by Jon Rance
And with those three words I looked out towards the horizon at the hundreds of miles of ocean and felt the warm breeze on my face. I smiled because at last I knew what I was going to do. It would mean going back to university, but I was ready for the challenge. I had a couple of months left of travelling and I was going to enjoy them. No more worrying about Ed and thinking about things I couldn’t control. I was done being afraid.
To: Emma Fogle
From: Kate Jones
Subject: Bula!
Em,
Just a quick email as I don’t have much time. I’m back in Nadi, which is the main town on mainland Fiji. I’m about to head off to the airport to get my flight to Peru (via New Zealand). I just had the most amazing two weeks of my life. I was on a desert island with the best people. It really gave me time to think and reflect and I’m so happy (again). They having something here called Fiji time. What’s amazing is that when you arrive Fiji time just seems like this excuse for being lazy and getting nothing done, but the longer you’re here, you realise it’s actually a way of life. It’s more than just an expression, it’s a philosophy on how to live and I must say I rather like it. Hopefully I can bring a bit of Fiji time with me back to London!
Thank you so much for the talk you gave me in Melbourne. You were totally right. I was wallowing and not being myself, but thanks to you and Fiji, I’m back! I can’t wait to get back to see you again. You’re probably going to be massive! For the first time in our lives you might be bigger than me! I can’t wait to see that. I’ve also made a decision about my career, but we can talk about that when I get back. I hope everything is going well and you aren’t so tired still. I can’t wait to see you as a yummy mummy, you’re going to be A-mazing! South America awaits . . .
Love K x
Ed
Dad was a drinker. He wasn’t an alcoholic, but he definitely liked a drop of the hard stuff, or as he called it, the good stuff. He was an old-fashioned, hard-as-nails bloke. He had the kind of body, even at sixty, where you could see the layers of hard muscle that sat on him like a medal of honour. He’d never done anything but manual work his whole life and it showed. When I was a young boy he worked on building sites and then when I was a bit older for the council, fixing roads. His hands were dry and cracked and his body had scars from work accidents and drunken late-night fights.
Dad grew up in a different era. Most Saturdays I’d be sent to the pub at the end of our street to get him home for tea. I used to love getting a fleeting look at his world, his life outside the house that didn’t involve me. The pub was filled with cigarette smoke and the vinegary smell of alcohol on a deep red carpet. Men in trousers and shirts played darts and pool, talking loudly about things I didn’t understand. Men I saw during the week with families, off early to work or coming home late with barely a word to say, in that pub would lift me up and sit me on the bar, shout loudly, sing songs and tell jokes. Then there was my dad. His beery breath and wet kisses on my eight-year-old skin were forever locked in my mind.
Today was different though. When I walked in, Dad was sitting alone in the corner like a relic from a different age trying to go unnoticed. He was slumped over a pint of something flat and brown, while around him young kids in baseball caps, tracksuit bottoms and trainers talked loudly over pints of fizzy lager. As soon as he saw me his face lit up. I smiled back and walked over. Dad had always been a handsome man, but he was starting to look his age. His salt-and-pepper hair was now just salt and his strong face was starting to wane and look tired. The lines that had once given him character now made him look haggard.
‘All right, son.’
‘Hi, Dad, another?’
Dad looked down at his pint, as if he was actually trying to decide. We both knew the answer. ‘I’ll get a menu as well,’ I said and walked over to the bar.
I’d come to tell Dad about my recent unemployment, but, standing at the bar and looking over at him, I wasn’t sure I could. He’d always been so proud of me. Every time I went back home to see him and Mum, he’d take me out and parade me around like a trophy. ‘This is my son, works in the City he does, earns a fortune, don’t you son?’ The phrase preceded me into every room.
‘Here you go,’ I said, sitting down and pushing a menu across the table towards him.
‘I never eat here. Too expensive. Not worth the money. Decent chippy over the road. Half the price.’
‘Just get something, my treat,’ I said and he smiled a proud fatherly smile.
‘I’ll get it next time.’
‘OK, Dad, next time.’
He never did, of course, but I didn’t mind. I liked the fact I could take care of my old man. My brother, Joe, was off up the country, the last I heard still unemployed and living with some girl, and my sister, Becky, was in Southampton with a couple of kids and a useless husband. I was the successful one, the one who’d really made something of himself and I didn’t want to disappoint him.
‘What’s new?’
‘Not much, working too hard,’ I lied.
‘That’s my boy,’ said Dad with a sparkle in his eyes.
Dad had always worked hard, up at the crack of dawn and out the door before the bird farts, he always said. He’d been working since he was fourteen and he still worked now. Only now, at sixty, his body couldn’t keep up and so he was a site manager. The fact was, he couldn’t do the graft work anymore and so, like a once-great racehorse, he was put out to pasture. He’d retire in a few years, get his pension and that would be it. He didn’t have much to look forward to. ‘Earn it while you can, son, and then retire. Buy a place in Spain; get out of this shithole.’ He looked around the pub where he’d spent probably as much time as anywhere else in his life. ‘How’s Kate? Still off gallivanting around the globe like the Queen of Sheba?’
‘She’s in Fiji at the moment.’ Or so said the brief text I’d received the day before.
‘Fiji, eh, and where’s that again?’
‘South Pacific.’
‘Cannibalism down there. Gotta be careful. You should tell her. They’ll eat her soon as look at her.’
‘I’ll let her know, Dad. Listen, there’s something I need to tell you,’ I said as the barmaid brought over our food. I waited for her to leave before I continued. ‘It’s Kate, it’s me. We’re sort of on a break.’
Dad looked at me like I’d just asked him to recite the times tables.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means we’re taking a break from each other while she’s away.’
He still looked mystified.
‘You’ve broken up?’
‘No, not broken up, taking a break.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Well, we haven’t broken up exactly, but we’re free to see other people while she’s away, I suppose.’ Dad looked even more confused. ‘We’re still a couple, but we just need a break to figure a few things out.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘You kids today, honestly, you always think everything’s so complicated. What’s so complicated about love, son, let me ask you that? You either love each other or you don’t. You’re either together or you’re not.’
Dad was of the generation that got married for life, for better or worse and they stuck at it come hell or high water. Through thick and thin, my parents had been married for forty years. They’d had rough times, like all couples, but the idea of them getting divorced or even taking a break never came into the equation. They were old-fashioned in so many ways, and we often scoff at that these days, but they had something right. They knew how to stay in love. Today we run around having affairs and one-night stands at the drop of a hat, but not my mum and dad. It just wasn’t part of their vocabulary.
‘Then I guess we’re not.’
‘And why? What happened?’
‘I cheated on her with someone from work,’ I said very matter-of-factly. Dad’s face dropped. He looked disappointed. Actually
it was worse than that, he looked heartbroken. ‘And she kissed someone in Thailand.’
‘Jesus.’
‘And now we’re on a break,’ I said, suddenly getting a bit choked up. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. I held it all in. The way I always had with Dad. ‘But I’m sure we’ll figure things out when she gets back.’
‘And what if you don’t?’
‘I guess we’ll deal with that if it happens.’
‘Let’s hope, eh,’ said Dad before he suddenly got up. ‘I need a fag. Back in a minute.’
I watched him through the glass of the door for a moment. My father, big, strong and stuck in his ways. As soon as I was eighteen, I couldn’t wait to leave and head off to university. I thought mixing with people from middle-class backgrounds and expensive boarding schools would somehow rub off on me and for a while it did. Working in the City, excelling among a group of Oxbridge recruits and out-performing all of them had given me false hope. If there was one thing I’d learnt from the Georgie incident, it was that I’d never be one of them and, also, I didn’t want to be. I would always be a working-class lad from Slough and more like my dad than I’d ever previously cared to admit.
While he was outside, puffing hard on his cigarette, I decided that I had to tell him about my job. He deserved to know the truth and it was time I stopped second-guessing his every response.
Dad came wandering back in and sat down. He began eating again without another word. I took a sip of my pint.
‘And there’s something else,’ I said slowly before I put a mouthful of steak and kidney pie into my mouth.
‘What?’
I slowly finished my mouthful of pie before I told him. ‘I lost my job.’
I waited for his reaction. I was expecting fireworks. I was expecting incredulous disbelief. What I wasn’t expecting was straightforward sympathy and optimism.
‘I’m sorry, son, but these things happen. You’ll find something else,’ he said with a comforting smile. ‘With your brains, you’ll be all right.’
This from the man who walked me from pub table to pub table explaining to all and sundry what I did for a living and that I earned so much I paid for them to have a holiday abroad. ‘Ten whole days in Spain. We didn’t pay for a thing.’ I didn’t understand. I had built up the conversation in my head so much, put so much thought into it and expected a certain reaction. I was sort of pissed off.
‘That’s all you have to say?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I got fired, Dad. I’m unemployed.’
‘You’ll bounce back.’
‘But what if I don’t? What if I fuck up and end up . . .’ I stopped myself, but Dad knew what I meant. I could tell from the look on his face.
‘Don’t worry, son, you won’t end up like me.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘It’s all right. I get it.’
‘Dad, honestly, I wasn’t talking about you.’
I looked at him and a wave of guilt rushed through me. He didn’t say it – he didn’t have to – he looked defeated. He looked old and full of regret.
‘You don’t think I wished things had been different when you were growing up? That I’d earned more money? You don’t think I wanted to give you kids everything?’
I could see the hurt in his eyes.
‘Then why didn’t you try harder?’
‘There isn’t a day goes by I don’t look back and wish I’d done more. You were right, son, the day we had that fight. Right before you left for university. I didn’t do enough for you, for your mum, for me. I failed at being a father.’
‘You didn’t fail, Dad. You did so much for us. We didn’t have much money, but there wasn’t anything you wouldn’t do for us.’
‘It wasn’t enough though, was it? Be truthful, son, you resented me. You left for university and we didn’t see you for six months. Your mum was beside herself. I know I let you down but don’t think for one moment that you’re going to end up like me. You’re nothing like me. You’re clever, smart. No matter what happens, you’ll never be like me.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Dad,’ I said, looking across at him. ‘And the more I think about it, the more I realise just how like you I am. I may have gone to university and worked in the City, but look at us, sitting here in your old pub, having a pint. I’m more comfortable here than I am in some poncy bar in London. I used to think I wanted all that because I thought it would make me happy, but I was wrong. Yeah, we could have used more money growing up, but we weren’t unhappy were we? We spent time together and, looking back, we had loads of good times.’
‘Yeah, we did,’ said Dad with a wistful smile.
‘I’m sorry if I made you feel like you weren’t good enough.’
‘Thanks, son. You have no idea what it means to hear you say that.’
Dad and I drank all afternoon before we went home and saw Mum. We actually had fun. We talked about this and that, laughed, smoked and when it was eventually time to head back to London, he gave me a hug, a proper father and son hug, and then a beery kiss on my cheek.
‘Love you, son,’ he said.
‘Love you too, Dad,’ I said for the first time in a very long time.
Jack
It had been one of those days. It was a Friday and we were busy all day with tourists from every corner of the globe. From the moment I’d opened the door at seven and turned off the alarm, nothing had gone right. Since our night together, Therese had left and gone travelling. I’d hired two new staff members, both unreliable and completely useless. Another girl had called in sick and Tom, my assistant manager, was in Spain for the week. For a whole twelve-hour shift, it was just me and two other staff members. I knew then it was going to be hell.
Of course with staff members falling faster than soldiers at the Somme, we had one of our busiest days in history. Hour after hour we fought them off, serving coffee and pastries, but they kept coming and coming. Wave after wave of Americans demanding their caffeine fix, interspersed with undercurrents of Japanese and European tourists looking and pointing at items on the menu. I didn’t even have time for lunch and so as the afternoon wore on, I became tired and irate. At just after four o’clock, when it felt like the day was never going to end, my phone buzzed frantically in my pocket. I looked down expecting Emma, but it was an unknown number.
‘I’m taking fifteen,’ I said to Laura, who gave me a painful smile in return.
She’d only been working with us for a few weeks and I wouldn’t normally have left her alone, but what choice did I have?
‘Hello?’ I said, while walking out back, grabbing a pre-made sandwich on the way.
‘Mr Chapman?’ a female voice said. I didn’t recognise her and so assumed it was one of those annoying cold-calling companies trying to sell me something I didn’t need.
‘Yes?’
‘Hi, my name’s Abby Fischer and I’m with the Gladstone Company,’ she said. She sounded young, maybe early twenties. She had a sweet voice, quite posh and slightly uncertain. I was searching for the name in my head. The Gladstone Company. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
‘The Gladstone Company?’
‘I’m so sorry. Perhaps you’re more familiar with The Morris Gladstone Literary Agency? You sent us the first chapters of your novel, One Day Soon?’
As soon as I heard the words ‘literary agency’ I froze. My heart skipped and jumped a few beats like a scratched record before it settled down and I regained some sort of rhythm.
‘Oh, right, yes, sorry.’
‘No problem. I’m Morris Gladstone’s assistant. He really loved your book and he’d like to set up an appointment for you to come in. Can you make Monday at four?’
‘Yes, yes, of course, I’ll be there. Monday at four.’
‘We have your email. I’ll send over the details.’
‘Thank you so much, I can’t wait.’
‘Have a great weekend.’
‘Yes, yes, you
too,’ I said and then she was gone.
I was alone in the small office, completely shocked, bewildered and smiling ridiculously. I’d waited so many years for that call. I tried to keep my head together and not get carried away, but it was impossible. It didn’t mean I was suddenly going to be an international bestselling author and that all of my problems and financial worries were going to disappear, but it was a start. It was something. I was about to call Emma with the good news when Laura poked her head around the corner looking worried and said she needed me, ‘like, right away’.
I left work at seven o’clock and popped into the off-licence on the way home. I grabbed a few beers and a couple of non-alcoholic ones for Emma to celebrate, and then stopped in the Thai restaurant around the corner and got a takeaway. I couldn’t wait to see Emma and tell her the good news. I couldn’t help but daydream about the life we were going to have. A beautiful wife, a baby and the job of my dreams. I couldn’t have been any happier. Everything was finally falling into place.
I opened the front door and walked in. Usually I’d see Emma watching television in the lounge, or in the kitchen cooking, but I didn’t. Our flat wasn’t huge and so it meant she would either be in the bathroom or the bedroom.
‘Honey, I’m home,’ I said in a syrupy American accent. ‘I have the best news.’
I walked into the bedroom and that was when I saw her. Emma was in bed, sitting up and looking at me in horror. She’d been crying, her face was puffy and red; I’d never seen her looking like that before. My heart sank when I looked down at the bed. Moving out from her body was a red stain like wine, which had soaked the sheets and duvet. It stretched out towards the bottom of the bed like river tributaries. As soon as I saw it, I dropped the bags I was carrying.
‘Fuck.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ muttered Emma, bursting into tears.
The next fifteen minutes were a blur. I called for an ambulance and when they asked what the emergency was I didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s my wife, the baby,’ was all I could muster. ‘Please come quickly.’