You, Me and Him

by Alice Peterson

  But only seconds later Ruby bolts back into the office. ‘Sort it out, will you? I don’t have time to dig Josie out of a grave and my car too.’ She slams the parking ticket down in front of Natalie who still looks aggrieved that I won the pitch.

  Now who’s smiling?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  It’s my son’s birthday tomorrow and here I am, the perfect mother, walking down a busy London street, my skirt swishing in the breeze and carrying a dozen Bob the Builder helium balloons. How very Sarah Jessica Parker, I tell myself.

  ‘Wait, don’t cross the road!’ I pull George back and six of the balloons hit me in the forehead and obscure my vision. As I lean towards the ‘wait’ button, another gust of wind catches the entire cluster and they proceed to hit me under the chin and then pelt me in the forehead. An old lady wearing a raspberry-coloured beret presses the button instead with a frail wobbling finger.

  ‘I wanted to do it!’ George stamps his foot on the pavement. The green man starts flashing.

  ‘Next time you can do it, OK?’

  ‘No.’ He starts to cry.

  ‘We’ve got to go.’ I pull at his arm. ‘Come on.’

  ‘No!’ he screams. The light goes back to red and the tears stop. George stands, poised and ready to press the button, back in control.

  *

  We walk back to the car. I struggle to find the keys as I clutch the balloons tightly.

  ‘Come on, Mum. Snail.’

  I am getting redder and hotter as we pull over at the cake shop. Can I leave George in the car and quickly pay for the cake? I touch the handle and am about to go without him … but the handbrake would be off, George and the car would hurtle down the road … chaos and disaster. ‘Don’t bring them,’ I tell him as I unlock the side door.

  ‘But they’re my balloons.’

  ‘Keep them in the car.’ I am going to hyperventilate any minute. Oh, no, I need the loo, I think with despair.

  ‘I want them,’ he insists, struggling to get out with all twelve of them in tow.

  I have to weigh up the time it will take to argue with him against the time it will take simply to allow him to bring the balloons. ‘You can take just these ones, OK?’ We cross the road, a trio of balloons bobbing furiously in the air behind us, ready to strike like cobras.

  The shop smells of chocolate and icing sugar. There’s a long queue. I tap my foot restlessly against the floor, trying to control my bladder at the same time. I keep an eye on the car, its hazard lights flashing. ‘Greenwood,’ I say in a breathless voice when it’s finally my turn, ‘I’ve ordered a chocolate castle.’

  She nods and calls out my name to someone in the kitchen. ‘Ah, is that your son?’ She gestures to George who is standing in the corner of the shop next to a plate of flapjacks and brownies.

  I nod back impatiently.

  Finally the cake arrives in a nice clean white box. When I thrust a twenty-pound note into her hand she tells me they’ve run out of change. Can I wait a minute?

  A family enter the shop, the bell tinkling as the door swings open. One of the children starts to sing, ‘Bob the Builder, Can You Fix It?’ An impressed George gives him a balloon, explaining it’s his birthday, but then the other child wants one too so they start to fight over it and Bob flies out of the door and high into the sky. George knocks over the flapjacks and treads on a brownie. I have to pay for that too.

  Finally I am handed the correct change and George and I return to the car, only to see a man in uniform writing out a ticket and smacking it onto my windscreen. Oh, fuck.

  *

  ‘Not another ticket, Josie?’

  I had forgotten I’d hidden it in the cutlery drawer. ‘Did you put money in the meter?’

  ‘I was picking up the cake, Finn. Don’t start.’

  ‘OK, sorry.’ But he’s still thinking about it, I can tell. ‘We need a secretary to pay all our traffic fines. All you had to do was stick money into the meter …’

  ‘Well, I failed! You should be congratulating me for managing to get the cake and balloons back in one piece. I’m amazed the only casualty was a parking ticket.’ I storm out of the room and plonk myself on the sofa.

  Finn pours himself a glass of red wine and follows. He sits down next to me and starts to rub my back. Every inch of my body stiffens. ‘I’ll deal with it,’ he says.

  ‘I can, don’t worry.’

  ‘No, I will.’

  ‘So now we’re arguing about who is going to pay for it?’

  ‘I hope people turn up for this party after all the trouble you’ve gone to.’

  ‘They will.’

  He’s not convinced which irritates me even more. ‘Anyway, Clarky’s coming …’

  ‘Of course he is.’

  I ignore his tone. ‘And Tiana, Mrs B, Mum and Eliot.’

  ‘The one in the wheelchair?’ Finn flicks absent-mindedly through the television guide.

  ‘Yep. No reply from your mum or Dicky, though. Probably too busy.’

  ‘I did ask her. I’ll call again.’

  ‘Don’t bother. You need to write in George’s card. I bought him a funny space card. He loves his planets at the moment,’ I inform him.

  ‘I know he loves planets,’ Finn says back, equally acid.

  ‘I’ve wrapped up the bicycle. I bought him a course of piano lessons too.’

  ‘Piano?’

  ‘Maybe we’re going down the wrong track with sport. George might be musical. Clarky says …’

  ‘Clarky this, Clarky that …’

  I put my hands over my ears. ‘How about you suggesting something then?’ I walk away.

  ‘I’m happy to give the piano a go. My grandfather was good. Oh, look, there’s a good thriller on tonight. Hey, where are you going?’

  ‘Upstairs. I need to lie down.’

  *

  I sit down on my bed with my old portfolio which I keep on the top shelf in my studio. I wipe off the dust and unzip the edge. There’s an abstract oil painting of a silver jug next to a bowl of apples and grapes, painted in shades of grey, blue and pink. It was one of the ‘A’-level pieces on my still life course. I smile, remembering when a tall father in a tweed coat offered to pay my teacher Mr Dowsky two hundred pounds for it at the end of term exhibition. I was dreaming of all the things I could have bought with the money but … ‘It’s not for sale,’ Mr Dowsky said firmly.

  There’s a picture of my mother in the garden, a green and gold scarf around her hair and wearing a thick cream jumper and jeans with a mud stain on them. That was for a ‘work in progress’ piece. Lots of students did factory workers or men drilling holes in roads. I look at the next one. It’s a pencil sketch of Finn when we were just married and still living in my multi-coloured apartment with the orange-painted kitchen. I pick up the photograph from my bedside table of Finn and me on our wedding day. We married quickly. We didn’t want a big fuss and all the trimmings, just a small church wedding with our closest friends and family. Supper had been honey-roasted sausages and mash followed by sticky toffee pudding. We’d danced into the early hours of the morning.

  Soon after, when I still had dreams of having my own exhibition, I’d signed up for an art course in London. It was on a Thursday and if it was sunny the teacher took us out across London. We’d sketch parks, rivers, bridges, markets, interesting buildings or landmarks like the Houses of Parliament.

  One of the terms was spent on life drawing.

  ‘I’m not posing nude for you,’ Finn had said when I’d begged him to come into the college and be a model.

  ‘Darling, you’d knock ’em dead.’

  ‘You can have a private view, take it or leave it.’

  ‘Spoilsport … but I like the idea of having you all to myself.’

  We were in our bedroom on a Sunday morning and he was sitting by the window, the sun streaming in against one side of his face. I watched him as he stared out into the outside world. ‘Be quick, you know I can’t be still for long,’ he’d
said.

  Finn is beautiful in a kind of damaged way. One moment he looks as if he is in a room filled with adoring fans; the next he is alone and vulnerable, as if someone has told him his life will amount to nothing.

  I’d picked up my pad and flipped it to a clean page, starting to draw the outline of his face. ‘Keep still! And no covering up.’

  ‘Who else is on this course?’ he’d asked. ‘Can’t one of the men model for you?’

  ‘They’re all women.’

  ‘What’s the standard like?’

  ‘Good. One of them is a graphic designer. Then there’s Sally who paints nothing but angels.’ He’d laughed at that. ‘Each painting is exactly the same, these funny mountains and skies with little angels dotted about in clashing colours. I don’t think our teacher knows what to say. Hold it right there.’

  There was a little crease at the corner of his mouth as he tried hard not to smile.

  Finn is easy to draw, with his strong jaw line, wide mouth, the small scar at the corner of one eye that gives character to his face, and the hair that flicks across his forehead. I don’t need to look at him. I can draw him from memory.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ I told him again, sketching the long sweep of one arm which was draped across a knee.

  ‘What’s your dream, J?’

  ‘My dream?’ I tilted my head sideways, giving the impression that I had never thought about it before. ‘I’d love to move out of this cramped apartment, live in a large Victorian house with a studio on the top floor where I would paint all day. And make a very good living out of it, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’d have my own exhibitions. A Josie Greenwood painting would go for thousands at Sotheby’s.’

  ‘Millions, you mean.’

  ‘Exactly. I’d be the hottest property in London. I’d have a wonderful husband …’

  ‘You have that already.’

  ‘And we’d have a son called George and fly kites on Sunday afternoons.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d thought of names already?’

  ‘Haven’t you?’

  ‘What if it’s a girl?’

  ‘It’s a boy.’ I tapped my stomach as if to tell the baby not to let me down. ‘And I’ll do a bit of acting on the side when I’m needed for the odd Robert Redford film and no one else will do. How about you? What’s your dream?’ I asked in a fake American accent.

  ‘To be a great doctor, and to be happy.’ He must have felt my surprise because he’d turned to me.

  ‘Finn!’

  ‘I might pretend to be all complicated, but that’s all I want. To be happy.’

  ‘It’s not finished,’ I protested when he looked at the picture and then pushed it away. I felt the heat of the sun on my face, his mouth grazed my cheek and I closed my eyes as we kissed.

  ‘Josie?’

  ‘Um?’

  ‘Josie?’ I feel a tug on my arm and open my eyes. Finn is standing over me. ‘What are you doing? Oh, that’s the picture you drew of me.’ He picks it up. ‘It’s not bad.’

  I gather the papers back into their portfolio. ‘I thought you were watching the film.’

  ‘It’s boring. I was just wondering …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What’s for supper?’

  I sink back against the bed.

  When Finn and I were first married we used to have a ‘date’ night. Every Tuesday we’d take it in turns to arrange something and keep it a surprise. I used to love those evenings. It made the day at work pass quickly. Finn once took me to the Ritz. I’ll never forget the smart-suited man at the reception desk saying he couldn’t go inside looking like that. He had forgotten to do up the zip on his trousers and his Union Jack boxers were on display. I’d never laughed so much. We sometimes went to a show and would hop onto a rickshaw and be scared stiff that we were about to hit a bus as we were driven across the West End by a furiously fast-peddling driver. On one of my nights I’d taken him to Wembley to see Prince, which he’d loved. Sometimes we’d get hopelessly drunk and then decide it was a great idea to do a bit of karaoke at the nearest bar. But most of the time we’d go to the local Thai restaurant where we’d met again after five years.

  We don’t do that anymore. Why don’t we make an effort? Too tired? Do we use George as an excuse? Or work’s a good one. Or have we let ourselves become bored with one another?

  ‘Josie?’ Finn says again. ‘Supper?’

  I feel resentful that everything becomes so mundane. ‘Have a look in the fridge,’ is all I can say, ‘and let me know.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Happy Birthday to me!’ George shouts on his new bicycle, the pedals turning furiously. Finn and I watch him. His monkey, Einstein, is dressed up in a leather jacket and helmet and sits between the handlebars, about to fall off. ‘Don’t go far!’ we both shout together. Finn starts running to catch him up. ‘Turn round!’ he calls. ‘GEORGE!’

  *

  Mrs B and Clarky help me put up Happy Birthday banners and balloons. We cover the table in a bright blue cloth and load it with cucumber sandwiches, crisps, chocolate fingers, Mrs B’s mini-Scotch eggs and sausage rolls. ‘I wish Finn could be here today,’ she sighs then turns to Clarky. ‘Still, never mind.’

  Clarky has told me he’s terrified of Rose. ‘Those blue eyes look as if they can see right through you, like an X-ray.’

  ‘Not working at the moment, Justin?’ she asks, lips pursed tightly.

  ‘It goes like that, Rose. Sometimes I have a lot of concerts and …’

  ‘Right,’ she cuts him off.

  ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t miss my godson’s birthday.’

  ‘I forget you’re his godfather.’

  ‘What’s her problem?’ Clarky asks when she’s out of earshot.

  I know. The only man she has ever trusted is her husband, Michael. ‘I’ve never been able to have a close male friend,’ Mrs B once told me. ‘I once knew a lovely man called Timothy but I discovered, much to my chagrin, he’d always held a torch for me. He became quite aggressive in the end, very unpleasant.’

  George is sprawled on the floor playing with his Lego in the new bright red hooded top that Grandfather Nicholas, and Angela, the new woman in his life, sent him all the way from America. Wrapped in pink tissue and placed in the hood was a white crystal. ‘Why’s she given me a stone?’ George had asked, giving it a shake in case a secret bank note fell out of it.

  I met Angela for the first time when we went out for lunch with her and Nicholas last year. She was wearing a long purple dress. We’d already learnt that she was a leading expert in ‘life training’, running her own enterprise from home.

  ‘Drugs give you cancer!’ she had gasped when we told her George was on Ritalin. She proposed some healing instead. Back at home she laid him down on the ground, saying she was going to take him back to his birth to start the healing process.

  Of course, George couldn’t keep still. ‘Birth is extremely traumatic,’ she was telling him, ‘a rude awakening after being cosseted in Mummy’s tummy …’

  ‘What’s she saying?’ George sat up and she pushed him back down again like a puppet.

  ‘Relax. Close your eyes.’

  ‘What’s that weird smell?’

  ‘Incense.’

  ‘Mum, she’s a weirdo.’

  ‘I’m going to take you back to your birth, George.’

  ‘Nothing’s happening,’ he’d said eventually, sitting up again. ‘I’m bored out of my brain.’

  Finn likes Angela because she makes his dad happy. When I met Nicholas for the first time at our wedding, he was painfully quiet, standing five feet away from everyone else, head bowed. I couldn’t relate this awkward shy person to Finn. After Gwen had left him the second time he became a recluse, Finn told me.

  Clare, the entertainer, arrives early with a large brown suitcase bulging with party equipment and a guitar. She tells me that when the children arrive she’ll gather them in a circle to sin
g ‘Happy Birthday’.

  Half an hour later George is running up and down the stairs waiting for his classmates to arrive. He sticks his hands to the wall and pretends he can climb.

  Mum and I smile awkwardly at Clare. How long is she going to sit and wait? She picks up her cup of tea. ‘Let me get you another?’ I take the cup before she has time to answer.

  My mobile rings. ‘How’s it going?’ Finn asks.

  ‘It’s not,’ I whisper loudly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No one’s turned up yet.’

  ‘Shit. Where’s George?’

  ‘Around. What do I do if no one turns up?’

  Finn draws in breath. ‘They will, they’ve got to. Don’t panic. I’ll call later.’

  ‘Where is everyone?’ George asks, coming up to me. Mum decides to hand him her present. It’s a black plastic case with a red cross on it. George unclips the fastener. Inside are a play stethoscope, thermometer, gauze mask, roll of bandages, plastic blue cap, green apron, and finally a personalised badge saying Dr George Greenwood.

  ‘I think you’d make a smashing doctor just like your father, a real hero,’ Mrs B says. Clarky pulls a face behind her back.

  I hear some footsteps outside and my heart lifts. ‘Hello! Come in.’ It’s Mrs Heaven clutching the hand of her daughter, Imogen, who wears a stripy blue dress with a pink ribbon tied around her waist. ‘Am I early? I thought I had the wrong house.’ She starts to laugh, followed by a pert, ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘They’ll get here soon,’ I echo back cheerfully. ‘Oh, here’s Tiana.’ I introduce them. ‘What a fabulous surname,’ Tiana says.

  ‘Thank you. My maiden name was Bliss.’

  ‘Is that for me?’ George is looking at the present Imogen holds while staring down at her shiny patent shoes. He grabs it from her feeble grasp and starts to rip off the paper.

  ‘What do you say, George?’ I urge.

  ‘Thank you.’

  When her mother has gone Imogen shuffles towards a beanbag and sits down. We wait another ten minutes and still no one else arrives.

  ‘Do you want me to sing to these two?’ Clare suggests diffidently.

  Finally the doorbell rings and I open it, praying. ‘Is it someone’s birthday?’ the postman enquires, handing us a large parcel.