12
The next morning, Christopher and I were tentative around each other, speaking in soft, gentle voices, touching each other as though worried we might hit a bruise. Normally I stayed in bed while he got ready, but I got up instead and made him a cup of tea while he was in the shower. I wanted, more than anything, to be kind. I placed a chocolate digestive next to the mug of tea and left both on the nightstand for him. He walked in, toweling off his wet hair, saw the biscuit and smiled. ‘You’re too good to me,’ he said, picking it up and dunking it in his tea.
‘That’s not true,’ I demurred, thinking, buddy, you don’t know the half of it. ‘Why don’t we do something tonight?’ I said. ‘Just the two of us.’
‘Like what?’ He had a smudge of dried toothpaste at the corner of his mouth. I tried not to focus on it.
I flopped back on the bed. ‘I don’t know. Go out to dinner? Go to the theatre? I could sneak out of work early and try to get ten-pound tickets for that show at the Old Vic?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘What’s on?’
‘Something about middle-aged despair,’ I said, gesturing vaguely. ‘It’s meant to be great.’
‘Yeah, it sounds it.’ He leaned over the bed and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Why don’t we just stay in? Maybe get a pizza or something.’
My heart sank slightly. ‘Sure.’ I gestured towards the side of his mouth. ‘You’ve got a little—’
He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Better?’
‘Still there.’ I licked the tip of my thumb and reached up to scrub it off. We both realized what I was about to do and froze.
‘Thanks, Mum, but I can clean my own face!’
Apparently not, I thought meanly. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘That was a little gross of me.’
He pulled a face. ‘Just a bit.’ He pulled back and started frantically rubbing at the corner of his mouth. ‘Gone now?’
I could still see a faint trace of it – toothpaste really was a stubborn adhesive, someone should talk to NASA about it – but I smiled and nodded. ‘All gone!’ I knew that scrubbing toothpaste off someone’s face with saliva was a little disgusting, but I didn’t think it required the level of horror he’d expressed. I was his fiancée, after all. I had watched him pick his toenails in bed and said nothing.
‘Right, I’m off. I’ll see you back here tonight – unless you decide we should go out clubbing or something.’ He pronounced the word ‘clubbing’ as though it were ‘Mars’ or ‘dogging’.
‘I don’t think that’s likely.’ I tilted my chin to accept his kiss. ‘Have a good day.’
‘You too. Say hi to Ben for me. I hope his lady troubles ease up.’
I was touched by the olive branch. I reached for him and pulled him towards me again, kissing him properly this time. He tasted of mint and chocolate and tea. ‘I love you.’
‘You too,’ he said, pulling away and straightening his tie. ‘See you tonight.’
I heard the door shut behind him and threw myself off the bed and into the shower. Today, I decided, would be a clean slate. I would tell Jackson that dinner was off, focus on the cobbler case at work, get back here at a reasonable time, and have a night in with Christopher. Maybe I would even cook. My mind whirred at the possibility. Lasagne? No, that would take too long. Maybe a stir-fry? Too healthy. Something Christopher would like. A pie, maybe. Could I make a pie?
I rinsed the suds out of my hair and hopped out to towel off. Yes, today would be a fresh start. I’d wear underwear that matched. I’d light candles in the living room. I’d make an effort.
I boarded the Tube with a spring in my step. I felt lighter than I had in ages. I had a plan now. I would wrest back control over my life. I would look into wedding registries and embossed stationery and jam jars for the centerpieces. I would call my mother.
I would be good.
The train chugged along the Northern Line, its doors opening at each stop to expel a few passengers and cram, Tetris-like, a few more in. I was wedged next to a group of suited-up businessmen comparing the merits of cosy pubs in the Cotswolds.
‘The Plough and Stars in Withington is brill for a dirty weekend,’ the man clutching a rolled-up copy of the Telegraph brayed into my ear. ‘I took Jasmine there last February. Once she got a load of the fireplace, she practically threw her knickers at me.’
‘Not half as good as the Old Bell in Bibury,’ the bald man in the suede driving loafers shouted into the top of my head. ‘The exposed beams alone had Tamara gagging for it as soon as we walked in.’
I shut my eyes and tried to imagine I was somewhere more pleasant, like a wildflower-strewn meadow, or an abattoir.
‘How about the Crowne in Chipping Norton?’ cried the man wearing a scarf I was fairly sure could be classified as a cravat. ‘A magnum of champers, a ploughman’s lunch, and a David Cameron sighting, and I thought Ambrosia would never come up for air!’
The men burst into a fresh round of eardrum-shattering laughter. I felt a morsel of pity for Jasmine and Tamara and poor airless Ambrosia. Surely no plate of cheese and pickle was good enough to endure this trio of chucklenuts.
It was moments like these when I felt most like a stranger in a strange land. I didn’t understand these men shouting at each other about their ability to bed women who had willingly gone away with them for the weekend. I didn’t understand the Cotswolds – what they were, where they were located, why everyone seemed so eager to go there to have sex. I’d overheard a woman discussing her weekend in the Cotswolds at work one day, and had gone home and suggested to Christopher that we go there, too, only to be told that the Cotswolds were full of red-trouser-wearing twats who said words like ‘totes’ and liked horses better than their own mothers.
I didn’t understand that, either.
I thought of the easy shorthand I had with Isla. If I made a Facts of Life reference, she understood it. She appreciated the subtle difference in Slush Puppie flavors. She knew the etiquette around ordering a hotdog at a baseball game. Not that we ever went to baseball games, but the thought of it still made me ache with homesickness. Even with Jackson, there was an ease that comes with a shared nationality, a shared culture. Even if he was from Texas.
No. I was not going to let myself go down that particular slip’n’slide.
By the time I arrived at work, my previously good mood had been restored. The daffodils were out in full bloom in Green Park, despite the persistent mizzle falling from the gray sky, and I’d had to pause when walking over the little bridge in St James’s to make way for a gaggle of geese. The clouds couldn’t hide it: it was spring.
Today was a fresh start, I reminded myself as I threw my bag on the floor underneath my desk and slid into my chair. Today I was going to take back my life.
There was a cup of coffee cooling at my elbow and my favorite pen was uncapped and in hand: I was ready to make a to-do list for the day.
God, I love a list. For me, there is no greater pleasure than crossing something off a list. There were times when I’d added something I’d already done to a list, just so I could cross it off. It’s a sickness, I know. But I don’t care.
I wrote out the list carefully on one of the yellow legal pads I ordered specially from the US.
– Tell Jackson
– Wedding venues!
– Tax forms for Cobbler case
– Expenses to Accounts
– Go to gym
– Make dinner for Christopher – pie??
I tapped the pen against my mouth and considered the list. And then I added one more thing.
– Make coffee
And crossed it out with a thick blue line. Heaven.
Okay, first things first: I had to call Jackson and tell him dinner was off. I dug my phone out of my bag, scrolled through to his number and hit the green call button. A swarm of butterflies decamped to my stomach as I waited for it to ring.
‘You’re through to the voicemail of …’
I breathed out a sigh of relief. I wouldn’t have to bite the bullet. Just nibble it a little. ‘Hi Jackson,’ I said in my brightest voice, ‘I’m really sorry, but I won’t be able to make dinner tonight. And, actually, maybe not tomorrow night either. Or the next. I’m sorry, but it’s just proving a little complicated with Christopher and … I hope you understand. Let me know if you need money for the divorce papers. I don’t know how these things work.’ To my horror, I added a laugh – a stupid, insane-sounding little titter – to the end of the sentence. ‘Anyway. Sorry. Bye.’
I pressed end call and sat back in my chair. My heart was pounding in my chest and I thought I might be sick, but I’d done it. I reached out and crossed Jackson off the list. Thankfully, I was distracted from the heavy feeling in the hollow of my stomach by Ben, who chose that moment to lope through the door like a wounded sloth.
I took one look at him – he was wearing a pair of chinos today, baggy ones, and a thick sweater featuring, unseasonably, a jaunty reindeer – and knew. ‘Still haven’t heard from Lucy?’
He shook his head and collapsed into his chair with a huff. He was wearing thick white athletic socks with his All Stars – things were even worse than I’d thought. ‘Honestly, what’s the point?’ he howled. ‘This is exactly why I don’t let women know where I live. If you get too close to them, they’ll only break your heart. Women,’ he said, shaking his head ruefully. ‘How do you live with yourselves?’
‘I don’t think there’s any need to dismiss a whole gender because someone didn’t answer your text right away.’
‘Two days!’ he cried. ‘Two whole days, and not a single word out of her! Oh God, this is a disaster. A humiliation!’
‘Calm down! Look, why don’t you tell me what you said to her, and we’ll work out what to do next.’
‘Other than join a monastery?’
I eyeballed him across the room. ‘You’d last about thirty seconds in a monastery before you’d start begging alcohol off the monks and chatting up the statue of the Virgin Mary.’
‘Honestly, Jenny, I don’t know how you’ve come to have such a warped view of me.’
‘Three years of close observation. Are you going to read me this text of yours or what?’
He made a big show of taking out his phone and scrolling through his messages until he found it. He cleared his throat. ‘Hey.’
I waited for a minute. ‘Hey what?’
‘That’s it. Just, “Hey”.’
‘Did you think about expanding on that a little? Maybe saying you had a nice time the other night, would she like to meet up again … something like that?’
‘A wise man once said “Brevity is the soul of wit”. I can’t remember who – maybe Keith Richards? All I know is that he was wise, and that’s why I said what I said.’ He caught the look of disbelief on my face. ‘What?’
‘It’s just … it’s not a lot to go off, you know?’
His face crumpled. ‘Oh God, it’s a disaster, isn’t it? Christ, I’m an idiot. A stupid, stupid idiot.’
‘You are not an idiot. It’s a perfectly fine text message to send.’
‘Then why hasn’t she responded?’
I thought for a minute. ‘Maybe she hasn’t read it yet?’
‘Of course she’s read it! It says it right here!’ He jabbed a finger at the small print under the blue bubble. READ. Whoever invented the technology that allowed someone to see when a text message had been read was a cruel and insensitive soul. Poor Ben was in full freefall now. ‘Shit shit shit! What do I do now?’ He ran his hands through his un-pomaded hair. ‘I’ve blown it, haven’t I? Oh, Christ, I’m an idiot.’
‘You’re not an idiot,’ I repeated. ‘Look, we can fix this. Why don’t you send her a text that involves a question?’
‘What sort of question?’
‘How about “What do you think of that Mussolini guy?” What kind of question do you think, Ben? Maybe ask her on another date?’
He turned pale. ‘I can’t. It’s too much! I can’t bear the humiliation.’
‘You texted a woman “Hey” and freaked out about it for two days. If you can withstand that humiliation, you can withstand the humiliation of asking her out on a date like a normal person.’
He took a deep breath and steadied himself. ‘Okay. What do I say?’
‘Well, first we need a plan for a date. A good one. Not just a trip to the pub followed by a shared carton of chips. A proper date, like cocktails and dinner.’
‘Oh God …’
‘Wait, I have an idea.’ I scanned through my deleted items and fished out the latest Urban Junkies round-up. I’d signed up when I first moved here, but soon became intimidated by the club nights held by bingo-playing drag queens and immersive theatre experiences that involved the audience undressing and rolling around on a canvas swimming in blue paint. I still read the round-ups every week, though my interest had become more anthropological than practical. ‘Observe the DJ/Model/Coder in her natural habitat …’ ‘Okay,’ I said, scanning through the listings. ‘There’s a really cute Portuguese tapas bar that’s opened up in Borough. You could take her there?’
He pulled a face. ‘And fend my way through swarms of hen-dos cycling the streets on those pedi-bars? No thanks.’
‘Fine. What about this? “Speakeasy cocktail bar hidden down a back alley in Chinatown …” That sounds pretty good.’
‘Ugh. Chinatown is always mobbed with tourists.’
‘French bistro in Spitalfields?’
‘Filled with Wanker Bankers.’
‘American-style diner in Notting Hill?’
‘Every man in there will be wearing at least three polo shirts with all the collars popped.’
I looked at his current ensemble and bit my tongue. ‘What about this? Cocktail bar at the top of a car park in Peckham.’
He stirred. ‘Peckham’s not totally shit yet.’
‘Ooh, and they’re doing an outdoor screening of Casablanca on Saturday night! With blankets!’ I felt a frisson of jealousy. I’d always wanted to go to a bar where they gave you a blanket.
He twirled his phone idly in his hand before nodding reluctantly. ‘Fine. God, it all sounds so – so—’
‘So much like a date?’
He looked as if I’d invited him on a tour of a fish cannery. ‘Exactly!’
I rolled my eyes. ‘That is exactly the point. Right, are you ready to send this text?’
‘I don’t know … are you sure I won’t seem like a desperate loser?’
‘You might, but better to be a desperate loser than the guy that just says “Hey”.’
He groaned. ‘Fine, fine. Just tell me what to say and I’ll say it. I’m ceding total text control to you.’
‘Excellent.’ I rubbed my hands together with glee. There was nothing I liked better than being given total control over something. It didn’t matter what.
‘Ah,’ he said, raising a finger in the air pontifically, ‘Remember what the great Winston Churchill once said: “With great power comes great responsibility.”’
‘That was Spiderman.’ I snatched the phone out of his hands and my fingers flew across the screen.
I combed through Mr Bryant’s audited accounts while trying to ignore the near-constant barrage of Ben’s moans and sighs. ‘Two hours and thirteen minutes,’ he updated me, ‘still no reply.’ Then, twenty minutes later, ‘Two hours and thirty-three minutes. Radio silence.’ I eventually put my headphones on and blasted Death Cab for Cutie so I could concentrate.
The rest of the morning flew by, though not with any great revelations about the Bryant case. The cobbler shop brought in a modest income every year – not much, but enough to keep the lights on – and he paid himself an even more modest salary out of the company earnings. There was an anomaly with his wife’s insurance pay-out – I couldn’t find any trace of it in his bank account – but maybe he’d invested it, or given it to his children as an inheritance. He seemed like a man who led a frugal existence. I pictured him standing in front of the discount section in Tesco, selecting a nearly off shepherd’s pie and a tin of rice pudding for dinner, and had to force the image from my head when my eyes started to well up. Rule number one of insurance investigation: don’t let your sympathies sway you. The guy could still be running an underground gambling ring out of the back of his shop, or have a bathtub full of ice and Estonian kidneys in his upstairs bathroom. You just never knew.
Before I knew it, it was lunchtime, and both my phone and Ben’s had remained resolutely silent. He sloped out to the pub—’A pint and a sausage roll are the only things that will sort me out now’ – and I forced myself to go to the gym, if only so I could cross it off my list when I got back. Besides, Body Pump always emptied my brain of unpleasant thoughts (even as it filled my body with unpleasant amounts of pain).
I walked into the chlorine-and-sweat-scented atrium and swiped my card through the turnstile. A tiny blonde woman sporting a tight ponytail and an even tighter smile handed me a stiff cotton towel and advised me that Body Pump – sorry, ‘Reps and Revs’ – was fully booked. So was the spin class. So much for my lunchtime blitz. I changed into pilled leggings and an oversized T-shirt and headed up to the fitness area. The spin class was about to start on the raised platform in the middle of the room, and I looked longingly at the rows of bikes filled with spandexed asses adjusting themselves on their perilously narrow seats. ‘Okay, riders, are we ready to ROCK?’ shouted the instructor, a florid Spanish man wearing a full-80s Sweatin’ to the Oldies ensemble. The opening strains of ‘Let’s Get Physical’ filled the air, and I crammed my earbuds further into my ears.
I spent a desultory fifteen minutes on the elliptical machine, watching incomprehensible music videos on the wall-mounted TV as the calorie counter slowly ticked upwards, all while trying to ignore the sweat flywheeling off the spinners nearby. When I reached 250 calories (the equivalent of a handful of Cadbury’s Mini Eggs and a single piece of hot buttered toast) I took myself off to the steam room (today’s scent: lavender) and lay still on the damp wooden bench as my skin wrinkled up like a scotch bonnet.
When I got back out on the street, I checked my phone. Still nothing. I guess Jackson had accepted what I’d said in my message and wasn’t going to question it. I tried to ignore the mild fug of disappointment that descended, and called Isla instead.
‘So let me get this straight,’ she said over the whir of the staffroom coffee machine, ‘you have a great night out with the guy and then tell him you never want to see him again. What is this, a Danielle Steele novel?’
I was standing in Pret, phone pressed to my ear, dithering over which bread-based mayonnaise conductor I was going to eat for lunch. ‘It was the right thing to do,’ I said, picking up a tuna and cucumber.
‘For who, exactly?’
I tapped my card on the reader and bundled my sandwich into my bag. ‘For me, for Christopher …’
‘For Christopher, I’ll buy. For you, not so much.’
‘Well, I’ve done it now, and Jackson hasn’t exactly put up a fight about it, so maybe it’s best for everyone.’
Isla sighed. ‘It’s just a shame, that’s all.’
I stopped on the edge of the sidewalk to let a cyclist whizz past before crossing. ‘What is?’
‘It sounds like you’ve been having a good time with him. And I know you had a good time with him when we were in Las Vegas, because I saw it with my own eyes.’
‘I was drunk! Really, incredibly, liver-destroyingly drunk!’
‘That doesn’t mean you didn’t have fun.’
‘Isla, in the state I was in, you probably could have left me alone in a room with a pack of chewing gum and a dictionary and I would have had fun.’
‘Not as much fun as you had with Jackson.’
I let out an exasperated groan. ‘Look, just drop it, okay? Jackson will be gone soon, and I’ll have my life back, and then I can get on with the business of getting married. Speaking of which, I’m going to start looking at bridesmaids’ dresses for you.’
‘Don’t forget that puce is my color,’ Isla deadpanned.
‘I was thinking more of a vomit-orange, but I’ll keep an open mind. How are you doing, anyway? Are you okay?’
‘Oh, fine,’ she said breezily. ‘About to remove a tumor the size of a dill pickle from a guy’s head.’
‘The party never stops with you, does it?’
‘It definitely won’t tonight. I swung by Rick’s on the way to work’ – Rick was the name of her long-time dealer – ‘and once I finish this shift, I don’t plan on being sentient again until Sunday.’
Worry bloomed in my chest. ‘Just be careful.’
‘Caution is my motherfucking watchword.’ I heard a muffled voice in the background. ‘I’ve got to run – the dill pickle will see me now. Just promise me that if Jackson does get in touch again, you won’t completely shut him down. Okay?’
‘Fine. But I’m pretty sure I’m rid of him for good.’
‘We’ll see,’ Isla trilled. ‘If you ask me, he sounds like a guy who doesn’t give up that easily. After all, he did marry you.’
‘Goodbye, Isla!’ I hung up the phone and walked into the office, bag swinging. I was ready for the afternoon, whatever it brought.
Turns out, the afternoon brought very little. The minutes stretched on into hours. I did my expenses. I added a few more things to my to-do list and then crossed them off, but the satisfaction this usually brought proved elusive.
At four-thirty, there was a ‘Knock knock!’ at the door of our cubicle, and Jeremy appeared clutching a mug that said ‘Da Man’. Ben and I had, at that moment, both been cradling our iPhones like troublesome newborns, but at the sight of him we both dropped them on our desks as though touching them might trigger a nuclear launch.
Still, Jeremy shook his finger at us. ‘I hope you two aren’t Snapchatting or sexting.’ He made the air quotes gesture around sexting, which made me wonder if he knew what it was, and, if he did, if he thought it didn’t exist in real life. Although, I suppose, in my life it didn’t exist, and I doubted very much that it existed in Jeremy’s life, either. At least I hoped for the sake of humanity it didn’t. From the deep beetroot shade Ben’s face had now taken on, it looked like it definitely did exist in his.
‘How’s the Bryant case coming along?’ Jeremy perched his left buttock on the edge of my desk and loomed over me. I tried not to flinch.
‘Good,’ I said, reaching out and patting the Manila case file. ‘I’ve been going through his accounts today, and there’s nothing suspicious so far, but I’ll keep digging.’
‘Yes, keep digging, Sparrow! I’m sure that old shark has got a trick or two up his sleeve, and I’m relying on you to flush him out.’
I disentangled myself from the mixed metaphor and plastered a confident grin across my face. ‘I’ll do my best!’
‘I’m sure you will, I’m sure you will. You’re our ace in the hole! If anyone can reel in this fish, it’s you.’
Right … ‘I thought I’d maybe go down there in person tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Talk to a few of his neighbors, see if they know anything?’ I hadn’t realized I’d been planning on doing this until the words came out of my mouth, but judging by the look on Jeremy’s face, it was a good thing.
‘Excellent plan! Go undercover, grease some palms, smoke him out of his hole.’
‘Uh, sure,’ I said uncertainly. I imagined the look of incredulity on Ben’s face at that moment and was careful not to catch his eye in case we both lost it. ‘I’ll let you know what I find.’
He took a sip from his mug and nodded approvingly. ‘Good work, Sparrow. I look forward to hearing what skeletons you unearth from the old bobcat’s closet.’ With that, he raised two fingers to his forehead in salute and sauntered out of the cubicle. ‘Markson!’ I heard him call to one of the poor unsuspecting client account managers down the hall. ‘What’s the low-down on those invoices? Have you shaken them down for the dough?’
Ben turned around slowly in his chair. ‘Bobcat?’ he whispered incredulously.
I shook my head. Jeremy had shot so many random words at me at once, I’d almost missed the bobcat comment. ‘Honestly, who knows where he gets these things.’
‘Your idea about going on site tomorrow was genius. Jeremy lapped it up.’
I grimaced. ‘Can we please not talk about Jeremy lapping things?’
‘Fair enough. Seriously, though, do you think you’ll be able to get anything out of his neighbors?’
I shrugged. ‘Who knows? Maybe he said something to one of them about his plans, or one of them saw something on the night of the fire.’ I considered this for a minute. ‘Or maybe it’ll be a huge waste of time, but at least it’ll get me out of the office.’
‘I knew it!’ Ben crowed. ‘You’re totally just using it as an excuse to bunk off work for the afternoon.’
‘I am not!’ At least, not entirely. Though the idea of a Friday afternoon wandering around Columbia Road rather than staring bleary-eyed at spreadsheets and being berated by Ben about substandard cups of tea did have a certain appeal.
I was about to defend myself further when the trill of an incoming text cut through the cubicle. We both scrambled to our mobiles. ‘It’s me!’ I cried, a little too triumphantly. Ben’s face sank. I swiped the screen and opened the message. It was from Christopher.
False alarm with Jonno’s wife last night – still no baby, so the lads are back on for drinks this eve. Hopefully won’t be too late xxx p.s. don’t forget the salmon this time pls x
I blinked at the words on the screen. So much for a romantic night in. I couldn’t believe I’d spent a whole day fighting the urge to winch a lace G-string out of my cervix for nothing. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to think about what I was going to cook for dinner. I reached over and crossed it off my list. Pasta with jarred pesto for one, please, with a side of Grazia magazine, and a healthy dash of ennui.
I tried to think positively. Normally, I loved an evening in by myself. Unfettered carb consumption, a glass of red wine the size of a beach ball (okay, three) and unlimited reruns of Say Yes to the Dress. What wasn’t to love? But somehow, the idea of a night marooned on the sofa like a beached sea otter didn’t hold the usual appeal. It didn’t feel cosy or indulgent. It felt … lonely.
‘What are you doing tonight?’
Ben looked at me, surprised. ‘I’m out with some of my uni friends. Why?’
‘I just wondered if you wanted to go for a drink, that’s all.’
His eyebrows were nearly lost in his hairline now. ‘But … you never want to go for a drink.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘I just thought it might be …’ I shook my head. ‘Just forget it.’
‘Why Jenny Sparrow,’ he said coyly, tucking his fists into his ribcage, arms akimbo. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’
‘Oh my God!’ I spluttered.
‘I can’t say I’m not flattered, but you know my position on ladies who are enfianced.’ He waggled his eyebrows suggestively on this last word.
‘Ben, stop!’ I groaned.
‘Look,’ he said, serious now. ‘Come to these drinks tonight, if you fancy it. It’ll be a bunch of blokes in their mid-twenties discussing Arsène Wenger and wanking – separately, that is, not together – but you’re welcome to come along. I’m sure the lads would be delighted to have an older woman in their midst, though I can’t promise one of them won’t ask you to show him your tits.’
I was strangely touched by the offer. Sure, I spent more time with Ben than anyone else, thanks to our close cubicle quarters, and it was clear from the start that we got along, but you never knew if an office friendship expanded outside of the office. It was nice to see that with Ben it might. Still, the idea of being surrounded by a bunch of his uni mates while they sank pints and argued over Football Focus didn’t exactly appeal, even if it was the best (and by best, I mean only) offer I’d had all day. ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I think I’ll pass.’
He nodded approvingly. ‘I always knew you were a wise woman.’
I turned my attention back to the Bryant case and, before I knew it, Ben was packing up for the evening. ‘You sure you don’t want to come along?’ he asked as he slung his messenger bag over his head.
‘I’m good,’ I said, ‘honest. Have fun tonight. I hope you hear from Lucy.’
‘Don’t!’ he wailed, shoulders sagging theatrically. ‘It’s hopeless!’
‘It’s not hopeless, I promise. Some things just take a little time.’
‘Yeah, like the Ice Age, and look how that worked out for the mastodon.’ I shot him a quizzical look. ‘Discovery Channel,’ he shrugged. ‘Goodnight. Don’t stay too late.’
‘I won’t,’ I said, waving him out the door.
I tried to keep working after he left, but the fight had gone out of me for the day, and I ended up aimlessly refreshing Twitter, hoping someone would say something interesting. The office was quiet now, only the faint clacking of fingers on a keyboard somewhere, and the whir of a vacuum cleaner as it worked its way through the hall.
Eventually, I logged off and started slowly gathering my stuff. I planned my journey home in my head. I could stop by Tesco on the way, pick up some supplies. I glanced at the time: 7.15. The Tube should be quieter by now. It would still be light out, so I could walk through Green Park on the way. Maybe sit and read my book for a few minutes.
I suppressed a sigh. Nothing I’d planned was getting rid of the sinking feeling that filled me when I imagined walking into the empty flat. The truth was, I didn’t want to go home yet. Everyone else was out there living their own lives, surrounded by their people. What about me? Had my life really become this small?
No. I could do better than this, I was sure of it. I thought of Jackson prowling the streets on his own, scouting out all the best places, wringing every drop he could out of life. I could do that, too. I didn’t need him to do it, either. I didn’t need anyone. I was a grown-ass woman in London, and I could do grown-ass things on my own.
I picked up my bag and charged out the building, lit up by a new sense of purpose.
I threaded my way through St James’s Park, across the Mall, and up the steps of the Queen Mother’s memorial. The streets around St James’s are lined with the sort of stately cream-colored buildings you could imagine filled with visiting dignitaries, all classical pillars and porticos. A string of trailers were lined up in front of Prince Philip House, and a group of people in black T-shirts and jeans gathered around an enormous camera while two actors in period dress rehearsed their lines.
I dug my phone out of my bag and dialed. My aunt picked up on the third ring.
‘Hey there, baby girl,’ she said in that gravelly voice of hers that was courtesy of a thirty-year Marlboro Reds habit. ‘How’re you holding up?’
‘Okay,’ I said. I ducked down a side street lined with parked cars and leaned up against the wall of one of the tall stuccoed buildings. ‘How is she?’
‘Oh, you know.’ I heard the flick of her lighter and then a long inhale. ‘Pretty much the same.’
‘Did the money get to your account okay?’
‘Of course it did, honey. Thank you.’ She took another drag. I could picture her standing on the screened-in porch, cigarette tucked into the corner of her mouth, blondish-gray hair piled on top of her head, eyes a washed-out watery blue.
‘Does she need anything else? I could order some clothes …’
‘Don’t waste your money,’ she said. ‘She’s got plenty of clothes. If she needs anything, I’ll let you know.’
‘Okay.’ A car rolled by, a sleek Jag, the engine purring. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t called lately,’ I said. ‘It’s just, with the wedding and work and everything …’
‘Jenny, you don’t have to apologize. I know you have a life to lead – you can’t be expected to call every fifteen minutes. We’re doing fine here, I promise.’
‘Can I talk to her?’
There was a pause and the sound of the lighter sparking up again. ‘She’s not having a great day today, honey,’ she said gently.
I nodded. ‘Tell her I love her.’
‘Of course. But she knows you do without me saying so.’
‘I’ll make plans to come visit soon,’ I said, knowing this wasn’t true.
‘We’ll be here,’ she said. ‘There’s no rush. You just live your life, honey.’ There was a commotion in the background, the murmur of the television punctuated by someone shouting. My mother. ‘I’ve got to go,’ my aunt said. I could hear the tension in her voice. ‘Send our love to Christopher. Bye, baby girl.’
The line went dead.
I needed a drink, badly. The thought of going back to the flat seemed impossible now.
It was a clear, crisp evening, and the air was filled with the spring smell of mulch and grass. I headed up Lower Regent Street and turned onto Shaftesbury Avenue, the screens of Piccadilly Circus flashing ads for fizzy drinks and fast food above me. I spotted the enormous Waterstones and a plan started to form. I ducked inside, picked up a paperback I’d been wanting to read, and paid for it at the till. Tonight, I decided, I’d take myself out for dinner.
I know, this isn’t exactly revelatory. People go out to dinner on their own all the time. I’d see them sitting at a bar or in the window, one hand holding a book or a newspaper, the other a fork, and I’d feel the same way about them as I would someone who ran into a burning building to rescue a goldfish. Brave, sure, but was it strictly necessary?
But tonight, that brave idiot would be me.
There was a little Italian place on the corner that looked nice, so I screwed up my courage, pushed open the door, and asked the maître d’ for a table for one. He escorted me to the bar, handed me a menu, and disappeared without a word.
My eyes flicked across the page without taking much in. The bartender appeared and took my order – a glass of white wine and a plate of cacio e pepe – and then, just like that, I was on my own.
I tried, very hard, not to panic.
I dug the paperback out of my bag and cracked the spine. It was a literary affair – something about a middle-aged man having an amorphous life crisis – and the words swam in front of me. All I could hear was the clink and scrape of silverware on china, and the murmured rush of good conversation flowing around me.
Deep breaths, I chanted to myself. Deep breaths.
But it was no use. The confidence that had buoyed me into the restaurant deserted me as quickly as it had arrived. It was as if I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, watching me, discussing me, pitying me. I half expected to turn around to find a gaggle of pitchfork-wielding townsfolk pointing at me and shouting SHAME! SHAME! The bartender delivered my wine with a small smile. He’s probably laughing at me, I thought. Probably off in the backroom now, laughing with the barback about the sad, wizened spinster out front.
I could feel myself spiraling, the black maw opening up inside me. And just like that, I was back in the day of the flying ants.
It was a normal Saturday in late August. My mother was in the kitchen, the papers spread out on the kitchen table, her half-drunk coffee cooling beside her elbow. I had come downstairs for a Diet Coke and a sleeve of Chips Ahoy! My mother raised an eyebrow at that, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. I raised my hand to my cheek, felt the irritated constellation of pimples that had bloomed since my eleventh birthday, and quietly put the cookies back in the cupboard. Years later, I would read an article stating that there was no link between junk food and acne – it was mostly hormonal, apparently – but at that point, everyone thought you got pimples from eating chocolate. And I had a lot of pimples.
I was sloping my way back up the stairs, cursing my terrible skin and knobbly knees and flat chest and red hair and every other aspect of my general appearance, and, while I was at it, personality, when it happened. The phone rang.
I jumped. I remember that clearly: I nearly jumped out of my skin when it rang. To this day, I don’t know why. The phone rang all the time in my house, particularly that summer, when Isla was trapped at home with a broken leg, and phoned me constantly to discuss the latest episode of Dawson’s Creek. She had it for Pacey, bad, though I never understood the appeal.
Still, when the phone rang this time, and when I heard my mother get up out of her chair, pick up the phone, and say hello in that cool, slightly removed voice she used for the telephone, I was seized with fear.
‘Who is this?’ I heard her ask. There was a pause as she listened, and then she said, not in her normal telephone voice, but something sharper, shakier, ‘No, I’m not interested. I told you never to call here again.’ The phone slammed back down on the receiver, and then there were footsteps running towards the front door and my mother was screaming my dad’s name over and over. ‘Kevin! Kevin!’ I froze in the stairwell. My dad had been gone for three months.
I ran outside after her. She was standing on the lawn in her robe, screaming and crying and wrenching at her clothes. There were red marks on her arms from where she’d torn at the skin with her fingernails. She saw me coming out the front door and wheeled on me. ‘That woman keeps calling me!’ she was shouting. ‘Your father’s little whore!’
My father’s girlfriend never called the house. She wouldn’t have. She was too scared of my mom.
That’s when I noticed the flying ants.
They descended like a great black cloud, covering the grass and the pavement, zooming into our open eyes and getting stuck to our eyelashes. I swatted them away, but there were too many of them. All the while my mother was screaming, flying ants were swarming all around her as she stood on the front lawn, her mouth open, her eyes screwed shut, her face wet with tears.
I tried to get my mother to calm down, but I couldn’t. She kept screaming and crying, and then, finally, when I’d managed to coax her back into the house, she started destroying things. Everything, really. She threw pictures and vases and ornaments. A mirror smashed. She pulled apart pillows, feathers floating through the air. She moved into the kitchen. I pulled on her arm, tried to block her way, but I wasn’t strong enough. She was filled with what seemed like a superhuman strength. And she was not going to stop.
Eventually, a neighbor called the police, and a cruiser and an ambulance pulled up to the house. I let them in and pointed up the stairs, and the EMTs trudged wordlessly through our living room and up to my parents’ bedroom, which, I realized, the thought hitting me like a bolt of lightning, was just my mother’s now. They wheeled her into the ambulance and took her away. One of the officers stayed behind until someone could come and look after me. I begged him to take me to the hospital so I could be with my mother, but he just shook his head and offered me another Mentos from the roll he kept in his pocket. Looking back on it, he was only a kid, too, really – no more than twenty-two, a rookie cop stuck with the job of babysitting the crazy lady’s kid. When I started to cry, he put the TV on to the Cartoon Network and poured me a glass of milk. It was sweet, really. But it didn’t help. I knew then that I was on my own.
My mother was hospitalized. I went to stay with my aunt while she was away. My father called every day but I wouldn’t speak to him. He had left us, and now my mother was broken, and it was his fault. At least that’s what I believed for the first few years, when it was just her and me on our own. He even turned up on my aunt’s doorstep, clutching some stupid teddy bear like he’d already forgotten that I was almost twelve and not some little girl that could be placated with a stuffed animal. My aunt chased him out of her driveway and then came back in and handed me a whole package of Chips Ahoy! I ate the lot.
After three weeks, my mom came home, and I moved back in with her. She tried hard to make it seem like everything was back to normal, but it wasn’t. She would hug me and smile and laugh at my jokes like she always did, but there was something missing from her after the day of the flying ants. She looked like someone who’d had the blankets permanently ripped away from her on a cold morning. Haunted.
I took a sip of wine. The taste of it on my tongue – cold and crisp and delicious – was enough to shake me out of the moment. My shoulders dropped half an inch, and I heard myself let out a tiny little sigh. The bartender appeared again with my plate of pasta, and set it down in front of me. Steam curled up towards me.
‘Do you need anything else?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ I placed the napkin in my lap, took another sip of wine, and stole a quick glance around the room. There was a group of professionally dressed thirty-somethings in the corner, one of them raising his glass in a toast. An elderly couple held hands across their table. Two middle-aged women, both dolled up to the nines and with bulging shopping bags resting at their feet, were in peals of laughter. And not a single one of them was looking my way.
I twirled a few strands of pasta onto my fork and popped it into my mouth. The spaghetti was al dente, the sauce creamy and cheesy and peppery. Perfection. I washed it down with another swig of wine and signaled to the bartender for a refill. My shoulders dropped another half an inch.
I stuffed the book back into my bag. I didn’t need a shield, or a distraction. I was here on my own, and that was okay. No one had turned up with a pitchfork and judged me. In fact, no one gave a single flying fuck what I was doing at that particular moment. I’d pushed myself to do something outside of my comfort zone, and I’d survived. In fact, I’d enjoyed it, the same as I’d enjoyed the spicy food at that restaurant the other night, and climbing up that wall, and singing to a full room. I’d taken a step out into the unknown, and I hadn’t lost myself in the process.
I finished the pasta and the second glass of wine, and asked for the bill. The bartender presented it to me alongside a tiny glass of limoncello and a plate of chocolate truffles, and I sank the drink and ate all the truffles, and left with a smile on my face. And then I went to the movies on my own, and saw a film that I actually wanted to see rather than one that I thought Christopher would at least tolerate, and I was so caught up in this incredible rush of sistas-are-doing-it-for-themselves freedom that it was only when I was walking to the Tube that I realized I still hadn’t heard from Jackson. It really must be over. The twin feelings of relief and sadness accompanied me all the way back to my still-empty flat.