by Drew Davies
‘I’ll start with these and see how I get on. Thanks again.’
She’s about to leave when she stops.
‘I could bring him a blanket, if you like?’ She gestures towards the sleeping man. ‘I know of one going spare…’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll bring it then?’
‘That would be great, thanks.’
‘Excellent. I’ll see you in a minute.’
JoJo smiles, and then makes her way back down the corridor, wondering where the heck she’s going to steal a blanket from at this time of night. She turns into the first storage room she comes to, searching for the light switch, when she hears the sound of crying.
‘Hello?’ JoJo says into the darkness.
‘I’m sorry,’ comes a female voice, sniffing. ‘I shouldn’t be in here.’
‘Don’t apologise,’ replies JoJo, holding the door ajar with her foot. ‘If you can’t have a good cry in a hospital cupboard, where can you?’ The voice laughs, sniffs, and returns to a gentle sob. ‘I’ll leave you alone…’ says JoJo, but she hesitates. ‘Unless you want someone to talk to. As my mother used to say: “a problem shared is a problem halved”.’
‘Oh, it’s too insane to say out loud.’
‘Try me.’
There’s a long, wet sigh.
‘My boyfriend fell off a roof, and now he wants to break up with me and move to Africa. And there are people in here with actual problems – people in comas and on ventilators and things – but I can’t stop crying because it’s late, and I’m tired – and I don’t know if I can do this – lose him again, I mean. I don’t think I can do it.’
JoJo feels very tired herself all of a sudden.
‘It’s surprising what we’re capable of,’ she says, drawing energy from somewhere deep within.
‘I’m sorry. Have you…? Did you lose someone recently?’
‘In a way, yes,’ JoJo says. ‘Although, he’s not dead. Just adulterous,’ she clarifies. ‘But I’m slowly realising the ability to start over is one of life’s small luxuries.’
‘I wish I felt that way.’
‘You will, eventually. I promise. The shape of everything changes over time. Things you thought were absolutes start to ebb and flow. The knack is to let them – without causing yourself too much pain and suffering in the process. If you can, they often turn into something better.’
They’re both silent for a moment.
‘Right, now – cry, stamp your feet, gnash your teeth,’ says JoJo, ‘get it all out. But unless I can interest you in a fancy biscuit, I’ll let you be.’
‘I’m okay,’ says the voice. ‘Thank you.’
‘My pleasure,’ replies JoJo as she leaves – only to return a few seconds later to ask about the blanket she’s supposed to find…
Seventeen
‘London,’ they say, lips quivering. ‘London is a breeding ground for sadists and masochism!’ Peer tentatively down the arteries of Oxford or King’s, and you’ll see them, jaws clenched, shoulders hunched, shuffling towards their irrevocable deaths. On the Number seven bus, they’ll stand on your toes, or shove past you, crutches ’n’ all, just to grab the last tattered copy of the Metro. His clammy armpits will reach new malodorous heights, while she’ll talk constantly on her phone, and sniff and file her nails, before screaming at the driver that she’s missed her stop.
No, London is for fantasists, goons and the morally bankrupt. With house prices rising at £6 million an hour, the constant threat of terror (and the terror of constant threats) – you’re a chump to have ever stepped foot here.
That is, until one afternoon, when a stranger offers something so preternaturally kind – a shared joke, a spare seat, help carrying some especially heavy groceries – that we find ourselves in a vibrant city once more, one of endless possibilities, both familiar and yet not the same.
But until then, mein freund (grumble, grumble), until then!
The borrowed suit is pinching. Adam misses his old, more comfortable one, but of course it had to go in the bin after it was returned by the police – so covered in food stains and dry blood was the poor suit not even the most indifferent of charity shops would have accepted it… and there were massive slashes across the seat of the trousers. Adam’s left buttock twinges at the memory, and he eases more weight onto the right one by tilting his hips. Over the past six months, he’s put on weight, which is good, but it makes Patrick’s trousers very snug on him. Adam pulls at the groin area, trying to stretch the fabric.
Glancing up, he catches the receptionist eyeing him carefully. She continues to monitor him, even after he stops pawing at his crotch, as if he might bolt from the room, or strip naked at any moment. It’s a reaction Adam has become used to over the last six months, even after the psychiatric assessments had pronounced him (relatively) sane. It was in the eyes of the nurse who’d brought his meals, on the faces of his parents when they’d finally come to visit, and in the judge’s expression, during his first brief appearance in court.
Only Patrick seemed unfazed.
‘Don’t sweat it, mate,’ he’d said at the hospital, after Adam had woken from the operation to remove a pencil from his butt cheek. ‘We all make mistakes.’
And with those words, Adam had started a very public journey of redemption. The newspapers had mocked and vilified him at first (The Sun having particular fun with ‘bum’ wordplay juxtaposed with pictures of his straggly beard or pink, naked ass), but then a new story developed – Adam was a champion of sorts. He’d even provoked a spate of copycats: a twenty-five-year-old biology student broke into the AXA building and was found living in the ventilation space; a young couple camped out in a disused supply room at the Clintons head office for eight weeks before they were discovered. There was talk that the newly coined phrase ‘corporate squatting’ might even enter the Oxford Dictionary. Adam had become, if not a celebrity, then a cause célèbre, making the rounds on the breakfast TV circuit (he’d chatted with Lorraine about the housing crisis before helping to make a pecan tart), with rumours he was to appear on the upcoming season of reality show The Apprentice (untrue).
The glitz and glamour were fleeting, however, and the threat of prosecution loomed heavy. Fortunately, Patrick had organised a good lawyer on his behalf, a fellow Australian who was willing to work for mate’s rates, but there was still the issue of money coming in. Adam was borderline penniless – his credit cards were all maxed out, he was being harassed by payday loan companies and he had even fewer options for employment now he was an infamous corporate renegade. His family had been little help and there was only so much he could borrow from Patrick with a clear conscience. Prison might be the cheaper option, he’d joked.
‘It could happen,’ the lawyer had said unequivocally (and with no apparent sense of humour). ‘Mercer and Daggen may decide to make an example of you. You embarrassed them, and they’ll want to discourage anyone else from pulling a similar stunt.’
‘What about their use of excessive force?’ Patrick had asked.
‘It’s a consideration, but they’ll say Adam provoked it.’
‘Provoked it? They’d piledriven him onto a desk, they smashed it in two.’
‘The security team had reason to believe he was a cyber terrorist. They’d been monitoring him for a week. He was trespassing on private property. They’d verbally warned him before making their approach – you can hear it all on the CCTV footage.’
‘What about the stuff he overheard in the boardroom cupboard?’
‘It checks out – the Italian is a well-known interior designer, they were talking about an office refurbishment. There’s no leverage there.’
‘There must be something else, Adam, something we can use?’
Patrick and the lawyer had looked at him expectantly.
Mr Maintenance had popped into Adam’s mind then. The sugar scam. The phone call racket. That broad, Cheshire-cat grin during those last fated hours in the building.
‘I can’t
think of anything,’ Adam had replied, mentally crossing his fingers.
* * *
He crosses his legs and regrets it instantly. Too tight. The receptionist arches one disapproving eyebrow in his direction, so he uncrosses them again as casually as he can, like any normal non-crazy person.
Adam thinks of Cara. Beautiful Cara. He can’t help himself.
When the charges against him were dropped – much to everyone’s surprise – Adam had felt an overwhelming impulse to call the M&D switchboard to hear Cara’s lovely voice, but his lawyer had warned him point-blank: any contact would lead to incarceration. So instead, Adam sat on his bed and read On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, his favourite Bond novel, quietly pining each time Mary Goodnight, the beautiful secretary to the 00s, appeared.
His room had become a strange place after so long away. All the clothes, sitting neatly folded in their drawers, so many pairs of shoes – it seemed perversely decadent somehow. A pile of letters had accumulated on his dresser, most were final demands for credit card payments, but several were from ‘fans’, and a couple were sent by women professing their love for him. Adam had no idea how they’d found his address, but the love letters were a meditation in both sweetness and sadness.
I know we have never met, read one, which smelt a bit of gin, but we have a connection. Something cosmic. Something real.
But of course they didn’t. And in the end, it was those letters, acting as a mirror to his own creepiness and desperation, that finally cured him of his love-sickness for Cara – well, almost. Several weeks after his court date, Adam was amazed to receive a friend request from none other than Cara herself, but remembering his lawyer’s warning, he’d hesitated for a second – a nanosecond, really – before accepting. An hour later, a message window had popped up:
Cara: You’re famous round here
* * *
Adam: Am I?
* * *
Cara: I think it’s hilarious
Adam hadn’t been sure how to respond – did Cara think he was hilarious? Or the resulting fallout? Fortunately, she’d followed up with another message:
Cara: How are your injuries?
* * *
Adam: The physical ones are healing
* * *
Adam: Still feel pretty foolish though
* * *
Cara: I bet
* * *
Cara: They told us you went through everyone’s emails
* * *
Cara: Did you read mine?
He’d paused again.
Adam: Yes
* * *
Cara: That was a bit of a jerk move
* * *
Adam: I know
* * *
Adam: I’m sorry
Adam had waited for Cara to reply. It seemed to take an eternity:
Cara: There’s a lot of douche bags in this city
* * *
Cara: Don’t lower yourself to their standards
* * *
Cara: You seem too nice
* * *
Adam: I’ll remember that
* * *
Adam: Thanks
* * *
Cara: No problem
* * *
Cara: Goodbye, Mark
* * *
Cara: Kidding
* * *
Cara: Bye, Adam
And with that, she’d logged off. Adam conjures her image now. No sharp pang, only slight crippling shame. Progress.
A phone rings and the receptionist snaps to attention.
‘They’re ready for you,’ she informs Adam, and he follows her into the hallway, adrenaline pumping. The décor is very different from Mercer and Daggen he’s noticed: chrome and glass, rather than wood and plaster, like a fancy eighties airport. The trip out to Osterley on the train had taken almost an hour, but everyone agreed, it was a necessary precaution. Neutral ground. Less chance of anyone snapping a difficult-to-explain photo. ‘We can’t give everyone who breaks into our office a job,’ the Human Resources person had quipped, ‘otherwise they’ll all be at it!’
The receptionist knocks twice on the meeting room door before opening it. Inside, two men are leaning back in their chairs, chatting together. It’s the very picture of corporate conviviality, but it showed their status too – such extravagant chair leaning only came with a certain amount of power.
The more senior-looking of the two jumps up. He’s spritely for his age, and grabs Adam’s hand.
‘Great to finally meet you,’ he says, shaking his hand vigorously.
Now in closer proximity, Adam catches the scent of cologne and shaving foam – the exact combination is instantly familiar.
‘You too, Mr…’
‘Please,’ the man says, slapping Adam on the shoulder, ‘after everything we’ve been through?’ His face crumples in mock hurt. ‘Call me Frank.’
JoJo spreads out her bare legs. It’s good to have sun on the old girls – varicose veins be damned! It’s been a long cold winter after all, and the early summer heat feels hard-won and glorious.
Beside her, on the picnic blanket, Ava wobbles slightly before righting herself; sitting is an act of total concentration for her small person. JoJo leans over and repositions the umbrella so its shade fully covers her – Ava’s delicate baby skin is almost translucent, like a layer of filo pastry wrapped across pink marble.
Down by the pond, Belinda is showing Millie – Ava’s sister – the ducks. Millie loves birds of all kinds, but Ava has no time for them. It’s not that she’s scared, per se, it’s more that she can’t see the point. JoJo can empathise: what is the point of ducks anyway? To shit all over the place and demand bread? (Although you weren’t supposed to feed them bread anymore, lest they become fat and even more obnoxious.) Besides, Ava is courageous in her own way. Surviving, for one. She’d been so small when she was born that her entire body would have fitted right inside the palm of your hand, with room for change.
Ava holds up her fist and JoJo nods encouragingly, so Ava pops it in her mouth and sucks hungrily. Smart girl, thinks JoJo, closing her eyes again, and drinking in the sunlight.
A shrill voice interrupts her reverie.
‘Look, Anabelle, a baby!’
Standing over them now is a ruddy-faced woman, with an equally ruddy toddler on her hip. The child is pointing a pudgy finger at Ava, but she, in turn, is giving them no truck.
‘How old is she?’ the woman asks.
Mind your own bloody business, thinks JoJo. She’s discovered that having a baby (and worse – twins!) gave anybody the licence to come and talk to you. It practically made you public property.
‘Six months,’ replies JoJo, squinting up with her best please leave us alone now smile.
‘Isn’t she tiny!’
Ava turns, still sucking her fist, and gives mother and child a dismissive look. Good girl, thinks JoJo.
Anabelle whacks her mother on the side of her neck.
‘I want to go!’ she whines.
‘Yes, in a minute, petal, we’re just saying goodbye to our new friends. Don’t you want to say goodbye?’
Anabelle shakes her head and hits her mother again.
‘She’s tired,’ her mother explains apologetically.
‘Needs a good smack, if you ask me.’
The woman stares at JoJo wide-eyed for a second, and laughs. Kneeling down, she leans forward and whispers conspiratorially:
‘Do you know, sometimes I want to. I want to slap her right on her tush. Does that make me a monster?’
JoJo waves the question away, but she pictures Ava, her wonderful buttocks, and her own wrath if anyone dared touch those juicy little thighs. Other people’s children, JoJo could whack until the cows came home. She’d give this Anabelle kid a good smack right now and not think twice. But Ava… It was strange how the sense of proprietorship worked.
‘Is she your granddaughter?’ the woman asks, as Anabelle wrenches her earlobe.
‘No, she’s my husband�
�s mistress’s child,’ replies JoJo, without missing a beat.
‘Oh really?’ The woman’s eyes widen again. Taking a quick glance around, she leans in even closer and places a hand over Anabelle’s ear. ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure who the father is,’ she whispers. ‘John or his brother! Luckily, they look the same!’
Just then, Gregory appears, holding two 99s.
‘They were out of Magnums,’ he announces to JoJo in his wonderful gravelly baritone.
‘I guess this will do,’ JoJo replies, taking the ice cream and giving it a good lick. ‘Meet my new friend,’ she says, indicating the woman with her cone.
‘I was just saying what a cutie-pie you have here,’ the woman says brightly.
‘She’s alright, I suppose,’ replies Gregory, winking at JoJo. ‘When she’s not giving me grief.’
JoJo clocks the woman’s gaze as she stares up at Gregory. At six foot three, and with long dreadlocks, he does strike a commanding figure. Gregory was both bisexual and polyamorous, which meant he wasn’t traditionally jealous, but you had to be extra vigilant about STDs. There were plenty of perks though – many more than outweighed the risks. (Unfortunately, JoJo had to let Keith go a few months back as he was getting too clingy, but she still drops by to see him occasionally, when he isn’t busy sulking.)
‘We’d better be off,’ the woman says, standing again. ‘Come on, Anabelle,’ she bounces the child on her hip, ‘shall we try to find Daddy?’