by Parks, Adele
‘But you have made an impact, Mum. On me, Lisa and Mark.’ Clara thought it was kind of her daughter to try to rally her.
‘It’s not the same thing. You understand. Suddenly, I feel resentful that my life has flown by and I’ve never experienced such superb intensity since then.’ Clara was confused as to how she’d been plunged into this world that seemed to be wholly about feeling; she’d always been exclusively concerned with what she ought to do, what was being done. She felt disorientated.
‘Dad loves you.’
‘Yes, I know he does. But not in that way. However, in answer to your question, I don’t have any intention of starting anything with Eddie Taylor, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life lying to myself either.’
‘What did you say his name was? Did you just say Eddie Taylor?’ Joanna interrupted.
‘Yes, darling.’
‘Was he married?’ Joanna demanded.
‘What?’
‘Was the man that you had your stupid little affair with married?’ Clara didn’t understand the sudden change in her daughter’s tone. Joanna had been so understanding, so sympathetic and rational, but now, in a split second, she sounded half-crazed and ferociously angry.
‘Well, yes.’ It never sounded good.
‘Did he leave his wife for you?’
‘There was some silly madness, an offer …’
‘And his children?’
‘There were children.’ Clara was embarrassed and reluctant to say as much, even now, especially now.
‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Joanna, normally so mild-mannered, well-spoken and such a people-pleaser, cut her mother off in a torrent of expletives. The line went dead and Clara was left stewing in complete bewilderment.
45
Dean
Dean woke up and automatically stretched his arm out towards Jo. His first instinct was to pull her into a hug. His hand floundered on an ocean of cold sheets. He rubbed his eyes and then stretched his hands above his head. He felt relaxed. A glance at the bedside clock told him that it was after eleven; clearly his body had required a marathon sleep after such an emotionally and physically demanding day, but he was irritated with himself. He sat bolt upright. He hadn’t meant to sleep in; he wanted to soak up every moment of the day with Jo. He flung back the duvet and leapt out of bed, calling her name as he did so. He didn’t waste time hunting around for a robe, but strode naked and confident around the apartment. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room; there was no sign of her in the shower. He banged on the loo door.
‘Jo?’
Silence. He was not unduly worried. He assumed she’d nipped out to buy them some breakfast. Right then she’d be deciding between coconut and passion fruit yogurt or traditional strawberry flavour; she wouldn’t be able to choose between chocolate or plain croissant, she’d probably bring both. That would be just like her. Caring, thoughtful. He wished she’d hurry back, though; he was hungry, but mostly for her body to be next to his again, rather than for pastries. He sniffed under his arm and pulled back from the stench of his own sweat. He really had exerted himself last night. He decided he’d have a quick shower so that he’d be fresh and appealing on her return.
He spent a long time in the shower. He hadn’t planned to, but the hot streams of water hammered down on his shoulders and it felt good. He found himself singing, a tuneless rendition of the latest pop song that was getting far too much airplay at the moment. He took time to shave because he thought Jo would like it, then cleaned his teeth, flossed and even clipped his toenails. When he emerged from the bathroom and padded into the bedroom, barefoot and damp, looking for clean underwear, he glanced again at the bedside clock and noticed that it was nearly midday. It was only then he started to feel uneasy. Just how long did it take to buy a croissant and a paper? Could she have got lost? He called her phone but it immediately went through to voicemail. He didn’t want to sound flustered, so he left a cheery, jokey message telling her to get her beautiful arse home. He hung up and waited another ten minutes, but the cold fingers of panic that prodded him began to tighten their grip. Had she been knocked over or mugged? Was she lying injured on a hospital trolley in some corridor somewhere, while an administrator tried to check who she was and whether she had health-care insurance? He doubted she would have. Did she know to take her passport with her when she roamed around a strange city so that in the event of an accident she could be identified? He should have told her to do that. Dean felt ferociously protective of Jo. Oh God, maybe she wasn’t awaiting treatment; maybe she was already cold in a morgue. It was a bleak, hideous thought and Dean quickly shook his head to dislodge it. He tried not to be so negative and pessimistic, but the horrendous idea persistently battered his brain. He’d only had Jo in his life for a matter of days, but as he looked around the empty flat, he was already pretty sure he couldn’t imagine her out of it.
He started to search the rooms. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A note? Her bag? Where had she put her bags? Time was ticking on. She had an evening flight; she’d have to leave for the airport in a couple of hours. She couldn’t have gone shopping on her own and simply lost track of the time, could she? It was possible, but she’d seemed so excited about their plans to shop together; she’d seemed as keen to spend every moment with him as he was to spend every one with her. Why hadn’t she woken him up? Besides, she didn’t have much money with her, so it seemed improbable that she’d gone on a wild spending spree without him. Last night she’d asked if she could borrow some cash off him to buy gifts and souvenirs. She’d said she’d leave him a post-dated cheque; they’d joked about what date she should put on it. She’d suggested 25/12/2050, a sort of long-term Christmas gift, something to look forward to. She’d said she hoped that by then her cheques wouldn’t bounce. Dean dashed to find his wallet; he knew it was in his jacket pocket, and his jacket was hanging over the stool in the kitchen. The moment he walked into the room, he spotted the open wallet on the breakfast bar. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t noticed it before; probably because he hadn’t been expecting to see it. It was empty. Next to the wallet there was a cheque for one hundred and forty dollars, the exact amount the wallet had contained. It was not post-dated to a future Christmas; rather, it had next week’s date on. Jo was obviously hoping to replenish her bank account with sufficient funds to cover the loan by then. What did this mean? Had she gone shopping on her own? If so, why had she left the cheque now, rather than just giving it to him on his return? The post-dated cheque had a miserable finality about it. It felt like a full stop.
It was only after he’d carefully studied her signature, for quite a few moments, that he noticed the third object on the breakfast bar – his father’s wedding ring.
Oh no. No. No. He slapped his hand against his forehead in a dramatic (and slightly painful) way. No, no, nooooo. He instantly pieced together what had happened. He could see it with awful clarity. Jo had been hunting around for his wallet, no doubt intending to go out and buy them a delicious breakfast, as he’d first surmised. As she’d rooted through his pockets she’d come across his father’s wedding ring. She’d jumped to the incorrect conclusion that he was yet another rat who had slipped off his ring just before he’d slipped between the sheets. It was horrifying. Dean felt his usually taut and powerful body turn to liquid. It poured away from him and he felt like a melting candle; formless, powerless. He felt his skeleton collapse – he was sure he had no backbone without her – and his organs swoosh away in a gory mess; another abandonment would break his heart and gut him completely. For a moment, this usually resourceful man floundered. A desolate, vicious understanding of the situation caught him in a vice-like grip. She had not trusted him. She had not kept the faith. She was not all she seemed. His bloody father had ruined things again.
He called her number again and left a second message. This one was not cheerful or playful; he simply asked her to call him.
Then he called Zoe.
Dean didn�
�t know where to start with Zoe. He had yet to tell her that he’d left their father dying, that he hadn’t been there at the end because she was right, there was no comfort or consolation to be gained from Edward Taylor. Should he tell her that they had two sisters they hadn’t previously known about? He had no clue as to how Zoe would greet that news. Anyway, he found that what he wanted to talk to her about was the woman he’d met on the plane. The woman he’d trusted enough to share their terrible past with, the woman who had just left his apartment in an unfair hurry, leaving a huge gap.
He couldn’t trust himself with any of those subjects, so he passed a few moments asking after the children, pretending to take his usual interest in their small but wonderful achievements with footballs and crayons; he asked after Zoe’s health, her husband and her dog, but she knew him too well. ‘OK so why have you really called? Is he dead?’
‘Maybe. Don’t know,’ he replied, somewhat abashed by her bluntness but not really surprised by it.
‘You didn’t stay with him?’
‘No.’
‘I’m not going to the funeral when he does die, if that’s why you’re ringing.’
‘It isn’t. I feel the same. You were right, there is no happy ending for us there. Our relationship with our father is what it is.’
‘Not much.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He wanted to hug her. ‘I’m sorry too.’ They both knew that they were sorry that they’d had a spat, and more, they were both sorry there had been no resolution.
‘That’s not why I called, though.’
‘So, why did you call?’
‘It’s a long story. Do you have time?’
‘For you? Always.’
Dean held nothing back. He told Zoe about meeting Jo on the aeroplane. He explained that she’d irritated him with her naivety and her ridiculous, ill-considered plan to stop her ex-boyfriend’s wedding because she thought he was her last chance at happiness. He told her about the fun, impromptu shopping spree, the hot dog meal at Millennium Park, the jazz band playing in the background, and about the surprisingly warm evening that had oozed through his bones and seemed to exist especially for them. He then admitted that he had not been able to allow Jo to embarrass herself by stopping the wedding.
‘I mean, it would have been an enormous mistake.’
‘I see.’
‘So I turned up at the hotel and pretended I was her date. But it didn’t matter, because she’d worked it out herself. She’d decided it wasn’t the right thing. She knows all about doing the right thing. She’s very moral. Very sweet.’
‘I see,’ Zoe repeated.
Then he told her about the adulterous mother, the gay father and the salsa dancing.
‘I never had you down as a salsa dancer.’ Zoe did little to hide the amusement in her voice.
‘You know me, sis, I’m prepared to try anything once. So then we …’ He paused. How was he to explain it?
‘Had sex?’
‘Several times.’
‘There’s more?’
‘There’s Ferris wheels, candy-floss sharing and mini-golf playing.’
‘You like her.’ Zoe pronounced the word in a way that was as laden as the hand luggage of a passenger on an easyJet plane. She sounded in equal parts incredulous and delighted.
‘Don’t rush ahead.’ Dean told his sister how he had revealed the details of his mother’s death to Jo. Zoe was breathless with delight and exhilaration. ‘Wow, Dean, you don’t just like her, you’ve fallen in love with her.’
He didn’t deny it; he just stated flatly, ‘She’s gone.’
‘Sorry?’
He brought Zoe bang up to date with the morning’s events. Zoe was astounded.
‘You don’t think you’ve just been served, do you?’
Dean thought of all the times he’d made quick exits from various women’s apartments, not waiting for breakfast or a debrief because he simply wasn’t that into them. He felt momentarily guilty, the sands shifting beneath his feet, but despite his discomfort about his past form, he did not think he was being served a cold dish of karma. ‘No, I don’t think so. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I’m pretty sure she was really into me.’
‘Maybe it was because you told her about our mother. People get freaked out about alcoholism and suicide and things,’ said Zoe matter-of-factly. They did, she knew it.
‘She wasn’t freaked out. She was really sympathetic. But not in a do-gooder way.’ Both siblings hated do-gooders and knew there was no greater condemnation. ‘In an extremely sincere way.’
‘But there was no note?’
‘No. There was only …’ Dean hesitated. ‘Eddie Taylor gave me his wedding ring.’ He didn’t know how to call Eddie Taylor anything other than Eddie Taylor to Zoe.
‘His wedding ring?’
‘From his marriage to our mother. He’d kept it all this time. It was in my jacket pocket and she found it.’
‘She was going through your pockets?’
‘For cash.’
‘For cash? Are you sure she wasn’t just some con artist?’
‘No. I told you, she’s sweet. And sincere.’ Dean could clearly imagine Jo’s slim fingers flicking through his wallet. He liked her fingernails. She wore them short, with clear varnish. ‘Very moral. I told you, she’s truly romantic. In a good sense. You know, she really believes in that entire knight-in-shining-armour, true-love-conquers-all stuff. She was a little bit lost. I thought I’d found her. She wasn’t stealing from me, she was probably going to buy breakfast, but then she found the ring and now she thinks I’m married. Can you believe Eddie Taylor has fucked this up for me as well? He’s still ruining my life.’
‘I’m the last person likely to defend him, but I honestly don’t think this is his fault. Not this one,’ said Zoe. ‘Why didn’t she wake you up to ask you about the ring? It’s sort of her fault for jumping to the wrong conclusions.’
‘Yes, but she’s a thirty-five-year-old single woman living in London; she’s programmed to think men will be cheating.’
‘I suppose. I don’t know, Dean, something about this doesn’t add up,’ mused Zoe.
‘There was one other thing.’
‘What?’
‘Last night, she told me she loved me.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I pretended to be asleep.’
‘Oh, big brother, I am so proud of you.’ Dean knew his sister was rolling her eyes in exasperation, as she often did when they talked about his romantic life.
‘It was all moving so fast.’
‘Not any more.’
‘I’m hurt that she could think so badly of me.’
‘Look at it from her point of view, Dean. A self-confessed commitment-phobe shags her senseless, ignores declaration of love and secretes a wedding ring.’
‘Put like that, it doesn’t look good. What should I do?’
‘You know what to do. You have to find her. Explain you’re not married, if that’s what she thinks. You have to sort it out,’ stated Zoe, applying her signature no-nonsense view of the world to this problem. It was this approach that allowed her to be a successful accountant, a faithful, loving wife and a devoted and reliable mother.
‘But if I fly across the Atlantic for her, aren’t I sort of showing my hand? I mean, it’s hard to come back from that position. I’m kind of all-in committing then, aren’t I?’
‘I thought from everything you’ve just told me that you have committed to her.’ Dean fell silent. Zoe sighed. It was a big sigh. It seemed to fill the thousands of miles that separated her noisy, cramped kitchen in Winchester, populated by her children’s clothes, creative endeavours and noise, from his chic, neat but empty loft apartment in Chicago. ‘You just have to decide: do you love her or not?’ Dean remained silent, although he was pretty sure his sister was hoping for a definitive answer. ‘You know, I hated the fact that you went to Eddie Taylor’s bedside, but I thought i
t meant that you had learnt something.’
‘What was I supposed to learn?’
‘That you are capable of love, and that you deserve it too.’
46
Jo
The flight back to Britain from Chicago could not be more dissimilar to the outward-bound flight. Returning, I do not benefit from a lucky upgrade or, more poignantly, fascinating company, and there is no hint of misplaced hope or any sense of anticipation. Instead I am steeped in a solid feeling of utter devastation. How can it be possible that in the very weekend I finally understand what love is, and meet someone I believe might love me too, I also have the opportunity blasted right out of the sky? The unfairness and impossibility of the situation hits me with such a weight that I feel it physically; my lungs struggle to breathe. I’m crushed. I understand the true meaning of the flip expression. I’m trampled. Flattened. Compressed. Because I am certain I’m less without Dean. I’m smaller.
I do believe Dean was beginning to feel something for me. Something major and true. This is not another case of self-delusion, otherwise why would he have confided in me all the terrible details of his childhood and the loss of his mother? There was a flicker of a chance; more than that, there was hope for us. Not that any of it matters now. How he did feel, how he might have felt, is irrelevant, because the woman he hates most in the world – the woman who is indirectly but quite definitely responsible for his mother’s death and all his childhood deprivation and devastation – is my own mother.
He would never be able to recover from that.
Walking away from Dean is the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I feel I am paying for every single moment of my sunny childhood in this one terrible action. When I first realised that my mother was Eddie’s lover, I tried to imagine a way we could get through this. I stood over Dean’s bed and feasted my eyes on his beautiful body and wished, wished with every fibre of my being that things were different. That Eddie Taylor and my mother had never met. That Eddie hadn’t decided to leave his wife. That Dean’s mother wasn’t an alcoholic. Any one of those things would have saved Dean from the terrible trauma of feeling eternally alone. And if none of that could be the case, then I simply wished that I’d never pieced it all together. Yes, I’m that shallow and selfish that I would have had Dean and my mother rub shoulders for an eternity, if only they could have done it in ignorance.
