by Lisa Jewell
‘And that pain you felt just now. That’s the pain I feel every time I think about that moment. Every time I think about Charlie. It’s like there’s this big hole in me and it lets in the cold and the rain and the wind. You know.
‘I thought I knew myself when I made the decision to ditch Kim – thought I knew what was important, what I wanted. But I knew jack shit. The baby didn’t seem real then. All I could see was a problem. I never thought what it actually meant to have a kid, you know – a fucking kid. It wasn’t real. I thought it was like she had the clap or something – her problem. Nothing to do with me. She had to deal with it. But I was only eighteen. You, though, Sean – I don’t want to be harsh, but Jesus Christ, you’re thirty years old. You’ve got fuckloads of money. Get a grip, man. Seriously. I don’t want you to feel how I feel, to walk round with this big empty void in you where your kid should be, your kid and your wife. To know that another man is bringing up your child. Because another man will bring up your child, mark my words. And you’d deserve it.
‘What is it you’re waiting for, exactly? Something better? Because if that’s what you’re waiting for you’re going to be sorely disappointed. This is it. Millie. Your kid. Here. Now. Fucking get it together. Fucking go to the fucking scan, fucking let her read your fucking book and then fucking marry her. And stop fucking about. OK?’
Sean and Gervase stood and stared breathlessly at each other for a moment or two. And then the door opened and Ned burst in looking concerned and confused. ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said.
‘Just here,’ said Gervase, sucking calmly on his Chesterfield, ‘having a little chat.’
‘Christ – I thought something had happened. You’ve been gone ages. Everything all right?’
Gervase looked across at Sean. ‘Everything all right, Sean?’ he said.
Sean glanced up at him. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘everything’s cool.’
‘Good,’ said Gervase, extinguishing his cigarette under a tap and turning to preen his hair in the mirror. ‘Good. Now, let’s go back and watch the rest of your mum’s set. Yeah?’
Tea and Empathy
Tony’s golden reprieve from grinding human misery lasted less than a week. From the second that Ness walked out the door and he heard the electric gates closing behind her, it all came home to roost. All the self-doubt, the apathy, the sense of complete and utter futility. Except this time he recognized it. It had crept up on him so slowly before that he’d never really acknowledged its descent until it was too late. But this time he’d been thrown from the front row of harmony to the dark stalls of shittiness so fast it had knocked all the wind out of him.
Mum hadn’t helped. She’d phoned him first thing on Tuesday morning to lambaste him about Ness.
‘First Carly,’she’d said, ‘now Ness. It’s like losing children, Tony. What were you thinking?’
‘I don’t know, Mum, all right? It just wasn’t working out.’
‘But that girl adores you.’
‘Yes, Mum, I know she does. But she adores you, too. And Dad. And cab drivers. And anyone you care to mention. Adoring people is her speciality.’
‘I have no idea how you managed to make that sound like a fault, Anthony. Most men would give their left eye for a girl like Ness. Someone that warm and loyal and attractive.’
‘I know, Mum, but I’m obviously not most men, am I? Look – I love Ness, very much, I really do. But she wasn’t the right girl for me. I’m thirty-five years old. I haven’t got time to fuck around. I let it drag on for far longer than I should have, as it is.’
‘Oh, Tony. I don’t understand. I really don’t. I thought you and Ness were going to… you know.’
Yes, Tony knew what she meant. She thought they were going to get married and provide her with adorable little ringleted grandchildren.
‘Yes, well, we’re not, OK? It’s not going to happen. I’m really sorry to let you down, but this is my future we’re talking about and it’s about time I took some sort of control over it.’
‘Well, I’m very disappointed, love. I really am. I don’t mean to sound selfish, but there you go…’
No surprise there, then, Tony had thought. He’d known all along how the maternal cookie would crumble if he and Ness ever split up.
There’d been more phone calls during the week, from Rob, from Trisha, from all his mates, one by one. And not one of them said, ‘How are you doing, are you OK?’ They all said the same thing: ‘Are you mad? What the fuck are you playing at? We thought you and Ness were going to be together for ever.’
The only person who’d phoned him out of concern had been Ned. Good old Ned – God, he loved that boy, he really did, more so now than ever. Not a word from Sean, of course, and there was no way he didn’t know. Tony knew how the familial grapevine worked – Mum would have been on the phone to Sean within seconds, probably asking him to come over and try and talk some sense into him. But Sean was obviously still sulking.
Tony had thought about phoning him, apologizing for the things he’d said the other night, but he just couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to do it. He’d be seeing him soon enough anyway, at Mum’s party.
So it had been a bummer of a week – long, empty and lonely. There was no sense of euphoria about having finally cut his ties with Ness, no sense of joy about the future. For some bizarre reason he was only able to feel positive about the future when his life was playing itself out like an episode of EastEnders. Maybe he was a drama addict, he mused. The last time he’d felt as euphoric as he’d been last week was when he found out that Jo had been having an affair and they split up. He wished he could find a nice cosy home for himself somewhere in the middle ground between despondency and euphoria – that would be nice, he thought.
On Thursday afternoon he found himself at a meeting in Bond Street and decided to drop in on his dad at Grays. He hadn’t been to see his dad at work for ages and felt quite excited at the prospect as he strode up South Molton Street, past trendy shoe shops and glamorous girls in enormous sunglasses eating salads in the sunshine. Dad wouldn’t judge or take sides. Dad would just get him a mug of tea and talk about the football.
He walked from the bright spring day outside into the shadowy dusk of Grays antique market and was immediately transported back to his childhood – the smell of old silver, aged paper, musty wood and powdery velvet, the glitter of crystal and gilt, the gleam of high-polished mahogany and rosewood, the glint of brass and antique copper. He strode through the narrow passageways between stands selling faded theatre bills, 100-year-old rocking horses and threadbare teddy bears, militaria, memorabilia, French horns and saxophones, deco glassware, nouveau silverware and crispy-skirted prom dresses.
He recognized a few old faces from his childhood, tweed-jacketed men, hand-knitted-jumpered women who’d been there since before he was born, all with the patinated pallor that comes from sitting indoors in poorly lit rabbit warrens for forty years.
None of them recognized him, though – he’d have been thin the last time they saw him, thin and sharp-suited with an air of purpose about him, not this lost, bumbling soul in too-small chinos and a straining shirt.
Dad was just sealing a roll-up when Tony turned the corner and saw him sitting inside his Aladdin’s cave of sparkling silver.
‘Hello, son,’ he said, leaping nimbly off his stool and giving him a big tobacco-scented hug. ‘What brings you here?’
‘Just come from a meeting. Had a spare hour. Just thought I’d…’And then he stopped when his eye was caught by a figure lurking in the corner.
Gervase.
‘All right, Tone,’ he said, ‘how’s it hanging?’
Tony mumbled some sort of response and Gervase sauntered off to get them all some tea.
‘What’s he doing here?’ hissed Tony immediately.
‘What – Gervase? He’s just been doing some deliveries for me. Stopped by for a spot of lunch.’
Tony muttered rancorously under his breath.
‘Y
ou should give Gervase a chance, you know. I know the outside of him’s a bit… off-putting. But he’s a good bloke inside – a really good bloke.’
‘Whatever,’ said Tony, ‘but I don’t like him. He gives me the creeps.’
‘Nah,’ Gerry shook his head, ‘he’s a good man. Did you know that Gervase, he’s…’ Gerry put his hands up to his forehead and waggled his fingers.
Tony stared at him, nonplussed. ‘He’s what?’
Gerry leant closer and whispered in Tony’s ear. ‘He’s psychic.’
‘Psychic?!’ spluttered Tony. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘No. Honest. He is. He can sense things. Feel things.’
‘What things?
‘Well, for example, a couple of months back I was thinking about selling the house…’
‘The house?! Dad! You can’t sell the house!’
‘Calm down. Don’t panic. It’s all right. I changed my mind. But I didn’t tell anyone at the time – not your mum, not a soul. It was a financial thing, really. Big house like that in London – worth a fortune now and me and your mum don’t need all that space any more, we’ll just end up filling it up with more and more crap. So I thought, sell the bugger, cash in, buy a nice flat somewhere. But ever since I first thought about it I started fretting, feeling edgy, not sleeping.
‘Then one day, I’m sitting here with Gervase, having a cup of tea, and he suddenly grabs my hands, like this, looks into my eyes and says: “You’ve got a big decision to make. It’s causing you pain. But you don’t have to make this decision, do you? No one’s putting any pressure on you except yourself.” He said, “Whatever it is, it can wait. The time’s obviously not right yet. Wait until it feels right.” And he was spot on, you know. I’d got myself tied up in all these knots over nothing. So I took his advice and dropped the idea. And I’ve been as happy as Larry ever since.’
Tony stared at his dad, trying to look cynical and disbelieving but starting to wonder about his own unique experience with Gervase. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘don’t you think that’s a bit… spooky?
‘Well, yeah. I mean, it freaked me out at the time, thought it was plain old weird. But, in retrospect, the man was just doing me a favour, you know. Like if he’d seen me struggling with a big chest of drawers or something – he was just giving me a hand.’
Gerry stopped and looked at Tony through a haze of tobacco smoke. ‘I asked him to have a word with your mum last night.’
‘Oh yeah? What about?’
‘Try and calm her down about this, er… Ness business. She’s taken it quite bad.’
‘Yeah,’ muttered Tony, ‘I know.’
‘Don’t know if he managed to talk any sense to her or not, but thought it was worth a try. He’s a canny bloke, that one. He’s got, what is it they call it? Emotional intelligence, you know. And she wouldn’t listen to me.’
Tony smirked to himself. He knew full well that Dad would have made only the most cursory of efforts to talk to Mum about it. Dad didn’t like getting involved in awkward situations.
‘So – how are you? You OK?’
Tony shrugged. ‘Yeah. I’m all right.’
‘Good,’ said Gerry, stubbing out his roll-up with nicotine-stained fingertips. ‘Good.’
Gervase came back then, clutching a tray with three mugs of tea and three big slabs of Victoria sandwich on it.
‘Oh, nice work,’ said Gerry, enthusiastically eyeing up the brick-sized slices of cake and rubbing his hands together.
Oh great, thought Tony, looking at the two naturally skinny men who could easily afford to eat extraneous hunks of cake between meals. He thought about Monday evening, about the euphoria he’d felt when Jan had told him he weighed under fifteen stone. He thought about the circle of proud faces and he thought about his lovely French Connection trousers and ‘Bryan’ wading through the surf in his flowery shorts.
And then he grabbed a plate of cake and ate the whole thing, barely tasting it as it went down.
‘Right,’ said Gervase a few minutes later, gulping down the last of his tea and slapping his kneecaps. ‘I’m out of here.’
Gerry looked at Gervase and then at Tony. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I, er… I need to pop out myself for a while.’
‘Oh,’ said Tony with a note of disappointment. He’d just got himself comfortable.
‘Yeah. Sorry about that. But tell you what – Gervase, you’re off to Battersea now, aren’t you?’
Yeah. Lavender Hill.’
‘You don’t mind giving Tony a lift back to Clapham do you? It’s only five minutes out of your way.’
‘No. Not at all.’
‘No. Honestly. It’ll be fine,’ said Tony. ‘I can get a cab. Honestly.’
‘What do you want to waste money on a cab for? Gervase will take you.’
Gerry threw Tony one of his ‘and that’s final’ glances.
‘OK,’ he said, compliantly, ‘whatever.’
Tony looked round Dad’s van in disgust. Old Lottery tickets, bits of packaging, sweet wrappers, lumps of grubby tissue paper, empty bottles. The upholstery was threadbare and tatty, there were wires hanging out of everything and the floor-mats were long gone, leaving just bare metal. Gervase stubbed out a cigarette in an ashtray full of Chesterfields and roll-up stubs and then jammed it shut.
‘So, Tony,’ said Gervase, ‘you’ve been having a bit of a week, by all accounts.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘you could say that.’
‘For what it’s worth, Tone, I think you did the right thing.’
Tony threw him a surprised look.
‘Yeah – it was obvious she wasn’t making you happy. Life’s too short. There’s no point dragging things out.’
‘Exactly!’ said Tony, feeling slightly dizzy with the relief of human empathy.
‘And she’ll be fine, that Ness. Happy-go-lucky girl like that – she’ll bounce back in no time. Find someone to make her happy.’
‘I know she will. Exactly. That’s what I’ve been trying to explain to everyone. She’ll be much better off without me. She was way too good for me.’
‘Oh, now, Tone. Don’t put yourself down. You’re a fine bloke. Ness just wasn’t right for you. That’s all. Maybe she was too… uncomplicated?
‘Yeah,’ Tony pounced on Gervase’s verbalization of exactly what was wrong with Ness. ‘Yeah. That’s it. I like a bit of conflict in my life, you know, a bit of drama. I need someone to keep me on my toes, stop me from getting my own way and behaving like a spoilt brat. Ness was too accommodating, you know? Too easy-going.’
Gervase chuckled. ‘Well – takes all sorts, I suppose. Most men could only dream about a girl who was too accommodating.’
‘I know. But I’m different. I’ve got different needs. I’ve learnt a lot about myself in the past few weeks and one thing I’ve realized is that I’m spoilt. We all are – all three of us boys – in our own ways. It’s not Mum and Dad’s fault; they just love us so much, they never questioned our decisions or our lifestyles – as long as we were healthy and close at hand that was all that mattered to them. They never pushed us to do anything we didn’t want to do and if I’d ended up with someone like Mum – someone like Ness – I’d just have ended up more and more spoilt. I need someone to keep me in check, to tell me when I’m being self-indulgent, someone prepared to wear the trousers. You know?’
Gervase nodded thoughtfully and pulled a stick of gum out of a packet on the dashboard. ‘And I see you’ve knocked the unhealthy obsession on the head.’
‘What?’
‘The last time we met. You were infatuated with something or other. I told you to knock it on the head. And you have.’
Tony shook his head from side to side in amazement. ‘What is it with you?’ he said. ‘Where d’you get this stuff from?’
Gervase shrugged. ‘Dunno. My mum, apparently. She had a gift. She died and then I had a gift. It was like her inheritance to me. Just as well, really, ‘cause she left me fuck all else.’ He ch
uckled again. ‘And I tell you what – it’s come in fucking handy with you London boys.’
‘What – you mean you’ve seen stuff about my brothers?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, noncommittally, ‘there’s stuff going in their lives too. Stuff they’d rather not talk about to the family. So they talk to me. And I help them.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
Gervase grinned and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing goes any further than me. Ever. So – this obsession – what happened?’
Tony shrugged. ‘Just saw the light, I guess. Realized I wanted to be her friend, that I was getting it all confused in my head. Realized it had more to do with someone else than the woman I was interested in. I was just displacing my frustration and jealousy.’
Gervase nodded and folded his gum into his mouth. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘I’m glad. Looks like you really have learnt a lot of stuff these last few weeks.’
Tony nodded. ‘Yeah. I’ve worked out a bit more about what makes me tick. You know.’
Gervase threw him a look. ‘You’re still not happy, though, are you, Tone?’
Tony gulped and looked at his hands. ‘No,’ he said in a small voice. ‘No. I’m not.’
‘You know, Tony – maybe what you need isn’t another girl. Yeah? Maybe what you need is another life.’
‘What – you mean dip my fingertips in acid and change my identity?’
‘No, I mean get away for a while. See a bit of the world.’
Tony smiled and shook his head. ‘That’s exactly what Ness said,’ he said, ‘but I can’t. No way. I’ve got a business to run…’
‘But have you, Tone? Have you really? Haven’t you got partners? Assistants? People you could delegate to? Or you could sell the business.’
‘Sell it?’
‘Yeah. Why not? Sell your shares. Become a director – a figurehead, you know? But you wouldn’t have to be there every day.’
‘Yes, but, my job – my company – it’s my life.’