Barefoot in the Dark

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  It wasn’t so much the fact of the administrative cock-up, but her being so riled about it. Off out to lunch, eh? Shit. It was so obvious. It spoke volumes. He tried to recall which day it was that she’d been in to do the PM show, but failed. All he knew was that he’d heard about it after the event, and been pathetically upset that he’d missed her. Perhaps he should have called her then. Kicked his precious pride into touch. But hell, was he really up to another bloody knock-back? Didn’t he have enough on his plate right now?

  But how the hell had he not picked up her email?

  He slipped into the office to a chorus of the usual derisory cheers.

  ‘Good grief, Jack? Is it Christmas?’ someone quipped. Helen. The bloody junior. He ignored her and went over to his sometime desk. There was the usual plethora of junk on it, plus the junk from the desk beside it which had spilled across. He sat down and went through the pile methodically. Two weeks back was pre-historic in BBC paperwork terms. Nothing. He turned his attention to his out-tray. There was plenty in there – there always was. He often wondered what happened to all those endless bits of paper he signed. Nothing again. And then he saw something pink at the edge of another document. A Groovy Chick post it, which was some stupid researcher’s idea of getting in touch with her inner child. What was it with women that they had to adorn every desk-top with cuddly toys and Snoopy Mugs and Bob the Builder bloody stationery? He peeled it off and turned it over, already knowing what it said.

  Please call Hope Shepherd @ heartbeat if any probs with 6pm start.

  Well, damn, frankly. Damn and blast it. Why the hell didn’t these people realise that writing a message on the back of another message was just plain stupid? Stupider still when it was on a bloody post-it and the message was on the side with the glue. It was stuck, ironically, on the back of a memo about emotional intelligence at bloody work.

  But that didn’t explain about the email.

  He switched on his terminal and scowled at his reflection. There were umpteen emails, of course, which he scrolled through irritably, right back to the middle of January. But nothing from Heartbeat. And then something occurred to him, and he clicked on his address book. Scrolled through it. Heartbeat’s email address wasn’t listed. Of course. When he’d emailed the publicity jpeg he’d done it from Hil’s terminal. Of course. Because she had all the mug shots on hers. Different screen name.

  Different email address.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, OK?’

  The phone had rung nine times before Hope had picked it up. He’d almost put it back down. She sounded out of breath.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

  ‘You were right and I was wrong and I’m sorry. I went back to the office. I found the note. I found the email. I found –’

  ‘You did all that?’

  He couldn’t gauge anything from the tone of her voice. ‘Yes. I did all that,’ he said.

  There was a very long silence. ‘You didn’t have to do that, Jack,’ she said eventually.

  ‘And I re-jigged my meeting in London. And I re-booked my train. And I will be there for five-thirty. And I’m sorry, Hope.’

  ‘Oh, God, you don’t need to be,’ she said. Her voice, all of a sudden, sounded animated. ‘It was my fault. You were absolutely right. I should have double checked. I should have done it the way you said, and I shouldn’t have got so bloody uppity about it. And I certainly shouldn’t have told you not to patronise me. You weren’t patronising me at all, and I wish I hadn’t said that.’

  He cursed himself for having been so short.

  ‘I really hate that I upset you, Hope.’

  Another silence. Was she taking notes or something? He couldn’t fathom her. He heard her exhale. ‘You didn’t upset me, Jack. Really you didn’t. It’s just that it’s been such a hard couple of weeks and there’s just too much to do, and my sister-in-law has been in hospital and my mum’s staying there at the moment, so I’ve got the most God-awful logistical difficulties with the children right now, and I don’t know whether I’m coming or going, and I’ve just been so – so –’

  She stopped speaking. Abruptly. And breathed heavily out instead. ‘Oh dear,’ he said, wanting to kiss it all better for her. ‘Is she OK?’

  He heard another long sigh at the other end of the phone. He wondered what she was doing right now. He wanted, he realised, to stay on the phone and listen to her forever.

  ‘Oh, she’ll be fine. But, really Jack, you don’t want to know. Believe me, you do not want to know. Anyway,’ she seemed to be winding herself up to tell him anyway, but no. ‘Jack,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’m the one who should be apologising. You go out of your way to fit us in and all I do is bitch and grouse and… ’ She laughed a shy little laugh. ‘And send you stomping off in a huff.’

  ‘I wasn’t in a huff.’

  ‘You were in a serious huff. You had every right to be. Has it been a big hassle? I mean, you have so much on, and –’

  ‘It wasn’t a big hassle.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. Did you get much grief at work?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Hope firmly. ‘Maddie’s a friend.’

  ‘Only I was worried that – well, I was a teeny bit cross, wasn’t I?’

  ‘You were a bit cross.’ She laughed now. Properly. This was better.

  ‘But you’re sure.’

  She laughed again. ‘I’m sure I’m sure.’

  ‘And I’m sorry, Hope.’

  ‘Doh! You said that already.’

  A thought occurred to him. Suddenly. Hearing her laugh.

  ‘Hope, what day were you born?’

  ‘Twelfth of August. Why?’

  ‘No, not the date. What day of the week?’

  ‘Oh. I see. A Sunday. Why?’

  He’d known without doubt that she would be. That she could never be anything else.

  ‘Because you’re sounding very bonny and blithe and all that stuff,’ he answered. ‘So does that mean I’m forgiven?’

  He waited for her to laugh again, but she didn’t. The silence lengthened. ‘Hmm. What’s London?’ she asked eventually. ‘Anything exciting?’

  As ‘exciting’ was one adjective he didn’t think h’d be using in relation to his work for some time, her question brought him up short. He wondered if he should tell her about it but couldn’t seem to find the right words. I’ve lost my job. I didn’t get my new one. I’m a failure. He couldn’t find the right thoughts for it, let alone the right words, with which to tell her he was none of the things she thought he was, but simply an ordinary man with few prospects and whose father was dying and who was needy and sad. He knew he wouldn’t feel like this forever. But right now it was like being impotent all over again, except worse. The sense of emasculation was so total. No. He wouldn’t tell her. He didn’t think he could cope with her feeling sorry for him. Besides, she sounded like she had more than enough on her plate.

  ‘Oh, nothing exciting,’ he said, breezily. ‘Just have to see a man about a job.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘In London?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Is this something to do with the television thing?’

  ‘Er… nope. Something else.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Hope?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know how sorry I said I was?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I still feel bad, you know.’

  ‘Jack don’t be. I told you.’

  ‘I know, but I’d feel a whole lot better about it if you’d let me say sorry properly. You know. Like with a glass of wine? Or dinner? Or… ’

  ‘Oh, Jack… ’

  ‘Oh Jack, what?’

  ‘I just… oh, God. There’s Iain for the children. Look. I’d better go.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question yet.’

  ‘I know. I just… look, can I call you back, maybe?

  He could hear her doorbell ringing.r />
  ‘No. Not until you’ve said yes.’

  But she hadn’t said yes. She’d only said maybe. And refused to elaborate. She’d said she couldn’t do Saturday, but might manage Sunday. Though wasn’t sure. He’d have to call her back on Sunday. Then she’d bundled him off the phone.

  He’d said he’d call her Sunday. It would just have to do.

  The flat felt airless and gloomy when he put the phone down. As if it was not part of the real world but suspended in some sort of plasma bubble, with him trapped inside. It pressed in on him. He went into the kitchen and peered without much hope in the fridge. Nothing to eat and he couldn’t stomach another take-away. There was no point in trying to cross Cardiff yet to get to the hospice. Perhaps he’d better do that thing normal people did and pop down to Sainsbury’s to get some supplies. Yes. He grabbed his jacket from the hook and escaped.

  Jack wondered how he would feel if his dad were not dying, but instead suffering from some chronic though not immediately life-threatening illness. Like mild angina (Lydia’s mother) or perhaps arthritis (Danny’s) or just the general wear and tear of ageing. The inevitable role-reversal that had offspring talking to their elderly relatives in loud voices and taking round flagons of soup.

  He felt, sometimes, that he’d been cheated out of a stage. He would hear Hil in the office, railing endlessly about picking up her mother’s laundry, or collecting her prescriptions or taking her to see a stupefying stream of doctors, podiatrists, dentists and nutritionists. Sorting out her pension payments, having someone in to do her hair. Before the divorce, before his father’s diagnosis, before everything that had gone wrong in his life, he had blithely assumed that this would be his cross to bear too. Had he minded? He didn’t think so. He realised he’d sort of taken it for granted that Lydia would deal with the lion’s share of it, and that he’d have only a small but well-defined role. Picking his dad up to come for Sunday lunch with them, maybe. Helping in the garden – God forbid. Things like that.

  But with his father’s diagnosis had come the realisation that, no, he probably wouldn’t be doing any of those things, and he didn’t know how to feel at all any more.

  And then Lydia had divorced him and with that had come another realisation, that, as things stood – and, he felt at the time, were likely to remain – he would have no cause to feel aggrieved and irritable, because he’d have no-one to look after at all. No five-hour round trips to Llandrindod Wells like Hil had, no-one to be tetchy with. No-one to resent. He knew he should feel this was in some way compensation for the loss of both his parents, but it hadn’t felt so at the time. It didn’t feel so now. In fact, the sense of loss was growing ever more acute. He missed Ollie so much. Missed polishing his school shoes for him. Missed fixing his bike. Being alone was about feeling you had no-one to look after you, certainly, but that was only half the story. He wanted someone to look after. He needed someone to look after. Did that make him peculiar? He really wasn’t sure. But as he drifted around Sainsbury’s, his eyes fixed on and held a woman of about his own age, plucking apples from their spongy blue nests under the watchful eye of a largely critical pensioner in a wheelchair, and it made him feel empty at heart.

  He avoided the confectionery aisle with great deliberation and bought a ‘Taste the Difference’ Duck à l’orange for his dinner. Lonely. That was all he was. Nothing more dramatic or less ordinary than that. He picked up a blackcurrant cold remedy, too. He was coming down with something as well.

  Chapter 27

  It wouldn’t do, Hope kept telling herself, to get too excited. It wouldn’t do to get excited at all, in fact. Whatever her heart was telling her – and boy, had it been clamouring – it was her head she needed to listen to. And her head was telling her simply not to go there. Here was someone with a busy life, a big career – perhaps a job in London, even – and, most importantly, a man with a queue. A queue that was growing, perhaps, even now. The pity was that she couldn’t help it. It had become chronic. Like asthma. Or a tendency to boils.

  ‘You’re looking chirpy,’ her mother remarked, as she opened the front door to let her in.

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Most definitely. Stress obviously suits you.’ She sighed a rare sigh. ‘I wish it suited me. It’s good to see you, love.’

  Hope had come to visit Suze. They’d kept her in hospital overnight when she was first admitted, and she hadn’t wanted to see anyone the first week. But the children would be coming home at the weekend, when everything would be back to normal. Everything bar the still potent unreality of it all, together with the fact that her mother was still staying with Suze, and the nightmare it had been organising her own children as a consequence.

  But it had worked out OK. In some ways better. She’d been thinking long and hard since Suze’s ‘episode’ (which was what her mum had taken to calling it, so she supposed she should too). Yes, it had been a shock. How could it not have? But it had also been good for her. It was quite empowering to be sorting things out on her own at last. She’d spent too long since Iain had left, she realised, meekly accepting both help and advice: taking the easy option of letting her mother take charge of the children, of letting her new life be managed and cushioned, of letting Suze tell her what was best for all of them.

  Her dependence, she could see, had been holding her up. She needed to take charge of her own life now. The childcare was tricky, and would remain so a while yet, but Maddie had been great about it, and she knew she would cope. The best thing was that she was beginning to feel stirrings of confidence again. She could make her own decisions regarding her children. She could make her own decisions regarding herself.

  Hope had brought Suze a big bunch of tulips and, tiny though the action was, just the arranging of them in Suze’s kitchen, in a vase and in a manner of entirely her own choosing, was pleasing in a way that surprised her. ‘There,’ she said now, to her mother. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Lovely, dear. Lovely. They’ll cheer her up no end. Shall I make some tea? While you go on up?’

  It was strange to see Suze in bed. Hope tried, and failed, to recall a time when she had ever seen her sister-in-law anything other than fully dressed. There’d been a rare (and never repeated) Christmas when they’d stayed at Paul’s, ten years back, but even then, when they had surfaced at around five, Suze was already showered and dressed before broaching the lounge.

  Yet here she was, her pale features naked of make-up, hair hanging loose, in jersey pyjamas, and with an expression of un-Suze-like vulnerability on her face.

  ‘How are you?’ Hope asked her, because that’s what you did.

  Suze stroked the duvet. ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she replied. Hope placed the tulips on the chest of drawers in the window. There were two men in the garden kneeling over mole-mounds. It looked a bit like an Easter egg hunt, she decided. She said nothing. Best not stir the waters further. ‘Actually I’m not, of course,’ Suze said suddenly. ‘I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I feel like crying all the time. I feel useless and a nuisance and like I really have no business putting everyone to so much bother.’

  ‘You won’t feel like that for long,’ said Hope. ‘You’ll see. You’ll feel better.’

  Suze clasped her hands together and laced the fingers in her lap. ‘Ah, but that’s such a relative term, isn’t it? Feeling better. Rather depends on what you’re feeling better than.’

  Hope considered this a moment, smiling to herself. Yes, she knew that. But she had no idea what to say in response to it. They were all living with such questions just now, weren’t they? And there weren’t any answers. It would ever be thus. She could see that now. She perched herself on the edge of the bed and nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘But I’m feeling better than I was yesterday, so, yes, you’re right. It’s progress of a sort. I’m going to start seeing someone, you know. A psychologist. She sounds nice. How about that, eh? Bit of a turn-up, don’t you think?’

  The old Suze surfaced briefly, and a confronta
tional expression visited her face. But it was only for a second. Merely an echo. As if she’d suddenly remembered she didn’t need to do that any more. Hope could still find nothing useful to say. An affirmative would seem patronising. A denial even more so. This was new and strange territory. ‘I wish I’d known, Suze,’ she said instead. ‘I wish – I mean I always thought you had everything so sorted. If I’d the slightest idea you’d been – well, I wish I’d been able to support you better, that’s all.’

  Suze looked at her more intently now. ‘You know, Hope, it really wouldn’t have made any difference. Not to anything. What’s wrong with me isn’t something someone else can fix – it wouldn’t have made any difference.’ She shook her head. ‘No, that’s not even true, is it? It probably would have made it worse.’

  ‘I don’t see how that can be.’

  ‘Because it would. Because it would have made me feel worse. Everyone knowing. Even my mother doesn’t, you know.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  Suze shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t help. She’s so like me, you see. It would make her ill. I know it would. I’m her success story. I’m her reason for feeling OK about herself. She thinks I have everything. I do have everything, don’t I?’

  Hope had only met Suze’s mother a handful of times. She’d seemed brisk, capable. A lot like Suze. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I guess most people would think so. I guess I would. But then I’m not you, am I? It depends what you want. Do you think you have everything?’

  ‘Indisputably.’ She raised a hand and fanned her fingers. ‘I have a lovely caring husband, two beautiful children, a perfect home, nice friends, good health. I have no business being like this, Hope. Really I don’t.’ She dropped her hand. ‘I’ve just never seemed to be able to help it.’

  Hope wanted to offer platitudes. Sound encouraging. Tell Suze it didn’t matter. That they’d all rally round. But even as she thought it, she knew that would be wrong. She should say something else.