by Jane Bidder
Then Simon, with a tremor in his voice, asked if she’d heard from Hugh and she was able to assure him truthfully that she hadn’t. ‘But Poppy and Ben are seeing each other,’ she said lightly.
‘What?’ Simon’s face looked as though someone had pricked him with a needle.
So then she’d had to tell him that the ‘children’ as she couldn’t help referring them to, were quite possibly more than just good friends. ‘At first, it was just Ben teaching Poppy the guitar but now they seem really fond of each other.’
Simon’s forehead broke out into a mass of small beads of sweat. ‘Hugh will go mad.’
‘He knows. He’s all right about it.’
‘I thought you said you weren’t in touch with him.’
‘Only every now and then.’
‘And what about Charlie?’ His voice suddenly rose in an accusatory way which she had never heard before. ‘You say Ben goes to him every weekend. Do you see a lot of him now?’
Claire moved away from Simon, positioning herself at the far end of the sofa. Suddenly, she didn’t want to hold his hand any more. ‘We talk every now and then about Ben. What are you implying, Simon?’
‘Nothing.’ He bore a sulky look which reminded her of a child. Slowly, she edged back towards him, taking his hands. ‘Simon, I don’t care for Charlie any more but he is the father of my child. We have to talk every now and then. Besides, he has a girlfriend.’
Simon’s face lifted. ‘How long has he been seeing her for?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not even sure of her name, but does it matter? We’re here now together under one roof. It’s our new start.’
He nodded. ‘What about Alex and Rosemarie? Have you heard from them?’
‘Alex has been very kind; more so than her.’
He nodded. ‘She always was a ghastly snob.’
There was no denying that but just as she was going to agree, there was the sound of a key in the lock and a black and white shape rushed in, hurling itself at Claire.
‘Slasher!’ she said, looking round for his dog blanket to dry him. ‘You haven’t been in the reservoir again, have you? Ben? We’re in here.’
The information was almost needless, so small was the house, but she wanted to warn him by the we that Simon had indeed come back. A tall gangly shape appeared through the glass doors. ‘Hi.’ Ben stretched a hand awkwardly out to Simon. ‘Good to have you back.’
Something weird was happening – almost as weird as that feeling when she’d walked Simon down the front path. He was smiling. Correction. Both were smiling. Thank you! Thank you!
But then she heard another noise: a low guttural noise like a blockage in a sink-disposal unit. ‘Slasher,’ she said horrified as the dog bared his teeth at Simon. ‘What are you doing?’
He was jealous, Claire tried to explain. Slasher had been used to being with just her and Ben. Yet the more she tried to justify Slasher’s hostility, the worse it sounded. The dog, she pointed out, had had to move around too much.
‘I know how he feels,’ said Simon who had just come into the bedroom, a towel around his waist and nothing else. She’d already had her bath and was sitting up in bed wearing a nightdress. Before the accident, she’d never worn anything in bed.
This was a new Simon, she observed, a catch in her throat. A tense Simon who seemed to analyse every word of hers as though testing it for the first time. Who was edgy every time the phone rang or someone walked past. It felt more comfortable to wear something in front of this man whom she didn’t know any more.
‘Ben is genuinely pleased to see you,’ said Claire trying again, watching him lie on top of the duvet. Didn’t he want to get under the sheet and feel her? She’d been so scared of this moment when they finally went to bed. It had been so long! Would he be like some desperate teenager or would he be unable to do it? Maybe after all this time, he didn’t want to. Frankly, she wasn’t sure if she did.
‘He was very welcoming.’
Simon spoke as though he was only half there. Outside, she could hear the hum of the distant motorway and the sound of some kids laughing loudly as they walked past.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, sliding down now between the sheets, ‘I’ll go down to the Employment Exchange or whatever they call it nowadays.’
She felt a gasp escaping her as his legs encircled hers. Taking her gasp for one of pleasure instead of surprise, he turned towards her, tracing the outline of her breast with his hands. It was the same slow rhythmical movement that had first caught her when they’d met; so different from Charlie’s hurried urgency.
‘Simon,’ she began, but his mouth was already on hers; hard and meaningful yet soft at the same time. Her lower body turned to water without her permission and she gasped again as his fingers searched her body, preparing it the way he always used to even though it wasn’t necessary.
When he entered her, there was a slight resistance and for a minute, she thought he might stop but no, there it was almost like a click. ‘Oh God, ‘he breathed. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘So have I,’ she tried to speak, aware that her body was separating now as though there was a giant pendulum swinging back and forth below her waist. Someone called out; too late she realised it was her and then he made a low grunting noise. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I came too soon.’
‘No.’ She held him, rocking him back and forth like a giant baby. ‘I came just before you.’
‘Really?’ He framed her head with his hands.
She nodded.
‘What’s that knocking on the wall?’
‘The neighbours! They do that if I have the radio on too loud.’
They both laughed out loud like a pair of teenagers. ‘Do you think Ben heard?’
‘I hope not.’ She’d forgotten that possibility. ‘Still, he’s got to get used to it just like you and I have to get used to each other all over again.’
He nodded. ‘You’re right. But this is a good beginning, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’ She drew him closer again, squeezing her muscles and not wanting to release him. ‘Yes I do.’
He fell asleep almost immediately, leaving Claire to toss and turn in the shaft of moonlight that fell through the thin curtains. How ironic that she’d spent the last year getting used to sleeping alone. Now another body felt like an intrusion.
Maybe they shouldn’t have had sex after all. Supposing Ben had heard? It would have been, on reflection, better to have waited until he went down to Charlie’s that weekend.
Then Simon, as though sensing her inability to sleep, began to toss and turn. He was saying something; having an argument in his dreams. There was one sound which he appeared to be saying over and over again.
Claire strained to hear. ‘Joanna.’ That was it. Her blood froze. She was the one subject that neither had been able to mention that day. It was too big. Too huge to put right.
‘Joanna,’ she said out loud. ‘Please, Joanna. I’m sorry. Simon’s sorry. Just leave us alone now. Let me make this work.’
On the other side of the far wall, Ben was unable to sleep. Had Mum and Simon really just made out? It had sounded like it. It was disgusting to think of older people doing that sort of thing.
In the streetlight streaming through his curtain, Ben checked his phone. Cn’t wait for the wkend, Poppy had texted.
Ben reached over the side of the bed, quietly so as not to wake Slasher who was sleeping on his legs. He opened his rucksack and felt, past the folders from college, for the small square shape in the brown bag at the bottom. It was there. It had taken some nerve to buy it from the machine in the Gents but it was there all right.
I can’t wait either, he texted back. Lov u.
Chapter Forty-eight
Simon woke with a start at 6.30 a.m., bracing himself for the stern footsteps down the corridor of G hut and the click of the door as the officer unlocked it.
Instinctively, he knew something wasn’t right. Spencer wasn’t snoring for a start. Then
there was the light which, instead of streaming through the shoddily made curtains, was more muted. He stretched out, amazed to find that his feet weren’t hanging over the edge. And then he remembered.
He was back. Not home because 16A wasn’t home in the way Beech House had been, or indeed his own place in London. But Out. And he was with Claire except that, hang on, she wasn’t next to him.
A huge gulp of panic gripped his throat so that he couldn’t breathe. It was a re-run of yesterday when she’d been late and he’d thought she wasn’t coming. Where the fuck was she now? Simon sat bolt upright, looking around for signs that his wife had indeed been next to him all night and that he hadn’t been hallucinating. Her side of the bed was still slightly dented and there was a pale blue nightdress on the floor. Leaning over, Simon picked it up and pressed it to his face. It smelt of Chanel and that other post-sex whiff which he’d never been able to adequately describe. They’d made love. It was coming back to him now. It had been quick, he recalled with a twinge of embarrassment. Too quick. But amazing – at least for him. Clearly it hadn’t been any good for her or else she’d still be here, in his arms, the way they used to snuggle up in the morning.
‘You’re up!’ Her sing-song voice filled him with relief as she appeared round the door, holding a tray bearing two mugs of tea. So she was still here. He took in the tea. Before, he remembered, it used to be him who would bring in a mug for her before leaving early for the office.
‘You’re treating me like an invalid,’ he wanted to say. ‘Please don’t.’ But instead he took the mug, thanking her almost too politely in his awkwardness and hoping that she would get into bed next to him. Instead Claire hovered as though she too was thrown by this new scenario. She was also, he noticed now, fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.
He took a gulp and grimaced. ‘No sugar?’ It came out, without him meaning it to, like an accusation.
She frowned. ‘But you don’t take it.’
Simon made a wry face, recalling the prison tea which was only drinkable if you tipped two sachets in. ‘I do now. Let me get it.’
She looked away, he couldn’t help noticing, as he got out of bed, still naked. ‘Ben’s up. Here, take this.’ She tossed him the pink dressing gown which was hanging on the back of the door. It was hers, not his.
‘I’m not sure where yours is,’ she added apologetically. ‘There’s still a lot of stuff I haven’t got round to unpacking yet.’
He tried to make a joke of it. ‘Does the colour suit me?’
She laughed nervously.
‘There was a chap I used to know, Inside, who was a transsexual. Georgia, he was called. Nice man, actually.’
The nervous smile froze.
‘Don’t worry. Being inside didn’t turn me the other way.’
Claire flushed. ‘I didn’t think it had.’ She was coming towards him now, putting her arms round his waist. ‘Last night showed that.’
He pulled her towards him, feeling himself hardening again. ‘Not now,’ she whispered urgently. ‘I told you, Ben’s up. Besides, I need to get going. He and I are both due to be in college today. We’ll drop you off at the Job Centre if you like.’
Simon started to say that it was all right, he’d drive down himself but then he remembered. He couldn’t drive for a year and then he’d have to take a course to prove he was capable. He also had to see his probation officer in town today. And, although this was a small thing, he had to find the sugar jar. How ironic that this was his home yet he didn’t know where anything lived, least of all himself.
Then there was the letter from Lydia which he should have answered by now. Or should he just carry on, keeping it in his pocket, so that all the different options were still there?
Ben was quiet in the car. Simon tried to make small talk but gave up after a bit. College was OK. Yes this place was different but it was OK too. Yes he was going down to Dad’s at the weekend. Yes he was still in his band except that some of them had gone to uni now so they weren’t sure how long it was going to continue.
‘What’s that on your ankle, Simon?’ was Ben’s only question and he had saved that until the last minute, just before Claire had dropped him off in this sprawling concrete town of glass buildings winking in the sunlight, and wide roads calling themselves ‘boulevards’.
Simon glanced down at the plastic strip around his ankle. ‘It’s known as a Peckham Rolex,’ he said lightly.
He could see Claire next to him, frowning. Don’t tease him, she seemed to say.
‘Sorry, I’m being facetious. It’s a tag, Ben. A strip that records what time I leave the house and when I get back. ‘
Ben frowned. ‘Isn’t that a breach of your human rights?’
‘I’m impressed! Some people might say so but I probably deserve it. They – that is the authorities – just want to make sure that I’m not going to run off.’
Claire had pulled up now outside a modern red building and turned the engine off. ‘I still don’t see why it’s necessary,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s not as though you’re going to do it again, is it?’
Joanna laughed delightedly. ‘Great sense of humour, your wife.’
‘No,’ groaned Simon. ‘Not again.’
Claire squeezed his hand. ‘Sorry. What I meant was that I thought tagging was more for burglars or people who were likely to re-offend.’
Simon, still thrown by Joanna’s outburst, shrugged. ‘Thanks for the lift. I’ll get the bus back later.’
‘Sure? I could pick you up but I don’t know when I’m going to finish.’
‘It’s fine.’ Then Simon suddenly remembered something. ‘I haven’t got any cash. And my card’s expired.’ Feeling like a kid about to receive his pocket money, he waited while Claire rifled through her purse and produced a crisp twenty-pound note.
‘I’ll go to the bank too and sort out my account.’
She nodded. ‘See you later.’
Suddenly he felt that overwhelming panic overcoming him again. Supposing she drove off and never came back. He might turn up at the house and she wouldn’t be there and …
‘Simon. Are you all right?’
He forced himself to smile. ‘Sure. Could you just write down our address again? I’m a bit worried I might forget it.’
‘Really?’ Claire looked anxious.
Simon looked away. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to my memory.’
‘Stress,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s normal.’ Then she patted his arm. ‘But it will be all right. I promise.’
Despite his earlier resolutions, it was now clear to Simon that he wouldn’t survive in this new world without a mobile phone. Otherwise, how would he get hold of Claire?
Bewildered, he stood in this vast shopping centre as all these people walked past him; some urgently and some dawdling. You could spend all day here and never leave. It struck him that it was like one of the estates that Spencer had described.
The noise was getting to him now and a child was screaming because it didn’t want to get into its push chair. The mother – so young – was yelling at it.
‘Calm down,’ said Joanna kindly. ‘ Take a deep breath and go up to that information centre there to ask about a mobile phone shop.’
The girl at the desk had a flawless complexion which looked as though her foundation had been applied with the flat side of a knife. Georgie would have approved, thought Simon, slightly wistfully. ‘A phone shop?’ she asked as though he had asked for a sex shop. ‘We’ve got loads of them. Which one do you want?’
He tried to explain that any would do but the words stuttered out of his mouth. ‘There’s one just behind you,’ said the girl. ‘Look.’
’Really?’
‘They started up a year ago,’ said the girl as though he should have known that. ‘Really big they are.’
‘Lots of things will have happened while we were Inside,’ pointed out Joanna. ‘ It’s like being away on holiday and then coming back to find that someone famous has died. He
avens, look at that queue!’
It was crazy. Only 10 a.m. and already there was a long line of people waiting. Didn’t anyone go to work any more? By the time Simon got to the front, his head was ringing from the music and Joanna was moaning that all she wanted was a nice cup of coffee and that there was bound to be a Starbucks round here.
‘Be quiet,’ he said. The kid salesman stared at him. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean you.’
The youth gave him an odd look rather like the girl at the information centre. Simon glanced down at himself, half expecting to see a badge on his chest, saying ‘JUST OUT OF PRISON.’
‘I need a new phone.’
The boy’s face cleared as he whipped out a stack of brochures and led Simon to a shelf loaded with an impossible array of blue, white, silver, and black handsets. At the same time he kept an ongoing commentary running with the words tariff and contract and texts and Blackberry and iPhones and goodness knows what else.
‘Stop, please!’ He put up his hand to push back the tide of words. ‘I just want an ordinary phone!’
Somehow, he selected one which had some kind of contract which seemed to make sense but then the boy pushed a form towards him. So many questions. How long had he been at his current address? One day. What was his previous address? He could hardly put the prison so he put Beech House. When did he live there?
The boy picked it up immediately. ‘There seems to be a gap in the dates. We need to know where you were living between this address and your current one.’
Why?
The boy shrugged. ‘Dunno. We just do. New rules.’
‘I was abroad.’
‘Liar, liar!’ sang Joanna.
‘I might have been!’ he snapped back.
The boy stepped away. ‘Excuse me one minute.’ He was gone for ages. If he hadn’t decided that he would, after all, talk to Lydia, Simon would have left it at that but here he was, coming back again. ‘I’m sorry sir but your application has been turned down.’
‘I knew it,’ groaned Joanna. ‘Bit mean, if you ask me.’