*Roy confirms the next lines in the Three Degrees song Jack quoted: ‘Are we in love, or just friends?/Is this my beginning/Or is it the end?’ Good question. ‘What’s the right answer, Roy? All suggestions gratefully received.’
22
NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE
Monday, 2.30 pm: Through the candle flame, across the snowy linen of the tablecloth, glass of deep red Burgundy in hand, Jack Abelhammer trains his gaze upon me. Waiters glide soundlessly past. The double string of pearls around my neck, his latest gift, loops downwards, into the shadow between my breasts. He reaches out towards me. Fingers graze.
That, at any rate, was how I had pictured the scene. Which only proves that picturing, which is what women spend half their lives doing (well, I do), is a total waste of headspace. For here we are – face to face, it is true – in Gino’s, an all-day café located in the groin of Aldgate East. Gino’s is a lot like Michael’s, (Candy’s and my old haunt), although the teaspoons are plastic not metal. Wedged into the adjacent table are three builders, churning through their mountainous breakfasts at half past two in the afternoon. (‘Why d’you have bubble instead of chips?’ ‘Got cabbage in it. Roughage. Keeps you regular.’ ‘Fuck off. If you’re so regular, mate, why’d you turn up at half past eight this fucking morning, rather than quarter to like the big man says?’) I have a cold coming. You cannot see the shadow between my breasts, but you can see the sore patch underneath my nose from all the blowing and sneezing, so that’s the Ingrid Bergman impersonation buggered.
‘I’m sorry about lunch today, Jack. And dinner the night before last. And that thing later in the week, that we talked about, I don’t think I’ll be able to do that either. Not with Mum the way she is. I need to go back up when they let her out to settle her at home. And things are a bit of a mess with my sister too.’
‘Oh, what kind of mess?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Actually, I want to know everything about you if that’s OK?’
‘It’s just horribly complicated.’
‘Try me. I did a minor at college in Applied Chaos and Complexity Theory.’
‘Perfect. Sounds like my life.’ The truth is I’m reluctant to share the sordid hinterland of the Reddy clan with Jack. I don’t know if my glamorous, funny beau can bear too much reality. Our relationship has never been stress-tested in the real world of tricky teenagers, ailing parents and gambling-addict nephews, and it never will be.
Jack must have read my mind because he says, ‘C’mon, Kate, you really think you can shock me?’
‘No. It’s just, well, when I was at the hospital, I saw that money had been taken out of my mum’s building society book.’
‘Her checking account?’
‘Sort of. Savings. I mean, quite small sums to … well, cab money to you, Jack, but large for my mother. And it turns out my sister had got Mum to give her the money because Julie’s son, that’s my nephew, Steven, he’d been online gambling. Got totally out of control, then the stupid kid thought he’d found a way to pay it back.’
‘Let me guess. Shark name of Duane prepared to lend at a very reasonable one thousand two hundred and ninety one per cent APR?’
Despite everything, he makes me laugh. ‘Oh, I see you’re already acquainted with Mr Duane, the Robin Hood of Redcar.’
‘Sure am. Good Credit Record not needed. Cash will be in your hand in ten minutes, you gullible, terrified poor person.’
‘How do you know so much? You’ve never been gullible or poor.’
‘Let’s just say I gained some valuable insight after my mom got into an abusive relationship with a casino.’
‘She was a gambler?’
‘A happy drunk. She thought the roulette wheel was her new best friend. Got in too deep, was scared my dad would find out, tried to hide her losses. We had some pretty interesting gentleman callers at the house when I was in eighth grade.’
‘That’s terrible. What did you do?’
‘I came up with a smart strategy to amortise the loans.’
‘But, you were only a kid.’
‘Technically, yes, but you can become an adult pretty quickly if you have to. Now, Katharine, can you please explain the relationship between squeak and bubble?’
‘Jack, I’m sorry, we really don’t have long.’
‘Don’t worry, Kate. We have plenty of time.’
‘Until you fly back to New York next week.’
‘Yes, and there’s this amazing thing you can do nowadays. Friend of mine was telling me about it. Apparently, you can fly back in the other direction, too. Turns out I don’t have to stay in the United States for the rest of my life. I can come back again. To see you.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then we come back here. To Gino’s. I’m going to come here, again and again, until somebody tells me what bubble is. Whatever it takes.’
‘What about your job?’
‘I run the company, Kate. Nobody owns me. I own me. And my job is a good excuse for coming here to see you. Until, you know.’
‘Until what? Till you’ve had enough?’
‘Till you own me,’ Jack says.
‘Hostile takeover bid.’
‘Exactly. Aggressive merger. Remember I have shares in you.’
I look down at my cup. I ordered a latte, but what arrived is more like a rock pool on a polluted shoreline. Stir it once with the plastic spoon, twice, ten times, stirring my thoughts. I have to tell him.
‘I can’t be with you, Jack. Please don’t be angry. I’m really sorry. I’ve tried before. But I tried and failed. Remember. Years ago, when we met, and I thought, like a Disney princess, that all my dreams had come true. My Prince had come.’
‘My lady—’
‘Please. Listen to me. And you were my prince. I checked. You still are. In an ideal world, we would run a terrific kingdom, the best, and I would love to live there with you, I really would. But …’
‘I knew there’d be a but. There’s always a but.’
‘But the world is not ideal. Never was, never will be. Ideals are for people who are free, for people who can act for themselves. I can’t, I have to think of other people. I have so many people who depend on me. The thing with ideals is they don’t inspire. They screw you up, make you sad, always dangling there out of reach.’
‘I should warn you, Katharine, that you’re talking to an American. We have ideals like you British have rain. It’s what makes us raise our eyes to the skies every day.’
‘You said it. We have rain. And I’m almost fifty, Jack, and I feel so fucking rained on. I worry all the time about my children, my daughter especially; I worry about my mum, my sister, my husband’s parents, my best friend who’s basically a functioning alcoholic, my dog, my work, my health – which frankly is a bit of a landslide. And I know it sounds pathetic, but it’s all too much. I can’t break free, I just can’t. You’re wonderful, but you’re, you’re … being with you is like watching the skies. Heavenly, but it doesn’t get me anywhere. I’m still here.’
Jack’s turn to stir. ‘Well, I hate to raise it,’ he says. ‘But how about the L word?’
‘The what word?’
‘L. Don’t you have that over here?’
‘We do. It stands for Labrador. The one guarantee of emotional support that everyone in this country can rely on. The Beatles said it best. All you need is Labrador. Da-da-da-da-dah.’
‘Well, there you go. People will think we’re in Labrador. And they’d be right. We are. And when people are in Labrador, it’s generally agreed that just being there gives them the strength to do something about it. Make it work.’
‘But don’t you see, strength is the one thing I don’t—’
‘Please,’ he says, smiling. That smile. Never fails. ‘Your turn to listen now, OK? I completely understand about the rain. You can’t switch it off; it’s not coming out of a tap. Those things, all those worries, are real. But so is us. Look at us. We’re as real as, I
don’t know …’
‘As the human hair currently floating in your cappuccino.’
‘Exactly. The special of the day. You are such a romantic, Kate darling, you know that?’
First time he’s called me that. Sounds great. I can bear a lot of darling from Jack.
‘So am I, probably more of a romantic than you. What I say is, Christ, why not try walking through the rain? It’s not the getting wet that’s killing you, Kate, it’s the standing there and getting wet and never making a move. Once we start to move, nothing else will feel as bad and impossible as it does right now. Move.’
I reach across the white tablecloth, past the candles and the cut-glass crystal, and the red bottle of Sarson’s vinegar, and take his hand.
‘Oh, Jack, why are you so bloody hopeful all the time?’
‘American, Ma’am. Guilty as charged.’
‘I just, if I’m honest I just can’t see a way that things are ever going to change.’
He leans across the table and kisses me. ‘OK, so I’m having some time in France before flying back to the States and you have all my contact details. And you can email or text me or call me any time and Jackson 5 third album. Kate? Go!’
Give me a second. ‘I’ll be there?’
‘You got it. Now, what can I get you for your birthday?’
‘Nothing, honestly, there’s nothing to celebrate.’
We stand up and we kiss again. He must have my cold by now, but such is love. Jack puts a twenty-pound note under his coffee cup, to commemorate the occasion.
‘Oh, God, now we’ll have to come back,’ I say. ‘Gino will be waiting for us, like Tristan.’
‘Any time,’ says Jack. One more kiss, and I think, this could be the last kiss, the very last. As we leave, the voice of a builder, like a carolling angel, rings in our ears.
‘Give her one for me, mate.’
We’ll always have Gino’s.
Outside, it’s raining and I watch him walk away from me.
Again. You sent him away again.
3.39 pm: Feel totally numb on the way back to the office, but there is good news. Alice greets me with a hug. Gareth has brought half-bottles of white wine and plastic glasses from the canteen. Troy is nowhere to be seen, and I soon discover why. The Board has approved Vladimir Velikovsky as a suitable client.
‘They had certain caveats about “potential future outflow”, etc,’ Jay-B says as Gareth is pouring for all four of us. ‘It would be bloody awful for the bottom line if he walked out the door in twelve months as Russians tend to when they’re not getting thirty per cent returns.’
‘Well, that’s my job, isn’t it? Making sure the client is happy. I’m confident we can do that. Can’t we, Alice?’
‘Anyway, good job, Kate. Cheers!’
‘Cheers, everyone! We must start looking for a boarding school in need of a new science block that will be happy to have Sergei Velikovsky as a pupil.’
‘You’re kidding,’ says Jay-B.
‘She’s not. Kate is EM Royal’s expert on bespoke tutoring services,’ says Gareth, actually winking at me.
‘All part of the service. Alice, will you take a look at the league tables? Spot any struggling old schools that could do with some Russian dosh.’
‘Will do.’ She’s been a bit subdued since getting back after Christmas. Max spent the festive season in Barbados with Mummy and Daddy. After five days, when she hadn’t heard anything, Alice cracked and texted him, ‘Do you miss me?’ and Max replied, ‘Course.’
She showed me his text. No kiss, no ‘of’ before the course, not even a full stop for heaven’s sake. The guy’s a jerk. An ungrammatical jerk.
‘It’s not great, is it, Kate?’ she said.
‘Well, I must admit I’ve seen more enthusiastic declarations of devotion. Look, Alice, you deserve better than this, sweetheart. You know what they say, “Don’t put all your eggs in one bastard.”’
She grins despite herself. ‘Who says that?’
‘Well, I do. And so should every sane woman in her late twenties. You know my views on that subject.’
She nods. ‘I know. I’ve tried to move on, honestly I have. But I love him. Can’t help it. While we’re on the subject of love, I like your Jack.’
‘Jack, he’s not mine,’ I say, choosing my words with care. I know now that he’s mine; I just can’t be his, that’s all.
‘Course he’s yours,’ says Alice decisively. ‘Never seen anyone who was more anyone’s in my entire life.’
The team – I realise I’m starting to think of Gareth and Alice as my team – return to their desks and I just sit there to savour what is truly a bittersweet moment: the Velikovsky triumph balanced against the aching defeat of saying goodbye to Jack. Can’t imagine life without him, like a world without music or sunlight. At least the VV deal means EMR will probably extend my contract when Arabella gets back from maternity leave. If so, I can start to plan for the future. Not stress quite so much. Maybe Calamity Girl can take it easier, get out of the air-traffic control tower once in a while, see the house finished, steady the ship. It’s all perfectly manageable. Pick up my phone and there’s an email from someone at Emily’s school. Oh, no. Please, no.
From: Jane Ebert
To: Kate Reddy
Subject: Emily
Dear Mrs Reddy,
I’ve tried to contact you several times by phone without success. I’m afraid we may have the wrong number for you? I head up the Child Protection staff here at the school. It was brought to our attention recently that a pornographic image of your daughter, Emily, was shared both within her year group and then more widely. A male and a female student have been suspended as a result.
We treat cases of this kind with the utmost seriousness. I would like to invite you to come into the school to discuss Emily’s situation and work through any issues arising from it.
Jane Ebert
Acting Head of Sixth Form
I snatch up my bag and coat and head for the lift, issuing instructions over my shoulder. ‘Alice, sorry, got to run. Something cropped up at home. Can you cover with Jay-B for me?’
‘Sure. Kate?’
I turn to see her eager young face. ‘Yes?’
‘Honestly, it’s been such a brilliant day. Well done, you.’
23
FOR WHOM THE BELFIE TOLLS
Monday, 7.03 pm: Just back from school. Mrs Ebert filled me in on what had been happening about Emily and the belfie. I thought it was safely in the past after Josh Reynolds zapped any future social media circulation of Em’s bum, but it turns out the image had been saved on certain kids’ phones. Lizzy Knowles and her boyfriend, one Joe Clay, basically made sure the entire sixth form had seen it, and Joe, egged on by Lizzy Macbeth, had since been torturing Emily with threats to send it to family members via Facebook. All of this only came to light, Mrs Ebert explained, because, a few days ago, a member of staff confiscated Joe’s phone when he caught the boy looking at porn during a lesson. As the mobile was unlocked, the teacher was not only able to look at Joe’s photos, some of which were pretty hardcore, but also spotted #FlagBum with Emily’s name next to it and many lewd comments underneath. The school suspended Joe and Lizzy immediately although, when Emily was called in, she begged them not to.
‘Emily said she didn’t want any more trouble,’ Mrs Ebert sighed. ‘It’s incredibly difficult to know how to respond. We know there’s a huge amount of sharing sexual images among teenagers, Mrs Reddy, and we do want to clamp down on it. But we’re in uncharted territory, and I’m afraid to say many parents are still in denial. Lizzy Knowles’s mother actually argued that we had breached her daughter’s human right to privacy by asking to look at her phone, and threatened to take legal action against the school.’
Cynthia? I bet she did. Never rattle the gilded cage of the Tiger Mother. I looked at Mrs Ebert as she rubbed her forehead vigorously with her knuckle. Probably the same age as me, but more lined and careworn. Imagine trying to deal
with parents like Cynthia Knowles, who always take their ghastly child’s side, not the poor teacher’s. That’s another huge change since I was a kid. Whatever happened to backing up authority? Parents can’t be bothered to discipline their offspring any more – either too busy or too timid – and then they get irate when someone else has to do the job for them. It must make Mrs Ebert’s life hell.
‘What I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘is why this is surfacing now when the belfie incident happened at the start of last term. Emily made an innocent mistake sending a picture of her summer tan lines to Lizzy. She wasn’t sharing sexual imagery, Mrs Ebert, I assure you. I had no idea that this would …’
‘Come back to bite her?’
‘On the bum, unfortunately.’
We both laughed, that poor harassed woman and I – the acrid, despairing laughter of two adults dealing with something no one in human history has ever had to face before. ‘Look, Mrs Reddy.’
‘Kate, please call me Kate.’
‘Look, Kate, I’m not going to lie to you. We didn’t get on to Emily’s belfie fast enough because we simply don’t have the resources. I’m a teacher not a porn-squad detective. If I spent all the hours online that this problem deserves, well, I’d never be in the classroom. We do, however, have the option of involving the police.’
I told Mrs Ebert that, if Emily didn’t want Lizzy and Joe Clay expelled, then Emily’s father and I would support her. We didn’t wish to make an official complaint. Tempting though the prospect was of screwing up any future Oxbridge application by Lizzy.
‘What they did was absolutely revolting,’ I said, ‘but two kids can’t be held responsible for a global epidemic. Emily’s not underage, so I think involving the police is too extreme. These are young people with their whole lives ahead of them. Hopefully, this will have given them a nasty scare.’
I thought of Debra’s Felix, that lost, insecure boy kicked out of school for looking at Fat German Hookers online. I thought of Ben and what he might be getting up to on one of his many electronic devices. While the temptation was there, no child was safe. You were kidding yourself if you thought it couldn’t be your son or daughter next.
How Hard Can It Be? Page 37