One Day in December

by Josie Silver

  Once she’s definitely gone, I dump the piss-tea in the sink and pour myself a large glass of wine instead. How such a bitter woman raised such a sweet man is a mystery to me.

  I sit down on the sofa, feeling very alone. Lucille came here for one reason and one reason only: to make sure I’m aware that Oscar is spending half the week in Brussels with his far more suitable ex-girlfriend. His ex-girlfriend who he didn’t think to mention was now working under him.

  The one person I’d love to pick the phone up and talk to now is Sarah. I almost try her number, but what am I going to say if she actually answers? Hi, Sarah, I need someone to talk to because I’ve discovered that my husband is spending too much time with his ex? I somehow doubt she’d be a sympathetic ear. Instead I reach for my laptop and open Facebook. I’m not friends on there with Cressida, but Oscar is, and it’s a moment’s work to hop on to her page from his. Much of it’s set to private, aside from the few posts she wants the world to see, shots of her sophisticated lifestyle in Brussels. I click through until I find one of her in a group outside a bar, Oscar laughing beside her at the table.

  Oh, Oscar.

  JUNE 10

  Jack

  Edinburgh in the sunshine is bloody cracking. I’ve been here for a little more than a year now and it’s really starting to feel like home. I know the streets without asking for directions—well, most of them—and I’ve got muscles in my calves I never had before because the whole place seems to be built on one huge mountain. When I first arrived I found the looming granite buildings austere, but perhaps it was more a reflection of my state of mind than the gothic architecture. I see the city now for what it is: vibrant, buzzing, welcoming. I’m still not keen on bagpipes, though.

  “Got you one in, Jack.” Lorne, my huge, bearded producer, spots me and raises a pint glass toward me across the beer garden. We’re having our team meeting in the pub, because that’s the way we roll.

  “No Verity today?” Haley, my assistant, raises her eyebrows at me as I flop down at the table.

  “Nope,” I say. “We’ve amicably parted ways.”

  There’s six of us around the table in all, and the others make an oooooh noise in unison. I flick them the Vs.

  “Children.”

  Haley tries to be grown up, which is ironic given that she’s the youngest member of the team.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”

  I shrug. “You didn’t.”

  “Shit, man,” Lorne says, doleful. “Sorry we took the piss.”

  I shrug again. In truth, I’m not overly upset. It’s been on the cards for a while; Verity has been getting more and more demanding in every sense of the word. She wanted more of everything than I have to give her: my time, my energy, my emotions. I don’t think either of us will find the separation too hard to get past; she was constantly hung up on Sarah and Laurie anyway, always pushing me to say she’s prettier, more successful, more fun than them. The competitiveness wearied me; it was more about being the best than being the best for me. I wasn’t the best for her, either. Our interests were wildly different; I don’t understand the rules of polo and I’m not especially keen on learning. I know that makes me sound like an ass; in truth I don’t have it in me for a relationship right now, with Verity or anyone else.

  I lift my pint. “To freedom.”

  Beside me, Lorne laughs and mutters something sarcastic about Braveheart.

  JUNE 25

  Laurie

  “Laurie…”

  I’ve just been for a job interview, and I’m rewarding myself with a coffee in the sunshine outside a cafe in Borough Market when someone pauses beside my table.

  It’s her.

  “Sarah.” I stand, shocked to see her unexpectedly, even more shocked that she’s stopped to speak to me. “How’ve you been?”

  She nods. “Yeah, you know. Same old same old. You?”

  It’s so painfully stilted, I could cry. “I’ve just had an interview for a new job.”

  “Oh.”

  I want her to press me for the details, but she doesn’t. “Can you stay for coffee?”

  She looks at my cup, deliberating. “I can’t, I’m expected somewhere.”

  The joy of speaking to her is so searing, so absolute, that I want to hang on to the edge of her jacket to stop her from leaving. My disappointment must be written all over my face, because the smallest of smiles crosses her lips.

  “Another time, though, Lu, yes?”

  I nod. “Shall I call you?”

  “Or I’ll call you. Either way.”

  She lifts her hand in farewell, and then melts into the bustle of the market crowd. A few seconds later, my phone buzzes.

  Fingers crossed for the job. S x

  I can’t stop the gulp of tears. I was sickly nervous all morning about the interview for a job on the features desk of a glossy women’s mag, and now I couldn’t care less if I get it or not because I just got something far more precious. I think I might have got my best friend back—some small part of her, at least. I feel like chucking the coffee in the nearest plant pot and ordering a cocktail.

  OCTOBER 12

  Laurie

  “Happy birthday, dear Thomas,

  Happy birthday to you!”

  We all clap, and the baby laughs like a contented loon.

  “I can’t believe he’s one already,” I say, bouncing him on my hip as I’ve watched Anna do for most of the weekend. My sister-in-law is fully immersed in parenthood, never knowingly seen without a muslin cloth over her shoulder or the hip rest slung around her waist in readiness for Tom’s chubby little behind to land on it. I’ll give it to him: he’s super-cute. All blond curls and pudge, with a couple of tiny white bottom teeth and peaches in his cheeks. For one so tiny, he’s completely dominated the weekend; everything is geared around being compatible with a baby.

  “He looks good on you, Laurie.”

  “Don’t say another word.” I shoot my mum a warning look.

  She shrugs, laughing. “I was just thinking…”

  What everyone else is thinking, I think but don’t say. When are we likely to hear the patter of tiny feet is pretty much the first thing most people ask us now that we’re married, with the notable exception of Lucille, who probably falls to her knees beside her bed every night and prays that I’m barren. It’s 2014 not 1420, I want to yell when yet another colleague asks me if we’re thinking of kids. What if I want a career first?

  Daryl puts his arm around my shoulders in welcome solidarity, and straightaway the baby fusses to be handed over to his dad. “Put it off for as long as possible, sis. Your life will never be the same again afterward.”

  I’m relieved that Oscar has already left for home, thus avoiding this entire conversation. He left the party early because he’s flying out to Brussels tonight in readiness for a prolonged five-day stretch; they’re in the middle of crucial takeover negotiations and he needs to be there to oversee things. I haven’t allowed myself to quiz him over whether or not Cressida will be there for the duration too; he’s promised me there’s nothing for me to worry about where she’s concerned and I’m choosing to wholeheartedly believe him. He was right after all—I knew that Cressida worked for the same company—I just didn’t know they worked in such close proximity. Thankfully, I’m not the jealous type, and he’s never given me any reason to think he still harbors feelings for her. They have to work together—it happens. They have to work together in a different country—to be fair, that probably happens less often, but I trust Oscar, and that’s that. So with him on his way to Brussels, I’ve decided to stay over with my folks until tomorrow afternoon. I’m trying my best to stick to my New Year’s resolution where they’re concerned, if not where Lucille is.

  Is it terrible to say I feel slightly more relaxed since I wave
d him off? He’s never anything but complimentary about my parents, yet still I always feel slightly awkward when we’re all together, as if without me there’d just be three strangers in a room. I spent a chunk of our train journey pretending to sleep, when actually what I was doing was assembling a small selection of subjects I could bring up. Holidays, work (mine more than Oscar’s, for obvious reasons), the new color we’re painting the bathroom, that kind of thing. I hadn’t counted on baby Tom, of course. There’s no conversational lulls with a baby around, so all in all it’s been a pleasant family weekend. I find that I almost don’t want to go back to London tomorrow, back to our lonely, quiet flat.

  “Take this through to your dad, will you, love?” Mum rolls her eyes as she hands me a mug of tea. “He’s in the den watching football.”

  Dad’s an avid Aston Villa fan; if they’re on TV he’s watching it, even on his grandson’s birthday, it would seem. I take the mug and escape down the hall, glad of an excuse to get out of the “when will Laurie have a baby” conversation. The answer is when—and if—Laurie is ready.

  “Dad?” I push the den door, startled when it won’t open. It can’t be locked; it doesn’t even have a lock on it. I push again. There’s something wedged behind it. “Dad?” I call out again. My heart starts to race when he doesn’t answer. Panicked, I shoulder the door, slopping tea onto Mum’s new beige carpet, and this time it opens an inch or so. Then everything seems to stop, and I hear someone who sounds like me, but can’t possibly be, yelling out for help again and again.

  OCTOBER 13

  Laurie

  “I’ve given her something to help her sleep, she’s exhausted.”

  I try to smile at the doctor when he comes downstairs, but my face won’t do it. “Thank you.”

  Dr. Freeman lives across the street from my mum and dad, and over the years he’s been in and out of our house for both social and medical reasons. Christmas parties, broken bones. He came the second Daryl banged on his front door yesterday, yelling for help, and he’s here again now to see how things are.

  “I’m so sorry, Laurie.” He squeezes my shoulder. “If there’s anything I can do, just pick up the phone, day or night.”

  Daryl sees him out, and then we sit together at the dining table in our parents’ too-quiet house. Anna has taken the baby home, and Oscar is stuck in Brussels until tomorrow afternoon at least. He feels desperate about it, but to be honest there isn’t anything he, or anyone else, can do or say.

  My dad died yesterday. Here one minute, and then gone, with no one at his side to hold his hand or kiss him goodbye. I’m plagued by the thought that we might have been able to do something to help if only we’d been with him. If Daryl or I had taken the time to watch the game with him like we used to as kids, even though neither of us is big into football. If Mum had made his tea ten minutes earlier. If, if, if. The ambulance crew who arrived and declared him dead tried their best to assure us otherwise, that it bore all the hallmarks of a massive heart attack and it would have taken him regardless. But what if he called out and no one heard him? Daryl pushes the tissues toward me and I realize I’m crying again. I don’t think I’ve stopped today. Don’t they say that human beings are seventy percent water or something crazy like that? It must be true, because it’s flooding from me like a tap left on in an abandoned house.

  “We need to make funeral arrangements.” Daryl’s voice is hollow.

  “I don’t know how,” I say.

  He squeezes my hand until his knuckles are white. “Me neither, but we’ll sort it out, you and me. Mum needs us to do it.”

  I nod, still seeping tears. He’s right, of course; Mum is in bits, there’s no way she’s going to be able to do anything. I’ll never forget as long as I live the sight of her scrabbling on her knees to get to Dad. She came running, panic-stricken, as soon as I yelled, as if some sixth sense had alerted her to the fact that the love of her life was in trouble. They’ve been together since they were fifteen years old. I can still hear it now: the sound of her screaming his name when she couldn’t rouse him, the low wail of grief as the ambulance crew recorded the time of his death and gently moved her away from his body. And since then, nothing. She’s barely talking, she won’t eat, she hasn’t slept. It’s as if she’s shut down, as if she can’t be here now that he isn’t. Dr. Freeman said it’s okay that she’s reacted this way, that everyone reacts differently and to just give her time. But I don’t honestly know if she’ll ever get over this. If any of us will.

  “We’ll go tomorrow,” Daryl says. “Anna will come and sit with Mum.”

  “Okay.”

  We fall back into silence in the immaculate, quiet room. This is the house where we grew up, and this is the room where we always ate dinner together, always in our same places around the table. Our family of five barely survived becoming a family of four after Ginny died; always an empty chair. I look toward my dad’s empty chair now, crying again. I can’t fathom how we can go on as a family of three. It’s too few.

  Jack

  “Whoever you are, fuck off.”

  They don’t, so I fling my arm out of bed and grope around on the floor for my cell phone. People know full well I work nights, they can bloody hear me on the radio, so God only knows why someone is insisting on calling me before lunchtime. My fingers close around my phone just as it stops; typical. I bring it up close to my face and squint at it, my head already back on the pillow. Missed call from Laurie. Shit. I eye Amanda’s straight, naked back turned toward me and weigh up whether it’s crass to call Laurie back while my girlfriend sleeps beside me. On balance, I think it probably is, so I click it off. It can’t be that urgent.

  “Who was it?”

  Amanda turns to me, all honey skin and blue eyes and stiff nipples. We’re still in the “screw like rabbits” stage of our relationship, and the sight of her no-tan-lines body does freaky things to my brain.

  “Cold call.”

  I lean in and close my lips over one of her nipples, and behind me on the bedside table my phone rattles loudly to indicate a new message. Laurie doesn’t call very often. We mostly email or chat on Facebook every now and then like civilized adults these days. If she’s left a message, she must want something particular.

  “Fuck, sorry.” I roll away and pick my phone up. “I better just check it. Hold that thought.”

  She watches me idly as I click to listen, and as the automated voice tells me I have one new message, she slides her hand under the sheet and down my stomach. Christ, she’s good. I close my eyes, breathless as the message begins. I’ve pretty much forgotten who’s called me.

  “Hey, Jack. It’s me. Laurie.” I want to tell Amanda to stop, because it suddenly feels all kinds of wrong listening to Laurie’s quiet voice with another woman’s hand wrapped around my cock. “I wanted to talk to you. Hear your voice.” Christ, I feel as if I’m hallucinating. Even now I sometimes still dream about Laurie, and often the dreams go pretty much like this. She calls me, she wants me, she needs me. I’m rock hard.

  “I’m sorry for calling when you’re probably sleeping. It’s just that my dad died yesterday. I thought you might be around.”

  Somewhere in the middle of listening to that sentence I realized she was crying and pushed Amanda away. I sit bolt upright in bed. Laurie’s dad’s died. Fucking hell, hang on, Lu. I stumble out of bed, dragging my jeans on as I stab the buttons on my phone and mumble an apology at Amanda. I lock myself in the bathroom and sit on the closed toilet so I can speak to Laurie without being overheard. She answers on the third ring.

  “Lu, I just got your message.”

  “Jack.”

  She doesn’t get beyond my name before she’s sobbing too hard to get her words out, so I do the talking instead.

  “Hey, hey, hey.” I speak as softly as I can. “I know, sweetie, I know.” I wish with all of my
heart that I could hold her. “It’s okay, Laurie, it’s all right, sweetheart.” I close my eyes, because her grief is so raw it hurts me to hear it. “I wish I was where you are,” I whisper. “I’m wrapping my arms tight around you. Can you feel me, Lu?” The sound of Laurie crying is the worst thing in the world. “I’m stroking your hair, and I’m holding you, and I’m telling you everything’s going to be okay,” I say, quiet words as her sobs slow. “I’m telling you that I’ve got you, and I’m here.”

  “I wish you were,” she says after a while, ragged words.

  “I could be. I’ll get the next train.”

  She sighs, her voice steadier at last. “No, I’m okay, honestly I am. Daryl’s here, and Mum, of course, and Oscar should be here tomorrow night.”

  Oscar should be there right now, I think but don’t say.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she says. “I don’t know what to do, Jack.”

  “Lu, there isn’t anything you can do. Believe me, I know.”

  “I know you do,” she says softly.

  “You don’t need to rush or do anything at all today,” I tell her, because I remember those dark, difficult days all too well. “It’s going to be confusing, just do whatever you feel is right—don’t beat yourself up for crying too much or for not crying when you think you should or for not knowing how to help your mum. Just be, Laurie. It’s all you can do right now. Hang in there, okay? Wait for Oscar to come to do the official things, let him get in touch with the right people for you. Trust me, he’ll be glad of a practical way to help.”

  “Okay.” She sounds relieved, as if she just needs someone to walk through this with her. How I wish it could be me.

  OCTOBER 27

  Laurie

  “Alice at number three asked me to bring this in. Said she’ll be at the church later.”