by Tony Salter
The vicar had finished his pointless eulogy, and the pallbearers were standing on either side of the coffin. I heard the grunt and the collective gasp from the small congregation as the six men lifted the polished box with its precious contents onto their shoulders. Rupert and Daz stood at the front and, knees wobbling, they made their way past me and out of the door.
I shrank back against the pillar, but the mourners all had their heads bowed and no inclination to look around. As the last of them passed me, I saw the mystery man still copying me, pressing himself against the cold pillar and shamelessly allowing weak tears to flow down his cheeks.
That was it! He’d been much younger in the hundreds of black and white newspaper photos, but my secretive mirror double was Joe Taylor, the teacher who’d seduced Fabiola when she was a schoolgirl. Fabiola had mentioned her fall from grace soon after I’d moved into her flat and I’d read everything I could find on the scandal. She’d walked away and his life had been destroyed but, almost fifteen years later, it was clear that his heart was still broken. No surprise there. Fabiola had been as modest as she was gorgeous; she’d been blind to the trail of emotional wreckage which followed her.
Joe might understand the black emptiness churning inside me. It was such a struggle to stay strong when everything that mattered was gone. Lifeless, rotting flesh in a wooden box; a wooden box that was slowly sinking into a gaping grave, washed down by meaningless tears and empty words.
As if any of that made a difference to anything. Fabiola was gone for ever.
She’d died alone, slumped forward under an ancient oak in Odell Wood, alone in the inky blackness. I remembered that night. Waking with a start, wide-eyed, shivering and doubled over with cold stomach cramps. I hadn’t understood it at the time, but as soon as I learnt what had happened, I remembered that instant of pain and recognised it for what it was – the ripping asunder of the bond which had joined the two of us like an umbilical cord.
I would never again allow myself that weakness. The hard icy shell which was growing around my heart would protect me as I’d always intended it to. The world was out there for the taking; everyone and everything within it would be mine to use or discard as I chose. There would be bumps on the way, but that was fine. A few bumps and potholes wouldn’t slow me down – I would move too fast for that.
With one exception. A single exception, but I had plenty of time to make sure she became who I wanted her to be – who I needed her to be.
As for that bumbling fool Rupert, his stuck-up mother and the bawling brat, they would get what was coming to them. And Daz too … He was the proverbial bad penny. Whatever I did, he just wouldn’t go away.
If it hadn’t been for their weakness and stupidity …
As I left the church, I saw them standing under a yew tree in the far corner of the graveyard. I’d been to the open grave earlier that morning. It was a nice spot with a view past the church into open fields. Fabi would be all right there.
It was time for me to leave. I’d been tempted not to bother coming, but I was glad I had. Our time together had been a sweet, sweet anomaly, and I was glad to indulge in a few last moments of sentimentality, but no more. I stood in the shadow of a grey limestone buttress, my lips mouthing a silent litany as I renewed the promises I’d made to myself ten years earlier when I walked away from my father’s bleeding body. No weakness. Never depend on anyone or anything. Stay in control.
I looked one last time at the dark figures which circled her grave with bowed heads like so many hooded vultures. They would all be going next door to the vicarage. Cucumber sandwiches and Earl Grey most likely. I hoped that Rupert would be secretly tucking into the whisky and there would be a sloppy embarrassing scene, but I knew it probably wouldn’t happen. He was too much of a toff and would somehow hold it together. Maybe Daz would surprise everyone by losing it and smashing the place up?
Nah! It wasn’t a day for wishes to come true. If I wanted to get even with them, I’d need to do something about it myself. But not today. Those plans could wait and mature softly like an expensive wine.
I turned and started walking down the lane towards Oxford.
I was almost at the ring road when a car shot past, almost clipping my arm before pulling over with a screech of brakes. It was the old Ford Fiesta I’d seen lurking in the corner of the church car park, its pale-blue paint battle-scarred with scrapes and dents.
The door opened, and a man got out. It was Fabiola’s teacher-lover and, at close quarters, he was a mess. He looked as though he hadn’t eaten or slept for a week, his eyes were red and puffed and, even from a distance, I could smell the sweet stench of stale alcohol oozing from every pore.
He walked towards me with careful steps. ‘I saw you at the back of the church,’ he said. ‘Not welcome at the reception, eh?’
‘Not exactly,’ I replied. ‘You neither?’
‘No. I doubt any of them even know I exist. And I’m sure they don’t want to.’
‘I know who you are though,’ I said, waiting just a couple of seconds to get his full attention. ‘You’re Joe Taylor, aren’t you?’
His ravaged face was still able to show surprise, and it amused me to imagine how confused he must have been.
‘How the hell do you know who I am?’ he said, at last.
‘Fabiola told me about you. We were good friends for a few years.’
I was wearing black jeans, Doc Martins and a scruffy old Crombie coat; I imagined my face was a patchy mess of streaked and smudged mascara. So much for never crying again.
He looked me up and down and nodded his head. ‘So, she left you behind as well, did she?’ he said, pressing his lips together as his eyes lost focus and he stared out across the empty fields. ‘Fabiola had a habit of moving on … And up, of course.’
I could easily have explained that it wasn’t like that. That it was ridiculous to compare his sordid relationship – almost child abuse – with Fabiola and me. I could have explained that, but I found myself lost for words and lacking the energy to look for some.
And so we stood facing each other on the empty road, two unwelcome mourners from an unwelcome past, alone in our grief and confusion.
I don’t quite know what came over me, but the pointlessness of everything was suddenly overwhelming and I felt a deep exhaustion sink into my bones. At least Joe looked worse than I felt and I realised that he might be the only person alive who understood some of what I was feeling. How pathetic was that?
‘Fancy a drink?’ I said and reached out my hand. ‘I’m Julie.’
It didn’t take me long to piece together the shards of Joe’s dull and broken life. After the scandal and his divorce, he’d moved to Glasgow to escape the media and had stayed there, finding work wherever he could and with limited success. Patches of road were visible through the rusted footwells of his knackered Fiesta, but it seemed determined to stutter onwards – a bit like its owner. He wasn’t going back North until the following day, so we parked up at his hotel – the Premier Inn in Cowley – and started to walk towards town.
Cowley isn’t the Oxford which most people imagine – too shabby even for the poorest students, it’s a long way from the dreaming spires. A miserable drizzle added to the bleakness as we walked past dull pebble-dashed houses and sour-faced mothers dragging screaming brats behind them. If it weren’t for the dark faces, I could have been back on the estate where I grew up.
We got as far as The Original Swan, one of the most unpleasant pubs I’d ever seen. It was a complete shit hole but, despite the sports TVs and pink neon behind the bar, it suited the two of us just fine. Less than half an hour after Joe had stopped and picked me up, we were sitting at a corner table with pints of Stella and chasers beside them – whisky for him and vodka for me.
‘Cheers,’ I said. It was the first thing I’d said since we’d left the car.
‘To Fabiola,’ he replied, lifting his glass. ‘She totally fucked up my life, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the wo
rld.’
We didn’t talk much until after the third round of pints and shorts, by which time the church and all that went with it seemed far enough behind us.
‘So you said you and Fabiola were good friends?’ said Joe.
‘Uh huh.’ I kept my face buried in my beer.
‘You seem pretty cut-up if she was just a mate?’ It was obvious he had no intention of letting this go. ‘Were you “good friends” if you get my drift?’
‘You might say that,’ I said. Our relationship was private and personal, but that didn’t seem important just then.
He giggled like an idiot. ‘Now that I wasn’t expecting,’ he said. ‘How long were you together?’
‘Over four years. Until that posh twat Rupert showed up and stuck his oar in.’
‘Shit,’ he said, shaking his head from side to side like one of those stupid nodding bulldogs. ‘That would have stung a bit.’
We did talk more, but not about anything memorable. We were both too focused on getting rat-arsed and banishing the ghost of Fabiola. By the time they kicked us out, we’d definitely managed one of the two.
The Morning After
I’ve never had to worry about hangovers – something genetic – and woke up clear-headed at seven-thirty. Clear-headed, but struggling to piece together the events of the previous evening. I was lying naked in an oversized bed in a purple room with a comatose Joe stretched out beside me. So, we’d gone back to his room, but had anything happened? I wasn’t too fussed either way, but I’d like to have known.
Looking at Joe’s sagging body I had no sense he would be joining the world of the living any time soon and decided I might as well get up. In any case, I needed to do some thinking.
Many people give Premier Inns a hard time, but they have good beds, the showers are spacious, warm and powerful and they do great breakfasts. Plus, Joe was paying.
Fabi’s funeral marked a turning point for me in all sorts of ways. I would never forget her or what had happened to her and I certainly wasn’t going to forget about Daz, the child and the rest of the Blackwell family. But now she was gone, my life would be simpler and I would have the time and focus to work on building my business.
Whether or not I’d slept with Joe and whether or not he’d been good in bed, there was a definite serendipity to our meeting and I could see exactly how he would fit into my plans. After all, even if he turned out to be a poor lover, most things could be improved with a little training.
It was after eleven by the time he came down to the restaurant and by then I had every detail worked out. Step by step, a new strategy was falling into place and my mind was on fire. Whatever name I might have to use with other people, Jax was back.
Joe didn’t look so good … and had probably felt better. People should know their limits. We needed to have an important conversation, but not right then.
‘Morning,’ I said, smiling and pouring him a cup of coffee. ‘I’ve ordered you a fry-up.’ Even in his diminished state, I watched him melt as I turned on the charm. Men were so pathetic.
He made the effort to pull in his stomach, to sit straighter and to push the hangover demons back where they’d come from.
I guessed that he couldn’t remember what had happened the night before either, which made things easier.
‘I enjoyed last night,’ I said, half closing my eyes and tilting my head in mock shyness. ‘A lot, actually.’
That seemed to deal with any uncertainties he may have had and he puffed up visibly. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘And considering how pissed we both were …’
His breakfast arrived; three rashers of bacon; two fat sausages stretched to bursting; two fried eggs, hash browns, black pudding, toast and baked beans; all of it glistening greasily in the bright lights. He looked at the plate and I saw the determination in his eyes. All he needed to do was to fight off his queasiness long enough to finish the food and he would make it through to the other side. It wasn’t the first time Joe had woken up with a monster hangover.
I waited until he was almost done. Beads of sweat glistened on his pallid face, but he was over the summit and on the downhill stretch. ‘Do you have to go straight back to Glasgow,’ I said. ‘Like, have you got work tomorrow or something?’
He looked up at me. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I’m between jobs at the moment. But I might as well get back. I’ve done what I needed to do here.’
‘Why don’t you come to London for a few days? I’ll show you some of the places where me and Fabi used to hang out.’
Joe looked at me, trying to figure out what the catch was. He was mid-forties, a pasty-faced, flabby drunk, and knew I was light-years out of his league. He wasn’t totally stupid and I could almost hear the cogs whirring in his head. What was I up to?
But, if there is anything that anyone ever needs to know about men, it’s that, in a war of brain vs. dick, there can only ever be one winner. He wasn’t able find an explanation for my proposition which made sense, but he was never going to dig any deeper. I was a gift horse materialising from the ether and he wasn’t going to risk that opportunity by looking at my teeth.
‘I could do that, I guess,’ he said, eventually. ‘Might be fun.’
I’d got my act together in the years after Fabiola moved out. Jax Daniels was no more and with my new identity, Julie Martin, I was becoming an increasingly influential security consultant. My first book was selling well, and I was a regular on the conference circuit. I had no plans to stay a consultant for ever, but phase one was looking good.
Major hacking scandals were becoming daily events, the personal online security market was on fire and I’d picked up a lot of demanding, high-end clients. But I’d made a point of clearing my diary for the week after Fabi’s funeral and, despite a slew of messages and email alerts, I didn’t bother to check any of them.
My original idea had been to spend that time clearing my head and researching my new business, but that could wait for a while. First, I had plans for Joe. Whether or not we’d had drunken sex in Oxford quickly became a moot point and by the Tuesday evening, I had him primed and ready.
I’d bought a two-bedroom flat on Randolph Avenue in Little Venice. It had cost an obscene amount of money, but was worth it. At the back, there was a small private garden which led straight onto the landscaped communal gardens. My tiny terrace caught the evening sun and Joe and I were sitting enjoying a glass of Sancerre (from the second bottle), before the last rays dipped below the white stucco terraces on the other side of the square.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I said.
‘Sounds serious,’ said Joe, laughing, but not smiling. ‘Are we out of wine?’
‘Don’t be stupid. There’s plenty of wine.’
‘Good. Because I could always pop out to …’
‘Shut up, Joe,’ I said. ‘This is important.’
He almost certainly thought I was going to tell him we were done, and I watched as his face began to sag like a warm waxwork.
‘It’s not a bad thing,’ I carried on quickly, not needing to see more of his pathetic puppy dog expression. ‘At least I don’t think so. Just listen.’
‘OK,’ he said, properly engaged at last.
‘It’s about something Fabiola told me when we were together. Almost five years ago now. It came completely out of the blue – we were drunk, or stoned, or both – and then she turned to me, grabbed me by the wrist and blurted it out.’
‘Blurted what out?’ said Joe.
‘She told me she’d had a baby. A little girl.’
‘What?’ he squeaked, leaning forward, almost out of his chair.
‘She got herself pregnant and had a little girl, but she didn’t want anyone to know and she was too young. So she abandoned her at a hospital and walked away.’
Abandon is a desolate word at the best of times and I watched Joe’s eyes open wide and his jaw drop.
‘Oh, my God. How awful.’ said Joe, his hand moving up to cover his gaping
mouth. ‘When was this?’ I heard the cogs whirring again.
‘It was in 2004. I’m not sure when exactly.’
‘Oh my God,’ said Joe again, lost for any new words. ‘But that means … that means …’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have a daughter with Fabiola.’
Joe’s expression jumped through extreme emotions like a bad mime artist’s. Disbelief turned to euphoria which quickly turned to pride and joy. Pride and joy didn’t last long before his eyes dropped and his beaming smile faded.
‘But she’ll have been adopted as a baby,’ he said. ‘I’ll never be able to find her. She must be … what? … ten or eleven by now?’
‘She was eleven two weeks ago,’ I said. ‘She had a small party at home. Ten friends and a caterpillar cake. I think she had fun.’
Joe jumped to his feet. ‘What? … But … ‘
I was finding the process of toying with Joe amusing, but there was a real risk that he might be about to have a coronary. It was definitely time to calm him down.
‘Joe!’ I said, in the voice I reserved for clients who weren’t taking me seriously. ‘Sit down and listen. I’ll explain everything.’
‘OK,’ he said, holding himself still and sinking back into his chair, but unable to hide the hyperactive thoughts racing behind his eyes.
I held his hand and began to stroke his palm rhythmically and gently. He began to breathe again, but I waited another ten seconds before continuing. ‘First, you need to promise me a few things,’ I said, still using my consultant voice.
He nodded.
‘The first one is that you promise never to tell anyone – including Nicki – that she is Fabiola’s daughter.’