by Jem Lester
The door opens and a wiry six-foot-two-inch Irishman stands in his boxer shorts and a grubby t-shirt. He looks groggy and my knocking has obviously woken him up. I get into role.
‘What, not going to offer us a coffee?’ I say, pushing past him into bedsit land.
‘Come to the kitchen, then.’
I step over boxes of computer components lining the hallway, with Johnny behind, and into a kitchen that could do with a drop of Dettox, to say the least. Kieran puts the kettle on and I hand him the invoice. His eyes widen in shockwaves like pebbles hitting a pool.
‘Jesus, Mr Jewell, I don’t have this kind of money.’
‘Well, you should have thought of that before you hired twenty of my trestle tables for your computer fairs and fucked off without paying me the money or telling me where you left them. It took my colleague six weeks to recover them all,’ I say, thumbing over my shoulder at Johnny.
Kieran stares at him. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that, it was a bit of a mix-up.’
He hands me a coffee in a chipped mug, but Johnny declines.
‘I wish I could help you, Mr Jewell, but I’m potless at the minute.’
‘Well, Kieran, so am I and mainly because of people like you.’
‘I just don’t have anything right now. The fairs have gone to shite, do I look like I’m loaded?’
No, he doesn’t.
‘Off somewhere, Kieran?’ It’s Johnny.
‘T’visit family, yeah – how’d you know?’
‘American family, by any chance?’
‘Jesus, Mr Jewell, is your mate psychic?’
Johnny steps in front of me with a passport in his hand. It is stuffed with dollar bills.
‘Oh, come on, that’s me spending money,’ Kieran pleads.
‘What’s the pound–dollar exchange rate today, boss?’
I take out my phone and Google the question. ‘Well it seems that each and every dollar today buys you sixty-six pence.’
‘Well that means at the current rate of exchange, Kieran here needs to hand over …’
Kieran snatches the fold of dollar bills from Johnny.
‘Two thousand six hundred and twenty-five dollars.’
‘Ah, come on, I don’t have anything like that. Let me make you a gesture of good will.’
He licks his finger and hands Johnny $500.
Johnny moves closer to him; they are a similar height, but Johnny likes his food.
‘Look, five hundred more but that’s all I can manage.’ He hands another $500 over.
Johnny puts a hand on each of Kieran’s shoulders and growls: ‘That’s a grand, now you just keep peeling them off.’
Kieran complies with jittery fingers, until it’s all there. But guilt invades me. It’s his holiday money, look where he lives, he’s quite a nice bloke really, maybe we could give him half of it back, it’s partly my fault for not chasing him up. I throw a pained expression at Johnny.
‘No!’ he says, manoeuvring me to the front door. ‘Oh, and Kieran, have a nice holiday,’ Johnny calls as we step on to the street.
‘You are one scary fucking tax accountant,’ I whisper as we walk to the car.
‘It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, don’t let the suits fool you.’
‘Respect.’
‘Right,’ he says, rubbing his hands together, ‘who’s next, boss?’
We grin at each other once we’re back in the car. Proactivity it seems is not a fantasy dreamt up in an LA marketing brainstorm. I can feel my mood lifting. Not just because Jonah’s war chest is beginning to fill, but also because I am out with my best friend, for a whole day, and we are laughing and joking and behaving ridiculously. But that is what’s called for – crazy behaviour, for a crazy situation. I almost wish I had brought the Luger.
The rest of the afternoon isn’t perfect; we hit some walls of denial and the vicious thug act doesn’t go down too well with a couple of receptionists, but by the end, we have just over £11,000 in cash and cheques. It’s 6 p.m. and we’re both exhausted.
‘Right, let’s head home, I need to face the missus.’
‘Just one more stop.’
‘No, Ben, my acting days are over, I’m knackered.’
‘It’s on the way and you can stay in the car.’
I direct him to pull over behind an old VW Golf on a small 1950s terrace. ‘Won’t be a second.’
I press the bell at the familiar red door. I hear feet coming down the stairs. The door opens and a teenager kisses his teeth when he sees it’s me.
‘Dad, it’s for you,’ he shouts, and immediately runs back up the stairs. I wait on the doorstep; I’ve never been inside.
Valentine appears from the lounge in a grey sweatshirt and jogging pants. His frame fills the front doorway.
‘What you want?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m a dickhead,’ I say, handing him £1,000. Not a fortune, but a month’s money. He takes it and pockets it without comment.
‘What will you do?’ I ask.
‘Going back to Barbados.’
‘Good for you.’ And I mean it.
‘How’s that boy of yours?’ he asks with a smile.
‘Good.’ And I smile back.
He closes the door without further ceremony and all that enters my head is ‘God, I must have been a nightmare for him.’
Back in the car, Johnny is admiring his new haircut in the rearview mirror.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘I really mean it. I just couldn’t have done it by myself.’
Johnny reaches into his glove compartment and takes out a cheque book.
‘You don’t have to pay me for your mother-in-law’s tea urn, Johnny, let’s call it wages.’
But he grabs a pen from the car’s door pocket and begins to write anyway.
‘No, seriously.’
He finishes with a scratchy signature and hands it to me. All that’s filled in is my name and his signature.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Whatever you’re short. When it’s all over, with the lawyers and everything, just fill in the numbers.’
‘I can’t …’
‘It’s agreed. Both of us discussed it last night.’
‘Amanda, too?’
‘Both of us.’
‘I’ll pay you back.’
‘Pay us back by winning and smiling. I can’t stand looking at your miserable face any more.’
Something about today has lifted me. I have achieved something. It’s not perfect, but with the money raised and Johnny’s help I feel a part of the solution, rather than the problem. I can manage this situation until Emma pays me back. I feel I’m finally helping Jonah and I don’t need Dad’s money.
I arrive home elated, but it shrinks away as I see the front door – there is a blue balloon tied to the brass knocker with string. Oh, no, May 11. More balloons are bouncing around the hallway and gruff, poker-school voices are battling for supremacy. They are in the lounge.
‘Head like a sieve,’ Dad says.
A marble cake adorned with eleven garish candles sits proudly on the coffee table, one half of it mangled.
‘He couldn’t wait.’
He’s sitting on the sofa, crumb-spattered, twiddling a length of shiny gold ribbon with a green crepe crown atop his head. I go to kiss him but he turns away.
‘How did you know?’
‘He’s my grandson, why wouldn’t I know?’
‘Really?’
‘Also, Emma’s here.’
‘Here?’
‘No, Maurice’s. Of course here.’
‘You let her in?’
‘Why not? A mother shouldn’t see her son on his birthday? Besides, you have enough anger for both of us. She’s in the kitchen.’
She has her ba
ck to me, dropping tea bags into mugs. ‘So, you thought you’d just turn up?’
‘It’s Jonah’s birthday, Ben. Please, let’s not do this now.’
‘So when? When you decide to take my phone calls? When are you going to tell me the truth?’
She turns to face me. ‘Ben, please. Please just let me spend a little time with Jonah on his birthday. I miss him.’
‘No one’s stopping you from seeing him, Emma. You’re the one who—’
‘Leave her alone!’
‘Stay out of this, Dad.’
‘No. You will leave her alone, Ben.’
‘Georg, maybe I—’
‘No, no, you should see JJ.’
I stumble out into the hallway and lean against the wall, breathing hard. From the kitchen I hear soft tears and low talk, but the words are unclear. Minutes later, she’s passed me and is in the lounge, then she runs to the front door and is gone. I try to compose myself and wander back into the lounge.
Dad’s poker buddies, Harvey and Sammy, are trying to attract Jonah’s attention, holding badly wrapped bundles under his nose, but he’s glued to the television screen. I have nothing to give him.
‘Open them for him, Sammy, he won’t do it himself,’ Harvey says.
Sammy rips the paper off the parcel. Inside is a blue velvet bag the size of a folded newspaper, with gold-embroidered Hebrew characters. He unzips it and takes out a blue and white silk tallas – a prayer shawl – and a blue suede kipah with the Tottenham Hotspur crest on it.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ I ask.
‘A Jewish boy shouldn’t have a tallas?’ says Sammy. ‘What should I buy him, an apple?’
‘He doesn’t need any of this, he doesn’t know any of this. He’ll never be bar mitzvah or married, he’ll never go to a synagogue. Whose stupid idea was this anyway?’
‘Mine,’ says Dad.
I look to him. ‘Yours? The atheist.’
‘Yes, mine.’
We both turn to Jonah, whose face is engulfed in silk. On each end of the tallas are a multitude of threaded silk fringes. Jonah’s fingers are all over them.
‘For the twiddling, not because he is going to be a rabbi.’
I look to Sammy’s hurt face. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘So what have you bought him?’ Dad’s eyes are blazing.
‘I left it in the boot, just go and get it.’
I sit in the car with the air-conditioning up full blast, but my blood is still on the boil. Rage and shame are difficult to chill. She wasn’t as I imagined she’d be. She was less than I remembered, her confidence withered. No rejoinder, no argument, no stoicism and now I feel like a piece of shit.
The only place to buy a toy now is the 24-hour Tesco. I drive like a lunatic down the North Circular, believing somehow that my forty-five-minute absence will not be noticed. I swing on to the slip road with a screech and immediately my dashboard is awash with disco lights – red and blue, red and blue.
I pull over, concocting: it’s my son’s birthday, he’s autistic, my wife’s left me, I’m really a good person. A torch beam blinds me, then moves around the inside of the car like a descending UFO. The window is rapped, hard. I press the down button.
‘Can I help you, officer?’
‘Do you normally exit a dual carriageway on two wheels?’
‘No, officer, I’m a very careful driver.’
‘Could you please step out of the car, sir.’
Standing with my back against the bodywork, I run through the day’s drinking. Impending incarceration is attacking my knees and I stumble. The policeman looks at me ruefully and turns to his colleague, who heads to the rear of my car.
‘Have you been drinking tonight, sir?’
‘No, officer.’ Which is true, because I haven’t had a chance yet.
‘I’m going to have you breathe into a breathalyser.’ He removes a plastic-sealed tube from his pocket, just as his colleague opens the near-side rear door. The sound of a xylophone pierces the traffic noise.
‘Gavin, I think you ought to see this.’
PC Gavin guides me by the elbow round the back of the car and stands me facing the open door.
‘What’s this?’
‘Empty bottles, officer.’
‘Don’t be clever, sir. What are they doing falling out of your car?’
‘I was taking them to the bottle bank behind the store.’ Which is feasible.
‘Really? Never heard of plastic bags?’
‘Bad for the environment.’
‘So are drunk drivers. Breathe into this tube, sir, but don’t take a deep breath, just breathe until you think you’re going to faint.’
I feel like fainting already, but I comply. Standing up in the dock is something I’ve managed to avoid, but given my recent luck … He takes the tube from the black box and puts it back in plastic and then we both stare at the three coloured diodes. Never have I willed a traffic light to go green with such force. The three lights flash like a fruit machine: green, amber, red, green, amber, red. It hesitates on red and finally settles on amber. I don’t know what this means.
‘You’re lucky. You see that light? It means you’re currently a fraction under the limit. I want you to put the bottles in the boot, get back in your car and drive carefully home before it goes red.’
‘But I need to go shopping.’
‘Tomorrow, sir. We’ll see you off, goodnight.’
They follow me for the first five hundred yards and when they peel away, I pull into the first pub.
Jonah is in bed snoring with his tallas still gripped in his hand. I kiss him on the forehead and, when I gently remove the prayer shawl from him, Emma’s perfume catches in my throat like ammonia. It makes my eyes water. I escaped from one prison tonight, I think, but could it be any worse than the one I’m already in?
All the joy I thought I’d feel at the demise of the business hasn’t arrived. This wasn’t the way I dreamt it would be, the perfect scenario, the phone call out of the blue from a giant marketing agency telling me – while I sob with relief – that they’ve seen some old copy of mine and just had to employ me. The walk away with pride, the resurrection.
No, it can’t end like this. I’ll just have to keep it ticking over – with or without Valentine. There are staff agencies, I can get a driver, washer-uppers, I’ll phone them tomorrow, I decide, as I also pledge to park up in a side street tomorrow and drink myself stupid.
Cow
Lomax and Partners
Solicitors at Law
132 Furnival Street
London EC4 2JR
30 May 2011
Dear Mr Jewell
Re: Petition for dissolution of marriage on behalf of Mrs Emma Jewell
I am writing on behalf of my client Emma Jewell, to petition you for a divorce.
I understand from Emma that you have been officially separated for approaching four months and that you have, between you, decided that you be assigned temporary custody of Jonah as Mrs Jewell currently works full time and, between yourself, your father and social services, Jonah is currently well cared for. We reserve the right to review this when circumstances allow for joint custody. This, of course, makes everything a lot simpler as it negates the need to go to family court to resolve such a dispute.
I also understand from Emma that the former family home in Wynchgate is in her name alone, which again removes a great deal of negotiation and confrontation.
Emma has asked me to assure you that she wishes no enmity to arise from the proceeding and would implore you to sign the enclosed documents so that we can get the ball rolling. You will notice that she has specified the marriage breakdown due to ‘irreconcilable differences’ and hopes you will not contest this.
I am conscious that you are currently investigating the poss
ibility of an Educational Tribunal for your son, Jonah, and Mrs Jewell wishes to reiterate that she will contribute half the cost, when she has funds available.
Mrs Jewell will, of course, be covering this firm’s costs. But if you choose to contest, I would advise you to find a solicitor to represent you.
Yours sincerely
Phillipa Lomax LLB
Partner, Lomax and Partners
I screw up the letter and shoot it basketball-style into the black bin liner hanging from the cupboard door. What is there to contest? What is there to split? By rights, I suppose, she could pay me maintenance and child support now that the business has gone tits-up and I have no income, but I won’t ask for it. Don’t want to upset her, it’s not over yet.
Dad’s too weak from all the treatment to bath Jonah – or to bollock about opening my post – and so social services have been sending care workers round to help with Jonah in the evenings. On the whole they’re pretty good and I can’t complain, but at the same time, they represent the harbingers of doom to me. He isn’t going to get stronger, Dad, when I thought he would go on for ever.
I find Dad asleep in his armchair with his hands resting on a half-finished Guardian crossword. The blanket has slipped so I pull it back over him and make my way wearily up the stairs.
A young woman – it’s never the same one twice – has Jonah in the bath, but I see that the water level’s too low and the water’s too cold. She smiles at me as I enter. Jonah ignores me.
‘It’s okay, I’ll take it from here.’
‘Are you sure, I’m booked for another hour?’
‘No, it’s fine, you get yourself off.’
‘Well, if you’re sure?’
‘Go,’ I say, with a smile.
I wait for the sound of the front door closing then turn on the taps and squeeze in the bubbles.
‘Come on, dude, let’s do this properly.’
He places his left big toe under the tap and giggles as the falling water tickles him. I swoosh my hand around the bath to raise the bubbles and start the ritual again.
I lie back on the bathroom floor and rest my head in my hands, while he splashes and babbles.