The Second Life of Nathan Jones

by David Atkinson

  ‘The thing is, Nathan, I’m offering you a chance to be with your girls. Yes, I’m part of the deal. It may be not the kind of deal you wanted, but it’s the best you’re going to get. After all the publicity and carry-on everyone in the country is on my side.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, Laura. James Cochrane did a pretty good job of putting my side of the argument across, with the help of Dads for Daughters.’

  Laura shook her head slowly. ‘He did until you crashed the bloody camper van. After that I’m afraid everything shifted back my way. You can tell that from what happened at court.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened in court.’

  ‘Well, you know the result of it. What I’m saying is that I’ll get custody and all you’ll ever get to be is a part-time dad. Then one day I’ll meet someone else and you might not even get to be that. I’m offering you … us … something better than that.’

  She stepped into his space and drew close to him. She could sense the heat, the attraction born from shared experience, familiarity and the bond of family. He didn’t move. She reached up, took his face in her hands and kissed him. At first, he didn’t respond … then he did.

  Chapter 30

  Hayley and I had just finished Chinese roast pork, fried rice and an extra portion of bean sprouts. Well, if I was being honest, Hayley had mainly eaten rice and bean sprouts and about two bits of pork and I’d devoured the rest. My recent shagging marathon had certainly worked up an appetite.

  James had just phoned to say he was on his way over and needed a drink or six after battling with April most of the afternoon. She’d moved her builder boyfriend into the marital home and was in no rush to move things on with the divorce. Issuing a complaint against Hayley was an attempt at delaying things, in James’s view, but Hayley said that her firm, given the complaint, were likely to work even harder in his favour now.

  ‘I’ll head off soon, Hayley. I’ve got early shifts for the next four days.’

  ‘James won’t bite, you know,’ Hayley said, smiling.

  ‘I know, I’m just not comfortable with him yet.’

  I decided to phone Nathan to see how he’d got on with Laura. I was a little surprised he’d not called already, considering he’d met up with her hours ago.

  I dialled his number and waited. I was just about to hang up when it answered. ‘Nathan, Kat here, what’s happening? I thought you’d have called me by now.’

  Silence.

  ‘Nathan, Nathan, are you there?’

  ‘Hello, Kat.’

  My heart seized, and my stomach lurched at the sound of a female voice. I’d only heard Laura speak a few times, but I recognised her dulcet confident tone. It took me a moment to respond. Why on earth would Laura have his phone? Then it occurred to me that he’d probably forgotten it and she’d found it and answered it. That would explain the delay too.

  ‘Err, is Nathan there?’

  ‘No, he’s in the shower.’

  Why would he be having a shower? He only went to talk to Laura about getting divorced.

  ‘Why’s he in the shower?’

  ‘Nathan likes to have a shower after making love, I’d have thought you’d have found that out by now.’

  Making love … shower … what was she saying? ‘Laura, I … I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘I’d have thought it would be pretty obvious, even for you. Nathan and I are back together, we’re a family again. I’m sure he’ll want to phone and speak to you at some point, but right now we’re a little busy so I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t stay and chat.’

  Dead air.

  I noticed Hayley staring at me. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve gone chalk white.’

  I couldn’t explain and, unfortunately, spilled my nearly full glass of red wine onto Hayley’s couch as I rushed off to the toilet feeling sick.

  *

  I must have looked a mess; well, more of a mess than usual as even Sid reacted to my panda eyes and red nose.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Strangely enough I don’t believe you. Has someone died?’

  Our default setting could be put down to the fact that we worked in a morgue and were all obsessed with death, or perhaps we were all obsessed with death, which was why we worked in a morgue; whichever way round it was, death remained our first port of call in a crisis.

  ‘Nobody’s died, Sid. I just broke up with Nathan, or rather he’s broken up with me.’

  ‘What? The zombie’s dumped you?’

  I nodded and snivelled.

  ‘Has he gone back to his wife?’

  I nodded and snivelled.

  ‘Oh.’

  That was the nice thing about Sid. He would be the only one not to say, ‘I told you so.’

  ‘I told you that might happen.’

  Okay, maybe not, then.

  I felt incredibly stupid and embarrassed as well as hurt at that point. Everybody including Sid had warned me about what might happen. Even my dad had cautioned me, for God’s sake, and he knew next to nothing about anything outside his work and sheds and, now, llamas.

  ‘I feel so stupid, Sid. Everybody could see it coming except me. Why is that?’

  I knew Sid would be completely unqualified to answer the question, which was why I asked him, but he surprised me.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe you had love blinkers on.’

  ‘Love blinkers?’

  ‘Yeah, you know how racehorses wear blinkers sometimes?’

  My knowledge of racehorses was somewhere close to my knowledge of quantum physics, but I didn’t want to appear more stupid than I already felt. ‘Yeah, maybe, I think so.’

  ‘Well, that’s what happened to you. You had love blinkers on that only let you see a little bit of the big picture.’

  ‘What do I do now, Sid?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got a post-mortem in fifteen minutes. You need to get the Kugel instrument box, which—’

  ‘Not about work, Sid, about my life?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Sid wandered off to get the instruments himself.

  *

  ‘Can you hand me the enterotomy scissors, please, Kat,’ Sid said, wiping some gunk from his gloves. I reached behind me and passed them over.

  He waved the scissors at me. They were nail scissors, more to the point my nail scissors. Why did Sid have my nail scissors in his hand? Then I remembered, I’d left them lying out earlier after snipping off a raggedy nail. I really needed to focus. As I watched they slipped from his fingers and disappeared inside our patient, slipping down behind the large intestine.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sid reassured me. ‘I’ll retrieve them in a minute.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ll probably need to buy some new ones now.’

  He made a few quick cuts then stopped, and said, ‘We need a break.’

  ‘I’m fine, let’s finish this then’

  ‘No, I need a break. It feels like I’m doing twice as much work today – your head is somewhere else.’

  I sighed and we both changed out of our ‘greens’ and washed up.

  ‘I take it you’re thinking about the zombie?’ Sid asked.

  I smiled. ‘You really shouldn’t call him that, but you’re right, I am. I can’t believe how stupid I’ve been. I know I need to snap out of it. He’s back with his wife and kids and I’m sure he’s happy now. I … well, I was a distraction, I think.’

  I’d known it would be complicated when Nathan met up with Laura. Saying goodbye was never like it was in books or in the movies; it was never a clean break. It was messy, complicated and full of false starts and broken promises. The promises to yourself you broke being the worst of all.

  I should have guessed that breaking up with someone he’d been with for that long, would be fraught with danger. Laura was his ‘first love’ and a big plus on her side was that she was normal – a total and complete bitch but, apart from that, normal in terms of the way everyone, including Natha
n, looked at her.

  I couldn’t be like that. My outlook on life and everything was different, skewed. I’d been called a freak, spat at, had things thrown at me more times than I could count and, although it still bothered me, I’d developed a thick skin and learned to live with it. I’d never adopted a Goth persona to get attention. I’d done it to avoid attention, to avoid having to deal with people. I used it as a mask and it worked, most of the time.

  Sometimes people looked at me and instantly formed an opinion. Working with the dead seemed to be an apt occupation according to those who judged me purely on appearance and what little they understood about Goths. The world at large didn’t understand me; not that I looked for sympathy – I didn’t want or need any – but I wanted Nathan so much it physically hurt. I felt sick when I thought about him meeting up with Laura; I supposed this was what they meant in songs and books about love hurting. I felt physically nauseous.

  It even hurt me to think that I might not get to see Nathan’s girls again. That surprised me, but they were so lovely and so vulnerable that I found it impossible not to love them. Also, they didn’t judge me at all. They were intrigued by my appearance but apart from that they just accepted me. Millie had watched me put my make-up on one morning in the motorhome and asked lots of questions. Nathan too in his own way could be very childlike. He also tended to live very much in the present, which I thought was unusual for an adult. I was pretty sure this was one of the main reasons I liked him – he looked at me with the same eyes that his girls did. When we met he didn’t judge me, didn’t question me (much) and didn’t go and Google ‘Goth’ to see what it was all about.

  Did Nathan truly love me enough to want to be with me regardless of everything?

  Obviously not, you silly cow, my inner voice piped up.

  ‘I didn’t ask you.’

  He’d tried to phone me numerous times yesterday, but I hadn’t answered and then I’d blocked him altogether, so he couldn’t even text me. He’d hurt me enough.

  I became aware of Sid speaking.

  ‘You’re talking to yourself again and, if you want my opinion, he’s the one losing out. In my experience you don’t get many chances in life to fall in love and when you do you need to grab it with both hands.’

  I wondered about that, and the fact that Sid seemed to know more about love than me. ‘When did that happen to you, Sid? It sounds like you’re talking from experience.’

  He finished scrubbing his hands and said, ‘Let’s get some coffee.’

  The staff café had plenty of spare tables at this time of the morning and Sid chose a quiet corner. As it was my turn to buy coffee and buns I fished about in my bag for some change and then sat opposite him. He appeared to be distracted, very unusual for Sid.

  ‘I’m sorry about my last question. I didn’t mean to pry but, well, you know what I’m like. I just say the first thing that comes into my head most of the time.’

  He looked up and smiled. ‘I know, with you, there’s no shades of grey, everything is black and white – mostly black.’ He smiled at me.

  ‘Nathan said that as well.’

  ‘Sorry. In any event, my life is never that straightforward.’

  ‘I suppose not. It can’t be easy being gay.’ There, I’d said it at last.

  Sid almost dropped his coffee cup and stared at me, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

  Oops. ‘Foot in mouth Kat’ had done it again. I glanced around me quickly and noted nobody had been near enough to overhear. ‘It’s okay, Sid. I’ll never breathe a word about it to anyone. Your secret’s safe with me.’

  Sid closed his mouth, took a big slug of coffee then said quietly, very quietly, ‘I’m not gay.’

  Still in denial. ‘Well, okay. If you say so; but honestly it makes absolutely no difference to me if you are or not.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, and that’s the problem.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘No, I know you don’t. That’s part of the problem too.’

  ‘Sid, I’m not following any of this.’

  ‘No, I don’t expect you to but I’m not gay.’

  ‘But you’ve not had a girlfriend as long as I’ve known you.’

  Sid remained silent for a minute, staring into his mug, then he said, almost whispering, ‘That’s because I’ve been in love with you, you doughball.’

  The sentence didn’t register with me initially, so I simply said, ‘I don’t like doughballs.’

  ‘Well, I love them, and I love you.’

  It took a little time, but when someone said they loved you and that person was someone you’d believed to be more camp than Butlin’s it was hard to process.

  ‘I don’t understand. When did that happen, Sid?’

  ‘From the first minute I saw you I’ve been smitten; whenever my rota is down to work with you I can’t sleep properly the night before. Whenever I’m near you my hands shake – which is not a great thing when you’re holding a razor-sharp scalpel or a buzz-saw. The highlight of my day is when you and I get to sit like this in the café and talk. Just being near you is enough to make my heart sing.’

  What was it with men and singing hearts, for God’s sake? ‘I don’t know what to say, Sid. I honestly had no idea. I …’ I shut up because my head was buzzing again and I really didn’t know what to say to this lovely, kind and warm human being opposite me.

  ‘I’m just a boy standing—’

  ‘No, not the Notting Hill line, Sid, anything but that.’ We both started laughing as I saw the mischievous smirk on his face. He knew I hated that line with a vengeance, ever since Dr Dave had used it on me the day I’d decided to break up with him.

  ‘I … this is a huge surprise, Sid. I really don’t know … I need time to think about everything. You’ve just dropped this on me and there’s so much else going on …’

  ‘It’s sudden for you, I know, but not for me and, well, I suppose the only reason I told you is because you looked so miserable and I kind of know how you’re feeling.’

  Ouch. It suddenly occurred to me that all the times I’d been gushing about Nathan, Sid had had feelings for me and every mention of his name must have been … well, irritating at best.

  We sat in silence, not unusual for us, but less comfortable than it normally was. I recalled all the conversations we’d had over the last few years and the too-many-to-count offers of, ‘Let’s go out and get pissed,’ or, ‘What you doing on Friday, Kat? Fancy a few beers?’ I’d just thought he’d been bored or trying to be nice.

  Eventually we both trudged back downstairs to work. We had a cadaver lying with a gaping chest cavity and had to get that sorted and stowed away before anyone noticed.

  As we were finishing up Sid said, ‘Kat.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I know things are a bit confusing for you right now and I don’t want to make it worse. I only told you what I did this morning because, well, I … I hoped it would make you feel better. Also we’re not down to work together again until next week.’

  ‘Thanks, Sid, I appreciate that.’

  ‘I don’t want it to affect our friendship.’

  I needed to process that. Sid blurted out that he had secretly been in love with me for years and got palpitations whenever he was near me. During this time, I’d believed he’d been a closet homosexual (that was more my fault than his but, given his camp nature and lack of female relationships, I didn’t think I’d made an unreasonable assumption). Then he chose the day after I’d discovered my boyfriend had had sex with his wife to tell me (that last bit sounded weird even to me).

  ‘Your timing could have been better, Sid.’

  ‘Could it? Sorry, I just thought that … well, it might make you feel better knowing there are other people, me for one, that think you’re wonderful … Even if the walking dead doesn’t.’

  I couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘Listen, why don’t we go out for a drink on Friday after work, just to see …’

  ‘See what
?’

  ‘Well, to see if we get on.’

  ‘We know we get on; we’ve got on for years.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘I know, and I’m not sure. It feels weird; maybe it’s just too soon.’

  ‘I’ve liked you for years.’

  ‘Not too soon for you, too soon for me after the Nathan thing, you know?’

  ‘Just a drink, nothing else, but at least I can sit and talk to you for the first time knowing that you know instead of me wondering if you know and guessing you probably don’t know because, well, you never told me you know. But now that you do know might you consider, if everything I did pleased you, then, well, you know, might I become your … err, boyfriend?’

  ‘That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me, Sid.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’

  ‘Strangely enough, I wasn’t.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘I know.’

  Chapter 31

  ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea,’ Hayley advised over the phone an hour later. ‘Your track record with doctors is not good.’

  ‘Sid’s nothing like Dr Dave; he doesn’t have a bad bone in his body.’

  ‘I know you’ve had a shock with Nathan. I can still see it on my sofa …’

  I cringed. ‘I know, sorry about that. I’ll …’ I didn’t know what I’d do ‘… come over and clean it at the weekend,’ I offered brightly.

  ‘No need, sweetie, I got white wine on it almost immediately so it’s only a slight stain now. I’ll get the Marigolds on again later and I’ve bought some new bubble-gum scented cleaner that I want to try out.’

  ‘That’s the sort of thing my mum would say.’

  ‘God forbid. I’m not worried about my sofa. I am worried about you, though. I know what you’re like when you’re suffering from anxiety and stress and it’s not pretty.’

  ‘You’re saying I’m not pretty?’

  ‘You’re deflecting me again; Kat, I care about you.’

  I sighed. ‘I know you do, Hayley, but I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine, of course I’m not, but going out with Sid will—’