Inheriting Jack

by Kris Webb

  Had this been where the evening started, everyone would have huddled in the corners. But the first few drinks had loosened the crowd up and the noise rose audibly as the party-goers moved into the second room.

  It was then that the music struck me. ‘Greensleeves’ – played very tinnily and coming from somewhere at the back of the room.

  I peered through the people in front of me, trying to spot the source. Obviously I was obsessed, I told myself sternly. I’d be dreaming the music soon.

  The music stopped and the crowd parted to reveal a miniature ice-cream van. Standing in front of the van was Grant, handing soft serves to the queue that had already formed in front of him. A queue of women, I noticed immediately. Very skinny women who looked as though they hadn’t had an ice-cream in the last twenty years.

  I froze. What on earth was he doing here? There was no way this could be a coincidence. I tried to think logically. The only possible link between Grant and this event was Patrick. But surely Patrick would have told me if he’d known Grant would be here.

  Grant was intent on handing a toppling ice-cream to a dark-haired glamour in three-inch heels. As he finished, he looked up and saw me. There was no mistaking the surprise on his face. He certainly hadn’t expected to see me here.

  He smiled and automatically I smiled back. Somehow I managed to register that he didn’t look tanned. Obviously he and the blonde had spent the whole time ignoring the beach or the ski slopes. A torrid sex life probably did that to you, I thought sourly.

  I considered pointedly looking away and resuming an intense conversation with my companions. Except that I didn’t have any companions. They’d obviously taken advantage of my lapse of concentration to slip away. Given that I was standing by myself, the only option seemed to be to head in Grant’s direction.

  I hovered uncertainly behind the queue, but Grant beckoned me forward. Reluctantly I walked up to him, feeling the daggers sink into my back.

  ‘See, I knew you were lying when you said your job wasn’t glamorous,’ he smiled. ‘A do like this is just hard work, I suppose?’

  ‘Actually, my being here has nothing to do with work. Patrick is embarking on a television career. What about you? This is a long way from serving melting ice-creams to whinging kids.’

  ‘You could say.’ He couldn’t help a look at his customers, whom he was still managing to serve while talking to me. ‘Someone from the studio approached me in the park a couple of weeks ago. Offered me a ridiculous amount of money to do this. God, I would have done it for free!’

  ‘Well at least you were back from your holiday in time,’ I said coldly.

  ‘Yeah, I arranged it like that,’ he answered calmly.

  ‘So how was it?’

  ‘Oh. Fine thanks.’

  Conversation suddenly dried up.

  The queue was not happy. Its members were being served their ice-creams without any interaction from the ice-cream man himself and there was a growing murmur of disapproval.

  ‘Well. I’ll let you get back to your fans. I’ll see you later.’

  I turned around. To my great relief I spotted Patrick and Audrey deep in conversation off to one side of the room. Having Grant watch me look for someone to talk to would have taken my humiliation to new depths.

  ‘Patrick!’

  He jumped. ‘God, Julia, loosen up, would you? This is a party.’ I didn’t find his parroting of my words from earlier even slightly amusing.

  ‘Do you know who is over there?’

  Patrick followed my eyes and spotted Grant.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So this is your doing?’

  ‘No! Well kind of,’ he conceded. ‘Some of the guys from the show were on the committee that had to brief the party planners. They were talking about the fact that they couldn’t find anyone to replace the dagwood dog vendor they had lined up for tonight – apparently he’d given food poisoning to everyone at a school rugby tournament the week before and lost his licence. I mentioned that you had picked up a good-looking ice-cream van guy a couple of weeks ago and they were interested. So I told them that he was at New Farm Park on Sunday afternoons. That was it. They must have followed up with him.’

  ‘You picked up the guy who sells soft serves?’ Audrey asked, clearly impressed.

  ‘Thank you very much, Patrick,’ I growled. ‘Perhaps you could tell a few more people.’

  ‘Julia.’ I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Having fun?’ Tony asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s fabulous.’ I pasted a smile on my face.

  ‘Well come over here with me. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’

  This was more like it.

  We joined another circle and Tony introduced me to a group of thirtysomething studio employees. They were interesting and friendly and didn’t seem to hold my job against me. I chatted away happily, delighted to be talking to someone who was neither my brother, nor someone I’d recently had sex with.

  One of the women asked how I knew Tony and I had the whole group in stitches recounting the gym incident. But when someone asked how long we’d been together, I stuttered and fudged an answer. Tony only smiled enigmatically.

  The lights dimmed suddenly and the wall at the end of the room was removed. Even though people were half expecting it this time, a roar of approval rose from the crowd as it moved forwards.

  Fire-engine red walls contrasted with a black floor and the room was lit only by spotlights. Two platforms were suspended high on the longest wall and on each, a man and a woman danced wildly to the music, which had abruptly switched to a techno beat. Here the staff were dressed in black leather and carried trays laden with shot glasses. The noise level rose dramatically as people responded to the atmosphere, loosening ties and throwing back drinks.

  All except Tony, that was. I watched as he calmly looked around the room, spotted a man several metres away and moved towards him. They shook hands and struck up a conversation. Watching him only made me feel tired. I had probably been that ambitious once, but it seemed a long time ago. His determination to make it as a producer reminded me of some of the people I had worked with. It was almost as though nothing was more important than career success – not even love or family.

  Maybe I could just use him for sex, I thought hopefully. Regretfully I abandoned that option. If I had any doubt as to whether I was cut out for that kind of behaviour, the ‘cheerio’ line should have cleared that up.

  Why did it always go like this? Ten days ago I was juggling two fabulous men. Now one of them was with an up-and-coming supermodel and the other was making it pretty clear that he was much more interested in pursuing his career than pursuing me.

  Tony looked over at me and smiled. I smiled in reply and grabbed a shot from a passing waiter. The sambucca burned my throat as it went down and my eyes pricked.

  I sneaked a look at my watch. Eleven o’clock. Despite the fabulous surroundings and beautiful people, I wasn’t actually having any fun.

  I walked over to Tony and touched his arm. ‘I’m heading off.’

  ‘Really? Aren’t you having a good time?’

  I looked around. ‘Not really. The party is pretty amazing, but I don’t know anyone and I’m not really one of life’s networkers.’

  Tony’s face changed slightly at the obvious edge to my voice.

  ‘I get so little time to myself these days. To be honest I don’t feel like wasting it doing something I’m not really enjoying.’

  It seemed like a very long time since the night I’d tried to convince Tony I was an art-house movie buff. Honesty was incredibly liberating.

  Tony turned as someone beckoned to him from another group. He’d only been in the job two weeks but seemed to know more people at this party than I’d met in the last ten years. He was obviously doing something right.

  He waved at them and turned back to me. ‘Okay. I’ll give you a call.’

  Suddenly I’d had enough. I was over waiting for calls that didn’t come. I
was tired of flip-flopping between elation when he gave me some kind of signal that he was interested and disappointment when he didn’t call.

  ‘Actually, don’t worry. I know we’re not twenty any more and we’ve all got baggage of one sort or another by now.’ I figured Tanya wouldn’t mind if I borrowed a line from her speech. ‘Hell, my baggage has a vegetable phobia and sleeps with a toad.’

  I’d gone too far to stop now. ‘But you’re looking to prove something to the world and I don’t think having me and Jack around is going to help. So why don’t we just give it a miss?’

  I’d thought I’d be making things easy for him, that he’d be delighted that he didn’t have to make the break. Instead, I was surprised by the look of hurt that spread across his face.

  ‘Sure.’ He looked down at his hands briefly. ‘If that’s what you want, that’s fine. I guess I’ll see you around then.’

  ‘Yeah, well you’ll probably see me at my place when the next episode is filmed.’ As I said the words I vowed not to be there, even if it meant a whole afternoon chasing earth-moving equipment in New Farm.

  ‘Of course.’ The person in the other group called Tony again. ‘Have a good night.’ Tony was moving away even as he spoke.

  I gave him a half-wave and turned around, trying to look as though I broke up with guys at fabulous parties all the time.

  Concentrating on not tripping over in my heels, I tried to ignore the disappointment that squeezed my chest. Now that I knew it was over, I finally admitted to myself that I’d hoped what Tony and I had could have become something special.

  Clearly not.

  I headed towards what I thought was a door, only to discover it was a prop. I couldn’t face retracing my steps past Tony, so I squeezed past the cardboard wall, deciding to wander back through the earlier party rooms.

  Stepping out of the red nightclub, I hit the funfair, which was now in the process of being dismantled. The fluorescent lights were on, and with half the decorations already down, it had lost its magic.

  Grant was in a corner, packing things into boxes. I thought about putting my back to the wall and creeping quietly towards the doorway. Instead I walked over to him.

  He looked up as I approached. ‘Hi there. How’s the party?’

  ‘It’s pretty cool – they’ve done a great job.’

  ‘Sounds like the equivalent of “she has a nice personality”.’

  I smiled. ‘I didn’t know anyone except for Patrick and one other guy. I’m not really in the mood.’ Without giving myself the chance to change my mind, I spoke again. ‘Listen, I know the truth about your holiday. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  His face flushed red. ‘I wanted to tell you but couldn’t bring myself to. I don’t know, it’s not the kind of thing you want to talk about to someone you’ve been seeing.’

  ‘No, I can imagine that,’ I answered dryly. ‘So was it good?’

  ‘Good? Well yeah, I guess so.’

  ‘That’s marvellous,’ I answered, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  If he noticed, he didn’t give any sign. ‘Do you want to have a look?’ he asked.

  I stared at him incredulously. What was wrong with this guy? He took off for a romantic holiday with another woman and then wanted to show me how fabulous it had been. What did he think I wanted to see – holiday snaps?

  Leaning down, he gingerly pulled up the leg of one of his trousers.

  ‘See, beautiful job. I should be back in bikinis in a fortnight.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My varicose veins – all gone. Can’t say the process was a bundle of fun though.’

  It was slowly dawning on me. ‘So that’s what you were doing? Having an operation?’

  He looked at me strangely. ‘Yeah. I thought you said you knew.’

  I couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t hiding some rendezvous with a supermodel. He’d just been too embarrassed to tell me about his operation.

  ‘What did you think I was doing?’ he asked quizzically.

  I couldn’t see a way to avoid telling him the truth. ‘Well, I saw you with your arm around a blonde girl at the park. And you didn’t seem to want to tell me about your holiday and – well . . .’ I broke off. For some reason I couldn’t quite remember the perfectly logical train of thought that had led me to the conclusion he was off cruising the Greek Islands with her. ‘Well, I decided that you were off having a romantic holiday,’ I finished lamely, feeling like a total idiot.

  ‘With my sister?’ he asked with a smile.

  ‘Your sister is nine years old!’

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Was nine years old, fifteen years ago . . .’ I trailed off.

  ‘Mmm. She’s actually a very grown-up twenty-four now and her husband of not even six months has decided being married is not his cup of tea.’

  ‘Right.’

  None of Grant’s boxes looked big enough to hide in, so I had no choice but to stand there looking at him.

  He laughed. ‘Julia. I’m not seeing anyone else.’

  ‘Okay.’ Although Grant was being very understanding, I still felt pathetic. It was definitely time to end this night. Tomorrow had to be a better day.

  ‘Right – well now we’ve cleared that up, I’m going to get going.’

  ‘How about I do you a deal?’ he asked. ‘If you help me carry these boxes outside, I’ll give you a lift home.’

  I looked down at my shoes doubtfully. He sighed and, bending down, picked up a container about the size of a large book.

  ‘Think you can manage this?’

  I nodded. ‘Um, if I carried two of them, do you think we could stop off to pick Jack up on the way?’

  He laughed and muttered under his breath, ‘Give them an inch . . .’

  The underground parking lot was deserted. We loaded the equipment into the ice-cream van and ten minutes later I opened Carla’s back door with the key she’d left outside.

  Carla was asleep on the sofa bed in the back room, an equally sound asleep Jack lying beside her.

  Quietly I lifted Jack, inhaling his warm smell as he clung to me without waking. He felt like a huge trusting puppy and I kissed his head. Even though he would be awake in less than six hours, I was glad he was coming home with me.

  Opening her eyes, Carla smiled and waved us out.

  With some difficulty, I strapped Jack into the seat belt between Grant and I, his head resting in my lap. He was still fast asleep when we got home and I carried him upstairs and deposited him in his cot. He rolled over and a shaft of light fell across the side of his face. I smoothed his hair back gently from his face. Had it really only been five weeks since he’d arrived? In that time I’d been sleep deprived, publicly humiliated and lost my chance at partnership. But if someone tried to take him away from me now, I’d fight them to my last breath.

  I thought of Anita. The familiar sadness stole over me, but for once I didn’t feel guilty or panicked at the thought of the responsibility she’d left me.

  We’d manage.

  ‘Goodnight Jack,’ I whispered.

  At the sight of Grant standing in the lounge room, I felt unaccountably nervous. ‘Fancy a glass of wine?’ I asked.

  He nodded, just as the latch on the front gate clicked.

  Surely Patrick couldn’t have convinced Audrey to come home with him this early? That would be too quick, even for an up-and-coming superstar.

  There were footsteps on the wooden steps at the front and then a knock on the door. It wasn’t Patrick then – he’d use his key.

  Grant looked at me. ‘Expecting anyone?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Julia? It’s Tony.’

  His voice floated through the window beside the door and I was momentarily paralysed.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Pulling myself together, I walked to the door and opened it.

  ‘I know it’s late,’ Tony said by way of greeting. ‘But I’m not going to let you end it like that.’


  He stepped onto the landing and, catching sight of Grant, stopped dead.

  I had a sudden vision of how this must look. It was almost midnight, less than an hour after I’d left Tony, and I had a strange man in my house.

  ‘I – um. This is Grant. He’s . . .’

  ‘Forget it,’ Tony said. He turned on his heel and ran down the stairs without a backward glance.

  Should I have told Tony and Grant about each other? I’d been trying to figure out if there was anything going on between myself and either of them, so saying anything would have looked like ridiculous overkill. Now, though, I wished I had.

  Grant raised his eyebrows in question when I looked around at him.

  ‘Sorry – this must look bad. I’ve seen Tony a few times, but I told him tonight that I didn’t think it would work. It was such a low-key thing, I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. But maybe I should have, I’m –’

  Grant interrupted. ‘It’s all right. Relax. You don’t owe me any explanations.’

  ‘Really? Okay – great. Well, I’ll get that wine.’

  Grant followed me into the kitchen. I reached into the overhead cabinet for wine glasses and as I put them on the bench, I felt his eyes on me. Stepping closer, he lowered his face to mine and kissed me softly and then again, more insistently.

  As he did, I felt a wave of warmth for him – but nothing more. It was a lovely kiss and it brought back some old memories. But there was no rush of feeling like I felt with Tony.

  Goddammit. What was wrong with me? Grant was great looking and fun to be around. So why wasn’t my heart beating any faster? For some reason the spark we used to have between us was gone – and as much as I wanted to tell myself it didn’t matter, it did.

  As gently as I could, I pushed against his chest. Grant straightened and looked at me.

  ‘You want to know something?’ He spoke in a gentle voice.

  I nodded, although I wasn’t sure I did.

  ‘I have the feeling you’re going to break my heart again.’

  In that moment I would have loved to be able to tell him he was wrong and to ask him to stay with me forever. Maybe I had some deep-seated problem with commitment which drove me to screw things up whenever I was close to someone. Was I going to spend the rest of my life turning away good men and pining over others it could never possibly work with? In any event Grant didn’t deserve to be part of my problems. The very least I owed him was to be honest.