by Andy Jones
Call it a whim. Or call it procrastination. But I still have Jenny’s number in my phone, and I called her this morning. She was a little surprised by my offer of a home visit, but at the same time she sounded excited at the prospect of company. I’ve had a guided tour of her small, cluttered home, been shown many artefacts and pictures and albums and souvenirs. And though I could happily hang out for the rest of the day, I have a plane to catch.
‘So, how are your teeth?’
‘Friends again,’ says Jenny, smiling widely. ‘Everybody very happy.’
Her flat is drawn in sepia; nets at the windows, plants and books and shelves absorbing the dusty light. Not ideal conditions for checking her implants, but that’s not why I’m here. Nevertheless, I take a quick look at her teeth and confirm that nothing is obviously wrong.
‘I have a confession,’ I say to Jenny.
‘What you do?’
By way of an answer, I open my backpack and remove a small leather pouch from which I remove my scissors. ‘When’s the last time you had a haircut?’ I ask.
Time is ticking, and it takes longer than I’d planned to convince Jenny, first, that I am not here to murder her, and secondly, that I cut a very good graduated bob.
‘Is expensive?’ says Jenny. ‘Like teeth?’
‘A going away present,’ I tell her. ‘When do you fly?’
‘Three weeks.’
‘Excited?’
‘Scare, really. Long way fly on my own.’
‘What about your children? Don’t they want to go?’
‘Children angry, actually. Want coffin, haha.’
‘Is that him?’ I say, pointing to the urn on the mantle.
‘Like to walk,’ Jenny says. ‘Hour and hour. Space, he say. Not much space in coffin.’
‘Right.’
‘So scatter, innit. Anyway, different with children. Good for just me, I think.’
‘Yes,’ I tell her. ‘I suppose it is. Now, sit still for me.’
Jenny gasps when the first lock of hair drops to the ground.
‘Lot,’ she says.
‘No turning back now,’ I tell her.
While we wait for my taxi, Jenny makes tea and shows me black and white photographs of her and her husband from maybe forty or fifty years ago.
‘Pretty, innit?’ she says, indicating her younger self.
‘Very, Jenny.’
‘Husban’ like, I think?’ she says, touching a hand to her hair. ‘New lady.’
‘The men will be fighting over you,’ I say.
Jenny laughs. ‘Very cheek,’ she says, and she puts her hand to my face.
I check the time on my phone and see that I have just under an hour until check-in. I also have a message from Zoe:
I love you.
It’s the first time either one of us has said this. And I whisper the answer inside my head: I love you too.
‘Happy?’ says Jenny.
‘Yes,’ I tell her.
‘Nice smile,’ says Jenny. ‘Shame ‘bout nose. But nice smile, innit.’
A car pulls up outside; sounds its horn.
‘Time,’ says Jenny.
‘Time.’
Zoe
Uncrossed Boxes
The girls offered to come with me to the airport, Rachel volunteering to drive, but I wanted to make this short trip alone. They say they have forgiven Henry, but this is the start of our adventure and I want to keep it between the two of us. My mind is bubbling with immiscible emotions: happiness, fear, excitement, sadness, confusion. I have tears in my eyes, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what flavour they are.
The cab driver glances at my reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘Alright back there?’
‘Fine,’ I tell him, ‘just got a little . . . eyelash. Got it now.’
‘Going somewhere nice?’
‘I hope so,’ I tell him, laughing to cover what might be received as rudeness.
The driver laughs politely, but he takes the hint.
I check my phone again, but Henry still hasn’t replied to my message.
I love you.
He loves me too, I think.
Maybe he’s waiting to tell me in person at the check-in. Like they would in one of those movies he likes. Over the last two weeks we have watched them all – The Apartment, Gone With the Wind, It’s a Wonderful Life and all the rest – Henry posting them through the letterbox of a charity shop on the way to work the following morning. The collection diminishing at the same rate as the uncrossed boxes on my calendar. And then there were none.
Last night, Rachel ordered pizzas and we ate them in front of Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. Steve was staying with a friend, so we had the house to ourselves, reminiscing, laughing, trying to predict the future. I slept in Rachel’s spare room, and Vicky took the sofa. Before we turned in for the night, I whispered Rachel into my room, sat her beside me on the bed and showed her the ring Alex never got to give me. We sobbed together, quietly, holding our hands to our mouths so we wouldn’t wake Vicky. Not to exclude her, but to spare me. I wouldn’t have told Rachel, but I need someone to sell the ring or donate it to a charity. Something for widows ideally. It’s been in my pocket since Henry found it, and I cried all over again when I closed Rachel’s hand around the box. But now that it’s gone, I don’t feel the loss I had anticipated.
Maybe because, in a small way, Alex is still with me.
Henry
We Never Watched Casablanca
What is the right thing to do?
It’s the question that’s been keeping me awake for at least a week.
When I left April it was the wrong thing to do, but for the right reason. I didn’t love her. Or was it the right thing, done in entirely the wrong way?
Zoe says she loves me, and I at least believe that she believes herself. What I don’t doubt is my own love for her. I know because it is something I have never felt before. She will be standing beneath the departure boards now, checking her ticket and passport for perhaps the tenth time today. Waiting for me to arrive so we can both depart.
‘Which terminal?’ asks the cabbie.
‘Five, please.’
‘Anywhere nice?’
‘Thailand.’
‘Very exotic,’ he says. ‘Have you there in five minutes.’
The sky is noisy with low and looming aircraft. Our check-in is open and the ground crew will be preparing our own impassive jumbo jet. But isn’t boarding this plane another act of selfishness? Good for me, no doubt; but is it good for Zoe? Is it best for Zoe?
Over the last ten days we have worked our way through my small library of old movies. We watched everything but Casablanca. Zoe has never seen it, but I have and I know only too well how it ends. I slipped that particular classic into my bag and smuggled it out of the house like a piece of bad news.
‘Here we go, pal. What time’s your flight?’
The driver pulls up outside the airport and punches up my fare.
‘Little under two hours,’ I tell him.
‘Perfect timing.’
‘First time for everything,’ I say, handing over the money and climbing out onto the pavement.
On the cover of Casablanca, Rick Blaine stands with his hands in the pockets of his raincoat, behind him is the twin-engine plane ready to fly him and his love to freedom. But Rick won’t be getting on the plane. Because Rick knows the answer; he knows the right thing to do. Heathrow Airport lacks the dusty romance of Casablanca. The planes are too big, numerous and impersonal. And I have neither raincoat nor fedora, but I do have the chance to do something right for once.
Zoe said she needs to find herself.
I’ve already found her. And I love her; not simply as a romantic idea, but as a deep and physical conviction. I found her, now it’s her turn.
The automatic doors open to the noise and motion of ten thousand travellers. There is a jolt of something like panic – a temptation to turn around, flag down the next cab and head . . . where, I do
n’t know. But the urge is as fleeting as it is visceral.
I have to face Zoe.
I have to tell her I love her, and then I have to walk away.
PART 3
Epilogue
Standing on a small shelf of rock halfway up a sheer cliff, she gazes out at the impossible geological formations, pushing into the preposterous sky from the unfeasible sea. After only two weeks in Bangkok, she took a ten-hour bus ride south to Krabi and then a short but terrifying crossing on a longtail boat to Rai Leh, wading through the last fifty metres of water, holding her backpack overhead. Her shoulders still ache, and she rotates her neck to ease the stiffness. Staring through the distance, Zoe allows thoughts of all she has left behind to pass through her mind, but she examines none of these, instead feeling the close heat that is turning her skin slowly brown. Slowly changing her.
Fellow travellers have been friendly, but so far Zoe is happy to keep her own company; reading, walking . . . finding herself. If she becomes lonely, and she seldom does, Zoe closes her eyes and imagines her bright place – Albert Bridge at dusk, with a thousand lightbulbs reflected on the dark water of the Thames. It’s mid-afternoon now, early morning in London, and she wonders if Henry is awake yet. If he is thinking of her. She hopes so.
Zoe reaches into her shoulder bag and removes a small fold of paper.
Holding the cold urn while Alex’s mother made tea in the next room, she had been seized by an idea. Without a suitable receptacle, Zoe had improvised with the lid of a lipstick and removed a small scoop of ash. It wasn’t until she was removing her belt and passing through the metal detector at Heathrow Airport, however, that it occurred to her how foolish this whole idea was. But no alarms sounded, no dogs barked, no one looked inside the small pocket at the hip of her jeans.
And now she has brought him here. To the beach he never got to see.
She opens the square of paper, offering up the ash to the warm breeze. As the wind catches and disperses the fine dust, Zoe blows a kiss out towards the sea.
‘Thank you for loving me,’ she says.
The small wisp of grey lifts, fades and vanishes.
Then Zoe turns and continues her way up the cliff.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the team at Simon & Schuster for making this book happen: Clare Hey, Sara-Jade Virtue, Ally Grant, Rumana Haider, Hayley McMullan, Dominic Brendon, Laura Hough, Sally Wilks, Emma Capron and Jamie Criswell.
And to my friends, family and a whole bunch of experts who gave freely of their time, experience and knowledge: Chris Forder, Mark Rolfe, Louise Cuming, Jane Griffiths, Jessica Walker, Sunjay Soni, Keith Juden and Nicola Kennedy.
The Molyneux brothers – Ben, Sam and Matt.
Bruce Cox and Piotr Rozanski at Love & Dye hair salon in Raynes Park.
Lucie Brownlee, author of the brave and brilliant Wife After Death.
My agent, Mark ‘Stan’ Stanton. For being my agent and for being Stan.
Sarah Jones – in many ways, I feel like we wrote this together. You were there when I conceived the idea, supported me through a long labour and assisted in the birth. You read every draft, encouraged and criticized, counselled and inspired me. You contributed ideas and made bacon sandwiches.
Mum – for honest feedback, gentle faith, good humour, messages of love and support. Long phone conversations with a bottle of wine, although I think I drank your share.
Thank you all, I couldn’t have done this without you.