“Well . . . Steph’s eight and David’s four,” he said.
Apparently, he was.
“Ah, wonderful. It was when my boy Chris turned six that I really started to get the sense of what sort of person he was going to be,” Cameron said. “Though Clara, my wife, always reckoned she could tell all that before he’d even left the womb.”
Andrew smiled. “My wife Diane said exactly the same,” he said.
And, just like that, he had a family.
They talked about their wives and children for a while longer, but all too soon Cameron brought the interview back around to the job, and Andrew felt the fantasy slipping away like water through his fingers. Before too long their time was up. Disconcertingly, instead of trucking out the usual line of whether Andrew had any questions for him, Cameron instead asked whether he had “any last words,” as if he were about to be taken away and hanged. He managed to dredge up some vague waffle about what an interesting role it seemed and how much he’d relish the chance to work in Cameron’s dynamic-sounding team.
“We’ll be in touch,” Cameron said, spoken with the sincerity of a politician pretending to like an indie band during a radio interview. Andrew forced a smile and remembered to make eye contact as he shook Cameron’s hand, which was cold and wet, as if he’d been fondling a trout. “Thanks for the opportunity,” Andrew said.
* * *
—
He found a café and used the free Wi-Fi to search for jobs, but he was too distracted to look properly. When he’d thanked Cameron “for the opportunity” it had nothing to do with the job, it was because he’d been given the chance to indulge, however briefly, in the fantasy of having a family. How strangely thrilling and scary it had been to feel so normal. He tried to forget about it, forcing himself to concentrate. If he wasn’t going to get another council job he’d need to expand his search, but it felt like an impossibly daunting task. There was nothing he could find that he seemed qualified for. Half the job descriptions themselves were baffling enough. He stared hopelessly at the large muffin he’d bought but not eaten, picking at it instead until it looked like a molehill. Maybe he’d make other animal burrows out of food and enter the Turner Prize competition.
He sat in the café for the rest of the afternoon, watching important businesspeople having their important business meetings and tourists thumbing excitedly through guidebooks. He stayed there long after all had left, pressing himself up against the radiator and trying to remain invisible to the young Italian waiter stacking chairs and sweeping up. Eventually he asked Andrew if he wouldn’t mind leaving, the apologetic smile disappearing from his face as he spotted the muffin molehill crumbs that had spilled onto the table.
Andrew’s phone rang just as he stepped outside. An unknown number.
“Andrew?” the person on the end of the line said. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” Andrew said, though he barely could with the combination of a blustery wind and an ambulance driving past, siren screaming.
“Andrew, it’s Cameron Yates. I just wanted to give you a call to say that it was really good to meet you earlier today. You really seemed to get the can-do culture I’m trying to build here. So, to cut a long story short, I’m very pleased to say I’d love you to come on board.”
“I’m sorry?” Andrew said, jamming a finger in his free ear.
“We’re offering you the job!” Cameron said. “There’ll be the usual formalities, of course, but can’t see any problems there, mate.”
Andrew stood there, buffeted by the wind.
“Andrew? Did you catch that?”
“Gosh. Yes, I did. Wow. That’s great. I’m . . . I’m delighted.”
And he was. So delighted in fact that he beamed at the waiter through the window. The waiter rewarded him with a slightly bemused smile.
“Andrew, listen, I’m just heading off to a seminar, so I’ll ask someone to ping you an e-mail with all the deets. I’m sure there’ll be a few bits and pieces to chat through, but don’t sweat any of that now. You get home and give Diane and the kids the good news.”
— CHAPTER 4 —
It was hard for Andrew to believe that it was only five years since he’d been standing in that windswept street, trying to take in what Cameron had just said. It felt like a lifetime ago.
He stirred listlessly at the baked beans currently spluttering in the travel saucepan on the stovetop, before depositing them on a crust of whole wheat he’d cut with his one still-sharp knife, its plastic handle warped and burned. He looked intently at the square of cracked tiles behind the cooker, pretending it was a camera. “So what I’ve done there is to combine the beans and the bread, and now I’ll just add a blob of ketchup (I use Captain Tomato but any brand is fine) to make it a tasty trio. You can’t freeze any of the leftovers, but luckily you’ll have wolfed it all down in about nine seconds and you’ll be too busy hating yourself to worry about that.”
He could hear his neighbor humming downstairs. She was relatively new, the previous tenants having moved out a few months ago. They were a young couple—early twenties, both startlingly attractive; all cheekbones and toned arms. The sort of aesthetically pleasing appearance that meant they’d never had to apologize for anything in their lives. Andrew would force himself to make eye contact with them and summon up a breezy greeting when they crossed paths in the hallway, but they never really bothered to reply. He was only aware that someone new had moved in when he heard the distinctive humming. He hadn’t seen his new neighbor, but, oddly, he had smelled her. Or at least he’d smelled her perfume, which was so strong that it lingered permanently in the hallway. He tried to picture her, but when he tried to see her face it was just a smooth, featureless oval.
Just then, his phone lit up on the countertop. He saw his sister’s name and his heart sank. He checked the date in the corner of his screen: March 31. He should have known. He pictured Sally checking her calendar, seeing a red ring around the thirty-first and swearing under her breath, knowing it was time for their quarterly call.
He took a fortifying gulp of water and picked up.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hey,” Sally said.
A pause.
“Well. How are you, little bro?” Sally said. “Everything cool?”
Christ, why did she still have to speak as though they were teenagers?
“Oh, you know, the usual. You?”
“Can’t complain, dude, I guess. Me and Carl are doing a yoga retreat this weekend, help him learn the teaching side of it and all that jazz.”
Carl. Sally’s husband. Usually to be found guzzling protein shakes and voluntarily lifting heavy objects up and down.
“That sounds . . . nice,” Andrew said. Then, after the sort of short silence that clearly denotes it’s time to move on to the most pressing matter: “And how’s it going with your tests and everything?”
Sally sighed.
“Had a bunch more last month. Results all came back inconclusive, which means they still know sweet FA, basically. Still, I feel much better. And they think that it’s probably not a heart thing, so I’m not likely to do a Dad and kick the bucket without warning. They just keep telling me the usual BS, you know how it is. Exercise more, drink less, blah blah blah.”
“Well, good that they’re not unduly concerned,” Andrew said, thinking that if Sally shouldn’t talk like a teenager he probably shouldn’t talk like a repressed Oxford don. He’d have thought that after all these years it wouldn’t feel like they were strangers. It was still that simple checklist of topics: Work. Health. Family (well, Carl, the only person who came close to a shared family member). Except, this time, Sally decided to throw in a curveball.
“So, I was thinking . . . maybe we should meet up sometime soon. It’s been, like, five years now after all.”
Seven, Andrew thought. And the last time was at Uncle Dave’s
funeral in a crematorium opposite a KFC in Banbury. And you were high. Then again, he conceded, he hadn’t exactly been inundating Sally with invitations to meet up since.
“That . . . that would be good,” he said. “As long as you can spare the time, of course. Maybe we could meet halfway or something.”
“Yeah, it’s cool, bro. Though we’ve moved, remember? We’re in Newquay now—Carl’s business, and everything? So halfway is somewhere else these days. But I’m going to be in London seeing a friend in May. We could hang then, maybe?”
“Yes. Okay. Just let me know when you’re coming up.”
Andrew scanned the room and chewed his lip. In the twenty years since he’d moved into the flat barely a thing had changed. Consequently, his living space was looking not so much tired as absolutely knackered. There was the dark stain where the wall met the ceiling in the area that masqueraded as a kitchen; then there were the battered gray sofa, threadbare carpet and yellowy-brown wallpaper that was meant to suggest autumn but in fact suggested digestive biscuits. As the color of the wallpaper had faded, so had the chances of Andrew’s actually doing anything about it. And his shame at the state of the place was only matched by the terror he felt at the thought of changing it or, worse, living anywhere else. There was at least one benefit to being on his own and never having anyone around—nobody could judge him for how he lived.
He decided to change the subject, recalling something Sally had told him the last time they’d spoken.
“How are things going with your . . . person?”
He heard a lighter sparking and then the faint sound of Sally exhaling smoke.
“My person?”
“The person you were going to see. To talk about things.”
“You mean my therapist?”
“Yes.”
“Ditched her when we moved. To be honest, dude, I was glad of the excuse. She kept trying to hypnotize me and it didn’t work. I told her I was immune but she wouldn’t listen. But I’ve found someone new in Newquay. She’s more of a spiritual healer, I guess? I bumped into her while she was putting up an advert next to Carl’s yoga class flyer. What are the chances?”
Well . . . , Andrew thought.
“So, listen, man,” Sally said. “There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Right,” Andrew said, instantly suspicious. First arranging to meet, now this. Oh god, what if she was going to try to make him spend time with Carl?
“So—and I normally wouldn’t do this as I know that . . . well, it’s not something we’d normally talk about. But, anyway, you know my old pal Sparky?”
“No.”
“You do, bud. He’s the one with the bong shop in Brighton Lanes?”
Obviously.
“Okay . . .”
“He’s got this friend. Julia. She lives in London. Crystal Palace way, actually, so not too far from you. She’s thirty-five. And about two years ago she went through a pretty shitty-sounding divorce.”
Andrew held the phone away from his ear. If this is going where I think it’s going . . .
“But she’s come out of the other side of it now, and from what Sparky tells me she’s looking to, you know, get back in the saddle. So, I was just thinking, that, like, maybe you might—”
“No,” Andrew said. “Absolutely not. Forget it.”
“But, Andrew, she’s super nice from what I can tell—pretty too, from the pics I’ve seen—and I reckon you’d like her a lot.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Andrew said. “Because I don’t want . . . that. It’s not for me, now.”
“‘It’s not for me.’ Jesus, man, it’s love we’re talking about, here, not pineapple on pizzas. You can’t just dismiss it.”
“Why not? Why can’t I? It’s not hurting anyone, is it, if I do? If anything it’s guaranteeing that nobody gets hurt.”
“But that’s no way to live your life, dude. You’re forty-two, still totally in your prime. You gotta think about putting yourself out there, otherwise you’re, like, actively denying yourself potential happiness. I know it’s hard, but you have to look to the future.”
Andrew could feel his heart start to beat that little bit faster. He had a horrible feeling that his sister was building up the courage to ask him about something they’d never ever discussed, not for want of trying on Sally’s part. It was not so much the elephant in the room as the brontosaurus in the closet. He decided to nip things in the bud.
“I’m very grateful for your concern, but there’s no need for it. Honestly. I’m fine as I am.”
“I get that, but, seriously, one day we’re gonna have to talk about . . . you know . . . stuff.”
“No, we don’t,” Andrew said, annoyed that his voice had come out as a whisper. Showing any sort of emotion was going to come across like an invitation to Sally to keep up this line of questioning, as if he secretly did want to talk about “stuff,” which he definitely, absolutely, didn’t.
“But, bro, we have to at some point, it’s not healthy!”
“Yes, well neither is smoking weed your whole life, so I’m not sure you’re in any position to judge, are you?”
Andrew winced. He heard Sally exhale smoke.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t called for.”
“All I’m saying,” Sally said, and there was a deliberateness to her tone now, “is that I think it would be good for you to talk things through.”
“And all I’m saying,” Andrew said, “is that I really don’t feel like that’s something I want to do. My love life, or lack thereof, isn’t something I feel comfortable getting into. And when it comes to ‘stuff,’ there’s really nothing to say.”
A pause.
“Well, okay, man. It’s up to you I guess. I mean, Carl keeps telling me to stop bothering you about it, but it’s hard not to, you know? You’re my brother, bro!”
Andrew felt a familiar pang of self-loathing. Not for the first time, his sister had reached out and he’d basically told her to take a running jump. He wanted to apologize properly, to tell her that of course it meant a lot to him that she cared, but the words stuck in his throat.
“Listen,” Sally said. “I think we’re nearly ready to sit down to eat. So, I guess . . . speak to you later?”
“Yeah,” Andrew said, screwing his eyes shut in frustration. “Definitely. And thanks, you know, for the call and everything.”
“Sure. No problem, bro. Look after yourself.”
“Yes. I will. Absolutely. And you too.”
* * *
—
As Andrew made his way the short distance from the kitchenette to his computer he nearly walked straight into the Flying Scotsman, which chugged on unconcerned. Of all his locomotives, the Scotsman seemed to carry itself with the most cheerful insouciance (compared to the Railroad BR InterCity, for example, which always seemed petulant at being made to travel at all). It was also the very first engine, and the very first part of his model train collection as a whole, that he’d owned. He’d received it as a gift when he was a teenager, and he was instantly infatuated. Perhaps it was the unexpected source of the present rather than the thing itself, but over time he began to appreciate just how perfect it was. It took him years before he could afford to buy another engine. And then another. And then a fourth. And then track and sidings and platforms and buffers and signal boxes, until eventually all of the floor space in his flat was taken up with a complicated system of interweaving tracks and various accompanying scenery: tunnels made to look like they were cut into mountains, cows grazing by streams, entire wheat fields, allotments with rows of tiny cabbages being tended to by men wearing floppy hats. Before too long he had enough scenery to actively mirror the real seasons. It was always a thrill when he felt the change in the air. Once, during a funeral attended exclusively by the deceased’s drinking pals, the vicar had made referen
ce to the clocks going back as part of a clunky metaphor in his eulogy, and it was all Andrew could do not to punch the air with joy at the prospect of a whole weekend of replacing the currently verdant landscape with something much more autumnal.
It was addictive, building these worlds. Expensive, too. Andrew’s meager savings had long since been spent on his collection, and other than rent, his pay packet now went almost exclusively to upgrading and maintenance. He no longer worried about all the hours, or sometimes whole days, he spent browsing the Internet for ways to improve his setup. He couldn’t remember the point at which he’d discovered and then signed up to the ModelTrainNuts forum, but he’d been on it every day since. The majority of people who posted there made his interest seem positively amateurish, and Andrew thoroughly admired every single one of them. Anyone—anyone at all—who thought to log on to a message board at 2:38 a.m. and post the message: PLEASE HELP A NEWBIE: Stanier 2–6–4T Chassis CRACKED. HELP?? was nearly as much of a hero to him as the thirty-three people who replied within minutes offering tips, solutions and general words of encouragement. In truth, he understood about 10 percent of all that was talked about in the more technical conversations, but he always read them post by post, feeling genuine joy when queries, sometimes having lain dormant for months, were resolved. He would occasionally post on the main forum with general messages of goodwill, but the game changer was after he began regularly chatting to three other users and was invited—via private message no less!—to join an exclusive subforum. This little haven was run by BamBam67, one of the longest-serving members of the site, who had recently been granted moderator rights. The two others invited into the fold were TinkerAl, by all accounts a young and passionate enthusiast, and the more experienced BroadGaugeJim, who’d once posted a photo of an aqueduct he’d built over a running stream that was so beautiful Andrew had needed to have a lie-down.
The subforum had been set up by BamBam67 to show off his new moderator privileges (and Bam did like to show off, often accompanying his posts with photos of his train setup that seemed to be more about letting them see the size of his very beautiful home). They discovered early on that they all lived in London, except for BroadGauge (the enthusiastic, avuncular member of the group), who had been “keeping it real in Leatherhead” for over thirty years, but the idea of their meeting up in real life had never been raised. This suited Andrew (who went by Tracker) just fine. Partly because it meant there were times when he could modify his online persona to mask his real-life inadequacies (this, he had realized early on, was the entire point of the Internet), but also because these were the only (and therefore best) friends he had, and to meet them in real life and find out they were arseholes would be a real shame.
How Not to Die Alone Page 3