Grown Ups

by Emma Jane Unsworth

  “What you need to understand is that I am under siege right now, Kelly,” I say, quietly and emotionally. “I was blindsided in the street. I was not in control of my actions.”

  She looks at me from under her fringe.

  I add: “I also got fired today.”

  “What? How come?”

  “Presumably because I’ve not got a famous boyfriend anymore.”

  “I think that’s being slightly paranoid. Are you sure you’re not just—”

  “Mia’s always had the cultural hots for Art. And now my stock’s gone down. I can feel it.”

  Kelly swigs her beer. “Fucking Foof Towers. Fuck. Off. S’all bullshit anyway.”

  “Shh,” I say.

  “What?”

  “You’re being quite loud.”

  “I’m just sticking up for you.”

  “But still, you never know who’s listening.”

  She looks at me the way she’s been looking at me since she walked in—like she’s trying to see where my face is attached to my head or my hair is attached to my head, or something.

  “Yes!” I say loudly, as if replying to something else she has said—something else that is a fun brand of conversation, for anyone who might be able to hear or see us.

  Kelly shakes her head and takes another swig of beer. “So you left a fourteen-year-old in the street at night.”

  “He’s a big boy!”

  “He’s fourteen.”

  “He can take care of himself!”

  “But I asked you to take care of him. And you left him. Because your ex is seeing someone new. That’s your priority.”

  There is a waiter beside us. “Are you ready to order?” he says.

  I shake my head. “The Art thing is not even the worst thing I’m contending with,” I say.

  “Actually,” says Kelly, “I only have forty-five minutes, so can we order soon?”

  “Please could you give us just a few minutes?” I say to the waiter. He nods and walks away. “I can’t think about food while I’m telling you about this. I’m not even hungry.”

  “Okay,” Kelly says.

  “He’s seeing Suzy Brambles,” I say, giving this sentence the delivery it deserves.

  “Suzy … Brambles?”

  “Don’t say her n-name.”

  “Is that a real person?”

  “As real as the real on my face.”

  “Well, it’s never nice to find out about these things,” says Kelly, and now she does talk quietly. I am relieved but also slightly unsettled by the sound of her voice. Still, she doesn’t know the whole story, so I fill her in. I tell her about the arm picture, the comment, the likes, the messages, the fact Suzy unfollowed me after clearly using me to find Art. We have to tell the waiter to go away again twice.

  Kelly looks at her watch and smiles at me in a way she’s never smiled at me before, like someone who’s about to tell me I haven’t got the job might smile at me, a nice person with bad news. It isn’t the way you expect a friend to react to this crushing tale of woe.

  “What do you think I should do?” I say.

  “Do?”

  “Yes. I don’t really care about the job, I can get another job, but the humiliation of Art and Suzy—I just can’t begin to process it.”

  “Well, it is annoying.”

  “Annoying?”

  My own voice rises then, and Kelly’s eyes fill with tears. FINALLY, the appropriate response! I hate to see her cry, but I’m also glad she’s crying. We can cry together about this. For weeks. Months!

  She stops crying and wipes her eyes dry. I await her succor.

  Eventually she speaks. “Look, Jenny, I know you’re having a hard time. And I wanted to meet you to talk about it. But we’ve been together almost an hour and you haven’t asked me one question about me. Not one. You haven’t apologized for leaving my teenage son alone on the street. I thought I could trust you. You cannot be trusted.”

  I halt my inner celebration. “Er, I’m the one with the catastrophe right now, Kelly.”

  She nods and looks at her beer bottle. “So I guess I should tell you that Paul sent Sonny a message via his mum’s Facebook and Sonny got all excited and replied and now he’s just ghosting him again, and I could fucking kick myself for not monitoring it all more closely. And it looks like Esther is going to sell the house soon because her kids are pressuring her to, and there’s no way I’ll be able to find anywhere in London as cheap, so I’m looking at where else in the UK to live.”

  “Don’t even talk to me about money! No one could be more worried about money than me right now.”

  Kelly slams her beer bottle down. I jump.

  “You own your own house!”

  “Which I can’t afford anymore!”

  “You have A NICE LIFE with few responsibilities. You need to grow up and take responsibility for things.”

  I whisper-hiss: “Don’t you dare ‘as a mother’ me! I have a mortgage! That’s as bad as a child!”

  “So sell it and live somewhere cheaper. You have options. My tax credits are fucked. I’ll be uprooting Sonny while he’s doing his GCSEs. I might not get another job I like as much that’s also flexible around school hours.”

  “He won’t even be at school for that much longer. He’s practically an adult. Time he started fending for himself, in all honesty.”

  Kelly sits mouth-breathing for a moment. It’s not a good look, even for her. Then she says, calmly, almost gently: “Jenny, can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course. Ask me anything you want. I have many more details to share.”

  Kelly moves her head almost imperceptibly to the side and back again. She says: “Do you think we would be friends if that day hadn’t happened, with Sonny on the dual carriageway?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve just been thinking a lot about our friendship and how it occurred.”

  “I’ve been a little nostalgic—”

  “No, I don’t mean nostalgic. I mean reevaluative, if that’s even a word. Have you not, too? It all feels like it’s been a bit of a blur until now, but I’m slowing down and taking stock.” She flicks the loose edge of the label on her beer bottle with her nail. “Have you never thought that day on the dual carriageway forced us to be friends?”

  “Forced us?”

  “You know how you’re friends with people at school because you’re in the same class? You’re sort of institutionalized. What even makes you make friends with someone when you’re older? Would we have found each other naturally? Would we have forged a friendship naturally?”

  “Probably.” A cupboard opens in my mind and I see that day, by the dual carriageway. Then my heart beats and the cupboard slams shut. “Do you think she’s better than me because she’s younger? Do you think that’s why he’s gone for her? I always saw him with an older woman, but he’s got a surreptitious agenda—I know it, even if he doesn’t.”

  Kelly looks at me sadly.

  “I love you for a whole variety of reasons, Jenny.”

  I swell at this.

  “And I think some of them have run out.”

  I shrink.

  “You haven’t always been this fragile maniac. You used to run at things. You used to have everything you needed. You used to not look back. I don’t know whether you noticed—to be honest, I don’t know what you notice anymore, other than the way you come across to certain strangers—but I don’t have many friends. You’re one of a handful of people I can really talk to. Could really talk to. All I see of you now is this phony self-promoting person who I don’t know.”

  “Well, they do say that the people you know the best are the people you end up hating the most on social media. You see through the façade. Otherwise you just think, Oh there’s that fabulous person having a glorious time.”

  “Stop with the theories! You’re wasting time caring about all this superficial shit while the world goes to hell in a handcart. Babies are in cages on the Mexican border. Someone
I went to school with just set up a food bank in my hometown.”

  “I am very aware of reality. I’m a journalist.”

  “You’re a fucking child! I have empathy fatigue where you’re concerned. And I’m not even sure it’s just—well. Maybe we’re done. Maybe we’re just done. Now. At this point.” She nods to the waiter.

  “Don’t say that.”

  She shrugs.

  The waiter starts heading over. “Are you ready to order?” he says.

  “Yes,” I say. “I think so, almost.”

  Kelly puts a five-pound note and two pound coins on the table. She gets up.

  “I meant what I said about the way we met,” she says. “Because right now, I don’t think I actually like you. That’s the honest truth, Jenny. I don’t like you. We’ve never had a friendship. We had a romance begun by a meet-not-so-cute.”

  She walks out. I stare at my kombucha. I suddenly remember people might be looking at me. I take a picture of the kombucha.

  To all the ferments I’ve loved before

  I post it as I pay the bill.

  BREATHING FOR ONE

  Toward the very end, Art started refusing to do social engagements as a couple. He started canceling his attendance at birthdays, weddings, drinks, everything. I was busy with my own preoccupations. I couldn’t bring myself to wear anything I’d worn while I was pregnant and charity-shopped most of my cardigans and jeans. I couldn’t even bear to wear the same perfumes, so they got shoved in the charity bags too, even though I wasn’t sure whether an opened bottle of perfume was sellable or would be classed as tampered with. I thought I might be being superstitious—feeling like those garments were somehow cursed, or would bring back bad memories. But the truth was, I was tampered with. I felt like a different woman. Nothing fit me or suited me from my previous life. I was less fleshly. More insect. I had eyes and ears in strange places.

  At Sonny’s birthday party—a big one, his thirteenth—Art made his excuses ten minutes before we were due to leave the house. I passed them on to Kelly and Sonny. I was the go-between. The middlewoman. The PA to his flakiness.

  Sonny said: “He can’t be bothered with us anymore, can he?”

  Kelly said: “Not that he ever really could.”

  I had a row with Art about it when I got back. I told him what Kelly and Sonny had said.

  “I’m not playing happy families on your terms, is that it?” he said. “I’ve been there plenty of times. I’ve ummed and I’ve ahhed in all the right places. Give me a break.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You were really playing the part for me.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I’m glad you appreciate that.”

  “Are we a family, Art? Is that what we are?”

  “I feel like you’re about to trap me with this question. It’s a trick, isn’t it?”

  “Because you’re never here. You’re always out.”

  “YOU’RE always out,” he said, banging his head with his hand. “The lights are on but no one’s home.”

  He was wrong about that. Sometimes I closed my eyes at night and it was like there was a light still on at the back of my eyes.

  POPULAR PROBLEMS

  On the Tube home I listen to Leonard Cohen. Listening to Leonard Cohen makes me feel as though as long as I can be wry and observant about the world then everything will be okay.

  An e-mail arrives, from Mia.

  Yo! Are you not coming back after lunch? What about your leaving drinks tonight?? We have a hashtag #JENNYSDEFOOFING

  MIA

  I don’t reply. It takes a lot for a person like me not to reply, but I don’t. Instead I text Nicolette.

  Fancy a drink later? Lots to tell you. X

  Yes

  I have news too

  X.

  Good Christ, could everyone stop with the news? I’m all newsed out.

  Then I think:

  Is she pregnant?

  WHY DOES MY BRAIN INSTANTLY THINK THAT? FUCKING BRAIN. Why is this the automatic news-related question—the say it, brain, say it, you’ve said everything else—the worst news-related question. The question that makes my heart feel full of soot.

  What? X

  Tell you later! X

  I text Nicolette a time and a pub and then I put on “Don’t Get Me Wrong” by the Pretenders and slide into a fantasy where I walk into a sunny café where the song is playing and my mother and Art and Kelly and Suzy are all there and I’m all, Oh hi I just got back from this brilliant trip where I won the equivalent of an Oscar for journalism, and they all stand up and hug me and clap and we end up having a celebratory brunch together and it is ASTONISHING and inspiring how cool I am with everyone about everything.

  A man comes through the carriage with a worried look on his face. I pull off my headphones and sit up.

  “Has anyone lost a black rucksack?” he says.

  We all sit up.

  “Black rucksack? Anyone?”

  I look back down the carriage. Now I want eye contact. I want reassurance. We all do. How far away is this rucksack? Has anyone looked inside it? Will we throw it off at the next station? Could we not just throw it off now?

  Two more people come through the carriage, the same look on their faces. Plainclothes traffic police? Plainclothes Tube workers?

  There is an announcement over the PA: “Can the cleaner report to receive a message. I repeat, can the cleaner report to receive a message.”

  It’s obviously code.

  “It’s code!” I say. People nod at me, thanking me for my insight. They are glad to be on a train with me, hurtling toward death.

  Then nothing happens. The black rucksack isn’t followed up.

  When I get to my stop, part of me wonders whether I died an hour or so ago; whether the train exploded. And everything since has been some kind of dead-brain dream. I have thought this periodically throughout my life—mostly when I’ve been on public transport.

  I should probably stick to cabs.

  * * *

  It starts to rain, so I wait for a bus at the bus stop. I’m just wondering how to document this—how to make it more exceptional, more meaningful, more like an actual moment in life—when my phone pings with an e-mail and—

  You know when you just know?

  Hi.

  Hi.

  How are you?

  Peachy.

  I’m sorry you had to find out like that. It can’t have been very nice.

  Thank you for understanding. And being patronizing. I appreciate it.

  Can we please talk on the phone?

  No. We barely did when we were together so what’s the point in starting now?

  To acknowledge our new relationship as friends.

  Right-oh. So I suppose Suzanne knows we fucked last month?

  I thought we were going to be cool about that?

  People change their minds, Art. Often in the most inconvenient ways.

  I just wish we could draw a line under the negativity and move on. I want you to meet Suzanne. I think you will like her. She’s very kind.

  Are you trying to make me feel better or worse, telling me that? Is her kindness testament to your goodness, or is it indicative of my future pleasure in her company?

  Haha. I still like how you talk, Jenny.

  Thanks?

  Let me know when you are ready to talk properly, with me xx

  I’ll try x

  Hope work is going okay? And I saw your mum is staying, hope that’s going okay?

  Of course

  Now, THAT I’d like to read about xx

  Thanks for the encouragement

  X x x x

  DRAFTS

  Art,

  DO NOT LINE-OF-KISSES ME. That does not constitute a sign-off. Oh thank you for bestowing your almighty kisses on me—shame you could not be arsed to compose ACTUAL WORDS, you illiterate blowhard.

  Jx

  ON THE BUS

  I see a kid trying to use the window as a screen. He is two or three, in a lit
tle red mac. I watch him pressing and swiping across the misted-up glass, his finger-trails streaking through the condensation. I watch him become gradually more frustrated and confused as things pass behind the window, out of his control. His mother sits staring at her phone, unaware of his predicament. Eventually the kid gives up, and sits staring sadly out of the window as though it is just a window.

  I feel his pain.

  TABS

  I open the front door to see a pile of bills on the mat, stretching up the hall. There are bills on the radiator shelf. How have I not noticed? Credit cards and God knows what. I can’t bear to open them.

  Nor can I bear to tell my mother I have been fired.

  I find my mother asleep in the lounge, the TV on—some awful serial-killer drama blaring toward its denouement. But nobody could have predicted what she’d find in the garbage.… A half-empty gin bottle is on the floor, where it has fallen from her hand. A glass is balanced on the arm of the chair. There are melba-toast crumbs on a plate on her lap. The room otherwise is neat and tidy—it’s like when they find incidents of spontaneous human combustion and there’s a radius of charred destruction and beyond that disquieting normality. I found her once on the bathroom floor, unconscious, facedown, her fingers flexed, her nails in the grouting, like she’d been trying to claw her way out.

  Her laptop is there on the floor. I open it and see there are tabs open—tabs on all my social media. My Twitter, my Instagram, my columns, my practically defunct website.

  I turn off the TV. She wakes up.

  “Jenny! Sorry, I must have drifted off.”

  I nod.

  She collects her laptop from the floor. “I’ve started to pack,” she says. “I’ll be out by nine a.m. tomorrow.”

  I nod again.

  “Have you had a bad day, darling?”

  “I really have nothing to measure that against anymore.”

  “Do you want a melba toast?”

  I shake my head. “I think I’m going to go out and meet my friend Nicolette for a few drinks tonight.”