Chapter 1
The bouquet of pink carnations in Giles’s hand was suffering slow strangulation as his nerves overtook him. He stood in the doorway of the pub he’d ducked into for a bit of Dutch courage, staring at the house opposite.
This was, quite possibly, the biggest day of his entire life. “I can’t do it!” he hissed.
His friend Oz clapped him bracingly on the shoulder. “Yes, you can,” he said firmly. “Come on. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Easy for you to say,” Giles muttered, trying not to think of all the ways this could go disastrously, horribly, humiliatingly wrong. “Are you quitesure this is the right address?”
“Well, you’ve only checked it about seventeen times—of course I’m sure! Angela Mills, 47 Red Lion Street, Putney.”
“But what if it’s the wrongAngela Mills?”
“It’s not. We checked, remember? Angela Mills, née Shepney. How many of those can there be?” Oz gave Giles a last friendly—if somewhat impatient—hug then pushed him firmly in the direction of the most terrifying front door Giles had ever seen. “Now cross that bloody road and go give your old mum a kiss.”
* * * *
Giles had always known he was adopted—Mummy and Daddy were both tall, fair-haired and on the willowy side, whereas it had been obvious from an early age that Giles was destined for a life of standing on tiptoe to reach the highest shelves and shaving every half-hour if he wanted to avoid five o’clock shadow. But it hadn’t been until he’d reached adulthood that he’d really thought about contacting his birth mother.
His college room-mate Oz, who was staying with Giles for a few weeks over the summer, had been all for it. He’d said family was very important, which now Giles came to think about it was a bit ironic, coming from a man who never seemed to want to talk about his own family.
Mummy and Daddy hadn’t tried to discourage him, although Mummy had said a few strange things about not judging books by covers, and it taking all sorts to make a world. Giles had only listened with half an ear. Obviously it took all sorts to make a world—somebodyhad to clean the streets and empty the dustbins, after all. Blood, however, would out; Giles just knew his mother would turn out to be as refined as he was. Anything else was unthinkable. Pulling himself together, Giles rapped firmly on the door, and held his breath.
The door was opened by a bleached blonde in leggings and a saggy boob tube that showed an unhealthy amount of orange flesh. A cigarette dangled from her mouth, held loosely between yellowed teeth. Still, Giles supposed charitably, living in Putney his mother probably couldn’t afford anyone more respectable as a cleaner.
“Oh, er, hello?” he said politely. “I’m looking for Angela Mills. I’m Giles Frobisher.” He was just about to add, “Is your employer in?” when the cigarette fell to the doormat, unheeded, and claggily mascara’d eyes widened in surprise.
“OhmiGAWDit’s little Wayne!” a raucous voiced croaked, harpy-like. “You ‘ear me, you useless lot? My Wayne’s here! Come in, love, come in, and give your mum a kiss!”
To his horror, Giles found himself grabbed by mahogany coloured talons and yanked into an embrace liberally fragranced with eau de ashtray. “Um. I. Um,” he said intelligently, trying to stamp out the smouldering doormat before they both went up in flames. Then the true horror of his situation struck him. “Wayne?” he squeaked.
Her face split into a fond smile. She had lip-liner tattooed on in a wonky line, Giles noticed mechanically. “That’s what I called you, love. They went and changed your name when you was adopted, but you’ll always be my little Wayne to me. I can’t believe you’re ‘ere! Come in, and meet the family.”
She led him through a narrow hallway strewn with cheap, down-at-heel shoes and flyers from local takeaways, and into a sitting room so small Giles’s claustrophobia began to set in. “Oy! You lot, this is my Wayne. He’s come to visit, so you can get off your bleedin’ arses and say hello, all right?”
Three pairs of eyes stared at Giles, while, he couldn’t help but notice, three bottoms of robust size resolutely failed to remove themselves from seats. “Oh. Er, nice to meet you all,” Giles said, giving them all a little wave.
“This is your brother, Darren,” his—Giles winced at the thought—mothersaid proudly.
Giles stared at the badly shaven ape that confronted him from an armchair, its hands twitching as if they needed but an ounce of provocation to turn into fists. He essayed a weak smile. The ape snarled back, and pulled up the cuff of its jogging bottoms to scratch at the skin around its electronic tagging device.