Julia Gets a Life

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  ‘Howard. My friend. I was ill and I stayed at his place.’

  ‘Ill?,’ asks Richard. ‘What sort of ill?’

  ‘Ill from a doner kebab – yes, I know – certainly not from ingesting any class A drugs.’

  ‘So that’s why you weren’t at work. When I rang them they said they hadn’t a clue where you were. They said they hadn’t heard from you since before you went on holiday. But I left messages on the ansafone, here – half a dozen of them. Why didn’t you answer them?’

  ‘Because I didn’t get them. There weren’t any messages on the ansafone. There haven’t been any messages on the ansafone at all.’

  Richard stands up and then strides from the room. Moments later the air is filled with the tortured outpourings of a man with a lot on his mind. But it isn’t Richard, and it certainly isn’t Craig. It is Malcolm – and given how much of his soul he is bearing, he would probably pay me hard cash for the tape.

  Then it stops. And a couple of clicks and whirrs later, Richard returns.

  ‘The cassette’s full,’ he says.

  Which is why…..which is why….which is….yes!

  ‘Well that’s great! Thanks a lot, Mum,’ says Emma, rising and snatching up her backpack from the floor.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve just dragged us all the way back here for nothing, that’s all.’

  ‘But I didn’t…’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. Don’t you worry about our holiday, will you?’

  And off she goes.

  ‘Name’s Jerome, ‘Richard mouths, ‘from the village.’

  Oh dear.

  Max follows soon after, though in altogether better spirits, as he is to be re-united earlier than expected with his electricals cache.

  Richard, on the other hand, shows no sign of leaving.

  To show willing, at least, I make him a coffee. He looks tired under his tan.

  ‘Didn’t rain, then?’ I comment.

  ‘Not once.’

  ‘It’s been pretty hot here as well.’

  ‘It sounds like everything in your life has been pretty hot just lately.’

  I shrug.

  ‘I’ve been busy…’

  ‘So it’s for real, then? All this high flying Sunday Supplement stuff?’

  I shrug again.

  ‘Who knows? I mean, yes, it’s for real in that I’ve had a couple of really good commissions. But it’s freelance. It could all stop as of now.’

  ‘I didn’t realise, you know, that you were keen on getting into all that sort of thing again. I thought…’

  ‘I didn’t know it myself until it happened.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Richard takes a sip of his coffee. Then says,

  ‘We…I was really worried about you. I didn’t tell the kids, but I didn’t know what to think. I mean, you’ve been acting so strangely lately that I kept thinking…’

  ‘Oh, Richard, come on. What do you take me for? I’m not some impressionable young girl, you know. I can look after myself.’

  ‘I know that. But you read so much about that sort of thing. Rock Stars and TV people and such like. I should think it’s a fairly seductive lifestyle…’

  ‘Well it’s certainly exciting. And different. And for me, creatively, it is infinitely more enjoyable than taking crap pictures of snotty kids all day. But like I said, it could all end tomorrow.’

  ‘Do you think it will?’

  ‘I don’t know. Features are features, but with the book coming out as well I suppose I’m hoping I might get asked to do more. Now the children are older it would certainly be easier for me to do jobs in London and so on. I haven’t really thought about it. Except that I can’t imagine spending the rest of my career in a Time Of Your Life photo studio.’

  ‘I can see that. And look, I really am sorry about what I said before you went away. It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t true. The kids…well, you know…’

  I nod. I’m not angry about it any more. It seems like forever ago.

  ‘Forget it,’ I say, as Richard drains his coffee and prepares to leave. He calls goodbyes up the stairs and taps the ansafone as I open the front door for him.

  ‘Told you,’ he says, grinning.

  I hold my hand up in surrender.

  Then he turns on the path and gives me a peculiar little smile.

  ‘It’s nice that we can have a conversation without rowing,’ he says.

  But now I know what he meant when he said rowing made him feel better. He knows, as do I, that an absence of rowing is not nice at all.

  It is a clear night and the sky is sprinkled with stars. Instead of closing the door as I usually do, I stand and watch as Richard unlocks the car, climbs in and drives away. He is frightened, I realise, that he really has lost me.

  I close the front door. At this moment, he has.

  *

  But it was not Craig but Colin who was first able to enjoy the luxury of free rein on an empty cassette.

  ‘Are you still speaking to me?’ he asked, when I called him back on Friday night.

  ‘Of course I am. That article had nothing to do with you, surely?’

  ‘Well, yes and no, sweet.’

  Hmmm. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, only that the newsroom, casting about, as they do, for something other than Royal squabbles to rant about, called me and wanted to know the name of the Depth freelance I had covering the pix for the gig. So, naturally, I said you. It was only afterward that it occurred to me what the connection was. When I had a half hour of earbending from Donna about it..’

  ‘Donna Talbot? But she was there for some music mag.’

  ‘Yep. But she does a lot for Depth – someone probably spotted her and put two and two together. You should be grateful for your current anonymity.’

  ‘Of course! She must have been the one who got arrested. Hah! Was she charged?’

  ‘Certainly was. Along with Heidi Harris, that Bunting bloke, and the entire line up of some hip-hop band. I bet you’re glad you weren’t there.’

  ‘That’s entirely thanks to you and that beach shoot you wanted. Though, mind you, it doesn’t make much difference now, does it?’

  ‘Don’t fret. It’s all yesterday’s news. Now listen, sweet, I’m sitting in front of a whole pile of wonderful proofs here. It’s not strictly necessary, but do you fancy a trip up to the smoke to have a run through? Obviously, the production team has last word, but I’m sure you’d like to have some input on this.’

  ‘When though? The children are just back from holiday, and if I don’t make it into work next week I wont have a work to make it into.’

  ‘Well I was thinking Wednesday-ish. Couldn’t you just take a day off?’

  Sod it. I could.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort it. I’ll ring you on Monday.’

  ‘Great. So how was it? I’m told Kite upstaged everyone.’

  ‘They were good. It was great. Not a bit like doing a proper job. I could get used to the lifestyle.’

  ‘Darling, you were born for it.’

  I wish.

  In fact, wishing was what I spent most of the weekend doing. Wishing I was twenty four, wishing I was one hundred and four, wishing I could tell Mr Fat Chops Area Manager to fuck off, Craig-style, wishing Lily was around to talk to, wishing I could jolt myself out of this dreadful inertia, wishing the children were a little older, wishing the children were a lot younger. Wishing I could rewind. Or fast forward. Or just feel different.

  On Sunday afternoon I sat in the garden for three whole hours listening to Craig, courtesy of Kite, on Emma’s iPod.

  ‘Are you ill still, Mum?’ Max enquired when he emerged, blinking, from the house.

  ‘I’m fine, darling, really.’

  ‘Then why are you being so funny?’

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘Yeah. You’ve gone all peculiar. Like Dad said..’

  ‘He said that?’

 
; ‘He’s been worried you’re not well, but he doesn’t like to ask.’

  ‘Really?’

  And then he called. Just like that. When I was least expecting it.

  I was putting a pizza in the oven (couldn’t even be fussed to make a roast)

  Emma answered.

  ‘Muuummm!’ She bellowed. ‘It’s for you. Clive James or someone.’ And then she squeaked. And clapped her hand over her mouth. And waved her free hand wildly about and did a strange little dance on the hall carpet. Then said,

  ‘It’s him!’ she rasped, sotto voce, while I picked up the receiver. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? It’s him! It is, isn’t it? It is, it is!’.

  I flapped her away and she belted up the stairs to get Max.

  It was like trying to breathe normally when you are conscious of your breathing.

  When I picked up the receiver it was with adrenaline schussing at great speed through my veins, my heartbeat at a canter and with a perceptible tremor in the hand that held the phone. It was, even at that instant, something of a revelation to me, that I could manage to produce a sound at all. Yet I did; a somewhat squeaky ‘hello’.

  Craig said ‘hello’ also. A strong voice. His voice. And all I could think of as response was,

  ‘Hello.’

  He then said ‘hel-low’ to which I said ‘hel-low-ee,’ to which he then replied ‘Well, hello, Mrs P.’

  I dare say we would have kept up this inane but merry banter indefinitely had I not become aware of the audience of two that were contained behind the stair rail, and that were quietly tittering.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Will you two please GO AWAY!!’

  Which proved that some responses are completely instinctive.

  ‘I’m sorry, ‘ I went on, realising I must sound like a fishwife. Oh God. ‘You know what they’re like.’

  Which proved likewise, and also my limited repertoire of repartee. He knew no such thing. Oh God.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ he said next.

  ‘I’ve been here. At home. Only my friend, who was staying, turned the phone ringer off, and then I found out on Thursday that the tape on the ansafone was full as well – her boyfriend prattling on at her – and well, here I am. How are you?’

  ‘Tired. Pissed off with all the promo stuff. Missing you. Why didn’t you call me, then?’’

  Oh, oh, oh, oh!

  I scanned the banisters.

  ‘I wanted to. I’ve been missing you as well.’

  I should be shot for understatement. And dismembered. And if they looked inside me they would find nothing but marshmallows and spun sugar confectionery.

  ‘You should have called then. So, can we get together? Soon?’

  ‘Well, I’m in London on Wednesday to go through the pictures for the book. Perhaps…’

  ‘I know. Me too.’

  ‘Are you? Really?’

  ‘Nigel thought we should. Though it’s all fucking crap of course. You know? I find it quite creepy, really. I mean, I know everyone wants to look like, okay, in photographs, but there comes a point when you realise what’s portrayed isn’t you. Just the way you looked at one moment when the light hit you right. You know? I have a whole life to live. I’ve got to grow up, grow older, do all that regular shit. I can’t stand that I might lose my sense of self before I’m even together about who I am.’

  ‘But you know who you are.’

  ‘I know who I am right now. Who I am in ten years is something else. Blows you away, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think I was sufficiently mature to question my identity when I was…’

  I could not say ‘your age’. I re-grouped. ‘But it’s been almost an obsession since my marriage broke up.’

  ‘You seem sorted to me.’

  ‘It’s a lie. I just seem so.’

  ‘You do. So you’ll be able to come home with me after? Stay over?’

  Uurrrgh.

  ‘I hope so.’ I know so.

  ‘You’d better, Mrs P. You cannot let me down.’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or I’ll be really fucked off. Okay?’

  *

  Get your head together. Now. This is just

  A crush

  An infatuation

  A pre-menopausal hormone surge

  A post-marital (not that again, please) response to a display of affection from a member (any member?) of the opposite sex

  Selfish

  Sex

  I’m lovelorn. That’s all it is really. I am a deserted woman and have fashioned this feeling out of old aches and pains that are nothing to do with the man I’m obsessed with, and everything to do with the one that left me. And, yes, I know that he didn’t actually leave me, but in one sense, he did, in that he felt so little for me that he followed the pull of his loins and without due regard for the marital consequence, took his sex drive and drove it home somewhere else.

  Isn’t it amazing? You can read, literally, dozens of books telling you otherwise, but it still all comes down to rejection in the end. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself. That’s precisely what I told myself when I called Richard and asked him to have the children overnight on Wednesday. Even managed to invoke it (this is my career, Richard, I think you at least owe me that…) when he whinged about presentations and meetings with local MPs. Even ran it by Howard when he called to see how things were. But he was having none of it.

  ‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘You’re in love, Julia. Face it.’

  I snorted.

  ‘I’m sorry? Did I hear you right?’

  ‘Well, you must be. You’re far too old to be infatuated with anyone…’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  ‘But it’s true. And you have all the symptoms…’

  ‘I have…Oh, I don’t know. He’s just, so, so…oh, I just wish he was some egotistical fathead with nothing on his mind except the next shag. At least that way I would know where I stood…’

  ‘Lay…’

  ‘Exactly! At least then I could get on with feeling sorry for myself and regretful and cheap about shagging him and…’

  ‘I thought ‘shagging’ was the whole point.’

  ‘It was. But now I’ve accepted I’m not psychologically capable of strings-free casual sex, it would be so much better if he was a bastard and told me to sod off. Wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Would it?’

  ‘Of course! Then I wouldn’t have to waste another moment in fruitless daydreaming about some utterly ridiculous relationship, would I?’

  ‘Utterly ridiculous only because you perceive it to be so. There was a time when I felt the same about me. Look, is this about you and him, or about Richard and the children and how they would feel? Because if you are really decided that there is no future in your marriage, then unless you elect to remain celibate forever, the problem is not going to go away. Only the person will change. The bottom line is that, whatever happens, you can take something positive out of what you have here.’

  Which was sufficiently obscure a collection of concepts to ensure I maintained a total sensory deficit in relation to the repeat of Inspector Morse I’d been meaning to watch, and that I neglected to note that Max was still playing Sarcophagus Slammer on the Playstation a good hour after he’d been sent to bed. Parenting, I decided, would be a whole lot easier if the emotional temperature of the parent(s) in question was essentially tepid, with the occasional rumbling of luke-warm. Children needed the comfort and security of knowing that whatever maelstroms their own biological clocks had in store, their parents had nothing more pressing afoot than the odd skirmish about the football versus the BAFTA Awards. They didn’t deserve this complete flake of a mother.

  Howard telephoned again late that evening. His mother, he told me, had just passed away. And that he couldn’t decide whether to go up to the hospice, or, as they’d advised, to wait until morning. He apologised for calling so late in the evening but said that as N
ick was away overnight (an Earth Patrol Consciousness Raising Mini-Conference – bastard) he needed to talk to a friend.

  He wouldn’t drive over. He didn’t want to be a nuisance. And alone with the children, I couldn’t drive over to him. We talked for a while but I felt unable to comfort him. He needed a physical warmth, someone to hold him. But I couldn’t persuade him. I wished I could have.

  Chapter 27

  Butterflies. Big time.

  I rang Rani. I told her I needed some time off and asked what she thought. She said ‘you’re living dangerously in the middle of August with the Captured for Christmas event in full flood. How much time?’

  ‘Only two days. Wednesday and Thursday. I’m still owed some leave.’

  The week I’d been saving for autumn half term. For a trip to my Mum’s. The kids would be ecstatic.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Well, I wouldn’t rate your chances.’

  ‘He can’t stop me.’

  ‘That’s true. But he can make life hard for you. And he will if he can. He’s as jealous as hell.’

  The first of the series of Kite features came out in Depth on the Sunday. There was a flurry of phone calls, all complimentary, and an air of mild celebration in the house. Though Max and Emma strove to maintain a pubescent-appropriate rather grudging enthusiasm, they were, I realised, actually quite proud of me. And Richard called too. To let me know that he’d seen it.

  ‘Your pictures are very good,’ he said. ‘You haven’t lost your eye for composition.’

  ‘I hope not. But you know, it was really so easy. They’re all so photogenic – and not in the least camera shy, of course, and stadiums and crowds lend themselves so well to this sort of thing. And I was able to just follow them around and take what I wanted. I shot rolls and rolls of film…’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll get lots more commissions now…’

  ‘It’s very nice of you to say so. I really hope I do. I’m getting so fed up at Time Of Your Life now. It’s like I’ve been given a glimpse of what I could be doing and now I can’t bear the thought that I might not get to do any more.’

  ‘That Colin friend of yours (the contra of ‘that dickhead husband’) is clearly impressed by you. And he’s come up with the goods, hasn’t he? Now he knows you’re interested in doing more freelance work, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t put some your way, is there?’