by Andy Jones
‘Can smile when scatter ashes now,’ says Jenny, making sure to maintain the flow of salt water down her cheeks.
After an emotional couple of weeks, I haven’t seen Zoe cry since we left Cornwall. We have continued to see each other every night, squeezing the days and nights until our allotted time runs out. But who knows when that will be. Zoe isn’t due to travel until mid-September, but we have the small matter of my parents’ wedding anniversary to get through first. Zoe is as excited as a kitten in a wool shop at the prospect of meeting my parents, although I have no idea why. I’ve certainly never said anything nice about them. She is nervous, too. She knows April will be there (an early labour notwithstanding, and God knows I’m praying for one), plus Brian, and various others who don’t hold me in the highest regard. I have taken every opportunity to insist it will be a lousy party with a high possibility of flung glassware, but Zoe receives this information as another expression of my dry sense of humour. I have tried explaining that I don’t have one, which Zoe takes as further proof of concept.
‘Why would your parents invite us if they thought it would cause a scene?’
‘Because they’re stupid?’
‘Honestly, Henry, you are such a card. I never realized you were such a card!’
I called my mother the second Zoe left for work on Monday morning.
‘You just needed a little nudge, babes.’
‘Mum, I don’t need you interfering. And I really don’t appreciate you stirring up drama.’
‘Really, Henry. You don’t appreciate me causing drama? Oh that’s rich.’
‘Mum . . .’
‘You seem to have a short memory, Henry Smith.’
‘Actually, Mum, I really don’t. How the hell do you think April is go—’
‘Don’t you hell me, Henry. Don’t you dare.’
‘Mum, calm d—’
‘For the record, Henry, I have talked to April.’
‘You have?’
‘What did I just say? Yes, I have.’
‘And . . .’
‘It’s over, Henry. In the past.’
‘Did you talk to George, Mum? Did you call him up and ask if he’s bringing a hod full of bricks to your little party?’
‘I don’t like your tone, Henry.’
‘Mum, listen, I—’
‘I talked to April, April will talk to George. It’s done, love.’
‘But, Mum—’
‘Henry, love, you can’t hide away forever.’
‘I know, but Zoe’s . . . it’s complicated.’
‘Newsflash, Henry, life is complicated. You deal with it, you move on.’
‘But—’
‘Henry, I want you here, your dad wants you here, and if there’s someone important in your life, well, we want them here too.’
‘. . .’
‘Henry?’
‘Okay.’
‘Good boy. And wear something red.’
But there is a part of me – a small sub-cellular part – that almost welcomes the inevitable. It will go one way or another and then – one way or another – it will be over. Eight more days.
I gently uncurl Jenny’s fingers from the mirror.
‘It’s going to be a little sensitive for a while, okay? Your teeth need to find each other, make friends with each other again, and that’s going to take a few days.’
‘Can eat?’
‘Yes, you can eat. But give it a few days before you try steak or toffee apples, okay?’ Jenny smiles with her brand new teeth, and nods that she understands. ‘I’m going to give you my phone number,’ I say. ‘So if you have any problems, any at all, you just call me, okay?’
‘Friends.’
‘That’s right, friends.’
‘Doh je,’ Jenny says, putting her hands to either side of my face, and kissing me quickly on the lips. ‘Doh je.’
‘Mh sai haa hei,’ I say, again. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ I say, nodding at the curled up scroll.
‘Learn?’
‘Calligraphy,’ I say, writing in mid-air. ‘It’s very beautiful.’
‘Hah! No calligraphy. Buy on Amazon, five pounds, very bargain, innit.’
Zoe
Mad-faced Screamers
Henry doesn’t finish work for an hour, so I pass the time inside my duvet darkroom. Not developing film, but scrolling through my phone, watching footage of humans temporarily separated from their sanity. Search for ‘freakout’ and you get one-point-two million hits, ‘road rage’ gives you nine hundred thousand, there are over sixteen million ‘crazy’ women. Mad-faced screamers and frothing ranters. No wonder we say they’ve gone viral. Their rage and humiliation loaded online and shared and shared again. One million views of some hysterical mum gone banshee over a pinched parking space. One hundred thousand likes for some spittle-mouthed pensioner ranting respect at jeering teens. But it doesn’t do to be too amused. It could be you one day.
While the rest of the office went to the pub, I walked down to the travel clinic on Tottenham Court Road for my vaccines – yellow fever, typhoid, and an alphabet’s worth of hepatitis. Maybe they affected my brain; you read funny things about these vaccines.
As I wandered back to the office, I watched a guy in a baseball cap and headphones step off the pavement, causing a car to slam on its brakes.
Next week Alex would have been thirty.
The driver that hit him was fined sixty pounds for driving without due care and attention, and given three points on his licence. My friends hear this with anger and indignation – It’s a disgrace, He should be banned, He should be locked up. But the truth is Alex stepped in front of him. No one is tactless enough to say it explicitly, but the driver didn’t have a chance. He wasn’t speeding, wasn’t talking on his phone, wasn’t drunk. I feel guilty for thinking it, but I feel sorry for him too.
On Tottenham Court Road, the driver hit his horn hard: one, two, three times. The guy in the headphones lifted the peak of his cap and mouthed the words Fuck off, punctuating his gratitude with his middle finger.
Without thinking, I was walking towards the guy, shouting like a woman demented. ‘Look where you’re going! You could have been killed.’ He looked at me and laughed dismissively before walking away. But I followed him along the road. ‘I’m talking to you. Hey, you, don’t ignore me. What’s wrong with you?’
‘Piss off, yeah.’
‘Piss off? Really, you want me to piss off. I could be calling you an ambulance now. You could have been killed, for God’s sake.’
‘Well, I wasn’t, was I? So jog on, yeah.’
‘Jog on?’
‘Yeah,’ said the guy, stopping, and jutting his chin at me. ‘Fuck off.’
I slapped him hard, knocking his cap from his head. For a full second the guy was frozen in shock, and then his face knotted into anger and he took a step forwards.
‘Go on!’ I shouted at him. ‘Go on!’ I screamed.
We had a crowd around us by now, two or maybe three people holding up mobile phones.
‘Fucking psycho,’ said the guy, scooping his cap up from the floor. But he had the good sense to say it while he was backing away.
‘What are you looking at?’ I said to the semicircle of onlookers, a stupid question that should serve as a good punchline if my performance finds a larger audience.
I don’t doubt it’s out there somewhere, but good luck finding this mad cow. The best thing about these online meltdowns is the sheer volume of them. It’s almost enough to make you feel normal.
Henry
This Balloon Is Going Nowhere
‘Remember,’ whispers Gus, ‘you are not your thoughts. You are . . . well, you, obviously.’
‘Hmmm hmmmm.’
I feel as if I’m nothing but thoughts, jostling, yammering, antagonistic thoughts.
It’s whale song today, but to me it sounds like a gathering of demons.
My bank statement arrived yesterday, showing that seventeen thousand, six hundred an
d forty-six pounds has vanished out of my account. It is unlikely April’s father has forgiven me for jilting his only daughter, but it seems his hatred has cooled to the point where he is now prepared to take my money. The effect on my conscience hasn’t been as profound as I’d hoped.
‘Now attach those heavy headaches to your balloon. I think I’ll go with orange today. No, second thoughts, pink. And flooooat your funk away.’
It’s pointless.
Standing in the basket of a colossal hot air balloon are Zoe, April, Brian and a nervous midwife; Mad George is fiddling with the burner; mine, April’s and Zoe’s parents are introducing themselves to each other. It’s crowded in there. They’re staring at me impatiently, waiting for something to happen, but this balloon is going nowhere.
August
August 5 at 00:31 AM
From: Audrey
To: Alex Williams
Hello Son
Well, I suppose this is the month I’ve been dreading. You would have been 30 today – in just a few hours as a matter fact. So young darling. It just doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t feel real.
Yours was a long labour, although I’m sure I’ve told you many times. The cord got tangled round your neck, and for a while it was very frightening. It can’t have been more than a few minutes, but it felt like forever and you could see from the doctors’ faces they were worried. The morning after you were born I took you to the chapel to pray and thank God for keeping you safe. I was kneeling there, holding you to my body when your little head went limp and dropped onto my shoulder like a stone. Honestly, I shouted to wake the saints, but silly me, all you’d done was fall asleep. You were my first, of course, and I was very naive.
But it makes you think doesn’t it. I was very lucky to have you at all, and every year has been a gift to me. I’m sorry love, I can’t write any more.
Happy birthday my baby boy.
Mum xx
Zoe
It’s Not Like You Left Her At The Altar
The train takes just under two hours to rattle up the centre of the country to a small market town on the east of the Peaks. From there it’s another two hours to travel half as far again, before finally arriving at the village where Henry grew up. He’s quiet today and becoming more so with every station we leave behind, staring out of the window, seemingly hypnotized by the heavy rivulets of horizontal rain. Last night we watched The Graduate on DVD and Henry was so quiet I almost wished I’d taken on an extra shift at the pub. But we have only five weeks left, so anything I’m going to earn in the Duck is no longer going to affect the course or duration of my travels. I continue to work there now, as much for the comfort of routine as for six pounds an hour and all the cholesterol you can eat. And besides, I want to be with Henry, even if he has been quiet lately. Maybe he’s nervous, and after everything he’s told me, I suppose I can understand.
It’s a little after three in the afternoon and we’re already on gin and tonic number two. Maybe for all his protestations to the contrary, he is sulking about my imminent departure. But if he is, I wish he’d just talk to me about it.
For me, the best bits in The Graduate were between Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft; there was a chemistry between them that, from what I could see, Ben simply didn’t share with Mrs Robinson’s daughter. For all of Hoffman’s brooding and mooching and running to the church, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he saw in dreary old Elaine. But even so, I was rooting for him when he followed her across the country, tracked her down on campus, hammered his fists against the chapel windows. I cried when they rode away together on the bus, Elaine in her wedding dress, dishevelled Ben, for once, smiling. And all I could think was, We have so much more than them, so why is it so easy for him to let me go?
Because it’s far from easy for me. The question has become a nagging voice inside my head, and I have had to physically bite my tongue to keep from saying something. Take me with you. That, I suppose, is what I’m waiting for Henry to say, ask, demand. But then how would I answer? The whole point was for me to travel alone, to ‘find myself’. Can you do that with someone else in tow? I guess that depends on who that someone is.
‘Excited?’ I ask.
Henry turns away from the window slowly, almost with reluctance. He sees his drink is empty and rattles the empty can. ‘Want anything from the bar?’
‘Talk to me,’ I say, drawing a glance from the woman sitting beside Henry and diagonally across from me. I reach across the table and take hold of his hands. ‘Nervous?’
Henry nods, and I raise my eyebrows to let him know that this doesn’t count as an answer.
‘Yes,’ Henry says. ‘A little.’
‘It’s just an anniversary. It’s not like you have to give a speech, or anything.’ A small laugh to lighten the mood, but Henry doesn’t pick up on it.
The woman opposite is wearing headphones, but as she fiddles with her phone it’s clear that she is lowering the volume.
‘I don’t suppose she went into labour then?’
‘My mother?’ Henry says, smiling.
‘You know who . . . she who must not be named.’
Henry shakes his head. ‘If she has, no one’s told me. But then, they wouldn’t, would they.’ And he looks at me with so much more depth and meaning than the statement would seem to deserve.
‘Will she throw a drink over you?’ I ask. ‘God, that would make a good picture. Give me a nudge if you see it coming.’
Henry doesn’t seem to find this possibility as funny as I do.
‘Look, I know you were engaged,’ I say, dropping my voice to a whisper on the last word, ‘but, well,’ – my mind flashing back to The Graduate – ‘it’s not like you left her at the altar, or anything.’
Henry
Well, That Was Stupid
So fate lends a hand. Or, rather, sneaks up and shoves me violently between the shoulder blades.
‘It’s not like you left her at the altar,’ Zoe says.
And there’s no turning back now. Right up until this point, if I have lied it’s been a lie of omission, a white lie, a well-intentioned avoidance of potentially upsetting details. But this is the point of no return; to leave Zoe’s rhetorical gambit unanswered and uncorrected amounts to nothing less than bare-faced deceit. And while we’re hitting the honesty switch, let’s not pretend this is fate making a late appearance. I took the first step when I told Zoe I was a dentist, the second when I mentioned my engagement. Last night I could have dropped any movie into the DVD player, but I chose The Graduate. Zoe cried at the final scene, as Ben and Elaine left the carnage of her broken wedding behind them, and the words were in my mouth, but like so many times before they caught against my teeth.
It’s not a question, but Zoe has spoken through a smile, her eyebrows arched, waiting for me to laugh off this piece of fantastic whimsy. To acknowledge the joke. Instead, I press my lips together apologetically, and watch Zoe’s smile fade from the eyes down. She opens her mouth to speak, thinks better of it and turns to look out of the window.
‘Zoe.’ I lean across the table and take hold of her hands, but Zoe sits back, drawing her hands out of my grip.
‘Are . . .’ Zoe looks around the carriage, as if trying to decide on what level of a scene is acceptable in this confined space. ‘Are you serious?’ she says, through gritted teeth, as if this is the only way she can contain her anger.
‘Zoe, let me ex—’
‘You’ve had weeks, months to explain.’
I nod at the woman beside us, furrowing my brow to suggest we should try to remain civil.
‘What, Henry? Am I embarrassing you?’
‘No, of cou—’
‘Because, talking of embarrassment. Did you think about me? You were going to just plonk me in the middle of it all with no knowledge, no warning?’
‘Zoe. I wanted to tell you. But it’s hardly, I mean . . . it’s not the kind of thing you just drop into . . . you know.’
‘Zo, please, it’s . . . it’s like you said about Alex. It just wasn—’
‘Don’t!’ And now any pretence at decorum has been abandoned. ‘Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare bring Alex into this.’
‘Zoe, I’m sorry. That was a really stupid thing to say. I just . . .’
‘Don’t,’ Zoe says quietly. She crosses and uncrosses her arms, looking increasingly uncomfortable and confined by her seat. She gathers up the empty cups and cans and tonic bottles, slides out of the seat, and walks up the aisle in the direction of the bar. The woman beside me has been pretending to listen to music, but deprived of further spectacle, she turns up the volume and goes back to her magazine.
The truth is out, revealed like a bad diagnosis, but it still needs to be discussed. It still needs to be explained and absorbed. We have two more stops before changing onto a provincial service that winds through the hills and villages and fields of the Peaks for another two-plus hours. And no more secrets. I will explain and confess everything that happened between me and April. I will tell Zoe how much she means to me, how much it frustrates the hell out of me that we only have a handful of weeks left, and that I was afraid to ruin the short time we had together. I don’t expect to clear the air completely before we arrive, but I do think Zoe will understand. I’m not stupid enough to suggest as much, but I think she might even find it funny. After all, we laughed like fools while Ben was banging on the church window and fending off Elaine’s family with a crucifix. Admittedly, Zoe’s laughter turned to tears, but that’s the point – she was happy for them. Love conquers and justifies all. Doesn’t it?
The train rolls into the penultimate stop of this leg of our journey. The rain has intensified, and as passengers disembark, they run – hunched against the weather, coats pulled overhead – towards the covered area in front of the ticket office.
Except for Zoe.