by Kate Johnson
The handwriting was rounded and loopy, the kind teenage girls wrote Valentine’s cards in. There was a list of very few items, each one with an estimated price next to it: Multipack knickers (£2), multipack socks (£2), bra (less than £5), flat shoes/sneakers (less than £5), vaseline lip balm, (80p), facial moisturiser (£4)…
Jamie thought he’d experienced shame before, but he’d never felt this awful hollow sickness. His face burned, his fingers curled into fists, and his vision blurred as he stared at Clodagh’s list.
He folded it carefully into his pocket, then carefully picked up the top item in the nearest carrier bag. A lingerie set, made of lace scraps and costing nearly a hundred pounds.
Under that, another set, and another. A cashmere cardigan with a three figure price tag. Skincare products in packaging that didn’t betray their pricing, except to discreetly proclaim they certainly cost more than £4.
He found the receipt and read it silently. There wasn’t a single item on here that cost less than the whole of Clodagh’s careful little list.
He looked up, and met Phillips’ gaze.
“I’ll bring the car round, sir,” she said.
Jamie had never subscribed to the idea that crossing the border into Essex meant taking one’s life into one’s own hands and defending oneself against an army of pikeys and chavs and whatever the tabloids were calling them these days. Having visited some ravishingly pretty parts of the county and met some terribly proud Essex-born flag-wavers at his brother’s wedding, he wasn’t about to knock the place.
But it was hard, driving into a town like Harlow.
The trees lining the road from the motorway couldn’t quite disguise the Brutalist neglect of the place. Tower blocks winked at him through gaps in the sparse foliage. Christmas decorations flickered and flashed, even though Hallowe’en had barely passed. The roundabouts, of which there were a multitude, appeared to have had their signage nicked. Christ, the place even had a greyhound track.
He somehow wasn’t surprised when one of the towerblocks turned out to be their destination. Washing hung from some of its balconies, tattered England flags fluttered limply from others, and most of them bristled with satellite dishes. A dog barked incessantly somewhere.
“I’d advise against leaving the car, sir,” said Geraint from the front seat.
“Geraint, I survived Helmand Province, I can survive a council estate in Harlow,” said Jamie.
“Sir, you got shot in Helmand Province,” said Geraint.
“Actually it was shrapnel,” said Jamie, but he took his PPO’s point. A gang of youths passed, two bull terriers straining and snapping at each other in their midst.
“Oi! I said fucking stop it or I’ll kick your fucking ribs in!” yelled one of the kids, and Jamie’s hand was on the door handle before he could stop himself.
It wouldn’t open. “Dammit, Geraint, unlock it! I’m not a child.”
“No, sir, you’re a prince of the realm and you don’t get involved in private disputes,” said Geraint.
“He was threatening that dog.”
“I’ll call the RSPCA. In the meantime, I suggest you call Miss Walsh and ask her to come down.”
Jamie hated Geraint for being right. He got out his phone, called up Clodagh’s number, and sat staring at it for ages. Crap. What was he supposed to say?
He opened a new text message instead. “Hi Clodagh, it’s Jamie.” Duh, like she didn’t already know that. “I got home to find you’d gone. I do hope I didn’t do anything to offend you…”
No. Ugh. Coward’s way out.
“I got home to find you’d gone. I’m very sorry I offended you. Please come back to Cambridge because…”
…because what? Because he missed her? Because he didn’t want her living here? Because…?
“You may not need to call her, sir,” said Phillips. “Look.”
A figure emerged from the dark recesses of the tower’s entrance, walking backwards and limping on a cumbersome boot, tugging something large out of a lift. A pushchair. A small child wearing a Spiderman costume ran out after them.
Jesus Christ, Clodagh had kids?
This time Geraint didn’t stop him leaping out of the car, probably because he knew Jamie would have broken the window to do so.
“Clodagh?”
She froze. Jamie tugged on his beanie hat, hunched into his hoodie and checked he was wearing his glasses. Behind him, he heard one of the PPOs get out of the car.
Clodagh looked up, slowly. Despite his disguise, she still recognised him immediately. “What are you doing here?”
She had her hair scraped up into a plastic clip and wore a padded jacket with a cheap fake fur trim to the hood. The bruises on her face had been covered, inadequately, with make-up.
“I was…” Might as well be honest. “I was looking for you.”
She crossed her arms across herself defensively. “Why? Tyler, come back here.”
“But I want cherry Coke!”
“I want doesn’t get,” Clodagh said, and started walking, slowly, holding onto the pushchair for support. Jamie thought she was coming towards him, but she turned as soon as the concrete path let her, and veered away towards the road. “Come on, stay close. And stop playing with them fag ends.” The path was littered with them.
“Auntie Shar, you’re being so slow!” the child cried.
Auntie. The boy wasn’t hers. Was the baby? He peered inside the pushchair, where a child swaddled in pink peered suspiciously up at him and sucked ferociously on a lollipop.
“My apologies,” Clodagh muttered. She glanced back at Jamie, who stood watching. “Was there something you wanted?”
“I…” He made himself move, caught up and walked beside her. She glowered at him as he flipped his hood up. “I wanted to see if you were all right.”
Clodagh gave him an incredulous look. “Well, here I am, all right. You know, us plebs have these things called ‘phones’. You could have just called me.”
“I suppose I could.”
“Or got your butler to send a telegram,” Clodagh muttered.
“I don’t have a butler.”
“Royal herald, then.”
“Clodagh. I wanted to see you. Face to face.”
“Why? Forgot what a black eye looks like? Tyler! What have I told you about roads?”
At her sharp shout, the child in the pushchair started crying. Clodagh glared at Jamie as if this was her fault, and started rocking the pushchair.
“What are you doing out this late with children?” Jamie asked. At this time of night, his niece and nephew were usually fast asleep, or at least that was what their nannies said.
“Hollee couldn’t sleep and Tyler wanted cherry Coke,” Clodagh said.
“Should he be drinking Coke at his age?”
Clodagh dealt him a look. He wasn’t sure if she agreed with him or not.
“No, but my sister is an idiot and he’s a little fucking brat and basically if he doesn’t get what he wants he just screams the place down. He’s already woken Hollee,” she said, indicating the baby who had calmed down a bit, “so I said I’d take them out for a walk, get some fresh air.”
“You shouldn’t be walking. Where are your crutches?”
“Keisha and Neveah are playing Star Wars with them. Which is fun, because they both want to be Rey because they’re both girls. Nobody wants to be Kylo Ren for some reason, not even Zayn, despite, and I quote, ‘having a willy’. It’s a far cry from when I was a kid and everyone wanted to be Han Solo and nobody wanted to be Princess Leia.”
Jamie tried to process this. “I always wanted to be Luke Skywalker,” he said, “but Ed usually got there first because he was blond.”
“How fun for you,” she said crisply. “Bet you had the proper lightsabres and everything.”
Jamie had been given one signed by Mark Hamill for his fifth birthday. He did not volunteer this information to Clodagh.
“Why did he call you Auntie Shar?” he as
ked, and didn’t imagine her stiffening.
“Um. Family nickname.” Her shoulders hunched over. Not something she wanted to talk about.
“Look, I’m sorry about the clothes and things,” he said. “I asked Oll to order you some stuff and I did tell her not to go over the top. I didn’t think you’d appreciate it.”
Clodagh snorted. “Sure, that stuff is probably cheap to you.”
“Yeah,” said Jamie simply. “It is.”
Clodagh frowned uncertainly at him.
Jamie shoved his hands in his pockets. Pockets in a garment that had cost three times the total of the items on her shopping list. “I don’t really have the same concept of money you do. I thought what Olivia bought you was reasonably priced.” She snorted again. “I didn’t even know you could get clothes as cheap as the ones you asked for.”
Mulishly, Clodagh said, “You looked at my list?”
“Phillips showed me. I thought you were mad because none of the things I’d got you were expensive enough.”
There was a silence, then Clodagh burst out laughing. “Not expensive enough? Jesus Christ, Jamie.”
“Auntie Shar, don’t swear!” shouted Tyler.
“Sorry,” she wheezed. “Not expensive enough? That’s brilliant. Did you think I was expecting, like, ballgowns? Tiaras? Bespoke, I dunno, glass slippers or something?”
Jamie shrugged, shoulders hunched over. “I don’t know what I thought. I messed up. I’m sorry.”
“Actually, your girlfriend messed up. You just paid for it.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” The denial came automatically.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Could’ve fooled a lot of people. She’s still not my girlfriend.”
They walked in silence for a moment, or at least as near to silence as Hollee and Tyler would let them. A car, low-riding and pumping out hip-hop, slowed near them.
“Oi, Shard! That you babe?”
“No, I’m her evil twin Petunia,” Clodagh yelled back.
“Where the fuck you been?”
Jamie glanced down into the car. The speaker wore three gold chains, had an unintelligible tattoo on his neck and wore enough nylon to spark a house fire.
Shard? What the hell kind of nickname was Shard? Because she was so sharp? So cutting?
“Somewhere less shitty than this, that’s where I’ve been,” Clodagh said, and in the glare of the sodium streetlamp she looked terribly weary.
“Too fucking good for us? You always was a stuck up twat,” said the driver of the car, and sped off.
“See, Tyler doesn’t tell him off for swearing,” Clodagh said, starting to push the pram again. “Double standard. Christ, I hate this place.”
“Then leave,” said Jamie.
“Sure, leave. With all that money I have saved up, and all those prospects I have? Look at me, I can hardly flipping walk.”
“That’s temporary—”
“And the reason I can’t walk,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken, “is because the only place I could afford to live was in that shi—that shirty little flat with a Polish nail technician and her fliptard of a boyfriend, who threw me down the stairs when she wasn’t available to be abused. You think I lived there by choice? Choice is a luxury, and I don’t have it any more. I’m back in this crab bucket of a place.”
“Crab bucket?” said Jamie, somewhat reflexively because his brain was processing that Lee Cunningham wasn’t Clodagh’s boyfriend after all.
“Yeah. You never put a lid on a bucket of crabs, because if one tries to climb out the others just pull it back in.” She made a yanking motion with her hands. “You don’t escape places like this. Not for long, anyway. Tyler! Wait for me.”
They’d reached a parade of shops. Clodagh thrust the pushchair in Jamie’s direction, said, “Hold onto that, the brake’s broken. I hear you’re great with kids,” and disappeared inside a convenience store after her nephew.
Jamie glanced around and saw Phillips a few feet away, pretending to smoke a cigarette. She’d slipped on a casual jacket and was doing a much better job of blending in than he was. She nodded at him, then resumed gazing around in apparent aimlessness.
He looked down at the occupant of the pushchair, who was probably about two years old, wearing a hot pink Puffa jacket and sparkly wellies. On her head was a tiara with blue plastic gemstones in it. Her ears bore gold rings. The lollipop she was sucking had left a pink sticky mess all around her mouth.
He was kind of rubbish with kids, truth be told. Sure, there were nicely staged photo opportunities of him playing with Alexander and Georgina, and according to Khan the odds on Annemarie giving birth to a boy and calling it James were pretty good. But he never had a clue what to say to children, especially ones too small to talk back coherently.
“And have you come far?” Jamie asked her politely.
The child’s face crumpled. “Mummy!” she cried.
“Ah, Mummy will be back soon,” he said, bobbing down and smiling encouragingly. “She’s just taken young Tyler in for some inadvisably sugary drinks, or maybe she hasn’t because I’m not sure if she’s Mummy or maybe Auntie Shar? Or Shard? Is she?”
“Mummeeeeee!”
“Yes, um, I’m sure she’ll be here soon,” Jamie said desperately. He fumbled for his phone. “Look! Wouldn’t you like to play with this? It’s all shiny.”
Hollee immediately grabbed for it, all sorrow forgotten. She jabbed delightedly at the screen.
“Don’t drop it, it’s a prototype,” he said, and looked up in relief to find Clodagh exiting the shop with Tyler, who slurped noisily from a drinks can.
“Why am I not surprised?” she said, tucking a bag under the pushchair. “Don’t break it, Hollee, it’s expensive. And it’s not yours. You might never get it back,” she added to Jamie.
“A small price to pay for silence.”
Clodagh groaned as she took the handle and turned the conveyance round to head back to the tower block. “She’s done nothing but cry since I got here. If it’s not her it’s one of the others.”
“How…” How to put this? “How many are there?”
“About seventy, or maybe that’s just how it feels. Charlene has three, Whitney has three, including Tyler here, and this little snotball belongs to my sister Kylie, who is expecting a boy in a few months time. So that makes seven, soon to be eight, and those are just the ones actually related to me. Apparently my brother Scott has a new girlfriend who has three kids, so I’m sure we’ll have the joy of their presence soon too. And Tony’s bloody shady about his love life, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bun in whatever oven he’s been sneaking off to see.”
Jamie became aware he was staring. “You… do you all… live together?”
“Yeah, kinda. In a couple of blocks, anyway. Scott and Charlene are over in Spring Hills, and yes, those are really the names my mother gave her twins. It was the eighties. What can I say.”
“Jesus,” muttered Jamie.
“You want Jesus, he’s over there,” she said, pointing to a building that looked like a community centre but whose signage proclaimed it to be a church.
He couldn’t think of anything to say after that. He walked with her back to the bleak tower block she apparently now called home, trying to find a way to tell her she didn’t belong here and failing because there was no way he could make that sound anything other than patronising and privileged.
All of a sudden Clodagh lunged at her nephew, who Jamie hadn’t been paying much attention to.
“Give me that phone!”
Hollee started crying in the pushchair. Jamie remembered he’d given her his phone, and now Tyler had it, and he was dancing away from Clodagh who was incapable of following properly with her broken ankle.
“No! I’m talking to Granny!”
“That’s not your granny,” Clodagh said desperately, as Jamie realised with a kind of comic horror who he was talking to.
“Shit shit
shit—” Jamie made a leap for the kid, who twisted away from him.
“Don’t swear,” Clodagh said. “Tyler, give me the phone.”
“No!”
“It’s not yours. It belongs to my friend here. Please give me the phone.”
Tyler listened to something from the phone and giggled. “It’s my Auntie Shar. No I dunno.” He peered up at Jamie. “Are you Jimmy?”
No one called him Jimmy, but maybe with a very posh accent it might sound like…“Yes! Yes, I’m Jimmy. Jamie. Can I have my phone, please?”
Tyler frowned, listened to something else, then said, “’kay,” and handed it back.
Swearing under his breath, Jamie grabbed it and pressed it to his ear. It was sticky. “Granny? I’m so sorry. My friend’s kids were playing with my phone, I didn’t realise they’d dialled it…”
His grandmother hooted with laughter. “Jamie, really. I wondered what on earth was going on.”
Well, thank God she was in a good mood. “I think he thought he was dialling his granny… I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s all fun and games. I needed something to smile about after the Diplomatic Reception, it was dull as dishwater this year. How’s Cambridge?”
“Oh, it’s…” Jamie glanced around at the tower blocks, the orange streetlights and the woman in the fur-trimmed Puffa laughing at him, “great. You know. Dreaming spires and all that.”
“Isn’t that Oxford? Oh… I’ve got to go, darling, Grandpa can’t find his slippers. Do call me soon.”
And she hung up. Jamie pressed his hand to his face, eyes squeezed shut.
“That wasn’t Granny,” said Tyler.
“No, love, it was someone else’s granny.”
“She talks funny. Is she a nimmigrant?”
“Uh,” said Clodagh.
“Yes, she’s from Germany,” said Jamie, uncovering his face. He met Clodagh’s eye and she grinned, which forced a laugh from him. “Yes, well. That’s something he can dine out on when he’s older.”
“You bet.” Clodagh looked like she was going to say something else, but then her phone rang, and she answered it, her smile fading. “I’m outside. Well, I can’t walk very fast, can I? No, she’s still awake. I dunno, Kyles, I’m not the baby whisperer.”