by Anna Maxted
‘But she does look tired.’
‘Fireman have cut people out of cars who look better than that, but you don’t tell her to her face. Then, you go overboard on how awesomely fabulous Jason looks, making it sound as if you still fancy him—’
‘Oh, no. Lucy already thinks I’m obsessed with him.’
‘Really. Why?’
‘Ah, no reason, I don’t know. She’s paranoid.’
‘And you tell her she’s lucky to have nabbed him, like she’s a jewel thief!’
I bit my lip. ‘Should I go and speak to her?’
‘Don’t you go near her, you’ve done enough. I’ll speak to her.’
‘What will you say?’
‘That you’re an idiot, need new glasses, that sort of thing.’
‘Right,’ I said, glumly.
Jack whipped my glasses from my face, and polished the lenses on his shirt. ‘How can you see?’ he said. ‘It’s like cleaning a hubcap.’ Then he pushed the hair from my eyes and kissed me.
The band announced they were taking a break, that in the meantime they would leave us in the capable hands of ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’. My heart thumped – one of my favourite songs. Out in the charts around the time that Jack and I first got together. It said everything.
‘Dance with me to this,’ I said. ‘Then speak to Lucy.’
Jack led me to the dance floor and, goobers that we were, we jumped around shouting the words in each other’s faces. It didn’t matter, though. Everyone else under forty was doing the same. As the song ended, Jason caught my eye and waved.
‘You go and make my apologies to the bride,’ I said. ‘I want to say hello to her husband.’
‘Sure,’ said Jack. His lips brushed against mine, and he walked off.
‘Look at you!’ I roared at Jason. ‘Don’t you look the part! How do you feel?’
I did not expect him to sweep me into his arms, but he did. He hit me with a great big smacker of a kiss, and said, ‘You know, Hannah, I waited for five years for you to ask me that question, and I don’t think you ever did. But now you do! Four hours after I get married to someone else!’
This floored me and I couldn’t think of anything to say. So I said, ‘Hell of a wedding cake.’
Jason grimaced. ‘Lucy’s mother chose it. It’s Victorian.’
‘Bit stale then,’ I said.
We gravely regarded the cake, a three-tiered affair, each tier lifted high by three golden pillars, and encrusted with frills and drapes of white icing, and a ton of pink sugar roses. It stood on a gold stand.
Jason whispered, ‘It cost three hundred and twenty-five pounds!’
We giggled together. Then I remembered my wedding vow and said, ‘I’m sure it tastes delicious.’
‘Hey,’ said Jason, looking over my shoulder. ‘What did you think of me inviting Jack?’
‘Very thoughtful.’
He nudged me. ‘So! So! What do you think? Do you think you and Jack will end up doing this –’ he gestured around the room, then blushed – ‘er, again?’
I looked at my feet. ‘Jason! The questions you ask!’
‘Hm,’ said Jason, in the manner of a tease. ‘I think I’ll have to have a word with Jack.’
I clutched his arm. ‘No. God. Jason. Don’t you dare.’
‘Jaaaaaaayyyyyyson, come and daaaaaaaaaaance with meeeeeeee!’ said a small girl, tugging at his coat-tails.
Jason grinned at me. ‘Duty calls,’ he said, and took her hand. The crowd parted for Jason, cheers, slaps on the back, shouts of ‘Aaarrrr!’ because he was dancing with a kid.
I stared after him, smiling. Then I turned, to see if I could spot Jack. At first, I couldn’t. Then I saw him, he was huddled at a table with Lucy, their two chairs facing, her great skirt billowing up around her like a cloud, from where I was standing it seemed to engulf Jack’s lower half. She was talking to him, her gestures fast and excitable, her head wobbling on her neck. She was drunk and probably boring him. I wondered if I should mount a rescue operation. I decided to wander past, make eye contact with Jack. I grabbed a glass of champagne, and walked casually by, staring right at him. I was sure he saw me, but he didn’t look at me, just focused on Lucy’s yapping mouth.
One must indulge the bride on her special day, I decided, and went to watch the dancing. Jack would find me when Lucy had finished talking at him. Ten minutes later, I glanced over, and they were still at it. Not only that, Jason had joined them. What the hell did those three have to talk about? Not married life, I’ll bet. I didn’t like it. I felt cross and left out. I checked my watch. Ten to midnight. Hang on, they should be wrapping up this thing in a few minutes. I sighed, tapped my toes, saw, with relief, Lucy’s mother bend and murmer in her ear. Lucy heaved herself off the chair, kissed Jack on the cheek, and rustled off to say au revoir to some old biddy. Jason and Jack shook hands, then Jason scurried off in his wife’s wake.
At last. I wondered if we could sneak off without saying goodbye. After all, Jack had been chatting to the hosts for a good half-hour – it would be silly to chase after them just to inform them that we were leaving. They were about to scuttle off to their honeymoon suite, what did they care? I was hoping that tonight would be our night too. I was trying not to fret, but I felt that Jack and I urgently needed to touch base (in the romantic sense). We hadn’t had sex since before LA. Before it! I wasn’t quite sure why – it could have been work, but I’d never believed in ‘the work’ excuse. Jack’s attitude was what worried me. Or was it my attitude?
I stood up with a smile as Jack approached, but he swept past without looking at me.
‘Jack?’ I said.
‘Fuck off.’
I was stunned. ‘What?’
He was walking so fast I had to jog to keep up with him. ‘Jack! What is it? What’s wrong?’
He stopped, and his expression was so ferocious, I reared back. ‘Leave me alone, you bitch.’
I felt vaguely hysterical. What had I done? I was clean, wasn’t I? Jesus. Jason or Lucy must have said something, but what?
I followed him all the way to his red Audi, a sob in my throat.
‘Fuck off fuck off fuck off don’t speak to me,’ he spat, and there were tears in his eyes.
‘Jack,’ I said, and there were tears in my eyes too. ‘I don’t understand. Please. Tell me what it is I’m supposed to have done.’
Jack slammed shut the door and buzzed down the window. ‘As ever,’ he said, ‘I find out the truth about you from your friends. Lucy tells me that you were, still are, obsessed with Jason, to the point that you pretended to be engaged when you weren’t, that you put that engagement announcement in the Torygraph without asking him in the hope of forcing him to propose – which works out the day before you shagged me – she didn’t want him to invite you but he felt obliged, and you go and spend a ridiculous sum on their wedding gift, more than her parents spent, which is fucking weird. And I tell her, as politely as you can tell a bride, I don’t think so, I think you’ve got it wrong, I’m sure that Hannah did not want to marry Jason. So she calls over Jasie who confirms that he split with you, and you were devastated, heartbroken, but really, Jack, we think you’d be good for her, you’ve both grown up a lot. So, you tell me a pack of lies, and far from being the love of your life, I find out I’m, quote Brocklehurst, your second choice.’
He revved the engine. ‘I won’t be your second choice again,’ he said, and screeched off.
Chapter 49
I bawled for a while, then quit. This man was about as volatile as a Mexican firework, and I couldn’t handle it any longer. When I looked at Jack, he saw me, ten years ago. Whatever he said, he was still screwed up about what I’d done to him aged twenty-one, and if you ask me, it was all mixed up in what his parents hadn’t done for him, way back. It had to be, or why would he react with such venom? Why was he so ready to believe the worst of me? I reckoned if he wanted to be with me, he’d have asked for my version of events before legging it. He didn�
�t, which meant that Lucy and Jason’s ramblings were a convenient out.
I knew this, because I wrote the rules. I was the one who backed away when Jack tried to love me, a decade before. I’d made sure that my behaviour saw him off. Now, at last, I was ready to trust him, ready for him, finally fit for a real relationship, despite the uninsurable risk of committing, putting my mental welfare in the shaky hands of an emotional anarchist. And he wasn’t. I’d scared him, scarred him. Maybe, there was a wide-eyed idealist somewhere inside him who wanted to believe it would work, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t fight that powerful cynic, a person who was nothing to do with me, who was created long before I came on the scene.
I hadn’t helped. He’d taken a chance, and I’d proved to him it was the wrong move. But Jason was right. I had grown since then. I was under the distinct impression that I had made my peace with Jack. He was a bit of a terrorist in that sense. ‘Yeah, yeah, I agree to this, but I don’t really; one tiny bomb doesn’t count.’ I felt I’d served my time, but it seemed that Jack felt that I deserved a life sentence. In which case I was regretfully going to have to leave him to it, or he’d destroy me. I had no problem feeling bad for my own sins, but there was no way I was going to feel bad for someone else’s.
I’ve seen it happen. Women date men, men date women the insides of whose heads are knotted up tight as golf balls. They meet some sweet, unsuspecting character, who makes the mistake of sympathising, tugs at a stray thread, and this great festering wad of string starts to unravel. They end up taking the rap for a million prior transgressions committed by other people, at other times. It was like Jason’s shrink getting him to act out his anger on a chair. You can’t punish the bastard responsible because he isn’t here. But this poor little chair’s right in front of you! I wasn’t about to be sat on.
I drove home, and was wiping off my make-up with a big fat cotton ball in front of the mirror – when I thought, no.
No, actually.
I threw the grey cotton ball in the bin, drove to Jack’s flat, pressed my finger to the buzzer, and kept it there.
When he finally wrenched open the door, I didn’t give him the chance to speak. He opened his mouth, and I said, ‘No. You are not going to talk this time. You are going to listen to me. There is a bit of a pattern going on here. You get the wrong end of the stick, you think I’m guilty, you dump me. Last time that happened, I was too young, too naïve, too confused to put you straight. You believed me of cheating and I was so frozen by my family history, I let our marriage go without a fight. I didn’t fight to make you understand, I didn’t fight to tell you that you were wrong. I just accepted it. But I’ve already explained this to you. Which means, either you’re deaf or you’re not listening. If you thought about it rationally, you’d know that there is no way I was or am obsessed with Jason. I told you before the wedding that I had to think of a clever way to break off with him without hurting his feelings, and that is exactly what I did. I made him think he ended it, by saying I never wanted children. I lied to Lucy about the Telegraph, to get Jason off the hook with her. So, the upshot of all this, Jack, is that you have been a complete fool. I’m here for you, because I have changed. It’s you who’s still the same. I don’t want to let you go again, I would marry you again in a second, but there’s two things preventing that. You and your godawful attitude. Truth is, you can’t believe that I’ve really changed. And how can I commit to a man who, at heart, thinks I’m a liar? Here’s my suggestion. When you’ve changed, get in touch. There won’t be anyone else.’
I left him standing open-mouthed on the doorstep.
Chapter 50
There’s nothing worse than two lonely people hanging out together. Still, I had nothing else to do, so I went to my father’s house in the Suburb. He opened the door. He looked immaculate, as ever, but there was a certain wildness around the eyes. As Jason would have said (although I felt that Jason had said enough), Roger didn’t look centred. He had an air of being lost. I thought he might turn me away, but he grabbed me.
‘Hannah, Hannah, I’m so glad you’re here, come in, come in, so good to see you, can I get you something? anything?’
I glanced up to see if he was being sarcastic, but I don’t think he was. There was no superior lift of the nostril. He didn’t normally sound so artless. There’d always been a certain amount of flower to his speech. It was as if he no longer had the energy.
He flung a listless hand out to usher me in. The house was spotless. Which meant the cleaner was still being paid. Probably by direct debit.
‘How’s your mother? Have you spoken to her?’ His eyes searched mine.
I sighed. ‘She’s fine. I saw her. With Jonathan. She seemed … happy.’ I couldn’t resist this one dig.
My father nodded. And then, with supreme effort, he mouthed the word ‘good’.
He cleared his throat. ‘And you, Hannah. How are you?’
‘Pretty good. Job’s fine. Car’s going OK.’
In addition to doing my job and driving my car, I was spending an unhealthy amount of time staring at my now pristine wedding dress, which I’d hung on my bedroom wall. My father didn’t need to know this.
‘Good.’ He raked a hand through his hair, then rubbed his finger and thumb together as if to dispel the grease, a nervous habit, rarely displayed. ‘Do you … do you think she’ll divorce me?’
I blinked. ‘She didn’t mention anything to me. But –’ I paused – ‘she’s not a big talker.’
Roger, you fool, I was saying inside. Look at you. A popped balloon. He wasn’t, though, I realised, contrite. He merely felt sorry for himself. Splashing around in his bad luck. My guess was he was telling himself that he didn’t understand why all this had happened. He probably believed we’d overreacted (women! huh!). He’d moved away from anger, on to sorrow. Missing my mother. It was funny. Give people a while, they’d feel nostalgic for the most miserable of situations. In the nicest possible way, Roger was like the serial killer in Manhunter. Murdering entire families, sticking broken bits of mirror in their dead eyes, so they could look back at him. Ya know, it ain’t quite the same as having real live opinionated people to contend with.
‘Can I offer you anything?’ he was still saying.
I was about to refuse. Then I thought, actually, you owe me. ‘There is something,’ I said.
‘Yes?’ Roger’s eyes lit with hope.
‘A bath. I’d like a bath.’
‘Be my guest,’ he cried. ‘There’s plenty of hot water. You know where the towels are. I think … your mother left some bubble bath.’
I reclined for an age in the hot water, resting my head on smooth enamel. The bathroom wasn’t my thing – grey tiles – but it was restful to be here. I hoped they wouldn’t sell the house. That might sound strange, because I wasn’t fond of it. It was just that, with parents, I think that something is better than nothing. As a child, you’ll take whatever you can get, however shoddy. For as long as I sat in my parents’ bath, I could kid myself I was a little girl under the protection of a competent higher power (Daddy), and that was a cute fantasy to indulge for twenty minutes, because the second I walked out of his front door I knew I’d revert to being a fully grown adult, on my own, me looking out for me. Jack knew the terms. He might call. Or he might not. And I was fine with that. Really.
Seeing my father left me a little deflated. I suppose I’ll sound weak and crazy if I say that I was glad to have him back. He had shrunk, in spirit and in person. No more than he deserved, I’m sure. I had no plans to see him more than on occasion. But I preferred to know that he was around, if I felt like a hit. He would occupy a very different, much-reduced space in my life than he had before; our relationship had been ripped out at its roots. Whatever had survived would regenerate in a more measured, modest form. There would always be distance between us – call it a safety barrier. But I couldn’t let him go altogether. You can hate a person with your whole body, but love is a stubborn thing. It clings on in your
heart.
Seeing him made me want to connect with Angela. But I was pretty busy at work. So I didn’t call her until the following week. Actually, that’s inaccurate. I’d called her once on her mobile – I didn’t feel comfortable calling Jonathan’s flat – on my way in to the office.
She’d answered, sounding sleepy. ‘Oh hello. We’ve just woken up.’
Shut up shut up shut up, don’t tell me that stuff.
I’d said, ‘OK, look, well, I’ll speak to you later in the day.’ I hadn’t said which day.
When I got around to ringing, a week later, her tone was very different.
‘You all right?’ I said. ‘You sound funny.’
‘Oh dear,’ she replied. ‘Is it that obvious? I must be losing my touch.’ If this was a joke, it was ruined by her poor delivery.
‘Is what obvious?’ I said.
‘Jonathan and I are separating.’
Instantly, I wished I’d been less curt last time we’d spoken. Now, if I was to offer any more than a restrained amount of sympathy, I’d come across like a hypocrite.
‘What!’ I said. ‘Why?’
My mother sighed. ‘It’s too … strange. Too odd. I feel overwhelmed by it all. I need to be by myself. At least for a while. Then we’ll see.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘That’s sensible.’ I paused. ‘I’m sorry.’ I was sorry. She deserved to be happy. ‘Do you feel … you must feel … sad?’
She burst out laughing, then halfway through, the laugh turned to sobs. I tutted, winced, sighed, and muttered, ‘Poor you.’
Shock upon shock! Apart from Grandma Nellie’s funeral, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen or heard my mother cry.
‘Sorry,’ she sniffed, after a while. ‘Right. Right. That’s it. No more. All done. I’ll be fine now.’
I gathered that she was referring to the crying fit.
‘How’s Jonathan?’
‘He’s upset. But he understands. He’s very patient. He doesn’t want to rush me. He’s so kind. But after all this time I’m not accustomed to it. It’s like chocolate cheesecake.’