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You only went because you were flattered, I remind myself, examining a tea towel which appears to have been used to stem the flow of ink from a leaking biro. In other words, I was momentarily grateful for a glimmer of male attention, which is no way to go about things. Also, that vile, slimy kiss – I can’t get it out of my mind. Is that how it happens these days? In agreeing to a date, was I sending the message, ‘I’m desperately starved of affection so, yes, of course I’ll welcome your fat, probing tongue into my mouth? In fact, you needn’t have bothered with the tasting menu. Half a cider would have done the trick …’
I worry, too, that it’s not just about Anthony, and that the real issue is I have become sex phobic. In fact, I suspect that the mere act of removing my underwear in front of any adult male would trigger a panic attack. It sounds ridiculous and it’s not because I’ve had terrible experiences in the past. Even when our relationship was in tatters, getting it together with Tom was always pretty good – but now, doing it with anyone seems wholly alarming and unnecessary. It’s like when you pass your driving test and think, this is amazing – I can finally do what all those other grown-up people have been doing all along. It’s incredibly exciting and liberating. Then months – years – pass by before you find yourself behind the wheel again, and when you’re suddenly thrown into the situation, it’s bloody terrifying. Only with driving, you can at least book a course of refresher lessons …
Anyway, as Fergus so succinctly pointed out, I have no need of a man in my life. I have two big, gangly, gorgeous sons. We have a decent, three-bedroomed flat. (I’ll gloss over the fact that Logan describes it, inaccurately, as ‘poky, like our car – why is everything so mini around here?’) And yes, I do have a Mini – the car, that is, a bright-red model which I like very much. I also have a job I enjoy, at least some of the time (the kids are mostly fantastic, the insurmountable paperwork less so) and there’s my ‘little sideline’, which I absolutely love. So what do I need a boyfriend for really? I’m starting to wonder if meringues really do fulfil all my womanly needs.
For one thing, they are so pleasingly uncomplicated, requiring just two main ingredients: egg whites, beaten to a cloud-like froth, and caster sugar, whisked in until satiny smooth. Follow the correct method and a meringue will never flop disappointingly. There are no nasty surprises, like discovering a portrait of an ex-lover tattooed on the pale curve of a buttock (as glimpsed during an ill-advised one-night stand several years ago), or being informed that four grand’s worth of work might just about salvage my face. Yet they’re far from tedious, as the possibilities for flavourings are virtually infinite. As kitchen inspector Erica observed, the perfect specimen is satisfyingly crisp on the outside, and gooey within – where would I find a man to beat that?
To obliterate lingering thoughts of Anthony’s tongue plunging towards my tonsils, I busy myself by gathering up the jotters which Fergus has left scattered across the kitchen table, and remove the two bulging schoolbags which have been dumped in the middle of the floor. As it’s Saturday, the boys are having their customary lie-in. Perhaps I should be demanding that they get up and do something useful, but I actually cherish these peaceful weekend mornings when there’s no one to moan about my choice of radio station.
I set out my ingredients and start cracking eggs, separating whites from yolks. Humming along to some faintly familiar chart music, I whip up a batch of basic mixture to divide into three bowls, one for each new flavour I’m trying out: strawberries, pistachio and rose water, and little gravelly shards of buttery salted caramel. Kirsty, Ingrid and Viv are coming over later for a taste-in. That’s what we call our regular gatherings, suggesting that my friends come over not just to chat and drink wine – or, in Ingrid’s case, supposedly fertility-boosting raspberry leaf tea – but to ‘help’. I remind Logan of this whenever he declares that I am ‘always’ having them over, as if, at my advanced age, there is something a little unseemly about being in the company of other human beings, purely for fun. Presumably I should interact only with colleagues, tradespeople and Tesco employees.
At around eleven, Fergus is the first to emerge from his boudoir. ‘God, I need food,’ he groans, jabbing a finger into the strawberry mixture and licking it.
‘Hey, hands out of there,’ I exclaim.
He pokes at the caramel bowl.
‘Stop sticking your fingers into everything!’
‘Why? I’m starving. I’m about to keel over, Mum, and you just don’t care …’ He sniggers and makes for the pistachio bowl but I manage to swipe him away.
‘Uncooked meringue mixture isn’t proper breakfast food. If you can wait two minutes I’ll make you some eggs.’
‘Not too runny,’ he warns.
‘No, sweetheart,’ I reply, feigning subservience, ‘I’ll try to do them properly this time.’
‘You doing scrambles, Mum?’ Logan has emerged now, rubbing his bleary, pillow-creased face.
‘Yes, love.’
‘Can I not have mine rubberised like his?’
‘Of course! I’ll do both differently, according to your precise wishes.’ With a smirk, I grab my piping bag and start to pipe out strawberry kisses on a paper-lined tray, frowning as Logan starts jabbing his fingers into the mixture. ‘Please stop sticking your fingers into my bowls,’ I bark.
‘Whoa.’ He backs away, turning to Fergus. ‘You’d think I’d spat in it.’ They both chortle as I swap the two trays of cooked meringues in the oven for the freshly-piped batch.
‘So,’ I say, now turning my attention to their eggs, ‘what are you two up to today?’
‘I’m going to fix my translator,’ Fergus says confidently.
‘How about you, Logan? Is Blake coming over?’
He sighs loudly, clearly overwhelmed by my relentless questioning. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Where to? Who with?’
‘Just out, Mum, with people.’ No further information supplied.
‘Logan,’ I say, stirring their eggs on the hob, ‘you’ll have to be a bit more specific than that. I need to know where you are, hon.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m your mum, dearest.’
‘Yeah, and I’m sixteen, I’m an adult—’ He stops short as my mobile starts trilling; I don’t recognise the number but take the call anyway.
‘Hi, Alice?’ comes the strident male voice. ‘It’s me.’
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s me – Anthony from last night. Don’t say you’ve forgotten already.’ He chuckles disconcertingly.
‘Oh, er … right.’ I shudder. It takes years, and probably living under one roof, before you’re allowed to announce yourself as ‘me’.
‘Thought you might like to come and see a movie later,’ he goes on.
‘You mean today?’
‘Well, yes, if you’re not doing anything. I’ve checked out the Filmhouse …’
God, that’s a little presumptuous. Maybe he interpreted me leaping away from his suckering lips as a sign of being unable to manage my yearning for him – like when you nudge away a chocolate cake in case you lose all control and end up devouring the lot. Or maybe he’s just eager to give me a good going-over with his roller.
‘Sorry, I can’t today,’ I reply, wondering what possessed me to add ‘today’ – ever is what I should have said.
‘Ah, yes, busy with your meringues, I’d imagine,’ he says with a snigger.
The boys are shooting me curious looks. ‘Actually, yes, I’m making a batch right now. Sorry, better go. Can’t leave the uncooked mixture sitting around too long …’
‘Oh, what’ll happen?’ he asks leeringly. ‘Will it lose its stiffness?’
‘What?’ Something sour rises in my throat; sixteen hours later, that amuse-bouche is still fermenting away in my gut.
‘Or are we talking more the texture of soft peaks?’ Anthony enquires.
‘Yes, sort of,’ I say tersely.
‘I’d like to see you brandishing your whisk,’ he growls. ‘I imagine it’d be handy for a little light beating …’
‘Logan, keep an eye on those eggs in the pan,’ I order him, striding through to the living room so as to distance myself from the boys’ flapping ears.
‘They’re rubberised,’ Logan shouts after me. ‘These are, like, teeth-bouncing eggs.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I hiss into the phone.
‘I mean,’ Anthony drawls, ‘a little tap on the bottom would be pleasing.’
I peer at a small muddy smear on the white wall and wonder, briefly, how it got there. ‘You mean with my whisk?’
‘Mmmm, yes …’
The small pause is filled by the sound of his rhythmic breathing.
‘You have a thing for kitchen utensils,’ I say flatly. He whispers something I don’t catch. ‘Speak up, I can’t hear you.’
‘I said,’ Anthony whispers, ‘I’ve been a very naughty boy …’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ I splutter, ‘you’re not a boy, you’re a forty-five-year-old man, and I hate to tell you but I use an electric mixer. D’you honestly think I could whisk up twenty-four egg whites with a hand whisk? I’d get repetitive strain injury or tennis elbow—’
‘Yes, but I just thought—’
‘Goodbye, Anthony.’ Having ended the call, I return to the kitchen, trying to emit an aura of serenity as I grab my mug of milky coffee and take a big gulp.
‘Anthony?’ Logan repeats with a smirk.
‘Was that Fat-Tongue Man?’ Fergus sniggers.
‘Who’sFat-Tongue Man?’ Logan enquires.
‘No one you know,’ I say quickly, serving up the eggs, even though no one seems especially interested in eating them.
‘Who’s got a fat tongue?’ he persists.
‘No one, Logan.It was just something stupid I said without thinking.’
‘Anthony’s the man she went out with last night,’ Fergus announces, ‘and he tried to kiss her. That’s why she’s on about tongues. He tried to stick it in her mouth—’
‘For God’s sake,’ I cut in, ‘of course he didn’t. I barely know him …’
‘He snogged her,’ Fergus adds with a shudder, ‘and now he’s calling her at home.’ I dump the egg pan in the sink and blink at my sons. Now, although I still have no plans to see Anthony again – and can’t believe I found him pleasant company as we snacked on Ingrid’s canapés – I do take exception to the suggestion that no man should phone me ‘at home’.
‘Where else would anyone call me?’ I ask mildly.
‘Dunno.’ Fergus shrugs.
‘I mean, I assume it’s okay for me to take private calls here,’ I add, aware that I’m verging towards overreacting now, ‘seeing as I pay the bill and the mortgage on our flat in which our phone resides.’
‘Yeah, all right, Mum,’ he says, shoving aside his substandard breakfast and swaggering out of the kitchen, closely tailed by his big brother.
‘Why does she do that?’ Logan’s voice rings out from the hall.
‘Dunno.’
‘Clemmie doesn’t. She never talks to Blake like that.’
‘Nah, I know,’ Fergus agrees.
‘She respects him,’ Logan observes, then the TV goes on in the living room, cranked up to its customary old person’s volume, so I can overhear no more.
I stand there, heart hammering in my chest, as a TV advert for fence preserver blasts through the flat. Only when it has returned to a relatively normal speed can I concentrate on the matter in hand. I resume piping meringues, wondering why any interaction between me and an adult male is viewed as tawdry, whereas their father is regarded as the height of respectability. Having put the last batch to bake, I clear up the kitchen, and find the boys still lolling on the sofa.
‘You know Dad’s coming to get you at lunchtime tomorrow,’ I remind them, ‘so you really should start packing today.’
No response. They are watching a programme about the building of an eco-house, a dazzling wedge of glass clinging to a hillside in a remote part of Wales.
‘Look at that,’ Logan murmurs. ‘Imagine living somewhere like that.’
‘Yes, imagine,’ I say distractedly, surveying the scattering of shoes, batteries and backless remote controls on the carpet.
Fergus turns to me. ‘It’s an eco-house, Mum. It’s hardly got any carbon footprint.’
‘Amazing,’ I agree.
‘We should be more eco-friendly,’ he goes on.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, like, our oven’s always on, isn’t it?’
‘Not always,’ I correct him, ‘but quite a lot, yes, when I’m baking, obviously …’
‘It’s on so much, Mum! Think of what it’s doing to the planet.’
I take a moment to digest this. ‘Meringues take a long time to bake, Fergus. There’s not much I can do about that.’
He scowls, as if I might be making this up, and enjoy consuming vast quantities of electricity just for the hell of it. ‘Couldn’t you make something different? Something that cooks quicker?’
I burst out laughing. ‘What d’you have in mind?’
‘I dunno, you’re the baker.’ With that, he turns his attention back to the TV where the presenter is extolling the virtues of a composting toilet.
‘Oh, and just so you know,’ I add, my voice drifting like tumbleweed, ‘the girls are coming over later to test flavours.’
Logan throws me a bemused look. ‘The girls,’ he sniggers.
‘Okay,’ I say, my voice rising a little, ‘the women are coming over. Is that better?’
Fergus chuckles. ‘That sounds as if you don’t actually like them very much.’
‘So when are they coming?’ Logan wants to know.
‘About seven-ish.’
‘Ugh, all that talking and laughing …’
‘I know – hideous,’ I snigger, catching Fergus’s eye who grins in return. ‘We shouldn’t be allowed to congregate en masse.’
But thank God we do, I think, leaving him to ogle the eco-house while Logan gets up and heads out, to meet his people.
