Seeing no one to latch on to, I turn to Josh’s paintings. Unlike many of his colleagues he’s not into installation art, he likes to paint in the old-fashioned way. He loves the smell and feel of paint. He loves the wonder of colour. I love his paintings, although I’m never sure if it is for the right reasons. I love them because they are bold and beautiful and I’m not really sure being beautiful is a good enough reason. I am always badgering him to give me one, but he has always held back. Perhaps he’s waiting for me to see his paintings the way he does. These paintings, the three painted in the aftermath of Ayla’s death, are spectacular and wonderful, I wish I had the right language and knowledge to describe how I feel about them.
‘What do you think?’ My thoughts are interrupted by Time Out Man, who nods at Josh’s painting. Christ, I don’t know what to say, what if I let Josh down and say something rubbish?
‘I, um … well, I’m not an expert or anything, but I react to them in … in an emotional way, they make me feel … They make me feel.’ I look at him, trying to gauge his reaction to my inept comment. ‘To be frank, most of the other stuff in here looks like a Blue Peter project to me.’
He laughs and looks around. ‘Well, I wouldn’t quite say that. But there is quite a lot of chaff to sort through before you find the wheat. It’s like looking for a pop star, so many of the hopefuls should have stuck to being a runner-up at the local pub karaoke night.’
I like him, he makes me laugh. ‘So, you’re the Time Out Man, aren’t you?’ I ask.
He looks a bit pleased with himself and nods. ‘Sort of Time Out Man, more freelance really. I do the odd review here and there and I run a gallery down the road. Always looking for new talent. Are you his girlfriend, then?’ He nods at the painting again.
‘Me? No, no, I’m no one’s girlfriend.’ He is a bit short, but he has nice hazel eyes and yes, I am flirting. Just a bit, for old times’ sake.
‘So you aren’t an artist, I take it?’ He turns on a flirty smile.
‘Oh, and how can you take it?’ I reply archly, flirt feigning offence.
‘Well, the Blue Peter comment gave it away.’ He laughs and looks down my top. I flick my hair off my shoulders, no point in obscuring his view.
‘Fair enough. No, I’m not. I work in computer hardware sales, but I’ve decided to make a career change. I’m going to enrol in a journalism course, a good recognised one, full time if I have to. Give getting the career I want a go.’ He is the first person I have said it out loud to. I am instantly afraid of failing and suddenly see the merits of one mundane spreadsheet after another, and a million, ‘Hello, UK sales, how may I help you?’ a day.
Time Out Man looks back at my face, and I’m fairly sure that not all the admiration displayed there is purely for my person.
‘Good for you, you should ring the Time Out office, they might give you a couple of weeks’ work experience, it never hurts to network. I’ll mention your name if you like,’ he finishes with a flourish. He must think he’s just cinched a snog for sure.
‘Really? Really, would you?’ Calm down, try not to sound too grateful.
‘Yeah, sure I will, but I can’t guarantee anything, OK? What is it, by the way?’
‘What is what?’ Is he asking me about the painting again? My cup size?
‘Your name!’ His laugh borders on the patronising.
‘Jenny, Jenny Greenway,’ I say quickly and I watch him write it on the back of a business card.
‘Jenny, and what’s your number, Jenny?’ I tell him, knowing that the likelihood of any desk editor ever seeing it is slim to nil.
‘Can I call you some time?’ The inevitable line.
I sigh and look at the back of Josh’s head, the sweep of his shoulders under his T-shirt. You never know, maybe this bloke is a nice bloke under his libido.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask him, with a polite smile.
‘Mike,’ he replies. Christ, not another one. There really should be more male names to go around. Has the person in charge of thinking up names never thought that in the twenty-first century the small Anglo-Saxon name pool often causes confusion and heartache to the average sociable girl?
‘Mike, will you still mention my name if I turn you down? It’s not that you’re not cool. It’s just that I broke up with someone recently. After his mother told me I couldn’t see him any more. And I’m sure you don’t want to get involved with a needy commitment-crazy girl on the rebound, do you?’
He takes a hurried step back, already searching though his repertoire of ‘I have to be going now’ excuses. When in a sticky corner push the commitment-phobe button, works almost every time.
‘Well, I appreciate your honesty. Of course I’ll mention your name, Jenny. And, well, I have to be going now, lots more art to look at. Good luck.’ And he’s gone, clearly unwilling to waste any more of his time on a dead prospect. I hold out little hope for the name mentioning, and frankly, as I have never experienced the benefits of professional nepotism, I’m not entirely sure what I would do about it anyway. But I guess I should ring them up and find out about work experience. Work experience at nearly thirty, well, whose fault is that?
Selin has managed to pry herself away from the grip of her aged admirer and is chatting to Rosie. Jackson must have gone to the bar. Well, here goes the bridge-building exercise phase two.
‘Can you believe it?’ Rosie says with unrepressed incredulity to Selin who stares at her open mouthed.
‘Hi!’ I say as brightly as I can. Selin smiles at me, and I feel annoyed that whatever Rosie has told her has diverted her sufficiently to forget herself.
‘Hello there, I thought you’d pulled?’ she says sunnily.
‘Oh no, I’ve given up men for a bit.’ I look Rosie in the eye. ‘I’ve decided to have a shot at growing up properly this time.’ Rosie purses her lips and drums a false nail against her glass of water, but won’t look me in the eye.
‘Anyway, can Selin believe what?’ I ask, bracing myself for the worst.
‘Jackson has asked Rosie to go back to the States with him! To live with him!’ Selin exclaims.
It’s my turn to be open mouthed. After my corridor conversation with him the other day I was sure he’d given up any hope of winning her over. She must really have caught his heart for him to go for this last-ditch attempt, it’s the kind of thing I’d usually try. Would have, in the past.
‘Bloody hell, he’s keen,’ I understate, but I’m delighted that something has happened that might take her mind off Chris.
‘Of course I can’t go, I’ve only known him five minutes and we haven’t even, well, we haven’t even had sex,’ Rosie says, primly.
‘Ohhhh,’ Selin and I say together. We did wonder.
‘And anyway, I can’t go, so there. We’ll keep in touch though, you know, and maybe after the baby is born and big enough, we’ll have a holiday. But I haven’t told him one way or the other yet so, shhh.’ She presses her index finger to her shell-pink glossed lips. Rosie is the only person I know whose lip gloss doesn’t go tacky and dry, ever.
Selin nods conspiratorially, but I think I hear uncertainty in Rosie’s voice. This is not like Rosie. If Rosie wants something, she’ll just go for it, long-term future or no. She must be having a second go at growing up too. Anyway, I decide to implement my plan to bond us all back together properly.
‘Look Selin, why don’t you come back to our place for a nightcap? Hot chocolate and toast, a pyjama party? What do you say? Rosie, were you planning to go back to Jackson’s? It’s just that we haven’t all been together for a while, have we? I thought it would be a good chance for a proper talk.’
‘I agree, there are things we need to discuss,’ Rosie says meaningfully. I hope she means her apology to me and her grateful acceptance of my opinion and advice, which will make my grudging acceptance of her life choices unnecessary. ‘I was planning to come home, anyway. What do you say, Seli?’
Selin glances over her shoulder at her family and nods
. ‘Yeah, sure. I’ve got something to tell you, too.’
Tonight we must let Selin talk. We must not turn this into the Rosie-and-Jenny show yet again.
‘Shall we make a move then?’ I say.
Rosie takes out her mobile. ‘I’ll call Kaled, and then say goodbye to Jackson,’ she says.
As we make the round of goodbyes Josh gives me a hug and kisses me primly on the cheek. The memory of the few minutes we spent together next door hovers hungrily between us and we exchange a quick glance of mutual remembrance. I won’t take too long, I think.
Rosie appears suddenly at my side and gives us a knowing look. ‘Come on, Kaled’s outside,’ she says, turning to look at Josh’s face one more time before we depart.
I can still feel the impression of his lips as we step into the cold night air.
Chapter Forty-nine
Back at the flat Rosie makes the toast, while I get some milk in a pan and heap two more than the recommended number of teaspoons of chocolate powder into our orange mugs.
Selin is in the other room looking for something on the TV, I guess. Eventually I say to Rosie, ‘I’m so sorry about everything, especially that you had to get caught up in the end of Michael and me. That was really crap. Some mad woman comes over to your house, screams and yells and then I have a go at you about Chris. I’m sorry about what I said, I mean, I’m sorry about the way I said it. But you’re right, I don’t see the Chris you do and I love you, I don’t want you to get hurt. It might be stupid or impulsive but I think running off with Jackson would be more sensible than getting back with Chris. That’s all I’m saying.’ I lift my hands palm up and back away from her.
‘Let’s just put the Chris debate on hold for a second, OK? I’m sorry for what I said about your dad. It wasn’t fair and it’s not true.’ She doesn’t look me in the eye as we both know that neither of those two things is strictly true. But I’m glad she’s said them anyway. In return, I offer a partial explanation for Michael.
‘Believe it or not, I genuinely hit it off with Michael. I really did. I cared about him. Actually, I’m really going to miss him, and the whole thing hurts quite a lot. More than I expected.’ I hadn’t realised it until I said it, I had been so prepared for the end right from the start, but I hadn’t been prepared for how I would feel afterwards. Not the gut-ripping trauma of an ending with Owen but real sadness and loss, a chapter closed. I suppose he was a sort of swansong.
Rosie rewraps the bread and considers the simmering milk. ‘I don’t really understand what you and the ginger kid were up to, and I don’t really want to know. It wasn’t so much him, or his age, it was more you getting on your moral high ground over Chris when all the time you were behaving in just as, if not a more, irresponsible way. Not that considering a life with my baby’s father is irresponsible, actually. Anyway, it was that that really pissed me off. Plus, as you know, pretty much everything makes me cry at the moment. Especially love-lorn teenagers and furious red-headed mums. I understood how she felt, you know, she was protecting her baby.’
I sling a conciliatory arm around her shoulder. ‘I know, I’m sorry it all went off here, mate. Really I am. And I’m sorry I went off on one about Chris, it was only because I love you, and I don’t want you to be hurt,’ I repeat my disclaimer.
Rosie pours the milk onto the chocolate and I stir.
‘Well, sometimes you just have to understand, don’t you?’ she says as she piles up a tray with chocolate and toast and we go into the other room. ‘Talking of which, let’s make this an evening for Selin to talk, OK? Enough of our problems for five minutes?’
We agree, and I catch sight of myself in the amazing makes-you-look-thin hallway mirror and think, ‘Maybe getting outside of my own stuffed-up head for five minutes will do me some good.’ Typical. Even when I’m trying not to think about me, I think about me, me, me.
Selin is sitting on the floor crosslegged. The TV is not on. She looks nervous. I hand her a chocolate and a plate of toast but she touches neither.
‘I’ve got something I have to tell you,’ she says.
Rosie and I look at each other and join her on the floor. I wait for Selin’s first-ever extensive emotional unburdening. ‘It’s OK, mate,’ I reassure her. ‘We’re listening.’
She pauses, delves about in her bag for a moment and then brings out two Mars Bars. She pushes them across the floor to us. Mars Bars. From Selin. The first ones ever. The significance of this moment cannot be underestimated. Rosie and I look at each other. We don’t pick them up but only look at them, symbols of Selin’s new-found frailty.
‘I meant to tell you before, but well, you know.’ She pauses and takes a deep breath. ‘I’m engaged. To Adem. The guy at the funeral. The one you were asking me about. He was there tonight. We’re engaged. We’re going to be married. It happened a few weeks ago, I was about to tell you when Ayla was killed. He’s been at my side through the whole thing, he’s made it bearable. There, I’ve said it.’ She smiles at us nervously.
Rosie and I look at each other again and then at the Mars Bars, and then at Selin. This was not what I was expecting, and oddly I feel let down.
‘That old bloke?’ I say bluntly.
‘He’s not that old. Forty-six.’ Sixteen years her senior. An age gap bigger than mine was with Michael. I try and think back over the last few weeks, but we’ve hardly seen each other. When did she meet this man, how did she meet him?
‘It’s old enough, Selin. Who is this man? You can’t just tell us you’re getting married. Is it an arranged marriage? Does his wife know?’ I ask stupidly, some old anger stirring.
‘No! I mean, no, it’s not arranged. He’s not married any more. I met him when I was out with Dad, on our pool nights. Dad has known him for years on and off. We got to know each other.’ She smiles to herself. ‘He’s a nice man. He’s kind and loving. He’s been fantastic since Ayla’s accident. He’s your landlord, by the way.’
‘He’s our landlord?’ All the things that should have clicked into place so much earlier if only I hadn’t been so self-obsessed and if Selin hadn’t been so sodding secretive. Yes, I know that’s rich coming from me.
Rosie picks up her Mars Bar and studies it, shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘You don’t do anything for fifteen years and then you do this. I don’t think I’m grasping it, you’re getting married to someone you hardly know who could actually be your dad. That’s the sort of thing I expected from Jen, to be honest. Look, it’s not just some knee-jerk reaction to what’s happened, is it?’ she asks.
Selin looks horrified. ‘What, you mean as a reaction to my grief? How can you say that? I’ve known about this for weeks, I just couldn’t find the right time to tell you.’
‘But Selin, what about passion, excitement, discovering the world together? All that stuff?’ I ask her. Surely she must see that she could be signing her young life away.
‘Oh yeah, all that stuff you did with Owen between him sleeping around and throwing you out, you mean?’ Selin loses her patience and snaps at me. ‘Or Rosie, all that honeymoon stuff you did with Chris the three minutes you were married before he dumped you for the love of his life mark one hundred and twenty six? Actually, there is passion and romance with Adem. It’s just not the sort of addictive crap you two are so fond of getting wrapped up in, safe and sure in the knowledge that good old dependable Selin will be around to pick up the pieces, because let’s face it, I never have anything else to do, do I? I love Adem, I am going to marry him. That’s that. My family are happy for me, even if you can’t be. And you wonder why I didn’t tell you? First of all, you haven’t been around to talk to properly in weeks, and if you are it’s either one or the other of you that needs to talk, because both of you have got yourselves into yet another mess. You never ask me, do you? You never wonder how I might be feeling, not even now. And secondly, I knew exactly what you would be like, you hypocrites. You say that I’ve been doing nothing for fifteen years. Actually, the pair of you have been too wrapped
up in yourselves to notice anything I do, but I have had a life apart from being your counselling service and Adem is part of my life. A far more rewarding part than either of you.’ Her eyes flash with anger. She springs up off the floor and perches on the edge of the armchair.
Rosie and I look at each other in stunned silence. Neither of us had a clue that Selin felt this way. We just assumed, or I did at least, that everything was cool in the world of Selin. Everything until Ayla, that is. I never imagined that there might be other stuff going on. I feel terrible.
‘But he’s so old,’ I say, reflectively. I just can’t get my head round this.
Rosie, on the other hand, has let her shock boil over into anger and she lets her bombshell drop. ‘Listen, Selin. Chris and I might have been through a rocky patch, but we’ve worked it through now.’ Rosie reaches into her own bag and throws two more Mars Bars on to the pile, like gambling chips. ‘We’re going to give it another go. I’m moving back in with him.’
‘What?’ I shout, all my good intentions of tolerance evaporating into thin air. ‘You’re going to give it another go? You’re fucking mad, the pair of you. You and Selin. You’re insane.’
Rosie whirls on me, pointing her finger in my face. ‘I don’t know why you’re so high and mighty when you’ve been shagging someone eleven years younger than you behind our backs for God knows how long! And all that crap about giving men up. I saw you tonight with Josh, you’ve got him wrapped around your little finger now too, haven’t you? Stringing him along until you get bored with him now, are you?’
A dense silence falls over the room. Nice one, Rosie.
Selin looks at me. ‘Is this true?’
Growing Up Twice Page 32