by Lisa Jewell
“No, you see, that’s where you’ve always been wrong. I hate it. I’m actually a big grown-up man and I can do all my own worrying for myself.”
“Hm,” said Susie, unconvinced. “Well, whether you like it or not, you’re worrying me. You’re thin.”
“I’ve always been thin.”
“And you’ve got no sparkle in your eyes.”
He groaned again. “Can we talk about Luke instead?”
“No,” said Susie. “I want to talk about you. What’s going on, Adrian? I mean, obviously you’ve been grieving. But there’s more, I think. More to it.”
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, Susie.”
“Well. You never call anymore. You always used to call. Cat says you’re distracted and weird. Luke says he can’t remember what you look like. Is it that guy? Caroline’s new man?”
“What!”
“I saw the way you reacted when he walked in. You went all sort of small.” She made a small shape with her hands.
“Small?”
“Yes. You looked gutted.”
“Oh for God’s sake, I did not.”
“Oh whatever, darling. I don’t think it’ll last, for what it’s worth.”
“I don’t care, Susie. I don’t care if it lasts or not.”
She looked at him skeptically. “You’ve never had to experience this before. You’ve never had to properly relinquish a woman. You’ve always been able to keep them there.” She made the same small shape out of her hands. “In stasis. As you left them. Even Maya.”
Adrian flinched at the sound of Maya’s name.
“Sorry, darling, but it’s true. You’ve been able to stride out into your future knowing that the past is as you left it. When you chose to leave it.”
“I didn’t choose to leave Maya,” he snapped.
“No, no. Of course not. But neither have you had to deal with her moving on.”
“Oh Christ, Suse, you have no idea what I’ve been through these last months. What I’ve been dealing with.”
“No. I don’t. I’ve never lost anyone in that way. But I do know that this is a new one on you—Caroline’s toy boy. On top of what you’ve been through with losing Maya. And I know you don’t really have anyone to talk to. Your wives have always been your best friends.”
Adrian sighed. This much was true.
“Anyway,” she said, spearing a piece of pineapple onto the end of her fork, “I just wanted to say I know I’m a bit silly and a bit far away and we’ve kind of lost each other over the years, but you can talk to me. If you’re having a hard time.”
Adrian looked at her. She was smiling warmly and sincerely at him. For a moment he could see her: the waxy-skinned beauty he’d first laid eyes on nearly thirty years ago; the girl he’d lain on the beach with at night looking for constellations in the starry sky; the girl he’d sat outside pubs with on warm summer nights drinking pints, bare feet rubbing together beneath the table; the girl he’d married in a cheap rented suit in Camden Town Hall when he was almost the same age as their son was now. “Thank you,” he said, “that’s very lovely of you.”
“I know,” she said. “But you deserve it. You’re a good man. Underneath it all. You need someone to look out for you. You’re all alone.”
“So are you.”
“Yes. I am. But I’m really good at it. You suck.” She laughed, hard, revealing teeth that needed an appointment at the hygienist.
Adrian laughed, too.
“What about that girl?” she asked. “The one you were telling us about at Caroline’s?”
“Another girl is not the answer to everything.”
She laughed again. “It is for you, darling!”
“Well, anyway, as far as girls go, this is about the most elusive one I’ve ever come across. It turns out that the mobile phone she left behind at my flat belonged to a mixed-race girl called Tiffany.”
“Who I assume is not . . . ?”
“No. Not the same girl. And Cat managed to track her down to a kickboxing class in Highgate this morning and she lied about her name and ran away from her. So. Brick wall.”
“But if you found her, what’s the idea? Is she going to be the fourth Mrs. Wolfe?”
Adrian leaned back into the rattan chair, recalling the disapproving words of both his daughters. “No. No, I don’t think that’s in the cards. Well, not for a long time at least.”
Susie put her empty fruit bowl down on the table. “Ah well,” she said. “Fate will sort it out for you. If it’s destined to be, you’ll find her again. I can’t wait to find out why she’s so interested in you. It’s quite fascinating. A whole story just waiting to be told.”
“Yes indeed.” Adrian gazed past Susie and out at her beautiful garden. He saw ghosts of old afternoons out there, the shadowy echoes of small children, the shrieks of dips in icy paddling pools, the twang and thwack of a ball going round a swing-ball post, half-melted snowmen, barbecue parties that went on into the early hours, failed attempts at handstands, the sand that had sat year after year getting filthy in a plastic trough full of dead leaves and broken toys. Its energy was all still there, hiding among the manicured bushes and shrubs. “So many stories,” he said, bringing his gaze back to Susie. “She was brought up in care, you know, the girl whose phone I’ve got. Tiffany. I met her mum. She didn’t see her from when she was eight until she was twenty-six. She’s married now, this girl Tiffany. And her mum doesn’t know what her surname is. Or where she lives. Can you imagine, Suse? Seriously? Making babies and then not taking care of them . . .”
Susie looked at him pensively as though she was going to say something profound. But then she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I truly can’t. But listen, talking of babies. Your biggest one . . .”
“Ah, yes. Luke. What’s going on?”
“Well, that’s the real reason I asked you to come down. Nothing is going on with Luke. That’s the problem. He’s just such a . . . waste of space. He won’t get a proper job. Goes from shop job to shop job without ever staying long enough to be promoted. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in over a year. I’ve banned him from the Internet at home because that’s all he was doing all day. So now I have absolutely no idea where he is all day. Probably in a café. Or staring at himself in a mirror. Doing this . . .” She prodded at her hair with her fingertips and sighed. “Remember we used to think that Luke would be prime minister? He was so focused. So driven. And now . . .” She broke off to consider her next move. “Listen. I need you to step in. I’ve given up. I’ve gone as far as I can and I’ve hit a wall. I want to send him to London. To stay with you.”
“But the little ones—I haven’t got the space . . .”
“I’ve spoken to Caroline about it. She’s said you can move into Islington on your weekends with the kids. She’ll . . .” She looked at him warily. “She’ll go and stay with that boy, what was his name?”
Adrian felt his chest tighten. Things had been manipulated behind the scenes, pulleys and levers subtly rearranging the stage set of his life. This visit wasn’t such a last-minute, sunny-morning affair after all.
“What do you think I can do for him that you haven’t managed to do?”
“A change of scenery, for a start. And maybe a job?”
“A job?”
“Yes. At the firm. Just something basic.”
“Oh God.” Adrian ran the palms of his hands down his face. He thought of the way his son had looked at him in Caroline’s garden the last time he’d seen him. The emptiness behind his eyes. And then he thought of toothless Jean sucking up her porridge in Mr. Sandwich, saying, We�
��re more like strangers than mum and daughter. He suddenly felt very tired. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure. Of course. But how are we going to do this?”
“E-mail him,” she said. “It’s the only sure way of knowing you’ll get through to him. I’ll help. We can do it now, if you like, here, together?”
Adrian smiled and saw again the nineteen-year-old Susie he’d once been enthralled by. “Sure,” he said. “I’m not in a hurry. Let’s do it now.”
Finding himself on the coast, his day already shot to pieces, Adrian borrowed Susie’s car (it was still technically his car and he was still insured to drive it) and set off to Southampton. He’d done some research earlier in the week, meaning to make some calls, but he’d been too busy at work. There was, it transpired, only one children’s care home in Southampton and it was called White Towers Castle. He put the postcode into his smartphone and set off with a roast-beef sandwich and a bottle of organic lemonade on the passenger seat, courtesy of Susie.
His expectations were low. In a world where the safeguarding of children overshadowed everything else, he assumed that nobody would be allowed to give him any information worth having. But still. It was Saturday. The sun was shining. He had nothing better to do, miserable, lonely bastard that he was.
The care home was a folly, an actual castle with crenellations and towers, all painted over with thick, custardy paint. The wooden doors were painted heavy brown gloss and CCTV cameras stood on brackets at various angles, watching Adrian suspiciously. A woman who introduced herself as Sian opened the door to him when he explained his situation. He followed her into a small room off the hallway with the word OFFICE on the door and took a seat as directed in front of a small desk. Sian sat herself on the other side of the desk and said, “So. Tiffy.”
“You remember her?”
“Yes. I do remember her. I’ve been here since I was twenty-one. For my sins.”
“Well, like I said, I don’t know Tiffy. But I have ended up with her phone. And I have met her mother.”
Sian raised her eyebrows. “Really,” she said flatly. “That’s more than any of us here ever did.”
“Yes,” said Adrian. “She said. And, well, I have no idea what you are or aren’t allowed to do, but I was wondering if there was any way you could get in touch with Tiffy. Assuming you still have contact details for her. Let her know that I have her phone. See what she’d like to do about it.”
Sian was already pushing buttons on her computer before Adrian had even finished the sentence. “Any excuse to talk to one of my old ones,” she said, smiling for the first time. “Let’s see, right, yes, we do have fairly new details for her. She got married,” she said, mainly to herself, smiling again. “That’s nice. Right. OK. Let’s try this number and see how we get on.”
A moment later she looked at Adrian and nodded. “Oh hi, Tiffy. This is Sian. From White Towers. How are you, love? Yes, I’m good. I’m fine. We’re all fine. And I hear you got married? Wow, that’s great. That’s so great. Congratulations! Listen, strange one. I’ve got a guy here, called Adrian, he says he has your phone? That he met a woman and she left it at his flat. Any of this ringing any bells?”
The voice on the other end asked a question. Sian looked up at Adrian. “She wants to know how you know it’s hers?” she asked of Adrian.
“Her mum rang me. Well, texted. Her. Tiffy I mean. And I met her. Her mum.”
“He says your mum called on it. Yes. Which Mum?” she asked Adrian. “She has a birth mother and a foster mother.”
“Jean,” said Adrian. “No teeth.”
“Jean,” repeated Sian, “no teeth. Right. OK. Well, what would you like me to do, love? I can give you Adrian’s number? Let you sort it out with him? Or I can post the phone to you? Or maybe you’d like to come back and say hello to everyone, collect it yourself?” She smiled, and then the smile fell. “No, of course. OK. Sure. Hold on. She wants to talk to you.” Sian held the phone out to Adrian.
“Hi,” said a bright voice, “Adrian! Wow! This is strange. I mean, my phone. I don’t think it was actually my phone. I’m pretty sure it was a work phone. When I was working for an estate agency, I had to give it back to them after I left. And now I think about it, that was the number I gave my mum, so that she wouldn’t have a permanent way of contacting me. I knew I’d be leaving. Tell me though, what exactly did the woman look like, who left it in your flat?”
“Tall, blond, stylish, odd-colored eyes.”
“Right, no. I just thought maybe she was the woman who replaced me at the agency. But that woman was Asian.”
“Maybe she replaced the Asian woman? It would explain there being no numbers at all on the phone, if she was new?”
“Yes, but if it was still the agency phone, you’d have been getting lots of calls. It sounds like the phone was out of commission. Sounds like this Jane character must have nicked it.”
“Or found it?”
“Yeah. Maybe. Who knows? But listen, I wouldn’t mind getting it back, if it’s OK with you. Just in case my mum tried calling again. I guess.” There was a short silence across the line. “How was she?”
“She was—”
“No, don’t answer that. I don’t really want to know. Enough to know that she’s alive. Anyway. Could you leave the phone? With Sian? She can post it back to me.”
“Sure. Of course. But where do you live?”
“Oh, yeah, south London, but honestly, let Sian post it. I’m crazy busy. It’ll be easier.”
“Sure,” said Adrian. “Yeah. And I’ll leave Sian my number. In case there are any problems. But listen, sorry, just before you go, what was the name of the agency you were working for? When you passed your phone over?”
“Oh God,” said Tiffy. “It was in Acton. It was something and Cross. Baxter and Cross. That’s right. On the High Street. But why do you want to know?”
“I’m not sure. This woman, with your phone. It seemed like she was stalking me for a little while, me and my family. I’d like to find out who she is. Or at least have a starting point, you know.”
He felt curiously melancholy passing the phone across the desk to Sian a moment later. His last connection with Jane was now effectively snapped in half.
That was that. It was over. Whatever on earth “it” had actually been. That sense of hope, that feeling that his journey wasn’t over, that there was another fork in the road. Now the wall was back, the road blocked. He was stuck once again in the moment of Maya’s death, reliving and reliving and reliving until the thoughts rubbed his psyche raw.
12
Luke moved in three weeks after Adrian’s trip to see Susie in Hove. It was June, the first really hot day of the year, and Luke stepped out of Susie’s car wearing tiny belted shorts, a fitted top and reflective sunglasses.
“You look very, er, cool.”
“I think “gay as fuck” is the expression you’re looking for,” he said, pulling a holdall from the footwell.
“No, no, I was thinking more of those chappies in the nineteen twenties, the ones with pipes and tennis shoes.”
“It’s just fashion, Dad. Men these days are allowed to look cute.”
“Well, then, mission accomplished. You look very cute.”
Luke threw him a facetious smile and opened up the boot. Susie strode towards Adrian in a billowing purple linen dress and embraced him. “Hello, darling. And thank you. Seriously. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”
“No problem,” he muttered into her nest of hair.
Luke looked vaguely appalled as he always did when he stepped inside Adrian’s modest flat. “You know,” he said, “every t
ime I come here it reminds me that you’re not as big a dickhead as I think you are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Luke dropped his holdall at his feet and sank down into Adrian’s sofa. He picked a cat hair off his shorts and let it drop to the floor. “Well, if it was me, I’d have kicked Caroline out of that bloody mansion and bought myself somewhere decent to live. So you can’t be all that bad.”
Susie sat in the armchair and Adrian looked from her to their son, slightly unsettled by their presence here on this humid June morning. He shook his head wonderingly at Luke’s comment and then clapped his hands together and said, “Tea, coffee, water, beer?”
A moment later Luke took a cold beer from Adrian’s outstretched hand and said, “So, how is this going to work out, exactly?”
Adrian sat on the arm of the sofa and said, “Well, we’ll start off with a nice quiet weekend. Dinner with Cat tonight. Going to watch Pearl in a competition in Derby tomorrow . . .”
“Derby?” Luke sneered.
“Yes, Derby. Welcome to my world.”
Luke said, “Well, I don’t have to join your world to that extent, so I’ll pass, thank you.”
“No,” said Adrian firmly. “I’ve told Pearl you’re coming. So you’re coming.”
Luke shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Then on Monday morning we’re off to work. I’ve organized for you to work in the archives. Just for a month. Then we’ll see.”
“Mmmm,” said Luke, “great. Old paper. Amazing.”
Adrian stared at his son blankly. His chattiest child, the one who’d never stopped moving, talking, doing, thinking. They’d had him monitored for ADD and the therapist had said, “No, he’s just happy.” For more than three years Luke had been Adrian’s only child. The sunshiny, miraculous center of his universe. Now he was a slightly fey, bitter-tongued young man who couldn’t make eye contact with his own father.
Susie left after an hour or so and Adrian decided that with a long, plan-free afternoon ahead of the pair of them, there was only one thing for it. So they went to the pub.