by Hilary Boyd
‘She says she does,’ Eve replied as Lisa came back into the kitchen.
‘It’s getting a bit chilly out there,’ his wife said, pulling the sleeves of her shirt over her hands and wrapping her arms around her body. ‘You’d never think it was August.’
It wasn’t until the following morning, when Jack was sitting in the car outside Tunbridge Wells Station, having dropped his wife off for the early train, that he finally texted Stella.
‘Can we meet up? xJ’
‘Why?’ came back the terse reply after only a couple of minutes.
‘Talk about stuff.’
‘What stuff?’
He was tempted to lie, to claim he was worried about Eve and Eric or something, but he resisted, sensing already that his mission was doomed.
‘Us’, he typed.
There was a long pause, during which Jack held his breath. Then a blunt: ‘No point x’
Taken aback, Jack sat staring at Stella’s message. But he never gave up at the first hurdle.
‘Just a quick coffee. Nothing heavy. Please, Stella. Half an hour?’ I don’t want to talk, he told himself miserably as he pinged off his text. I want much more than that.
Now there was no response to his text. He waited. The air in the car seemed almost buzzing with the silence. Even being told to fuck off and die would be better than this, he thought.
A large dyed-blonde woman in a dark-blue cap and matching blouson jacket loomed into his peripheral vision and tapped lightly on the window. Jack, tearing his gaze from the mobile screen, pressed the button to wind it down.
‘’Fraid you can’t park here, sir. It’s dropping off only.’ She smiled politely at him, pointing to the large notice on the wall right in front of his car, which said as much.
Jack drove off growling to himself, still listening for the ping of an incoming message. But the device remained stubbornly silent until he was almost back at the cottage.
‘I think it’s better we don’t see each other’, the message said.
45
Three days later, on a stunning August day, Stella finished her toast and drank the dregs of her second cup of coffee at the counter in her flat. For the first time in a long while, she had a work meeting. Shami Mitra, the head of RTP, a large television production company, had asked to see her. Shami was the woman who had developed and produced the award-winning children’s television series, Joanie Trevelyan, that Stella had co-written with her friend, Therese. Made in the late nineties, it was about a ten-year-old girl, Joanie, who lived in a Cornish fishing village with her fisherman father during the last war. The royalties from the series, which had run for seven years and been sold worldwide, meant Stella was never, thereafter, short of money.
Shami was toying with the idea of resurrecting Joanie as a teenager after the war. Stella had little appetite for the project. Without Therese by her side – who had died from complications relating to breast-cancer treatment a decade ago – she couldn’t see how it would work.
Maybe I should give it a go, have some real work to get my teeth into, she thought as she wandered through to the bedroom and stood in front of the open wardrobe, pondering what outfit to wear to the trendy Soho offices of RTP. The place was all buzzy, open plan and full of people half Stella’s age: men with beards, sculpted hair and flannel shirts; women with black-framed glasses, red lips and short, sleeveless dresses. She knew she couldn’t compete, but she didn’t want to look ancient and baggy – the flowing Sahara tops wouldn’t do. In the end she settled for jeans – not quite skinny – a white shirt and a pair of black and gold Toms. She added her amber necklace, feeling a pang of sadness as she remembered its last outing and Jack’s soft kisses in the hollow of her collarbone.
A ‘quick’ coffee, indeed! she thought, as she unscrewed the wand of the nude lip gloss she rarely used. ‘Half an hour.’ As if brevity somehow made it less disruptive. Seeing Jack would be seeing Jack, whether it were for ten minutes or two hours. And, as she’d said to him in her text, there was no point. Her life was en train now, her future set. Iain would begin to look for places when the summer was over. They would find a lovely house near – but not too near – Eve and Eric. (And Jack, of course, but that couldn’t be helped; he was only there at weekends, anyway.) I’m looking forward to it, she told herself. To a quiet life and a new start with Iain, plenty of time with Eve and the children, a garden to work on, peace and quiet to write and read. Jack was not going to ruin her plans.
The previous night, she and Iain had made love for the first time since she’d kissed Jack. She knew she was trying too hard, but it was proving difficult to banish the memory of that other time, that other man. Iain had stopped, mid-flow, suddenly rolling off and sitting up on the sheet, his hands clasped round his knees. ‘Something’s still wrong, Stella. Please tell me.’
Startled, she’d pulled herself up against the rattan headboard, sweating. Her bedroom was at the front of the flat, looking on to the street. It was always noisy, but she had got used to the relentless drone of cars over the years. Iain, not so much, so they tended to keep the barred half-basement window shut when he stayed over. She stared at him now, her heart racing.
He waited: Iain was good at waiting. Better than she.
Stella knew she should speak. He was preparing properly to commit to her, without knowing her feelings. It wasn’t fair. But before she had time to blurt out the truth, Iain reached over and picked up her hand, bringing it to his mouth, his lips soft on her palm, his breath warm. ‘I don’t have to move in here, if that’s what’s worrying you. We can wait till we get the place in the country.’ He stroked her cheek with his finger.
‘It’s not that,’ she said, which wasn’t entirely true. Whenever she thought of Iain not having a home to go to – being around every day and every night – she felt a rising panic. ‘I’m just tense at the moment … Sorry.’
Iain shrugged and lay down on his back beside her. ‘I’m OK with it,’ he said into the darkness. ‘I understand. But don’t ever pretend, Stella. I’d hate that.’
Stella’s whole body was awash with shame. Would this longing for Jack fade? Didn’t feelings always fade if the object of your affection was banished from sight? By the time she and Iain got organized with the house, surely she would be over him? She had to be.
The meeting went well. She liked and admired Shami. Surviving for so long in the freelance world of television deserved a medal, in Stella’s eyes. And she found herself sparking up with ideas in a way she hadn’t done in a long time as she and Shami brainstormed together. When she finally emerged into the sunny Soho street, she was almost dizzy. The meeting had lasted two hours, and maybe the hothouse atmosphere of all those young, creative brains and the lethal espressos from Shami’s shiny, silver machine had contributed to her confusion.
Without really knowing where she was going, she headed south along Wardour Street, bumped into a young Japanese couple on the crowded pavement, apologized, stepped into the road and jumped back as a taxi blared its horn and a cyclist – a courier from his reckless speed, black Lycra and foul language – waved his fist and cursed at her. She flattened herself, trembling, against the plate glass of an Italian café emporium, her heart pounding.
As she stood there, trying to get her breath, her phone rang.
‘Yes?’ she answered, distracted.
‘Stella?’ Jack asked. And when she didn’t immediately answer, he continued, ‘Are you OK?’
She let out a sigh. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m OK.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Wardour Street.’
‘You sound breathless.’
‘I’m fine,’ she said tartly. She was calming down, and was annoyed with herself for answering the call.
‘Have you heard from Eve yet?’ Jack asked.
Eve. Stella suddenly remembered it was her daughter’s thirty-six-week scan today. Based on the results, the doctors would decide if she would need a caesarean or not.
‘No. But
her appointment wasn’t till midday. She’ll be hours yet.’
‘It’s after one.’
‘Really?’ She’d lost track. ‘I’m sure she’ll call when she knows.’
There was silence at the other end of the phone, or at least she thought there was. But the street was a cacophony of noise: bike engines revving, people shouting, horns blaring … just a normal Soho lunchtime.
‘Have you eaten?’ Jack was asking.
Stella hesitated. Don’t do it, shouted her conscience, but her voice said, ‘No,’ the word wavering, coming out almost against her will.
She heard Jack chuckle. ‘You don’t sound sure.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m round the corner, in Foyles,’ he went on. ‘There’s a smart little caff on the top floor if you fancy some “nettle-wrapped Cornish Yarg”?’
She couldn’t help laughing, despite herself. ‘You certainly know how to tempt a girl.’
Stella saw Jack’s greying head over by the window. He hadn’t spotted her yet, as his eyes were fixed on his mobile screen. The place was full, jazz playing softly in the background. She pushed past the chill cabinet and the queue of people. As she approached his table, Jack raised his eyes, his tortoiseshell reading glasses – which he whipped off as soon as he saw her – giving his face a bookish mien.
He shot up, dropping his phone and his glasses in the process and knocking his chair into the woman sitting at the table behind. Stella watched him bend awkwardly, clearly flustered, to pick up his things, and repeatedly apologize to the woman at the table behind. He looked how she’d been feeling – discombobulated – and she found herself smiling sympathetically, her misgivings about seeing him again beginning to fade in the face of his familiar clumsiness.
‘Is it our age?’ she asked, as they settled back at the heavy wooden table. ‘I nearly got run over this morning, coming out of my meeting. Things don’t seem so fixed and grounded as they used to be.’
‘Know what you mean,’ Jack said. ‘But then, I’ve always been a klutz.’
She nodded. ‘Because you move too fast.’ She remembered the many times she’d said that to him in the long-distant past.
‘Not any more.’ There was regret in his voice. ‘Some days I hardly move at all.’
‘Might as well shoot yourself, by the sound of it,’ she teased. Which should have made him laugh, but instead he was frowning, his eyes tired.
‘I get frightened, Stella.’
She didn’t reply at once. She got frightened too, but Jack had always seemed so robust, so sure of himself.
‘Of what?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Getting old. I suppose being with a much younger wife just highlights how decrepit I am.’ He held his hand up as she started to protest. ‘I know I’m not in terrible shape for my age … but that’s the point, “for my age” doesn’t mean shit. Tinnitus, arthritis, atrial fibrillation, incipient macular degeneration, receding gums – to name but a few.’
‘Gracious me!’ Stella, laughing despite herself, found she couldn’t help but enjoy Jack’s company.
‘What’s so amusing? Falling apart isn’t a joke, you know.’ He looked almost comically peeved.
‘No, seriously, that all sounds grim,’ she said, trying to be serious. But his face was such a picture. ‘Have you chosen your hymns yet?’
Jack stared at her. ‘Hymns?’
‘For your funeral?’
Stella watched as his mouth twitched. She could tell he was trying not to laugh, but a second later he began to chuckle. ‘OK, very funny,’ he said.
‘So when did this Eeyore-ish mindset start? I’d always taken you for a stalwart.’
He didn’t reply at once, his eyes fixed on his hands, which he’d clasped tight together on the table. ‘I’m not blaming Lisa,’ he said, ‘but, to be honest, I’m finding it hard, always trying to pretend I’m younger than I am. This morning, for instance, I couldn’t remember Colin Firth’s sodding name when we were wondering which film to see. My mind was a complete blank. Lisa got really irritated, told me to focus, concentrate on what she was saying, for once.’ He sighed. ‘But, as you will know, it’s nothing to do with concentrating or focusing. In fact that’s the worst thing to do, in my experience. You just have to think of something else until the word floats back.’ He looked up and met her eye. ‘I mean, look at us. We can joke about the indignities of being old because we’re both in the same boat. You understand.’
A strained silence followed, where Stella felt the pressure of his feelings and tried to suppress her own. What am I doing here?
‘So you’re saying it would be great if you and me could fill our declining days with chats about death and palpitations?’ Her tone was mocking, although she didn’t mean it to be. She just didn’t dare give in to this man, didn’t dare open the floodgates to intimacy again. ‘Can’t wait.’
Jack looked almost hurt. Then he opened his mouth to say something, stopped and turned his head away. She held her breath.
‘It’s help-yourself,’ Jack said, after what seemed like an age, his voice sounding disappointed. He sat up very straight in his chair and seemed to shake himself, then waved his hand towards the serving area across the room. ‘If you tell me what you want, I’ll get it for you.’
Jack went off with her order of soup and bread and an elderflower pressé, leaving Stella feeling as if she’d just come to the edge of a high cliff and narrowly escaped falling over.
46
As Jack walked north along Charing Cross Road, he did not, as was usual, gawp and marvel at the open skies and landscape-changing wreckage caused by Cross Rail around Centre Point. Nor did he appreciate the alien, yet spanking-new Tottenham Court Road Tube station. He noticed nothing. Because talking to Stella had been like riding a roller coaster. She had laughed and teased him one moment, then been snippy and awkward the next. She hadn’t let him near her. Physically, he’d dared nothing beyond a brief peck on the cheek in greeting and farewell. But she had also blocked all his attempts to find out what she was feeling. He had forgotten how obdurate she could be, lulled by the recent thawing of her defences in the wake of Jonny’s memorial.
He took the Central Line to Oxford Circus – the carriage echoing with a party of incredibly loud and rambunctious Spanish students – where he would change to the Bakerloo for Queen’s Park – and wondered what Stella’s relationship with Iain was really like.
This musing brought him uncomfortably to consider his own wife, for whom he was already late. Jack liked to be home before Lisa on the days when she did the breakfast show. If he was, then it stopped her asking questions. She just assumed – quite wrongly – that he’d been in all day, working on his book.
He wondered, not for the first time, what Lisa saw in him, and why she was so anxious about whether a retired old codger like himself still loved her. She could do so much better, he thought. Contrary to his friends’ dire warnings, he’d found himself loving the sheer bliss of waking to a day not filled with deadline angst. Jack was not someone who had ever experienced boredom; he had no worries about how he would fill his time. There was joy at being able to sit and watch a Test Match unfold, take time to read a book properly, snooze in the afternoon, or just potter. He knew he would wind himself up again soon, get back on the horse and write this book. He would no doubt enjoy the process, but he would never again be the man whom Lisa had married.
It had clouded over by the time he made his way across the railway bridge and turned into one of the identical streets of two-storey Victorian terraced houses that led to his own, similar residence. He hadn’t known the area when he bought it – nearly twenty-five years ago now – but he could afford what was then a wreck, before the time when a house in Queen’s Park was on the wish list of every media couple in London.
He checked his phone and swore under his breath as he saw the message: ‘I’m here. Where are you? x’
‘Three minutes, xxx’ he texted back, quickening his pace and nearly tripping over an uneven paving stone, for wh
ich he blamed his new shoes, which were so much longer and pointier than normal. They were also a dark tan. Jack had never liked brown shoes, but Lisa insisted they were the height of fashion right now – even with a blue suit – and he had to admit they had grown on him.
Jack had gone into town for legitimate reasons that morning, to meet up with Jodi Bloc, the editor who’d commissioned his book about Europe. He’d worked with her before – a co-writing gig with a dimwit MEP – on a potted history of the European Court of Human Rights.
During their brief coffee, she’d eye-balled him with a ‘So, Jack, how’s it going on the word count?’ And Jack, steeled for just such a question, had been championship-grade honest when he replied, ‘Not a single one,’ knowing that Jodi could spot a lie at five hundred paces. She had merely raised a heavily pencilled eyebrow. ‘Clock’s ticking.’
The book isn’t due till March next year, for heaven’s sake. I’ve got plenty of time, he’d told himself as he’d wandered into Foyle’s later. He should have gone home, but he felt restless and didn’t want to face the pile of reference tomes he’d already bought or borrowed – most of them only glanced at so far. Ringing Stella about his daughter’s scan had been a spur-of-the-moment urge. He never expected her to pick up, let alone meet him for lunch. But now the café moment sat uneasily on his conscience as he pulled out his key and opened the smart, ammonite-grey front door.
Lisa was lying full length on the brown leather sofa. She looked pale, her eyes closed. But when she saw him, she jumped up.
‘Where did you go? You said you’d be home. I’ve been back for nearly an hour.’
He didn’t question her assertion, just gave her a hug. ‘I went to meet Jodi. I told you this morning.’
She gave him a watery smile, her blue eyes wide with concern. ‘I was worried something had happened to you … Like … like a heart attack on the Tube, for instance.’