by Andy Jones
Most of Zoe’s possessions are in storage, and we’re driving the rest of her stuff down to the coast this weekend, where I will get a second chance at making a good impression on her parents. This time as the guy who is travelling the world with their daughter, rather than the one who is merely romping with her on their sheepskin rug. We’ll play meet the Smiths in approximately twelve months’ time.
Zoe’s tenants move in fifteen days from now, one day after we depart from Terminal Five. At about the same time they’re carrying boxes up the stairs, we’ll be five thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine miles away. Drinking beers in Bangkok, or making love, or watching the sun set, or swimming in the sea. Whatever it is, we’ll be doing it together. We’ve been living together for twelve days now, spending our evenings making plans, reading Rough Guides, preparing the house for its new arrivals. Cleaning the oven, oiling the squeaky hinges, changing the dead bulbs. In the bedroom there are patches of dark paint showing through the light topcoat, but when I suggested repainting, Zoe said no in a way that deterred me from pressing. Today she is upbeat, singing along to the radio and painting over scuffmarks on the living room walls, while I fix a trio of creaky floorboards.
I once saw my dad hammer a nail through a water pipe. It’s probably the only time I witnessed Big Boots overwhelmed. Doing the same thing I am now, he struck a two-inch nail through a loose board and a copper pipe with a single swing of the hammer. The pressurized water burst through the floorboards in a widening fan that reached the ceiling. Dad sprang to his feet, dropped the hammer, and stood rotating on the spot and spitting expletives like a sit-com drama queen. Lesson learned, I lift the boards completely, remove all the old nails and mark small pencil Xs for the new ones. This board in the spare room comes up more easily than the previous two, the old nails sliding smoothly from the joists. Something in the void space beneath catches my eye. Fixing the boards in the bedroom and living room, I removed balls of yellowed newspaper, half a roll of electrical tape, an empty cigarette packet and a good deal of fluff.
But it’s immediately apparent that this is not something discarded, but something hidden. I remove a small gift bag made of stiff black paper, the name of the jeweller’s on the side in silver script. I realize I am holding my breath and I can feel my pulse behind my sternum. The bag is held closed with a coin-sized disc of clear adhesive plastic. I shouldn’t open it, but something – curiosity, vigilance, jealousy, dread – moves my fingers.
Inside is a black ring box.
It crosses my mind to replace everything and nail the floorboard firmly in place. But I push the thought away.
I clutch the bag irreverently in both hands, as if it contains fast food, say, and not an engagement ring. Zoe is crouched beside a pot of white emulsion, painting over a black mark on the skirting board.
‘I found something,’ I say, making it immediately clear that this thing is not from me. According to the receipt in the bag, Alex bought this ring eleven months ago, at the start of October, maybe a day or two after payday. Two weeks before a car smashed the life out of him.
Zoe turns to face me, stands, and I take care to keep my expression neutral. ‘Found something, what?’
‘Under the floorboards in the spare room,’ I tell her. ‘Alex . . . he must have put it there.’
I hold the bag out to Zoe, crumpled at the edges where I’ve held it in clenched fists. Zoe looks at the bag, but makes no move to take it. Her face is constructed of translucent layers; impassivity over shock over fear over disbelief.
‘What is it?’
‘Sit down,’ I say.
Zoe carefully places the wet paintbrush on the floor, white paint seeping from the bristles onto the recently scrubbed boards.
‘Can you open it?’ she says. ‘Please.’
I sit beside her on the sofa, remove the ring box and pass it – as unceremoniously as I can – to Zoe.
‘Is it . . . oh my God . . . is it a . . . a ring?’
I nod, and Zoe wraps both hands around the box, not opening, but enveloping it. ‘From Alex,’ I reiterate.
Self-absorbed to the end, I remember proposing to April, her disappointment when she saw the ring. Zoe opens the box, tears streaming silently down her cheeks now. She removes the ring and holds it gently between the thumbs and index fingers of both hands.
‘A ring,’ she says, nodding to herself, the tears coming harder now. ‘A ring.’
Zoe slides the ring onto the finger of her left hand, and rotates it so that the diamond is perfectly central. I place my hand on her knee, but she angles her leg away from me.
‘Can I get you anything?’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘Maybe tea, coffee.’
‘Okay, which?’
‘How should I know?’ She turns on me with an expression of contempt and irritation. ‘How should I know?’ she says again, returning her attention to the ring. ‘How should I know anything?’
I make both, placing the two mugs on the table.
The diamond ring catches the light as Zoe reaches indiscriminately for one of the mugs.
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It’s fine.’
While I’ve been making the drinks, Zoe has been upstairs to fetch a cardboard box filled with old paperwork. Several documents are strewn across the coffee table. Zoe puts down her tea and rifles through the box, removing what looks like a bank statement. She turns through the pages, running her finger down the columns of payments and purchases. And then she stops.
I can’t see the item that has caught her eye, but Zoe stares at the statement for a long time. Other than the steady drop of tears from her cheeks and chin, she is quite still. I’ve finished my coffee before Zoe sighs deeply, puts the statement aside and returns the rest of the documents to the box.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says, rotating the engagement ring around her finger. ‘Maybe I should go alone. To my parents.’
Zoe
The Thing That Never Happened Is Over Now
Mum and Dad are flying kites. Their voices are distorted and delayed by distance and wind, laughing and whooping like children. Still in love, it seems to me. From the shelter of the beach hut, I point the camera at my parents. Zooming in through the viewfinder, I can see Mum’s lips moving but can’t make out the words. Her eyes have been better, she tells me, but she is wearing large dark sunglasses nevertheless.
Yesterday, on the drive down, I cried and sang to the radio and talked to myself. I debated whether or not to tell my parents about the diamond ring that’s a little too tight for my finger, but not so much I can’t force it. At one point my eyes were so blurred with tears I had to pull into a layby before I regained my composure.
Alex was going to propose to me.
And what would I have said when he did? I would have wanted to say no, of that much I’m certain. But whether or not I could have . . . the answer is less clear. Whatever answer I might have given to Alex, it was never going to end well. But it’s over now, and there’s nothing to be gained from dwelling on the mights and the maybes.
But Mum isn’t the only one with tell-tale eyes, and last night she asked if I was okay. Was something wrong? I told Mum I was nervous, that I was sad about Alex. All of which is true. Mum asked, caution in her voice, if I would like to see Dr Samuels before driving back to London. Depression is a big enough word that it didn’t need saying out loud. I don’t know if it applies to me or not, but I don’t feel as happy as I should this close to my big adventure. I told Mum no, but promised I would call them if I changed my mind. Dr Samuels is a family friend, they reminded me, and will talk to me on the phone if the need arises. I drew a small fingertip X across my heart.
We sat around the kitchen table, cooking, eating drinking, talking. I found myself laughing at Dad’s jokes as the night wore on, and Mum has recovered her competitive streak at Scrabble, which I’m taking as a positive sign all round. Dad tried again to give me money; but he understood when I refused.
They’re disappointed not to have seen Henry again – particularly as he was recently promoted from friend to boyfriend and travelling companion – but I lied and told them he had a work emergency. A white lie, really, and I don’t feel at all bad about it. Besides, he is working, covering my shifts for me at the Duck. This whole thing has knocked the wind out of me for sure – kicked and stamped it out of me – but it must be pretty shitty for him, too. We haven’t talked much, haven’t broached the big Undiscussed. And whatever happens next, I love him for being quietly by my side. Holding me, putting plates of food in front of me and clearing them, eaten or otherwise, away. No daddying, no neediness, no inquisition. But after two days, even that became claustrophobic. Henry gave me the keys to his car, helped me load my boxes and kissed me goodbye. A sad goodbye, like something had ended.
From across the beach Mum shouts my name, beckoning me to join them on the sand.
I pull the bank statement from my back pocket. The mundane alongside the heartbreaking: Pret, the Underground, the deli and the florist. He spent forty-five pounds in a wine shop, about enough for a bottle of champagne; and over three thousand pounds in a Hatton Garden jeweller’s. The champagne I drank alone in the bath before cutting my hair with a pair of blunt scissors. Alex’s furtive attitude in the days leading up to his death, the intimate way he made love that morning, breakfast in bed (intended), a bunch of roses (scattered), a ring beneath the floorboards (hidden). In the last email he wrote to his mother, Alex told her he’d been a ‘pillock’, but that he would make it up to me at Christmas. And now I know how.
I wore the ring in bed last night, but it’s the last time I’ll place it on my finger. The thing that never happened is over now. Not everyone can have the neat happy ending that the storybooks promise us. The duckling that becomes a swan, the prince that gets the girl. I must have read a thousand stories this summer, but in the end, I never found one that worked; one I could believe in. Maybe the new Zoe will find it when she returns from a faraway land.
I point the camera at my parents and fire off shots until I reach the end of the roll. The camera is too heavy, in all respects. I remove the roll of film and slip it into my pocket. The beach hut is full of junk: snorkels, body boards, a windbreak and a picnic blanket. Beach toys and games, bats, balls, quoits. I wrap the Leica inside two plastic bags, twist and knot them closed and stuff it into the bottom of an old backpack. Maybe one day, it will be discovered by my children.
Henry
So I Don’t Lose You
Zoe walks into the Duck and Cover on Saturday night, halfway through the general knowledge round.
‘Hello stranger,’ I say.
She leans across the bar top and kisses me. ‘Present,’ she says, handing me a carrier bag.
Flip-flops.
‘I love them,’ I tell her. ‘They’re so . . . pink.’
‘So I don’t lose you,’ Zoe says, and she kisses me again.
Zoe
His Engraved Name
‘God! Sorry, I mean . . . wow, he looked like his dad.’
‘The image of him, isn’t he?’
In the photograph, Alex is sitting on his father’s shoulders, they’re wearing matching red and white striped football scarves.
‘How old was he there?’
‘I’m guessing about four, love. Bruce would be about thirty there, same age as Alex was when he . . . you know.’
Audrey glances towards the urn, sitting on the mantelpiece. A discreet pewter cylinder engraved with Alex’s name and the dates of his birth and death. Its cold presence is unsettling, and I don’t know how Audrey can bear having it in such a conspicuous position. Maybe it helps her feel close to her son.
She turns a page in the album. ‘Problem with these digital cameras,’ she says, ‘is you never actually print anything. Not enough anyway. I don’t think I’ve any pictures of you and him together, for example.’
‘I’ve got a few. I’ll send you some before I go.’
‘Thank you, love. Nervous?’
I nod. ‘Very. Excited, though.’
‘I think you’re very brave going all that way on your own.’
Audrey doesn’t know about Henry. Despite what she said in her email to Alex, about life being for loving, it feels too soon to tell her that the process is already under way.
‘Thank you, I . . . I don’t feel brave.’
Audrey takes hold of my hand. ‘You’ll be fine. And thank you for coming, it means a lot to me.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,’ I tell her. ‘It’s been . . . tough, weird . . .’
‘I know, darling. And you’re sure about staying tonight?’
‘Yeah, positive. And anyway, we’ll never get through all these in an afternoon, will we?’
‘That’s true. Now look at this.’ A picture of Alex, maybe five, posing with a toy guitar.
‘He loved music,’ I say.
‘He did.’ Audrey wipes her eyes.
‘Cup of tea, love?’
‘Want me to make it?’
‘Thank you, love. But if I sit too long, my knees seize up. I was sixty in July, can you believe it?’
‘You don’t look it,’ I say, and Audrey waves the platitude away.
‘I look a lot older, love. Pat and Aggy got me a facial for my birthday, I don’t think the poor woman knew where to start.’
I feel like a fraud, sitting here and pretending this information is new to me when I read it in the emails Audrey sent to her dead son. I almost tell her, but it would serve no purpose other than to embarrass us both. And the same goes for the ring Alex hid under our floorboards, even more so. Some secrets should never be told, and if I could make myself unknow this particular piece of tragedy I’d do it without a second thought.
‘How’d you take it?’ Audrey asks.
‘Milk, no sugar, please.’
‘Coming right up. And tonight, I think we should drink a bottle of wine. What do you think about that?’
‘I think it’s an excellent idea. Maybe I could cook us something.’
‘You will not. I’ll cook and you can keep my glass full.’
‘Just as well,’ I say. ‘I’m a lousy cook.’
Audrey puts a hand to my face. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she says, stroking my cheek with her thumb. ‘I’m glad Alex found you.’
I nod, because it’s all I’m capable of at the moment. Audrey nods back, wipes her eyes and goes through to the kitchen.
While Audrey is making tea, I close the album and go across to the fireplace. The urn is as cold to the touch as the eye. ‘Hey,’ I say, under my breath, tracing my finger over his engraved name. ‘Hey.’
Henry
Everything Except Zoe
‘Holiday?’ says Jenny, nodding at my enormous backpack. ‘You go with girl?’
‘Zoe,’ I tell her. ‘Yes.’
‘Where you go?’
‘Thailand,’ I say, opting for the simple version.
We fly in four hours, check in in two.
Rachel is back from honeymoon now, and while Zoe spent a final night with the girls, I drove the car north. If I left it in the Black Horse car park, there would be nothing left a year from now, so Dad is going to sell it and send the money on. Now that Mum is a surrogate grandmother, she seems to have finally buried her resentment towards me – instead sharing pictures and talking endlessly about Violet’s eyes, her rosebud lips, her tiny fingers, her chubby cheeks. And I felt a pang of something like paternal affection. Clearly April and Brian’s input was more significant, but if I hadn’t been such a stupid dithering shit, then it’s unlikely Violet would be dribbling on anyone’s shoulder. And she really is a spectacularly beautiful baby. Mum cried when I said goodbye this morning, which is a relief. For a few days there has been an eerie lack of tears, and I thought the Universe had forgotten our contract. But all is well. Mum and Dad look happier than I’ve seen them for a while, and barely argued at all last night. Big Boots still hasn’t told Mum about his memor
y lapses, but he tells me he probably will – ‘If I don’t forget, son.’
Everything in the house is fixed, cleaned and restored. Everything except Zoe. I remember standing on Albert Bridge four months ago and thinking there was something melancholy behind her smile. It went away for a while, but it’s come back – the heaviness that seems to tug at her eyes. We’re still close, intimate, affectionate; she curls up against me on the sofa, and rests her head on my chest in bed. But there is also a pressing, almost physical silence. We play music or listen to the radio while we’re cleaning the house, but the weight of that silence is still beside us. Since visiting Alex’s mother, an air of calm acceptance seems to have come over Zoe. Occasionally she will retreat into herself, gently drifting out of the moment and into her own inner world. Moving from one room to another, she might stop with her hand on the doorknob, temporarily short-circuited by some thought or remembrance. Two days ago, she cried quietly as she cleaned grimy fingerprints from around the light switches. And I have wondered several times whether it wouldn’t have been better, after all, to nail the engagement ring away beneath the floorboards.
The flight time to Bangkok is eleven hours and twenty-five minutes and I’m hoping the sleep that has eluded me for the past week will find me in the clouds. When Zoe first told me about Alex, we stayed up all night talking. We talked about her travelling; how she wanted – needed – to find herself, to be independent, afraid and challenged and reliant upon no one but Zoe Goldman. I understood, envied and admired her. And although I try to ignore the question, the question is insistent: What has changed?