by Jessie Jones
‘Jesus.’
‘I don’t think any of them were important to him,’ she added, attempting to stop the flow of tears. ‘He loved me, I knew he loved me.’
I remembered Simon telling me something similar: the fact that there were so many of them demonstrated how insignificant they were and that I was the one he loved. Well, that had been crap too. Simon had made a mug out of me. And Dad had made complete idiots out of Mum, Suzie and me.
But Dad had done me a huge favour, actually. I could now feel lots of really positive things like anger, resentment and hatred, which were an awful lot better than desolation and loss.
‘I’m glad I found all this out,’ I told her. ‘Because now I can get on with my life and not give him another moment’s thought.’
Ten minutes later Suzie had recovered enough to attempt to make tea. I stayed in the front room, the photo albums still arrayed around me. I picked one of them up and looked at it with a fresh eye. I settled on a picture of the three of us. Mum, Dad and me in Regent’s Park, the sun shining, say-cheese smiles lighting up our faces. It was one of my favourite snaps of the three of us and I knew every detail of it. But I swear it looked different this time. The picture had changed. Now I could see the deceit in Dad’s eyes, the despair in Mum’s and the blissful ignorance in mine.
It turned my stomach to look at it and I quickly turned the pages until I reached a picture of just Mum and me. I was tiny, maybe three months old, and Mum was holding me up to her face, pressing her cheek against mine, blanketing me in pure, unspoilt love.
As I looked at the two of us, I had a moment of clarity.
I decided then that I was going to become a mother.
It still felt like the best idea I’d ever had when I got back to my flat that evening. I was going to be the best mother in the world. I’d buy all the books on child rearing, although I wouldn’t need them because I knew I’d be a complete natural. My baby was going to be a girl – I just knew it – and she’d look just like me and therefore just like Mum. I’d pick up where my poor, cheated mum had been forced to leave off and my daughter would grow up to be perfect: beautiful, intelligent, completely well-adjusted and utterly self-reliant. She’d need no man to validate her. Oh, and she’d become a role model for women everywhere, an actual saint most likely.
Oh yes, I had it all figured out.
All I had to do now was get pregnant.
I picked up the phone and dialled Cristian’s number without a moment’s pause.
They say that moving is one of the biggest causes of a heart attack. I wasn’t finding it stressful at all, though. Not that I was moving exactly. Just shifting half my stuff into someone else’s. I was going full steam ahead with the plan I’d made at Suzie’s and I was taking an important (half) step forward. You know, that point in a relationship when you’re getting on so well that you make the life-changing decision to live most of the week at your boyfriend’s while keeping your own flat going for those rare days when you might need your own space. So it clearly wasn’t the case that I was anything less than one hundred per cent sure that Cristian and I would work out; just that I didn’t want to be left homeless should it, for some completely unforeseeable reason, not work out.
The move had been Cristian’s idea. Well, I could hardly invite myself to (half) move in, could I? ‘I think you should move in with me,’ he told me decisively, stroking my hair as he looked deep into my eyes.
I loved the idea. Who wouldn’t? He was gorgeous, generous and kind and he didn’t mind at all that my make-up and toiletries were already colonising his bathroom. Plus, he had a view of Primrose Hill, a cappuccino maker, a Jacuzzi thing and a cleaner who came twice a week. I only wished he would stop with the hair stroking. I was feeling like Fido.
‘I’d love to,’ I said, shaking my head like a Timotei girl, forcing him to move away and take his hand with him.
‘You’ve been through hell these last few weeks,’ he told me. ‘From now on, I’m going to take care of you. God, I love you so much, Dayna.’
‘Aahh,’ I said, giving him a big kiss, which meant I didn’t have to say I loved him back. Well, how many times in any one day can a girl tell a bloke she loves him?
‘Let’s do it straight away,’ he told me assertively.
‘Er, OK, let’s,’ I agreed just as assertively.
* * *
The next day he called to tell me a man with a van was coming to pick up my stuff. Now, my initial thought was, ‘Whoa, wait up just one minute! What’s the big hurry?’ After all, I’d agreed to move but since when did ‘straight away’ mean ‘next day’? But then I calmed down and thought about it rationally. I was spending more and more time at his, wasn’t I? And moving a few bits and pieces round there wasn’t exactly total commitment, was it? And, actually, what was so wrong with total commitment, anyway? Hadn’t my dad shown me how destructive the inability to commit was? (Half) moving was definitely the right thing to do. Cristian was mad about me and I was mad about him. In my own way.
I started the job of packing at once.
An hour later, the doorbell delayed my final decision about which suitcase to use. True, I hadn’t started to actually pack yet, but untrue that the suitcase dilemma was a stalling tactic. As proof of my intent, my clothes were strewn all over the sofa. It was just a matter of deciding which ones to take and which ones to leave.
I opened the door to Simon. It was the first time he’d visited since the flowers and teddy bear incident. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’ I asked him.
‘Day off. What’s all this mess?’ he said as he surveyed the room.
‘I’m just going through my stuff. You know, having a clear out. Got to be done … now that I’m …’ I trailed off, not entirely sure how to tell him I was moving.
‘Now that you’re … an … orphan?’ he asked nervously, doubtless terrified of being sucked into that sort of conversation.
I laughed. ‘No,’ I explained, ‘I mean now that I’m moving in with Cristian.’
‘Who?’
‘I’m sure I told you about him. He’s the guy I’ve been seeing.’
‘So it’s serious then, you and him?’
‘God, no,’ I said involuntarily, immediately following it with, ‘I mean yes, very. Well, serious enough to move a few things round to his. No big deal.’
I had to play it down, you see, as well as at the same time making it very clear that it was serious. That’s what girls do when they’re talking to their exes about their new loves. It’s a fine line, but definitely do-able. And preferable to telling him I was planning on getting pregnant ASAP and plotting my entire future with the guy.
‘Right,’ he said, just a little huffily. ‘And there was me thinking you must still be cut up about your old man. I only popped round because my mum said I should check up on you, but, hey, you look like you’re doing just fine.’
Oh, it was OK for him to carry on like he was on a permanent bender in the Last Shag Saloon, but he was trying to make me feel guilty just because I had one (singular) boyfriend. I lost it then. ‘You’ve got a bloody cheek, Mr Multiple Lover Man,’ I sneered.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Tell me, what’s the exact number of women you’ve got on the go right now? You have no idea, have you? You lost count years ago. And don’t you dare tell me how to grieve for my dad.’
‘I wasn’t. I just meant –’
‘I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. Unlike you. And unlike my bloody father.’
‘Hang on, what are you –’
He was about to discover the full force of Hurricane Dayna. ‘You and him, peas in a pod, the pair of you, twins separated at birth. He always had a soft spot for you and I’ve finally figured out why. Want me to tell you?’
I don’t think, actually, that he did, but he didn’t say so. He’d been struck mute.
‘You’re a bastard just like he was, that’s why,’ I yelled. ‘He couldn’t keep it in his pants either. He had no ide
a what loyalty and trust meant and neither do you.’
I eased up then, the onslaught over.
‘You can’t say things like that about the man,’ he said after a moment. ‘He’s dead. He can’t defend himself.’
‘There is no defence!’ I yelled. ‘He cheated on my mum when she was pregnant. And then, because that obviously wasn’t despicable enough, he did it again when she was dying. And then he felt so terrible about what he’d done, sooo racked with guilt, he did it all over again to Suzie!’
God, I even scared myself with that outburst. Simon looked devastated, like I’d never seen him before. He hadn’t looked that bad on the day I laid into him for cheating on me.
I honestly thought I’d finished, but more words came out, so clearly I hadn’t. ‘You’re just as bad as he was, Simon. You’re going to go through life leaving a trail of destruction, but you won’t give a toss, will you? Why should you when you’re getting your end away seven nights a week with seven different women? Addicted to sex, my arse. That’s just a pathetic excuse for being a lying, selfish shit.’
Did I regret the words as soon as they were out of my mouth? Yes. Did I do anything to mitigate them, like say, ‘Sorry, Simon, I’m not myself, it was the grief talking’? Did I hell. I just stood there and glared at him.
‘Jesus, I didn’t know you could be so horrible, Dayna,’ he said when he’d recovered enough to speak.
Neither did I, I thought.
‘Just fuck off,’ I said.
As soon as he’d gone, I wept all the tears I’d held back since my afternoon at Suzie’s. I knew exactly what I’d just done, of course. Dad had been the target of my anger, but with him permanently unavailable I’d had to make do with Simon.
I should have called him and apologised, but I didn’t. Instead I swiftly settled the suitcase dilemma and packed. An hour later I was gone.
Cristian had taken me to the opening of an exclusive club in Mayfair. Invitations to the opening had been virtually impossible to get hold of. Ordinary people like Premiership footballers and film stars and Jordan had had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get theirs. Cristian, of course, knew a man who knew a man and had needed only to pick up the phone.
We were sitting in a corner booth in the roped-off VIP area. The waitresses were treating me like a very important person indeed and not at all like Dayna Harris, the girl who didn’t have anything much to brag about. It was lovely to be out again. It had been a while. I was letting myself float away, the hypnotic throb of the music carrying me along effortlessly. Or was it the champagne cocktails that were doing the carrying? Alcohol had been off the agenda along with my social life and the drink was going directly to my head.
‘You seem happy,’ Cristian said.
Pissed more like, I thought. ‘Very happy,’ I said.
‘Me too. I can’t wait for us to have a baby, Dayna. I think about it all the time. Having a little you in my life would make everything complete.’ He was stroking my hair again. No wonder it was always greasy these days, I thought.
I did my Timotei-girl head flick. ‘I know,’ I said mid-flick, feeling his hand magically fall away. ‘It’s going to be great!’
I kind of regretted telling him about the baby idea. Not because I’d changed my mind. God, no. I was going to have a baby, and Cristian, being completely integral to the plan, absolutely had to know about it. I only regretted it because now that he knew, he wouldn’t stop going on about it, usually while stroking my hair, and I’d feel ever so slightly suffocated and a teeny-weeny bit trapped. I hated myself for this and I blamed my feelings entirely on the commitment-phobic gene I’d obviously inherited from Dad. It had to be fought.
And once I’d learned to love Cristian’s constant, sweet attentiveness, I was going to deal with the Tiffany ring problem. Not that it was a problem. It was absolutely beautiful. But it hadn’t been mentioned since Dad had died. Cristian was incredibly sensitive like that and I knew the subject wouldn’t come up until I was good and ready. But I would be good and ready. Soon. And then the ring would definitely go on my finger.
Slowly, slowly, though.
In the meantime I was just going to enjoy living with him. Moving to his place had so been the right decision. He wasn’t there much, of course. Most of the time he was out wheeling and dealing with his wheeler-dealer mates. It wasn’t that he needed the money; just that he loved making his ideas happen and making lots of money from them as a consequence. And I know I’d spent years taking the piss out of Max for being like that, but it was different with Cristian. The main difference being that I loved Cristian. In my own way. I didn’t love Max in any way at all.
With Cristian being out a lot I’d had to get used to my own company. The Primrose Hill view helped. And the Jacuzzi. And the £5,000 sound system. And I’d taught myself how to make seven different types of cappuccino. It would have been nice if Emily could have hung out with me more, but she was a working woman now. Sort of. One of Max’s colleagues had asked her to design the interior of his new flat, a huge empty shell in the Docklands. He’d given her a blank canvas and a blank cheque. It was a fantastic job. For a designer. I reckoned Max had paid his mate to give Emily the job simply to get her off her moany backside. No, I never said that. Emily got the job because of her vision and flair for design. She’d shown me some of her ideas. Apparently, MDF was the new granite, painted plasterboard was the new marble, and sod minimalism because chintz was back and this time it was taking no prisoners. When she was done, I reckoned that Max’s mate would be suing to get his empty shell back. No, I never said that either.
The club had been busy when we’d arrived, but now it was heaving. A few of Cristian’s friends had joined us and I was tuning out. Not that I was bored with their plans for ‘ethno-sensitive micro-globalisation’ (who could possibly be?). No, I was just enjoying floating on my little cushion of drunkenness and watching London’s beautiful people.
Not that the sight at the bar was particularly attractive. A fight was brewing. Two men were going at each other, and it quickly became four. A girl screamed, the noise cutting through the music, and the conversation at our table stopped.
‘What’s going on?’ Cristian asked.
‘A fight,’ I said.
‘A fight? Here? My God, maybe we should go.’
I felt his hand grip my arm, ready to lead me to boring old safety.
I shrugged it off and said, ‘No, I want to stay.’
I craned my neck to see. People seemed to be piling into each other and it wasn’t clear who or how many were involved. Then there was a shattering sound. I saw a brief flash of broken glass slice through the air and then the whole scene was blotted out by the men in black who were arriving in numbers and swarming over the scrappers. They were good – at a club like that the security wouldn’t have been anything else – and the whole thing was over as quickly as it had kicked off. Three of the fighters were led away, but one, the biggest and lairiest, remained at the bar. He was the one with the broken beer glass and he was waggling it menacingly at the two men in black who were standing just out of arm’s reach, waiting for the opportunity to disarm him. Suddenly they moved, the man was down and one of the bouncers had planted his knee on his back and was wrenching his arm into a lock. Whoo, that was good, I thought. Eat your heart out, Vin Diesel. The other bouncer was still on his feet. He had the glass in one hand. His other hand was clutching his face. Even from thirty feet away I could see blood oozing through the gaps between his fingers. And even from thirty feet I could see that it was Simon.
I shot to my feet.
‘Where are you going?’ Cristian asked, his hand grabbing my arm again.
‘To the loo,’ I said quickly.
‘But the fight. It’s too dangerous,’ he said, his grip on me tightening.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s all over,’ I said, twisting my arm free and hurrying across the club. After a moment I looked back anxiously, but I couldn’t see our table for the clubbers who
were moving back onto the dance floor, panic over. I couldn’t see Cristian following me either. I’d escaped. And for some silly reason it really did feel like an escape.
I looked ahead towards the bar where I saw Simon being led through a door at the side by one of the barmen. I quickly followed and found myself in a corridor and then what seemed to be a staffroom. Simon was sitting on an orange plastic chair, holding a paper napkin to his cheek while the barman rooted through a tiny first-aid box. They both looked up at me.
‘Sorry, staff only,’ the barman said. ‘If you’re looking for the loos, they’re –’
‘What the hell are you doing here, Dayna?’ Simon interrupted.
I didn’t answer. ‘My God, Simon, what did that idiot do to you?’
He lifted the napkin and showed me a vertical cut about an inch and a half long.
‘That’s bad,’ I said. ‘You need to get some stitches in it.’
‘Nah, it’s just a nick,’ he replied, giving me a grin. ‘I’ve been wanting a scar there for ages. The guy did me a favour.’
The barman appeared at Simon’s side with some cotton-wool balls and a tube of Savlon – not a trained nurse, then. ‘The bloke who glassed you, one of his mates plays for Chelsea,’ he said. ‘Only for the reserves, but this’ll be all over the Sun tomorrow. The owners will be made up.’ He stooped over Simon and tentatively aimed the open Savlon tube over the cut, wondering where to squeeze it.
Before he could do any more damage I said, ‘I’ll do that if you want to get back to work.’
‘You sure? Thanks. I hate the sight of blood.’
After he’d gone Simon said, ‘So, what are you doing here?’
He seemed oblivious to the blood that was still flowing from the cut. I wasn’t though. ‘That stupid serviette’s a waste of time,’ I said. I untied the Hermès scarf from around my waist, where it had been acting as a casual but expensive belt on my casual but even more expensive dress, both gifts from Cristian. ‘Here, use this,’ I said, folding the scarf into a wad and pressing it against the cut.