four large glasses of wine. He left his car outside Thorrold House – he completely agreed with Dad about drink-driving, of course he did, but there was the fuddy-duddy traffic police to consider – and we walked back to Rawndesley, which took an hour and a half. We hardly noticed; we were busy discussing my family.
‘Fran kept savaging your dad, and he didn’t respond at all,’ said Kit, animated and full of life now that we were free. ‘He didn’t even notice. It was hilarious. She’s like a Culver Valley Dorothy Parker. If I spoke to my dad like that, even once, he’d cut me out of his will.’ Kit was still on reasonable terms with his parents at that point.
‘Who’s Dorothy Parker?’ I asked.
Kit laughed; he obviously assumed I was joking.
‘No, really,’ I said. ‘Who is she?’
‘A famous funny person,’ said Kit. ‘ “When it comes to disposing of decaying vegetables, no one can touch him.” Those are the very words Dorothy Parker would have used, I reckon. Your dad didn’t get it at all – that Fran was taking the piss out of him for damning Anton with the faintest of faint praise: “There’s no one better in a crisis.” True, as long as all that’s needed to resolve the crisis is for someone to carry some decomposing food to the bin. That was the only time your dad acknowledged Anton’s existence all afternoon, he was so busy ingratiating himself with me. No wonder Fran was pissed off.’
‘I’m sorry about the smelly cabbage,’ I said solemnly, and we both burst into yelps of laughter. It was a cold February day – getting on for night – and it had started to rain, which made us laugh even more: thanks to Dad and his special wine, we were going to get soaked.
‘It’s obvious why your mum got so upset about the artist formerly known as cabbage,’ said Kit, trying to keep a straight face.
‘She can’t stand any kind of waste,’ I told him. ‘That’s twenty pence she could have saved last year.’
‘She was mortified that it had happened in front of me. If only she’d said so, I could have reassured her that I couldn’t care less. Far be it from me to think badly of someone who keeps rancid liquefied vegetable matter in a . . .’ He couldn’t say any more; he was laughing too much.
Once we’d composed ourselves, I said, ‘It’s not that, what you said. Yes, she’ll have been embarrassed, but that wasn’t why she had that weird meltdown. Appearances are important to Mum, but control is her God. She works so hard to be in control of every aspect of her life and world, and most of the time she succeeds. Time stands still for her, the world shrinks to the size of Thorrold House’s kitchen, the universe’s energy flow stops in its tracks – it knows better than to argue with Val Monk. And then she finds a cabbage that’s been there for months if not years – that’s been, unbeknownst to her, turning all squelchy and stinky and black, and she had no idea. And then it makes an unscheduled appearance one afternoon when she’s got guests. She tries to move on and pretend it hasn’t bothered her, but she can’t get past it. The cabbage is evidence she can’t ignore – evidence that she’s not in charge. The forces of death and decay are on the march, they’re the ones running the show. They’re inside the building, and not even my sensible organised mother, with her “recipes for the week” notebook and her meticulously filled-in birthdays calendar, can keep them at bay.’
Kit was staring at me. He wasn’t laughing any more.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘When I drink too much, I talk too much.’
‘I could listen to you talking for the rest of my life,’ he said.
‘Really? In that case, you’re wrong about Fran too.’
‘She’s not the Culver Valley’s answer to Dorothy Parker?’
‘She wasn’t having a go at Dad, though she’d probably pretend she was if I asked her about it. She was the one damning Anton with faint praise. She loves him, don’t get me wrong, but I think sometimes she wishes he . . . I don’t know, had a bit more to him.’
‘Why didn’t you go to university?’ Kit asked me.
The sudden change of subject surprised me. ‘I told you: none of my friends were going, and Mum and Dad had offered me a well-paid job at the shop.’