A Friend of the Family Page 5

  ‘Surf’s up,’ Tony cackled, miming a surfer balancing on his board.

  ‘You can talk,’ said Ned, grabbing hold of Tony’s belly and bouncing it up and down. ‘Christ, you’ve got fat.’

  Tony grinned at the insult – funnily enough it didn’t hurt coming from Ned. And then he became aware of a figure hovering at his side. ‘Oh God. Sorry,’ he said, stepping out of the way. ‘Ned, this is Ness, my girlfriend.’ He watched Ned’s face as he absorbed the reality of Ness, the unfashionable clothes, the slightly crooked teeth and the total and utter lack of similarity in any way to his ex-wife. ‘Ness, this is Ned.’

  ‘Nooo,’ said Ness sarcastically, rolling her eyes at Tony and leaning in to kiss Ned on the cheek. ‘How fantastic to finally meet you.’

  ‘Great to meet you, too,’ said Ned, ‘you’ve come highly recommended.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah – Mum hasn’t stopped going on about you. She reckons you’re Tony’s saviour.’

  Ness flushed pleasurably and Tony felt himself bristling with irritation. Saviour? What the hell was all that about?

  A set of knuckles banged against the front door.

  ‘Oh, that’ll be Seany. OK now, quiet, everyone.’ Bernie put a finger to her lips and went to answer it.

  ‘Hello, angel,’ they could hear her saying. ‘… Now close your eyes, Seany – I’ve got a surprise for you.’

  ‘All my boys, all together, it’s like being in heaven.’ Bernie looked as if she were about to expire with pure joy as her eyes swivelled around the table from son to son.

  ‘Mickey,’ she said to the dark-haired man standing proprietarily by the cash desk, ‘look – all my boys!’

  ‘Aah,’ said Mickey, snapping to attention and walking towards their table, ‘so I see.’

  Tony was never entirely sure whether Mickey genuinely liked his family or whether the bonhomie and familiarity were all part of some slick PR thing. The Londons had been coming to Mickey’s since Tony was a baby. Mickey’s had been the first Greek to open up in the area and for a while it was the most popular restaurant around. All the local young couples came here on Saturday nights to relive their Mediterranean holidays. When the boys were kids they’d been to Mickey’s every Saturday night, sometimes just the family and sometimes with friends; they went there not just for the food but also for the ‘entertainment’– musicians, dancers, plate-breaking. But nowadays they went only on special occasions: birthdays, promotions, engagements – and the return of youngest sons.

  ‘So,’ said Mickey, beaming beatifically at the family, his hand resting on the back of Tony’s chair, ‘where you bin hiding, Mr Ned? Why you leave your mother on her own for so long, eh? Your mother, she bin pining – pining pining pining.’

  ‘You tell him, Mickey,’ said Bernie good-naturedly. ‘Three years, he’s been gone – three years!

  Mickey tutted extravagantly and raised his hands to the ceiling. ‘I tell you, if one of my boys did this – other side of the world, three years, no visits – Mrs Mickey, she would die, probably, die of a broken heart.’ He clutched his hand to his chest to illustrate the breaking of Mrs Mickey’s heart. Mickey was prone to melodrama, another trait that Tony had never been sure was genuine or part of an elaborately constructed persona. The whole family worked on the assumption that Mickey loved the Londons, but for all they knew he could be throwing darts at photos of them in his spare time and sticking pins into voodoo dolls. Tony didn’t trust anyone who was in a position to make money out of him. Ever. They had too much to gain by being nice to you.

  ‘What you bin doing out there in Aussieland for three years, Mr Ned? You bin surfing, huh?’

  Ned grimaced and was about to answer when Mickey suddenly turned round to acknowledge a customer who’d just walked in. Another deeply loved customer, judging by the look of joy and delight that spread across his face.

  ‘Hey, Mr Gervase!’

  Tony turned in his seat. Gervase. Great. Fucking great. Couldn’t this family do anything on their own these days without Skeletor turning up?

  ‘All right, Mickey – how’s it hanging?’The two men shook hands warmly and Gervase pulled off his leather jacket and took the empty seat between Bernie and Ness. ‘Sorry, I’m late, Bern.’ He kissed her on the cheek and she flushed with pleasure.

  ‘Never you mind, love. We haven’t even ordered yet.’

  Tony caught Ned’s eye. He was throwing him a ‘What the fuck is this all about?’ look. Tony shook his head slightly and sent him a ‘This is just the way things are now and I don’t like it any more than you do’ look.

  ‘All right, beautiful?’ Gervase leant in to Ness and gave her a big smacker on the cheek.

  Ness beamed and Tony stared at his menu, crossly. This was their restaurant. The Londons’ restaurant. This was where they came, as a family.

  Apparently Mum had met him at the pub, that place where she sang on Wednesday nights, and they’d ‘got chatting’– whatever that meant. He’d given her some sob story about how his girlfriend had kicked him out and he was about to spend his last fifty quid taking a hotel room for the night and she’d said, ‘Oh don’t be daft, we’ve got a whole house full of rooms – why don’t you come and stay at ours?’And he was still there, nearly two months later. Mum and Dad didn’t even know what he did for a living. ‘It’s none of our business,’Mum would say. ‘He’s living in your fucking house, Mum – our house. He’s in Ned’s bedroom, for Christ’s sake – of course it’s your business.’

  Mum would just purse her lips and sigh. ‘I can’t explain it, love,’she’d say. ‘It just feels like the right thing to be doing. He’s got nowhere else to go.’Dad had been a bit unsure at first. Had just shrugged and said ‘Your mother seems to be quite fond of him’ when Tony questioned the concept of letting a complete stranger live in their house. But now he seemed to be coming round to the bloke. He’d even given him occasional work, driving the van, doing deliveries.

  Gervase was chatting to Gerry now about some delivery he’d done for him today, about some poncey woman in Lansdowne Square who’d made him take off his shoes before he was allowed in the house, and Ness and Bernie were in stitches, as if it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Tony turned to Ned again and they made more fucked-off faces at each other. Gerry hissed at them, ‘Pack it in, you two’, and they both covered their mouths with their hands and pretended to look chastened, kicking each other’s ankles under the table and stifling giggles.

  ‘Honestly,’ muttered Gerry, ‘like a pair of kids.’

  Tony cast a glance at Sean to see if he was pissed off about the unwelcome interloper at the table, but he was absorbed in his menu, rubbing absent-mindedly at the top of his ear. In another world. As ever. Probably thinking about Millie, he mused. Probably imagining what he was going to do to her when he got home that night. Probably sitting there thinking, Christ aren’t I just the luckiest bastard in all the world, with my bestselling novel and my toned stomach and my fantastically sexy girlfriend and… Oh, God. Tony checked himself. His napkin was screwed into a knot between his hands and he felt swamped by an altogether unsavoury set of emotions. Jealousy, he told himself. Not good. Unattractive. Pathetic. Especially when it’s towards your little brother, who you love more than life itself…

  Stop it.

  Immediately.

  Stop it

  He checked his breathing, straightened his cuffs and looked back at his brother. Sean. Little Seany. Seany who’d come along when Tony was four years old and had been the best surprise of his life. He remembered thinking that the new brother or sister was going to be some kind of green slimy monster, reasoned that it would have to be if it had spent nine months living in Mum’s stomach. He’d been terrified at the prospect and then Dad had brought him to see Mum and the new baby at the hospital and he’d just been a little pink kid, a harmless little pink kid with huge ears and puffy eyes.

  Sean, he thought, little Seany. My little brother…

 
‘So, you and, er… Millie’– he tempered the tone of his voice in an attempt at nonchalance, but still felt convinced that he’d imbued her name with every last nuance of his desire for her – ‘you still coming on Saturday?’

  Sean looked at him blankly.

  ‘My birthday.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Right. Well, I am. Not sure about Millie yet.’

  ‘Oh,’ Tony said, trying to hide the devastation in his voice, ‘how come?’

  Sean shrugged.

  ‘He’s ashamed of us,’ Bernie butted in.

  ‘Mum! I’m not. I told you…’

  ‘He never used to wait this long to bring a girl home. It used to be the first place he brought them. Come in, meet my mum, meet my dad, make yourself at home. This one’s obviously too good for the likes of us.’ She winked to ensure that everyone knew she was joking, but Sean didn’t notice.

  ‘Mum! It’s not that. It’s just – she’s different, this one. She’s older. And more – independent. She’s got a whole life thing going on. A big life. It just… I just want to take it easy, give her her space. That’s all.’

  ‘See,’ said Bernie, triumphantly, a small smile playing on her lips, ‘ashamed of us.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ said Ned, his curiosity suddenly piqued.

  ‘She’s all right.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Ned facetiously, ‘she sounds great.’

  ‘No – I mean, she’s great. She’s funny, and she’s clever and she’s cool. Really cool. Tony’s met her, ask him.’

  Tony blanched. ‘What?’ he mumbled.

  ‘What did you think of Millie?’

  ‘God. I don’t know. We only met for a few minutes. She seemed really nice.’

  ‘Posh,’ said Ness, inadvertently saving Tony from himself, ‘she’s very posh.’

  ‘Posh, eh?’ said Ned, grinning, ‘how posh? Victoria Beckham posh? Or Tara Palmer-Pompom posh?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Ness, ‘nothing like that. Not that blue-blood kind of posh. More sort of actressy. You know who she reminds me of, actually? That girl who used to go out with Neil Morrissey?’

  ‘What – Amanda Holden?’ said Bernie.

  ‘No, that other one. With the dark hair. Rachel something…’

  ‘Rachel Weisz?’

  ‘Yeah! That’s the one. She’s like a slightly older version of her. She’s stunning. And classy. Really classy.’

  ‘Ooo-oooh,’ said Ned, ‘get you. You’ve gone up in the world a bit now, haven’t you? Is that all it takes to get a classy girl, then? Just write a stupid book?’

  ‘No,’ said Sean, folding his arms and eyeing Ned playfully, ‘it also helps if you’re incredibly handsome, incredibly successful and hung like a woolly mammoth…’

  And at that precise moment all Tony’s feelings of fraternal affection became rancid green jealousy. He took a deep breath, unclenched his fists, turned his gaze to his menu and decided that tonight he quite fancied a kleftiko.

  Death by Corkscrew

  On his first morning back in England, Ned was awoken at eleven by the sound of Gervase clearing his sinuses in the hallway. Jesus Christ, he thought, will someone please take that man to the Ear Nose & Throat and get them to rip out his adenoids, for fuck’s sake.

  He heard the front door slam close and Gervase crunching down the front steps, and then he rolled over on to his side and cried out in pain as he felt something sharp digging into his hip bone. He felt around underneath himself and pulled out a corkscrew. Shit – he could have killed himself, could have punctured a vital organ and slowly bled to death during the night. That would have been nice for Mum and Dad, he thought, coming downstairs in the morning to find their prodigal son drained of blood and dead on the sofa. He hurled the corkscrew angrily across the room. This was all wrong – completely wrong. His first night at home after three long years away and he’d been made to sleep on the fucking sofa. Yes – his very own, actual mother had made her youngest son, her baby, sleep on the sofa while that mucus-headed weirdo got to sleep in his bed, in his room.

  ‘Oh no, Ned, sweetie. It’s not fair to kick him out right now, without notice. We’ll clear out Tony’s room for him tomorrow, love, then you can have your room back.’

  ‘But what about tonight? Where am I going to sleep tonight?’Ned’s voice had gone up about ten octaves and he’d felt himself rapidly reverting to childhood as his throat clenched and tears threatened.

  ‘Hmm, well, Seany’s room is out of bounds – your dad’s got his old Norton in there. We could chuck a mattress on the floor in Tony’s room…?’

  ‘No way. It stinks of piss in there. And the walls are all covered in old bogies.’

  ‘Well then, you’ll have to have the sofa.’

  ‘The sofa! But, Mum – that’s not fair. I’ve been travelling for, like, seventy-two hours. It won’t do much for my jet lag.’

  ‘I know, love, and I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do – you could always come and sleep in our bed, like you did when you were little.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Joke, Ned – joke.’

  And Ned had smiled, not at the joke, but at the uncomfortable realization that some small, deep-seated, unformed part of him actually wanted to sleep in his parents’bed, wanted to snuggle down between them and hear them breathing all night long.

  You sick, pathetic bastard, he thought to himself, no wonder your girlfriend went mad.

  So he’d had a hideous night on the sofa, tossing and turning, waking up every half an hour, despite the three Nytols his mother had given him to help him sleep. He’d had dozens of short, intense snatches of dreams, mainly to do with Monica. And then he’d finally fallen into a deep slumber some time after five in the morning.

  He stumbled through the hallway and into the kitchen. His mum had left out his breakfast and a note that said, ‘Didn’t want to wake you – try not sleep until tonight. See you later. M x’

  Ned nibbled half-heartedly on some toast and wandered aimlessly around the house for a while, trying to get his bearings, trying to feel normal. And failing. He was feeling unsettled and peculiar, caught between two places that had both at one time seemed like home but now felt like they’d been shifted off their axes by a degree or two. Everything seemed slightly off-kilter.

  He’d known things had changed while he was away, obviously he did, but it was still bizarre seeing Tony without Jo. Tony and Jo had been together since Ned was a teenager. Jo was a fitness freak and made Tony do things like jogging and going to the gym. She was a workaholic like him and as a couple they’d oozed success, discipline and teamwork. But now Tony was – well, he was all middle-aged and fat. And sort of… sad-looking. His new girlfriend was great, though – Ness was completely different to Jo. Where Jo had been small and crisp with short dark hair, perfectly applied eye make-up and a mobile phone permanently attached to her ear, Ness was tall and rangy with wild blonde hair and a permanent megawatt smile. Where Jo had always ordered something like a bit of fish and salad and pushed it around her plate, Ness ordered big hunks of red meat and ate with gusto, knocking back glasses of red wine and talking with her mouth full. She was absolutely gorgeous in a pre-Raphaelite, Charlie Dimmock kind of way, with bright-green eyes and incredible legs. Mum obviously adored her and she even seemed to have some kind of bond with Gervase – but Tony had virtually ignored her. Tony had never exactly been a laugh a minute, but even by his own slightly morose standards he was a complete grouch last night. The divorce had obviously hit him really hard and maybe Ness was some kind of rebound relationship. But whatever it was that was bothering Tony, it was incredibly unsettling to see the rock of the family looking so… lost.

  And then there was Sean. Fuck, it was all just mind-blowing. He was all famous-looking – Ned couldn’t explain it any other way. Sean had always just looked like a bloke, a bloke with some clothes on and some hair and that was it really. But now he had this sheen about him. His teeth seemed extra white and his hair looked extra thick. And he was so much m
ore confident. Sean had always been the sensitive one of the family, the one who took things the wrong way. He slacked round like Ned, wearing clothes he’d had for three years, doing half-arsed jobs, watching American TV on Sky One and eating Mum’s food. Sean had never been in love before. Ever. Well, not since he was fifteen and Lindsay Morrow had broken his heart and humiliated him in front of the whole school. Ever since then he’d been Mr Cool as far as relationships went – girls came and went and Sean barely seemed to notice. But now he was all glossy and content and in love. Ned suddenly felt like Sean was an awful lot older than him and an awful lot more mature, and he couldn’t quite imagine where he was going to fit into Sean’s new life. The thought made him feel incredibly sad.

  Mum and Dad, though – they were still the same, thank God. Still strong and happy, still the perfect couple and the people he respected and loved most in the whole world. Ned had tried to explain his mum and dad to people in Australia but had never managed to do them justice. They’re the greatest coolest people in the world, he wanted to say, they really love each other and they really love their kids and they laugh together all the time. They still go out and drink and see friends and spend weekends together in hotels. They bicker but don’t row, they notice each other all the time but give each other space to have their own lives too. They swear and fart and let us talk about how pissed we got last night or how stoned we were at the weekend without thinking that we’re going to become drug-addicted, alcoholic drop-outs. They’re what every couple should be like. They’re my heroes.

  The only unsettling thing about Mum and Dad last night had been the fact that they both looked ever so slightly older. Mum had more grey in her golden hair and Dad appeared to have shrunk. They were both nearing sixty; they were both getting old. The realization made Ned think about all the horrible things that could happen to your parents, things like cancer and heart attacks and senile dementia. The thought of Mum and Dad not being around for ever, or not being the way they were now, made Ned feel scared and vulnerable.