by Nick Hornby
She walked around the lake and then checked the time: it was only 7:15. She wanted Joseph to put the boys to bed, not only because she was paying him to do so and she’d appreciate the break, but because if she simply went home, there was no real reason for him to be there, unless she asked him to stay. She went back to the car, stopped for a newspaper, and sat reading it in a quiet pub in Primrose Hill while nursing a glass of white wine. And then she went home.
* * *
—
“How was the jazz?”
Joseph was watching American football on T.V. The boys were asleep, and all the washing-up had been done. She tried not to swoon. Perhaps the secret to a successful relationship was to pay someone ten pounds an hour, every hour.
“Oh,” said Lucy. “Well.”
She could see that it was time to stop with the jazz, although the thought of doing so made her heart thump in her chest.
“Oh, right,” said Joseph, and he laughed sympathetically.
“No, there wasn’t any.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
He stood up, as babysitters do when one comes back from an evening out. A couple of minutes’ chat about the dinner/film/play/jazz and a quick update on the kids, two or three ten-pound notes, done.
“Please don’t do the babysitter stand-up.”
He looked confused, as he had every right to do.
“Do you want me to sit down? Or just . . . not do that kind of standing up again?”
She laughed.
“It must have sounded like that. But there is no wrong way of standing up.”
“Phew.”
“Would you mind staying and talking for a bit?”
“Oh. Sure.”
He sat back down on the sofa.
She sat down alongside him, keeping some distance.
“What happened was, I wanted to see you but I didn’t have anywhere to go so I asked you to babysit and told you a lot of rubbish about friends who are jazz saxophonists. I don’t know anyone like that. And then I drove to Regent’s Park and walked around and then I read the paper in a pub and now here I am.”
“OK.”
“You can cut in at any point.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t seem to want to cut in, however, and Lucy was reminded of his youth. How could any young person make the running in this conversation? Did that mean she shouldn’t be having it at all? Because of power dynamics and so forth?
“I think there’s been a weird vibe between us, and I wanted to, you know . . .”
He wasn’t going to help her out.
“Maybe look at what’s going on.”
“It’s my fault,” said Joseph.
“Why is it your fault?”
“Oh, you know, because I said there are all kinds of hot. It was inappropriate.”
“Well, that’s the problem. I liked it. I think.”
“But you’re not sure,” Joseph said ruefully.
“Only because I wasn’t one hundred percent certain about what you meant.”
“When I said before that there was more than one kind of hot . . . That was wrong. There’s only hot and not hot.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Oh.”
“But it wasn’t so hard to get. You said there are all kinds of hot. I realize that.”
“So what aren’t you sure about?”
“Why it was inappropriate, I suppose.”
“Because I was trying to tell you you’re hot. Terrible.”
He shook his head, to underline the foolishness of the decision.
They had arrived at the crossroads. There was nothing further to say, really, unless they took the conversation into uncharted territory. It was like a chess match, but only in the way she played chess: she was looking for one more move that would keep the game alive.
“You’re very sweet. Thank you.”
She had found something. They could limp on for another few seconds.
He stood up again.
“Maybe I should go.”
“Right. Any particular reason?”
“I don’t want to sit here listening to you telling me how sweet I am.”
“Oh. No. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Did you feel patronized?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what I didn’t want.”
“I don’t know what you do want.”
“Really? I don’t know how I could make it any more obvious without . . . Well, without being extremely forward.”
He sat back down and kissed her, and they took it from there.
6
The first time Lucy and Joseph slept together came to be known as the Night of No Jazz, although the expression quickly became modified: the Night of Too Much Jazz, for example, or (when Joseph knew that Lucy wouldn’t take offense) Jazz FL, a smutty corruption of Jazz F.M. Later there was a jazz festival, one Saturday night and Sunday morning when the boys were both away on sleepovers. They weren’t staying the night with Paul at the moment, so the festival was a special event, to be exploited for maximum enjoyment.
“Was that a mistake?” said Joseph afterward. She was lying in the crook of his arm, on the sofa, wearing a T-shirt and nothing else.
“Not for me,” said Lucy.
“Or for me.”
“I wouldn’t mind making the mistake again.”
And that was the extent of the introspection.
* * *
—
She was anxious and vulnerable, at first. She was in good shape for a forty-two-year-old, but she still had the body of a forty-two-year-old and the shape was the result of not much chocolate and the occasional visit to the gym, rather than an intensive regime of yoga and a personal trainer. Nothing was as taut or as smooth as it once had been. She would never have thought about any of it if he had been the same age as her, but the moment he started touching her, she couldn’t help but think about what he might be used to, there, and there, and even or especially there. She kept the T-shirt on as a damage-limitation exercise, but maybe that was like closing your eyes and claiming invisibility, because there were many ways for him to uncover her secrets. What was the point of trying to keep them, anyway? If he didn’t like what he saw or felt, then that would be that. He seemed ardent, though. There was no sign of anything but a gratifying arousal.
At the start the sex was happy but not good, in the old Cosmo sense. Joseph was too eager, and she was too reliant on previous habits and routines. She didn’t pretend that something had happened when it hadn’t, and eventually Joseph wanted to know if there was a way of making it happen. He learned quickly, and within a few days or nights or dates or whatever they had entered a Golden Age.
“But is it enough?” Lucy kept asking herself. “Enough for what?” she answered. The answer always came quickly too, as if she wanted to shut down all doubts. She was happy, in a bubble, and the only reason to pop it was on the grounds that bubbles were not real life. But bubbles made life tolerable, and the trick was to blow as many as possible. There were new-baby bubbles, and honeymoon bubbles, and success-at-work bubbles, and new-friends bubbles, and great-holiday bubbles, and even tiny T.V.-series bubbles, dinner bubbles, party bubbles. They all burst without intervention, and then it was a matter of getting through to the next one. Life hadn’t been fizzy for a while. It had been hard.
And yes, the sex made her happy, but it wasn’t a purely functional or transactional relationship. Joseph didn’t put his trousers on and disappear into the night, to reappear again only when the urge came upon him. They talked about their days, their work, the boys; nothing about Joseph’s youth made conversation difficult. After a couple of weeks, she realized that the opposite was true. Joseph would ask her question after question, and he listened t
o the answers. She asked him questions, and listened to the answers. She had very few conversations like this with people of her own age. If anybody had any interest in the problems of running an English department in a troubled inner-city school, they took great pains to hide it.
He always arrived after the children had gone to bed, an arrangement that almost immediately began to cause problems.
“When are you going out next, Mum?” said Al, a couple of weeks after the Night of No Jazz.
“No plans.” She knew why he was asking.
“That’s not really fair on us. Because when you don’t go out, we don’t get to play Xbox with Joseph.”
“I’m sure he’d come round for a game.”
“But you’d be here.”
“What difference does that make?”
“It’s funner when you’re not.”
“Why do you like Joseph so much?”
“He’s fun.”
“And I’m not?”
“Not really. I mean, sometimes.”
“When?”
There was a long pause.
“Well.”
Dylan came into the kitchen, looking for something to eat.
“Have some fruit.”
“I don’t want fruit.”
“Mum’s asking when she’s fun.”
“Why?”
“She just wants to know.”
“Christmas?”
“Christmas? When is she fun at Christmas?”
“Anyway, that’s not her job.”
“My kids at school think I’m fun.”
“Oh, you’d be a fun teacher, probably.”
“What’s fun about Joseph, apart from Xbox?”
“He’s really good at actual football, not just FIFA.”
“Rainbow flicks, Cruyff turns, everything.”
“That’s just being good at something, though. That’s not necessarily fun.”
“I disagree.”
“All right. I’ll go out soon.”
“I thought you were looking for a boyfriend, anyway?”
“Who told you I was looking for a boyfriend?”
“Dad. When we went out for pizza.”
“Why on earth did he say that?”
Paul might have heard from anyone that she’d been out on a couple of dates. She hadn’t kept it a secret, and he knew everyone she knew.
“He wanted to know whether it made us sad.”
“What did you say?”
“We said it didn’t. Didn’t we, Al?”
“And was that how you actually felt?”
“I’m not sad.”
“Me neither.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. You should be looking.”
“What if I actually find one?”
The boys looked at each other. They were clearly trying not to laugh.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” said Dylan, a favorite expression of his, and rarely used with such felicity; it was often brought out to deal with room-tidying and homework.
“Yes, but it wouldn’t upset you?”
“You mean because of Dad?”
“I suppose so.”
“No.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Never underestimate the ability of children to pull you out into deep water. The conversation had begun, really not very long ago, with a request for FIFA games with Joseph. And now here they were, talking about the nature and future of their family.
“Well. It’s better now, isn’t it?” said Dylan.
“Yeah,” said Al. “We like Dad. But we didn’t like worrying about him.”
“He’s doing well,” said Lucy.
“Good,” said Al.
“But maybe that’s because he’s not living here anymore.”
“You mustn’t think it’s anything to do with you,” said Lucy.
“We don’t. We just mean, maybe we should leave things the way they are.”
“Except with more Joseph.”
“Yeah, except he isn’t anything to do with you.”
“Because you’re out when he’s here.”
“So he’s more our friend than yours.”
“OK, OK. I’ll go out more.”
“Thank you.”
* * *
—
Emma was in the line outside the butcher’s the Saturday after her promise, and she gestured for Lucy to join her.
“I can’t jump the queue,” said Lucy.
“These people won’t mind.”
She smiled at the people behind her, two good-looking and stony-faced men.
“I’ll see you later,” said Lucy, and went to the back of the line.
“Oh, I’d rather chat than shop,” said Emma, and walked with her.
Lucy didn’t want to talk to Emma. She especially didn’t want to talk to Emma about sex while they were edging slowly toward the person Lucy was having sex with.
“How’s your week been?”
“Fine. Busy.”
So far, so good.
“How about you?”
“Oh, wretched.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“I’m married to a pig.”
“Oh, dear.” Pig. Sex. Lucy’s love life. Hop, skip, jump. Change the subject.
“How are you feeling about the referendum?”
“I’m quite tempted to vote out, just to annoy David. He’s obsessed.”
“What’s going to happen to him if we leave?”
“He loses a lot of money, probably. I don’t know. I haven’t asked him. He’s so boring. And he thinks everyone is a moron except him.”
“Don’t vote out.”
“I don’t suppose I will. But the more I read, the less I understand.”
“Just look at the people who want you to vote out. Farage. Boris. Gove.”
“Versus Cameron and George Osborne.”
“I know. Bad, but less bad.”
“I’ll vote in, and I hope we never have to talk about it again.”
“Is that why David is a pig? Because of the referendum?”
“No.”
Lucy looked at her, but no description of porcine behavior was forthcoming.
“OK.”
“Cheer me up. Have you been on any dates?”
Lucy shrugged, and nodded at the people in front of them, and grimaced, and did everything she could mutely to suggest that she was unhappy talking about this subject in public.
“A-ha. So there’s something to discuss. I want to discuss it. Coffee after the butcher’s? Or a drink? It’s lunchtime. We’re allowed.”
“I have to get back to make lunch for the boys.”
“So let’s go out. During the week. Can you get someone to be with them for a couple of hours?”
So that was the solution to one problem, although it created another: could she bear to talk to Emma for two whole hours?
“Ooh,” said Emma as they approached the door. “My friend is there.”
Joseph saw Lucy, smiled, and waggled his fingers in their direction. The look, Lucy felt, was unambiguous. She smiled back with as much casual neutrality as she could manage, but it seemed to her that any eye contact between two people who are sleeping together was doomed to reveal everything to anyone within a fifty-yard radius.
“Wow,” said Emma.
“What?”
“That look Joe gave you.”
“I think it was for both of us.”
“I wish. You know what it is, don’t you?”
“No. I really don’t.”
“Pheronomes. Is that what they’re called? Something like that. You’re having sex, and he can pick it up. I
t makes you more attractive generally.”
“I do shower.”
“It’s not like that. You’re pumping these things out all the time. And he can tell there’s nothing going on with me.”
“I’d have thought the plate-glass window and all the meat would scramble the signal a bit.”
“Nope. Cuts through like a knife.”
“His name’s Joseph. Not Joe.” Lucy couldn’t let it go.
“I call him Joe.”
“That’s wrong.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“He’s been babysitting for me.”
“Ask him if he’s interested in a thirty-nine-year-old blonde who’d do anything for him.”
“You ask him. And you’re not thirty-nine.”
“I’ll tell him that when he’s lying broken on top of me. He’ll be amazed.”
“Please don’t talk about him like that.”
“Why on earth not? It’s just a bit of fun.”
“Except you want me to ask him if he’ll have sex with you.”
“That would be just a bit of fun too.”
As usual, everyone in the queue was enjoying the conversation, Lucy could see. Those who were queuing with partners were exchanging discreet looks, and one man, presumably after catching a fragment of something in between songs, had taken his headphones off. Who wouldn’t want to listen to Emma making a twit of herself?
“Why do you feel you have to protect him?”
“I don’t.”
“So why aren’t I allowed to talk about him?”
They had reached the front of the queue.
“You go in, Emma,” Lucy said.
“Ooh,” said Emma. “I will. Joe’s customer is just paying up. I’ve got half a chance.”
Lucy felt unnerved, and a little sick. Some of it was straightforward possessiveness, but there was something else too: the horrible distorted mirror image of the relationship with Joseph that Emma had been holding up. Was that what she was? A rapacious and deluded older woman who had no business messing around with someone so much younger than herself? And was there something to do with Joseph’s race in there too? She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it felt that way. Would Emma be licking her lips if he were a handsome young white butcher’s assistant? Probably. She seemed to be so frustrated and unhappy that any young man would do. So Emma was probably not guilty of that charge, at least. Lucy wondered whether she could claim a similar innocence. Was she somehow drawn to Joseph because of his race? Oh, fuck. If nothing else, he would provide her with an opportunity to think and double-think and doubt and beat herself up every second the affair lasted.