by Nick Hornby
The first person she saw was Michael Marwood.
“Hello,” he said, kissed her on both cheeks, hugged her briefly. He was pleased to see her, she could see that, but he was still a little embarrassed. She wondered whether he recalled all the details of the evening they spent together, or whether some of them were lost in the haze of temporary mental incapacity.
“You told me that nobody ever voted against their own financial self-interest,” she said.
“You know, that’s the first thing I thought of when the result came in. My confidence when we had dinner.”
“So, any explanations?”
“No. You?”
“Yes.”
She told him about scaffolding, and Sam’s one-pound houses in Stoke, and he listened, and was interested. Another couple, people who worked in publishing, came over to say hello to Michael and he told them about scaffolding and one-pound houses, and they listened too. The publishing couple were dragged away to meet someone else, but more friends, of hers and his, came over, and everyone talked about the referendum, and how depressed they were, and it was easy for Lucy to imagine that she and Michael were a couple, and to understand why she and Joseph weren’t. She couldn’t have gone to the birthday party the night before and listened to £Man’s D.J. set with a lot of people in their twenties. She’d have looked absurd. And Joseph couldn’t have come tonight. He’d have been bored and uncomfortable.
And then Paul walked in with a woman. Lucy gaped for a moment, and felt sick and panicky, and then recovered herself.
“Hey.”
“Oh,” said Paul. “Hi. Wow.”
Wow? Why was there any wow? There was no room for any wow whatsoever. Friends of hers were throwing the party. He had previously only been to this house with her. He must have suspected that she’d be here, even if this suspicion didn’t creep up on him until he was at the front door.
Lucy smiled politely at Paul’s companion. She was a few years younger than him (and therefore Lucy) but nothing outrageous. Paul didn’t take the hint.
“I’m Lucy,” said Lucy, and they shook hands. Lucy didn’t think she’d announced herself with too much emphasis, although she was immediately aware of the weight of her name, and the eyes of the young or younger woman widened before she composed herself.
“Daisy.”
“Hi, Daisy.”
“So.”
“So.”
“How come you’re here?”
“Me?” said Daisy.
“I’m presuming Paul didn’t bring you. He wouldn’t have been invited.”
“We’re . . . we came together.”
“No, I understand. I was trying in my cack-handed way to ask who invited you?” Too aggressive. “Who do you know?”
“I’m sorry,” said Daisy. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“No, no . . . Honestly, I don’t mind. Are you a friend of Pete’s? Or Fiona’s?”
“Oh,” said Daisy. “I see what you mean.”
She smiled blankly, as if she either didn’t want to answer the question, or it was simply too hard for her.
“Daisy is a freelance researcher,” said Paul. “Documentaries, mostly.”
Paul was attempting to demonstrate that Daisy was neither dim nor mad, despite all appearances to the contrary.
“Good for you,” said Lucy. “Are you working on one at the moment?”
“I sometimes work with Pete,” said Daisy suddenly. “Fiona’s husband.”
“That’s who she knows,” said Paul. “Pete.”
“Yes,” said Daisy.
They were both drinking water, Lucy noticed. She wondered whether they were both alcoholics, and that was how they’d found each other. Or whether Daisy was showing solidarity, or whether she just didn’t drink, or wasn’t drinking tonight. Lucy was wondering too much, clearly. But how could one not be interested in one’s estranged husband’s girlfriend? (And she was his girlfriend, for sure. There was too much panic and embarrassment for her to be anything else.)
“No Joseph?” said Paul.
“No,” said Lucy, and nothing more.
“Who’s Joseph?” said Daisy.
“I told you about Joseph,” said Paul. Lucy bristled.
“Is this the Joseph I met?” said Michael, who was still standing there, unintroduced to anybody.
“I’m sorry,” said Lucy. “This is Michael. Michael, this is Paul, my ex. And Daisy.”
“I’m not technically her ex,” said Paul.
Daisy and Lucy both looked at him.
“You’re not technically my ex-husband,” said Lucy. “But you are my ex. Technically and in every other way.”
“That lets Daisy and me off the hook,” said Michael. And he smiled at Lucy fondly. He had just equated himself with Daisy, who was clearly having sex with Paul. There was no comparison, but Michael wanted to make one, for reasons unknown. Dear God, thought Lucy. What was wrong with everybody?
“Why are you off the hook?” said Daisy.
“And why were you on it in the first place?” said Paul.
“I suppose that’s right,” said Michael.
“What is?” said Paul.
“The expression ‘off the hook’ does imply that one was on it. Otherwise everybody would be off the hook all the time.”
“I’m still trying to work out why hooks came up in the first place, though,” said Paul.
“Oh, never mind,” said Lucy.
“Anyway,” said Michael. “That all makes sense. The ex- thing. There seemed to be a lot of subtext.”
“When did you meet Joseph?” said Paul.
“He was babysitting one night when Lucy and I went out for dinner.”
“Oh,” said Paul. “So Joseph has returned to his former role?”
“Ah,” said Daisy. “That Joseph.” And then, “I do know about Joseph. But not a lot. Just the basic facts.”
Lucy looked at Paul and raised an eyebrow in an attempt to suggest mild disapproval of his gossiping.
“No, no,” said Daisy quickly. “I just meant . . . I don’t think I know anything, you know. Inappropriate. Paul just mentioned him in passing, really. And yes. Alec Guinness and David Lean. Sorry. I seem to be answering every question late.”
“What was that the answer to?”
“Whether I’m working on a documentary.”
“I met him once,” said Michael.
“Yes,” said Paul. “You said.”
Paul now seemed to be working on the assumption that Lucy and Michael were together, and that Michael was senile. This made him manifestly happy.
“Did I?” said Michael.
“Yes,” said Paul. “You told us you met him when you and Lucy went out for dinner.”
“Oh,” said Michael. “Not Joseph. Alec Guinness.”
There would almost certainly be no other time in Joseph’s life that this clarification would be required.
“You met Alec Guinness?” said Daisy.
“Yes. In the early nineties. Some film company was interested in adapting one of my novels, and they’d sent it to him, and there was a meeting or two.”
“You write? Would I know your books?” said Daisy.
“I don’t know much about you,” said Michael pleasantly. “It really depends on how much you read.”
“You’re not Michael Marwood, are you?” said Daisy. She was already thrilled.
“I’m going to find a loo,” said Lucy, and once she’d found it, she went to talk to other people in another room.
* * *
—
Were these her people? Apart from the writers, the documentary researchers, the graphic designers and friends of Alec Guinness, there were the publishers and the independent film producers, the college lecturers and the tank-thinkers, the theater critics and th
e radio presenters. A couple who had opened a cheese shop, a wine importer, a head teacher. She knew some of them, and she talked to all of them about the referendum, the conversation that couldn’t be avoided. She told them all about Sam’s one-pound houses and Joseph’s dad, and her knowledge of elsewhere gave her temporary authority as an expert in how the other fifty-two percent thought. On the whole, though, the guests at the party preferred the narrative about lies, fear, stupidity, and racism. They had lost an argument, and they never lost arguments. They were confused and angry.
On the way home, Lucy got a text from Michael: Sorry not to have said good-bye. Would you give me another go?
* * *
—
“How was everything?”
“Yeah, fine,” said Joseph. He was watching T.V. Lucy would have sat down and kissed him on the cheek at this point, maybe leaned into him, but Joseph seemed a little distracted.
“Do you want a cup of tea?”
“I think I’m going to head home. It’s been a busy week.”
“Are you still recovering from your party?”
“I don’t often go out on a Friday night.”
“You haven’t been going out many nights.”
“No.”
Lucy sat on the armchair, at right angles to him. They were both watching the T.V. now.
“Do you miss it? Your mandem?”
He laughed. “How do you know about mandems?”
“Oh, I hear about mandems all day every day. It’s not like singing, is it?”
“Like singing?”
“You know, when I said you must know people who could sing.”
“Oh. No. Everyone has a mandem. But not everyone calls it that. And I haven’t got one. Not really. You?”
“I was sort of with my mandem tonight, but they’re making me feel weird. So now I’m not sure.”
“I met someone last night.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, no big deal or anything. But we’re going to go out.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
He looked at her.
“What?” she said.
“I dunno.”
“You thought I’d have more to say?”
“I suppose. I didn’t know if you’d be angry.”
“Oh, how can I be angry? It’s been wonderful, and I knew this conversation was coming.”
She was tempted to turn off the T.V. and play some music, something quiet, beautiful, regretful, thoughtful. What did young people listen to, if they wanted all that? They didn’t have k.d. lang or Nina Simone or Leonard Cohen. They had chill-out music. They chilled out. Maybe quiet thoughtful regret wasn’t a thing any more. And maybe they were all better off without it. She left the boxing on.
“How did you know it was coming?” he asked.
“I don’t mean I suspected anything. I just meant, this was a parenthesis for both of us.”
“A parenthesis.”
“Sorry. Stupid English teacher way of talking.”
“That’s the problem right there.”
“No,” said Lucy. “Don’t think that. It was never a problem. Still isn’t.”
To her ears, that sounded like something she should have said on the first night, not the last. Well, maybe not the very first night, because she certainly hadn’t talked like an English teacher then. But it hadn’t occurred to her that there was this, Joseph’s insecurity, on top of everything else that made their relationship so delicate, like a houseplant, with no ability to survive out in the world. And now, when it was too late, she was saying too much, as if she wanted to demolish his doubts and objections one by one. She really didn’t. The time had come.
“I just meant, you and me are like something between brackets.”
“Yeah. I suppose that’s right. For both of us.”
“Of course for both of us. I was including myself in the relationship,” Lucy said.
“I mean—you’ll meet someone too.”
“Yes.”
She knew she would, eventually. There would be someone, a cheese-shop owner or a human-rights lawyer, for her somewhere. Joseph had helped her to think that she wouldn’t be alone forever.
“I have two questions,” said Lucy.
“OK.”
“Do you ever think about the night we were going to play backgammon?”
Joseph looked at her, confused.
“No. Why? Do you?”
“I have done once or twice, yeah. I wondered if it had anything to do with anything.”
“Not as far as I know. You think I got annoyed because you didn’t have the right pieces?”
She laughed. “No. It doesn’t matter.”
“OK.”
“And will you still babysit? The boys would hate it if you stopped.”
“I really love those boys,” said Joseph. “And their mum.”
“I’m glad. We love you too. Now I just have to find somewhere to go.”
Nobody had said the words “I love you,” Lucy noticed, and yet each had found a way of telling the other that they were loved. That seemed like a good place to end.
10
In August, Hanna suggested that they went away somewhere, just for a couple of days, to make them feel as though the summer had happened to them. They were both working hard. Joseph was doing what he always did, and Hanna was waitressing at a steak restaurant in the City. It was a hot week, and they were lying naked on top of Joseph’s bed, listening to other people’s music with the window open.
“Where do you want to go?” Joseph asked.
“I’d like to swim in the sea somewhere.”
“In Britain?”
“England, probably. Like Brighton or wherever. Sussex. Dorset.”
“Dorset. Huh.”
“What’s wrong with Dorset?”
“Nothing’s wrong with Dorset. In fact, someone just invited me to go there.”
“Seriously? I really want to go. Hardy country.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Thomas Hardy? The writer?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Jesus Christ.”
She was laughing, but he knew he was damaging himself. What was he supposed to do about it, though?
“He wrote Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. He wrote about Dorset. Anyway. I’d love to spend a couple of days there. I’ve never been.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“But I’m not invited?”
“You were specifically invited. By name.”
“Who by?”
“You know Lucy and the boys? Who I babysit for sometimes? They’ve borrowed a house down there.”
Hanna knew about his relationship with Lucy and the boys, but she didn’t know about his relationship with Lucy, and he wasn’t tempted to illuminate her.
“And she asked if I wanted to come too?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“You want to spend a few days with a couple of kids?”
“I like kids.”
“And I don’t know if you’d get on with her.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Nothing. She’s nice.”
Hanna made a noise, a mock-outraged laugh.
“Oh. So what’s wrong with me?”
“Just because I don’t think you’d get on doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with either of you.”
“What does it mean, then?”
“You’re just different people. Chalk and cheese. Oil and water.”
“Why do you get on with both of us?”
“I’m in the middle.”
This was all utter rubbish. And now if Hanna ever met Lucy, she’d think he was mad. Hanna
was young and Lucy was older. Lucy had kids and Hanna didn’t. And apart from that, they were more or less exactly the same. They were both calm and funny; they both loved books, and had probably read more of them in the last two weeks than Joseph had since he left school. They were both attractive; they were both sociable, but seemed to be right on the edge of their social circles, as far as Joseph could tell, looking in and out. If Joseph took Hanna to Dorset, she and Lucy would probably be friends for life.
“Is it a nice place?”
“She’s borrowed it off a friend. It’s near the sea, and it’s got a pool. And there’s a little converted barn we can have.”
“She’s got nice friends.”
“It’s this guy she, you know, hangs out with a bit. A writer. He’s got a few quid.”
“What’s his name?”
“Michael.”
“Oh, that helps.”
“I don’t know the names of any writers, do I?”
“So will he be there?”
“I don’t think so. He’s in France with his kids. Anyway, she’s worried that her kids are going to get bored there, and she wanted me to come and kick a football or whatever.”
“And I read by the pool. Honestly? If this woman is worse than Hitler, worse than Boris Johnson even, I still want to go. What’s she going to do? Throw my book in the water? I’ve never been to a house with a pool. Have you?”
“No, but . . .”
He was hoping that the “but” spoke volumes, without actually knowing what those volumes might contain. He’d never been to a house with a pool but . . . There must be a but, surely? No. Nothing was coming. Joseph was beginning to realize that whatever he ended up doing with his life couldn’t involve strategy. He was a terrible strategist. Everything seemed like a good idea until the next idea, the opposite of the previous one, came along. He had told her why it wouldn’t be a good idea to go to this place in Dorset (which he believed), and then told her how great it would be (which he also believed). They were going to Dorset, he could tell.