One Day, Someday

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Del. That’s not what this is about and you know it. I just don’t want to get myself emotionally involved with someone who’s already involved, that’s all. I just can’t stomach all the hassle.’

  She puts down her glass and flicks off her sandals. It’s a beautiful evening. A low moon is just rising from wisps of lobster-pink cloud.

  ‘Lu,’ she says, ‘get real, will you, sweetie? This is not Grange Hill. We are all grown-ups. If you hold out for someone who’s not been involved recently, then you will no doubt net yourself someone with all the drive, commitment and libido of a slug. Or a psycho.’ She looks at me sharply. ‘Lu,’ she says, ‘so what if Joe is seeing someone at the moment? So what? If he starts seeing you, I’m quite, quite sure he’ll end it with her pretty sharpish. I think I know him that well, Lu.’

  I’m sure she does. I’m sure I do too. ‘Of course he would. But that’s not really the point, Del. I’m really not that convinced he is interested in me any more.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ she says, with conviction. ‘Of course he is. You’re just so insecure you can’t see it.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. He’s had plenty of opportunities to let me know.’ I swivel round to face her. ‘But he hasn’t taken them, Del. So I can only conclude—’

  ‘Psh!’ she exclaims, picking up her drink again and swilling it around in the glass. ‘You sound like you’re making a speech on the council. And why conclude anything? Why not do something instead? You know what?’ She takes both my hands in one of hers. ‘You could do something really avant-garde. Really groundbreaking. You could tell him.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘How you feel about him, stupid! Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?’

  ‘Uuurgh! I’ll tell you the worst that can happen. The worst that can happen is that it will be the most embarrassing, most humiliating, most—’

  ‘There you go!’ She sighs extravagantly. ‘That’s exactly your problem! That’s exactly why you’re in the situation you’re in now!’ She pokes me. ‘Lu. Let me tell you. The worst that can happen is that you get rejected. And if so, then so be it. But you never give anyone a chance. You push people away all the time. Yes, you’re right. If you don’t stick your neck above the parapet then, fair enough, you won’t get shot at. But is that really any way to live your life? Yes, you get to keep your dignity. Yes, you get to leave the battlefield with your feelings intact. Yes, you live to fight another day—’

  ‘Exactly,’ I insert. ‘Exactly.’

  She snorts. ‘But what kind of life is that? Lu, if you want someone to love you - if you want someone to love you like we all love you, and I’m quite sure you do - then you have to let them know that you love them too.’ Where did all this love stuff come from all of a sudden? I retreat uncomfortably into the top of my glass. ‘Lu,’ she says sternly, ‘has it never occurred to you that he might find it difficult too? Has it never occurred to you that he might have been hurt? That he might be wary? Lu, has it ever occurred to you that he might be worried about getting rejected by you?

  By me? Joe? I shake my head emphatically. ‘Oh, no,’ I say, remembering our encounter in Amiens. ‘He’s certainly not that. Far from it.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about it.’ She reaches for the jug and scoops a piece of orange from it. ‘But then, no,’ she decides, sucking it. ‘I guess it wouldn’t have occurred to you. You’re so busy fretting about your own feelings all the time that I doubt you have a moment to stop and consider anyone else’s, least of all his.’

  My mouth drops open. ‘Well, that’s charming, Del. Thanks.’

  ‘Lu, it needed saying because it’s true! You know it is! Look, I know you feel vulnerable. I know you’ve had some bad experiences. But think about it for a moment. You carry on all the time as though the sole responsibility for you two having any sort of relationship rests with Joe. But maybe it’s a responsibility he doesn’t want either. Maybe he’s fed up with trying to second-guess how you feel about him. I don’t think you realize how frosty you can be at times. How well you do the whole “hands off - fragile goods” bit. I mean, look at you! It’s glaringly obvious that you’re completely smitten by the guy, but how’s he supposed to know that? How’s he going to know that if you don’t tell him? Lu, for once in your life grasp the nettle, can’t you? Make a bit of an effort, for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘Well, thanks very much I don’t think!’

  She pats me. By way, I assume, of softening her words. ‘Lu,’ she says, ‘you know what I’m saying. I know you’re wary of putting yourself through any more romantic traumas for a while. But you can’t spend the rest of your life like a bloody seed pod.’

  ‘Seed pod?’

  ‘Yes! Waiting for conditions to be absolutely right before you deign to pop your bloody case and interact with the world.’

  It’s such a ridiculous analogy that I almost want to laugh. She does laugh. ‘Del,’ I say sternly, ‘it isn’t as simple as that, and you know it. And that’s exactly my point. I can’t go plunging from one disastrous relationship to another all the time. I have responsibilities. I have my son to consider. Or had you forgotten about Leo in all this?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Lu, not that old chestnut again. It’s nothing to do with Leo, and you know it. You just use him as a shield to protect yourself from getting hurt. But it doesn’t wash with me, I’m afraid. Leo is not going to be scarred for life just because you happen to fall in love with someone. Leo is not going to become a crack pimp just because you have a man in your life. Leo is fine. Leo is happy and well adjusted. You’re the one that’s making dysfunction a career.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘You’re very welcome. Ah! Ben! Perfect timing! Shall I fire up the coals?’

  Dysfunction, indeed.

  But Del’s right, of course. Del is always right. Always, annoyingly, right. Being annoying and right is her job as my big sister. Just as never listening to her is mine. Has been up to now, at least. Perhaps I should wash my ears out.

  When Leo and I get home, the phone is ringing.

  ‘That’ll probably be Auntie Del to check we’re back OK,’ I tell him. ‘Run in and grab it for me, will you?’

  He does so, and is back outside a few moments later. ‘It’s not Auntie Del. It’s Joe,’ he tells me, panting. I lock the car. My heart is twizzling itself into sheep-shanks. ‘And don’t worry, Mum,’ he says, grinning at me as he hands back the door keys, ‘I remembered to thank him for the Pokémon cards.’

  And so it is. I feel all wobbly all of a sudden. Can’t be the Pimm’s. I only had the one.

  ‘How’s your arm?’ I say lightly. ‘Still in one piece?’

  ‘Most peculiar,’ he says. ‘All sort of pale and wan and shrivelled. It looks quite bizarre, in fact. All the muscles have disappeared. It’s half the size of the other one. Anyway, where’ve you been? I’ve been trying you for ages.’

  Which makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. ‘At my sister’s,’ I tell him. ‘We stayed there to eat. Why? What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing’s up, Lu. I just wondered if you’d managed to sort things for Thursday OK. Have you?’

  Which is the point at which I could insert the word ‘no’. The point at which I could put a stop to the dreadful yammering that has started up in my chest.

  ‘Yes, Joe,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve sorted things for Thursday. Thursday will be fine.’

  ‘Excellent!’ He sounds relieved. Del is right. If it’s an important meeting, it would have been mean to refuse. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Listen. I’m not going to need a lift in tomorrow because I’m costing a job in Newport, so can I leave you to get on with the contract amendments for me? I might make it back in. Might not.’

  ‘And what time should I book for?’

  ‘Book?’

  ‘The shuttle, of course.’

  ‘Oh, right! Of course. No, no. Don’t worry about that,’ he says. ‘All sorted already. See you sometime
on Wednesday afternoon.’

  When I put down the phone it occurs to me that there are worse ways to live your life than the one Del’s analysis suggests I’ve chosen. I feel hot and cold and anxious and exposed. Like my little seed pod has been already broached. Do I need this stuff? Really?

  24

  Thursday 21 June

  So we were off to France again.

  I dropped Leo off at Del’s at six thirty, with a hug and a kiss and a pre-breakfast Penguin and with instructions not to take his new cards into school. And with his Pokémon wish list tucked safely in my pocket. French cards, he had told me, would be so way cool. Then I purred off down the road accompanied by a small family of druids and faerie folk, who were stringing up bunting for the solstice somewhere in my gut. For it was Midsummer Eve. The first day of the rest of my life, in fact, and, oh dear, I wasn’t quite ready for it.

  The morning was fine and hazy - the sort of morning that promised much in the way of sunshine. Even now dew was rising, like pale swirls of netting, over grass that had already shaken off its wet coat. But there was no sign of life at Joe’s whatsoever, except the bulbs that burned in the twin carriage lamps that stood guard on the gateposts. For a moment I wondered if I’d misheard the timings. I rang the bell, and it was a good couple of minutes before I detected a response. The carriage lights went out and the hall light came on and there he was in the hallway, barefoot on the carpet and buttoning a pale denim shirt. He was right. His left hand did look peculiar. As if it had been shrunk in a sci-fi machine. ‘God, sorry,’ he said. ‘Come in for a minute. I’ve only been up half an hour.’

  His case was standing ready by the front door, and beside it was a suit-carrier. I tried not to look at the whorls of dark hair on his chest. ‘No panic,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and put these in the car.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be daft, Lu. Come in. I can do that.’

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t supposed to be using your arm for a week?’

  He raised his right one. ‘Look, Mummy,’ he chortled, ‘got two of them. Remember?’

  Courage. That’s all it takes.

  And, oh dear. I’m so utterly fixated on what it is I could say to him, what it is I should say to him, what it is I would say to him if I could only find the right sort of moment to do so that I can’t seem to manage any ordinary conversation. I can’t think of a single thing to say to him right now. Thus we soon dispense with all the work-related matters (he, I have noticed, has forgotten his laptop. I, he has noticed, have forgotten the map), and by the time we reach Swindon we have lapsed into the sort of bland, sporadic, rather halting conversation that self-conscious strangers on an aeroplane might have.

  ‘Nice day for it, anyway,’ he suggests.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Anyway,’ he goes on, ‘how was your class?’

  ‘My art class?’

  ‘Yes, of course your art class. Or have you signed up for nuclear physics as well? It was your last one on Tuesday night, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh. Oh, that. Yes.’ It seems like forever ago.

  ‘And did you give him what-for?’ ‘Who?’

  ‘That tutor of yours. About splashing you all over the broadsheets last week.’

  ‘Oh. You saw it, then?’

  He laughs. ‘Took a peek.’

  ‘No, as it happens. I didn’t. What’s the point? As you said yourself, it’s done now, isn’t it? No use fretting about it. Though I draw the line at having a bit part in his cheesy documentary. No. I’ve decided to draw a line under all of it, in fact. I’ve decided I’m not going to go to college after all.’

  ‘No?’ He sounds unsurprised.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what will you do instead? A different sort of course?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. I’m going to look at some prospectuses. Something, at any rate, but not full time. I don’t think I’m really cut out for it, to be honest. Don’t have the right complement of body piercings.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he says, nodding. ‘Well, I can’t say I don’t think that’s a sensible idea. You never really struck me as bohemian enough. And, besides, seems to me there’s a world of difference between appreciating art - which you obviously do - and elevating it into some sort of quasi-religion. You like a painting. You don’t like a painting. You don’t need three years of flakes and pompous bores spouting at you to tell you that. Do you?’

  He is speaking my very thoughts. It’s unsettling. ‘No.’

  ‘And if you want to paint yourself - well, get on and paint. Nothing to stop you - oh, I don’t know - joining a class to improve your technique.’

  And I don’t want to talk about painting this morning. ‘No.’

  ‘Or doing one of those painting holidays. I think Liz has been on one, now I come to think of it. Tuscany, I think it was.’

  Or holidays. ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What sort of paintings do you do, anyway? You’ve never said.’

  I want to talk about us. ‘Watercolours,’ I reply. ‘Old buildings, mainly.’

  ‘There we are, then. Have a commission. You can come and paint my house.’

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some gum. He chews for a minute or so, gazing out of the side window. ‘I know,’ he says at last. ‘Shall we play I-Spy?’

  ‘What?’ What?

  ‘I-Spy,’ he repeats. ‘You know, I spy with my little eye, something beginning with …’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’ll be fun, Lu. Something to do. You know. Pass the time?’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, mystified. ‘All right. If you want to. Shall I start?’

  ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘My idea, so I start. OK? Right. I spy with my little eye, something beginning let me see LI … no, LWIIAVSMTMA … er, and … IWSTMWA. There.’

  ‘What? All that?’

  ‘All that.’

  ‘But that’s far too many words.’

  ‘There’s no rule about how many words you can have.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’

  ‘No, there isn’t. Go on. Humour me. Have a stab at it.’

  I scan the scene ahead of me. It’s obviously a trick one. Lay-bys. No. Lights. Lights. ‘OK, Lights With …’

  ‘Nope.’

  There’s a lorry ahead of us with a very long name on the side. I crane to read it. Norbert Dentressangle, or something. So no. I rack my brains. ‘Lamp-post—’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Long Wheelbase—’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I give up.’

  ‘Ah!’ he says. ‘So do you want a clue?’

  ‘Go on, then. Give me a clue.’

  He turns in his seat. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘The L stands for Lu. That help at all?’

  ‘Ah. Yes.’ I’m warming to this now. ‘Maybe. What were the letters again?’

  ‘LWIIAVSM—’

  ‘OK, stop there. How about Lu With Insects … er … In … A Violin … um … Sitting Munching … What was the rest of it?’

  ‘Wrong,’ he says. ‘Try again.’

  ‘Bah! OK. How about Lu Wondering If It … Oh, I don’t know.’

  I glance across. He’s looking at me strangely. ‘Give up, then?’

  ‘Give up.’

  ‘OK, then. The “Lu” you know already. Then it’s Who—’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who Is.’ I can feel him looking at me still. ‘Who Is In A Very Strange Mood This Morning And I Wish She’d Tell Me What About. You see? Simple.’

  Just like that.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Oh. No, I’m not.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ he said. ‘So. Are you going to tell me?’

  ‘But I’m not, Joe.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘I’m not. I mean, if I was, then—’

  ‘Right! That’s enough!’ he says suddenly. ‘“Reading Services one mile”, it says on that sign. Take me there, woman, and take me there now. I want to see the whites of your eyes.’

  There’s an outsid
e seating area at the front of the services. Half a dozen grey-looking tables with bench seats, and a small children’s play area, ringed by a hedge. I head for the nearest and straddle the seat, then pull my arms from the sleeves of my jacket and wait. I feel like I’m in a dentist’s waiting room. Except there’s no goldfish to look at. No moth-eaten copies of Top Gear to flick through. Just a gaggle of policemen and a flimsy-looking stand that says, ‘Berkshire Constabulary. Be smart. Be safe. Get your windows etched NOW.’

  Joe negotiates these and comes back with a tray. He places it carefully on the table in front of me, then sits down opposite and grins. I notice he’s wearing a little woven friendship band on his left wrist. ‘So,’ he says, prising the lids from the milk pots, ‘here we are, then. Sugar?’

  ‘No sugar.’

  ‘No sugar. Right, then.’ He smiles at me encouragingly. ‘Shoot. I’m all ears.’

  I take a pot of milk and begin to do likewise. Only I can’t seem to get a grip on the little flap on the foil cover. I bend it and tweak it, but it won’t come. And then the whole tab snaps off.

  ‘Here,’ he says, holding out his hand to take it. ‘Let me do that for you. What a wonderful thing it is to have both hands back in action. Can’t tell you. So many little things you take for granted.’ He pushes a nail into the pot and milk fountains all over his hand. ‘Bugger! Like the fact,’ he says, ruefully, brushing at his shirt sleeve, ‘that these bloody things always do that. Anyway,’ he says again, ‘here we are, like I said.’ He starts stirring his coffee and raises one eyebrow. Oh, God. He’s so bouncy. I wish he’d seem like he had some sort of idea.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m not in a funny mood, Joe, I’m just - oh, dear, this is so embarrassing.’

  ‘I can tell. You’ve gone scarlet,’ he observes. He looks at me carefully. ‘Embarrassing why?’

  ‘Embarrassing because … well, because I don’t know what to say to you, that’s all.’

  ‘Say about what, Lu?’

  ‘Say about - say about me. About you. About Birmingham—’

  ‘Ah.’