by Lisa Jewell
He ran his thumb across the glossy skein of the photograph. He stared at the baby again, waiting for something to soften his heart. Just a baby, he thought to himself, just a tiny baby. But nothing gave. He was still stone.
He sighed and slid the photo back into the pocket. He was lost. Lost in his marriage. Lost in his career. Lost in his role as a father. And now he was lost here, too, lost in California.
But the weirdest thing had happened to him last night.
There’d been a moment. When was it? About three in the morning, he supposed, halfway between the bar and Rosey’s apartment block. He’d been ripe with beer, his head a soft sponge of cheer and joy, the warmth of the balmy Californian night wrapped around him, sleepless cicadas scratching a lazy rhythm in the bushes. They’d meandered across the busy ocean-side drive, loosely together but not quite apart, bare arms occasionally brushing against each other. The boys from the band had left hours earlier, their pleasure curtailed by the prospect of early starts for day jobs and long cab rides home, but Rosey didn’t work on Wednesday mornings and Ralph clearly had no reason to want to head home so they’d carried on, into the early hours, talking about things that Ralph had no recollection of this morning, the conversation like a high-speed train, a streak of words that had left no mark on his consciousness. But there was one moment he remembered vividly, just as they reached the other side of the road, the moon hanging heavy behind a palm tree. Ralph had stopped, looked at the moon, looked at Rosey, looked behind him at the ocean and suddenly been overcome with emotion. Every beautiful moment of his life flooded through him. Every grand emotion he’d ever experienced came at him all at once and left him fighting for breath.
Was this it? he thought. Was this where it all stopped? All the sensation, all the joy, all the giddy delight of simply being? He was, he feared, too old to feel like this any more. He thought about the first few years with Jem, how every single day had felt like a gift, when these moments had come thick and fast, when he’d barely had a chance to register one joyful moment before another had come hurtling up behind it. Was that youth? Was it love? Was it just a sugar-coated chemical fuelling his brain? What was it? Where had it gone? And did he really have to run away, get drunk and flirt with another woman to feel it again?
Rosey had turned and smiled at him. ‘You OK?’ she’d said.
He’d stared at her for a silent moment. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he’d said (he felt sick with himself at this memory).
She’d looked at him quizzically. ‘That’s what all the drunk guys say.’
‘No, but really. You are so beautiful. Not in a “I want to fuck you” kind of way,’ (had he really said that, had he really said ‘fuck you’?) ‘just in a perfectly symmetrical, flawless bone structure kind of a way. I’d love to …’ (God, this was probably the worst of it all) ‘I’d love to paint you.’
‘Ha, well, feel free,’ she’d said, though his muffled memories prevented him from being sure about her tone of voice; had she been flattered or embarrassed or quietly, sweetly condescending? He had no idea. He just knew that he’d said those things because he’d meant those things, because for the first time in a long time he was feeling like a fully functioning human being with a core and a purpose.
They’d moved on then, through a small shopping complex, past the restaurant where he’d had dinner with Smith that first night and into a courtyard apartment block. ‘This is me,’ she’d said, ‘and you’re sure you’re OK getting a cab?’
He glanced about, feeling absolutely certain that he would be OK getting a cab and that even if he couldn’t get a cab he’d be more than happy to walk on this perfect night.
He nodded. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said.
‘OK, well, look, thanks for coming to see the band and thanks for letting me stay up late. It’s been cool.’
‘Yeah,’ he’d said, steadying himself against saying anything else he might later regret, ‘it’s been fun. I’ll see you … I guess …?’
‘Tomorrow night? I think I’ve arranged to meet up with Smith, and since you are officially Gooseberry of the Week,’ she smiled, ‘no doubt I’ll see you then.’
He smiled, happily, relieved that he would only have to wait a few more hours before seeing her again.
‘And listen,’ she continued, ‘if you were really bored, I’m going to church tomorrow, six-ish. You could come along, see if you and God can, you know, hook up?’ She laughed at the ludicrousness of the suggestion.
But Ralph didn’t laugh. He nodded firmly. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘yeah. Why not?’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘Great!’ she said, her face breaking open into something soft and glad that Ralph hadn’t seen before, ‘I’ll pick you up. Five-thirtyish.’
‘Excellent,’ he said, forcing his hands down deep into his pockets and backing away from her. ‘See you then.’
She gave him a wave and a small smile, her face still washed over with the new softness, and it was then that it happened, a small, shocking moment that still reverberated around his sore head today. Rosey had leaned in towards Ralph, her lips had touched his, not in a kiss – it was too dry and too soft to be a kiss – but not a peck either – it had been too gentle to be a peck – but something more like a caress. They’d pulled apart, not fast, but leisurely. ‘Oh,’ Rosey had said, confirmation in that one syllable that something significant had just happened. She’d put her fingers to her lips and laughed. And then she’d slipped between her front door and the frame and disappeared.
Ralph didn’t even look for a taxi that night. The straight gridlines of the seaside town and the distinctive landmarks of restaurants and bars made it simple to navigate his way back to Smith’s apartment. He breathed the warm, briny air into his lungs, knowing that the opportunities to walk alone through a balmy night in a strange land were waning with every moment. He didn’t feel like a forty-two-year-old man; he felt ageless, timeless, almost born again.
Was he in love? He had no idea.
For now, all Ralph knew was this: it was so late it was early and he felt like he was walking on sweet, sweet air.
Chapter 10
By the time Jem had collected Scarlett from nursery and found her way to Joel’s flat, her sheepskin boots had lost a large percentage of their former waterproof quality and the heels of her socks were damp. The unpleasant sensation of damp socks, added to the sense of having shiny, but not exactly well-arranged hair, and a three-year-old daughter who had done nothing but complain since her collection from nursery about the fact that they were not going straight home and that she ‘did not want to go to Jessica’s house – I HATE Jessica’s house,’ led her to think that really, she may as well have just given into Scarlett’s terrifying will and headed straight home, possibly to break her No Wine Before 6 p.m. rule. But a date was a date and, she reasoned with herself, it would be good for Scarlett to have a local friend, especially as she had failed to provide her with a sister for regular girl play on rainy afternoons.
Jem made it up the last damp leg of the walk, to a sharp hill that ran up the side of Thai Dreams on Herne Hill and round a tight corner into a funny little mews that Jem had never even noticed before. The mews was modern, probably thrown together in the 1980s, and facing fairly rudely on to the rear ends of the shops in front. The lower floors of the boxy little houses were garages, with open concrete staircases leading to the upper floors. Joel’s house was the second one along. Parked outside was a squat Austin Mini in an indistinguishable shade of sludge, a car that looked like it had not been driven in many a year.
‘I don’t like it,’ said Scarlett, backing away. ‘It’s scary.’
Jem had to agree that it was far from salubrious, the sort of place that put you in mind of drug deals, and swaying drunks pissing up walls, and sociopaths hiding out in squalid solitude, sticking news cuttings of celebrities to their walls and playing with hunting knives. It did not look like the kind of place where you would bring up a child, especially not one with the su
nny disposition of the fragrant Jessica.
Jem pressed the bell and waited for the crackle of the intercom to acknowledge her request.
‘Hello!’ It was a small voice. It was Jessica.
Scarlett looked at Jem gloomily as if her last possible avenue of salvation from the hellish prospect of the afternoon ahead, the possibility that Joel and Jessica might not really live here, had just been cruelly snatched from her.
‘Hello!’ chimed Jem. ‘It’s Scarlett and her mum!’
The door buzzed and Jem and Scarlett gingerly stepped through into the hallway.
Scarlett crushed herself against Jem’s waist whilst Jessica ran towards them, arms windmilling in their sockets, strawberry-blonde hair hanging down her back in unkempt tangles. ‘Yay!’ she hollered and then threw her arms around Scarlett in a fulsome embrace.
Jem felt Scarlett’s small body stiffen and recoil. Jem felt the same mixture of emotions she always felt at these moments: pride that she had a child who did not throw herself like a treat at anyone who cared to have her, and concern that in not wishing to cuddle other more affectionate children she might give people the impression that she was possibly unused to affection because she was given none at home.
‘Come into my room! Come into my room!’ Jessica hopped from one foot to the other, holding Scarlett’s stiff, still-cold fingers in hers.
Joel appeared in the doorway at the top of the corridor. ‘Now, come on, Jess, give poor Scarlett a chance to at least take off her coat.’
Jem glanced up. There he was. Joel. He was wearing a grey lambswool crewneck and blue chinos. His feet were socked and he was wearing glasses. He looked like a geography teacher. ‘Find us all right?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ smiled Jem, ‘just behind Thai Dreams. Couldn’t really miss it.’
She glanced around the flat quickly, taking in unpapered walls, cheap blinds, bicycles, washing hanging on radiators. It was very much the home of a single dad.
Joel offered Jem a cup of tea. ‘Yes, please,’ she said, ‘it’s miserable out there. I’m cold to the bone.’
He disappeared into a small galley kitchen that peered out into the living room through a rectangular opening. ‘You know, you can hop off in a minute, if you like. I’d be happy to oversee if there were things you needed to get done?’
Jem glanced down at the three-year-old girl wrapped around her left thigh and laughed. ‘Maybe I’ll hang around for a bit,’ she said lightly, ‘wait and see how these two hit it off.’
‘Now! Now!’ pleaded Jessica. ‘Will you come now? To my room?’
Scarlett looked at Jem beseechingly.
‘Maybe Scarlett would like some juice first, and a muffin?’ He directed this question at Jem.
Jem nodded enthusiastically.
‘Is it a chocolate muffin?’ Scarlett whispered in her ear.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jem. ‘We’ll have to ask Jessica’s dad, won’t we?’
Joel smiled and looked down at Scarlett. ‘It is indeed a chocolate muffin,’ he said, ‘with extra chocolate chips inside.’ He pulled apart the Cellophane wrapping of a pack of four from Tesco. ‘Why don’t you take off your coat and sit down and I’ll bring it in in a minute.’
Jem could feel Scarlett’s body starting to relax under her arm. She leaned down to help her with the fastenings of her parka and slipped it off her shoulders.
‘So,’ she said, ‘how long have you and Jessica lived here?’
Joel shrugged and poured boiling water from a white plastic kettle into a chipped brown teapot. ‘Well, I’ve been here for about ten years. It was my dad’s place. He used to have a stand at the antique market on Northcote Road … used this place for storage. When he died I had to sell off everything else he owned to pay off his loans. This was all that was left. So now we call it home.’ He smiled tightly, suggesting that he would not have chosen such a place to live if he’d had more options. ‘Sugar?’
Jem shook her head. ‘But your dad – I thought you were from up north?’
‘No,’ he replied simply, ‘why did you think that?’
‘Your accent, I suppose,’ she said, ‘there’s a hint of something, and the fact that your son was brought up there?’
‘No.’ Joel piled cheap mugs, muffins and the teapot on to a tray and carried it into the living room. ‘I was at university in Sheffield. I was up there for five years in the end, it must have rubbed off a bit, but, no, I’m a south London boy, through and through, born and bred in Clapham Junction.’
‘Really?’ Jem brightened. ‘Whereabouts?’
‘Just off Northcote Road. Lovely little house. I was gutted when I had to sell it after my dad went.’
‘Ha! I used to live there. Do you know a little road called Almanac Road?’
‘Yes!’ Joel placed the tray on the coffee table. ‘I was in the next road up. When were you there?’
‘Oh God, about ten years ago, I was in a flatshare. It’s where I met Ralph, actually.’
‘Ah yes, Ralph of the missing mojo. You met him in a flatshare?’
‘Yeah,’ she smiled. ‘We were flatmates. It was an interesting way to get to know someone.’
‘Well, I was long gone by the time you were living there then. In fact, yeah, I’d just moved in here. Me and Jessica’s mum, starting our new life.’ He smiled wryly and poured tea into mismatched mugs with business logos on them. His hands were pale and angular, his knuckles were slightly red and dry. From this angle Jem could see that his pale hair was thinning at the crown. There were moth-holes in his lambswool jumper and his glasses were slightly crooked on the brow of his nose. Jem wondered once more at her feelings for this man. What was it about him that kept him in her thoughts? Why had she even noticed him? Was it, as she had concluded a few nights ago, simply an ego boost or was it that she was reading too much into his recurrent appearances in her life, or did she actually want to have an affair with him? No – she threw the thought violently from her mind – she did not want to have an affair with him, she was just impressed by him, that was all. She found the sheer novelty of a man who could look after his own child without a woman enthralling. But somehow she had blurred the boundaries in her head between respect and attraction. He was a nice-looking man, nothing special, but compared to Ralph he was surely a god.
Blake began wriggling in the sling and she unpopped the fastenings. Then she took a handful of small toys from her handbag and laid him on the floor where he stared in awe at the rather ugly mother-of-pearl lightshade over the central light, rolling gently from side to side in his fleecy all-in-one.
The girls ate in silence, occasionally lifting plastic cups of juice to their lips, gingerly, with two cupped hands. Jem sipped her tea, which was very good, and wondered if it was her turn to speak.
‘So,’ said Jem, looking at the monitor screen behind him, ‘what is it that you do, exactly?’
Joel turned and glanced at the screen. ‘Oh, that. That’s not work, that’s household accounts. Just been working out if we can afford to eat next month.’
‘And?’ Jem asked.
He took a sharp intake of breath and smiled drily. ‘Just about,’ he sighed. ‘Just about. So really, I need to spend more time working and less time working out our household accounts.’
‘And working is …?’
‘Well, working is the problem. Because really I don’t. I do some work for a youth centre on Electric Avenue. I get paid for it, but not really enough to live a proper life. And I do some research here and there for think tanks, about youth and drugs and crime, and a bit of stuff for the Brixton Times, but it’s all very piecemeal. I’ve just sort of put everything on hold for this one,’ he gestured towards Jessica. ‘I need to sort myself out. She’ll be starting nursery full time in September. Then it’s school. Then, well,’ he smiled sadly, ‘my work here will be done.’
‘No it won’t!’ rejoined Jessica. ‘You still have to give me baths. And brush my teeth. You still have to carry on being my daddy!’
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Jem and Joel laughed. ‘That is very true, munchkin,’ said Joel. ‘Very true indeed. I will have to carry on being your daddy for a very long time indeed.’
‘Good,’ said Jessica, ‘that’s good.’
‘But,’ continued Joel, ‘once you’re at school all day, your daddy will need to start thinking about ways to earn more money, so that you and I can have all the things we need.’
‘Like pink paint in my bedroom?’
‘Yes, like pink paint in your bedroom.’
‘Whoo-hoo!’ Jessica got to her feet and performed a victorious air thump. ‘Come on, Scarlett. Let’s go an’ PLAY!’
Scarlett looked at Jem beseechingly but Jem just blinked at her reassuringly. ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘I’m just in here.’
For a moment it seemed as though Scarlett were on the brink of one of her magnificent and immovable refusals, but after a moment she allowed herself to be pulled forcibly from the room by her hand and suddenly Jem and Joel were alone.
‘I didn’t offer you a muffin!’ said Joel, getting to his feet, slightly panicked.
‘Oh, no, honestly, it’s fine. I’m sort of off the muffins for now.’
‘Oh.’ He looked at her for a moment, clearly not sure how to respond to a comment plucked from the murky pond of women and their weight issues. ‘More tea?’
