Something to Live For

by Richard Roper

  In the end they managed to compose themselves enough to finish the rest of their search with the requisite solemnity. It was Andrew who found a tattered documents folder in a drawer that had a phone number for a “Cousin Jean” written on the flap.

  “Well I for one am not calling Cousin Jean,” Peggy said.

  “It does seem a bit strange after . . . that,” Andrew said.

  Peggy shook her head, bewildered. “I was going to suggest we should get a coin and toss for it, but that seems a horribly inappropriate thing to say now.”

  Andrew snorted. “I can’t quite work out what to think about Derek Albrighton.”

  “Well it’s clear to me that the bloke had life absolutely figured out,” Peggy said.

  Andrew raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh come on,” Peggy said. “If I get to eighty-four and my day consists of baking a cake and celebrating that achievement with a wank, then I’ll be pretty bloody happy.”

  * * *

  —

  “You two look pleased with yourselves,” Keith said when they arrived back at the office.

  “Thick as thieves,” Meredith said, clacking a pen between her top and bottom teeth.

  “Bit like you two at Cameron’s the other night,” Peggy said calmly, which shut them up. She hung her coat on the back of her chair and winked at Andrew. He grinned back goofily. Peggy might not have had time to answer his question about dinner—randy Derek Albrighton had put paid to that—but it had been such a fun walk back to the office that he couldn’t feel too despondent. Cameron chose that moment to amble out of his office and, in an uncharacteristically solemn voice, ask them to join him in the break-out area. Ever since the disastrous dinner party he’d carried himself with the air of a well-meaning schoolteacher who’d let his students bring in a game on the last day of term, only for them to spray Silly String all over the place and write rude words on their desks. The five of them sat in a semicircle and Cameron steepled his fingers against his chin.

  “I’ve been mulling over whether to actually say anything, guys, but I’ve decided I’d like to talk to you all about what happened last week at my house. Before I speak, would any of you like to say anything?” The water cooler hummed. A strip light overhead flickered. Outside, a vehicle announced that it was reversing.

  “Okay,” Cameron said. “Well, what I wanted to say to you was that—and, believe me, I hate to say this—I was really rather disappointed”—his voice cracked, and he had to stop and gather himself—“disappointed with you all. What with two of you running off early and two of you disappearing upstairs. What should have been a nice evening for all of us to bond ended up having the opposite outcome. I mean, talk about low-hanging fruit, guys.” He waited for this to sink in. Andrew hadn’t realized he’d taken it this badly. “However,” Cameron continued. “I very much believe in second chances, so let’s give this another go and see how we get on, okay, team? Meredith has kindly volunteered to host the next evening. Andrew, you can be next.”

  Andrew instantly pictured the stain on his kitchen wall, the battered old sofa and the distinct lack of a family there, and bit down hard on his cheeks.

  Cameron kept them for further blather about budgets and targets, then decided to regale them with a spectacularly dull anecdote about he and Clara losing each other in the supermarket, before finally they were all allowed to go back to their desks. Not long after, Peggy sent Andrew an e-mail. “I don’t know about you, but all I was thinking about during that was whether they ever made It’s Quim Up North 2.”

  “Would you need to have seen the first one to understand the sequel?” Andrew replied.

  A minute later he received two messages at once. The first was from Peggy: “Ha! Quite possibly. Oh, and I forgot to say: Yes to dinner. Where are we going?”

  The second was a text from an unknown number: How many letters am I going to have to send you before you grow some balls and reply? Or are you too busy thinking about what you’ll spend Sally’s money on?

  — CHAPTER 13 —

  It took Andrew six attempts to dial Carl’s number without hanging up before it connected. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say. He just knew he had to stop this.

  “Hello, Cynergy?” A hollow sense of friendliness in the voice.

  “It’s Andrew.”

  A pause.

  “Oh. You finally decided to call then.”

  “These letters. Please—please just stop sending them,” Andrew said.

  “The truth hurts, doesn’t it.” A statement, not a question.

  “What do you want me to say?” Andrew said.

  “How about an apology. It was you that made her ill. You did this.” Carl’s voice was shaking already. “Can’t you see that? She spent the last twenty years trying to make things right, and you never let her. You were too stubborn to forgive her, and her heart was a fucking wreck because of you.”

  “That’s not true,” Andrew said, unsure of the words even as he said them.

  “You’re pathetic, you know that? God, I just keep imagining what Sally would be thinking now—how much she’d regret what she’d done. I bet she’d—”

  “Okay, okay—you can have the money. I never asked for it in the first place. As soon as I get it I’ll transfer it over, but you have to promise to just . . . leave me alone.”

  He heard Carl sniff and clear his throat. “I’m glad you’ve come to your senses. I will ‘leave you alone,’ as you put it. But I’ll be in touch again when I know you’ve got the money, you can be sure of that.” Then the line went dead.

  * * *

  —

  Andrew made some beans on toast and logged on to the subforum, eager to forget about his conversation with Carl.

  I’m after a bit of restaurant advice, chaps, he wrote. Somewhere nice but not TOO expensive. Think LNER 0-6-0T “585” J50 Class rather than LNER 0-6-0 “5444” J15. Within minutes the subforum had come up trumps with several suggestions. Eventually, he settled on an Italian restaurant that was trendy enough not to put pound signs on the menu but not so fancy that the meals were described in a Tuscan mountain dialect.

  The next morning they were at a property inspection and Andrew reminded Peggy of the plan. “There’s no rush, obviously, but just—whenever you’ve got a mo—maybe ping me over some dates for when you’re free for our dinner thing,” he said, as casually as possible, even throwing in a yawn for good measure. Peggy looked up from the Tupperware box containing the last will and testament of Charles Edwards, which she’d just discovered under the kitchen sink.

  “Oh aye, will do. Next week I reckon. I’ll check my diary back at the ranch.”

  “Cool. Sure . . . like I said, no rush,” Andrew said, knowing that he’d spend the rest of the day refreshing his inbox until he was on the verge of a repetitive strain injury.

  When the day of their dinner arrived the following week, Andrew found himself immediately anxious from the moment he got up. By the time he was at the office he’d managed to work himself up so much that at one point Meredith sneezed and he spontaneously apologized. He tried to tell himself to calm down, that it was ridiculous to be so anxious. It’s just dinner, for god’s sake! But it was no good. Peggy had spent the morning in an adjacent room that held the office safe, storing away the unclaimed items of value from a recent property visit in preparation for their sale, and had been on a training course away from the office in the afternoon. This, he decided, was probably why he felt so tense. Not being able to see her to exchange a friendly word all day, he couldn’t convince himself that she wouldn’t rather be doing anything else than spending her evening with him.

  As if to confirm his gloom, he knew the restaurant was a poor choice by the look the waiter gave him on arrival, as if he were a stray dog who’d wandered in looking for a place to die.

  “Your . . . friend is on their way, sir?”
the waiter asked after Andrew had been sitting there for less than five minutes.

  “Yes,” Andrew said. “I hope—I’m sure—she’ll be here soon.”

  The waiter gave him a seen-it-all-before smirk and poured two inches of water into his glass. Twenty minutes went by, during which Andrew refused and then reluctantly accepted some incredibly hard bread.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to order something now for when your friend arrives?” the waiter said.

  “No,” Andrew said, annoyed at the waiter and annoyed at himself for having the temerity to get out of the little box he lived in.

  Then, with the muscles in his toes tensed as he prepared to rise and make as dignified an exit as possible, he saw a flash of color at the door and there was Peggy in a bright red coat, hair sopping wet from rain. She plonked herself down in the chair opposite with a half-mumbled greeting and thrust a crust of bread into her mouth.

  “Christ,” she said. “What’s this I’m eating—a hubcap?”

  “I think it’s focaccia.”

  Peggy grunted and, with some difficulty, swallowed.

  “You know when you married Diane?” she said, ripping a bit of bread in two.

  Andrew’s heart sank. Not this. Not this already.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said.

  “Did you ever think that there’d be a point where you’d be staring at her as she sat on the living room floor with a beer can balanced on her belly like a drunk, horizontal Christ the Redeemer and think to yourself: How the hell have we ended up here?”

  Andrew shifted awkwardly in his seat.

  “Not word for word, no,” he said.

  Peggy shook her head slowly, gazing into the middle distance. There was a lock of rain-damp hair hanging down at the side of her face. Andrew felt a strange urge to reach over and tuck it behind her ear. Was that something he’d seen in a film? The waiter appeared at the table, his smirk replaced by a slightly disappointed, almost apologetic smile now that Peggy had shown up.

  “Would you like to look at the wine list, sir?”

  “Yes please,” Andrew said.

  “Don’t bother about asking me, mate,” Peggy muttered.

  “I apologize, madam,” the waiter said, bowing theatrically before sauntering off.

  “Annoys me, that,” Peggy said. “For all he knows I’m an off-duty sommelier. The wanker.”

  On the one hand Andrew was enamored of Peggy’s righteous ire. On the other, he feared the chances of piss in their linguine had just been significantly increased.

  After a glass of wine and the arrival of the starters, Peggy seemed to relax a little, but there was still an undercurrent of frustration and as a result conversation was hard going. Andrew began to panic in the increasingly long stretches where they weren’t talking. Being silent during meals was for married couples on holiday in brightly lit tavernas with only their mutual resentment of each other left in common. This wasn’t going according to plan at all. What he really needed was something to snap them out of it. His wish was granted, but perhaps not quite in the way he would have wanted, when a man in a yellow coat straining against his enormous form barged into the restaurant. His sleeves were stretched over his hands and he had his hood drawn tight over his head, the effect of which made it look like an incredibly large child was barreling toward them. As he stomped closer he yanked his hood away from his face, showering some nearby diners with raindrops. Heads were turning. The look on each face conveyed that very particular fear when someone is behaving outside the normal boundaries in a public space, namely: What is about to happen and am I going to be able to trample my way out first if it all kicks off?

  “I could be wrong,” Andrew said, trying to sound calm, “but I think your husband’s just walked in.”

  Peggy turned around and immediately got to her feet. Andrew folded his hands in his lap and stared at them, feeling pathetically scared in the face of the inevitable confrontation.

  “So you’re following me now?” Peggy said, hands on hips. “How long have you been standing out there? And where are the girls?”

  “With Emily from next door,” Steve said in a voice so low it sounded like he was in slow motion.

  “Okay, and just to check, that isn’t just another lie?”

  “Course not,” Steve growled. “And who the fuck’s this little shite?”

  Andrew somewhat optimistically hoped it wasn’t him Steve was referring to.

  “Never mind who he is,” Peggy said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m just nipping to the loo,” Andrew said with a manic brightness, as if this would make him impervious to being punched. The waiter stood aside to let him past, the smirk returned to his face.

  When Andrew plucked up the courage to come back to the table, Peggy and Steve were nowhere to be seen, and Peggy’s coat was gone. Some of the other diners were risking covert looks up at him as he took his seat. Others were looking out of the window, where Andrew could now see Peggy and Steve. They were standing in the street outside, hoods up, both gesticulating furiously.

  Andrew hovered by the table. He should go out there. He should at least pretend to himself, if not the rest of the restaurant and the snarky fucking waiter, that he was going to go out there. As he drummed his fingers on the back of his chair, still deciding what he was going to do, the yellow blob was suddenly gone, as if carried off downriver by a strong current, and Peggy was heading back inside. She looked like she’d been crying—it was hard to tell because of the rain—and mascara had snaked down her cheeks in two thin lines.

  “Are you o—”

  “I’m really sorry, but please can we just eat?” Peggy interrupted, her voice hoarse.

  “Of course,” Andrew said, shoving some more shrapnel bread into his mouth and consoling himself with the fact he hadn’t been punched in the face by a giant Geordie.

  * * *

  —

  Peggy went to eat the last mouthful on her plate, changed her mind, and set her knife and fork down together with a clang.

  “I’m sorry you got called a shite back then,” she said.

  “No need to apologize,” Andrew said, thinking that it should really be him apologizing, for being such a coward. “I’m guessing we’ll skip the puddings then?” he said.

  The hint of a smile returned to Peggy’s face. “You’re joking, I hope. If there was ever a time for emergency sticky toffee, then it’s now.”

  The waiter came over and cleared their plates.

  “I don’t suppose sticky toffee pudding’s on the menu?” Andrew said, with his best stab at a winning smile.

  “As it happens, sir, it is,” the waiter said, seeming disappointed at this.

  “Oh, champion,” Peggy said, offering the waiter a thumbs-up.

  * * *

  —

  They both finished their puddings at the same time, returning their spoons to the bowl with simultaneous clinks.

  “Snap,” Peggy said. “How much food have I got on my face, by the way?”

  “None,” Andrew said. “How about me?”

  “No more than usual.”

  “Glad to hear it. Actually, you have got a little bit of . . .”

  “What?”

  “Mascara, I think.”

  Peggy snatched up her spoon and looked at her reflection. “Ah Jesus, I look like a panda, you should have said something.”

  “Sorry.”

  She dabbed at her cheeks with her napkin.

  “Do you mind me asking if everything’s okay?” Andrew said.

  Peggy continued to dab. “I don’t,” she said. “But there’s not much to say, so . . .” She smoothed the napkin flat on the table. “This might be a bit weird, but can I ask you to do something?”

  “Of course,” Andrew said.

  “Okay, so close your eyes.�
�

  “Um, sure,” Andrew said, thinking this was the sort of thing Sally used to make him do that would invariably end up with him being in pain.

  “Can you picture a moment, right now, where you and Diane were at your happiest?” Peggy said.

  Andrew felt the heat rising on his cheeks.

  “Have you got something?”

  After a moment, he nodded.

  “Describe it to me.”

  “How . . . how do you mean?”

  “Well, when is it? Where are you? What can you see and feel?”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Andrew took a deep breath. The answer came to him not from something written on a spreadsheet, but from somewhere deep inside.

  “We’re just out of university, starting our lives together in London. We’re in Brockwell Park. It’s the hottest day of the summer. The grass is really dry, practically charred.”

  “Go on . . .”

  “We’re sitting back to back. We realize we need a bottle opener for our beers. And Diane pushes her back against me to try and get to her feet. And she nearly falls, and we’re just giggling, and giddy in the heat. She walks up to these strangers—a couple—to borrow their lighter. She knows this trick where you can use one to open a bottle. She cracks the tops off and hands the lighter back. She’s walking back to me, and I can see her but I can still see the couple, too. They’re both looking at her. It’s like she’s left an impression on them in that moment that means they’ll be thinking about her for the rest of the day. And I realize how lucky I am, and how I never want this day to end.”

  Andrew was startled. Both at the clarity of what he’d just pictured, and by the tears pooling fast under his eyelids. When he finally opened his eyes, Peggy was looking away. After a moment, he said, “Why did you want to know that?”