by Sue Welfare
Chapter 7
In Windsor Street the door bell rang once, tentatively. Chrissie, who’d been stretched out on the sofa watching a detective thing with some old scrote in a mac on ITV, yawned, scratched and then glanced up at the clock. It was late for a social call on a weeknight, not that she was expecting anybody. Although, of course, there was a chance it might be Joe.
Both her boys were out. The eldest, Simon, wasn’t likely to come home at all. His girlfriend had moved into a new flat and he was spending most of his time over there helping to decorate – or at least that was the excuse everyone was agreed on. Chrissie was just waiting for him to announce that he wasn’t coming back at all.
Robbie, the youngest, had a summer job working behind the bar in a trendy new place in Highgate. Chrissie wasn’t expecting him home until the wrong side of late, and he’d already said that he might stay overnight with friends. It seemed as if the kids were hardly in at all these days, and they certainly weren’t likely to ring the bell as they both had their own keys.
Chrissie eased herself up off the sofa, stiffly, feeling tired and achy and for an instant terribly old.
Since Kate had walked in and found her in the kitchen with Joe, Chrissie had treated herself gently, as if she was suffering from a bad case of flu, as if she was delicate and poorly and much in need of kind treatment and a lot of TLC.
The worst thing – and the craziest thing – was that without Kate to confide in there was no one Chrissie could really talk to about what was going on. If you said anything to anybody at work it had done the rounds before your back was turned. Chrissie sighed; without Kate there was no one to lean on, no one to talk it right with. If it had been someone else’s husband – and Joe certainly wasn’t the first and she doubted that he would be the last – Kate would have made them both a mug of coffee in her kitchen, shaking her head incredulously, and somewhere in amongst all the giggling, and the squeals and the, ‘Oh my God, no, you didn’t, did you, and then what did he say?’ somewhere in the act of making it into a story, the pain and the indignity, the sting would have gradually faded away.
Chrissie glanced into the mirror in the hall and plumped her hair up, wondering if it might be Joe at the door. She had been half expecting him although he might have rung before dropping in, that way she would have at least had chance to put a bit of a face on, had a shower, changed her clothes.
Feeling distinctly grubby, Chrissie sucked at her teeth and the inside of her mouth, and then rubbed a blob of make-up out of the corner of one eye. Bloody man. She’d got in from work, kicked off her shoes, made a mug of tea while nuking a curry in the microwave and eaten it straight out of the plastic tray in front of the telly with a fork, both of which were still on the floor by the sofa.
And why was Joe calling round so late? He knew that she’d got work in the morning. Maybe he had been waiting for the boys to settle down, although it didn’t strike her as likely. Mind you, she thought, leaning forward to rub some colour into her cheeks, it was typical Joe to turn up unannounced and at a bad time.
Several times over the weekend Chrissie had thought that he might have at least had the decency to ring up and see if she was all right. She had watched him from behind the net curtains drive away in the car twice and both times had waited in, stood by the phone. Just in case he called on his mobile. But no, since Chrissie had walked down the stairs and out of Kate and Joe’s house, nothing, not so much as a peep out of him. It hurt, really stung, although she wasn’t altogether surprised.
During the last couple of days Chrissie had had plenty of time to imagine what had gone on after her leaving: Joe in the kitchen with Kate, him begging forgiveness, swearing it had only happened the once, that they were drunk, that it would never happen again, ever. Him crying and pleading, making his peace, blaming Chrissie, or maybe even Kate, for his fall from grace. With Joe anything was possible.
Chrissie, staring into the tired, world-weary eyes of her reflection, was under no illusions, first and foremost Joe was one of life’s survivors. Chrissie had one last look in the mirror and then took off her glasses. Her eyes were still way too sore for contacts.
Over the years she had come to realise that despite Joe’s cool, sexy man of the world exterior, he needed Kate or someone very like her to get him through the day, to smooth the kinks and the creases out of life for him.
On one particular occasion after they had had a long lazy afternoon in bed Joe had sat on the end of the bed looking all doleful and hangdog. For an instant Chrissie had been overcome by a great wave of compassion, wondering if it had all been a terrible mistake after all; what was this? Love? Regret? Remorse? His conscience finally kicking in?
‘What is it?’ she’d asked, after a few minutes, gently settling her hand on his shoulder, almost afraid to say anything, and Joe had turned and said, ‘I can’t find my sock. Have you seen my sock anywhere?’ Bloody man.
Chrissie licked her lips, and then huffed into her cupped hand, wondering if her breath smelt or rather how much her breath smelt. Was Joe likely to want to kiss her? Probably, if he thought he could get away with it. She rootled in the hall drawer for a packet of Polos.
Poor Kate. As the name formed again in Chrissie’s mind, briefly, fleetingly, she wondered how she was. Not that she hadn’t thought about her since Saturday, it was that her mind refused to stay there for more than an instant, as if it was too painful to stand so close to the white-hot glow of all those emotions.
Chrissie was shattered; the emotional scenery inside her head shifted from hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute, there were just so many things she felt. Guilt, regret, sadness, pain, defensiveness, anger, outrage and disbelief at being caught. A sense of inevitability and unreality were all wrapped up into thoughts so dense and impenetrable that they gave Chrissie a headache and left her exhausted, wishing that she would wake up and find out that none of it had ever happened.
If she was honest, hand on heart, an occasional leg over with Joe really wasn’t worth this much aggravation and most certainly wasn’t worth losing Kate for, but it was way, way too late to pull it back from the edge now. Chrissie stared hard again at her reflection.
Without her glasses everything was in softer focus, less wrinkled. It was a terrible shame she couldn’t find something to play the same trick on her mind. Life at the moment was a complete mess and nothing Joe could possibly say was going to make it any easier or any simpler or any less painful; he wasn’t that clever. Chrissie fluffed her hair a bit more. The doorbell rang again, the tone a little more insistent this time.
There was a part of her that still believed there was a chance that the storm would blow over, while another part of her knew the best plan was to go down to the estate agents and put the house on the market. Maybe the whole Joe and Kate thing was a sign, maybe now that her boys had grown up she was ready for a fresh start. A chance, a challenge. Maybe, maybe … She ought to answer the door and see what Joe had to say for himself.
Chrissie jerked open the door, defiantly, and peered myopically out into the gloom.
‘Hi Chrissie, how are you?’ said Bill. ‘I spoke to Kate earlier and I thought I’d just nip round and see how you were.’
Chrissie sniffed. ‘You’d better come in.’
‘When did you say Mum would be back?’ Danny asked, helping himself to the last of the 7-Up. He didn’t bother with a glass, just tilted the big plastic bottle and sucked it dry with a crackle.
Joe stared at him, taking a moment or two to register the words.
‘What?’
Danny backheeled the fridge door shut and stood the empty pop bottle down on the nearest work surface. ‘Mum? When is she coming home? Only I can’t find my games kit and stuff.’
‘End of the week as far as I know. And don’t just leave that there,’ Joe waved towards the bottle. ‘Put it in the rubbish bin. And anyway at your age you should be able to find your own things, keep your room tidy, clear up after yourself. Put stuff away so you know wh
ere it is.’
Danny gave him a cutting, patronising look, which Joe realised with a jolt was one of his own and then his son’s gaze moved very slowly around the room. On to the sea of plates and bowls and dishes, the chopping board and the splashes of blood-red tomato paste, the discarded pasta sauce jar, the pots and pans, the onion skins, and the empty tins that were strewn around the kitchen, as if to highlight Joe’s own shortcomings.
If Kate had been at home order would have been restored by now, everything tidied away and mopped up or stacked in the dishwasher, the empty lasagne dish soaking in the sink under a shroud of healing bubbles, not hardening up on the kitchen table. Danny sniffed to underline his point, picked up the empty plastic bottle like a holy relic, posted it into the swing bin, and made a beeline for the hall
‘Whoa,’ said Joe. ‘Just hang on a minute there, son. I made it, I cooked it, and dished up, you can help clear up and pack the machine.’
Danny groaned. ‘What? Ah come off it, Dad, I’ve got loads of homework to do.’
‘You should have done it at Gran’s this afternoon.’
‘Oh yeh, right, like I could work over there while she was watching the TV at full blast. So many soaps, so little time. You know she records them, don’t you?’ he said sulkily. ‘And anyway I’ve got stuff that needs handing in tomorrow.’
‘Now,’ Joe snapped and immediately got to his feet. The gesture wasn’t meant to be threatening, Joe just wanted to get out of the kitchen and have a beer in the garden but Danny, all hormones and pecking order, saw it as some sort of alpha male gesture.
‘All right, all right, keep your wig on,’ he snapped, looking distinctly rattled. Joe, careful not to change his expression, thought that maybe he should try sounding tough more often.
‘What about Jake?’ whined Danny as soon as Joe looked away. ‘How come he hasn’t got to come and help? He ate supper too.’
‘He should be in bed.’
Danny snorted.
Joe felt a flare of temper. How come kids couldn’t do what they were bloody well told? How come this sulky, petulant, selfish boy-man couldn’t see that Joe hurt and was in pieces and needed, for once, for things to just go smoothly? Whatever happened to yes Dad, no Dad, whatever you say Dad? Joe pulled a can of beer out of the fridge; okay so maybe that was only in cartoons.
‘Don’t you worry about what Jake does. I’ll get him to unpack it tomorrow morning.’
‘What, before school? You’ll be lucky. It’s an uphill job getting him out of bed in the morning let alone getting him to do anything.’
‘For Christ’s sake, just shut up and get on with it, will you?’ snapped Joe, resisting the temptation to give Danny a swift backhander as he headed out into the garden.
Danny rolled out a sullen bottom lip.
Once outside Joe settled himself on the patio. The light and heat had almost gone out of the day and the evening wind whispered through the fingers of woodland that backed onto the bottom of their garden.
The idea of woods in the city was one of the things that had drawn Kate, a country girl, to the house in the first place. Joe clearly remembered standing with the estate agent looking out over the overgrown tangle of brambles and conifers and scrub and thinking more along the lines that it was a great place for perverts and burglars to hole up while casing the house or watching Kate undress, but over the years he had been glad she’d talked him into it. On nights like this the woods seemed like an insulating blanket between him and real life; he could be almost anywhere. Through the trees he could hear a vixen calling for a mate.
Joe grinned, wishing he had brought his guitar out for company. He had the sort of ache in his chest that cried out to be transformed into a song. A good song, a song about love and betrayal and moments lost or maybe seized through madness, a song that would finally put his name on the map. The next great song the world had been waiting for. Maybe he’d get Robbie Williams to cover it, number one single on his next album. Title track. Christ it was about time.
Joe tipped back in his chair, set crossed legs on the table and stared up into the golden grey-black haze that passes for night in the city, letting his mind run free. One thing Joe had never had was any problem with his imagination.
He felt around the edge of the ache. It would make a great video – he’d pick up a cameo role obviously, or maybe he should go a different route, write the hit single for the film soundtrack, or maybe he ought to have a shot at the screenplay, something bittersweet with Minnie Driver playing Kate. Or maybe Nicole Kidman. Yeah, that would be good. Joe let the fantasy roll. He could so easily see himself at the BAFTAs, the Oscars, the Tonys, the Brits, the Palme d’Or – you name it, Joe had already written the acceptance speech for it and decided what to wear.
From somewhere close by he could hear the discordant wails of a police siren which, like the flippers on a pinball table, pitched his mind in another direction; maybe he ought to have a shot at an action-adventure script. Mentally, Joe struck a martial arts pose. Oh yes, that looked good. Joe had always known that he’d got a film in him. Perhaps it was time to concede that music wasn’t his final resting place after all; film, that was the way forward, maybe that was what the ache was about.
All that pain, the angst, to work through. Joe could visualise himself stripped to the waist, oiled, nicely sweated up, up on his toes with a belly like a washboard – not as part of the main story obviously but to set the scene, to show what kind of man he was. Maybe now was the time to renew his gym membership, not that it would take a lot of work to get back to his fighting weight, after all the superstructure was sound, like steel. Maybe they’d get him a personal trainer, although Joe thought, running a hand over his belly where it shelved out over his jeans, they’d probably want to use a body double for the early years. He wondered who they’d cast as him, in the lead role in the movie of the same name. This thing with Kate, maybe it was just the kick-start he needed, and out of a crisis came a masterwork. That’s what he’d say on Parkinson, leaning forward to emphasise his pain and his sincerity.
Joe closed his eyes and eased his way – somewhat reluctantly – past the praise, the plaudits, the interviews and the critical acclaim, searching around for the first few bars of the melody or the opening line of the story. It had to be there somewhere, although at the moment it seemed just beyond his reach.
Irritated by the absence of his guitar but not sufficiently to go back inside and squabble over trivia with Danny, Joe turned to watch his son at work. In the glow of the lamplight Danny was busy banging and clattering around the kitchen, his annoyance transferred into clumsiness and noise.
Joe had no plans to mention anything to Danny about him and Kate. She’d cool down in Norfolk. Chill out, come round. What were the alternatives? Oh yes, they’d sort it out. They were good together.
So he wouldn’t say anything, no need to upset the boys if it was going to blow over. Danny could wait until it came out on film or CD to get to the true grip on what his father felt, a legacy, a living letter. Joe nodded to himself contentedly. Whenever he thought about the events of Saturday morning it seemed a long, long while ago now and felt as if he had been watching it rather than taking part in it, a spectator rather than a participant, and, Joe realised, it was something that had happened between him and Kate not between him and Chrissie.
But that was how it was, wasn’t it – how it had always been – him and Kate against the world.
And Chrissie? He really ought to go and see her, at least she would understand how he was feeling. Joe hesitated for a few moments, still watching Danny through the window as he moved around the kitchen. Would it be better to ring Chrissie, or just to go round there and drop in, like normal? Just drop by as if what had happened wasn’t important? A no sweat, no big deal kind of thing. Talk face to face. Danny looked up as Joe got to his feet as if the movement had caught his eye. Should he tell Danny where he was going?
‘Just going next door, Dan, shouldn’t be long.’ He’d say
it casually.
But what if Kate rang while he was gone? What if Kate had already told Danny and he was putting a brave face on it? What if Kate asked casually when she got home, ‘So did your dad go and see Chrissie?’ Joe froze; this guilt stuff was so damned tricky and sticky and hard to pull away from.
Squaring his shoulders, Joe got up and headed through the back gate and round to next door. As he got to the alley he could see Bill waiting on Chrissie’s doorstep. Talking to her. It seemed that now wasn’t the moment after all. He’d go round later, when Bill had left, assuming of course that Bill wasn’t there too long. As the door closed behind him Joe wondered for an instant if Chrissie was sleeping with Bill as well.
Chrissie looked Bill up and down, not quite sure whether she was disappointed or relieved to see him there.
‘It’s a bit late,’ she said and sniffed, folding her arms defensively across her chest. ‘I was just about to get ready for bed. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. We start stocktaking at the shop.’
Bill didn’t move and so after a few seconds Chrissie waved him inside. He squeezed past her. Past Robbie’s bike in the hall, past the piles of laundry just waiting to be taken upstairs, and the coats and three bags of stuff that Chrissie planned to take to the charity shop when she got a minute, past the stacked newspapers and magazines and a bag of aluminium cans for the recycling run. It crossed her mind, as Bill picked his way through the detritus of her domestic arrangements, that maybe she ought to have a clear out before the estate agent came round to do a valuation. Until Bill had paused in the hall she hadn’t realised that there were still Christmas decorations pinned into the ceiling above the hat stand, wound around the wind chimes and back through the light fitting.
Ahead of her Bill had stopped, obviously uncertain whether to go right into the sitting room or straight on through into the kitchen.
‘So,’ he said, turning back to face her, looking even more uncomfortable. ‘How’s it going?’
Chrissie had no intention of making things easy for him, every instinct told her that he had come round to cast judgement. God alone knows what Joe had told him – after all, Joe had had first crack at both of them, Kate and Bill. Probably said he’d taken pity on her. A mercy shagging.
