by Jon McGregor
He was holding his hands together on the table in front of him. He couldn’t keep them still. He couldn’t look her in the eye.
We’ll pay what he’s asking, he said.
15: Joe
Once they’d agreed to get a divorce, they went back to bed. Which was rather unexpected.
They’d lingered over breakfast, and were still wearing their pyjamas, and the rain against the windows was making them feel cold. And they were supposed to be on holiday, after all.
It was awkward at first. They weren’t sure how close they should let themselves be. But then Charlotte reached out and took Joe’s hand, and they both relaxed. It had taken them a long time to reach this decision, and by now there was no anger left in them. Only a sense of letting something go, together.
Go on then, he said. You can tell me now. What’s the one thing that’s always annoyed you about me, that you’ve never said?
She didn’t have to think for very long.
That way you squint when you don’t understand something, she told him. It makes you look furious. It’s very off-putting. You’re doing it now.
He tried to relax his face, but apparently that only made it worse.
I think it’s just the light, he told her. My eyes are very sensitive to the light.
It makes you look as though you think everyone else is stupid, she told him. You might want to work on that.
I’ll make a note, he said.
You did it the very first time we met, she said. I thought you didn’t like me.
The sun was in my eyes, he told her. You were sitting right in front of the sun, I could hardly see you.
You were dazzled by my beauty, you mean? she asked.
Something like that, he said.
*
They’d met by chance, outside a café where Charlotte was having breakfast with a mutual friend. She was a little hungover, and not completely listening when her friend saw him across the road and called him over. His handshake was damp, and his face started to flush as her friend introduced them. It was a hot morning, and he must have been in a rush. There were no chairs free, so her friend insisted Joe take hers. She had to get on anyway, she said, and left the two of them on their own. There was an awkward silence for a moment, and then Joe asked what she recommended for breakfast. It depended how hungry he was, Charlotte said. Oh, I’m always hungry, he’d told her.
*
That was a bit much, she told him now. I nearly wrote you off at that point.
I don’t blame you, he said. I was so embarrassed, I nearly walked away myself.
What stopped you?
I was actually genuinely hungry, he said, pretending to pull away as she pretended to punch him in the shoulder.
*
The whole thing had been a set-up, of course. He’d never told her this, as such. He assumed it was implicitly understood. Not acknowledging it was part of the charm, he thought. He was only a couple of years out of university, and stuck in a bit of a rut. There’d been an untidy split with a previous girlfriend. His friend Jess had taken him under her wing, and made him into a project of sorts, and this introduction was the culmination of all her work. Just come and say hello, she said; be nice, see what happens. No pressure.
This was after weeks of her coming round to make sure he was out of bed, bringing him job applications, cooking him dinner and listening to his long explanations of why his particular heartbreak was unique before saying yes, okay, but now you must live. She even started making adjustments to his wardrobe, his hairstyle, to the way he did or didn’t hold eye contact while he spoke to her. For a brief, exhilarating period he’d even thought she might be making these improvements for her own sake.
The second time they met, Charlotte had known she was being set up, and she didn’t mind at all. Jess had told her plenty about Joe by then, and she’d liked what she heard. He sounded like he had his act together. He sounded sensible. She was ready for that, after a series of men who’d been anything but. She went back to his flat at the end of the evening, and stayed all weekend, and on the Monday morning she told him that she already knew she wanted to make something of it. You make me feel safe, she said. You hardly know me, he objected. I’m a good judge of character, she told him.
*
You realise that ‘safe’ always sounded like a euphemism for boring? he said, now.
It’s not the same thing at all, she said, moving closer towards him. She pressed her face into his neck and almost without thinking began to kiss his collarbone. She stopped, and pulled back, and they both looked at each other.
This was confusing.
*
Moving to London had been her idea. He was never keen, but he kept that to himself. The arrangements were in hand before they’d had a chance to discuss it. Charlotte’s department were keen for her to take a transfer, and the job he’d been offered was surprisingly well-paid. He would have liked to talk to Jess about it, but they’d drifted apart once he’d started seeing Charlotte, and since getting engaged. So he went ahead and tagged along to London, thinking they might come back north after a few years, or even that the relationship might anyway run its natural course. Instead, right around the time she’d started talking about marriage, Charlotte got pregnant and everything changed. They’d barely found their feet in London, and were still too young, he thought. But how did this happen? he asked her. Oh, I don’t know, she said. Probably the usual way, I should think.
*
Do you think this was all a mistake? he asked her. The rain was beating hard against the window now, and the light in the room was grey and low.
No, she said, with her hand against his cheek. We were young. It wasn’t a mistake. But we’re older now.
She looked at him, and leant closer, and they kissed. It was the first time they had kissed like this for months. Their mouths opened, and their bodies shuffled closer together. It was so easy.
She leant her face away from him for a moment, trying to ask him a question with her eyes.
You’re squinting at me, he said. You should really learn to stop doing that.
She laughed.
*
When the midwife passed Charlotte the baby, its eyes squinted up at her in the same way that Joe’s always did. It’s a girl, she heard the midwife say. Hello, Rebecca, she said softly. What a pleasure to meet you. The baby said nothing, but just carried on squinting at her, looking somehow perplexed, or annoyed.
She’d been annoyed with them about a lot of things, lately. She was thirteen now, so it seemed almost natural. She was annoyed when they asked her questions about her friends, or about how she was feeling. She was annoyed when they asked why she was late getting home. She was annoyed when they asked why she’d been getting in trouble at school, or not going to school at all, and she was even annoyed when they asked her to stop slamming the door because the paint was coming away from the frame.
She’d been a lovely child for most of her life. This was just the way teenagers would become, they’d assumed; but not Becky, not this soon.
They thought their relationship had come through various stresses well enough, but they realised this was the first real challenge they’d been up against. And as it turned out, they weren’t up to it. Joe in particular found himself struggling to cope with the frustration he felt towards his daughter’s moods, biting his tongue and then taking it out on Charlotte. There were a series of quite unpleasant scenes.
The holiday last summer was supposed to have been their chance to reconcile, although by the time they’d got there it was already starting to feel like it might be too late. Jess had got back in touch, and invited them to come and stay; she and her husband, Stuart, had converted some barns on their land into holiday cottages, and they needed someone to test them out. Joe hadn’t been at all sure if it was a good idea. He was uncomfortable about seeing Jess again, besides anything else. But Charlotte had liked the notion of a country break. Fresh air, she’d said. Long walks. Give Becky a ch
ance to learn about nature.
As it happened, Becky had made friends with Jess and Stuart’s daughter, Sophie, and spent most of her time mooching around in the games shed or down at the village tea shop. But there had been no slammed doors, and the breathing space had been enough for him and Charlotte to remember what it was they liked about each other. By the end of the fortnight they’d already decided to come back for a New Year’s break, and they both felt that something had changed for the better between them; that they understood each other more clearly and would find a way to work out their differences. The unspoken suggestion that they might not make it, as a couple, seemed to have been left behind.
*
Just to be clear, she said. This isn’t changing anything, is it?
He looked at her, trying not to squint. His pyjama trousers were already down to his knees.
I mean, no, I don’t think so, he said. Is it? Does it?
No, she said. But I’d like to carry on.
She slipped her pyjama trousers to her ankles and kicked them to the bottom of the bed. She pulled him in towards her, feeling his old familiar willingness between her hands. She drew him all the way in. They’d stopped kissing. He was resting his forehead against her shoulder, rocking his hips gently back and forth as much from old habit as anything else.
*
When they came back in the winter the cottage felt smaller than they’d remembered. They’d imagined long bracing walks in crisp snow, but it had just rained endlessly and they were mostly stuck indoors. They almost hadn’t come at all. Things had been tense between them all autumn and they were on the verge of a decision. But Becky had kept in touch with Sophie after the summer, and was desperate to see her again. So they’d driven north, bringing all the Christmas leftovers and half a case of good wine, and over breakfast on the second morning they’d agreed they would get a divorce.
Becky had been up early, and gone across the yard to spend the morning with Sophie. There had been talk of going out for a walk, but the rain was so heavy that they’d agreed to leave it until later. They’d taken their time over breakfast, and the subject of their separation had come up only gradually, and they’d both been surprised by how easy it was. It came as a relief to them both. They agreed to talk to Becky about it later, when they went out for their walk.
*
They were still moving carefully together when Charlotte noticed that the light in the room had brightened, and the rain stopped. She turned towards the window, and they both stilled. Neither of them had yet finished, and it didn’t seem necessary now.
Looks like it’s clearing up, she said.
He nodded. They slipped apart. Think we can talk her into that walk, maybe after lunch? he asked.
I think we can try, she said.
They showered, and dressed, and went downstairs to look for Becky.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Justine Willett and Di Speirs at BBC Radio 4 for commissioning these stories, shepherding me through the writing process, and producing such excellent recordings for broadcast.
Also thanks to: Barbara Crossley, Benjamin Johncock, Chris Power, Edward Hogan, Éireann Lorsung, Erin Kottke, Gillian Roberts, Helen Garnons-Williams, Jane Chapman, Jenn Ashworth, Jin Auh, Jonathan Lee, Julian Humphries, Lottie Fyfe, Melissa Harrison, Michelle Kane, Nigel Redman, Peak District National Park Media Centre, Richard Birkin, Rosie Garton, Sarah-Jane Forder, Sarah Hall, Tracy Bohan, Wah-Ming Chang.
Also by Jon McGregor
Reservoir 13
This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You
Even the Dogs
So Many Ways to Begin
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
About the Author
Jon McGregor is the author of four novels and a story collection. He is the winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literature Prize, Betty Trask Prize and Somerset Maugham Award, and has been longlisted three times for the Man Booker Prize. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham, where he edits the Letters Page, a literary journal in letters. He was born in Bermuda in 1976, grew up in Norfolk and now lives in Nottingham.
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