Women Behaving Badly_An uplifting, feel-good holiday read Read online

  “She watches a lot of television,” Mavis told her. “She picks up all kinds of things.”

  “They did something funny to his nose,” Maudie continued. “Doesn’t suit him.” She hummed along, tapping her foot and cramming more cake into her mouth. Mavis was ashamed of Maudie’s manners, which, like the rest of Maudie, had deteriorated recently, but no one seemed to mind.

  “She’s lovely, your mum,” Gabs said. “Mine died when I was a kid.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Mavis was mortified that they had known each other for all these months, and yet she didn’t know that Gabs had no mother.

  “Don’t be.” Gabs poured herself more wine. “It was a long time ago, and my dad treated her like shit, so in a way she was better off out of it. But it must be nice to have a mum. Even if, well, even if…”

  “She’s not all there?” Mavis helped her out.

  “Yeah. But she’s a sweetie. And she’s right about Michael Jackson’s nose.”

  Listening to Mavis’s account of the wedding, Alice had a strong sense of fellow feeling. The two of them might be very different, but they were both living their lives in the shadows of other people’s marriages, and it was an uncomfortable place to be.

  “I’ve never seen Angela,” she said now. “I did think of it — of doing what you did, Mavis. Sort of hanging around outside the house and — well, spying, I suppose. But I never did.”

  “But when the baby’s born?” Gabs asked. “How about then? Won’t you want to see her — oh, I don’t know — pushing a pram or something?”

  “I know I’ll be tempted. I’ve even wondered if I might be able to blag my way into the hospital pretending to be a sister or maybe a friend, just so that I can see the baby. But they’d never let me in, and besides, what would it achieve?”

  “And how is the baby?” Gabs asked.

  “Moving,” Alice told her.

  “Oh dear.”

  In spite of her relative youth, Gabs seemed to understand her feelings much better than she might have imagined, and Alice was grateful.

  “I love Jay, so I should be happy for him, but I simply can’t be. The more excited he is, the more miserable I become.” She plucked a daisy from the grass and began stripping off the petals (he loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, but is there room for me and a baby?). “I wonder whether anyone is ever really happy for someone else?”

  “No. It’s a myth,” Gabs said. “It’s what people say when what they really mean is ‘you’re happy, and I know I ought to be too, but I’m not. And if it’s something I want, the happier you become, the more nasty and jealous I’ll be.’”

  Alice laughed. “That more or less sums it up,” she said. She picked more daisies and started making a daisy chain. “Angela’s having another scan next week. They’ll find out whether it’s a boy or a girl.”

  “Oh dear,” Gabs said again.

  “Yes.”

  Somehow the baby would be much more real when it had a gender; when half its options had been excluded, and it became baby-pink or baby-blue; when it began to have a real identity, and probably even a name.

  “Which would you prefer it to be?” Mavis asked. “Boy or girl?”

  “I don’t know.” Alice tried to imagine Jay with a daughter (Daddy’s girl) and then a son (“my boy”—she could almost hear Jay saying the words). “I’ve got a son, so it would sort of even things up. But then I think I’d be more jealous of a daughter. I can see Jay going all soppy over a baby girl.”

  “Talking of boys, how’s your gorgeous son?” Gabs asked. “And don’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault if he finds me irresistible.”

  “Finn’s fine,” Alice said. “We had a bit of a row about a cannabis plant, but that seems to have blown over.”

  “What, the row or the plant?”

  “Both.”

  “What’s cannabis like?” Mavis asked. “I’ve always wanted to know.”

  “D’you want to try some?” Gabs asked.

  “Heavens, no!”

  “Why not? I think I’ve got some somewhere.” She searched in her bag and retrieved a small white envelope. “Here. I’ll roll you a joint, and you can have a try.”

  “But I don’t even smoke!”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just take it easy.”

  “Suppose someone sees me?”

  “No one will see you. Trust me.”

  “But I’ve heard it’s got a distinctive smell. Someone might — might —”

  “Smell it?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Live a little, Mavis. You’re a long time dead.”

  Alice watched in amusement as Gabs burned a small piece of resin with her cigarette lighter, collected up the resulting fragments, and mixed them with tobacco. She sealed the cigarette paper with a tongue that was pointed, almost catlike, and rolled it into a neat cigarette. Alice’s own pot-smoking days were brief and a long time ago, but she remembered them with affection. Now she came to think about it, cannabis could well have played a part in the creation of Finn.

  “Could I have a try, Gabs?” she said. “For old times’ sake?”

  “We’ll all have one.”

  Gabs lit the first joint, took a deep drag, and then handed it to Mavis.

  “There you go, Mavis. Take it slowly.”

  Mavis took the cigarette and sniffed it gingerly.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” she said.

  “Quite safe.”

  Mavis placed the cigarette between her lips, where it wobbled unsteadily.

  “You’ll have to breathe deeper than that,” Gabs said. “Look. Like this.”

  Mavis did as she was told, and after a brief fit of coughing (“perfectly normal; it’ll pass,” said Gabs), she appeared to get the hang of it. The others watched her with interest.

  “Well?” Gabs said after a few minutes. “What do you think?”

  “Nice,” Mavis beamed. “I’d no idea this would be so nice. Whoops.” She dropped her joint and fumbled in the grass to retrieve it.

  “I told you you’d like it, Mavis,” Gabs said. “Alice? Here’s yours.”

  They smoked their joints, and then Gabs rolled them all another. People milled around them, but apart from one or two odd glances, seemed to take little notice. A dog came up to them, sniffing curiously, and for a moment Mavis wondered whether it might arouse suspicion, but after a brief investigation, it dashed off in pursuit of a pigeon.

  Alice lay back on the rug, smoking and gazing up at the evening sky through a dapple of leaves. A tiny aeroplane crossed her field of vision, leaving a vapour trail. Alice tried to say the words “vapour trail” and found that she couldn’t. She also found that she didn’t care. She felt her back and shoulders relaxing into the ground beneath her; she heard the chatter of birds and the hum of traffic and smelled the scent of crushed grass. She could feel the fragile feathery strands of her daisy chain between her fingers. Her senses were heightened and yet dulled. The feeling was quite delicious. She no longer cared about Jay’s baby — he could have all the babies he wanted — or Angela, or the bitchy editor who’d been on her case about a late article. All she needed was this evening, this park, these lovely people.

  “A piece of pipe,” she said, propping herself on her elbow and taking a sip of her wine.

  “What?” Gabs asked.

  “A piece of pipe. No. Pipe of peace. That’s the one. That’s what I mean. This —” she waved her cigarette — “is like smoking a pipe of peace.”

  “Piece of pipe!” Mavis started to giggle. “Piece of pipe. Pipe of peace. Very funny, Alice.”

  “It’s not that funny,” said Gabs.

  “It’s hilar— hilar— very funny,” Mavis insisted. Her face had gone a deep red, and she was giggling uncontrollably.

  “Oh, well. If you say so.”

  Alice lay down again. The sky was beginning to darken, and it looked as though it might rain. “It might rain,” she said. The words felt heavy as they formed in her mou
th, and she had trouble delivering them. It was not so much like speaking the words as giving birth to them. She pushed them out, one by one. “It. Might. Rain.” That was better.

  “So you said.” Gabs was pouring wine for Maudie. She seemed unaffected by her cigarette.

  “Mother shouldn’t have a drink,” Mavis said. “She’s on pills.”

  “Just a tiny one. One tiny one won’t hurt her,” said Gabs.

  “Mother’s ruin.” Mavis hooted with laughter. “My mother’s ruin.”

  “Gin’s Mother’s ruin, not wine,” said Gabs.

  “Gin. Wine. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Mavis, I think perhaps you’ve had enough,” Gabs said. “It doesn’t mix too well with alcohol, and you’ve had quite a bit.”

  She reached out to take Mavis’s cigarette, but Mavis pulled her hand away. “Spoilsport,” she said, taking another deep lungful of smoke. “Gabs is a spoilsport. Gabs is a spoilsport,” she chanted, looking to Alice for support.

  Alice looked lazily back at her and winked. Poor old Mavis. She was probably having the best time she’d had in ages. That Clifford of hers sounded ghastly, and while Maudie was, as Gabs said, a sweetie, a confused and incontinent sweetie must sometimes make a difficult companion.

  “Gabs isn’t a spoilsport,” she said carefully. “But she has a… she has a…”

  “Point?” said Gabs.

  “Yep. One of those.”

  Mavis pouted and muttered and poured herself more wine. Maudie, who had been asleep for some time, gave a little snore, and the plastic bag, concealed up until now, appeared to have slipped its mooring, and landed with a gentle thump on the grass beside her. Alice noticed that it seemed rather full and wondered by what means it could be emptied.

  “Not my problem,” she said aloud.

  “What isn’t?” Gabs asked.

  “Maudie’s bag.” Alice pointed. “It’s — it’s arrived.”

  “Bugger,” said Gabs. “Oh, well, it’ll probably last until she gets home.” She looked at Mavis, who was now lying down and looking rather sick. “If she gets home.”

  Gabs was becoming seriously worried. Alice was right. Rain did indeed appear to be imminent, and meanwhile she seemed to be the only one in any state to take the initiative. Maudie was still asleep, Mavis was vomiting copiously into a patch of long grass, and Alice was humming tunelessly as she helped herself to yet more wine.

  And it was all Gabs’ fault. She was the one who’d been topping up everyone’s glasses and rolling joints, and she was the one who should have seen this coming. Gabs herself was used to headier combinations of drugs and alcohol and was largely unaffected, but she should have known better than to introduce it to the others.

  “Come on, guys. Time to get going.” She began collecting up the glasses and putting away the picnic things. “Come on, Alice. You at least can help me.”

  “I could,” said Alice dreamily. “Of course I could, but…” She rolled over onto her stomach, resting her head on her arms. “I like it here.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here all night. Any of you. And what about Maudie? She’ll catch her death.”

  “How can you catch death? Such an odd expression.”

  “Alice! Get up!”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “I’ll pour the rest of this bottle all over you.” Gabs brandished the last of the wine and was appalled to see that they’d got through nearly three bottles. “Come on. I’m not kidding.”

  “Go right ahead. I don’t care.” Alice rolled onto her back again, and Gabs emptied the bottle of wine onto her face.

  “Bloody hell! What d’you do that for?” Alice sat up and wiped wine from her eyes and mouth. “You silly cow!”

  “You can thank your lucky stars it wasn’t red, and at least it’s woken you up. That’s something. Now, help me get the others on their feet. We need to get going.”

  “How?” Alice appeared to have come to her senses. “Can’t drive, can I?”

  “Not my problem.”

  “Well, what about Mavis?”

  Gabs looked at Mavis, who was in no state to travel in a taxi, never mind take care of Maudie.

  “D’you know anyone with a car?” she asked.

  “I thought you had one.”

  “I came by taxi, because of the drinking. Don’t you know anyone who might fetch us?”

  Alice considered. “Well, there’s Trot.”

  “Trot?”

  “Finn’s father. I told you. He prop— proposed.” Alice giggled. “Trot proposed!”

  “Never mind that. Has he got a car?”

  “Well, he had a car. May have sold it.”

  “Could you at least phone him?”

  “I suppose I could…”

  Gabs gave Alice a little shake. “Come on, Alice. It looks like this Trot is our only hope.”

  Gabs was furious with herself and everyone else. If she had only herself to consider, she could just phone for a taxi and go home, but she felt some responsibility for what had happened and she could hardly abandon the others to a chilly night in the park. It seemed that it was up to her to get them home, and if Alice’s friend would fetch them, so much the better.

  She reached for Alice’s bag and retrieved her mobile. She managed to find Trot’s number without much difficulty and moved away from the others to make the call.

  “Hey! Alice!” A man’s voice answered after several rings. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “This isn’t going to be a pleasure, I assure you,” Gabs told him. “Are you Trot?”

  “Who is this? Who’s speaking?”

  “Long story,” said Gabs. “No time to go into it. Now, can you fetch Alice and some — some friends and take us home? We’re in a bit of a fix.”

  “What kind of a fix?”

  “Never mind that. You’ll find out when you get here.”

  “How do I know you’re not a thief who’s stolen Alice’s handbag, and you’re trying to use me as a getaway car?”

  “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Mm. That’s more easily said than done. I —”

  “Look. This is an emergency. Are you going to help us or aren’t you?”

  “Why can’t Alice speak to me herself?”

  “She’s — she’s not well.”

  “Drunk?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Ah.” There was a lengthy pause. Gabs was dying to put on the pressure, but she didn’t want to lose what might well be their only chance of a lift home. “Anything to identify her? I need to know who I’m rescuing.”

  “Well, she’s — hang on a minute — she’s wearing a plain gold chain round her neck, and a ring with a bluish stone on her little finger.”

  “That’ll be Alice.” Another pause. “I’ve only got a van.”

  “She said you had a car!”

  “Sold it and bought a van. There’s more room in a van.”

  “Yes. There would be.”

  “So, do you want me or don’t you?”

  If it was a van or nothing, then it had to be a van. “Yes, please.”

  “Where are you?”

  Gabs explained.

  “Bloody hell! That’s miles away!”

  “Do you want the mother of your son to die of exposure?”

  “Well, since you put it like that, I suppose I’d better come and fetch you.”

  “That would be kind.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, d’you think you could get going, then? It’s starting to rain, and we’re getting cold.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I’m on my way.”

  By the time Trot eventually arrived, they were all cold and wet. Alice still seemed largely unaware of the situation, Mavis was being sick again, and Maudie was shivering and singing “Auld Lang Syne”. To be fair to Trot, he appeared to sum up the situation fairly quickly and didn’t ask too many questions. Alice didn’t seem particularly pleased to see him, but that, Gabs reckoned, was tough. The important t
hing was that they now had wheels and a good chance of getting home tonight.

  Fortunately, they weren’t too far from the road, and together they managed to convey Alice and Mavis to the van, where, with some difficulty, they stowed them in the back among a pile of canvases, some fishing gear, and, oddly, something that resembled a Greek urn.

  Maudie was more of a problem.

  “Come on, Maudie. Time to go home,” said Gabs, attempting to help her out of her chair. “Give me a hand, will you, Trot?”

  “Who are you?” Maudie looked suspiciously at Trot. “Not going anywhere with a stranger. Anything might happen.”

  “Well, if you don’t let this stranger drive you home, you’ll have to stay here,” said Gabs.

  “Shall we carry her?” Trot asked.

  “I suppose we could try.” There was quite a lot of Maudie.

  “What on earth’s this?” Trot held up Maudie’s plastic bag, and Maudie gave a squeak of pain.

  “Don’t pull that! It’s attached to her,” Gabs said. “Give it here.”

  “But what is it?”

  “For fuck’s sake, what do you think it is?” Gabs took the bag, which was by now very full indeed. Gabs wondered briefly whether she should empty it, but decided against it. They needed to get Maudie out of the rain, and she didn’t trust Alice and Mavis in the van on their own. “Now stop asking stupid questions and grab hold of her top half.”

  “Leave my tits alone!” Maudie yelled as Trot tried to get a purchase on her upper body.

  “Well, can you walk, then?” Gabs asked her.

  “Course I can,” Maudie said. “But I’m not going with him.”

  “But you’ll come with me, won’t you? You know me.”

  “Bad girl?”

  “That’s me. Now, up you get — that’s the way — and we’ll go and find this van. You carry the bag,” she told Trot, “but stay close as it pulls a bit.”

  “Right you are.” Trot followed Gabs and Maudie, holding the bag as though it were an unexploded bomb (which by now was more or less what it was).

  After some time (and more rain), they reached the van.

  “She’d better go in the front,” said Gabs.

  Together they manhandled Maudie’s substantial backside into the passenger seat, followed by her legs and the bag.