Читать книгу: «You, Me and Other People»
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Harper 2015
Copyright © Fionnuala Kearney 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015 Images © Shutterstock.com
Fionnuala Kearney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007593972
Ebook Edition © 9780007593989 February 2015
Version 2015-03-25
Dedication
For Aidan. For always loving me the way you do …
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Part One
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Part Two
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Part Three
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Epilogue
Q&A and Reading Group Questions
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Publisher
PART ONE
They say best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad …
William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
Prologue
I should not be here. As sure as I know my name, my NHS number by heart and my daughter’s date and time of birth, I know I shouldn’t be here. Adam Hall … NC 100Z9T … The third of March 1994, 8.04 a.m., Meg Sarah-Louise Hall, born by caesarean delivery, firstborn child to my wife Beth and me. My head shakes of its own accord, my conscience nudging me, reminding me that I shouldn’t be here.
I drive by the house. There’s no parking, so I’m forced to keep going. On the passenger seat of my car, a gift sits boxed, wrapped. Today is someone else’s birthday. I spent time choosing this gift, wanting to get it right. It’s important to me, important that they know how I feel. I do a U-turn at the top of the narrow street, try again to get a nearby parking spot. About ten houses away, someone has pulled out, and I slip my car in their space.
Up ahead, there’s a party going on, the house marked by the telltale bunch of balloons on the pillar. I glance at the box. When I wrapped it earlier, I doubled over the Sellotape so that it’s unseen on the outside of the paper. Beth showed me how to do it one Christmas. ‘You have to hide it. Makes it so much neater,’ she’d said. She’s right. Hidden things are so much neater.
I open the window. Loud voices come from the house with the balloons. A woman passes by, a heavy-looking handbag slung high on her shoulder, a small package and a bottle of wine in her hands. I have no idea who she is, but she’s walking quickly, as if she’s late. Less than three feet from my car, just the width of a narrow footpath away, is a blooming jasmine plant. I inhale the heady scent, close my eyes, immediately cast back in time to my mother’s floral perfume. My left hand grips the handbrake as a childhood nursery rhyme she used to sing about Dick Whittington sounds in my head. Turn around. I glance at the gift. My bottom teeth chew my top lip. I shouldn’t be here.
I start the engine. I’ll get rid of the box and I won’t come back here. I promise myself I won’t return. I say it out loud, address myself in the rear-view mirror and speak the words slowly, like my life depends on it …
And, on the drive back, I look forward to the Sunday evening meal that awaits me. I’ll enter our home, kiss my wife. I’ll choose to have a shower to wash away my morning of madness. I’ll immerse myself in the life I love. I imagine it gift-wrapped, the outside wrapping seamless, double-sided sticky tape, or whatever it takes, to keep some of the inner content neat and tidy – hidden from the people I love.
Chapter One
‘My husband is a philanderer,’ I reply. She sits, her legs crossed, taking notes in her feint-lined legal pad. ‘That’s a four-syllable word for a cheating dickwit. How am I supposed to feel? He’s screwing a waitress …’ The last word tastes like Marmite on my tongue. In my head, I apologize to all the nice waitresses in the world. Aloud, I reveal how I really feel as my right hand clutches my upper left side. ‘I feel betrayed.’ I lower my voice. ‘And it hurts.’
Dr Caroline Gothenburg offers a sympathetic nodding motion. She has olive-coloured eyes, set in a wide face, flanked by titian curls; long, shapely legs encased in glossy tights – and I can’t help wondering if she has ever been betrayed in her shiny life. Lots of qualifications set in pencil-thin chrome frames adorn her wall. Bright as well as beautiful … I find myself focusing on her rather than me.
‘I’d like you to do me a timeline for the next session,’ she interrupts my thoughts. I feel crevices begin to stack one above the other on my forehead. I’m an intelligent woman. What the hell am I doing here? Glancing across her coffee table towards her neat, ordered frame, I swallow the panic creeping up my throat.
‘It will help me get to know you,’ she says. ‘Who is Beth? What makes Beth be Beth? I’d like to understand who you are, where you come from.’
A siren sounds in the distance, as if to warn me of an impending emergency.
‘Me too,’ I whisper.
In the car, my smart phone tells me I have three missed calls. One from Josh, my agent, and two from Adam. If my phone was really smart, it would delete Adam’s number. I’ve thought about it – but erasing him from my phone will not remove him from my brain. I switch on the Bluetooth, return Josh’s call and head to the nearest supermarket.
Twenty minutes later, I unload the contents of my wire basket and watch them move along a conveyor belt. Navel oranges, tuna, sweetcorn, trashy mags, a dodgy chicken wrap and two bottles of chilled sauvignon blanc.
‘Is Your Man a Love Cheat?’ screams a headline from one of the moving magazines. There are four, all with similar revelations, to reassure myself that I’m not alone, that there is in fact mass treachery in the world.
‘Points?’ a young girl with coffee skin and almond eyes asks from behind the till.
‘Points?’ I reply.
‘You got a points card?’ she says, stifling a yawn. I notice a tiny yin and yang tattoo on the back of her wrist.
I find I want to shout at Miss Points Yin-yang. I want to scream at her, tell her not to ask such a stupid question; ask her whether or not she noticed the vital subject matter of the magazines in my basket; tell her, if she didn’t, that she receives nil points for customer service today. I want to hurl a stream of nasty words at her – they’re already formed in my head. Then I remind myself she’s no older than Meg, my nineteen-year-old daughter, and as such, she should not yet know what betrayal tastes like. I breathe deeply – it really isn’t Miss Yin-yang’s fault that my husband is a shit …
So instead, I shake my head at her. No, I am all out of points. I am trembling all over by the time I’m back in the car. Silently, I count to a hundred, and push the facts that he has really left me and that I have just spent an hour in a therapist’s office to the back folds of my mind. I still my hands by sitting on them for a moment, then shake them out, start the ignition and point the car towards home.
Our home is a beautiful, three-floor, semi-detached Edwardian house in a sycamore-lined avenue in Surrey’s commuter belt. We bought it as a wreck fourteen years ago. Red-bricked, with original bay windows, inside we knocked walls down, built new ones – a bit like our marriage really, except today the house looks like something from Homes & Gardens and I, one half of our marriage, look like a ‘before’ picture in a plastic surgeon’s office.
As the gravel crunches under my wheels, I stare at the building I love, wonder if it will have to be sold, if I’ll end up in a tiny cottage-ette somewhere called nowhere. My hand massages my churning stomach and, not for the first time, the waitress flashes across my mind. She’s an incomplete image, blurred around the edges. I’m unaware if she has long or short hair, blonde or dark, curly or straight. Is she thirties or forties? Not twenties, please. I’d find that hard to take, not to mention how Meg would cope. The idea of her beloved father screwing someone who buys her clothes in Topshop would be too much.
A sudden image of them having sex ambushes me. Does she cry out like me? Does he hold her hair at the nape of her neck the same way he does mine? Silent tears fall. I have to stop this … I wipe them with my sleeve, staying a while to stare at Adam’s garden. Quite quickly, I come to one conclusion. He is not selling my home. He’ll have to take me out of here in a pine box.
Inside, I dump the shopping and head upstairs to my workspace in the loft. Flooded with natural light from three angled Velux windows, it is where, opposite my two large screens displaying notes and melodies, I sit to handwrite the requested timeline. Within a minute, six hastily written lines and I’m already a convent-educated, only surviving child of an eccentric mother and a drinking father. I continue, silently praying that Dr Gothenburg is good at her job, my hand scrawling my past onto the page. Very soon, I’m a child who loses her father to his love of alcohol, a wife whose husband has already notched up a previous one-night stand and a mother who feels guilty about wanting more than motherhood alone.
Staring at it, spaced over two sheets of paper, it’s not a spectacular life. Nor is it the stuff that keeps the Samaritans busy, but will it help Dr Gothenburg get to know me? Will the existence of a baby brother who died when he was three and I was six divulge something I’m not aware of? Does my ambition to succeed as a songwriter help frame me as a person? Josh assures me regularly I’m the next best thing to hit country pop. It’s me who’s not so sure. What I am sure about – what screams at me from the second page – is that my husband is a cheat. Considering he’s been offside at least twice, that makes him a serial cheat. It’s there in black and white for Dr Gothenburg to read. The words, confirming his failure, might as well be sticking out on stalks.
The mobile sounds and this time I laugh aloud at the sight of his number. He genuinely thinks that if he keeps calling, one day I’ll just stop being angry. Another part of me hopes he’s right, because this anger is eating me up from the inside out. I can feel it coil itself around my very being, munching away; as if a sound effect is required, my stomach grumbles loudly. I head back downstairs, passing the photo-lined walls on the way.
Rogues’ gallery … The fingers of my right hand hover above them, yearning to touch the baby shots of Meg, to tap into those younger grinning images of Adam and me. An old wedding shot, so full of hope and love. One of him taken at a barbecue next door – Adam posing like a catalogue model, his face looking at the camera, his chin tilted upwards; his long legs, tanned in Bermuda shorts, his dirty blond, close-cropped hair flashing in the summer sun. I take the stairs slowly, lost in years of memories. By the last step, I try to comprehend that if someone had asked me only weeks ago if we were happy, I’d have given them a rather smug, ‘Yes, of course.’ That’s how good a liar my husband is.
In the kitchen, I grab a wine glass and fill it to the rim with cold sauvignon. Rummaging through one of the shopping bags, I remove the chicken wrap and chew it slowly, obediently listening to the voice in my head that tells me I have to eat. I don’t want to eat. I just want to drink. Taking a large swallow of wine, I feel the alcohol slide down, immediately hitting the spot it needs to.
Late-afternoon September sun slices through the bi-fold doors that back onto the rear garden. I walk in and out of its shadows, chicken wrap in one hand and glass in the other. One mouthful of food for each gulp of wine … In between, I hum the words of a song I wrote yesterday and feel the faint curve of a smile on my face. Thesaurus had obliged with a rhyme for bastard. ‘Dastard’ – a sneaky malicious coward. Adam the ‘dastard’. The grin on my face makes it even harder to chew.
Needing to immerse myself in work, I start back upstairs, only to turn around and sit, motionless, on the fourth step. I stare into the living room opposite, unable to move. The cognitive part of my brain has switched off. My legs refuse to stand, my hands seem glued to my knees. Assailed by snapshot memories of places we’ve been, songs we’ve sung, moments we’ve shared, I’m numb with the fear of starting again. Where do I begin? If I just breathe in and out, will time just pass? I nod. Yes, that’s what will happen. I just have to wait this out and suddenly it will be next month and this new beginning will already have happened without me even having to register it.
I only stir when darkness surrounds me. I step downstairs, switch on a light and carry the bottle of wine from the fridge to the living room. Thirty minutes later, I’m watching Adam’s oversized, penile-extension plasma screen when the landline rings.
‘You’re fired!’ Lord Alan Sugar fills the screen as he points an index finger at some underperforming female.
‘Yeah, mate, I know how you feel,’ I sympathize. ‘Beth, you’re fired!’ I point my glass at Lord Sugar’s evictee and pick up the phone, sure that it will be Meg at this hour.
‘Meg?’
‘Beth, it’s me …’
It’s not Meg, my precious girl. It’s him, the bastard that provided half of her DNA, the dastard who, as soon as I hear his voice, I miss with every fibre of my being. My heart pulses loudly behind my ribcage.
‘How are you?’ he asks. ‘Beth, don’t hang up. Please, we need to talk?’
‘I don’t want to talk to you.’
He is silent.
‘Are you with her?’ I ask.
He remains guiltily silent.
‘Do you know you’re a dastard?’ The wine speaks.
He sighs. ‘Yes, you’ve told me many times.’
‘No, I’ve told you many times you’re a “bastard”, now I’m telling you you’re a “dastard” too.’ No reply.
I can hear kitchen sounds in the background, like a dishwasher being unloaded. I picture the scene. How domestic. How very Jamie and Nigella. He speaks in a hushed voice, as if he doesn’t want to be heard on the phone.
‘Oh just fuck off, Adam.’ I slam the phone down. I look at the bottle and my father’s genes beckon.
Chapter Two
I stare at the small screen. Call ended. She hung up on me. Again … And she swore at me. Beth knows how much I hate her potty mouth. Two weeks since I left and she still won’t talk without swearing.
Through the open door to the kitchen, I see Emma bend down to reach the lower shelf of the dishwasher. Clad in a figure-hugging black dress, the sight makes my head reel; images of Emma naked, Beth naked, cloud my fuzzy brain. I breathe deeply, filling my anxious lungs as quietly as I can.
‘I know you’re staring.’ Emma looks over her left shoulder and catches my eye. In one swift movement, she crosses her hands, grabs the hem of her dress and pulls it over her head. She’s wearing stockings. No knickers, just hold-ups, a tiny bra, and I feel immediate stirrings as she walks towards me. Some instinct tells me to back away from her, raise my palms in the air, say, ‘No, Emma, no,’ but it’s way too late for that. If I’d been a better man, I’d have said that months ago. So, I let my more primal instincts rule, the ones that make me want to take her here on her white Amtico kitchen floor. Before I know it, she’s on her knees, unzipping me. I squeeze my eyes shut. With one hand, I steady myself on the doorway, with the other I hold her head, just at the nape of her neck, my fingers lacing her long blonde hair.
I knew I was in trouble the moment I met her. It had started out a simple evening with a group from work in the restaurant where she works. She flirted with me. Private winks, smiles. At first I thought I was imagining it, until Matt, my business partner, cornered me outside the loo.
‘Don’t do it, mate,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Don’t go there. You’re so flattered some blonde totty fancies you, you’ve been twirling your wedding ring under the table all night.’
‘I have not.’
‘Don’t be such a tosser, Adam. You and Beth have a good thing.’
But by the time I shared a taxi home with Emma, my ring was in my pocket, my choice made. I thought of Beth, my gorgeous, loyal, talented wife; the woman who made me laugh at least once a day; the woman I loved, the woman I would have died for, still would. I did think of her, but only briefly.
Emma was the most forward woman I’d ever met, launching herself on me in the back of the taxi, cupping my balls with long manicured fingers. I was weak, powerless. And months later, I’m still a weak forty-three-year-old man who has hurt his wife so much he doesn’t know how to fix it, so chooses to ignore it and indulge in copious amounts of fantastic, life-affirming sex with a new and younger woman.
I leave the office early, exit the underground car park to a beautiful September evening, the sun still quite high in the sky. Just across the river to my right, I see the shape of the London Eye, its capsules laden with carefree tourists. It’s Friday and normally I’d be heading across the river and down the A3 towards home, after staying the week in town. Eight months ago, Beth and I decided to ‘borrow’ my brother Ben’s flat while he’s abroad for a year. Both parties have a good deal. We pay a lot less than market rent, covering his mortgage, and he knows his tenants. The plan was we’d stay there during the week, cut out the commute for me, and Beth could enjoy London and write her songs. A new environment, new inspirations – that was the plan.
I turn the car east towards the highway, heading to Docklands, to the one-bedroom flat near the river, intent on staying in this evening. Tonight’s plan is for an Emma-free zone; give myself some head-space with a takeaway and Sky Plus footie on the telly. Why then do I keep driving east along the A13, towards the M25, taking a long route towards the house I used to call home?
I call ahead on the hands-free. She’ll kill me if I just turn up. I can imagine dying on the spot in the power of her penetrating stare. But I feel the need to see her, to try and explain. I have no words, just the will to try, because I can’t bear her hating me. The phone rings out and I hear her voice.
‘You have reached Adam and Beth Hall. Sorry we can’t get to the phone – leave a message. We’ll get back to you.’
Only she hasn’t got back to me yet. I dial another number, hoping the other person I’ve hurt is still talking to me.
‘Hey, Dad,’ she says, picking up on the third ring.
‘Hey, Meg.’ I resist using my pet name of Pumpkin for her. ‘You all right?’ I can hear my heartbeat.
‘As all right as I possibly can be with an arsehole for a father …’
I sigh – an audible, slow sigh. ‘I deserve that. I’m sorry.’
‘You do and somehow sorry doesn’t quite cut it. Are you still with her?’
Straight for the jugular – she may have my eyes, my long legs and the hair colour that Beth calls conker, directly from my gene pool, but when it comes down to it, Meg is Beth’s daughter. She doesn’t believe in wasting words.
So I respond in the same vein. ‘Yes.’
‘Right … Why did you call?’
‘You’re my daughter, Meg. I’d like to see you. Please?’
‘And what? Introduce me to your bitch totty so we can play dysfunctional families?’
I flinch at her words. And blame Beth. My daughter has a potty mouth too.
‘I—’
‘Look, Dad. It’s too soon. Too raw. You’re not the man I thought you were. The man I respected.’ I can imagine her shaking her head as she continues. ‘You’re just not that man.’
I bite my lower lip, feel it tremble. She’s right. I’m not that man, but then, I never have been. ‘I’m sorry,’ I offer lamely.
‘Blah, blah, blah.’ She hangs up.
I pull over to the hard shoulder. The contents of my stomach heave onto the edge of the A13. I have managed to pebble-dash the door of my beloved Lexus. Words of my long-dead mother echo in my ears: ‘I hope you’re proud of yourself, Adam.’ I wipe my mouth with my shirtsleeve, stare across three lanes of fast-flowing traffic and look up to the sky. Meg hates me. I have screwed up. I have really screwed up large.
The house looks just the same. I’m not sure why I thought it wouldn’t. The time I’ve been away has been no longer than an average holiday, yet so much has changed. Beth’s car is not in the driveway and I wonder if she’s using the garage, now that mine isn’t here. I pop a mint into my mouth and without thinking too much about what I’m about to do, step out of the car.
The bell trills under my fingertip. No answer. I try the phone. Answerphone. I have keys but I dare not … I walk towards the garage, peer in the side window. No car, so she’s definitely out. I clean the glass with the back of my hand and stare inside. Tidy shelves line the sides, everything organized. The empty space in the middle reserved for the car I loved, the one that now has puke on the passenger door.
I decide to use the keys and try the lower Chubb. No luck. The Banham refuses to move too. Then it dawns – she’s changed the locks. Suddenly, I have a feeling that she’s in there. She’s been there all the time. I prise open the letterbox.
‘Beth! Open the door!’ I am greeted by silence. Now I’m on my knees peering through the letterbox, my head tilted sideways.
‘Hello, Adam.’
I leap to my feet. Sylvia, our next-door neighbour, the one we’re attached to, is standing at a gap in the laurel hedge.
‘Sylvia,’ I say, wiping the dust from my trousers. ‘I er—’
‘The locks have been changed,’ she confirms, staring at the driveway.
‘I see.’ I aim for eye contact; after all, we have been dinner-party mates for more than ten years. ‘I don’t suppose …’ Sylvia is also key-holder for the alarm company.
‘Don’t ask me that, Adam, please.’
‘No.’ I nod. ‘Sorry. Do you know where she is?’
Sylvia shrugs. I see it then. Sadness, pity, in her expression. I’m not sure what to call it, but I am sure I’m not ready to be judged on my own doorstep.
‘Okay, not to worry. I’ll call her later.’ With that, I nod to my erstwhile dinner-party mate and head to the safety of my pukey Lexus. Jesus … I lean back into the soft leather of the driver’s seat and wonder where my wife is. She could be out with her mate, Karen. I start the engine, do a three-point turn out of the driveway. In the rear-view mirror, I see the house sign, ‘The Lodge’, shrink as I move away. I’m feeling a slow reality check develop in the pit of my stomach. Beth can do as she likes. I no longer have the right to wonder where she is on a Friday night – or any night, for that matter. An image of her with another man flashes briefly in my brain. And I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. By the time I reach the motorway, I can only conclude that I like myself even less.
Chapter Three
‘I’d like you to write about yourself,’ she says, just as the hour is up. ‘I want you to only write about you – not Adam, not Meg, nor your mum, your alcoholic father, your dead baby brother or anyone else – just you. Don’t think about it too much. Just let it flow.’
I write every day, but the idea of me, and only me, being my subject matter makes me want to grab my knees and rock back and forth in my chair.
‘Use the Russian doll idea,’ she suggests, picking up a small barrel-shaped doll from the coffee table. Last time I was here, I noticed a whole shelf of them nearby. Opening it up, she reveals five layers, with the final one being the size and shape of a monkey nut.
‘That’s where you need to get to,’ she says, pointing a filed French nail to the monkey nut centre. ‘Peel back the outer layers, get to yourself. Your core.’ She is smiling, as though she’s rather pleased with herself.
‘I’m not sure …’ The anxiety in my voice is audible. ‘I can’t get that small, I don’t think I’d know my inner bits if they walked up and introduced themselves.’
‘Maybe you could start with, “Who am I?”,’ she says, leaning back.
I imagine this in my head using word association, and panic as I only have enough words to cover the two outer dolls at most. She tells me to breathe, breathe, slowly in and out.
I close my eyes.
‘Then go on to “How do I feel?”,’ she continues.
Oh God, I feel a little sick. Please don’t let that be vomit at the back of my throat.
‘And then maybe what do I like and dislike?’
‘Okay, stop!’ I get it. I look at her and her coffee-table toy. ‘You’re going to need a bigger doll.’
Caroline, as she has insisted on me calling her, has suggested that I borrow some books and CDs on relaxation techniques. She showed me a reflexology pressure point on the fleshy part of my hand, between my thumb and index finger, advising me to press it gently whenever I feel panicky. I think Abba songs work well too, so I’m singing ‘Fernando’ aloud when I reach Weybridge High Street. It’s the afternoon school run and the traffic has formed a long, snaking queue.
‘Fernando’ over, I tackle ‘The Winner Takes It All’, only to decide, midway, that it’s a bad song choice. I push one of Caroline’s CDs into the player. The sound of the sea crashing against rocks and some dolphin-like ‘clicks’ fill the car. I breathe in deeply through my nose and exhale through my mouth, just like she showed me. Three minutes later, I haven’t moved an inch and I leap at the Bluetooth trill of the mobile.
‘Hey, darling,’ I say.
‘Hi, Mum. You okay?’
‘Great.’ I never lie to Meg, but now is not the moment to confirm that neither Abba nor dolphins are resolving my anxiety. I glance at the clock. ‘Didn’t you say you had lectures all afternoon?’
‘I did. I do. I didn’t go in.’
‘I see …’
‘He called me.’
‘Okay …’ The traffic still at a standstill, I prod the fleshy part on my left hand with my right thumb.
‘I mean, I’m not sure what he wants me to say? He leaves you – I mean us – for another woman, phones me up and just wants to have a chat! I asked him. I mean, I asked him if he was still with her. He didn’t even have the balls to just admit it.’
Meg takes a moment to breathe and I remove my foot from the brake, inch the car forward, jab the flesh again. I’m sure I’ll have a bruise tomorrow.
I’m determined to say the right thing. ‘Meg, love, don’t cut him off. This is about me and him. It’s our marriage that’s the problem, not you and him. He’s still your father and he loves you with all his heart.’ Even as I’m saying this, I can imagine her twisted grimace. She and I have wondered lately if he even has a heart.
‘He’s a liar,’ is her angry reply.
‘Yes, yes he is, but it’s me he’s lied to, not you.’
‘His lies still affect me! Can’t you see that, Mum?’
‘I’m sorry.’ My head is nodding. Of course I can see it. I’ve always been able to see it, but something tells me that, while she hates him now, it’s a temporary thing. Soon, she’ll love him again, and I don’t want her to feel she needs my permission. They are, and will always be, thick as thieves. ‘Just talk to him if he calls. Don’t cut him off for my sake. You need each other.’
She makes a ‘hmph’-like sound and I change the subject, urge her back to classes, insist she keep carrying on as normal. She hangs up with a promise to visit next week.
The entire exchange with my daughter lasts a few minutes and I’m still stuck in the High Street. There is nothing else for it. I press play on the CD player and surround myself with more ‘Flipper’ noises.
By the time I get home, I feel quite serene, if a little seasick. I park the car a few metres back from the double garage. It’s separate from the house, set back on the unattached side, and it’s another of Adam’s anally tidy spaces.
I enter through the up-and-over door. Inside, there is floor-to-ceiling shelving on one side, with various selections of paint, paint brushes, rollers, cleaning fluids – all filed beautifully in shades and can sizes. I find a tin of gold spray paint, which I used last Christmas to colour pine cones. I can’t quite comprehend that I ever considered pine-cone colour important. Opposite the paint shelves is the ‘car section’, with a selection of chamois leathers, T-Cut, car shampoo, mini-vacuum, wax, rolls of soft cloth.
I move a few things around. I put some paint in the car section, throw the chamois leathers on the floor and dance like a dervish on them. I remove the bag from his mini-vacuum and empty it over the chamois, then tear the bag up and replace it in the vacuum. I mix big cans with little cans of paint and, whilst I’m busy generally messing with Adam’s space, I find the can of paint I bought for the hall last year. I remember Adam being adamant.
‘No way,’ he’d said, ‘it’s awful.’
And I remember just accepting that.
It’s much later, after my tuna sandwich dinner, when I return to the garage. I retrieve the can of paint, a wonderful shade of ‘Tiffany’ blue, some brushes and a roller, and begin to redecorate the hall. I’ve never liked the cold stone shade that Adam chose. The preparation – taking all the pictures down, washing the walls – takes ages, and I’m just about to give up when I pick up the tiniest brush and dip it in the paint. It seems to have a life of its own, writing in Tiffany blue over cold stone:
I am Beth. I am strong. I am middle aged. I like champagne, chocolate, the ocean, lacy stockings, Ikea meatballs, flip-flops, Touche Éclat, music and lyrics. I don’t like politicians, call centres, size zero women, snobs, punk rock, horseradish, dastards and women who sleep with dastards
I stand back and admire my work. Without realizing it, I’ve created a sort of text box on the hallway wall. Drawing a square around it, I underline ‘dastards and women who sleep with dastards’. I’m not sure it’s exactly what Caroline had in mind when she said ‘write about yourself’, but it works for me. Before going to bed, I take another peek. Marvellous.
Sleep, however, has become another problem for me. An hour later, I’m still wide awake, with the television on mute and the laptop perched next to me. A small whirring noise lets me know it’s still turned on. Lucky laptop. I leap out of bed, not wanting to think about sex.
In our en-suite bathroom, I am assaulted by images of myself. The French oval wall mirror above the walnut unit housing double sinks confirms that though my green eyes remain my best feature, they have been particularly challenged by Adam leaving. Even my fabulous Touche Éclat struggles to keep up with the dark shadowy veins of a broken marriage.
The full-length mirror to the right of the bath reveals legs that are far too short for my torso. A couple of grey pubic hairs prove beyond any Dead Sea Scrolls that God is a man. The loose bit of my skin overhanging the top of my knickers reminds me I’m a mother, as if I need reminding … My hair which – when I was twenty-two – used to be long, dark brown and shiny, is – now I am forty-two – short, dark brown and matt, compliments of L’Oréal, because I’m worth it. I cleanse my face with a wipe one more time and start to sing. I sing ‘Missing’, the last song of mine that Josh sold, which has earned me the princely sum of £10,500 so far.
‘The mirror doesn’t lie, but who is she and where am I?’ I blast out the lyric with gusto as I head downstairs and take the vacuum from the hall cupboard. I sing louder in my best voice above the drone.
I vacuum the living room, then the dining room and finally the hall. I pass my artwork and smile. When I put the vacuum away and liberate the limescale loo cleaner from the cupboard under the sink, I realize I’m having what Adam used to call an OCD moment, an episode that my therapist would probably have a proper Latin word for. Yellow gloves are snapped into place before I scrub the loos, still singing, with a scourer in one hand and a newly poured glass of wine in the other. If someone could see me, they’d think me quite mad. If there are any aliens watching, they’ll kidnap Sylvia next door instead. They could never take the risk.
Chapter Four
I’m sitting in my office, my head in my hands, my elbows rested on the scarred walnut antique desk that Beth sourced somewhere in rural Brittany. My wristwatch claims its ten thirty, which means I’ve been here two hours. Despite the two large screens on the wall opposite, with Bloomberg blinking red downward arrows at me, all I’ve done since I got in is paper-shuffle. Outside my door, the plaque six feet away in the reception area says HALL & FRY. The name is well known in the City. It tells people that we are a respected wealth-management firm, a highly regarded family office. If your family has money, come to us; we’ll look after it, help it grow. You want art? You want to invest in property? The markets? We are specialist consultants. Offering advice. I wish to hell someone would offer me some.
As if on cue, Matt – my business partner for almost twenty years – enters without knocking.
‘You look like shit,’ is his opening line.
I rub my two-day-old facial hair. ‘We’re not seeing clients,’ is my only offer of defence.
‘I still have to look at you.’ He throws a couple of files on my desk. ‘Can you have these back by four and we do have to see clients tomorrow, the Granger brothers? So a shave might be in order?’
I ignore the client reference, ignore Matt’s worried face looking at the screens, lean back and put my feet up on my desk. ‘You pissed off at me for some reason?’
‘Now what would make you think that?’ Matt turns back to me, peers at me above his glasses, then reconsiders and removes them completely. It gives him something to wave at me. ‘Why in the world would anyone be pissed off at the wonderful Adam Hall?’
‘Yeah well, join the queue,’ I mutter, removing my feet.
Matt sits in the chair opposite, runs a hand through his scant hair.
‘What is it you’re doing, Adam? Do you even know? I mean, do you love this girl?’
I stand and look out of the window, try to lose myself in the urban sounds below. The loud hum of traffic, the odd siren, riverboat horns … My office overlooks Tower Bridge and there isn’t a day goes by where I don’t look down from my sixth-floor room and pinch myself. I’m a lucky guy. At least I was a lucky guy. Now I’m a lucky bastard. Lucky dastard. A lucky dastardly bastard. I feel Matt’s eyes bore holes in my back.
‘Adam?’
‘That’s three questions. Which one would you like me to answer first?’
‘Whichever.’
I turn to face him. ‘The truth is, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t think I’m in love, but I’m drawn to this woman—’
Matt makes a ‘haruuumph’-type sound. ‘It’s called lust,’ he says, matter-of-factly.
I feel my head shake in defence.
‘If it’s not lust and it’s not love, what is it? Do you have anything in common with her?’
‘Her name is Emma.’
‘Emma then.’ Matt shrugs as he stands, replaces his glasses. ‘What is it you have in common with Emma?’
‘She’s …’ I hesitate for just a moment too long.
‘She is gorgeous,’ he offers. I think in a strange way, he’s trying to help.
She’s ten years younger than me. She comes from money, while my DNA originated in Bethnal Green. She doesn’t even know who The Eagles are and I’ve been to every concert they’ve played in the UK. She couldn’t sing along to Bruce Springsteen with me. She lives in a clutter-free, white, sterile house, whereas I’m – I mean Beth’s – a hoarder.
‘She is gorgeous,’ I agree. ‘And, frankly, the sex is phenomenal.’
I stare at his suited back as he exits the room.
‘Lust.’ He looks back over his shoulder. ‘Told you so … Speaking of which,’ he says grinning, ‘you have a lunch appointment with the subject of my dreams.’
My eyes squeeze shut as the door closes.
Bloody hell. Karen. I have a lunch appointment with the woman Matt has been lusting after for years. Karen, our outsourced IT specialist and Beth’s best friend in the world.
As she approaches, I notice men staring. Karen is stunning: a tall, willowy redhead with a slim figure. Straight, short, spiky hair; wide brown eyes flanked by long lashes; a pert nose and full lips. She’s wearing a fitted jacket and loose flared trousers. Karen refuses my air kiss, turns her head away and slowly begins to fold her long legs into the booth I’ve reserved for lunch. I hand her an envelope.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I could’ve just sent it by BACS, but I wanted to apologize in person. That brings us all up to date.’
She nods, doesn’t look at me and immediately begins to remove her limbs from the booth again.
‘What? That’s it?’ I hear my voice sound as if I’m fourteen and it’s about to break.
She looks me up and down. ‘Adam, I agreed to meet you when you guys owed me six grand. I thought I’d have to butter you up to be paid. I thought I’d get quoted the fact that times are bad, that we’re all still feeling the pain of recession. That your clients haven’t paid you, so you’re a little slow in paying contractors, but hey …’ She waves an arm dramatically as she swings her designer handbag over her other shoulder. ‘Here we are and you’ve already paid me!’
‘Stay for lunch …’
‘I’d rather starve.’
‘Please.’ I meet her narrowed eyes. ‘I need to talk to you, to someone.’
‘Try Yell.com. Look under “Counselling for fucktards”.’ She is still standing.
‘Please? Beth won’t talk to me.’
She relents a little and sits down, no legs under the table, just seated on the edge, ready for a speedy exit. It’s good enough for me.
‘Drink?’
She shakes her head.
‘Do you mind if I have one?’
More head-shaking. I motion to the waiter by pointing to my empty G&T glass, mouthing ‘another’ to him. Karen is looking at her feet.
‘Where do I start?’ I place both my palms on the table, clutching the edge with my thumbs.
‘Well, you could explain why you’re playing hunt the sausage with some blonde waitress?’
‘She’s not a waitress,’ I begin, ‘she part-owns the restaurant.’ I’ve recently learned this fact and feel eager to share it with Karen.
‘Bully for her. Explain then why you’re playing hunt the sausage with a blonde part-restaurant owner. Again …’
She spits the last word out. For a moment I’m confused. Then I realize. This is Karen; Beth tells her everything. Of course she would know about the last time, but that was different. And it was such a long time ago.
‘That was a long time ago,’ I whisper.
‘What? I can’t hear you,’ she says, raising a palm to her ear. ‘I’m assuming it was an apology for breaking Beth’s heart. Again.’
I almost snatch the G&T from the waiter’s tray as he walks by.
‘I am sorry. Of course, I’m sorry. Every day I’m sorry—’
‘Words, Adam, just words … Thank you for the cheque.’ She stands up, straightens out her tailored trousers and eyeballs me. ‘I do hope that we can continue a working relationship, but when it comes to your behaviour and Beth, don’t ever expect me to take your side.’
‘I don’t, Karen.’ I reach out and grab her arm. ‘Look, I only want to talk to her. Just talk to her, try and explain.’
‘Don’t you get it?’ She pulls away. ‘You’ve hurt her too badly this time. There is no explanation you could possibly offer.’
‘But we’ve been married for—’
Karen tuts loudly, shakes me off her and walks away. Men stare in her wake, then look back at me. It looks like a lovers’ tiff and I’m the baddie. Well. They’re half right.
‘Twenty years,’ I finish my sentence, addressing my G&T. I swallow back the remains of the drink in one gulp, realizing for the first time that this is it, the possible end of my marriage, and I wonder how the hell I ended up being so arrogant. What had I thought? That she’d just take me back again. Yes. That’s exactly what I’d thought. That I could have a bit of fun, admit my mistake and that Beth would take me back. Fuck. Shit. Fuck. The words roll around my head and I hear myself speaking just like her. I’m trying ‘Beth-speak’, potty-mouth stuff. I leave the restaurant, thinking I’m due at Emma’s in five hours for dinner. Fuck. Double plus fuck.
I’m a little drunk. Home-cooked, slow-braised lamb shank is staring up at me from a white plate – on a white table. I’m sitting on a white chair on a white rug. I have a white linen napkin on my lap. I’m in the White House.
‘You’re not perfect, you know.’ I point a fork at the figure sitting opposite me. ‘Not all that …’ I look at my surroundings, searching for the right word. ‘White,’ I add.
‘More wine?’ she offers.
‘You’re not innocent. No way, not at all. You knew I was married. Yes, you knew.’
She sips her wine. ‘I did,’ she agrees.
‘All this white.’ I wave my cutlery around the room, splashing gravy on the white rug below. ‘Oops,’ I place a slightly drunken hand to my mouth, ‘a stain. Emma, you have a stain.’
She stands up, walks to the kitchen and returns with a spray cleaner and a cloth. She lowers herself and tries to rub the blemish away.
‘I have a stain too – on my soul,’ I whisper. ‘No, two actually … two big ugly black marks on my soul.’
She looks up at me, nods and returns to the rug below.
‘But hey, while you’re down there,’ I say, and laugh out loud. I’m fucking hilarious, I am.
Chapter Five
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ she says. I’d been talking about my work. How I feel that I’m not good enough, that I may never be ‘successful’.
‘What would it be like if you achieved everything you wanted, rather than feeling you have to sabotage it?’ Caroline asks.
I am momentarily horrified. ‘Sabotage?’ I exhale loudly. Is that what I do? I let her question linger and my shoulders unlock and lift.
‘I’ve been listening to you.’ She leans forward. ‘And you’re really hard on yourself. If anyone else treated you like that, you could sue for harassment.’
I scan the copy of the crumpled timeline in my hand for a hint. What went wrong? I want to scream out loud and blame Adam, but I can’t. I suspect I also played a part in getting to this place today.
‘He did it once before you know.’ I begin to cry. ‘Years ago … but I forgave him.’
She makes a face, an acknowledging grimace. ‘What happened?’
‘Some client …’ I rub some white lint from my navy blazer. ‘A woman he was working on some deal with. I never found out who. Meg was only nine at the time. I didn’t want to know, I just wanted it fixed – so we worked on it.’ The lint is gone but I’m still rubbing my arm. ‘Though what really happened is: I worked on it and he just nodded, played along.’ I shake my head. ‘To hell with him. Let’s concentrate on me …’
‘Okay. Some homework.’ Caroline claps her hands lightly. ‘I want you to try and reinstate upbeat thoughts into your life. Try reciting some positive affirmations, almost mantra-like.’
I can do that. I offer a rare smile. No problem.
‘Try to be spontaneous. Imagine what it might be like to do something unplanned.’
My immediate instinct is to tell her not to be stupid. I don’t do unplanned, and I invented control-freakery. ‘I’m not sure,’ I say.
‘What is it you’re afraid of?’ she challenges.
Everything, I realize, I am afraid of everything.
When I arrive home, there’s a familiar car in the driveway and Karen is sitting on my doorstep with a large bunch of yolk-yellow gerbera daisies, my favourite flowers, and a bottle of orange label bubbles. Her face is raised to the morning sun.
I hug her. ‘It’s ten a.m. Why aren’t you in work?’
‘I work for myself; took a few hours off, figured you might need this?’ She waves the bottle as I unlock the front door.
‘It’s ten a.m.,’ I repeat, smiling.
‘So what? It’s a half-bottle and I brought orange juice too if you want to spoil the taste.’ Her nose wrinkles, a pout that says she couldn’t imagine anything worse. I reach out and hug her again, whisper a quiet ‘thank you’ into her ear. In that moment, I’m so grateful to have her. Her antennae twitch whenever I need her. As if to prove the point, when we reach the kitchen, she whips out some fresh bagels filled with salmon and cream cheese from a tiny cool bag in her titan handbag.
‘You need to eat something healthy,’ she says as she pours champagne. The irony is lost and we munch, talk and drink, or at least she munches and I talk and drink. Occasionally, she just shakes her head. I tell her about this morning’s session with Dr Gothenburg.
‘Well?’ she says, creasing her brow, ‘What are you afraid of?’
I hesitate, but just for a moment, before the tears fall. ‘I’m constantly afraid.’
She pushes the already empty glasses aside and reaches for my hand. ‘Go on.’
‘Being alone … taking him back and not trusting him; something happening to Meg; being with someone else … I’m not sure I could.’
‘Pah,’ she splutters, as she stands up and heads towards the sink. ‘If it comes to that,’ she shakes the kettle then flicks the switch, ‘believe me – a cock is a cock is a cock.’
I shudder and she laughs.
‘The devil, witches and aliens,’ I continue, counting out my fears on my fingers.
‘Be serious.’
‘I am, Karen, I really am.’
Her bottom lip protrudes. ‘I see.’
‘Losing it someday.’ I raise my eyebrows.
‘Losing what?’
‘My temper … control … I feel if I show the world how angry I actually am, that I’d be locked up and the key thrown away.’
‘I’ll buy you a punchbag. Next?’
‘I worry about Meg, what this is going to do to her. She worships her father.’
‘Meg will be fine. She’s young and strong and she’s got too much of you in her to let this defeat her.’
‘It won’t defeat her, but it might shape how she views men.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Getting cancer,’ I add. ‘What if pentapeptides are found to be carcinogenic? What if I like my alcohol too much? What if my father’s genes take over?’
‘And what if you’re overreacting?’
I ignore her. ‘Oh, and the dark and deep water and air travel and wait … I’ve apparently got an inner saboteur.’
Karen’s quiet. She hovers by the boiled kettle, deep in thought, so I get up, usher her back to her stool and make two mugs of steaming Earl Grey.
Her hands straddle her cup. ‘I saw him last week.’
‘You did?’ The mood in the room shifts.
‘He owed me money and I went to collect a cheque. He looks like shit.’
‘Yeah well, he’s screwing some waitress. He deserves to look like shit.’ I take a seat opposite her.
‘She’s not a waitress. He told me that she part-owns the restaurant.’
‘She does? Well, I couldn’t give a shit if she whole-owns the restaurant. I don’t give a rat’s arse if she whole-owns a chain of restaurants. She’s a husband-stealing bitch.’
Karen laughs.
‘Did he ask about me?’ I’m not sure why I want to know. I just do.
‘Of course. He wants to know if I’ll speak to you on his behalf. I told him to go screw himself. Smug bastard … Enough about him!’ She suddenly slaps a hand on the breakfast bar and I flinch. ‘What about if I come down next weekend?’ she says. ‘We could have a takeaway and sleepover, maybe go out to a wine bar. I’m not sure you’re ready yet, but maybe if you pulled someone, you know, just a snog—’
I groan out loud and lay my head in my hands.
‘I was talking a quick snog, not a frigging wedding.’
‘You know what? I’m bored. Let’s talk about your love life.’
‘Hmmm …’ Karen replies. ‘Nothing new to report except a decision.’
I raise my head and my eyebrows.
‘I’ve decided,’ she continues, ‘that I need an older man. A solvent, older, mature, loving man.’
I smile. ‘Good decision. You do know that means a man in his forties.’
Karen sticks her tongue out, ignoring my jibe about the fact that she’s forty this year.
‘Anyhow, now you and I can go on the pull together.’
‘That’s not going to happen.’ I cannot imagine anything worse in the world right now.
‘Never say never.’
‘I’m saying never.’
‘Really?’ She pours me another glass, ignores her own. ‘C’mon, Beth, feel the fear and do it anyway! Never is an awfully long time. Take it from me. You’ll need a snog. And soon.’ She adds the last two words as if my very life will depend on me swapping saliva. Soon.
I shudder visibly, catch her eye and we both hoot.
Painful belly laughs later, somehow we’re back to discussing more of my inner fears when she glances at her watch and makes a face. ‘Sorry, I’ve really got to go.’ She comes to hug me.
‘Relying on my “rampant rabbit” for sex?’ I offer as a parting shot.
She puts her coat on in the hall. ‘Sounds like my life. Be afraid,’ she says gravely, ‘be very afraid …’ And just as I think she’s out of the door, she stops, narrows her eyes and points to the wall with a questioning tilt of her head.
‘Oh, yeah.’ I raise my eyebrows. ‘That. I’m redecorating. What do you think of the colour?’
She reads the words, a hint of a smile appearing on her full lips.
‘The colour’s bloody awful,’ she says finally. ‘And is “dastard” a real word?’
Later that day, when I’m upstairs working in the loft, my stomach flips when I check my emails.
-----Original Message-----
From: ahall@hall&fryuk.net
Sent: 23 September 2014 15:37 PM
To: bhall@intranethalluk.net
Subject: You (and me)
Hi,
I’m sure I’m the last person you want to hear from now but I really feel the need to talk to you. I hope you’re okay. I’m okay. I’m thinking of you. I miss you. A x
Stomach still playing leapfrog, I type my reply.
-----Original Message-----
From: bhall@intranethalluk.net
Sent: 23 September 2014 15:45 PM
To: ahall@hall&fryuk.net
Subject: Your mail
I am SO fed up with your needs. You needed to leave me to shag another woman. Now you need to talk to me. Miss me – you left me! What bloody planet are you on? And shove your ‘x’ directly up your ass. Beth.
Just as I press send, I hear the front door slam and my heart clenches. Shit. I creep to the door and listen. I’m not ready to see him. All sorts of thoughts skip through my head. Heart thumping, I remember I’ve changed the locks, but it’s only when I hear the footsteps on the stairs being taken two at a time and a telltale ‘Mum?’ that I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I’m sitting down, pressing that spot between my thumb and forefinger, when Meg peers around the door.
‘There you are! Should have known! God, Mum, open a window!’ She comes across the room and embraces me, then walks back to the first Velux, pushing it open.
‘How can you work? It’s like a coffin in here! Any food in? C’mon,’ she pulls my hand. ‘I’m famished.’
‘You’ll be lucky,’ I say, following her downstairs. ‘I was going to food-shop tonight.’ The lie slips easily off my tongue. ‘Why are you home anyway? I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.’
Meg turns on the stairway and stares at me with Adam’s eyes.
‘Look at you. I guess I just knew,’ is her explanation.
‘What?’ I’m a bit miffed because, midnight OCD episodes aside, I feel I’m doing pretty well. I tug self-consciously at my worn-out tracksuit, run a hand through my limp hair.
‘Tell you what.’ She nods towards my art text box. ‘Give me time to have a shower and freshen up, then take me to Guido’s for supper and I won’t mention how you’re generally behaving weirdly.’
‘Deal,’ I say, suddenly very grateful that she’s there.
‘I miss him,’ she confesses later over her gnocchi.
‘Sweetheart, it’s me he’s stopped loving, not you.’
The eyes look at me again. ‘Mum, Dad will never stop loving you. It’s just that he loves himself more.’
Oh, the words of the wise.
‘But he loves you the most,’ I add. ‘Never forget that.’
I can tell she’s trying not to cry, tearing a little piece of garlic bread off every few seconds. It’s like, if she keeps chewing, the tears won’t come.
‘I still can’t quite believe it,’ she confesses. ‘Every morning I wake up and think of how he’s behaved and I just shake my head.’
I nod mine.
‘It’s so bloody clichéd. I thought he was better than that.’
‘Didn’t we all?’ I sigh, a deep sigh. ‘Eat your food, it’ll get cold.’
She takes her fork and stabs some gnocchi, raises it to her mouth.
And, in that moment, watching her, I’m cast back in time to a three-year-old Meg. Her lower lip would tremble, just like it’s starting to now; she’d take a deep breath and she would either howl like a feral vixen or keep the lip-tremble going, stubbornly refusing to cry. Tonight there is no wild sound but the floodgates open anyway. Silent tears slide down her face. She looks away, searching for an escape route to the Ladies and I reach for her hand, clutch it tightly.
‘Stay,’ I plead. ‘You’re okay …’ The restaurant only has four other diners and we’re seated far enough away from them. I can feel the taste of my own cries in the back of my jaw. Controlling them, I hand her tissues and whisper, ‘It’s going to be okay.’ The words seem empty and hollow to me. I hope they sound different to her.
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