You, Me and Other People

by Fionnuala Kearney

  ‘Yeah, well, when you do, remember your big brother’s had a different journey.’

  Suddenly, he’s beside me. He is taking the clothes I am throwing into the bag out again and then he holds me tight, a big bear hug. ‘Stop,’ he whispers. ‘Let me be the strong one for a while. I owe you that …’

  I crumple in his embrace, drop to the bed and cry – deep, heavy, wracking sobs. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t leave my side. We sit like that, edged together like bookends, for what seems an age. Eventually, he looks at his wrist.

  ‘C’mon, get dressed. We’re going to the pub, you’re going to tell me all about it and we’re going to get sozzled.’

  ‘How much did Beth tell you?’ We’re sitting in The Narrow, the closest pub to the flat, which sits at the mouth of the Thames at Limehouse Basin. It’s a dull, dank day and the river, as always, is busy, with more traffic on it than the surrounding streets. Ben hasn’t replied yet. He seems to be taking his time, watching life on the water go by. ‘Ben?’

  He shakes his head, as if to bring him back to the moment. ‘She told me you’d left, that you have a girlfriend; that “you and she are no more”.’ He mimics quotation marks in the air with his fingers. ‘That’s it really; she was a bit sketchy on the detail. Most of the time I spent there was taking that much in, and making sure she was all right.’

  ‘Is she? All right, I mean.’

  ‘She seems to be. She had her friend Karen with her. I think I interrupted a Bridget Jones evening.’

  My eyebrows rise.

  ‘You haven’t seen Bridget Jones’s Diary?’ He laughs. ‘Suffice to say, they had heartbreak music on, they were both dressed in matching pyjamas, and there was spaghetti bolognese followed by chocolate ice cream.’

  I find myself nodding, although I have no idea what he means. Beth is not one for matching pyjamas, and she’s a ‘crisps’ girl – she doesn’t really like ice cream, unless it’s the Ben and Jerry’s one with big chunks of caramel in it.

  ‘What did you think of Karen? How long is it since you’ve seen her?’

  Ben sighs. ‘Ages, years … I don’t think our paths crossed at all when I was with Elise.’ He shakes his head, a tiny movement, as if to jerk himself from a sad memory. ‘Wasn’t she married? I seem to remember she was married?’

  ‘She was once, ages ago. It only lasted a couple of years.’ My shoulders rise and fall.

  ‘She was married, I was practically married. I guess I never paid much attention but Christ, she’s hot. I think I’m a little bit in love with her. Mind you, she’s not a fan – of yours I mean. She really has it in for you.’

  I swallow half of my pint as I digest what I already know. Karen hates me. This is bad enough, without Ben walking around with a hard-on for her.

  ‘She is a looker,’ I agree. ‘But watch it. She’d eat you up and spit you out.’

  ‘I look forward to it.’ He smiles, raising his first pint of the day to his lips.

  ‘I’m serious, Ben, there’s—’

  ‘Adam, we’re here to talk about you,’ he interrupts, holding a palm up. ‘C’mon, let’s start at the very beginning.’

  I watch my brother, now observing the swell of the muddy Thames again – take in the contours of his face, more obvious after a year in the sun. His eyes seem bluer than they were, a few fret lines around their edges. His hair has been sun-bleached and needs a good cut. He’s wearing canvas trousers with more pockets in them than even Bear Grylls would ever need. His T-shirt has a tiny hole at the collar and displays the washed-out logo of some Indian beer; I don’t recognize the name of it. He has faded leather flip-flops on his feet and I wonder if his feet are cold. All of this he manages to carry off at forty-one. Rather than look like an ageing surfer dude, he wears the look of a relaxed man, approaching middle age and comfortable in his own skin. I realize that I envy him.

  I follow his gaze to the river, full to the brim at high tide, and wonder where to begin, where exactly is the beginning? Do I start almost a year ago, when he went overseas? That was a time when Beth and I were still making plans, still had a future together. Do I go back to the night I met Emma? That cab journey home? Or my night with Kiera?

  ‘Do you ever think of Mum and Dad?’ He interrupts my flow of suitable beginnings.

  ‘Of course. I went to visit them a few days ago.’

  ‘No, I meant, think of the time that …’ He doesn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘No.’ My tone is abrupt. That is not the beginning that I had in mind, and I’m pretty sure I’m not willing to go there.

  He doesn’t pursue it, just nods. I wave at the waitress to bring me another pint, ignoring the clock on the wall telling me it’s only half past eleven in the morning.

  ‘A long time ago, I cheated on Beth for the first time,’ is, I decide, my opener.

  Ben’s blue eyes are steady – he doesn’t flinch; not even a flicker of an iris.

  ‘I had a one-night stand.’ I see it then, a barely noticeable raising of his left eyebrow. He already doesn’t believe me. ‘It was just one night,’ I continue. ‘She was a client.’

  ‘Does Beth know?’

  ‘Yes. I told her. It was a mistake, a stupid fuck-up on my part. But we sorted it, we put it behind us.’ Something in the speaking aloud of these words doesn’t ring true. I’m surprised that I can hear it and imagine Ben is hearing it with bells on.

  ‘She forgave you?’

  ‘She did,’ I reply, ‘but she never forgot. I don’t think she ever completely trusted me again.’

  ‘Well, she was right not to, wasn’t she?’

  I sigh. ‘Nothing else happened until this year, nearly six months ago.’ The waitress arrives with our pints.

  ‘Let’s order some food,’ Ben says, leaning forward. ‘Is it too late for a full English?’ He smiles a winning smile at her.

  She looks at the clock, then smiles back at him. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  I’m unsure how it will go down with Guinness but hear myself say, ‘Make that two.’ I try my own captivating smile, but she’s lost to my younger brother – the fledgling version of myself; the more youthful, honest, trustworthy edition. I sit back in the library-style chair. It is dull, slate grey, mottled leather, with a studded high back and two armrests. I’m holding my pint in my left hand, with my right arm resting on the right armrest. I notice that my skin is pale, veined and almost as mottled as the hide it rests on. I need a sun holiday. Switching my gaze from my arm to the other early drinkers, I try to ignore the full English breakfast flirtations in front of me.

  ‘So, nearly six months ago,’ Ben says when the waitress leaves. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I met Emma. We were on a works night out.’ I shrug. ‘What can I say? I fell for her feminine charms. I was flattered that a younger, gorgeous woman fancied me. And the sex is amazing.’ I flash a conspiratorial smile at my brother, but he doesn’t smile back.

  ‘When did you leave Beth?’ he asks.

  ‘A few months after it started. She guessed – tackled me about it. I couldn’t lie. I knew she knew. And, as far as leaving her is concerned, let the record show that I did not willingly leave. She threw me out.’

  He seems to ignore this. ‘Why didn’t you stop the affair, try and persuade Beth to take you back? She did it once before.’

  I shake my head. ‘She wouldn’t even listen to me. There was no coming back from this.’

  ‘Did you try?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I put my drink on the coffee table. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks they’ve all been talking: Sybil, Meg and Ben.

  ‘Did you try and persuade her? Tell her it was a mistake. Tell her you love her, fight for her?’

  ‘No.’ I crack my knuckles. ‘I didn’t. When she threw me out, I went straight to Emma’s and had sex and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.’ I know I sound like a petulant child, but I don’t care.

  ‘And how’s that working out for you?’

  ‘
Not great,’ I concede, determined not to rise to his prodding. ‘I’ve made better decisions.’

  We sit for a few minutes, silent. I’m trying to convince myself that he is in fact trying to help, but all I can hear is, ‘How’s that working out for you?’ over and over again in my head. It’s not, is what I want to tell him. I want to pick up the phone and plead with Beth to take me back, but I know she won’t and I know she shouldn’t. I’m probably a good man but – even I know – I’m a shit husband.

  ‘Who’s Noah?’ Ben asks suddenly. ‘You never said earlier.’

  I swear I can see stars. Little silver speckles of light flicking across my eyeline. On the sparkly horizon, I see our waitress heading in our direction with what look like two lovely breakfasts on a large metallic tray. My stomach curdles, my appetite gone in an instant.

  ‘Adam?’ Ben’s voice seems muted.

  ‘He’s my son,’ I tell the riverboats, the captains, the passengers, the seagulls. Somehow, though, Ben hears, and when I turn back to him, his face has aged a decade. Now he looks just like me.

  PART TWO

  though those that are betray’d

  Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor

  Stands in worse case of woe …

  William Shakespeare, Cymbeline

  Chapter Seventeen

  I have Ben to thank for the best line in the final version of the song, now entitled ‘Fall Apart’. It’s ‘I love you, need you, you’re my glue – I fall apart without you’. Josh Skyped me yesterday and literally did a dance of joy at LA’s positive response. ‘I can taste the Bolli,’ he yelled. Me, I’m not so sure. I hope he’s right and that it’s just my own self-doubt creeping back in. Either way, we’ll know soon enough.

  This morning, I’m listening to the song over and over again, through my earphones on the walk to work. The High Street office is just over a mile from the house, and I figure if I walk there and back on the days I work, it will counteract the crisps I’ve eaten over the last few months. I sense, rather than hear, a car draw up beside me and pull the plugs from my ears.

  ‘Want a lift?’ Giles has wound down the electric window and is grinning out at me. I hesitate a moment, but my toes are freezing and it is a gloomy, slate-grey November morning. I climb into his car, shiver, suddenly grateful for the increase in temperature.

  ‘Excited? Nervous?’ he asks, after a couple of minutes. I haven’t the heart to tell him I’m crapping myself and that I spent last night driving around Weybridge to make sure I knew the itinerary backwards.

  ‘Are you sure about this, Giles?’

  ‘You’re well capable,’ he says, looking left and right as he parks the car in his numbered space behind the office. ‘Look, you’re really helping us out. Stephanie is with us another two months before she goes on maternity leave, and she really doesn’t like doing the physical show-overs now. She’ll do the research of the rental market, set up the itineraries and take over from you on reception when you’re out.’

  I nod, determined to show willingness.

  ‘Can I use my own car?’ I ask the question that’s been playing on my mind. ‘Stephanie’s is a manual. I don’t do gearsticks.’

  Giles shakes his head. ‘Yours won’t be covered for business use. Take this one.’ He shrugs. ‘I’m in a management meeting most of the afternoon, so don’t need it.’

  I look around his state-of-the-art Range Rover; chalk-coloured leather seats and a console that looks as though it belongs in an air-traffic-control room. An image of it wrapped around a lamppost pokes itself to the front of my brain.

  ‘Oh no, no, no, no.’

  ‘What? You don’t do Range Rovers either?’

  ‘I don’t do tanks.’

  Giles laughs. ‘Here, take it out for a spin. It drives itself.’ He hands me the key ring. ‘Go on, just take it up the road and back – you’ll see.’

  Before I know it, he has left and gone in through the back door of the office. I look at the fob in my hand and take a very deep breath. Switching to the driver’s seat, I adjust the controls for the legs, move the rear-view mirror and press the start button. Pointing the car out of the car park, I proceed slowly up the High Street, passing by Caroline’s office at the end. I wonder how she’s doing. Who is occupying her time right now? Is there someone in there now, sitting in the same chair that I sat in for months? Is it a he or a she? Are they struggling with the same problem I had? Do all therapists deal with constant broken marriages, like GPs have to see constant snotty noses?

  I turn around the large roundabout and head back. Glancing back up at her window, I realize I needed Caroline then. Now, I need people in LA to fall apart when they hear my song. And I need to make this itinerary work this afternoon, so that the staff in J. T. Watkins all think I’m even more wonderful than I’ve been on reception and maybe offer me Stephanie’s job when she goes on maternity leave. I look towards the heavens. One or both will do please, Mrs Universe.

  Hours later, I’m relaying the success of my first ‘tour’ – with a real applicant looking for a real home – to Karen.

  ‘Have I got enough food?’ she interrupts me.

  ‘Have you been listening to me?’

  ‘Mrs Scott, weird name because she’s Scottish, looking for a huge house to rent. You saw three on St George’s Hill and one in Esher. All fantastic. She loves two of them. You drove Giles’s tank and loved every minute.’ She turns, gives me a pointed look.

  ‘You have loads of food,’ I tell her, taking in the array of pots containing chilli, vegetable curry, rice and goulash, all provided by her sister-in-law, Tess. There is also an assortment of tiny canapés, all provided by me via Marks and Spencer’s. I pinch one from a stacked plate.

  ‘Come back into the bedroom, your hair is falling down at the back.’ I steer Karen past Maeve and Trisha, two of Meg’s friends from university who are going to serve the food, and Jack, another friend, who will be on wine and beer duty. In her bedroom, I stand her in front of the full-length mirror, pin the stray bits of hair back into the chignon. ‘You look stunning,’ I tell her, placing my head on her shoulder and talking to her reflection. She is wearing a clinging red satin dress, one that is totally unforgiving, yet looks so good on her that I have flat-stomach envy. ‘What time is Ben coming?’

  She casts an anxious eye at her wrist. ‘Ten minutes ago.’

  ‘He’s a Hall. They’re always late.’

  She turns around and pulls me to her. ‘I’m sorry, you know.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For falling in love with him. I know that means awkward times, like tonight, when both you and Adam are here.’

  I shrug, smooth my hands over my wraparound dress, rub my not-so-flat stomach. Even having lost a ton of weight, mine still requires enclosure in magic knickers. ‘I’m all right seeing Adam, so don’t you worry. Tonight is all about you, you forty-year-old, you.’ I play-punch her shoulder, just as the doorbell chimes and she heads outside to greet her guests.

  I wait in the bedroom, aware that sudden noise outside means that a large group have arrived together. She deserves a fantastic party with her friends, so what I won’t tell her is that I’m actually quite anxious about tonight. It is the first time that I will be in a social situation with Adam and Meg since the break-up. Karen did ask if I was all right with him coming and I knew I couldn’t refuse her. If they stay together, he’s Ben’s brother and I’ll have to get used to it. So, at best, tonight’s going to be weird. At worst, it’s going to be a car crash.

  I brace myself for the evening ahead. I think back to that first time when Ben and Karen laid eyes on each other in my house, when I knew straight away that they would be an item. I just hadn’t banked on them being such a serious item so quickly. ‘You just know when you know,’ is what Karen has said when I try to talk to her about it. Ben’s as bad, quoting some similar crap to me, when I offered an opinion that they shouldn’t be moving in together, after only knowing each other a few weeks. So, tomo
rrow, Ben is moving into her flat and, conveniently, Adam is staying on in his. And tonight I’m going to keep my trap shut, because I love her and I love Ben and I hope that they will be happy. It’s just that I don’t believe any more. I don’t believe in the whole ‘perfect fit’ and ‘glue’ crap. I may have written a beautiful song about it, but it came from a latent, possibly dead part of me.

  ‘What do you think of Jack?’ Meg has had a few glasses of wine. I follow her glassy eyes in his direction and see it again. Fucking hell – am I the only one around here not falling in love?

  ‘He seems nice,’ I say. ‘I haven’t really had a chance to talk to him properly. Are you and he—?’

  Suddenly, she’s nodding furiously. ‘I’ve been dying to tell you. I met him last term. He’s a couple of years older than me, sooo bright and we just …’ She looks back at me, stops herself and bites her lip. ‘Maybe he can come for dinner some Sunday?’

  ‘That’d be great.’ I nod less furiously, but lots of nods all the same. ‘I’d like to meet him properly, you know, if you and he are …’

  I can’t quite bring myself to say ‘having sex’ or ‘in a relationship’ or ‘fuck buddies’, or any variation on that theme. Aware I haven’t seen that look in her eye for a while, I feel a ping on my heartstrings and clench my teeth. Perhaps it’s not that I don’t believe any more, just that I miss being in love.

  I chat to Brian, Karen’s brother, and Tess, his wife.

  ‘And what about you?’ Brian asks. ‘Still thumping that punchbag?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘How are you really?’

  It’s a question I’m used to but still dread – one that invariably results in the use of the ‘f’ word.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I tell them. ‘Enjoying the new job … the writing’s going really well. All in all, things are good.’ Though I know the words to be true, I find myself unable to look these people in the eye as I speak. Instead, my eyes are cast over their shoulders towards the front door. Minutes later, I’m vaguely aware of Brian talking about being involved in the new Battersea Power Station development, when Adam walks into the party.