by Freya North
‘Yummy olives,’ she said.
‘Thank you!’ It was as if Oliver had harvested them himself. ‘Right, I think it’s ready. Shall we eat?’ They’d been sitting down all of three minutes.
Oliver led the way to the dining room, with Jonty behind her. The table had been laid properly. Side plates. Butter knives. And folded pieces of kitchen paper in lieu of cloth napkins.
‘You sit here,’ Jonty said, tapping a chair opposite the one Vita was about to sit in.
‘It’s fine,’ Oliver said to him, under his breath.
‘I can move,’ Vita said.
‘Honestly,’ said Oliver.
‘Seriously,’ said Vita and she moved to where Jonty was.
‘It’s just Dad said I should sit there – because then it’s quicker to get to the kitchen, you see. And I was meant to pull this chair back for you.’
‘Ah,’ said Vita, relieved, because she’d wondered whether it had perhaps been DeeDee’s place.
She let Jonty hold back the chair for her, then she sat and they disappeared. And she looked around her, at the art on the walls – mostly beautiful vast abstracted photographs of landscapes. Lovely small pottery bowls on windowsills. And, every now and then, a framed photo. Jonty at various ages. And family groupings. And one, quite near by, of DeeDee. It was angled slightly away from Vita, as if DeeDee was looking out from the dining room back into the lounge, as if DeeDee didn’t know Vita was here yet. But in came Oliver, followed by Jonty, and Vita pulled her attention back to them.
‘Hors d’oeuvres,’ Oliver announced.
‘Wow,’ said Vita.
‘Asparagus,’ said Jonty. Then he said, Doh!
Vita laughed. ‘Yup, no mistaking asparagus.’
Oliver and Jonty used knives and forks and cut the asparagus into genteel portions. Vita, however, had already picked up a spear, dipping it liberally into the hollandaise while a little of the cooking water dripped down her wrist. Jonty looked at her almost enviously. ‘Did your dad say, Knife and fork, boy?’ she asked him sotto voce.
Oliver just laughed. ‘We have manners,’ he said. ‘But actually, you’re right, I did.’
‘We usually just have stuff from the microwave, on our laps in front of the box,’ Jonty said.
‘So I’ve heard,’ Vita said and she looked at Oliver fondly. ‘Well, thank you very much for this – it’s wonderful.’
‘You sit here and chat to Vita,’ Oliver said to Jonty, collecting the plates just as soon as Vita had finished her last spear. ‘I’ll bring in the next course.’
They listened to him clattering about for a moment.
‘Sorry about the cagoule-madwoman incident,’ Vita said to Jonty.
‘It was funny,’ Jonty said.
‘How’s your summer?’
‘It’s been cool. I’ve been helping my dad. Hanging out with my mates. I went camping.’
‘I heard.’
‘That was pretty cool.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you like music, then? I didn’t know whether you liked computers and stuff – I could’ve bought you one of those mags.’ Vita had to laugh at herself for dumbing down her voice. But she wanted to bond with Jonty and was relieved to find him chatting easily.
‘I totally love music. I live for music.’
‘I thought you might. Who do you like then?’
Jonty listed umpteen bands whose names Vita nodded sagely at, though she was appalled at not knowing any of them. How old she suddenly felt. You can’t hear what they’re singing about – that’s what her mum used to say about Vita’s choice of music. She thought, God, am I old enough to be saying the same?
‘My dad’s not had a girlfriend before,’ Jonty suddenly said. But then Oliver came back in before Vita could respond. She regarded Jonty a moment longer: his teenage gawkiness, his butch-black T-shirt emblazoned with a band’s name and a skull motif but his slender arms appearing from the sleeves like young branches, his zeitgeist haircut half hiding a child’s face, half revealing a young man’s, and suddenly she wanted to hug him. If his dad now had someone to hug, who did Jonty have? Jonty glanced back at her, all awkward eyes and a quick unsure smile.
‘Blimey!’ said Vita, a plate having been put before her.
‘Good, eh?’ said Oliver.
‘Jamie Oliver Frikkin’ Oliver,’ Vita marvelled.
‘See – told you frikkin’ didn’t have a “g”,’ a delighted Jonty said to his dad.
The plates were loaded with sticky chops, handmade chunky chips with some kind of coating (paprika and garlic, Vita was soon informed), green beans tossed with sesame seeds and tamari. And a whole tomato each, carefully cut into eighths. They all tried to eat with knives and forks – but in the end, Oliver was the first to say, Sod it as he picked a chop up in his fingers. The chips weren’t quite cooked, so everyone ate the ends and left the middles on their plates like a pile of small weathered bricks. Oliver had done so many, they all had plenty.
‘That was delicious,’ Vita beamed, ‘really amazing.’ She’d only just finished and again Oliver was clearing the plates straight away. They’d sat to eat all of fifteen minutes ago.
‘Jont?’
The two of them carried it all back into the kitchen and she could hear energetic whispering interspersed with the clunk and clatter of crockery.
‘Can I help?’ she called.
‘No!’
‘No!’
‘OK!’
That sauce had been really lovely. She peeled her ears. It was obviously a hive of activity in the kitchen. Perhaps she should have offered to cut the cake and wash the raspberries. No, leave them to it. She left the table and examined the pottery bowls on the window ledge. And then she walked over to the cabinet and looked at the photos.
Hullo, DeeDee.
Funnily enough, I imagined you looking just like this – though I thought you’d be fair not dark.
DeeDee smiled back.
Laughter lines.
A lovely smile, slightly askew and all the more attractive for it.
Vita found she didn’t really spend much time looking at Jonty and Oliver, skipping over their details. She was transfixed by DeeDee, wanting to commit her face to memory, wanting to look deep into those eyes, trying to work out how tall she’d been, what clothes she liked. Lilac and navy had obviously been her colours. What her hands were like. A wedding ring and an engagement ring. Pierced ears – look at that – twice in each ear!
And then Vita turned to find Oliver and Jonty standing there, staring at her, holding plates with enormous wedges of lemon cake and mountains of raspberries. Just standing stock-still, staring at her. Vita was so shocked, she dropped the frame and it fell to the floor. It didn’t break but it fell loudly and then she was stooping to pick it up, saying, Sorry! Sorry! and feeling utterly mortified. I wasn’t snooping, she cried to herself, I just wanted to see what she looked like.
‘I’m so sorry!’
What on earth was she meant to say now? Oh, how beautiful your late wife was, Oliver? Jonty, your mum looked so lovely? Had she even put the photo back in the right place, at the right angle? And now – how to cross the chasm from here, to her chair just there?
She made it back, acutely aware that her face wasn’t just red, it was now prickled with sweat.
‘I –’ Christ, she could cry.
‘Don’t worry, Vita,’ Oliver said, and he put his hand, his beautiful warm hand, gently on her wrist. In front of her, the great big chunk of her cake; across from her, Jonty.
‘Cake looks cool,’ Jonty said. He looked alarmed – as if Vita might be on the verge of one of the funny turns like the first time he met her.
‘My dad,’ she said to Jonty. ‘He died when I was your age – well, I was fourteen at the time.’
Jonty looked at his dad. Then he looked at Vita. ‘What of?’
‘Leukaemia,’ she said.
‘Ours was a road accident,’ said Jonty.
‘That’s OK,’ said Jonty.
‘Vita,’ said Oliver, ‘we are happy to have you here – both of us, aren’t we, Jonty? We’re a bit out of practice, of course. But you are welcome.’
‘Shall we just eat cake?’ Jonty asked.
The raspberries were sweet, so very sweet. So beautiful. So full of summer.
‘Coffee?’ Oliver offered, as soon as the dessert had been finished – and the cake was so good they’d scoffed it down in a matter of minutes. ‘We have mints – a selection box. M&S.’
‘Lovely,’ said Vita, ‘but I’m going to help clear up. And you must let me – or I’ll take the rest of the cake home with me.’
They all walked through to the kitchen carrying the dirty dishes. The kitchen looked war torn. There were plates and bowls and all manner of utensils lying in chaos on every available surface. The oven was still on.
‘Lord,’ Vita said.
‘The thing is, Jamie Oliver probably has legions of skivvies,’ said Oliver, ‘but I’m Jamie Oliver Oliver and I just have a Jonty.’
Vita laughed. ‘Come on – it won’t take a mo’.’
While Oliver boiled the kettle and rooted around in a cupboard for ground coffee, while Jonty half-heartedly piled things up whilst trying to read passages of Q, Vita made a start by swilling plates under the hot tap.
And then she flipped down the dishwasher door and started loading it.
‘No!’ Oliver shouted. ‘Don’t!’
‘Seriously – I’m an expert,’ and she continued to stack the racks.
‘Please, Vita – just leave it.’
She laughed at his distress. Hadn’t he done plenty? The host most certainly with the most. ‘Honestly – I’m a whizz,’ she said. ‘I bet I can load every single thing in.’
‘Just – STOP.’
And he was emphatic. And his voice was hoarse. And Vita was shocked to see him and Jonty looking aghast, as though they’d seen a ghost, as though Vita had committed a terrible, terrible crime.
‘Please,’ he said and his voice was controlled, odd. ‘Just go through. Take a seat. We’ll bring coffee in to you.’
She could but nod; her mind a whirl about just what she’d done. What had she done? She went into the sitting room as asked and sat quietly, as if in disgrace. She was too nervous to mooch over to browse the books because there were too many photos of DeeDee dotted around the shelves. She felt dreadful, with a stomach stuffed full of food from a meal that had lasted twenty-five minutes flat and a mind full of conflicting emotions and questions arising from a moment’s unwitting offence. And then she saw it. Saw Oliver standing in the kitchen, head hung low. She saw Jonty walk over to him and the two of them lay a hand on each other’s shoulders. And then she watched them slowly unstacking the dishwasher, taking every single item out and piling it up again, haphazardly on the worktop. And she thought, Oh God. Oh God. And it wasn’t the ignominy of her unwitting faux pas. It was the realization that DeeDee was still very much in the kitchen. Not just in the kitchen; everywhere.
Vita realized that the time it had taken Oliver to invite her to his home had little to do with Jonty and everything to do with DeeDee. Vita glanced at a photo of her and whispered through smarting eyes, I didn’t mean to trespass. She thought, I don’t feel I should be here. This house was DeeDee’s. Everything in it was hers, including Oliver and Jonty. This family was taken already. And when Oliver came back in with coffee and posh mints and his lovely smile, Vita thought to herself, This is hopeless. This is utterly, utterly without hope.
Jonty
Loss.
Loss was the key.
Vita was at a loss, not knowing what to do but having an overriding feeling that Oliver’s loss – and Jonty being inextricably bound in it – was beyond any ability Vita could possibly have to counteract it.
‘It would be easier, somehow, if Oliver was divorced,’ she confided to Michelle who could do no more than listen and dole out tissues. ‘I still don’t know what I did, really. Something about helping in the kitchen – it felt as extreme as if I’d found her clothes and tried them on.’
‘Did Oliver say anything? When he drove you home?’
‘It was dreadful. It was awful, stilted, light chit-chat about lemon cake.’
‘What did you say, though – did you say anything?’
‘I didn’t feel I could. It was as if the matter was closed. I didn’t even feel I could apologize for whatever it was that I’d done. So I just went all light and chit-chatty back. But there was this elephant in the car, Michelle. It must’ve filled his rear-view mirror. Certainly it felt like it was crushing the breath out of me. It was a dark shadow cast over him when he pulled up. You could see it – it was as if he was hollowed out.’
‘Did you ask him in?’
Vita shook her head.
‘Did you ask him anything?’
She shook her head again.
‘Did you kiss?’
‘In an etiquette kind of way.’
‘Poor sod,’ said Michelle, ‘he probably felt even worse.’
They sat side by side on Vita’s couch, watching her hands shred tissues.
‘And it was almost a week ago?’ Michelle said.
Vita nodded.
‘And you haven’t heard from him?’
‘He phoned – the following afternoon. But he didn’t leave a message.’
‘And you haven’t phoned him back?’
Vita shook her head.
‘Perhaps he phoned to explain. Maybe he thought you don’t want to hear?’
‘Perhaps I don’t. Perhaps it’s too tangled, all of this, for me.’
‘What are you going to do?’
Vita shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s up to me.’ She thought about it. ‘Is it?’
Michelle thought about it too. ‘Honey, I honestly don’t know. I don’t know anyone else in this situation – anyone our age, having to deal with life after death. But – oughtn’t you to phone him?’
Vita went very, very quiet. ‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear it – I don’t want to go through the being-dumped bit. I think I’ll just let it fizzle.’
‘Maybe dumping you is the last thing on his mind?’
‘But I daren’t become involved if there’s no future and there can be no future if he’s still so happily-sadly married. The hurt – I can’t put myself through it. I need to be more responsible for myself now.’
Michelle held her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘It’s good to know there are good guys out there though, hey? It’s good to know that you, too, can feel it all – despite the Tim crap. You felt it, with Oliver. It’s just very unjust that the timing was skewed.’
‘I’ve never felt anything like it,’ Vita smiled forlornly. ‘It was fast for me – and real. From the start.’
‘I know.’
‘He’s special,’ Vita could only whisper, ‘but he’s still DeeDee’s.’
‘I know,’ Michelle whispered back. ‘And as your best friend, I’m telling you that you can’t let yourself fall in love with a man who’s involved with another woman. Ever again. Christ – the irony. It’s like Tim – but so not like Tim.’
‘I know,’ Vita wept, ‘I know.’
The week passed, crawled along. It limped into the next; and soon it would be a fortnight since that supper. And Oliver was something of a nightmare to work with and a nightmare to live with and Jonty had him in both.
‘Is your pa all right, mate?’ Boz asked. ‘I almost think he shouldn’t be wielding a chainsaw at the moment.’
Jonty shrugged. ‘It was that lady – the cagoule lady. Vita.’
‘I thought that was a good thing?’
‘Me too,’ said Jonty, ‘I thought she was nice. Cool, actually. Good for my dad. But she seems to have gone.’
‘Has he said anything?’
‘He shouted at her not to load the dishwasher.’
‘You what? I meant – has he said anything, to you? And what’s with the dishwasher?’
Jonty thought about it. And then it struck him. That dishwasher was running their lives – it had been crazy when his mum was alive and somehow, it was even crazier now she was dead. Who the fuck has a dishwasher for a shrine? Life would be so much easier if they used the frikkin’ thing. And then he had a light-bulb moment. ‘Boz – I know we’re due at wherever we’re due – but do you think we could go via town, via that shop, That Shop?’
‘That’s cool, mate,’ said Boz and he ruffled Jonty’s hair and gave him a gentle punch on the arm. ‘We’ll go in on the way back.’
‘I need to go in on my own.’
‘That’s cool too, mate.’
And Jonty thought, I think I might tell Boz what’s with the dishwasher. He’s like an older brother. It’ll be good to talk.
Although the final bank holiday weekend of the year was about to start, there was an unmistakable back-to-school feeling in Wynford, not just in the wares and window displays, but in the way that mothers now marched with their children, as though to put an efficiency back into their lives, as though there had to be a purpose to their pace between places in which items for school could be ticked off lists. Vita had put pencil boxes and satchels, personalized drinking flasks and colourful notebooks in the window display; pots crammed with pens, bowls with fruit-scented erasers and safety sharpeners by the till. The shop was now busiest mid-mornings. It was as if, to shop during what soon would be school hours, was a last nod to the freedom of the summer holidays. She had a manic trade in etching children’s names onto traditional wooden pencil boxes, using a special hot iron pen for the purpose. She couldn’t offer a while-you-wait service because she liked to spend time on the calligraphy. But she also found that offering a next-day personalization service for free meant that the customer came in twice and usually spent money on both visits. This time last year, Tim had insisted she charge two pounds for the service. But this year he seemed to have disappeared from the life of the shop, as well as from Vita’s.