by Mike Gayle
Mellowing, she reaches out a hand and rubs the spot on my chest where she struck me. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just I don’t think you should go bandying about words like “girlfriend” unless you mean it.’
‘And who says I don’t?’ I’m glad to have our first argument behind us. I feel the same rush of affection for her as this morning when she left for work. ‘You are my girlfriend, aren’t you? I don’t want to be with anyone else and I don’t want to be anywhere else.’ I dig around in my bag, pull out a book and hand it to Rosa.
‘The Velveteen Rabbit,’ she says, ‘you remembered.’
‘I’ve been hunting for it ever since you mentioned it at the party. A copy came in last week and I was going to keep it to celebrate our one-month anniversary but now will do just as well.’
‘I love it,’ she says and kisses my cheek. She flicks through as if searching for something. ‘This is the part I was telling you about, the part that reminds me of you: “Real isn’t how you are made,” says the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you . . . It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” ’
She looks at me. ‘You’ve been battered, bruised and pretty much neglected Matthew Beckford, but you’re real and don’t you ever forget it.’
Ordinarily I’d make a joke about losing my hair but feeling oddly moved by the quotation, I just say, ‘OK.’
The rest of our Friday night goes well. Rosa declares my fish-finger sandwiches the best she’s ever tasted and once we’ve cleared up the kitchen we drink wine, talk until late and fall asleep on the sofa in each other’s arms.
The following morning I find myself lying next to a beautiful partially dressed woman snoring softly at my side, with a whole work-free Saturday stretching ahead of us and not a worry in the world. Life really doesn’t get any better.
And then my phone rings.
I see that it’s my parents. I switch the phone to silent and set it back down on the table.
Rosa rouses herself and gently rubs her eyes. Her just-woken-up face is as beautiful as her everyday made-up face. ‘Who was that?’
‘My mum most likely.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘I couldn’t bring myself to answer it. I already feel guilty enough that I haven’t seen much of my folks these past few weeks. She’s probably fed up that I’ve been spending all my time here and is trying to coax me home with the promise of a meal. She’s called about half a dozen times and not left a message.’
Rosa frowns. ‘I feel bad. Maybe you should see her then.’
‘What? And spend a night away from you? No thanks. I’ll drop in sometime on Sunday. They’ll be fine.’
‘And will you take me?’
I eye her suspiciously. Surely we weren’t at this stage quite yet. I know I’d called her my girlfriend but wasn’t this usually a few more months down the line? ‘I wasn’t planning on it but if you want to . . .’
‘No, not really, not unless you want to.’
The relief I feel is palpable. My parents would take Rosa’s presence in my life as further evidence that I wasn’t taking the breakdown of my marriage seriously enough and was more than likely having some kind of mid-life crisis.
‘There’s no rush is there?’
‘Well, my parents have been asking about you quite a bit and I’ve been putting them off, but yesterday they bullied me into bringing you to their house tonight for supper.’
‘Supper?’ Having never had a great deal to do with people who called their ‘dinner’ ‘supper’ until I reached university, I still found the word amusing whenever I heard it used.
Rosa pulls a throw around her and sits up, revealing the very beguiling tops of her naked shoulders. ‘You hate the idea, don’t you? I’ll just call and tell them you’re not well.’
I’m still thinking about her naked shoulders. ‘Sorry?’
‘I said you hate the idea.’
‘I don’t love it.’
She looks crestfallen. I hate seeing someone with shoulders this beautiful looking crestfallen. It’s a million different kinds of wrong.
‘But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t go, it might be fun.’
Rosa laughs. ‘It won’t be fun, they’ll ask you a hundred and one questions and make a big deal of the fact that they’re not making a big deal that you’re thirty-nine.’
‘Which I’m guessing is better than them making a big deal about it?’
‘Only just. Are you sure you feel up to this?’
I’m not at all sure. Rosa’s dad is only five years older than Gerry and her mum is only twelve years older than me. They’re both academics working in the English department at Birmingham University. Her dad likes Bob Dylan and her mum is a world expert on the poetry of Christina Rossetti and I know for a fact that unless I Wikipedia both this could easily end up being the longest meal of my life. But whether I succeed in entertaining her parents or not I want to do this because I know how much it will mean to Rosa and if it makes her happy then – fingers crossed – it’ll make me happy too.
‘What time do they want us?’
She fixes me with a stare that smoulders with intensity. I genuinely can’t remember the last time a woman looked at me like that.
‘Have you any idea how much I fancy you right now?’
‘Why don’t you show me?’
33
‘Rosa tells us that you’re between jobs at the moment,’ says Rosa’s dad halfway through dinner. So far we’ve discussed London house prices, the best place to buy free-range chickens, TV chefs in general, Jamie Oliver in particular and how much we all miss old style Master Chef when Loyd Grossman was presenting it. Having worked through so many topics I am more than a little disheartened to find myself back here again. ‘That’s certainly one way of putting it,’ I say and thankfully everyone laughs. ‘Right now I’m doing some voluntary work.’
Tony nods. ‘Decided to do some giving back.’
‘Something like that,’ I reply.
‘And what are your plans for the future?’
Arabella leans forward and Rosa reaches under the table and squeezes my hand.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Bit of a free spirit, are you?’
‘I’d love to say yes,’ I reply, ‘but I’d be lying. I’ve just come to a bit of a crossroads and I haven’t quite worked out which path to take.’
‘What are the options?’
‘Go back to what I was doing before or find something new. Given how much I hated the former that isn’t really an option so I’ll just keep searching until I find what I’m looking for.’
‘That sounds like an excellent plan,’ says Arabella, coming to my rescue. ‘I think we’ve all been in that place where we’re not sure what the next move to make is. Rosa was exactly the same when she left Cambridge.’
I look at Rosa. ‘You went to Cambridge?’
‘And got a double first in the History of Art,’ adds Tony.
‘I just worked hard,’ says Rosa dismissively. ‘Dad thinks that makes me a genius.’
‘It most certainly does,’ interjects her father proudly. ‘You can do anything you want with your life.’
‘I know I can,’ says Rosa, tensing, ‘that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing right now.’
I joke that perhaps Rosa ought to give me some careers advice and the laughter lifts the tension long enough for us all to move on and finish our meal without any further discussion about my job prospects.
Despite my earlier anxiety, my visit to Rosa’s parents appears to be going reasonably well. Tony (a tall, thin man with such a bookish air that even if he’d been naked rather than wearing a tweed jacket and mid-brown cords could not have been m
istaken for anything other than an academic) turns out to be quite a laugh and though I feared we’d have nothing in common we end up bonding over a love of Seinfeld and early Curb Your Enthusiasm; meanwhile even though Arabella (a strikingly beautiful woman who looks more like an ex-model than an academic) and I have little in common I still manage to get on with her mainly because after years of making small talk with strangers in offices around the world it turns out that I’m a pretty good conversationalist.
Even when they bring up the fact that I’m still married (‘Rosa’s told us about your situation. It must be so difficult for you.’) I handle it really well, (‘Obviously I’m not exactly thrilled about it, Arabella, but these things do happen,’) and then I move the conversation swiftly on to an article I’d read on the internet about the current state of university teaching in the UK, and that was it, they were off talking about their world and I didn’t need to pick up the conversational reins again until long after dessert.
Thinking back to all the times I’ve worried about such encounters, whether it be a girlfriend’s parents or a third round of job interviews, suddenly I wish I could go back and face them all but this time with the benefit of age and experience to calm me down.
We stay at Rosa’s parents’ long after midnight and despite their invitation to stay in one of their many spare bedrooms the look of mortification that spreads across my face the moment the idea is mentioned is enough to send Rosa straight to her phone in search of a minicab firm.
‘Well, that was a lucky escape,’ I say once we’re safely ensconced in a cab heading back to her flat. ‘Were they serious about me staying?’
Rosa nods. ‘My parents have never made a big deal about me bringing boyfriends home. I think Mum just likes to see the house full. Didn’t you ever have girlfriends stay at your parents’ house when you were younger?’
‘Never. It would have been my worst nightmare and would’ve put me off sex for life. We’ve lived such different lives you and I, we really have.’
‘Maybe,’ says Rosa, pulling herself closer to me, ‘but none of that matters now does it?’
‘No.’ I say and I’m pretty sure I mean it.
The next morning I wake quite early and even though it’s a Sunday and I’m not due in the shop until Monday I’m overcome by the urge to get up and go back to my own parents’. Maybe having spent an evening with Rosa’s parents means I find myself missing my own. I just really fancy an afternoon of their kind of normal: talking sport or local politics with Dad; hearing Mum’s news about my nieces and nephews and engaging in the mundane conversation that I’ve known all my life and never bothered cherishing.
‘What’s up?’ asks Rosa, sensing I’m awake.
‘I’m going to get up and head back to my folks for a bit.’
‘This early? Why don’t you go later so we can have the morning together?’
‘I feel bad that I haven’t seen them properly for so long.’
She kisses me. ‘Are you sure?’
‘One hundred per cent.’ I kiss the top of her head. ‘I’ll see you tonight though if that’s OK? Maybe we can go to the cinema or something.’
‘Sounds like a plan. Promise you’ll text me later to let me know how your day’s going. It’ll be weird spending a whole Sunday without you.’
I’m up, showered and dressed in fifteen minutes and I make my way back over to Kings Heath. Opening the front door, I call out to let my parents know I’m back. They’re in the kitchen, Dad dressed in the old clothes he wears for gardening and Mum, surrounded by open bags of flour, sugar and currants, looks to be halfway through making a cake.
She turns off the mixer. ‘And it’s only now you finally remember where you live?’
‘It’s good to see you too, Mum,’ I say, laughing. ‘What have I missed?’
They exchange wary glances.
‘Listen son,’ says Dad. ‘We’ve got some news that might come as a bit of a surprise.’
‘OK.’ I take a seat at the kitchen table, bracing myself for the news that they’re getting a divorce, which is the only reason I can conjure up for them acting so oddly. ‘Fire away.’
‘We’ve sold the house,’ says Mum. ‘We’re moving.’
‘You’ve done what?’
Dad shakes his head in dismay. This isn’t the way he’d wanted to do things. ‘We’ve sold the house, son.’
‘This house? Eighty-eight Hampton Street?’
‘Of course this house,’ snaps Mum. ‘What other house have we got?’
‘But I don’t get it. There hasn’t even been a For Sale board outside.’
‘It all happened so fast,’ says Dad.
‘It’s not like we haven’t been trying to get hold of you,’ adds Mum defensively. ‘You’re like the invisible man these days. Where have you been spending all your time?’
‘With a mate.’
Mum raises an eyebrow sceptically. ‘Which . . . mate is this then?’
‘Look Mum,’ I say in an exasperated tone, ‘it doesn’t matter, does it? There’s more important stuff going on right now. I mean, how could you possibly have sold the house this quickly?’
‘A property developer bought it.’
I feel like the mother in Jack and the Beanstalk, about to blow her cork because her clueless son has sold the family cow for a bag of magic beans. ‘A property developer? What does a property developer want to buy our house for?’
‘He doesn’t. We’ve done one of those part-exchange things.’
I feel sick. This is getting worse with every second that passes. I always knew my parents would need looking after eventually but I never imagined that it would come so soon. ‘You’ve part-exchanged our family home for what exactly?’
‘A two-bed bungalow ten minutes away from your sister in Worcester,’ says Dad, and he looks at Mum as if seeking encouragement.
And then it all makes sense. They had been serious about wanting to do the grandparent thing properly after all. They were serious about there being more to life than acting as the collective guardians of my childhood memories.
‘You know your mum and I have been wanting to be closer to Yvonne and the kids? Well, a couple of weeks ago we went to see your sister and your mother was distracting me with all of her talk about the woman at sixty-seven who’s just moved a new bloke in and I missed the turning I usually take and we ended up getting a bit lost. Anyway, we come round the bend and notice a sign for a new retirement development that’s just been completed. Your mother’s always got her eye out for things like this so she notes down the number, we make some enquiries when we get to Yvonne’s and the sales people invite us round to take a look that very afternoon. Long story short, we fell in love.’
Mum nods her approval eagerly. ‘You should see them, Matthew, they’re only two-bed bungalows but they’re so lovely. Fully double-glazed, a spacious kitchen-diner, a living room large enough to fit the whole family at Christmas, a purpose-built utility room, a master bedroom with an en-suite plus a decent-sized family bathroom, a double garage for your father and a garden which while not exactly finished to our tastes will be sorted out in no time.’
‘And don’t forget the views,’ adds Dad.
‘Oh, the views,’ says Mum. ‘Matthew you should see them. Just trees and fields for as far as the eye can see.’
‘So anyway,’ continues Dad, ‘after we’d looked around the sales lady asked us about our situation. We told her and straightaway she said that she thought part-exchange would be the way forward. Their valuer came a few days later, we got a chap in a few days after that and it’s been with the solicitor ever since.’
‘And they think it’s going to be done in three weeks.’
Dad nods, his face the picture of guilt. ‘We signed the papers yesterday, son, the date’s set and the removal men booked for the first Friday in March.’
‘We can go over this afternoon if you like,’ says Dad. ‘We might not be able to see the actual bungalow if they’re too busy in th
e sales department but there’s a show bungalow that you can look around to get a feel for the place. And I promise you, your room has got one of the best views of the whole house.’
‘My room?’
‘Well, you’ll be coming with us won’t you? I mean, it’s not like you’ve got anywhere else to live.’
I don’t reply. I can’t. My brain absolutely refuses to process the information.
‘We didn’t do this lightly,’ says Mum. ‘I know this place has got a lot of memories for you, it has for all of us, but it’s like I said to your father only yesterday: You can’t keep living in the past. You have to look to the future.’
34
I don’t go out for the rest of the day. I spend what’s left of it on the phone to my siblings venting about the crazy nature of my parents’ plan. Even though I put my case as even-handedly as I can (given the circumstances), pointing out that none of us has looked over the contract, investigated how much they’ve paid to secure the house or indeed (with the exception of Yvonne) even seen the bungalow, all of them think that this is the single best thing Mum and Dad could have done and I am insane for believing otherwise. ‘If you’d seen how happy Mum looked when she saw the views from the kitchen,’ said Yvonne, ‘you wouldn’t doubt that they’ve made the right decision.’ My brother Tony was equally effusive: ‘Bruv, they are going to be so happy in the place,’ and finally in his typical diplomatic style my brother Ed observed: ‘This isn’t about them, it’s about you and the hard time you’re having with everything that’s going on in your life. I get it, it’s tough, but if you took the time to look beyond your world for a minute or two you’d see how right this move is for them.’ I didn’t think much of Yvonne’s and Tony’s comments or even Ed’s half-baked pop psychology, and I left them with the most important issue at hand: ‘Once the house is sold that’s going to be it, a whole chapter of our lives closed for good, with no chance of it ever being reopened. If you’re going to make a decision like that you have to think it through, you have to be sure, because if you’re not the moment might come when you’ll regret it and by then it will be too late.’
