by Stephen May
‘That’s okay,’ he says. But this morning he is giving out every sign of a man who thinks that it isn’t really. A man who has changed his mind about having me here. He makes tea for us both. I ask him if he’s working tonight and he nods glumly. Tells me that he’s got to be at The Castle for five. ‘But at least I don’t have to stay over tonight. I’ll be back about midnight.’
He gives me a long look over the top of his mug, a look that seems to me to be somehow significant. He looks away. ‘Lulu will be at home,’ he says.
His chin tilts up, his shoulders are back, he looks kind of defiant. Like a nervous amateur boxer. ‘Actually, Sir, Mark. Sundays. Lulu and me. It’s sort of quality time for us.’
Oh right. Of course.
‘Message understood, Jake. I’ll take myself off for the day.’
‘You don’t have to.’ This is Lulu, coming into the kitchen heading for the kettle with her steady, cautious steps.
‘It’s okay.’
‘Mark. You really don’t have to.’ She looks a bit pissed off, though she keeps her voice breezy. I’m not sure of the dynamic here but there’s clearly some domestic power struggle going on.
‘Tell you what,’ I say, ‘I’ll be out most of the day – I have stuff to sort out anyway – and maybe I’ll come back about six, do us all a big Sunday dinner for about eight o’clock?’
I didn’t actually know I was going to offer that until the moment the words spilled out.
‘That sounds like a decent compromise,’ Lulu says. ‘You know I’m mostly a vegan, right? And, Jake, I hope you’re going to show me an exceptionally good time tomorrow seeing as you’ve kicked our guest out especially.’
I take myself off upstairs then, lay on my bed, thinking – of course – about what Katy is doing with the kids. Where I might be able to find them. One or other often has a party on a Saturday afternoon, or there’ll be a play date of some kind. It occurs to me that maybe now that Jack is getting into football we might spend future Saturdays watching the Arsenal.
I was never into football much myself as a kid, though as a boy growing up you have to know a bit just to fit in in the playground. Of course you hear a lot of sport chat in a pub, opinions you can parrot back to your mates and so sound authoritative.
I keep up with soccer now for much the same reason I did as a child. It helps with relationships in the classroom. The kids at school think I’m a passionate Arsenal fan. At first it was quite hard to pretend to be elated or downcast on a Monday morning, depending on what the result required. But I faked it till I made it and now I do genuinely feel cheered when Arsenal win, feel a real pang when they don’t. Even though I couldn’t name more than three players. Even though I’ve never seen them play except on the telly. Nevertheless, I realise now that I’ve become enough of a fan to be miffed if Jack chooses to support one of the other London teams.
Even these inconsequential thoughts drift into a kind of nausea as I think about how there might actually be no Saturdays at the football, ever. Like there might be no more Saturdays watching judo competitions or dance shows. Like there might be no more Sundays at museums or galleries. No more festivals, no more holidays, no more hiking and biking.
None of the other parental rites of passage either. No collecting the kids from discos or nightclubs. No clearing up sick from their first morning after the first night before. No helping them through break-ups, no going to any graduations, no nothing. It’s like a wound inside, blood leaking, going where it shouldn’t, grief pooling around my heart. But grief doesn’t ever help. Grief paralyses. Anger does help though. I realise now how angry I am. One lie, one stupid mistake a lifetime ago when I was someone else entirely and they think they can humiliate you, take you away from the people you love, the people who need you. They think they can destroy you. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be destroyed. I won’t be taken from the people who need me, the people I love. I refuse. I won’t have it. I thump the wall with my balled first. And again. And again. And then again.
Lulu’s face appears at the door. ‘Cup of tea?’ she says.
‘Thanks,’ I say. There’s a pause. I feel foolish. My hand hurts. ‘I’m sorry about ––’
She cuts me off. ‘It’s fine,’ she says, and she hands me a mug. This one replicates the jacket of Bonjour Tristresse. I see her eyes flicker to the tattoo on my forearm, but she doesn’t say anything.
She manoeuvres around the boxes to sit on the edge of the bed. She looks tired. She apologises for the way Jake was with me.
‘He was all right,’ I say.
‘No, he was being an arsehole,’ she says. ‘He was moody because of you staying I think.’
‘Should I go then?’
‘No, he needs to get over it. He brought you here after all.’ She sips her tea. ‘I used to think it was flattering, this jealousy thing – now it gets on my tits. Anyway, this morning’s performance has put me off project baby so that’s something.’
I wonder aloud how they met, how they first got together.
‘You really want to know?’
I find I do. Find that I’m sick of thinking about my own stupid self. Anything that takes me away from myself for a few minutes is worth it.
Eurocamp, summer before last, Italy. Firenze, or just outside. Lulu had been a manager and Jake what the company called an apprentice – a euphemistic term for a grunt on less than minimum wage. He’d been sent over by some uncle with connections in a desperate attempt to get him to shape up, get him out of everybody’s hair.
‘It’s obvious he fancies me straight away. I make it very clear I’m out of his league.’
Jake gives it a go anyway. Puts the hours in. He finds out Lulu’s a photographer and so surreptitiously downloads some stuff, does some learning, engages her in conversations about David Bailey and Terence Donovan and Trude Fleischmann. Finds out she’s a vegetarian and so gives up meat himself.
He makes the effort to learn some Italian which none of the other English blokes ever bother to do. Lulu finds this impressive.
He helps her with allocating pitches to the visitors. It’s a simple software system but Lulu seems to struggle with it. One night they go out for a few beers and at the end of the evening she suggests he kisses her goodnight. He gives her a respectful peck on the cheek.
‘I’m like – not like that. A proper kiss. Thing is I had decided I was going to get off with him the very day he arrived at the site. Decided it even while I was being all cool with him. It was very nice that he tried so hard to impress me, but he needn’t have bothered. He just had to wait.’
I’m thinking about how it was with Katy and with Anne, how it’s always the women who decide these things.
‘Of course it is,’ Lulu says. ‘Men might think they’re making all the moves but usually the girls have decided one way or another right at the start. We don’t give you lot much say in things really. Probably better that way, don’t you think?’
‘I’m not sure about that.’
‘It is, definitely.’ She grows thoughtful. ‘When I met Jake he was a virgin with smelly feet. He was a bit of a prat. He’s better now. Though clearly there’s still work to do.’
She changes the subject, asks me what I fancy doing tonight and I can’t think of anything. What the hell does it matter?
Lulu sighs. ‘What is wrong with us all today?’ she says. She gets up. ‘Più tè?’ she says.
‘Mi piacerebbe,’ I say, even though I haven’t finished this mug.
‘Parla Italiano?’ She is surprised and delighted.
‘Sì, un po’. We lived in Italy for a while. I’m out of practice now though.’
I think about the year we had in Italy. The year of recovery. The space that Katy had negotiated with the dean so that we didn’t have to go back to Cambridge at the end of that mad summer. The year of cheap wine, of reading nothing but science fiction, of riding temperamental scooters through narrow, cobbled streets, of lying naked in Katy’s single bed for hour
upon hour, trying to figure out how to sleep again.
‘I’m trying to learn it properly. We’re planning to go back, Jake and I, find a little bar to run, get away from this damp little rock. If he grows up a bit, we might think again about maybe bringing up some bambinos in the sunshine. Hey, maybe you could give me a lesson? In lieu of rent. That’s what we’ll do tonight. We’ll stay in, talking shit in Italiano. Got to be better than punching walls.’
‘Maybe.’ I tell her I’ve got some money now actually. I could do rent for real if she wanted. That would be fair. She waves her cigarette-holding hand in that irritated way she has. I see her wonder whether to get offended or not and decide that, in the end, it’s not worth it.
‘I noticed the new clothes,’ she says and laughs. ‘Exceptionally ordinary, extraordinarily unmemorable. Well done you.’
14
Ella has to do her homework. She has to find an animal she likes and research it and write about it. She has decided to write about dolphins. She’s annoyed that her mum won’t let her use Wikipedia.
‘Why not?’ she says, her eyes flashing. ‘Everyone else will be using it.’
‘I think you’ve just answered your own question, haven’t you?’ says Katy, keeping her tone light. She doesn’t want to fall out with her daughter right now. But she knows she can’t give in either. That way madness lies. Give in once and you are your children’s bitch for ever.
‘Have I? Have I really?’ And, shoulders back, head up, her hair tossed dramatically, Ella stalks from the living room.
Amanda Campbell laughs. ‘Well that’s reassuring,’ she says.
‘What, you’re reassured that my eleven-year-old daughter seems to be sprinting towards hormonal adolescence way too fast?’
‘Sweetie, she’s slow. I’m reassured because I don’t usually see any signs of attitude from your kids. I’ve always thought they were way too polite. Nice to know they’re normal.’
Katy sips at her wine, wriggles to get comfortable. She wonders if her parenting skills have just been judged and found to be lacking. She can see why Amanda is relieved though. Her own kids are pretty feral after all. They do lip and backchat more or less constantly, in a way that would drive Katy mental. Mark and Katy have often talked about it. A night round at the Campbells’ can be quite frustrating as Amanda and Nick battle – and fail – to get their kids to bed.
‘What is wrong with using Wikipedia anyway?’ says Amanda. ‘I find it invaluable in my practice.’
In her room Ella flicks through the library books she got out that morning. She can’t think why she chose such a boring mammal, so they live in the sea, so what? She wishes she’d stuck with rats, which were her first choice anyway, till her mum talked her out of it.
Then – on practically the last page of the last book – she finds it. Something interesting. She calls Jack in to tell him.
She tells him about how dolphins kill each other. They do it in groups of four. Two swim alongside the victim and hold it down. Two swim on the surface. When the two holding the victim need to come up for air, the two on the surface swim down and take their places and they repeat the process as often as necessary until the victim drowns.
Turns out dolphins aren’t just cute, smiley, brainy circus performers who will somersault for fish, turns out they are evil killers.
‘Is that really true?’ says Jack.
‘Of course it is dum-dum,’ says Ella. ‘It’s in a book.’
15
I get it. I really do. They are performing for me, turning me into a voyeur for their own amusement. Or they are trying to get me out of the house. Or both. Whatever, Jake and Lulu are having the noisiest sex. It begins as whispers stealing into my dreams and moves through distinct movements like a musical score or a choreographed wrestling match.
I get up and scurry to the bathroom and as I pass their room I can hear sleepy laughs and the soft wet explosions of kisses given and taken. I have a piss and a wash and then I’m followed back to my own room by a kind of low growling. As I pull on my clothes, the growls are already turning into languid groans, surprised gasps.
By the time I am downstairs and boiling the kettle and putting toast in the toaster, there is the percussion of the headboard hitting the wall, the see-sawing string section of bed springs creaking, the guttural duet of need, the slap of sweating flesh against sweating flesh.
At which point there is an unexpected silence. I imagine a hand on a chest. A silent command to wait. Not yet. Not yet.
Wait. Wait some more.
Here it comes now, the gradual swelling of that ancient melody again, the picking up of pace, the drawn-out moans, the wordless coaxing and urging. The bed springs squeaking. The renewed thump of cheap bed against thin wall. Quality time indeed.
As I unlock the bike, toast gripped between my teeth, plum and damson jam dripping onto my chin, I think how it all seems a bit put on. Not faked exactly, but a bit theatrical, a bit Hollywood, but maybe I’m wrong about this, maybe they are just young and uninhibited. Of course they are not in the habit of keeping things quiet so as not to be disturbed by a child.
It is uncanny how sensitive kids can be to the sounds of their parents having a bit of a cuddle. How the very first moves of a hand around a breast in a marital bed, the first gentle placing of lips to neck, can call a child from sleep and send them trip-trapping sleepily down the corridor to Mummy and Daddy’s room.
I cycle up towards Haverstock Street, and need only the briefest of glances to see that the fucking Astra – or one just like it – is still there.
I have a sudden vision of trashing the car, a brick through a windscreen, a lighted rag in a petrol tank. If they’re going to get you eventually, why not go down fighting? Why not give them a proper crime to deal with?
I need to fight this, fight the urge to fight back. I need to let discretion be the better part of valour, however angry I am, however tempting the vision of a burning panda car. I get back on my bike and away before any copper can nudge his colleague to say hey, isn’t that our guy?
The South Bank, I decide. We often spend Sundays there. There’s a chance I’ll see Katy and the kids. A remote chance, but better than none.
Pushing my bike through the meandering crowds I can’t escape the feeling that I’m being watched. My skin itches. I find I keep looking over my shoulders, or looking up, scanning the windows of office blocks.
Not only that, but the faces of my fellow Sunday moochers start to seem familiar. I see colleagues, kids I’ve taught, people I grew up with, schoolmates. Ella and Jack of course, and every pregnant woman becomes Katy for a second, but I also see several Annes, Eves, a couple of Bims.
It’s a kind of reverse prosopagnosia. Instead of being blind to faces I should know, I am convinced that every passer-by is someone I’ve met, someone I’ve spent time with. Too many people and all of them morphing into people I know as they come close, only turning back into strangers at the last moment. Even the Big Issue sellers and the beggars begin to take on the features of forgotten uni friends.
‘Mark? Mark Chadwick?’
A pavement artist, lips chapped and crusty, deep eyes, grey hair chopped into a very 1990s bowl cut. ‘Mark Chadwick. I can’t believe it.’
‘Danny?’ Because I can see it now. The face has lost its geometry, the skin has reddened, and there’s the black and yellow of a fading bruise on his left cheek, but he is still in there somewhere. God, when did I last see him? It’s got to be well over twenty years. Basically, it went like this: I got to Italy, told Katy we needed to be together, she called her boyfriend from a payphone that night and that was it, that was all she wrote. Danny was history. There was a bit more to it than that, but not much more.
I saw Danny around Cambridge a few times when we finally came back but we never acknowledged each other. Why would we?
If I’d had to guess how Danny would turn out, I’d have said a lawyer like Katy, or something in the City, a corporate hatchet man of some descrip
tion.
I ask how he’s been keeping.
‘How does it look like I’ve been keeping?’
I look at his work, chalked out on the floor in front of him. It’s all right. He’s halfway through a decent reproduction of Manet’s Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. Funny, but I can’t remember Danny ever showing any interest in art when I knew him. At his feet, a large polystyrene McDonald’s cup is two-thirds full of loose change.
We don’t talk for long. I buy coffee and a Danish for each of us from one of the nearby stalls. He tells me that he started out as I would have predicted – law school, prestigious firm, some stuff to do with intellectual copyright – before it all went pear-shaped.
‘A problem with El Boozo. But hey, at least I’m not begging.’ I think he means it as a joke, but it’s hard to be sure.
He tells me that on a fine day, if he’s working particularly well, during the holidays or at weekends, if no scrote has set up in competition nearby, he can make nearly ten quid an hour.
‘What do you do if someone does set up close to you?’
‘You move on or you have a word. Depends on how big they are,’ he says, and he points to the bruise on his cheek. ‘You should see the other guy.’
Unprompted he gives me an insight into the uncertain income stream of a pavement artist. He says mostly people will try to ignore him, though if they do, accidentally, make eye contact, they give loads, guiltily stuffing fivers into his cup. But it doesn’t happen often. As a nation we are pretty good eye contact avoiders, we’ve pretty much got it down.
He doesn’t mind that, the people he can’t stand are the ones that try to enrol him on some programme, the ones who want to help. The vicars and their ilk, all the soft cops of the charity sector. The tightwads who give food instead of money.
I feel I’m in the clear. I always meet the eyes of the homeless, always give proper money. It’s a point of principle, though of course there’s always more you can do.