by Paige Toon
I take a deep breath as the memory of all of this comes back to me now.
‘When’s he coming to stay again?’ Dad asks casually.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You should call him, invite him again. He can stay with us next time.’
‘Mmm, maybe.’
My dad turns the music back up before I leave the room.
My parents’ love affair with Johnny takes a nosedive a week later when there’s a picture of him looking wasted in one of the papers.
‘He’s looking a bit the worse for wear,’ my dad sniffs. ‘Who’s this lass, here?’ He points to Dana, who’s dressed all in black and is hanging off Johnny with her arm around his neck. Her dark eye make-up looks smudged – maybe the panda-bear look is fashionable these days.
‘Dana Reed,’ I explain unhappily. ‘She’s his girlfriend.’
‘I didn’t know he had a girlfriend,’ my mum says.
‘I did tell you about her,’ I say.
‘No, you didn’t,’ she bats back.
‘I’m sure I did.’
‘You didn’t,’ she insists. Oh, I give up. ‘Well, that’s a shame,’ she says, putting the paper back on the table with disgust. My dad picks it up again and brings it closer to his face to study it.
‘She’s quite a looker, isn’t she?’ he muses.
My mum snatches the paper back. ‘Too much make-up,’ she decides.
‘I thought he wasn’t supposed to be drinking anymore?’ Dad chips in.
‘I’m not his keeper. I can’t force him not to drink,’ I say.
‘You managed to stop him when he was here,’ my dad says.
‘That was different.’
‘When’s he coming to stay again?’
‘I don’t know, Dad . . .’
Two days later there’s another story about him. Another party, another picture of him looking wasted on the arm of Dana Reed. The press speculate it’s only a matter of time before he ends up back in rehab.
‘Have you spoken to him yet?’ Dad demands to know.
‘No,’ I say firmly.
‘I think you should call him, give him a revving.’
‘What he does with his life is his own business,’ I reply, trying to keep calm. The truth is, I’m feeling sick again.
‘He’s the father of your son,’ Dad barks crossly. ‘His life is your business, now.’
‘I don’t want to talk about this in front of Barney,’ I reply as an excuse. I take my son and go outside to the garden.
Dad slaps a different newspaper in front of me at breakfast the following day. He jabs his finger at a small story in the gossip column. Tensing up, I scan the words and discover Johnny and Dana took an impromptu dip in a pool at an after-show party for a hot new band, and this was after doing seven shots of whisky in a row.
‘This sort of behaviour is not on.’ My mum pulls a face. ‘You should talk to him about it.’
‘You don’t know Johnny very well if you think I can do that,’ I reply wryly, trying to ignore my churning stomach.
‘Have you heard from him?’ Dad chips in.
‘Not since you last asked me about it,’ I reply, putting the paper back on the table.
‘I hope we’re not going to be greeted with a story like this every day,’ my mum says.
‘Don’t read the tabloids. That’s what I’ve learned to do.’ I continue to eat my Coco Pops and try to pretend that all this doesn’t bother me.
‘We can’t not read the papers,’ my dad scoffs.
‘You can not read the tabloids,’ I reply, raising my eyebrows. ‘You never used to.’
They’ve been buying them these last few weeks. It’s not hard to guess why.
‘I like the tabloids,’ Mum says. ‘They’re a bit of fun.’
I glance down at the paper on the table. This doesn’t feel like fun to me.
That night I try calling Christian again. He doesn’t answer.
Chapter 24
‘I don’t remember these roads,’ Johnny says from the driver’s seat.
It’s the end of September and we’ve arranged to go away on a trip together, just the three of us. My parents weren’t at all happy with the idea of Barney and me going off with Johnny alone, and they made their concerns known when there was another story about him in the papers, but I was insistent. Barney needs to spend some time with his dad. His real dad. And who knows where Johnny’s crazy life will take him in the months and years to come. We have to make the most of our time when he’s not touring or working or doing God knows what while we still have it.
‘You didn’t drive them,’ I remark. ‘You were too trolleyed at the time. Slow down!’ I cry.
‘Wicked.’ He chuckles as he takes another corner at breakneck speed. ‘God, I miss this.’
‘What?’
‘Driving around these country lanes. I bloody love it up north.’
We’re in the Yorkshire Dales, almost at our destination. We’re going to the house where I took Johnny over two and a half years ago – that time when I forced him to go cold turkey. It’s private, secluded and familiar. It’s perfect.
‘It looks different to how I remember it,’ he muses a while later, as we reach the cottage at the end of a long dirt track.
‘It was the middle of winter then. This is more how I remember it from my childhood.’ I came here with my parents once after my sister had left for university. I was only about ten.
I look up at the grey-stone two-storey cottage. It’s surrounded by a drystone wall and there’s a green, grassy hill sloping away behind the house. I remember coming out of the cottage one day – the morning after I’d slept with Johnny – to see him sitting at the top, strumming his guitar. That was when he wrote my song. Butterflies swarm through me.
Johnny retrieves our bags from the boot while I get Barney out of his car seat.
‘We’d better make sure we keep the doors closed,’ I say, trying to act normal. ‘We wouldn’t want him falling in that stream in the garden.’
‘No,’ Johnny agrees, slamming the boot shut and meeting my eyes over the roof of the car. I force myself to look at my son and smile, trying to ignore the shivery feeling inside.
Barney and I take the front room facing the track, while Johnny takes the room looking up at the hill. It’s the same way it was two and a half years ago, and there’s no need to change things. We’ve brought our own travel cot so I assemble it while Johnny entertains Barney, and then I trot downstairs to an empty house. I go out through the back door in search of my boys, and then jolt to a stop when I realise I’ve just called them ‘my boys’, like I used to with Christian.
I take a deep breath and continue on my search. I find them in the garden. The last time we were here it was leafless and muddy. Now the trees are full of leaves which are just starting to turn and it’s beautiful. There’s heather in the garden in gorgeous pinky-purple bloom, and elsewhere pretty white flowers break up the greenery. I inhale deeply and feel at peace for a brief moment. Then I think of Christian again.
Last week, I had what I thought was a brainwave. I’d totally forgotten that we had a landline in Cucugnan because we hardly ever used it. I found the number in my contacts and called it, feeling both hopeful and fearful. A man answered, and it wasn’t Christian.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, perturbed.
‘Who’s this?’ he replied.
It suddenly dawned on me. ‘Is that you, Jed?’
‘Meg?’
‘Hi.’ Jed is the friend we rented the house from. ‘Is Christian there?’
‘No.’ Jed sounded confused. ‘He went back to the UK. I thought you knew.’
‘No.’ My head felt fuzzy.
‘Yeah. And I’m, you know, just having a break from all the madness back home before my September rental comes in,’ he explained casually, but I wasn’t really listening. Christian had gone. He’d left France. I don’t know why this made everything seem so much more final, but my insides felt like they�
��d been put in a tumble dryer.
‘Okay, thanks for letting me know,’ I said in a monotone voice.
‘Hey, are you okay?’ he asked, suddenly curious.
‘I’m fine, thanks. I’ve got to go.’
‘Oka—’
‘Bye,’ I interrupted, ending the call.
I don’t know what I’ll say to Christian when we do finally speak. If and when that day ever comes.
Johnny and Barney are standing on the small bridge in the garden overlooking the stream.
‘What are you up to?’ I call.
‘I’m going to make him a paper boat,’ Johnny calls back. I smile as I wander towards them, folding my arms across my chest. There’s a chill in the air. Summer may be raging on in the south of France, but it’s officially over in England.
I reach down and pick up three sticks. ‘Race ya,’ I say to Johnny, handing him one and Barney the other.
‘Hang on a sec,’ Johnny replies, giving me a sardonic look. ‘Let me check the aerodynamics of that one, first, please.’ I roll my eyes and hand him my stick. ‘Sneaky,’ he murmurs, swapping my stick for his.
‘Happy now?’ I ask, raising my eyebrows. ‘Or would you like to check Barney’s, too?’
‘Hmm.’ Johnny regards Barney’s stick through narrowed eyes. ‘I suppose he can have that one.’
‘That’s nice of you, seeing as he’s only one, and all.’ I shake my head at him. ‘Right . . .’ I show Barney how to hold his stick over the edge of the bridge before throwing it in, and then we all rush to the other side to see whose comes through first.
‘I won! I won!’ Johnny cries.
‘Yes, you beat the baby. Well done.’ I smirk at him and he chuckles. I wonder if Barney should start to call him Daddy . . .
That thought came to me out of nowhere. But no, it’s too soon.
‘I should probably get on with dinner,’ I say.
‘I hope your cooking has improved from the last time we came here,’ Johnny responds.
‘You ungrateful sod,’ I remark. ‘We’re having a Spaghetti Bolognese ready meal, for your information.’ We stocked up on food at the service station on the way here.
‘Man, I miss Rosa.’
He immediately looks a little taken aback at his own declaration. I don’t think he meant to say it out loud, to admit to anyone how much he cared for his beloved cook. I give him a sympathetic smile.
‘There’s no chance of her returning?’
He shakes his head. ‘Come on,’ he says to Barney. ‘Let’s find some more sticks.’
I turn and head back inside.
‘Messy eater,’ Johnny says at dinner. Half of Barney’s spaghetti is on the floor.
‘This is nothing,’ I reply. ‘You should have seen him when he’d just started solids.’
It’s a flyaway comment, but I immediately realise it’s an insensitive one. I look up at Johnny to see him watching Barney thoughtfully.
‘So,’ I say with a wry smile, trying to change the subject. ‘What have you told Dana this time?’
‘The truth,’ Johnny replies without a beat.
‘Seriously?’ I’m shocked. I thought he was going to say he’d told her he was writing or away on business, or had used some other excuse. ‘You’ve told her about Barney?’ I double-check.
‘Yes.’ He stares at me directly. I find it unnerving, but try not to show it.
‘Wow. What did she say?’
‘She was pretty cool with it.’ He pushes his plate of half-eaten spaghetti into the centre of the table.
‘Was she?’
‘Yep.’ He abruptly gets to his feet, the wooden legs of his chair screeching across the stone floor. ‘Gonna nip outside for a fag.’
‘Okay,’ I say in a small voice.
Why doesn’t this feel like good news?
‘Do you remember this?’ Johnny asks me that evening when I come downstairs after settling Barney. He’s holding up a jigsaw box with a picture on the front of a litter of multicoloured kittens in a basket.
I smile. ‘Yes, I do.’
There’s no television in the cottage, so last time we were here we spent a decent chunk of our time playing board games.
‘Are you up for it?’ he asks.
I pull out a chair and sit down. ‘Go on, then.’
He opens the box and tips the pieces out onto the table.
‘First, you’ve got to do the corners,’ I say, teasing him because this is what he said to me the last time we did this puzzle, as if I didn’t know how to do a jigsaw. ‘Then the edges,’ I add for extra effect.
‘Are you taking the piss?’ he asks and my smirk turns into a giggle.
‘Maybe a little bit.’
‘I think more than a little bit, babe.’ He reaches across to my side of the table and retrieves a corner.
We work in amicable silence for a while until he says, ‘Chuck us that piece of ginger pussy,’ and I collapse into more giggles.
‘You have got such a dirty mind,’ he mutters. ‘What happened to my good girl?’ His green eyes confront me for a moment across the table and my stomach flips.
‘I think she’s long gone,’ I joke drily, looking down at the puzzle as my heart hammers away inside my chest. This is not right.
‘Don’t say that, Nutmeg.’
‘Don’t call me Nutmeg.’ It’s a knee-jerk response, but this time he leans back in his chair and folds his arms, eyeing me across the table.
‘Why don’t you like it?’
I shrug awkwardly. ‘I don’t mind it, really. What do you call Lena?’
‘Lena,’ he replies.
‘Is that her real name?’
‘Isn’t it good enough for you?’
‘Yeah, it’s a nice name.’
‘I didn’t think her partner would appreciate it if I changed it to something else.’
‘No, probably not.’ I smile. ‘How long has she been working for you?’
‘Couple of years now.’
‘You like her, then?’
‘Not in that way.’ He raises one eyebrow at me and I’m horrified to find myself blushing. It doesn’t escape his notice. ‘Aah, my little Nutmeg,’ he says with amusement.
Oh, God, what is happening to me? I feel like the tables of power are turning. I don’t want him to have this control over me again. I should go to bed. Right now.
‘Ciggie break.’ He stands up, stealing my opportunity to leave the table first.
‘I’m going to hit the sack,’ I tell him, a touch too quickly.
‘Right you are,’ he replies, opening the door. ‘Night.’ He shuts it behind him.
Upstairs I sit in my darkened bedroom and stare out of the window. I forgot to pull the curtains earlier and now I can see that there’s a full moon tonight.
Maybe it was a mistake coming back here. There are too many memories. Good memories – and bad. Is it affecting Johnny, too? He doesn’t seem to be bothered by it, but then Johnny hardly ever seems to be bothered by anything.
I go to the window and see his cigarette outside in the night. He puts it to his lips and inhales, lighting his face with an orange glow. Then he looks up and I pause, my fingers clutching the curtain fabric, not sure if he can see me or not. I nod down to him, just in case, and pull the curtains closed.
Chapter 25
‘Good afternoon,’ I say to Johnny when he emerges the following morning.
‘What’s the time?’ he asks in confusion.
‘Almost ten o’clock.’
‘Christ, this is early for me. What time were you up?’
‘Six thirty,’ I reply chirpily. ‘I’m absolutely knackered!’
He gives me a wry grin and rubs at the sleep in his eyes.
‘I could get up early tomorrow. Give you a lie-in.’
I turn to him in surprise. ‘Really?’
‘Sure.’
Then I think of all the practicalities of breakfast and nappy changes and getting Barney dressed, and actually it feels like hard
er work trying to explain it all than just getting out of bed and doing it myself.
‘We’ll see,’ I say, making him a coffee and handing it over.
‘Don’t you think I can cope?’ He blows steam off the top.
‘It’s not that,’ I reply.
‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’
‘No, you’re right, I shouldn’t.’ I glance down at the countertop.
‘Did Christian help much with Barney?’ he asks casually.
‘I don’t want to talk about him,’ I reply, then feel mean.
Johnny shrugs and wanders to the door, reaching into his jeans pocket for his fags. He shuts the door behind him. After a minute, I go to the window and open it, leaning out.
‘Have you ever thought about giving up?’
‘Nope.’ He inhales deeply.
‘You haven’t had a drink since you’ve been here.’
‘Drink isn’t my problem,’ he says.
‘How did you come to that conclusion?’ I ask, unimpressed. ‘It always used to be.’
‘It’s the drugs that keep ending me back in rehab.’
‘And the drink,’ I add. ‘What do your counsellors say?’
‘They’re full of shit.’ He shudders. ‘God, I hate that place.’
‘Not enough to stop you from going back there.’
‘I’m not going back again,’ he replies resolutely.
‘Why don’t you give up the booze, then? I would have thought it’s a slippery slope.’
His face breaks into a grin. ‘You’re so cute, Nutmeg.’
‘Don’t start that again, and don’t change the subject, Johnny. You know you can talk to me about this.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Who else do you have to talk to about it?’
‘My girlfriend,’ he replies bluntly, stubbing out his cigarette.
‘Your drug-addicted girlfriend?’ I ask pointedly, trying to ignore the sting.
‘You know nothing about Dana.’
I know it hurts to hear him defend her.
