Torn

by Gilli Allan

  ‘Is it a problem?’

  ‘Danny, I’m over thirty!’

  ‘So? What’s age got to do with anything? If you like someone you like them. I hadn’t even thought about your age.’

  ‘I’d never have guessed.’ Jess spoke as if to herself, still lost in contemplation of his face. ‘Danny? How long have you been back from the Forest?’

  ‘Coupl’a days.’

  ‘And did your friends recognise you?’

  ‘When they came to collect me for the party they were a bit surprised.’

  ‘Yesterday was the first time they’d seen you?’

  He nodded. ‘But it was the boss who completely blanked me. Ordered me off his land. Even though he apologised after. I was a bit miffed seeing it was him told me to get my lousy hair cut in the first place!’

  ‘He what? Employers can’t lay down the law about hair-styles. Not unless you’re dealing with the public.’

  ‘P’raps. But it’s not like I could afford to stand up to him, particularly when he was accusing me of infecting his daughter.’ Her heart missed a beat, but apparently unaware of how this remark could be interpreted Danny continued. ‘She shows me her books. We sit on the steps … and look at them, you know, heads together. And she got nits.’

  Head lice! Phew! ‘So, he really did mean “lousy”?’

  ‘I was a bit insulted. It’s not like I didn’t wash my hair ever!’

  ‘Is this the daughter with asthma?’

  ‘You can understand him losing his rag. She’s not four yet and his only child.’

  ‘Are you sure it was your fault?’

  ‘After Dad cut my hair I got him to go through it, and there they were, the little devils. I could hardly get on my high horse about your flea powder last night when I’ve been reg’l’y washing my own hair in some foul chemical brew.’ He looked suddenly uncertain. ‘Now you’ll not want any more to do with me?’

  Already disarmed by his honesty, Jess was further surprised by this last unguarded comment, which suggested he did indeed have expectations of the relationship.

  ‘Danny, head lice prefer clean hair, or so I’ve heard. You could just as easily have caught them from her as she from you. It’s rife in nurseries, and primary schools. If you’d looked more carefully at the contents of my bathroom cabinet last night, you’d probably have spotted the same shampoo. I’m always having to check Rory’s hair.’ To demonstrate she had no qualms about his cleanliness Jess circled the table. From behind his chair she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed the top of his fair head. ‘A friend said recently that I might have felt pressurised to have my own hair cut, but that it’s a great success.’

  Danny turned to look up at her. ‘It is. It’s really cool.’

  ‘Well so is yours, and I’m the beneficiary.’

  ‘You’re the …?’

  ‘I scooped you up first, before anyone else had a chance to.’

  ‘Hang on! Who scooped who?’

  ‘Whatever. But aren’t I the lucky one?’

  Danny looked mystified, but pleased. His eyes dropped and she was suddenly aware of the gaping neck of her blue silk dressing gown.

  ‘This won’t do,’ she said, straightening and pulling the gown together. ‘So, what are your plans for today?’

  He gazed up at her again, wide eyed, then took a long breath. It seemed he was waiting for her cue.

  ‘I mean …’ She looked at her watch. ‘Do you need a lift home soon? Are you working?’ At the shake of his head she went on. ‘Perhaps we could get the papers? Hang on … it feels like a Sunday but it’s not, is it? We could just slob out, listen to some music?’

  ‘Or … would you like to go to the movies?’

  ‘Movies?’ Slightly fazed by the suggestion, Jess stared at him. It was a long time since she’d had the kind of girlfriend-boyfriend relationship where she was asked out to the movies. She didn’t even know if there was a local cinema. Would it even be open on New Year’s Day? And was there likely to be anything on worth seeing?

  ‘There’s an arts cinema in Warford, round the back of the supermarket. It used to be the train station. Once Upon a Time in the West is on.’

  Jess was now thoroughly bemused.

  ‘Best western ever made, after Gunfight at the OK Corral,’ he explained.

  ‘You’re a Westerns buff! Look, Danny, it’s a sweet idea, but not really my thing. Anyway, it’s nearly midday, I’m still not washed and dressed and I have to collect Rory from Alison’s …’ She looked at her watch. She’d successfully suppressed her worries about him till this moment. Now her stomach gave an anxious lurch at the thought of her son. But surely Alison would have phoned if there’d been a problem? ‘She’s the heroine who had half a dozen three and four year olds to stay last night.’

  ‘OK. You’ll be wanting to get rid of me. No need for a lift, I don’t live far.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Though collecting Rory was the perfect excuse, Jessica was surprised by how much she wanted Danny to stay a bit longer. ‘‘Course I don’t want you to go,’ she said truthfully. ‘Not yet anyway!’

  ‘We could just go out for a walk?’ he suggested, tentatively.

  ‘Think I’d like to stay in the warm. I’ll have a quick bath then I’ll phone Alison. You pick out some music. My iPod’s in its dock in the other room, or there’s a rack of old CDs.’

  When Jess came into the living room Danny was kneeling on the hearthrug pulling out CDs and staring at them.

  ‘Alison’s giving them lunch. We’ve an hour before I need leave to collect Rory. Well done with the fire. I thought it had given up the ghost.’ Flames were beginning to lick up around the blackened bark of the large log she’d optimistically thrown into the wood-burning stove, hoping it might last the night. She saw he’d turned it and pushed some screws of the Radio Times, gleaned from the waste paper basket, around it. He frowned at the CD he held.

  ‘I only needed to open the dampers.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to look at what I’ve got on the iPod? I’ve more up-to-date music on there.’ Despite her suggestion he continued to look at the CDs, and the disc he eventually held out for her approval surprised her.

  ‘Are you sure?’ It was older than she was, so to him must surely seem antique. It was one of Sean’s, which had found its way by accident into the pile she’d taken from the flat. But given Danny’s apparent enthusiasm for cowboy films, perhaps the choice wasn’t entirely surprising. Had she possessed a recording of Spaghetti Western themes by Ennio Morricone would he have picked that one? Now he seemed flummoxed by her music system. She took the CD from his hand. ‘Here, let me.’

  As they sat down on the sofa together he looped his arm around her. There could be nothing wrong with this, Jessica assured herself, sitting with a friend on a bank holiday, listening to country rock. Danny was slim, but it was the slenderness of a young man who’d not yet attained the muscle bulk of full maturity. Still, he was broad enough to recline against, and it was a long time since she’d felt this comfortable with anyone, a long time since she had felt this relaxed.

  ‘Peaceful, easy feeling,’ sang the Eagles.

  ‘Your hair smells nice. Tell me about him, Jess. That man outside the pub. Is he Rory’s father?’

  ‘No, I’m pleased to say.’

  ‘But it’s true he’s in the police? How did you manage to get yourself involved with someone like that?’

  ‘He wasn’t like that when I first met him. People put their best face on, don’t they, when they’re trying to impress.’ She glanced up at him as she said this. A momentary flicker, almost a wince, passed across his face. He nodded.

  ‘Basically, I suppose I was on the rebound,’ Jess continued. ‘I’d done the club scene and I just wanted to push the boundaries a bit further. The night I met Sean I’d gone to an event … like a huge organised party.’

  ‘By pushing boundaries, d’you mean drugs?’

  ‘That was a part of it. Don’t look like that!’
She was over ten years older than him, but was being made to feel defensive by the concern in his eyes. ‘Nothing heavy, but it was all just a part of that world. Look, I know it was really stupid. I went through a kind of mad half hour. I had a full-time job, but going out, night after night, taking God knows what and partying. Sometimes going straight into work from wherever I’d been. Last night’s event was touchingly tame by my standards then. But at the time, I loved it. It was like a revelation. I thought, this is it! This is really living! Now I know I was on the edge. The fact I can hardly remember much of that year is evidence enough.

  ‘That night was a turning point. I’d hardly been there two minutes but experienced this sudden wave of revulsion against it all. It was too hot, too crowded. The music was a loud meaningless jangle. The lights were just … intolerable. Whatever I’d taken only made me feel ill and paranoid. The other partygoers were red-faced and moronic, jumping around like puppets. I’d gone with work friends but they’d either disappeared or were too spacey to be any help. We’d all planned to stay till morning, but suddenly I couldn’t bear it. I hardly knew where I was, apart from being in the middle of some vast, semi-derelict brownfield site in the farthest reaches of East London somewhere.

  ‘Then the police arrived, like the Seventh Cavalry come to the rescue. That’s how I met Sean. They didn’t do anything much at the time, just had a look around, asked the organisers to turn the music down a bit. I’m sure it was against the rules but Sean offered me a lift home … and, of course, took my number. Soon after meeting him, before our relationship developed …’ The memory of that dreadful time abruptly engulfed her in the remembered emotion. Her throat seized up and she briefly dipped her face into her hands. ‘I was devastated! I couldn’t believe it. I discovered I was pregnant. I don’t know why I couldn’t believe it. I’d been behaving like a crazy woman! But that I’d put myself in such danger, and not just of pregnancy … it was the worst time of my life having the AIDS test.’

  Danny made no comment but began to stroke her head, following the contour of her skull down onto the nape of her neck.

  ‘But Sean was there. Almost without my noticing he’d become a part of my life, the stable part, offering support and sanctuary. Now I believe he constructed his own myth about me. Just because I’m physically small he imagined me frail and vulnerable and easily led. He never really took on board how far I’d been the author of my own misfortune.’ For a while neither of them spoke. The Eagles sang, ‘Best of My Love’. The familiar music wrapped around them allowing both space and excuse for silence. The slow stroking of her head continued.

  Though married, Sean was already separated from his wife Gaynor. He was an attractive man, but more importantly he had an edge to him – a hint of danger – that appealed to her. On the face of it he was in a conventional job yet, though he rarely talked to her about his work, it wasn’t long before Jess realised he didn’t believe in following rules if rules got in the way. But at the time – like his failed marriage – this was a subject she didn’t interrogate.

  It became apparent that he was impressed by her life. That she earned a great deal more than he did, had a racier car and her own flat in Greenwich was all part of her allure. The frankness of his expressions of admiration, with no hint of macho jealousy, had been one of his initial attractions for her. And despite her pregnancy, they’d both somehow expected life to go on unchanged. But change on a domestic and on a global level was already in motion.

  ‘I gave up smoking, drugs, drinking, and haven’t touched the first two since. Making money was my drug of choice. As a woman I’d been in the minority on the trading floor. The atmosphere was very macho, all about who had the biggest balls, who was willing to take the biggest risk. Huge debts were being parcelled up, a bit here and a bit there, and securitised to secondary investors …’

  ‘You were a banker?’

  She was so caught up in the memory of that frenetic time that she’d half-forgotten who she was talking to, or that he was someone likely to reject big business and global economics.

  ‘Yes. But you’re not interested.’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  Jess squeezed his hand gratefully. ‘I was never one of the biggest earners amongst my peers, but I was still doing very well compared to the majority of women my age. I admit I liked the lifestyle. But then Rory arrived.’

  ‘So you gave up the work?’ He assumed she’d put her child first, that she’d given up the salary and the bonuses willingly. No, her plan had been to employ a nanny and to return to work after her maternity leave. But the decision had been taken out of her hands. It had been surreal, sitting at home with her baby, seeing her world tottering on the brink of collapse. Though at first she’d felt insulted and had resisted the imposition of redundancy, the longer she stayed at home the more she comprehended how stressed and manic her job had been, and more importantly, how profoundly divorced from the realities of most people’s lives. Being with her child 24/7, and seeing him grow and change from moment to moment – that was real, that was important.

  ‘Staying home with Rory was a huge change for me,’ she continued. No need to colour in all the detail. ‘But I found I was beginning to enjoy being “just a mother”. I can almost feel sorry for Sean now.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I think he must have convinced himself that my being a full-time mum was a passing fad. I’d soon get motherhood out of my system and I’d be able to find a similar job with no trouble. Before long he began urging me to get back out to work and to start feeding money back into the coffers. The idea of going back, even if I could have found an investment bank willing take me on, became unthinkable.’ At least now she was telling the whole truth. ‘I couldn’t even get along with the people, my old friends, any more. Our lives had diverged so fundamentally. They thought I’d become stuffy and I’m sure they thought I was looking down my nose at them, all holier than thou and disapproving of the lives they continued to lead. I’m sure I was, even though it had been my life too. Isn’t it said that converts are the most puritanical? Sean said I’d turned into a different woman. He was right, I’d regressed to …’

  ‘The person you really are,’ Danny said, still stroking her head. All at once hyper-aware of the warmth of his body against her she allowed her head to loll back onto his chest.

  ‘Perhaps. Perhaps I just grew up. That’s enough about me for the moment. Who are you, Danny? I don’t even know your surname.’

  ‘Bowman. I haven’t anything half as impressive and dang’rous in my past. I’m a bit weary of drugs …’ Did he mean wary? ‘I’ve smoked a few spliffs, but that’s about it. Never made any money. I knocked about with a girl called Zoe when I first came to Warford last summer. She was doing an aromather’py course. Already had a kid, a boy called Eclipse. Before Christmas she decided to go down to Cornwall to re-join the kid’s dad. It was her decision. It wasn’t like there was anything serious going on between us.’

  ‘Didn’t you miss … Eclipse?’ Jessica asked, wondering if the child had a nickname and if so, what it was.

  ‘Nothing to miss. I met him once or twice but I didn’t know him. He was at school or with Zoe’s family.’

  ‘So tell me about your family in the Forest,’ Jessica said with a slight smile. ‘Is your father a hairdresser?’’

  ‘No-o!’ Danny answered with an amused, upward inflection. ‘Just because he cut my hair? No, he used to farm.’

  ‘Used to?’

  ‘He … he rents out the land now. We kept the house and some outbuildings for the horse, goat, chickens …’

  ‘What does he do now?’

  ‘He’s been working as a mechan’cal engineer. A place making farm machinery, but he’s worried they want to retire him, or make him redundant. He’s not ready for that.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Sixty … um.’

  ‘Isn’t retirement something to look forward to? There are so many other things he could sti
ll do with his life.’

  ‘We need the money and he hasn’t been there long enough to get a good deal.’

  ‘So tell me about your mum. It’s usually mothers who do the hair cutting.’

  ‘I’ve never had that kind of relationship with my mother.’ He seemed unwilling to offer any more on the subject of his mother, so Jessica asked about siblings. ‘I’ve a brother and a sister. Pete and Helen. Both went to university. Pete works in London, in advertising, I think.’

  Jessica’s head was feeling increasingly heavy. It seemed strange that he wasn’t entirely sure of his brother’s career but, as an only child, what did she know about relationships between brothers and sisters? She closed her eyes.

  ‘Helen, she got her geography degree, but then came back home, got a job as a secretary in a timber merchant’s. Married a carpet fitter, bloke she’d been going out with since she was fifteen. Already got three kids! She’s younger than you!’

  ‘You think she should have done better?’ Jess yawned. ‘Sorry, I feel very …’

  ‘Not should, Jess … could, and I don’t mean money. It just frustrates me that she had no ambition. She could have travelled. Got experience of a wider world. But she’s wasted her opp’tunities. It’s different for me. I never had those opp’tunities. Not that she’s ever noticed or cared.’ Jess was never sure whether she actually asked Danny why he didn’t have the same opportunities as his sister and brother, or whether she dreamt it. Either way, she didn’t hear an answer.

  There was a small damp patch by her mouth when she opened her eyes. The Eagles were singing ‘Heartache Tonight’, Jess lifted her head just enough to wipe her mouth and check that he was awake, then settled back against his chest.

  ‘Sorry, I dozed off,’ she said yawning again. Directly in front of her eyes was the looped fabric of his shirt front with its unemployed buttonhole. ‘Look at you! You’re done up all wrong.’ To straighten his shirt seemed imperative. But to accomplish this would necessitate unfastening two further buttons. Her fingers were still fumbling from sleep and the shirt front a little too close to her eyes, but she hadn’t the strength to sit up and approach the task in a business-like fashion. Soon she’d opened a wider gap between the soft cotton and his skin.