Authors: Jane Lovering
said officiously. "It's a filthy habit." Piers said nothing, but his
smile went a bit lopsided. "Let's see what you bought."
Reluctantly needing her approval, I unfolded the dress and
found myself the centre of silent attention from the pair of
them. "Wow, Mum!" Florence had got up off the sofa in
admiration. "This is just so cool." She pulled the dress from
my arm and held it up against herself. "What d'you reckon,
Piers?"
Piers swung himself upright in the chair and cleared his
throat. "Yeah, that is pretty cool. It's designer, right, Alys?"
I nodded, watching the feline figure of my daughter
whisking around the room, making the flared skirt of the
dress dance out behind her. Half of me was proud of her
looks, athletically slim with skin that had gone the shade of
heather honey in the summer sun, hair so unlike mine or
Alasdair's. People often commented on her moonsilver
blondeness, how it contrasted with the perpetually tawny
skin.
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Slightly Foxed
by Jane Lovering
The other half of me was plain jealous. Young and
everything to live for. I'd been like that, once, before I'd
screwed up so royally. Still. Never mind, no point dwelling.
Must get on, be practical, things to do—
Piers was unexpectedly my ally. "It'd look crap on you, Flo.
You're the wrong colouring."
Florence dropped the dress on the table. "Oh yeah?" She
rounded on Piers. "I wouldn't wear it anyway, piece of
second-hand shit," and marched off to her bedroom,
slamming the door to leave neither of us in any doubt over
what she thought about her stepbrother's opinions.
Piers and I regarded each other in solemn silence for a
second, then we both grinned. "Christ, d'you think I was like
that at sixteen?" he asked.
"Probably."
"Shit." Piers shook his head. "Madness. Why do people
have kids anyway?"
"Good idea at the time," I said briskly. "Most of them
would be better off getting a Labrador." I began tidying up
the detritus of their residency. Biscuit wrappers littered the
floor and there was a jam sandwich on top of the CD player.
Grainger was under the table in a tabby ruckus of newspaper
and old socks, with Theo forming a good solid base to it all.
"Can you see my ma with a dog?" Piers had got to his feet.
Crouched under the table trying to extricate Theo without
waking Grainger, I could only see his lower half. "Mud and
hair and stuff? I mean, what the hell did she do with me when
I was a baby—put me in some kinda crate or something?" I
refused to be drawn into speculation on this subject and
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Slightly Foxed
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crawled out, tugging Theo out of the Grainger-nest as I came.
I flipped a few pages in hopes that a piece of paper might
drift free and solve the "Isabelle Logan Mystery", but nothing
happened other than a bit of stray fur floating to the carpet.
"So, you ready to face the grey brigade? I can drop you off,
wait if you want, you might need backup. I mean,
Dead Air
—
what you gonna give them next,
Trainspotting
?"
"I didn't realise you were so literary," I said slightly
sharply.
"Yeah. Gorgeous
and
I read. You wearing the green
dress?"
I sighed. His self-confidence was tiring. "I suppose. Might
give them a bit of a shock though, finding out I've got legs. I
think they assume I'm rolling around on castors, like a
Dalek."
Piers glanced down at my workday jeans, a little tight
around the bum. "Reckon they'll already suspect about the
legs." He blew and his hair flipped. "Yeah. Then maybe after
we could go get a drink or something? Run down to Opus or
one of the bars?"
"You just want an excuse to drive that car."
"You need an excuse to wear that dress. Sounds like a fair
trade to me."
"I am not dressing up to have a drink with you, Piers," I
said, half-laughing until I saw the quick look of hurt which
crossed his face. "Oh, all right. It'll be good for my ego,
anyway, having a drink with such a dazzling couple."
"I'm not coming!" Florence shouted from her bedroom.
"Didn't invite you!" shouted back Piers.
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"But—" I stopped on my way to my room, dress over my
arm. "I thought—"
"You know Flo, Alys. She'd spend the whole evening
sulking because she'd rather go clubbing."
There really should be some kind of law that forces guilt to
be finite. Because, right now, what with the Theo theft, the
frivolity of dressing up to go out to meet a bunch of near
octogenarians and leaving Florence so that I could have a
drink with a male-model look-alike, I was in danger of
creasing up under the weight of my own remorse. But only a
bit.
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Slightly Foxed
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My book group, ironically enough since I'd joined it to
meet like-minded men, comprised Mrs. Treadgold, Mrs.
Munroe, Mrs. James and Mrs. Searle, four ladies past
pensionable age, and Mr. Mansell, an elderly man so frail I
worried that if someone turned a page too quickly he'd blow
over. The one male member under forty had left three
months ago to live with his partner Malcolm in Derbyshire.
Despite this, I'd stayed on and now considered everyone in
the group as good friends.
Mrs. Treadgold ushered me to the empty seat next to her
and whispered confidentially, "I
enjoyed
the book. It was
refreshing." Across the table Mr. Mansell dropped me an
extraordinarily ribald wink and Mrs. Munroe, who had a
Mastermind-level knowledge of the early works of Dick
Francis, gave me a grin so broad that her ill-fitting top set
almost came over to thank me personally. I felt ridiculously
proud of their broadmindedness.
We broke later for coffee and some of Mrs. James's
flapjacks. Mrs. Treadgold sidled over to me as I tried to avoid
having my bottom pinched by Mr. Mansell, which was
tragically like a Benny Hill sketch in very, very slow motion. "I
saw you, you know," she said, in a half-whisper, "being
dropped off tonight."
"Oh, right." I took another bite of flapjack.
Her carefully coiffed grey bob bobbed. "I'm just
so
pleased
for you."
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Slightly Foxed
by Jane Lovering
"Well, yes, it's nice not to have to get the bus."
"I meant your young man. He looks nice. Very"—she rolled
her eyes and the hair, which wasn't her own, tootled about
independently—"
shaggable
."
I nearly inhaled my flapjack. I wasn't sure which shocked
me most, the fact she thought Piers was my boyfriend or the
fact
Dead Air
had obviously corrupted her vocabulary. "Er,
actually that was my ex's stepson."
We were interrupted at that point by Mrs. Searle, who was
nominally in charge, calling us to the table. But Mrs.
Treadgold had time to whisper, "Your young man is your
stepson
? Ooh, Alys, you're so
naughty.
" Then, lowering her
voice even more, "I really admire you, you know. You don't
have much, but"—she stared down at the impressive cleavage
the green dress gave me—"you certainly make the best of
what you have."
Maybe I should have explained and told her that Piers was
only after my advice rather than my body. But then I saw her
whispering to Mrs. Munroe and decided to float on my laurels
a little longer. Maybe I should choose
The Female Eunuch
as
my next book.
The five of them stood at my back like a parental
multiplicity when Piers came to pick me up, shuffling each
other aside for better views. Although I suspected Mr. Mansell
just wanted a close-up of my legs as I clambered into the
yellow Porsche, with Piers obviously trying not to laugh.
"What?"
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Slightly Foxed
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"Nothing. Where d'you want to go? For a drink? I thought
maybe that little winebar in Coppergate? They do great food
too, if you're hungry."
"I'm fine."
"Alys." He turned to me, sluicing his hair off his face with
long fingers. "You didn't eat when you got in. You must be
starved and I'm offering you food, what's with turning it
down?"
"Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. It's—never mind." I couldn't
really explain that being bought a meal made me feel
uncomfortably beholden. Anyway, this was Piers. I was
supposed to be doing
him
a favour, wasn't I?
It was five miles to the bar in Coppergate. I know this,
because I stared at the speedometer all the way, counting
down every two-wheeled curve, every airborne bump and had
very nearly converted to any religion that would have me by
the time we arrived.
"Okay, Alys? You went a little quiet back there."
"When I get my nails out of your upholstery, I'll let you
know." Carefully I climbed out of the low door and tried to
adjust the skirt of my dress so that it wasn't showing my
knickers.
"I'll drive slower on the way back." Piers locked the car
with a flourish of a remote device. "I wouldn't want you not to
enjoy the experience."
I suddenly felt rather warm. "You mean you wouldn't want
me to have an 'experience' all over the inside of your car."
"You get sick in cars?"
"Never, before tonight."
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Slightly Foxed
by Jane Lovering
"Riiiight." Piers led the way. The bar was filled with a
weeknight crowd of hardened drinkers all trying to pretend
that Monday was the new Saturday.
Piers sat down, then ordered wine. He looked a bit twitchy,
distracted. Nervous.
"So. Are you going to tell me what your problem is? Apart
from that truly nasty shirt you've got on."
"I—what's wrong with it?" He opened the bottle of wine
and slopped a major portion of the contents into two glasses,
catching my eye and grinning wildly. Almost every pair of
female eyes in the place was swivelling towards him, although
that could have been the car-crash fascination of the skintight
Liberty print shirt.
"Okay," he said carefully. "Here's the thing." He stopped
and began twisting the glass between his hands, slopping the
greenish-yellow liquid around the sides. "Nah. It'll be cool. No
need to stress you with all the crap that's going down."
"But—" I looked across the table at him, the outline of his
face seemed to waver, all eyes and hair.
"I guess I thought I wanted to talk about it. Now I'm not
so sure. Do you want to order food?"
Oh, what the hell, I thought, swigging down wine. Good
food, good wine and the company of a beautiful man. I mean,
how serious could any problem suffered by a man with a
platinum Am-Ex card actually
be
? "All right. If it's not that
important."
"I didn't say it wasn't important. I only said I didn't want
to talk about it right now, okay? Let's just eat. Relax. You
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Slightly Foxed
by Jane Lovering
know, have fun. Talk. Know something, Alys? You never talk
about yourself."
"Er, maybe because I like my friends and don't want to
bore them into insensibility." I helped myself to some more
wine. It was rather nice, and getting nicer with each glassful.
"That is
so
not what I mean." Piers leaned forward across
the table. "I think—"
However, whatever it was he thought, he never got to tell
me. A crowd of young, pretty people arrived at our table,
friends of Piers, overanimated and dramatic. To his credit he
tried to keep talking to me but two of the girls insinuated
themselves between us. One of them sat on his lap and
played with his hair while the other stroked his leg and drank
from his glass. "This your mum, Piers?"
"No. This is Alys."
"Oh, right." The hair stroking went on until I began to feel
uncomfortable and drank even more of the wine, without
tasting it. The leg stroker turned her back, effectively blocking
Piers from me and began slipping fingers between the buttons
of his shirt.
He bent forward, looked around her chest at me and
winked. "Hey, Alys. D'you want me to take you home?"
"Oooooh," chorused the two girls. They gave me a kind of
sneer-appraisal. "Sounds like your lucky night, Doris."
"Alys."
But they'd collapsed into giggles at the obvious
ridiculousness of their suggestion and weren't even looking at
me any more. Piers was. And not even smiling. Just looking.
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Slightly Foxed
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"Er, no, I'm fine here." I pretended to toast him with my
glass. No girls who looked younger than my own daughter
and wore less clothes than the average domestic pet were
going to drive me away from the first evening out I'd had in