by Hayley Doyle
‘Oh, Chloe, don’t be so childish.’
‘It’s the truth. And you can blame our Kit for that.’
‘Where is your Kit?’ Carol asks.
‘Eating pizza in bed with Gareth,’ my nan tells her.
I excuse myself to the loo, but walk past it and out into the beer garden. The tyre swing is still in the play area, although the springy safe floor is a recent addition. I sit down, grateful to be alone, not a single kid in sight. The motorway can’t be seen from here, but I can hear the constant hum of cars not too far away. I swing, gently.
‘I came here to forget about you,’ I whisper. ‘But even the people who never met you can’t stop bringing up your bloody name.’
I stretch my legs forward and back, swinging higher.
‘If you were here, this’d be more fun. Actually, it would be fun.’
If Jack was alive, my mum would never have brought him here. She’d be showing off, insisting we ate out in town with a view of the Liver Birds or right on the waterfront. She wouldn’t be quizzing me about my future because she’d see it so clearly, like a well-constructed PowerPoint presentation. Jack would do most of the talking, which would please my dad. He’s such a good listener, my dad; loves an anecdote, a childhood memory. Jack’s hand would be on my back as he’d confidently spill the beans on his public-school life, his parents, his gap year. My mum would gloat at how posh all that sounded. He’d give excellent eye contact, too: engage directly with my mum, my dad and my nan, never forgetting about me either. My nan would be a bit wary of him, but that’s okay. I’d be concerned if she wasn’t wary about him …
Wait.
Jack never put his hand on my back; that wasn’t one of his things. I don’t think.
I let my toes touch the ground, do a little pitter-patter to bring the swing to a stop.
Oh God.
I can’t remember.
Would Jack have told those stories? Would he be the life and soul around his girlfriend’s family? Honestly, I don’t know. Best qualities don’t always shine around parents, no matter how old you are. I’m a brilliant example of that, turning into a people-pleasing mush around Patricia Carmichael and into a hormonal teenager around my own.
‘Your brother, Freddie …’ I think.
I met him with Jack at a pub on The Strand. Freddie didn’t stay long, he had other plans. Jack was questioning him; who was he meeting, where was he going, did he need to lend any money. I stood there with a glass of house white and ate the entire packet of Scampi Fries that Freddie had opened out onto the bar for us to share. There was no three-way conversation. I’d been disappointed that my introduction wasn’t more specific than, ‘This is Chloe,’ but Jack was anxious. He brushed it off once Freddie left, saying, ‘Just like to look out for him.’
Was Jack anxious around his whole family? Or just his little brother?
How well did I really know my boyfriend? It’s only been – what – seven weeks, and I’m starting to forget. And yet, that car park, right there, reminds me of taxis picking me and Beth up after a Friday night shift, taking us straight into town. We’d get changed in The Pheasant’s loos, slap on metallic eyeshadow and wear anything with a Lipsy label, leaving our uniforms behind in the wholesale condiments cupboard. Crystal-clear memories. I can almost smell the original Jean Paul Gaultier that Beth would drown us in.
‘My shoulder!’ I say.
And I close my eyes, imagine Jack’s fingers stroking my shoulder, lightly. That’s what he did. That’s what he always did. When we watched the telly. In the pub. During pillow talk.
And I’m talking to myself again, thinking of him, imagining him …
STOP.
My sanity is saved by a dad approaching the play area, one little girl holding his hand and a smaller one on his shoulders. I better clear away before I look like the weirdo who hangs around swings. I’m far too old to act the moody adolescent, although my mum’d probably disagree.
When I rejoin my family, they’re in the depths of desserts.
‘I can’t say no to a sticky toffee pudding,’ my dad says, tucking in.
‘This tiramisu tastes nothing like tiramisu,’ my nan says.
The family on the next table have gone, mashed food embossed on the carpet beneath where they’d sat, a dollop of chocolate ice cream melting on a place mat. I’m sure they only had one child with them. Carol and my mum have moved on to cocktails. I had no idea The Pheasant served cocktails, but hey, stranger things have happened.
‘Where’ve you been?’ my mum demands.
‘Sue …’ my dad tries, but she shoots him a look.
‘I hope you didn’t sneak off to pay the bill,’ my nan says. ‘I’m getting this.’
My mum’s hand darts across the table. ‘No, me and Bernie are getting this.’
‘No, Sue. It’s my treat.’
‘But you don’t even like the tiramisu!’
‘Doesn’t mean I’m incapable of paying.’
‘Mother, put your purse away now.’
And so they go on, arguing. A standard occurrence at these occasions.
Although it’s familiar, it belongs to a Chloe Roscoe who I can’t be any more. It’s when I was seven, when I was thirteen, when I was twenty-two, it was just over a year ago when we came to a similar restaurant (one with a carvery still in operation) for what would’ve been my nan’s sixtieth wedding anniversary with my grandad. I want to get involved, tell my mum and my nan to shut up, have a sneaky laugh with my dad. I want them to get a move on so I can go and meet my friends … or phone the boy from school I fancy … or hit the pub … or just get back to my own place and watch the telly with that massive Dairy Milk sat in my fridge. But I’m changed. I don’t want to be. But I am.
Something stronger than a lime and soda in my hand would be much appreciated right now. I check my phone mindlessly, something to do. There’s a notification; a message request.
It’s from Justin.
No. No … I don’t want to remember. I want to peel my skin off.
My dad does a little drum roll on the table with his hands. ‘Who wants another bevvie?’
‘In The Pheasant?’ my nan asks, as if ‘pheasant’ is a swear word.
‘Can we just go home?’ I plead.
Problem is, I don’t even know where home is any more.
25
Beth’s up north this weekend and it’s coincided with something I believe she will be able to help me with. Other than Jack, I can think of no better person. In fact, she’ll be better.
It’s to do with the small matter of learning how to ski.
I know, I know, if there was one decent thing to come out of Jack’s death, it was my lucky escape from attending the lesson he’d booked as a surprise. Let’s face it; it was more of a bloody shock. I’d have been more comfortable with a bungee jump. So there’s no rhyme or reason as to why I’m going to the lesson he booked, other than because, well, Jack booked it. It feels right to go.
Or, more specifically, it feels wrong not to go.
You see, earlier in the week, I went to Matalan with my mum. She was tricking me into buying some new clothes, since I’d shown up in Liverpool with a wardrobe suitable for trekking around Southeast Asia. I’ve had to forfeit my personal style just to stop her going on.
‘I get in from work, Chloe, and you’re watching that Jessica Sarah Parker again,’ she’d said, through tight lips like an amateur ventriloquist, flicking through the rails of multicoloured plain t-shirts.
‘Sarah Jess—’
‘And you’re never dressed. It’s gone five o’clock. And you’re never, ever dressed.’
‘So stop barging into me room.’
‘You should stick to plain old-fashioned sleeping in your room. Oh! And that stuff you were doing in the garden. Don’t. Save that for your room, too.’
‘You mean yoga?’ I’d motivated myself twice to do a twenty-minute YouTube workout.
‘It looks a bit voodoo-witchcraft. Imagine what n
ext door’ll be making of that. Now, this is lovely. It’ll show off your legs. You’ve always had fabulous legs.’
She hands me a little black dress with long lace sleeves.
‘I can’t imagine one place I’d ever go to and wear this,’ I’d told her.
‘You’re impossible, love.’
And thus went my new norm.
So at the Matalan checkout, when I received an email reminding me of my forthcoming ski lesson, my reaction was not how I’d predicted. I suddenly had something to do this Saturday that didn’t involve my mum and Carol, or our Kit’s wedding, or watching my old DVDs braless. It was something planned by Jack, for me. Going keeps us alive.
‘This is only going to work if you can ski,’ Jack had said to me on our third date. February.
‘As in, this-this?’ I’d asked, referring to him and me with a pointed finger.
‘Skiing’s my favourite thing in all the world.’
We’d met in the middle, the Hilton in Nottingham, and we were in the pool. Outside was grey and rainy, and nobody else was in the pool except us, but we spoke low, the ambience so clinical that any echo felt like somebody might be spying on us.
‘I can do basic tap dancing or a decent downward dog, but skiing? Me? Never.’
‘You don’t know until you try.’
‘I’m thirty-six, Jack. I do know.’
‘My mum learnt when she was forty.’
‘Your mum’s a national television star. She has spectacular blood.’
‘So do you.’
‘Ha. Don’t flatter me onto the piste.’
‘See? You already know the jargon.’
When Jack was spending his half terms in the Alps and eating fondue, I was in Pontins begging my mum for a Slush Puppy. Learning to ski felt daunting, and catapulted me into a world I wasn’t comfortable with. What if I didn’t take to skiing? I’d have to sit out, like the kid who was crap at sports, while Jack and his pals raced down mountains all day. What would I celebrate during the après-ski? Beth told me that’s the best part, because you’ve survived another day on the slopes; you’re drinking from sheer relief.
‘I go every year,’ Jack had said, opening his legs under the water and catching me between them like a shark’s bite. We’d circled around, stuck to each other, kissed.
‘I’m not stopping you,’ I’d said. I also knew he’d been recently, meaning I had a whole year to ignore it. Maybe he’d back down, or decide against skiing next year. Maybe he’d break his leg before going. Maybe – quite possibly – we wouldn’t even be together this time next year. This was only our third date.
But Jack had never backed down.
His persistence had reminded me of being ten and wanting to go to a Spice Girls concert. When I’d got Jack the canvas print of the man in the shopping trolley as a moving-in present, Jack had got me a ski lesson. An indoor slope, of course, just outside Liverpool. He’d picked a date close to our Kit’s wedding so we could escape to the slopes for a day if (and when) family politics became too intense. But honestly, even with the original email confirmation stuck to the fridge, I’d never had any intention of actually going through with it. Until now.
Beth, however, has other ideas about this weekend.
‘I’m not going there,’ she says down the phone.
I’m sat hunched on the bottom stair chatting on my mum and dad’s landline. We’ve had this thing, ever since we stopped living with our parents in our early twenties, that whenever we both happened to be back home, we would always call each other on the landline, for old times’ sake.
‘I’m at me niece’s birthday party in the morning,’ she goes on, ‘and I’m taking me grandad to the botanical gardens on Sunday. Babes, don’t make me spend a Saturday wearing the bowling alley equivalent of ski gear when I’ve brought Diane Von Furstenberg with me.’
‘But we can get a hot chocolate with whipped cream and little marshmallows.’
I’m hit by that image of Florrie on Facebook.
Bet that was taken in a fancy Alpine chalet. Was Jack with her? Did he take the photo?
Stop!
‘Or hot wine?’ I suggest. ‘What do they call it; vin chaud?’
‘It’s not Christmas. It’s August, for fuck’s sake.’
‘We can go to Nando’s afterwards.’
‘Have you forgotten who the fuck I am?’
She wants to go to some posh place in town and have a one-to-one dinner with me where I’ll be forced to eat tiny crumbs of food that cost a bomb. She’ll order wine that pairs with the dishes perfectly, too. But I don’t want a one-to-one with her. I don’t need a therapy session or to be asked how I’m feeling about Jack. I still haven’t caught up with her since the whole Thailand and Vietnam fiasco and it’s not something I want to indulge in now. You see, Beth will one hundred per cent want to indulge. I’d rather not think about how wrong it went – I want to focus on what can go right. If I can get on a pair of skis, it would make Jack so proud. Who knows, maybe I’ll want to book a second lesson. Or a holiday.
‘Beth?’ I ask. ‘Please. I need this.’
She unleashes a long, deep-throated sigh. ‘Fine.’
Neither of us has a car though. Beth came up to Liverpool on the train and I sold mine when I moved in with Jack – there’s nowhere to park it at the flat and I don’t need a car in London anyway.
‘We’ll Uber,’ Beth says when she arrives at my mum and dad’s house.
‘Lalalalala!’ my dad sings, his fingers in his ears.
I lean close to her and mumble, ‘Don’t mention the U word. Touchy subject.’
My dad’s about to start a shift, otherwise he’d take us willingly. My mum offers to give us a lift instead, which is a small miracle. She can’t stand driving; even gets a lift to work from Carol.
‘Heard you went to Budapest last weekend?’ my mum quizzes Beth. She barely waits for the answers. ‘He’s lovely, your Fergus. Minted, too, eh?’ and she winks in her rear-view mirror to Beth, sat in the back oozing expensive scent. ‘Now, you’re not gonna be luring our Chloe back to London, are you, love?’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, Sue,’ Beth says. ‘Loving your hair colour, by the way.’
‘Oh, I did it meself this morning. It’s called “Poppy Rust”. Keeps me young. And you look stunning, Beth. Have you lost weight?’
Beth beams. ‘Not by choice.’
‘Lucky you,’ my mum scoffs, and gives me a once-over. I’m not wearing any of my new Matalan clothes. I probably look like an ageing backpacker. ‘I wish you’d give our Chloe some tips – you know, with our Kit’s wedding coming up.’
I happen to be the trimmest I’ve been for a long time, thanks to the strange eating habits – and at times, non-eating habits – I’ve established since Jack died; but yeah, she has a point. I’m not toned, and I definitely look a mess next to Beth. I always have.
‘Is Fergus at your mum’s then?’ my mum continues. ‘Lurking in the shadows as usual?’
‘Golf, somewhere in Surrey,’ Beth says, flicking her warm caramel locks behind her shoulder. ‘Middle-aged before his time, Sue.’
‘It was a lovely wedding you had, Beth. Love a fella in a kilt.’
I’m bored of this. If my dad was driving we’d be listening to his CDs – The Who and Aerosmith – or he’d talk about football, something I’ve lost touch with over the years. He used to take me to home games when I was little, and him and our Kit still go together. The new season kicks off this weekend. Still, I appreciate the lift. We’re dropped off like teens going to the local disco, my mum waving and watching us go. She’s not picking us up, though. Beth has insisted we go into town later; she’s booked a restaurant.
‘There’s children everywhere,’ I say, my first impression of the indoor ski slope.
‘Oh, babes,’ Beth says, ‘it’s Saturday afternoon. What did you expect?’
I don’t reply. And I definitely don’t mention the funky smell in the air. A blend of bodies – particularly fee
t – and socks, and wet rubber floor mats. It’s Beth though. She can read my mind.
‘Do you honestly think I’d be able to ski if I’d started off somewhere like this?’
‘It’s cool,’ I lie. Try. ‘Honestly, this is gonna be great. And hey, you get to piss yourself laughing at me falling on me arse, don’t you? Come on, when was the last time we did an actual activity together?’
‘We’ve never done an “activity” together. We aren’t “activity” people.’
‘We’ve been to the pictures.’
‘Babes. That’s the least active activity you can do. It’s the antithesis of activity.’
At the kiosk for the ski-school, I present the email on my phone and the young lad in uniform with a man-bun asks my age.
‘You joking?’ I ask, not understanding. And – for fuck’s sake – blushing.
‘You said it’s a lesson for you, yeah?’
I nod and look to Beth, who sports her most impatient frown.
The young lad swallows; scratches his head. ‘It’s valid for age twelve to sixteen years,’ he says.
‘She’s sixteen,’ Beth says, but the lad laughs. ‘We both are.’ He stops laughing. She’s giving him that glare, the one that makes anybody do anything she bloody well wants. It’s a rare talent that I’ve tried – and failed – to mimic over the years.
I’m handed a plastic ticket and told to gear up.
‘Your instructor’ll meet you by that vending machine in fifteen minutes.’
‘Perfect,’ Beth smiles, and it’s the young lad’s turn to blush now.
‘Can I just ask,’ I interrupt, ‘it’s a private lesson, yeah?’
‘Erm, no. There’s eight of you altogether,’ I’m told, to which he adds, ‘all between the ages of twelve and sixteen.’
I turn around to see kids strap their feet into huge boots, giving their parents shitloads of stuff to hold in the process. Booking the wrong lesson must have been a simple mistake, but this is so far from anything I could ever imagine myself doing with Jack. What was he thinking?
‘Listen babes,’ Beth says, ‘forget the lesson—’
‘No! I’m here and this is what Jack wanted. Just because you don’t wanna—’