‘No,’ Justin says, just as Katie says, ‘It does a bit.’
‘You wear glasses, Mum.’
‘Not always,’ I point out. ‘Sometimes I put my contacts in.’ Although I can’t remember the last time I did. Wearing glasses has never bothered me, and I quite like my current pair, with their thick black frames that make me look far more studious than I ever was at school.
‘Maybe it’s someone playing a joke,’ Simon says. ‘Find the one dot com – do you think someone’s signed you up to a dating agency as a joke?’
‘Who would do something like that?’ I look at the kids, wondering if I’ll catch a glance passing between them, but Katie looks as confused as I am, and Justin has gone back to his chips.
‘Have you called the number?’ Simon says.
‘At £1.50 a minute? You must be joking.’
‘Is it you?’ Katie says. Her eyes are mischievous. ‘You know, for a bit of pocket money? Go on, Mum, you can tell us.’
The uneasy feeling I’ve had since I first saw the advert starts to subside, and I laugh. ‘I’m not sure who would pay £1.50 a minute for me, love. It really does look like me, though, doesn’t it? It gave me quite a start.’
Simon fishes his mobile out of his pocket and shrugs. ‘It’ll be someone doing something for your birthday, I bet.’ He puts his phone on speaker and taps in the number. It feels ridiculous: all of us crowded round the London Gazette, calling a sex line. ‘The number you have dialled has not been recognised.’
I realise I’ve been holding my breath.
‘That’s that, then,’ Simon says, handing me the newspaper.
‘But what’s my photo doing there?’ I say. My birthday isn’t for ages, and I can’t think who would find it funny to sign me up for dating services. It crosses my mind that it’s someone who doesn’t like Simon; someone wanting to cause problems between us. Matt? I dismiss the thought as quickly as it arrives.
Instinctively I squeeze Simon’s shoulder, even though he shows no sign of being bothered by the advert.
‘Mum, it looks nothing like you. It’s some old bird with bad roots,’ Justin says.
There’s a compliment in there somewhere, I think.
‘Jus is right, Mum.’ Katie looks at the advert again. ‘It does look like you, but lots of people look like someone else. There’s a girl at work who’s the spitting image of Adele.’
‘I guess so.’ I take one last look at the advert. The woman in the photograph isn’t looking directly at the camera, and the resolution on the image is so poor I’m surprised it’s being used as an advert at all. I hand it to Katie. ‘Stick it in the recycling for me, love, when you go and dish up for the rest of us.’
‘My nails!’ she cries.
‘My feet,’ I counter.
‘I’ll do it,’ Justin says. He dumps his own plate on the coffee table and stands up. Simon and I exchange surprised glances and Justin rolls his eyes. ‘What? You’d think I never helped out around here.’
Simon gives a short laugh. ‘And your point is?’
‘Oh fuck off, Simon. Get your own tea, then.’
‘Stop it, the pair of you,’ I snap. ‘God, it’s hard to know who’s the child and who’s the parent, sometimes.’
‘But that’s my point, he’s not the …’ Justin starts, but stops when he sees the look on my face. We eat on our laps, watching TV and bickering about the remote, and I catch Simon’s eye. He winks at me: a private moment amid the chaos of life with two grown-up kids.
When the plates are empty of all but a sheen of grease, Katie puts on her coat.
‘You’re not going out now?’ I say. ‘It’s gone nine o’clock.’
She looks at me witheringly. ‘It’s Friday night, Mum.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Town.’ She sees my face. ‘I’ll share a cab with Sophia. It’s no different from coming home after a late shift at work.’
I want to say that it is. That the black skirt and white top Katie wears for waitressing is far less provocative than the skin-tight dress she is currently sporting. That wearing her hair scraped into a ponytail makes her look fresh-faced and innocent, while tonight’s do is tousled and sexy. I want to say that she’s wearing too much make-up; that her heels are too high and her nails too red.
I don’t, of course. Because I was nineteen myself once, and because I’ve been a mum long enough to know when to keep my thoughts to myself.
‘Have a good time.’ But I can’t help myself. ‘Be careful. Stay together. Keep your hand over your drink.’
Katie kisses me on the forehead, then turns to Simon. ‘Have a word, will you?’ she says, jerking her head towards me. But she’s smiling, and she gives me a wink before she sashays out of the door. ‘Be good, you two,’ she calls. ‘And if you can’t be good – be careful!’
‘I can’t help it,’ I say, when she’s gone. ‘I worry about her.’
‘I know you do, but she’s got her head screwed on, that one.’ Simon squeezes my knee. ‘Takes after her mother.’ He looks at Justin, who is sprawled on the sofa, his phone inches from his face. ‘Are you not going out?’
‘Skint,’ Justin says, without taking his eyes off the tiny screen in front of him. I see the blue and white boxes of a conversation too small to read from where I’m sitting. A strip of red boxer shorts separates his joggers from his sweatshirt, the hood pulled up despite being indoors.
‘Doesn’t Melissa pay you on Fridays?’
‘She said she’ll drop it round over the weekend.’
Justin’s been working in the café since the start of the summer, when I had almost given up hope of him getting another job. He had a couple of interviews – one for a record store, and another at Boots – but the second they found out he had a police record for shoplifting, that was it.
‘You can understand it,’ Simon had said. ‘No employer wants to risk taking on someone who might have their hand in the till.’
‘He was fourteen!’ I couldn’t help but be defensive. ‘His parents had just divorced and he’d moved schools. He’s hardly a career criminal.’
‘Even so.’
I left it. I didn’t want to argue with Simon. On paper Justin was unemployable, but if you knew him … I went cap in hand to Melissa. ‘Deliveries,’ I suggested. ‘Handing out flyers. Anything.’
Justin was never academic. He didn’t take to reading like the other kids in reception – didn’t even know the alphabet until he was eight. As he got older it became hard even to get him to school in the first place; the underpass and the shopping mall held more appeal than a classroom. He left school with a GCSE in computer science, and a caution for shoplifting. By then the teachers had worked out he was dyslexic, but it was too late to be any use.
Melissa looked at me thoughtfully. I wondered if I’d overstepped the boundaries of our friendship; put her in an awkward position.
‘He can work in the café.’
I couldn’t find the words. Thank you seemed inadequate.
‘Minimum wage,’ Melissa said briskly, ‘and on a trial period. Monday to Friday, on a mix of earlies and lates. Occasional cover at weekends.’
‘I owe you one,’ I said.
She waved away my gratitude. ‘What are friends for?’
‘Maybe you could start paying your mum some rent, now you’ve got a job,’ Simon says. I look at him sharply. Simon never gets involved in parenting. It isn’t a conversation we’ve ever needed to have; the kids were eighteen and fourteen when I met Simon. They were almost adults in their own right, even when they didn’t behave like it. They didn’t need a new dad, and thankfully Simon never tried to be one.
‘You don’t ask Katie for rent.’
‘She’s younger than you. You’re twenty-two, Justin, you’re old enough to stand on your own two feet.’
Justin swings his legs round and stands up in one fluid movement. ‘You’ve got a fucking nerve. How about you pay some rent, before you start telling me what to do?’
‘Justin, don’t talk to Simon like that.’ Picking sides isn’t a conscious decision, but as soon as I speak I see the look in Justin’s eyes, like I’ve betrayed him. ‘He’s only making a suggestion. I’m not asking for rent.’ I never would, and I don’t care if people think I’m soft. I won’t budge. I could charge Justin rock-bottom prices for bed and board, and he’d still have next to nothing left over. How can he have a life, let alone put something aside for the future? I was younger than Katie when I left home, with nothing but a suitcase of clothes, a growing belly and my parents’ disappointment ringing in my ears. I want more than that for my kids.
Simon isn’t letting it lie. ‘Are you looking for work? The café’s fine, but if you want to buy a car, get your own place, you’ll need to earn more than Melissa can pay you.’
I don’t understand what’s got into him. We’re not rich, but we do all right. We don’t need to take money from the kids.
‘Dad said he’d lend me money for a car once I’ve passed my test.’
I feel Simon bristle beside me, the way he always does when Matt is mentioned. There are times when this reaction is irritating, but more often than not it gives me a warm glow inside. I don’t think it ever occurred to Matt that someone else might find me attractive; I like that Simon cares enough about me to be jealous.
‘That’s nice of Dad,’ I say quickly; loyalty towards Justin making me say something – anything – in support. ‘Maybe you could consider doing the Knowledge one day.’
‘I’m not driving a cab for the rest of my life, Mum.’
Justin and I used to be so close when he was younger, but he’s never quite forgiven me for walking out on Matt. He would, I think, if he knew the whole picture, but I never wanted the kids to think badly of their dad; didn’t want them as hurt as I was.
The woman Matt slept with was exactly halfway between Katie’s age and mine. Funny the details you fixate on. I never saw her but I used to torture myself imagining what she looked like; imagining my husband’s hands running over her twenty-three-year-old stretchmark-free body.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Simon says. ‘It’s a good job.’
I look at him in surprise. He’s been quick to slag off Matt’s lack of ambition in the past. A piece of me feels annoyed that what I distinctly remember him calling a ‘dead-end job’ is apparently good enough for my son. Matt was at college, studying engineering. That all changed the day I realised my period was so late it could only mean one thing. Matt walked out of college and got a job that same day. It was just labouring, on a local building site, but it paid well enough. After we got married he did the Knowledge and as a wedding present his parents gave us the money for his first cab.
‘The café’s fine for now,’ I say. ‘The right thing will turn up, I’m sure.’
Justin gives a non-committal grunt and leaves the room. He goes upstairs and I hear the creak of his bed as he assumes his habitual position, lying down with his head propped just high enough to see the screen on his laptop.
‘He’ll still be living here when he’s thirty, at this rate.’
‘I want him to be happy, that’s all.’
‘He is happy,’ Simon says. ‘Happy sponging off you.’
I swallow what I want to say. It wouldn’t be fair. I was the one who said I didn’t want Simon paying rent. We even argued about it, but I won’t let him. We split the food and the bills, and he’s forever treating me to meals out and trips away – the kids too. He’s generous to a fault. We have a joint bank account and we’ve never once worried about who pays for what.
But the house is mine.
Money was tight when I married Matt. He worked nights, and I did eight till four at Tesco, and we managed like that till Justin started school. By the time Katie came along things were easier; Matt had more work than he could handle, and gradually we were able to afford a few extras. The odd meal out; even a summer holiday.
Then Matt and I broke up, and I was back to square one. Neither of us could afford to keep the house on our own, and it was years before I was able to save for the deposit on this place. I swore I’d never throw my lot in with a man again.
Mind you, I swore I’d never fall in love again, and look what happened to that.
Simon kisses me, one hand cupping my chin and then sliding around the back of my head. Even now, at the end of a long day, he smells clean; of shaving foam and aftershave. I feel the familiar heat run through my body as he wraps my hair around his hand and tugs it gently, pulling my chin up and exposing my neck to be kissed. ‘Early night?’ he whispers.
‘I’ll be right up.’
I pick up the plates along with the London Gazette, carry them into the kitchen and load the dishwasher. I drop the newspaper into the recycling bin, where the woman in the advert stares up at me. I switch off the kitchen light and shake my head at my foolishness. Of course it isn’t me. What would a photograph of me be doing in a newspaper?
4
Kelly snapped the hairband off her wrist and on to her hand, tying back her hair. It was slightly too short; the consequences of a regretted crop in August, when a fortnight-long heatwave had made it seem like a good idea to lose the heavy curtain of hair she’d had down to her waist since her student days. Two dark strands fell instantly forward again. It had taken two hours to process Carl Bayliss in the end, after discovering he was wanted on a couple of theft allegations as well as the Fail to Appear. Kelly yawned. She was almost beyond hunger now, although she had looked hopefully in the kitchen when she got in, just in case. Nothing. She should have stopped off for that kebab, after all. She made herself some toast and took it to her ground-floor bedroom. It was a large, square room with a high ceiling and walls painted white above the picture rail. Beneath it Kelly had painted the walls pale grey, covering the past-its-best carpet with two huge rugs she’d bought at an auction. The rest of the room – the bed, the desk, the red armchair she was currently sitting on – was pure Ikea, the modern lines contrasting with the sweep of the bay window into which her bed was pushed.
She flicked through the copy of Metro she’d picked up on her way home. Lots of Kelly’s colleagues never looked at the local papers – bad enough we have to see the scumbags at work; I don’t want to bring them home with me – but Kelly had an insatiable appetite for them. Breaking news bulletins scrolled constantly across the screen on her iPhone, and when she visited her parents, who had moved out of London to retire in Kent, she loved to scour the village newsletter with its appeals for committee members and complaints about litter and dog mess.
She found what she was looking for on page five, in a double-page spread headed ‘Underground Crime Soars’: City Hall chiefs launch an investigation into crime on public transport, after record increases in reported sexual offences, violent assaults and thefts.
The article opened with a paragraph rammed with terrifying crime statistics – enough to stop you using the Tube altogether, Kelly thought – before leading into a series of case studies, designed to illustrate the types of crime most prevalent on London’s busy transport network. Kelly glanced at the section on violent assaults, illustrated with a photograph of a young man with a distinctive pattern shaved into the side of his head. The teenager’s right eye was almost invisible beneath a black and purple swelling that made him look deformed.
The attack on Kyle Matthews was violent and unprovoked, read the caption. That needed taking with a pinch of salt, Kelly thought. Granted, she didn’t know Kyle, but she knew the symbol shaved into his head, and ‘unprovoked’ wasn’t a term usually associated with its wearers. Still, she supposed she should give him the benefit of the doubt.
The photo accompanying the section on sexual assaults was in shadow; the profile of a woman just visible. Stock photo, the label said. Names have been changed.
Unbidden, another newspaper article appeared in Kelly’s head; a different city, a different woman, th
e same headline.
She swallowed hard; moved on to the final case study, smiling at the face pulled by the woman in the photograph.
‘You’re not going to make me do a Daily Mail sad face, are you?’ Cathy Tanning had asked the photographer.
‘Of course not,’ he’d said cheerily. ‘I’m going to make you do a Metro sad face, tinged with a spot of outrage. Pop your handbag on your lap and try to look as though you’ve come home to find your husband in bed with the window cleaner.’
The British Transport Police press officer hadn’t been able to attend, so Kelly had volunteered to stay with Cathy for the interview, to which the woman had been quick to agree.
‘You’ve been great,’ she told Kelly, ‘it’s the least I can do.’
‘Save the compliments for when we find the guy who stole your keys,’ Kelly had said, privately thinking the chances were slim. She’d been coming to the end of a month-long secondment to the Dip Squad when the job came in, and she’d taken to Cathy Tanning immediately.
‘It’s my fault,’ the woman had said, as soon as Kelly had introduced herself. ‘I work such long hours, and my journey home is so long, it’s too tempting to go to sleep. It never occurred to me someone would take advantage of it.’
Kelly thought Cathy Tanning had got away lightly. The offender had rifled through her bag while she leaned against the wall of the carriage, fast asleep, but he hadn’t found her wallet, zipped into a separate compartment, or her phone, tucked into another. Instead he’d pulled out her keys.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Kelly had reassured her. ‘You have every right to grab forty winks on your way home.’ Kelly had filled out a crime report and seized the CCTV, and when she’d picked up the call from the press office later that day, Cathy had seemed like the obvious choice for an Underground crime poster girl. Kelly scanned the copy for her own quote, noticing she’d been referred to as DC rather than PC. That would piss off a few people at work.
Cathy is just one of the hundreds of commuters and tourists who fall victim each year to thefts from bags and coat pockets. We would urge passengers to be extra-vigilant and to report anything suspicious to a British Transport Police officer.
I See You Page 3