bet I can have you in the mood; bet you I can have you hollering for mercy,’ he tells her. He always used to be able to. He leans across her and kisses her, pulls her to face him, holds her against him. He rocks his groin gently against her, takes her hand down to his perky cock and works his hands over her body. He is not sure whether he’s taken her breath away or whether she’s holding it to pull her stomach in. But he feels her stiffen, and a glance at her face, where anxiety is mixed with reluctance, causes him to turn away from her, to stare at the ceiling with a sigh.
‘Do I feel different to you?’ she asks. ‘I’m still so squidgy and unattractive.’ And then she mutters that she shouldn’t have had all that bangers and mash.
‘You look gorgeous,’ Matt says, ‘I keep telling you. God. Wasn’t my raging hard-on proof enough how much I fancy you?’
Fen shrugs and looks downcast. ‘I know you do,’ she says quietly, ‘but I have to fancy myself, too, to feel horny.’
‘Will you give yourself a break,’ Matt says. He switches off the bedside light and kisses her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Stop being silly.’
Fen lies in the dark, wide-eyed and confused and wishing they had a spare room she could withdraw to. She encourages a hot, oily tear to sting its way from the corner of her eye and slick down her cheek and onto the pillow. She knows it’s bizarre, but rather than being bolstered by Matt’s assurances that he loves and lusts for her however she feels she looks, she’s cross that he appears to trivialize her concerns, her loss of confidence, her fragile self-image.
He called me silly. For the second time today. Silly is a stupid, insensitive word to use. He just doesn’t understand.
God. It’s gone midnight. Cosima will wake in a couple of hours. I have to get some sleep.
Django McCabe and the Nit-Pickin’ Chicks
Though only three years separated the oldest and youngest of the McCabe sisters, Cat had always been very much the baby of the family. She was a little shorter than Pip and Fen, her features more petite. She lacked Pip’s aptitude for performing, to entertain, which gave her eldest sister her apparent sassy confidence. Nor did she have Fen’s self-containment, her ability to seem so quietly self-possessed, so attractively serene. While Pip and Fen had encountered the various dramas in their lives head-on and for the most part single-handedly and discretely, Cat had always simply stood there and cried loudly for help. It wasn’t that she was particularly feeble, nor was she excessively attention-seeking or spoilt; Cat was accustomed to being looked after because there was something about her that inspired others to care for her. Ben believed it was to do with the arrangement of her features; her large eyes set winsomely around the childlike upturn to her nose which led down to the natural pout to her lips. It compelled one to offer protection, even if it was not specifically needed or asked for. However, Cat’s strength was that she was never too proud to ask. She’d grown up knowing that what made her feel strong and able was the presence of her support network, her sisters in particular.
When Cat had gone to live in America with a relatively new boyfriend (as Ben was then) and brand new job, everyone anticipated floods of tears to wash her soon back again. But the anticipated plea to be rescued never came. Her letters and e-mails and phone calls attested to her happiness, and her occasional visits home confirmed this. Her apparent self-sufficiency was a source of joy and relief for her family and soon enough they were delighted for her that she’d gone. Not half so thrilled as they are now, four years later, that she has come back.
Being swept north by rail for their family reunion, the McCabe sisters were initially preoccupied with three-way inane grinning and quietly assessing physical details and changes.
‘So.’
‘So?’
‘So!’
‘You’re back.’
‘I am.’
‘For good?’
‘Indeed. For better, for worse.’
‘I do love your hair,’ Pip told Cat. ‘When you e-mailed to say you’d gone short and red, I had visions of a ginger buzz-cut.’
‘It’s very gamine,’ Fen said whilst hastily retying hers into a hopefully smoother pony-tail, ‘very Audrey Hepburn. God I feel a dowdy frump.’
‘You don’t think it’s too short?’ Cat asked them. ‘And you’re sure you like the colour? Yours is so much longer,’ she said to Fen, ‘and darker.’
‘That’s probably because it’s greasy,’ Fen said. She took a twist of her hair and scrutinized the ends. ‘I can’t remember the last time I went to the hairdresser.’
‘Go this weekend,’ Pip said. ‘Django will know somewhere.’
‘When did he last go to a barber?’ Cat interrupted. ‘You’re not telling me he’s chopped off his pony-tail? I expected things to change while I’ve been abroad – but nothing that drastic.’
‘It’s still his crowning glory,’ Pip assured her with a smile.
‘How’s he been?’ Cat asked.
‘Fine and dandy,’ Pip said. ‘Same as ever, really.’
‘It’s funny, initially I’d curse him for not having e-mail, but actually I loved receiving his letters and writing back,’ Cat said. ‘I’ve kept them all. They’re hysterical. He’d send me the TV listings page every single week so I could keep up with Corrie.’
‘Zac and I bought him an answering machine for his last birthday – but he took it back,’ Pip said. ‘I suggested a mobile phone – but you can imagine what he said.’
‘Talking of birthdays, I wonder what we’ll do for his,’ Cat said brightly. ‘Can you believe he’ll be seventy-five this spring?’
‘He’ll either throw a huge party – or go on a retreat,’ Pip said. ‘In which case we’ll make him a surprise party.’
‘Yes!’ said Cat. She gazed at the sleeping baby nustled up to Fen in a papoose. ‘Cosima is so beautiful,’ she said dreamily, watching Fen’s fingers tap out a mother’s instinctive, gentle rhythm against the baby’s back. Absent-mindedly, Cat rolled her thumb against her wedding ring. ‘Still no plans to wed then, Fen?’ She felt Pip glance at her.
Fen balked. ‘What an odd thing to say.’
‘Sorry – I just mean, you know, since you now have a baby.’
‘Shock, horror, an illegitimate child? Is that what you’re implying?’ Fen said.
‘Blimey Fen, I was only teasing,’ Cat said, because she had been. She glanced back at Pip who, ever the diplomat, decided it was a good idea to change the subject.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Pip.
‘I’m hungry now too,’ said Fen. ‘Do you think Django’s made a late lunch for us?’
‘Followed almost immediately by an enormous
