Chapter 33

’Do you know what might be helpful?’ said Blythe when Lola tackled her in the kitchen. ‘If you could just stop watching us all the time.’

‘But I can’t help it! 1 want to watch you!’

‘Well, it makes us feel like two giant pandas in a zoo, with everyone waiting for us to mate.’

‘Mum! Eeuuw!’

Blythe smiled faintly. ‘See? That’s how I feel too.’

‘About Nick? But he’s my father.You were in love with him,’ Lola protested. For heaven’s sake, they’d mated at least once. ‘Twenty-eight years ago,’ Blythe reminded her.

‘And now he’s here again!’ Lola couldn’t understand how her mother could be this uninterested in Nick. For herself, finding Dougie again had brought all the old feelings rushing back stronger than ever.Yet for Blythe it simply wasn’t happening, which was frustrating beyond belief.

‘Look, if your father and I had gone ahead and got married back then, we’d have been divorced by the time you were three. I know that now’ Blythe went on as Lola opened her mouth to protest. ‘I’m old enough to know it for a fact. Look at yourfather and look at me.’ She gestured at herself, at her wild red hair and pink glittery blouse, the crinkled leaf-green skirt that so strongly resembled a lettuce. Then, flipping a hand towards the living room, she said dismissively, ‘And there’s him in his trendy clothes, with his hair cut by Gordon Ramsay.’

Startled, Lola said, ‘What?’

‘Oh, you know who I mean.’ Her mother’s tone was scornful. ‘Some celebrity hairdresser chap off the telly.You see, that’s the difference between us, love. Nick went in one direction, I went in the other. Neither of us are the same people we were back then. And now he’s turned into the kind of person who thinks it’s normal to spend a hundred pounds on a haircut. I mean, can you imagine? Talk about a fool and his money soon being parted!’

For heaven’s sake, would you listen to her? ‘Mum, you can’t say that.’

‘I can say anything I like, love.’

‘About me?’ Nick appeared in the doorway, causing Lola to clatter coffee cups into their saucers.

‘About your hair,’ Blythe said cheerfully.

‘Sorry,’ said Lola. ‘My mother’s turning into a bit of a delinquent.’

Nick shrugged. ‘That’s OK, Blythe’s entitled to her opinion about my hair, just as I’m allowed to have an opinion about her skirt. Would you like me to carry that coffee through?’

‘Thanks.’ Lola passed him the tray.

‘Maybe I wore this skirt because I knew it would annoy you.’ Blythe beamed.

Lola said, ‘And maybe you’re about to get a pot of coffee tipped over your head. Could you please be nice to each other or should I put you at opposite ends of the table?’

‘Hey, we’re fine.’ Nick’s tone was reassuring. ‘Just having fun.’

‘Of course we are.’ Giving Lola a conciliatory hug, Blythe said, ‘Don’t take any notice of us.

Dinner was gorgeous, by the way. And I do like EJ, very much.’

Lola wondered if Sally did too.

‘He’s a good chap.’ Nodding in agreement, Nick said, ‘Is he wearing those trousers for a bet?’

Back in the living room, Lola poured out the coffee. Gabe drained his in one scalding gulp and jumped to his feet. ‘Right, I’m off to work.’ A

‘Now?’ Lola said. ‘But it’s nearly midnight.’

‘Colin wants me to get some shots outside Bouji’s. It’s somebody’s birthday there tonight.’

Sally the Queen of OK! magazine said eagerly, ‘Ooh, whose?’

‘Um ... can’t remember.’ Combing his hair with his fingers and shrugging on his battered suede jacket, Gabe said his goodbyes, gave Lola a thank-you kiss on the cheek and headed for the door.

‘Um ... Gabe?’

He turned, eyebrows registering impatience. ‘Yes?’

Lola cleared her throat. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘What?’ He looked blank.

She pointed to the coffee table behind him. ‘Might help if you took your camera.’

‘OK,’ said Lola an hour later when it was only the two of them left. ‘On a scale of one to ten, and I know he’s an older man so it isn’t easy, but how attractive would you say my father is?’

Ten! No, twelve! No, six hundred and ninety-eight! Whoops, better not say that. Mentally reminding herself that she was several glasses of wine beyond sober, Sally gave the matter serious consideration and said carefully, ‘Well, he does have his own hair and teeth, so I would say ... sevenish. And nice clothes .. . OK, maybe seven and a half.’

‘Exactly.’ Lola thumped the dining table in agreement. ‘That’s what I think too. And for an older man, seven and a half’s perfectly respectable, it’s a good score. But when I asked Mum earlier, she said three! I mean, three.And she wasn’t being horrible, it’s what she really genuinely thought.’

Hooray.

‘He’s not fat, he’s not a skinny rake,’ Sally went on. ‘Maybe even an eight.’

‘OK, now you’re getting carried away.’ Dismissively Lola shook her head. ‘He’s only my father.

But the point is, how can my mum not fancy him? All those feelings she once had — where did they go?’

‘No idea. Maybe they evaporated.’ Sally shrugged and dripped wine down her chin. ‘Just vanished. Like Doug’s feelings for you.’

Lola winced. ‘Don’t say that! Do you have any idea how much it hurts to hear you say that?’

‘But it’s true. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.You can’t force Doug to change the way he feels about you. And you can’t make your mum fall back in love with your father.’ Especially when I want him.

‘You’re being mean. OK, how many marks out of ten would you give EJ?’

There was an odd, intense look in Lola’s eyes as she asked the question. Sally, topping up their glasses, sensed that this was important to her. Lola must be keener on EJ than she was letting on.

And he was good fun ... in a speccy, nerdy, wealthy kind of way.

In a generous mood – and because it was in her best interests to make Lola happy – Sally said,

‘Honestly? Nine.’

‘Nine!’ Lola looked incredulous.

‘Why not? He’s lovely. Oh my God, what is that on your head?’ Having been idly flipping through one of the albums Blythe had brought along to show Nick, Sally was distracted by a photo of Lola, aged about seven, wearing a black leotard and unflattering black skullcap with huge pink and black ears attached.

‘I was a mouse in the school play. Don’t make fun of me – I was the star of the show. Do you like EJ?’

‘I just told you, of course I do.’ Turning to the next page, Sally snorted with laughter at a snap of Lola on a trip to the zoo, leaping back in fright as an elephant investigated the ice cream in her hand with its trunk.

‘No, but do you like-like him?’

Sally looked up; it was on the tip of her tongue to say no, the only man she like-liked was Nick.

She could say it, couldn’t she? Just blurt it out, then Lola would know and she wouldn’t have to hide her feelings any more ... Oh God, but what if it caused an upset? Lola hadn’t yet given up on the idea that she could get her parents back together. Maybe tonight wasn’t the best time .. .

‘Who, EJ?’ Dimly aware that the pause between question and answer was too long and terrified that Lola might somehow be managing to read her mind, Sally took another glug of wine and said over-brightly, ‘Of course I don’t. Oh look, I love this one of you in a wig!’ Hurriedly she pointed to a snap of Lola dressed as John McEnroe during his red headband era. Was that for a fancy dress party?’

‘That’s not fancy dress, those were my best shorts.’ Her mouthtwitching, Lola aimed a pudding fork at Sally’s injured, propped-up leg. ‘And I wasn’t wearing a wig.’

Sally made her wibbly-wobbly way across the landing shortly afterwards, careering off walls and giggling wildly as she exclaimed for the fifteenth time, ‘You cannot be serious!’

Leaving the washing-up for tomorrow, Lola headed for bed and took Sally’s photo albums with her. Doug might have made off with the album containing the most photos of him – spoilsport –

but he still featured in the others often enough to make them interesting. Having had to pretend to be fascinated by the pictures of Sally earlier, she could now concentrate unashamedly on Doug. God, he’d been a beautiful baby ... and an irresistibly angelic toddler ... there he was at a school concert with his hair all neat, his knees all knobbly and one grey sock falling down .. .

here were ones of him as a teenager, aged thirteen or fourteen, with a mischievous look in his eyes and a cheeky grin .. .

Lola wiped her cheek as a lone tear escaped. Dougie riding his bike with no hands, Dougie diving into a swimming pool, Dougie about to tip a bucket of seawater over Sally while she sunbathed on a beach, Dougie – older now, possibly eighteen or nineteen – cavorting in a park with a group of friends she didn’t know.

More tears dripped off Lola’s chin, because these were his university years now, the ones she could have shared with him, should have shared but hadn’t.

Everything would have been so different and you could drive yourself mad wondering how your life might have turned out if only you’d done this or that.

And wondering was irrelevant anyway. At the time she hadn’t had any other choice.

Lola jumped as the phone began to ring, causing the album to slide sideways off the bed. It was gone one o’clock in the morning; who could be calling her now? Unless it was Dougie, who had been looking through the dark green photo album he’d made off with earlier and been overcome with longing and regret .. .

‘Hello?’ Lola said breathlessly, her palms damp with hope. Her imagination conjured up a split screen of the two of them in their own beds flirting over the phone with each other like Rock Hudson and Doris Day in Pillow Talk ... or Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally .. .