the table, so he could read his card first, which just wished him a happy birthday, though Neve had put a cross after her name, which may or may not have been a kiss.
Then he opened the largest parcel first, while Neve busied herself at the kitchen counter preparing the next part of his birthday surprise, while his attention was elsewhere.
‘You know, I’ve really been getting into The Catcher in the Rye and I wanted to read his other stuff,’ Max said, tapping J. D. Salinger’s three other books with one finger. ‘What should I open next?’
‘The little one,’ Neve muttered over her shoulder, and when Max’s head was bent over the tiniest of his presents, she took the opportunity to get a couple of packets down from a cupboard.
‘I’ve been meaning to get one of these for ages!’ Max exclaimed, when he pulled out a little gizmo that would turn his iPod into a voice recorder. Neve glanced at Max to make sure that he looked genuinely thrilled and wasn’t faking his enthusiasm, as he started unwrapping the last present and unearthed a tiny espresso cup with a picture of Keith printed on it. ‘Oh, this is hysterical.’
‘I had some pictures of him on my phone and I put them on a disc and took them to this photo place … Do you really like them, Max?’
‘I love them. All of them,’ he said, picking up the espresso cup and holding it up for closer inspection. ‘You’ve caught his “bitch, please” expression perfectly.’
‘I never know what to buy other people ’cause the best present that anyone could ever get me is a book token,’ Neve explained, twisting her hands nervously. ‘I can take everything back, except the cup. You’re stuck with that, I’m afraid.’
‘Neve! I said I liked them and I do. Can we have a timeout on the self-criticism for the rest of the evening?’
‘Not the rest of the evening. I can do about half an hour and then force of habit takes over,’ Neve admitted. ‘So, did you bring a DVD?’
‘Yeah, I thought you might enjoy watching my Bruce Lee boxed set.’
‘Bruce Lee?’ Neve knew perfectly well who Bruce Lee was and having to watch kung-fu movies for the next few hours was really pushing the birthday indulgence further than she’d ever intended. ‘A boxed set? How many films would that be?’
‘You can relax. I left it at home.’ Max stood up and Neve planted herself firmly in front of the worktop, arms stretched out on either side of her so she could hide all evidence of the next item on her birthday agenda. ‘What’s going on behind you?’
Neve lifted one leg and planted her foot on Max’s knee to keep him at bay. ‘Not another step or you’ll ruin the surprise,’ she ordered. ‘Go into the living room and pick a DVD and I’ll be in in ten minutes.’
Max tried to peer over her shoulder. ‘This surprise – is it bigger than a bread-bin?’
‘That is my bread-bin!’
‘But you don’t eat bread, Neve,’ Max said, and he took a step forward so Neve was forced to tense her leg, and thank God for all those stomach crunches, to ward him off. ‘OK, OK, I’m going!’
Twelve minutes later, Neve nudged open the door to the living room with her toe, as she had the bottle of champagne and the box of Quality Street wedged under one arm, two glasses in her left hand and in the other a miniature chocolate cake with one forlorn candle stuck in it.
‘I would sing “Happy Birthday” but I can’t hold a tune,’ she said, carefully placing her attempt at home-baking on the coffee table in front of Max. ‘But you still have to blow out the candle and make a wish.’
‘How did you make chocolate cake in ten minutes and why is it in a mug?’ Max stared warily at Neve’s humble offering. ‘Is it meant to ooze?’
‘It’s not oozing, it’s molten,’ Neve said, sitting down next to him. ‘I got the recipe from Rose at work. You make it in a mug in the microwave. She says it’s perfectly edible. Go on, blow out the candle.’
Max closed his eyes and blew out the candle, then stayed motionless, lids lowered for a moment as if he wasn’t just wasting his birthday wish on a frivolous request that Manchester United won the Premiership but wanted the wish to count for something. ‘Don’t you want to know what I wished for?’ he asked Neve when he opened his eyes.
‘It won’t come true if you tell me,’ she said lightly, struggling to ease the cork out of the champagne bottle. ‘So, what did you want to watch?’
‘Thought we might play a game instead,’ he said, holding up a familiar dark green box. ‘Found this on the bottom shelf of your DVD cupboard … if you tilt the glass, the champagne won’t froth like that.’
Neve finished pouring champagne into the 50p champagne flutes she’d got from the discount store and waited until Max had drunk a good half of his in two swift swallows. ‘The thing is, you might find it hard to believe but I can be very competitive and I have an astonishing vocabulary from years spent having no life and reading a lot – and well, if you play Scrabble with me, I’ll totally kick your arse.’
Max was about to eat his first bite of molten mug cake but he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. ‘You’re gonna kick my arse?’
‘Until it’s black and blue and you won’t be able to sit down for a week.’ That sounded very arrogant. ‘Really, Max, Mum stopped me from playing when I was thirteen after I got a score of four hundred and twenty-seven, and when I was at Oxford, I used to play with two Linguistics post-grads and an English don.’
‘Well, my little pancake girlfriend, I played Scrabble against Carol Vorderman for a Guardian feature and I kicked her arse because Scrabble has got nothing to do with vocabulary; it’s logic and tactics,’ Max informed her loftily, taking a huge bite of the cake.
For a second, Neve hoped that it was as foul-tasting as she suspected just to get Max back for that snide little speech, but he just licked the back of the spoon thoughtfully. ‘This is surprisingly more-ish, do you want some?’
‘I think I’ll pass.’
‘Well, you’re not getting out of Scrabble that easily.’ Max leaned back against the cushions, the mug cradled to his chest, and propped his feet up on the table so he could poke the Scrabble box nearer to Neve. ‘Come on, set ’em up. Unless you’re too scared.’
‘Max, I have all the two-letter words memorised, and as for Carol Vorde
rman – well, she might be good at maths but there was a reason why she wasn’t in Dictionary Corner on Countdown so I’m not surprised you beat her at Scrabble.’
‘Fighting talk.’ Max rapped his knuckles gently against Neve’s head, which made her furious. ‘I’ll remind you of that little speech once I’m done making you eat every single one of those high-scoring words you seem to think you’re so good at.’
‘Right, that does it.’ Neve snatched up the box and practically tore off the lid, so she could bang the board down on the coffee table.
‘You can’t be that good at Scrabble if you keep your letters in a crumpled paper bag,’ Max noted, actually daring to nudge her arm with his foot. Neve knew he was only doing it to get a rise out of her, but God, it was working.
‘Game on, Pancake Boy,’ she snarled, throwing a letter rack at Max, which just made him laugh. ‘And don’t think I’m going to let you win just because it’s your birthday.’
It was the most fun Neve had ever had playing Scrabble. It might even have been the most fun she had ever had. For every obscure word she tried to play in the highest scoring place, Max would put down three tiles to make three different words and block off huge sections of the board.
Every time she tried to flounce or throw a strop because ‘you’re going against the whole spirit of the game’, Max would pop another Quality Street into her mouth because, as he said, ‘It is Treat Sunday and you only had one roast potato.’
When there were no more Quality Street left and they’d drunk all the champagne, he stopped each one of her snits with a slow, devastating kiss so there were long pauses between each round.