by Andy Jones
She stands impassively in the thrashing rain, her bag at her feet as she removes the red rose clips from her hair and drops them into a bin.
The guard blows his whistle, and a voice tells us this train is ready to depart, and where it is stopping next. I bang on the window and shout Zoe’s name, but either she doesn’t hear or doesn’t care to respond. The windows don’t open so I bang on the glass again, hard enough to feel the pane vibrate under my fist. ‘Zoe! Wait, Zoe!’
‘Careful,’ says the woman next to me. ‘You’ll break the glass.’
And if I could, I probably would. The third time I hammer on the window, Zoe looks up. Like Elaine in The Graduate, she stares at me with catatonic incomprehension, but unlike Elaine, she does not walk towards me. She turns away and walks slowly towards the ticket office.
The woman beside me rotates through ninety degrees, making it only slightly less difficult for me to get out of my seat, and she protests loudly as I jostle my way past her. The train is already moving, and picking up speed as I reach the end of the carriage. The doors are of course locked, but the windows, at least, open. I shout Zoe’s name again, but she has already disappeared from sight.
I’ve been jilted.
Three hours later, I step off another train and into the familiar pocket of hills that I have always called home. As if the clouds have followed me here from London, cold rain bounces off the ground, filling the air with the vivid fragrances of grass and earth and open space. I take a deep lungful and set off walking. I have left messages: I’m sorry. Can we talk? I can explain. But even if I could, Zoe isn’t picking up.
I called Rachel.
‘Henry, what a surprise, listen, I can’t talk right now because I’ve got my best friend on hold. Turns out her boyfriend is a lying tosspot.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘No, Henry, of course she’s not o-fucking-kay.’
‘Is she safe?’
‘Jesus Christ, don’t flatter yourself. Is she . . . she’s drowning her fucking disappointment and humiliation in gin and crying down the phone on a crowded train. So, good job, panic over.’
‘Will you ask her to call me?’
‘No, I won’t. And she’s asked me to ask you to stop calling her. So, seriously, do you think you could just, like, leave her the fuck alone?’
‘Will you tell her—’
Rachel hung up.
When I walk through the front door of the pub, I’m tired, depressed, angry and soaked to the soles of my feet. You read about embezzlers and adulterers talking of the relief at finally being found out. I don’t feel that, because for all the weight lifted from my shoulders, it feels like it’s been attached to my heart and my guts. This was always going to end, but not now and not like this. If I could take it all back for another month with Zoe, then I would do it without hesitation. The truth has not set me free; it has simply brought my sentence forward.
The pub is decorated with red paper chains, red streamers and a lot of red balloons – forty if I had to hazard a guess. But no Smiths. I have never seen the barmaid before, and she looks at me like I’m a vagrant when I ask after Clive and Sheila.
‘I’m Henry,’ I tell her.
‘The boy,’ she says in a mild eastern European accent.
‘Their son, yes.’
‘The one who’ – the barmaid sprints her fingers across the counter – ‘zzzipp!’
‘That would be me.’
She purses her lips, this girl who might be ten years younger than me, and shakes her head as if it’s all so fucking familiar and predictable. ‘Mother upstairs,’ she says, nodding me through to the back.
I find Mum sitting on the sofa, about halfway through Brief Encounter, and making similar progress through a bottle of wine and a giant tub of Philadelphia cheese. She’s making sandwiches, but judging by the mean pile of uneven triangles on the plate, she started on the wine before she began buttering the bread.
‘Hungry?’ I ask.
Mum looks up, surprised to see me. ‘Baby boy,’ she says, her voice damp with sentiment and chardonnay. ‘Come and give your mum a kiss. Then wash your hands.’
‘Why, where have you been?’
‘Cheek,’ she says, brandishing a cheese-smeared knife. The kitchen table is piled with mega-sized packets of crisps, jars of dip, and assorted tubs of variously treated nuts.
‘This for tonight?’
‘April and Bri are bringing the hot stuff,’ Mum says. ‘Wedges, sausage rolls, chicken satay.’
On the TV Laura and Dr Harvey are rowing a boat across a lake, any minute now Dr Harvey will fall in and Laura will bray her sharp, unconvincing laugh as he stands there, wicking water up his enormous tweed trousers.
‘You’re wet,’ says Mum, after I’ve joined her on the sofa and filled a glass.
‘Fell in a lake,’ I tell her.
She raises her eyebrows at me, confused for a moment before getting the reference. ‘Very droll.’
‘I never found him that handsome,’ I say, nodding at the TV.
Mum shrugs. ‘Clean cut, I suppose. So . . .’ she turns to me, ‘. . . where’s Zoe?’
I shake my head. ‘Not coming.’
Mum sighs, turns back to the movie. ‘What happened?’
‘Told the truth,’ I say.
‘Well, that’ll learn you. Here, I’ll butter, you cheese.’
‘Got any cucumber?’
‘Listen to Mister Lahdedah. No, it makes the bread soggy.’
‘Where’s Dad?’
Mum sets her glass down with great deliberation; as if she is afraid it might fly from her hand.
‘What?’ I ask.
She glares at me, as if all my sins have coalesced into the last two seconds. ‘Like father, like son. Isn’t that what they say?’
‘Where is he?’
‘Well, son, that would be the million sodding dollar question.’
‘Jesus, Mum, what happened?’
‘What happened? You’re asking me what happened?’
‘Did you fight?’
Mum attacks a round of bread with the butter, applying it with such determination that she tears a hole in the slice. ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ she says, folding the ragged piece of bread in half and taking a bite.
Laura and Dr Harvey are declaring their love now. ‘It sounds so silly,’ says Laura, and listening to their stiff clipped dialogue, I have to agree.
Mum picks up her glass, apparently confident that she can drink from it now, and not throw it against the wall. ‘Things happen in forty years,’ she says.
‘Things?’
‘No one’s perfect,’ she says, defying me to contradict her. ‘We all of us make mistakes, on both sides of the bed.’
Whether this statement is colloquial, elliptical or literal I don’t want to know, but I know my mum, and I can make a good guess.
‘Mum, I . . . whatever . . . when did . . .’
‘Forty years is a long time, son. Things happen, upstairs and down, and you walk on or walk away, understand?’
‘I think so, but I don’t really want—’
‘You forgive and forget, or do your best, at least. Maybe there’s a name you don’t mention, or a place, or a song, or a colour?’
‘A colour? How many mistakes have you made?’
‘See that silly sodding film,’ she says, sloshing wine out of her glass as she points violently at Dr Harvey. ‘She ends up with the husband, doesn’t she.’
‘Yes.’
‘And he knows, but he doesn’t rub it in, does he. He says—’
‘“Thank you for coming back to me.”’
‘Exactly, good boy. Because he wants to be with her, at any cost, no matter what mistakes she may have made.’
‘Mum, have you . . . made a mistake?’
Mum sighs, exasperated at my inability to follow this tangential confession or accusation. ‘Imagine, Henry, imagine your wife – if you ever manage to find someone to marry you, which, well, let’s
be frank, isn’t looking too promising – but imagine it came to your attention that your wife had been spending too much time with, say, a painter.’
‘An artist?’
‘Or a decorator. It doesn’t matter, but, yes, a decorator, for example.’
‘Okay.’
‘Well, in the interests of discretion and domestic harmony, your wife would most likely not make a big fuss in the future when the hallway needed repainting. Unless it really was in a terrible state, in which case she might make subtle hints for a few weeks, then make herself scarce when the painters were in.’
Mum resumes buttering the bread, taking more care now, applying the spread evenly in smooth back and forth strokes. Laura is on the train back to her family now, staring out of the window in a rapture of happiness, visualizing Dr Harvey in a tuxedo and herself in a ball gown and tiara, diamonds at her neck as they dance beneath crystal chandeliers. She imagines them attending the opera, boating in Venice, driving an open-topped sports car, standing beneath the palms on a tropical beach. An altogether more pleasant trip than Zoe’s, I imagine. If she is visualizing anything involving me, I suspect the scenario includes at least one sharp implement.
‘Can you turn that off, Mum?’
‘You’re right,’ she says turning off the TV. ‘He is a bit hard faced. Make a good psycho, but . . . anyway, what was I saying?’
‘Something about you and the decorator, I think.’
‘For example,’ Mum says, contemplating her perfectly buttered slice of bread, then sliding it over to me to fill. ‘And anyway,’ she says. ‘It was a long time ago and forty years is a long time to be married.’
‘So where’s Dad?’
Mum goes to refill her glass. ‘Did he tell you what he was planning?’
‘When? No.’
‘For our anniversary.’
I point at the sandwiches on the table. ‘Aren’t we . . .’
‘We went into town yesterday,’ Mum says. ‘Just the two of us.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘It was nice. He shaved, wore a shirt, used his fork . . .’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, let’s suppose you and’ – snapping her fingers in the air – ‘Zoe.’
‘There is no me and Zoe, Mum.’
‘Well, we’ll get to that. But let’s imagine she found, for example, another woman’s earring down the side of the sofa.’
‘Mum, what are you saying?’
‘Can we just imagine, Henry?’ Her voice is rising and she’s getting very animated with the knife.
‘Fine.’
‘Thank you. So, what would be the very last effing thing you would buy Zoe for your ruby wedding anniversary?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Make a guess, Henry.’
‘Earrings?’
‘Thank you. Ruby sodding earrings. Not a ring, not a bracelet, not an effing sodding necklace, but earrings, Henry.’
And now it comes back to me: Dad whispering down the phone asking should he buy Mum a ring, bracelet or necklace? And me suggesting . . .
‘Friday?’ I say. ‘Are you saying he’s been gone since yesterday?’
‘God no, where would he go? Anyway, I didn’t say anything yesterday; didn’t want to spoil the day. It’s been f—’
‘Forty years, I know.’
‘And besides, there are, you know . . . expectations on your anniversary.’
‘Mum, please!’
‘What, you think young people are the only ones entitled to a bi—’
‘Mum! I get it, I . . . loud and clear.’
‘Good. And don’t expect me to apologize for being a woman, Henry.’
‘So,’ I say, after what feels like a suitable pause. ‘You dropped it on him today, didn’t you?’
Mum shrugs, scoops her finger through the Philadelphia and pops it into her mouth.
‘He wanted to know why I wasn’t wearing the earrings,’ she says. ‘So I bloody well told him why.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Don’t take a tone, Henry. I’m warning you, do not take a tone.’
‘Do you ever wonder, Mum . . . if you and Dad are . . .’
‘Baby boy, I wonder all the time. But’ – she points her knife at the inert TV screen – ‘can you see me with someone like her husband, all moustache and pinstripes?’
I laugh. ‘No, I really can’t.’
‘Well, there you go,’ she says. ‘You’re made for who you’re made for.’
‘What about tonight?’ I say. ‘Are you going to cancel?’
‘Henry, love, folk have had their hair done.’
‘So . . .?’
‘So get some spread on that bread.’
Of course they have booked a karaoke.
April sings ‘Sweet Home Alabama’; Brian belts out ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’; and I do ‘Islands in the Stream’ with my mother, filling in the parts she was due to sing with her husband. Wherever he got to. By virtue of death and birth control (natural or designed), my parents have no family beyond their only son. But the pub is bustling with friends, regulars and locals; the mood and music are set to high, and any dampening effect Dad’s absence might have had has been amply offset by several cases of pink prosecco and a table full of sausage rolls. Even Mum appears to be enjoying herself, and when I ask if we should be worried, she whispers into my ear that Dad can take care of himself. ‘Mind you,’ she says, ‘if he leaves it much longer, he’ll have me to deal with, and I’m a different matter.’
‘So,’ says April. ‘Where’s this mystery woman? Zoe, isn’t it?’
Sitting at a table with Mum, Brian and a heavily pregnant ex-fiancée is less mortifying than I might have imagined.
‘She couldn’t make it.’
‘Didn’t run out on her, did you?’
‘Harsh,’ says Brian.
‘Hardly,’ says Mum. ‘If you want to talk about harsh, love . . .’
‘Actually,’ I say, ‘I told her about you.’
April raises her eyebrows. ‘Well, that was stupid.’
Brian nods.
‘Shame,’ says April.
‘Thank you.’
‘I mean,’ April goes on, ‘I was looking forward to seeing your face when I told her myself.’
Mum laughs and nudges April with her elbow. ‘God, can you imagine.’
April stares right through me and nods slowly. Yes, I really can.
And so can I. I imagine that, in the noisy intimacy of this pub, confronted with the live and thriving protagonists, Zoe might have received the news more easily than on a busy train. She might have laughed. But then again, maybe not. As ever, my timing and judgement are way off. Despite Rachel’s insistence, I sent one more message to Zoe before joining the party tonight – a final apology and plea for dialogue. She hasn’t called, hasn’t messaged.
Zoe
The Last Bottle Of Champagne
I’m pulling my hair again, and the sensation feels like an old friend. Sitting in the bath, working conditioner up through my roots, clenching two fistfuls of hair and twisting my hands away from my scalp.
Eight hours on trains and cold platforms to end up back in London minus a boyfriend that wasn’t a real boyfriend anyway. I’ve had plenty of time to think, too much probably, but my thoughts and feelings are no less tangled than they were when I made a massive U-turn several hours ago. The inside of my head feels like a ball of knotted string. And the champagne certainly hasn’t helped. Did I over-react? Possibly, I’m not sure. But honestly, what’s the point, after all? Five more weeks and it’s over anyway. Whatever it was. I still don’t know. I certainly can’t take him to a wedding – too much like giving fate the finger.
Rachel wanted me to go back to her house, but Steve’s family are staying and – can you imagine? So your son’s getting married. You must be so excited. Funny thing happened to me today.
No thank you.
Rachel insisted, and when I refused she offered to come to min
e. But I meant it when I said I wanted to be alone, and I suppose she must have heard it in my voice. There was mail for Alex when I got back through the door. Two letters: one a catalogue of DJ equipment, the other offering a free valuation of our property. We have buyers looking in your area now. Maybe I should have sold this place after all, I’d be halfway around the world by now. Either way, I don’t think I’ll come back to this house after I leave it in September.
How do you leave someone at the altar? And what’s all that with The Graduate? As if he was setting me up and manipulating my emotions. Jesus Christ, she – April – was going to be there! And wouldn’t that have made a picture.
After developing a roll of black and white negatives, I cut the film into six-frame strips and store them in plastic wallets, waiting to be scanned, cropped, enlarged, manipulated. I haven’t printed any, and now I never will. Seven envelopes, seven rolls of film, all thrown in the bin along with a sugarcraft bride and groom and ten months’ worth of mail for my dead boyfriend.
There was no wine in the house, but I needed a drink. The last bottle of champagne stood impatiently in the small shelf where it had been chilling for quite long enough. Maybe I was saving it to drink with Henry, but that’s not happening now, so I popped the cork, took the bottle upstairs and ran a very hot bath.
Maybe I’m just a little bit envious. Henry did what I never had the courage to do. Regardless of how he went about it, he removed himself from what I can only assume was a bad relationship. But lucky old Zoe, I never had to choose between saying yes and saying no.
The champagne bottle is empty, my fingertips are wrinkled now and the water from my new boiler has cooled. My scalp tingles from me knotting handfuls of hair around my fist, but I haven’t pulled any out, so I guess that’s progress. Yay for me!
Looking at myself in the mirror, I all of a sudden look like a stranger. Thinner in the face, a single vertical wrinkle between my eyes from scowling. When I frown at my reflection, the wrinkle deepens and lengthens. It’s hard to imagine anyone calling this girl Zoe Bubbles. And this graduated bob, Henry’s handiwork hanging in wet ringlets. Not me either.
There is a pair of scissors in the bathroom cabinet, not ideal for the task, but what’s new there. I pull a length of hair away from my head and cut it two inches from my scalp. Then I take another and cut again.