by Laura Kemp
They’re like little confessions: how he feels about Mam and Dad, his job, the people he’s hanging out with, the band he’s sort of joined and the girl he’s seeing, who’s a bit like you, he’d said, but not as funny. She’s all right, a friend of the drummer, not like the last bird who started asking how many kids he wanted on their third date. But there’s still this empty space where Vicky should be. When she says she misses him, and wishes he was there with her, his jumpy insides are soothed into a calm: feeling wanted and anchored is what she does to him.
It was weird having to find some new people to go out with. He got talking to someone at a gig soon after Vicky went and he ended up having a jamming session with his band. He had nothing else happening so he started going to their practice nights regular, like. It’s tidy because there’s no real talking, just playing. Their name is quite good too: Going To The Dogs sounds like something Jarvis Cocker would sing. They should try writing their own stuff though rather than do shit Oasis covers. But then he’s not a proper member and it serves a purpose so he’s not going to get into an argument about it. The rest of the time he’s upstairs in his room teaching himself how to code. It’s sort of taken over his head. Like, ever since he started programming, he sees algorithms everywhere. When you cook, say, you have a starting point, with the ingredients, you follow steps in a sequential order, then you have an end product. It’s really satisfying because nothing else in his life runs according to any bloody rules.
As Dad starts to snore, he wonders what Vicky is doing now. Probably still asleep as it’s Boxing Day morning in Australia. She emailed on her Christmas Day, they did the whole ‘chuck a prawn on the barbie’ on Bondi. It’s so naff, but somehow she can get away with it. He wonders what’s up with Kat – what a fucking state she’s in. She never emails him, lets Vicky do it and so he only gets her version of things. It sounds like Kat’s going a bit funny, like she’s trying to prove she’s wild and crazy. Vicky hasn’t said as much but there are lots of exclamation marks following her antics. Probably all that freedom. They’ve had a couple of rows too. Vicky said she went mad when they arrived in Australia because she’d hated South America: she’s gone off with blokes and left Vicky in clubs by herself. That’s not good. He’d try to talk some sense into Kat if he was there – or take Vicky away from it all, make her feel good. As for blokes, she doesn't say if there is anyone but he hopes not, which he knows is tight and double-standards, it’s just he doesn't want her to be taken for a ride. That's all.
He sent an email this morning, told her about Midnight Mass, when he nodded off because he’d been to an indie night with Orla and they’d got wrecked. He smiles remembering Mam tutting with a ‘what would the baby Jesus think?’. Then he hears Orla going on at him last night to get together with Vicky: he had to spell it out. They’ve got a platonic friendship, he doesn’t think of her that way. She’s cute, very, but he couldn’t snog her. Orla asked if it was more like she was a sister. But that isn’t it – the way he feels towards Orla is protective, like she’s little, and they had blood in common. But Vicky is his equal and it’s special because they chose, and choose, to be mates. Orla just slurred that she didn’t get it and then bounced off to the dance floor. People didn’t – they never had done, that a boy and a girl could get on without sex being involved. But hand on heart he’d never seen her as female. He couldn’t even tell you if she had big boobs or not. Why did people have to reduce everything to a poke? Although this girl, Nadia, she was fit, and they were building up to it. That’s how he liked it, which apparently was weird for a bloke: he didn’t trust anyone enough to give them one from the off.
‘Anyone for a turkey sandwich?’ Mam says, getting up.
Obviously Dad suddenly wakes up and says, ‘Yes, with salt and lots of butter.’
‘I’ll do it, Mam,’ Mikey says, ‘you’ve been on your feet all day.’
‘Brown sauce on mine, Mike.’ He sticks two fingers up at Orla’s cheeky chops.
‘Nothing for me. I’m full as an egg,’ Mam says, patting her stomach. He hopes that’s because she’s eaten too much and not that she feels poorly. Her face is bright though, so he takes her word for it. ‘Use the nice bread. That’s what it’s there for.’
He loves his Mam for thinking Mother’s Pride is posh. He bends down to give her a kiss.
‘Today’s been magic, Mam,’ he says, then he jumps into a boxer’s stance. ‘Fancy more of this tomorrow?’
She was brilliant on the old Wii Sports earlier, she’s got a massive right hook. He’d got it for Christmas from all of them. He never thought he’d get them to join in a bit of gaming, but fair dos, they all had a go. Even Dad, he had to do the football, didn’t he? He couldn’t help but have a dig at why Mikey would want to play sport on the computer but not the real thing. But Mikey let it go.
‘No, love, I’ve taken early retirement. Like your father should do,’ she says, digging her elbow into him. ‘Eh, Bryn?’
There’s a voluntary redundancy deal at the railway where he’s an engineer and she wants him to give it up. She thinks he’ll stop boozing if he gets out of there, because he drinks with his workmates.
It’ll take a fuck load more than that, Mikey thinks, as Dad just tells her to ‘give it a break, Bernadette, today of all days’.
‘Is there enough for me to make some sandwiches to take to work tomorrow?’ Mikey asks, shaking his head that he has to go in and open up at 6 a.m. for some sad fuckers to buy a phone with £20 off. He offered to do the shift because some of the staff have kids. And he needs the money. He doesn’t know what for yet, maybe for his first month’s rent if he gets the job in London. Maybe Vicky could flat-share with him?
‘Of course, love, I did an extra leg for sandwiches,’ Mam says, taking a sip of her Irish coffee, then she tuts. ‘It’s not right, the shops opening tomorrow. What have we become?’
Mikey shrugs because he can’t show her he’s as pissed off as her. ‘I’ve got New Year off so it’s all right.’
Into the tiny kitchen, he flicks the switch and as the fluorescent tube flickers into life, he hopes it’s the start of a new dawn. That 2008 will be his year. It has to be, he thinks, because it’s about time he had one.
Chapter Seven
K
Penllyn, just outside Cowbridge
Kate was more nervous tonight than before her reunion with Vee, who was coming for dinner.
While they’d hugged spontaneously last week, out of the sheer dramatics of their first face-to-face in years, this was different: the initial surprise had gone. Wary now, Kate was fearful that there may not be anything deeper, the art of friendship was about sustaining it when the fireworks had finished.
There were colleagues at work, such as fifty-something Lowri, who was more like a substitute mother, and of course her sister Charlie, but never again had she found a replacement for Vee. She wouldn’t allow herself that pleasure after what she had done. So this was her chance for atonement.
That was Jack’s influence: once she’d read Vee’s message, she had panicked, taking it out on her body with a crucifying hilly run in the winding country lanes, slipping on mud, lacerated by the rain. What if Vee had wanted a scene? What if it threw up all the old pain? What if she had found out what had happened between her and Mikey?
But as she soaked in the antique tub of their old cottage, Jack had taken his ever-present pencil from behind his ear and challenged her cons with a pretend list of pros on his palm. What, on the other hand, if she had missed you and wanted to be friends again? More buts, but inside her head: she’d have to explain how she went off the rails, sleeping around, the night that changed her life, the diagnosis, the aftermath. Waves of self-loathing had descended as hard as they’d come so frequently years before. The memory of the lights in the unit, the gulping for air, serrated, bleeding. Jack had pulled her from the bath and folded her naked into his heart.
‘I can live with how you are forever and a day, but I’m worried you won’t be abl
e to,’ he’d said as her tears merged with the bathwater from her dripping body, the smell of turps and woodstain on his old T-shirt calming her. Filling in for her father’s lack of support, which still hurt her. The prospect of letting light in on the old ravaged twisted roots of wretchedness had been horrifying: for so long she’d covered them up. But that hadn’t stopped their thorns from piercing her skin. Perhaps the only way she could hack them down would be to confront them. She knew as she lay in Jack’s arms she couldn’t carry on like this. She needed to come to terms with her past. She needed to prove that in her stoic silence she wasn’t becoming her mother.
Taking that with her to their meeting in Fromage, Kate’s worry had evaporated when she’d found Vee as warm and sunny as she’d always been. It had felt so natural to invite her over for a kitchen supper, which was where she was now.
Wringing her hands, Kate made a final check of the creaking house. Griffy was here on his weekly sleepover so her sister and brother-in-law could have a quiet night to themselves which meant her earlier tidying had been for nothing. But she wouldn’t have it any other way – this was her inner sanctum, this reflected who she was.
Then, above the cries from upstairs where Jack was getting covered in bathwater by Griff, she heard a car mush the gravel on the overgrown drive.
Her heart beating, she rushed to open the door and was confronted by a row of knuckles.
‘Well, that would’ve been a good start,’ Vee said, laughing as she retrieved her fist, ‘battering the host in the face.’
Kate was still clutching her chest. ‘Lucky we’ve got such a ferocious guard dog.’ Boris was lying on his back and wagging his tail.
‘Aw, look at him,’ Vee said, bending down to tickle his tummy. Kate watched her make a fuss: it was uncomplicated with a dog, everyone knew what to do with an exposed belly. But human beings were far more complex.
Vee presented a bottle – ‘Hope it’s okay, Dad forced it on me so…’ – and they worked out what sort of physical contact would be appropriate. They settled on a kiss on the cheek: they had to proceed with caution.
She hung up Vee’s tweed cape, learning it was a charity shop find, a skill Vicky had held onto when she became Vee, and headed towards the kitchen down the narrow hallway.
‘Is it shoes on or shoes off?’ Vee asked, still on the mat in boots. Kate felt a stab of sorrow that her oldest friend had to ask the house rules, so long had they been apart.
‘Whatever you fancy. In here, you can even sit on the sofa in jeans,’ she said, referring to her mother’s strict no-denim on the upholstery policy of their childhood.
‘I like your top,’ Kate said, following the rules of female engagement with compliments.
‘Oh, this old thing,’ Vee said, chucking her DMs, playing along as she pulled on the baggy zebra-print T-shirt which she wore over leggings and woolly knee-high socks. It felt good to know they were both laying the foundations together. ‘You look in such good shape. Do you go jogging or go to the gym or…?’
‘Bits and pieces, whatever I feel like, really,’ Kate said, hiding that she ran and ran and ran until she out-sprinted the demons.
‘Red or white?’
‘Whatever’s open. I thought about driving but Dad gave me a lift and a tenner for a cab, bless him. Called it pocket money, as if I’m ten!’
Kate took three glasses off the Welsh dresser and poured red all round. ‘Jack’ll be down in a minute,’ she said. Then at the sound of a stampede of feet, she said, ‘Talk of the devil.’
First to enter the kitchen though was Griffy, the sight of whom never failed to melt Kate. At each stage of his development, she never thought perfection could be topped. Yet she was wrong, as his delicious newborn smell gave way to adorable podgy wrists and his delightful first steps were trumped by his toddler pot belly. Now seven and skinny as a rake, in spite of his never-ending appetite, his ribbed chest and puny arms took her absolute hostage. ‘Where’s your pyjama top, you rascal?’ she said, grabbing and kissing him over and over.
‘Aunty Katieeee, stop it!’ he said, giggling as he tried to wriggle out of her grasp.
‘Never!’ she said, smiling, thanking God for this boy’s spirit which had rescued her.
Banging his head on a beam as ever, Jack filled the room as he appeared, panting and ruddy-cheeked from the chase.
He threw Griff’s Star Wars top at Kate, then his Hagrid hand, a broad grin and a booming ‘hello’ at Vee.
‘Pleased to meet you! And who’s this?’ Vee asked, gazing at Griff.
Suddenly shy, he covered his blue eyes with luxurious lashes and ruffled his beautiful shaggy brown hair.
‘My nephew. Charlie’s little one,’ Kate said, bursting with pride.
‘I’m the tenth oldest in the class,’ he said, wrapping his arm around her thigh. She loved the randomness of his reply.
‘Runs in the family, doesn’t it?’ Vee’s acknowledgements of the little boy’s DNA caught Kate right in the throat.
Hoarsely, she directed Griffy to the lounge for milk and biscuits. Jack would put him to bed while she got dinner ready.
He skipped off still topless and Jack pursued him, mimicking his light steps.
‘He’s a cutie,’ Vee said, then adding with embarrassment that she meant Griff not Jack.
Kate smiled. ‘They’re pretty much on the same wavelength.’
She wanted to brag about Griff: his reading, football trophies, his adventurous palette but she stopped herself because she didn’t want Vee to say what people always said when they’d seen her with Griff: ‘You’d make such a good mum.’
Kate took a big glug of wine instead.
Vee then swept her arm around the kitchen and sighed with pleasure. ‘It’s lovely here, Kate. So… rustic.’
‘In estate agency speak, rustic means dilapidated and full of cobwebs! That’s how this place was before we did it up. That’s not to say it’s finished, because it isn’t. But I like it like this.’ Not perfect, a work in progress, a symbol of how she felt inside. ‘Oh God, I’ve completely forgotten to ask if you’re still a vegetarian?’ She racked her brains to work out what she could rustle up if Vee was. It was another reminder of their separation and Kate inwardly cringed.
‘Nope. I started eating meat again when I got back to Mum and Dad’s. It was bad enough turning up at theirs needing some TLC, imagine if I’d started banging on about beans and nut cutlets? I’d had enough of that anyway. I was vegan for years because of Jez, well, apart from my secret cheese stash. I used to feel terrible about that, but now, well, I wish I’d shoved a salami up his arse.’
Vee’s honesty combined with the wine began to warm Kate up.
‘Ha! Well, I’ve made a cawl, Jack’s mum’s recipe, lamb shanks, swedes, carrots, spuds. It’ll be about half an hour.’
‘Oh, I haven’t had a proper Welsh cawl in forever. It smells amazing.’
Vee took a seat at the table and Kate joined her, happy she felt relaxed enough to make herself at home. There was something she wanted to say to her before she got tipsy: to show she meant it sincerely.
‘Any news on the job front?’ Kate asked to test the ground.
‘Yeah, not great. I’ve applied for loads of stuff but not heard anything yet. It’ll take time, I suppose.’
Kate took a deep breath and began. ‘Well, say if you think this is a bad idea, but I’ve had a word with Pierre…’
She waited to see Vee’s reaction – and bingo, her eyes opened wide with interest.
‘Go on.’
‘He’s looking for an assistant. He needs someone very quickly, as you could probably tell from your visit! I asked if there was any way he would have a chat about it with you. Only if you fancied it? I mean, I know it’s not mega-bucks and it’s a drive from yours, but it could tide you over.’
Vee took a long drink and Kate teetered in the middle of not knowing if she would see her as interfering or kind. Her soul didn’t just jump but flick-flacked disproportionately
for joy when Vee gave her a thumbs up. This was the start of Kate making amends. She needed to do this – to come to terms with her past in her own way, to find peace and resolution.
‘That would be brilliant! Oh, Kate, that’s exactly what I need. A quick buck is all I’m after at the moment. I’m still a bit all over the place.’
‘I’ll give you Pierre’s number so you can call him.’
Vee pumped her left fist. ‘All that cheese!’
‘He did say he’d throw in lunch every day.’
‘How do you know Pierre, then? What’s he doing in Wales? He seems very… British for a bloke with a French name.’
‘He’s Jack’s best mate. They met doing some kind of survival boy scout thing, you know, a weekend in the Brecon Beacons being shouted at by an ex-SAS bloke. Skinning rabbits and hedgehogs. His father is English, his mum is French, she was some bigwig at the embassy so he was brought up in London, hence his cut-glass British accent. No one has ever heard him even speak French. He did the whole privileged kid wanting to get back to basics, that’s why he moved here. Cheese is his passion, as you might have noticed. He’s just eccentric. In a nice way.’
‘Shit. Talking of bonkers,’ Vee said, half-choking on her wine, ‘I saw Mikey the other day.’
Hearing his name out loud was like a clatter of thunder. She had to get up. Couldn’t risk Vee seeing her panic.
‘Really?’ Kate said from behind the safety of the fridge door. What the hell was he doing here?
‘Yes! It was so weird. Just after I’d messaged him, same as I’d messaged you.’
The shelves began to swirl before her eyes. She should never have got involved in this. How did she think she could do this without him coming into it? Why did she believe she deserved to have Vee back? ‘I actually bumped into him and his girlfriend on the beach at Barry Island. Like, not seen him in yonks, then boom. This is Wales, mind, you can’t leave the house for seeing someone you recognize. Anyway, I was walking the dog and having a bit of a cry into the wind. Standard at the moment.’