One Day

by David Nicholls

  At the café, Dexter flirted a little with Maddy, then sat in the tiny stock room that smelt oppressively of cheese and attempted to complete the quarterly VAT return. But the gloom and guilt of this morning’s outburst still clung to him, and when he could no longer concentrate he reached for his phone. It used to be Emma who made the conciliatory calls and smoothed things over, but in the eight months since their marriage they seemed to have changed places, and he now found himself incapable of doing anything while he knew she was unhappy. He dialled, imagining her at her desk, looking at her mobile phone, seeing his name appear and turning it off. He preferred it that way – much easier to be sentimental when no-one was going to answer back.

  ‘So I’m here, doing my VAT, and I keep thinking about you and I just wanted to say don’t worry. I’ve arranged for us to view this house at five o’clock. I’ll text you the address, so, who knows. We’ll see. Period property, good-sized rooms. It’s got a breakfast bar apparently. I know you’ve always dreamt of one. That’s all. Except to say I love you and don’t worry. Whatever it is you’re worrying about, don’t. That’s everything. See you there at five. Love you. Bye.’

  As routine demanded, Emma worked until two, ate lunch, then went swimming. In July she sometimes liked to go to the ladies pool on Hampstead Heath, but the day had become precariously dark and overcast, and instead she braved the teenage kids at the indoor pool. For twenty minutes she weaved unhappily between them as they dive-bombed and ducked and flirted with each other, manic with the freedom of the end of term. Afterwards she sat in the changing rooms, listened to Dexter’s message and smiled. She memorised the address of the property and called back.

  ‘Hi there. It’s me. Just to say, I’m setting out now and I can’t wait to see the breakfast bar. I might be five minutes late. Also thank you for your message and I wanted to say . . . I’m sorry for being so snappy today, and for that stupid argument. Nothing to do with you. Just a bit nuts at the moment. The important thing is I love you very much. So. There you go. Lucky you! I think that’s everything. Bye my love. Bye.’

  Outside the sports centre the clouds had darkened and finally burst, letting loose fat grey drops of warm rain. She cursed the weather and the wet seat of her bicycle and set off across North London towards Kilburn, improvising a route through a maze of residential streets towards Lexington Road.

  The rain became heavier, oily drops of brown city water, and Emma rode standing on the pedals with her head lowered so that she was only vaguely aware of a blur of movement in the side road to her left. The sensation is less of flying through the air, more of being picked up and hurled, and when she comes to rest on the roadside verge with her face against the wet pavement, her first instinct is to look for her bicycle, which has somehow disappeared from beneath her. She tries to move her head, but is unable to do so. She wants to take off her helmet, because people are looking at her now, faces craning over her and she looks ridiculous in a bicycle helmet, but the people crouching over her seem fearful and are asking her over and over again are you alright are you alright. One of them is crying and she realises for the first time that she is not alright. She blinks against the rain falling on her face. She is definitely going to be late now. Dexter will be waiting.

  She thinks very distinctly of two things.

  The first is a photograph of herself at nine years old in a red swimsuit on a beach, she can’t remember where, Filey or Scarborough perhaps. She is with her mother and father who are swinging her towards the camera, their sunburnt faces buckled with laughter. Then she thinks of Dexter, sheltering from the rain on the steps of the new house, looking at his watch, impatient; he’ll wonder where I am, she thinks. He’ll worry.

  Then Emma Mayhew dies, and everything that she thought or felt vanishes and is gone forever.

  Part Five

  Three Anniversaries

  ‘She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year; . . . her own birthday; and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it?’

  Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Morning After

  SATURDAY 15 JULY 1988

  Rankeillor Street, Edinburgh

  When she opened her eyes again, the skinny boy was still there, his back to her now as he sat precariously on the edge of her old wooden chair, pulling on his trousers as quietly as possible. She glanced at her radio alarm clock: nine-twenty. They had slept for maybe three hours, and now he was sneaking off. She watched as he placed his hand in the trouser pocket to still the rattling of his loose change, then stood and started to pull on last night’s white shirt. One last glimpse of his long brown back. Handsome. He really was stupidly handsome. She very much wanted him to stay, almost as much perhaps as he clearly wanted to leave. She decided that she would have to speak.

  ‘Not going without saying goodbye, are you?’

  He turned round, caught in the act. ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just you looked so nice, sleeping there.’

  Both knew this was a poor effort. ‘Right. Right, I see.’ She heard herself, needy and annoyed. Don’t let him think you care, Em. Be cool. Be . . . blasé.

  ‘I was going to leave you a note, but . . .’ He pantomimed looking for a pen, oblivious to the jam jar full of them on the desk.

  She lifted her head from the pillow and rested it on one hand. ‘I don’t mind. You can leave if you want to. Ships that pass in the night n’all that. Very, what d’you call it . . . bittersweet.’

  He sat on the chair, and continued to button his shirt. ‘Emma?’

  ‘Yes, Dexter?’

  ‘I’ve had a really nice time.’

  ‘I can tell by the way you’re searching for your shoes.’

  ‘No, seriously.’ Dexter leant forward on the chair. ‘I’m really glad we finally got to talk. And the other stuff as well. After all this time.’ He scrunched his face, looking for just the right words. ‘You’re really, really lovely, Em.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah—’

  ‘No, you are.’

  ‘Well you’re lovely too and now you can go.’ She allowed him a small, tight smile. He responded by suddenly crossing the room, and she turned her face up towards him in anticipation, only to find that he was reaching beneath the bed for a discarded sock. He noticed her raised face.

  ‘Sock under bed,’ he said.

  ‘Right.’

  He perched uneasily on the bedframe, speaking in a strained, chipper tone as he pulled on his socks. ‘Big day today! Driving back!’

  ‘Where to, London?’

  ‘Oxfordshire. That’s where my parents live. Most of the time anyway.’

  ‘Oxfordshire. Very nice,’ she said, privately mortified at the speed with which intimacy evaporates, to be replaced by small talk. Last night they had said and done all those things, and now they were like strangers in a bus queue. The mistake she had made was to fall asleep and break the spell. If they had stayed awake, they might still have been kissing now, but instead it was all over and she found herself saying; ‘How long will that take then? To Oxfordshire?’

  ‘’Bout seven, eight hours. My dad’s an excellent driver.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You’re not going back to . . . ?’

  ‘Leeds. No I’m staying here for the summer. I told you, remember?’

  ‘Sorry, I was really pretty drunk last night.’

  ‘And that, m’lud, is the case for the defence . . .’

  ‘It’s not an excuse, it’s . . .’ He turned to look at her. ‘Are
you annoyed with me, Em?’

  ‘Em? Who’s Em?’

  ‘Emma, then.’

  ‘I’m not annoyed, I just . . . wish you’d woken me up, instead of being all furtive and sneaking off . . .’

  ‘I was going to write you a note!’

  ‘And what was it going to say, this precious note?’

  ‘It was going to say “I’ve taken your purse”.’

  She laughed, a low morning growl that caught the back of her throat, and there was something so gratifying about her smile, the two deep parentheses in the corners of her mouth, the way she kept her lips tightly closed as if holding something back, that he almost regretted telling his lie. He had no intention of leaving at lunch time. His parents were going to stay over and take him out to dinner that night, then leave tomorrow morning. The lie had been instinctive in order to facilitate a quick, clean escape, but now as he leant across to kiss her he wondered if there was a way to withdraw the deceit somehow. Her mouth was soft, and she allowed herself to fall back on the bed, which still smelt of wine, her warm body and fabric conditioner, and he decided that he really must try to be more honest in future.

  She rolled away from the kiss. ‘Just going to the loo,’ she said, lifting his arm to pass beneath it. She stood, hooking two fingers in the elastic of her underpants and tugging the material down over her bottom.

  ‘Is there a phone I can use?’ he asked, watching her pad across the room.

  ‘In the hallway. It’s a novelty phone, I’m afraid. Very zany. Tilly finds it hilarious. Help yourself. Don’t forget to leave ten p,’ and she was out in the hall and heading towards the bathroom.

  The bath was already running for one of her flatmate’s epic all-day summer hot soaks. Tilly Killick waited for Emma in her dressing-gown, eyes goggling through the steam behind big red spectacle frames, mouth hanging open in a scandalised ‘O’.

  ‘Emma Morley, you dark horse!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you got someone in your room?’

  ‘Maybe!’

  ‘It’s not who I think it is . . .’

  ‘Just Dexter Mayhew!’ said Emma, nonchalantly, and the two girls laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Dexter found the phone in the hallway, shaped like a startlingly realistic burger. He stood with the sesame seed bun flipped open in his hand, listening to the whispers from the bathroom and experiencing the satisfaction he always felt when he knew people were talking about him. Odd words and phrases were audible through the plasterboard: So did you? No! So what happened? We just talked, and stuff. Stuff? What does that mean, stuff? Nothing! And is he staying for breakfast? I don’t know. Well make sure he stays for breakfast.

  Dexter watched the door patiently, waiting until Emma reappeared. He dialled 123, the speaking clock, pressed the bap to his ear and spoke into the beef patty.

  ‘ . . . the time sponsored by Accurist will be nine thirty-two and twenty seconds.’

  At the third stroke he went into his act. ‘Hi, Mum, it’s me . . . yeah, a bit worse for wear!’ He ruffled his hair in a way that he believed to be endearing ‘ . . . No, I stayed over at a friend’s house . . .’ and here he glanced over at Emma, who loitered nearby in t-shirt and underpants, pretending to go through the mail.

  ‘ . . . the time sponsored by Accurist will be nine thirty-three precisely . . .’

  ‘So listen, something’s come up and I wondered if we could postpone going home until first thing tomorrow, instead of today? . . . I just thought the drive might be easier for Dad . . . I don’t mind if you don’t . . . Is Dad with you? Ask Dad now then.’

  Taking his cue from the speaking clock, he allowed himself thirty seconds and gave Emma his most amiable smile. She smiled back and thought: nice guy, altering his plans just for me. Perhaps she had misjudged him. Yes, he is an idiot, but he needn’t be. Not always.

  ‘Sorry!’ he mouthed.

  ‘I don’t want you to change your plans for me—’ she said, apologetically.

  ‘No, I’d like to—’

  ‘Really, if you’ve got to go home—’

  ‘It’s fine, it’s better this way—’

  ‘At the third stroke the time sponsored by Accurist will be nine thirty-four precisely.’

  ‘I don’t mind, I’m not offended or anything—’

  He held up his hand for quiet. ‘Hi, Mum? . . .’ A pause; build anticipation, but don’t overdo it. ‘Really? Okay, that’s great! Alright, I’ll see you at the flat later! Okay, see you. Bye.’ He snapped the bun closed like a castanet and they stood and grinned at each other.

  ‘Great phone.’

  ‘Depressing, isn’t it? Every time I use it, makes me want to cry.’

  ‘You still want that ten p?’

  ‘Nah. You’re alright. My treat.’

  ‘So!’ he said.

  ‘So,’ said Emma. ‘What are we going to do with the day?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The First Anniversary

  A Celebration

  FRIDAY 15 JULY 2005

  London and Oxfordshire

  Fun, fun, fun – fun is the answer. Keep moving and don’t allow yourself a moment to stop or look around or think because the trick is to not get morbid, to have fun and see this day, this first anniversary as – what? A celebration! Of her life and all the good times, the memories. The laughs, all the laughs.

  With this in mind he has ignored his manager Maddy’s protests, taken two hundred pounds from the café’s cash register and invited three of the staff – Maddy, Jack, and Pete who works on Saturdays – out on the town to welcome the special day in style. After all, it’s what she would have wanted.

  And so the first moments of this St Swithin’s Day find him in a basement bar in Camden with his fifth martini in one hand and a cigarette in the other because why not? Why not have some fun and celebrate her life? He says this, slurs this to his friends who smile at him a little weakly and sip at their drinks so slowly that he begins to regret bringing them along. They’re so stuffy and boring, accompanying him from bar to bar less like good mates, more like hospital orderlies, humouring him and making sure he doesn’t bump into people or crack his head as he falls from the taxi. Well, he’s had enough of it. He wants some release, wants to let his hair down, he deserves it after the year he has just had. With this in mind he suggests that they all go to a club he once went to on a stag night. A strip club.

  ‘Don’t think so, Dex,’ says Maddy, quietly appalled.

  ‘Oh, come on, Maddy! Why not?’ he says, his arm draped around her shoulder. ‘It’s what she would have wanted!’ and he laughs at this and raises his glass once more, reaching for it with his mouth and missing by some distance so that the gin spatters onto his shoes. ‘It’ll be a laugh!’ Maddy reaches behind her for her coat.

  ‘Maddy, you lightweight!’ he shouts.

  ‘I really think you ought to go home now, Dexter,’ says Pete.

  ‘But it’s just gone midnight!’

  ‘Goodnight, Dex. See you whenever.’

  He follows Maddy to the door. He wants her to have fun, but she seems tearful and upset. ‘Stay, have another drink!’ he demands, tugging at her elbow.

  ‘You will take it easy, won’t you? Please?’

  ‘Don’t leave us boys alone!’

  ‘Got to. I’m opening up in the morning, remember?’ She turns and takes both his hands in hers in that maddening way she has, all caring and sympathetic. ‘Just be . . . careful?’

  But he doesn’t want sympathy, he wants another drink, and so he drops her hands abruptly and heads back towards the bar. He has no trouble getting served. Just a week ago bombs have exploded on public transport. Strangers have set out to kill at random and despite all the pluck and bravado the city has an under-siege atmosphere tonight. People are scared to be out and so Dexter has no problem flagging down a taxi to take them towards Farringdon Road. His head is resting against the window as he hears Pete and Jack chickening out, offering up the usual excuses:
it’s late, they have work in the morning. ‘I’ve got a wife and kids you know!’ says Pete jokily; they’re like hostages pleading for release. Dexter feels the party disintegrating around him but doesn’t have the energy to fight it, so he stops the cab in King’s Cross and sets them free.

  ‘Come back with us, Dex mate? Yeah?’ says Jack, peering in at the window with that stupid concerned look on his face.

  ‘Nah, I’m alright.’

  ‘You can always stay at mine?’ says Pete. ‘Sleep on the sofa?’ but Dexter knows he doesn’t really mean it. As Pete has pointed out, he’s got a wife and kids, so why would he want this monster in his house? Sprawled stinking and unconscious on the sofa, weeping while Pete’s kids try to get ready for school. Grief has made an idiot of Dexter Mayhew once again, and why should he impose this on his friends? Best just stick with strangers tonight. And so he waves goodbye and orders the taxi onto a bleak, shuttered side street off Farringdon Road, and Nero’s night-club.

  The outside is marked by black marble pillars, like a funeral directors. Falling from the cab, he worries that the bouncers won’t let him in, but in fact he is their perfect customer: well dressed and stupid-drunk. Dexter grins ingratiatingly at the big man with the shaved head and the goatee, hands over his cash and is waved through the door and into the main room. He steps into the gloom.

  There was a time, not so long ago, when a visit to a strip club would have seemed raffishly post-modern; ironic and titillating at the same time. But not tonight. Tonight Nero’s night-club resembles a business-class departure lounge in the early Eighties. All silver chrome, low black leather sofas and plastic pot plants, it is a particularly suburban notion of decadence. An amateurish mural, copied from a children’s textbook, of slave-girls bearing trays of grapes, covers the back wall. Polystyrene Roman pillars sprout here and there, and standing around the room in unflattering cones of orange light on what look like low coffee tables are the strippers, the dancers, the artistes, all performing in various styles to the blaring R & B; here a languid jig, there a sort of narcoleptic mime act, another girl performing startling aerobic high-kicks, all of them naked or nearly so. Beneath them sit the men, suited mainly, ties undone, slumped on the slippery booths with heads lolling backwards as if their necks had been crisply snapped: his people. Dexter takes the room in, his eyes slipping in and out of focus, grinning stupidly as he feels lust and shame combine in a narcotic rush. He stumbles on the stairs, steadies himself on the greasy chrome rail, then stands and shoots his cuffs and weaves between the podiums towards the bar where a hard-faced woman tells him single drinks can’t be bought, just bottles, vodka or champagne, a hundred quid each. He laughs at the audacious banditry and hands over his credit card with a flourish, as if challenging them to do their worst.