by Fiona Gibson
‘Er … yep.’
‘But that’s, like, four days away!’
Luke shrugs, at least having the decency to look embarrassed. ‘You know how it is, Dad. We’ve only just got back together …’ Yes, so I bloody heard. ‘And it’ll save you getting so much food in,’ Luke adds lamely.
‘Yeah, I suppose so.’ James musters a faint smile. ‘I was hoping for a quiet Christmas anyway.’
‘Great. Thanks, Dad. I knew you’d be cool about it and I’ll only be gone a couple of days.’ There’s a quick hug from his son, then he’s gone, leaving James regretting his grumpiness when Luke was being perfectly pleasant. And hadn’t James told Kerry that he desperately needed some space? It’ll be great, having Christmas Day all to himself. He’ll be able to, um … what exactly? Watch so much TV and gorge on so many chocolate brazils that he makes himself feel ill? He has never spent a Christmas alone and now, at the ripe old age of forty-three, he’ll have to figure out how to do it. If he still had Buddy, they could go for a long, festive walk that would at least give the day a sense of purpose and structure.
James makes a coffee and wonders what to do next. He’s become so unused to having time on his hands that he is, literally, incapable of knowing how to fill it. Should he call Kerry to find out if they managed to excavate the sweetcorn last night? How would they do it – with a little suction device like they use at the dentist’s? It seems rude and uncaring not to get in touch, but maybe it’d be a bit much to call right away. He’s forgotten how to be with women, that’s the trouble, especially one who’s so attractive and intriguing, yet gives the impression that she doesn’t actually need anyone very much at all. Not a boyfriend, anyway. James feels terribly out of practice with this kind of stuff. He’s been single for nine months now, and the last person – Sarah with the pie-crust collared, libido-murdering nightie – wasn’t what you’d call a proper girlfriend. She’d been a client; he’d built a website for her angel-channelling business. Then he’d sort of fallen in with her, or rather, fallen into her four-poster bed with its dreadfully-painted cherubs peering down from the canopy. It was disconcerting, having sex beneath the gaze of dozens of chubby little baby faces. Off-putting in the extreme. So James had retreated, deciding he was finished with women – until Kerry had appeared in the shop, oohing and ahhing over his chocolate brownie … Perhaps the cherubs/pie-crust-nightie combination hadn’t killed his sex drive after all.
The thought of Kerry and the brownie has perked him up, and he heads out at midday, making his way to the town centre. An enormous Christmas tree stands proudly in front of the town hall, and the assortment of gift shops are crammed with Shorling-acceptable decorations: silver stars, paper lanterns and plain glass vases filled with fir-cone laden twigs. Nothing as crass as fake snow or tinsel around here. James stops outside the arthouse cinema – the one that sells proper coffee and carrot cake – and is drawn in through its beautiful art deco doors.
Why not see whatever is on, just for the hell of it? In typically arrested-development fashion, Luke still favours American Pie type trash, and Amy was always dragging him along to see terrible rom-coms which she’d weep over and insist on re-watching at home on DVD. A small realisation brings a smile to his lips: he will never have to watch another Jennifer Aniston movie ever again. Today, James reflects, he can do whatever the hell he wants, so he buys a ticket for a Hungarian movie he’s never heard of, looking forward to broadening his mind. Two hours later, he blunders out, having watched a young woman with self-cut hair and smeared lipstick screaming in a hospital ward for pretty much the duration of the movie. He heads for the seafront, blinking in the sharp December sunshine, feeling as if he, too, is in dire need of psychiatric help.
And now he’s on the beach, where everyone seems to have a dog except him. A girl in a sky-blue tracksuit jogs past with a poodle-type hound, its neatly clipped coat resembling her prim blonde bunches. A gang of excitable spaniels are bouncing around together on the sand, and there’s that woman in the bright pink coat with the little white terrier – the one who took delight in dispensing unasked-for training tips for Buddy. He must understand who’s boss … You need to show him that you’re the leader of the pack, and you MUST get a whistle and a Halti lead … Yeah, yeah. He’d always thanked her politely as Buddy launched into a terrible display of barking and lunging at the sight of her (perhaps it was the pink coat, in a similar way in which bulls go mad for red?). She flashes him a quick smile now, glancing down at the space where Buddy should be. ‘Oh, where’s your dog today?’
‘Erm … I don’t have him anymore,’ James says levelly.
‘Really?’ She frowns with concern. ‘Nothing … happened to him, did it?’
‘No, no, things just got too … hectic. Couldn’t manage to walk him as much as he needs so I decided, sadly, that I’d better rehome him—’
‘Does that piano teacher woman have him now?’ she cuts in.
‘Er … yes, that’s right.’
The woman flares her nostrils. ‘I thought it was him – your Buddy, I mean. Ruined my coat, had to get it dry cleaned and even then it didn’t all come out, look …’
She points to a small, greyish mark a few inches below the collar. ‘Oh dear,’ James says flatly, then turns and walks swiftly towards the kiosk at the end of the beach.
He starts to feel better as he perches on the rocks and sips an Americano. The sky is a bright winter-blue, his rather watery coffee making a pleasant change from the fierce stuff they sell in the shop, brewed with freshly-ground Ecuadorian beans. Sometimes, he reflects, something ordinary can be pretty good.
James sees her then – or rather, he sees Buddy first, leaping to catch a stick. And there’s Kerry, striding along in the distance with her two children – she must have kept them both off school today – looking quite the happy, well-functioning family. He sees the pink coat woman’s white terrier doing a dump on the sand, and its owner glance around before quickly walking away. James is transfixed as Kerry clearly sees what’s happened, and hurries over to hand the woman something – a little black poo bag, he thinks. The two women chat for a while, their dogs pottering about happily together.
The way Kerry looks so happy and natural with Buddy has triggered something else inside him: a fierce and sudden wave of missing Amy, as if it could be her over there, walking their dog. To his horror, tears fill his eyes. He lost his wife, and now his dog – what is wrong with him? Or is it the prospect of spending Christmas alone, which now feels far from okay? He knows he should head across the beach to say hi, and ask if Freddie’s fully recovered – but he can’t, not when he’s struggling to control his tear ducts. James gets up from the rocks and tips away the remains of his now-tepid coffee. He must leave the beach now, before Buddy spots him; if he does, he knows he’ll come bounding over, with Kerry in pursuit.
‘We’ve just grown apart, James,’ Amy had told him. He’s tried to forget her, but it’s virtually impossible when her piano is gawping at him every day in the house. He’s already dealt with the Buddy issue – should he make arrangements to rehome her piano too? James did everything he could to make Amy happy – God, how many of those terrible movies had he endured over the years? – yet she still left him. Dogs are different. You can give them away, as if they’re just some musical instrument no one plays any more, and they’ll still love you, no matter what.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘So how were things at handover this morning?’ Harvey asks Kerry as she makes coffee after his lesson.
‘Quick and straightforward,’ she replies, ‘which is about the best I can hope for. It’s better than the painful, sheepish-faced lingering thing he does sometimes.’
He chuckles, and she takes the seat opposite him, feeling the tension starting to ease after a particularly trying couple of days: the hospital visit, then blundering through yesterday, managing only a short dog walk in between catching up on an entire night’s lost sleep. (The children were so exhausted she’d kept the
m off school. Last day of term, too – the fun day, with nothing but games).
‘I don’t know what’s going on with Rob, though,’ she adds. ‘He says his mum’s being really peculiar with him – keeps asking if he has something personal he’d like to discuss.’
‘What could that be?’
‘No idea. I just wish he’d get over this urge to share every little detail of his life with me.’
‘Well,’ Harvey ventures, ‘he obviously still feels pretty tied to you.’
Kerry nods. ‘And I suppose we always will be, at least until the children are grown-up. But he also can’t help being disapproving, either, which is a bit bloody cheeky seeing as the sweetcorn thing happened when Freddie was in his care.’
‘Really? He implied it was your fault?’
‘Not exactly. But he did suggest that perhaps I should have checked sooner, just in case Freddie might have slotted something in there at some point …’
Harvey snorts. ‘So what happened at the hospital?’
‘Three hour wait in A&E. Mia curled up and slept on a plastic chair, and Freddie described the rotting mess in his ear to anyone who’d listen. And of course all the parents of children with fractured limbs were glaring at me as if to say, “Call yourself a mother?”’ Harvey laughs, fixing her with his clear blue eyes. ‘Then he was given a light anaesthetic,’ she continues, ‘and they managed to get it all out with tiny tweezers. Now he’s on antibiotics to zap any lingering infection.’ She stops herself. With no kids of his own, and clearly being a few years younger than she is, Harvey really doesn’t need to be bombarded all this child-related info. ‘Anyway, I’m being a mummy-bore,’ she says quickly.
‘No, you’re not, and I work with children, remember. I’m not completely allergic to them.’
Kerry smiles. ‘Still okay for Mia’s party next Saturday? We’ll have to miss your lesson that day, I’m afraid …’
‘Yeah, probably a good idea. Might be a bit challenging doing our improv session with fifteen children charging around the house.’
‘I do feel better, knowing you’re going to be there,’ she adds. ‘Mia’s given out the invitations but hardly anyone’s RSVP’d to say they’ll come.’
‘Oh, I’m sure they will …’
‘Will they, though?’ She gets up to refill Harvey’s mug from the percolator jug. ‘What if there’s only Mia, Freddie and my friend Brigid’s little boy Joe, and acres of untouched food? Hiring you will seem completely over the top …’
‘Kerry,’ he says firmly, ‘it’ll be fine.’
She exhales loudly. ‘This probably isn’t even about the party, not really. It’s just … I feel guilty, I guess, uprooting them from all their old friends just before their dad and I split up. It’s all been too much for them …’
‘But you had no idea that was going to happen,’ Harvey insists. ‘You moved down here for the best possible reasons …’
‘Yeah.’ She laughs mirthlessly. ‘The “great schools” issue. God …’ She gets up and swills out her mug at the sink. ‘Anyway, Harvey, I have to say I still can’t quite imagine you in the full clown outfit.’
He chuckles. ‘I know it sounds a bit crap to say I’m just doing this to tide me over. I’m an actor really – at least, that’s what I was trained to do. Things just went a bit quiet last year … well, silent actually.’
She turns and smiles at him. ‘I guess being pelted with barley sugars is slightly preferable to eviction and starvation.’
He nods. ‘Yes, just about.’
‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘you mean it’s not the way you planned things.’
‘Definitely not.’ He laughs ruefully.
Getting up from his basket to perform an extravagant stretch, Buddy pads to the front door and whines insistently. ‘Sorry, Harvey, but I need to take him out.’ She lifts her jacket from the hook on the door.
‘Mind if I come with you?’
Kerry smiles, suprised but pleased. ‘No, not at all. I’d like the company.’ And so they set out along the beach. As they walk, she learns about his flatmate Ethan who, at the ripe old age of thirty-three, finds it hilarious to leave sinister teeth marks in Harvey’s cheese, and how he’s having a hard time convincing his parents – churchy, conservative types up in Cumbria – that Ethan isn’t his boyfriend.
‘What about your parents?’ he asks. ‘Where are they?’
‘Oh, they died when I was seventeen. Car crash on holiday in France.’
‘That’s terrible,’ he exclaims. ‘I’m sorry I asked …’
‘It’s fine,’ she assures him. ‘It’s twenty years ago now. I do miss them of course but, you know … it’s as if another life has happened since then. It’s weird. They didn’t even know me as a proper adult, not really, and they never met Rob.’ Harvey nods, and although she has vowed to herself that she won’t launch into a despicable-ex rant, she can’t help blurting out, ‘You know what, Harvey? The one part I still can’t get my head around is that Rob says he can’t remember a thing about it.’
‘You mean sleeping with her?’ He looks incredulous.
‘Yes, the sex bit. The impregnation. Is that possible, d’you think?’
‘Um … can’t say it’s ever happened to me, but maybe, I don’t know – is there some kind of condition that makes people black out, y’know, mid-act?’
She frowns, considering this. ‘I’m not sure. Doesn’t petite mort mean orgasm? A little death, like a black-out …’
‘Yes, well, I suppose that could explain it …’ He gives her a quizzical look.
‘… Or maybe that’s her modus – inviting men to stay over and, when they’ve fallen asleep, she gets out her patented baby-making machine and syphons off their sperm …’
Harvey sniggers. ‘In that case, he should have called the police to report a theft.’ He checks his watch. ‘D’you have any more pupils today, Kerry? I fancy a drink, don’t you?’
‘Love one,’ she says firmly. ‘I’m free the rest of the day but we’ll have to sit outside, I’m afraid, freezing our arses off. Buddy doesn’t like being left on his own.’
*
The day has panned out better than Kerry could have hoped. She has enjoyed her lessons today – a sparky nine-year-old who’s hurtling towards grade three, followed by a pair of earnest teenage sisters who share a lesson; then Harvey, of course, who is learning the rudiments with endearing keenness. And now they’re on their second drink – beer for him, wine for her – grateful for the patio heater which is doing an excellent job of making The Jolly Roger’s beer garden a little less Baltic. In fact, Kerry isn’t feeling the cold at all as Harvey regales her with Ethan stories.
‘So he’s gone out,’ he tells her, ‘which happens about twice a year – did you ever see that Life on Earth documentary about the cockroaches that live on a huge pile of dung and never actually leave their cave?’
‘Oh yes, that’s Freddie’s favourite, the dung one …’
Harvey nods. ‘So my parents come over and it’s all nice, y’know, because my gay lover isn’t there, which always makes them twitchy – until Mum happens to glance at the fireplace and lets out this awful scream because Ethan had been complaining about a draught coming down the chimney and, in his wisdom, has stuffed my spare wig up there.’
Kerry snorts with laughter. ‘So it looked like someone was coming head-first down your chimney …’
‘Exactly.’ He grins. ‘Like Santa, but with bright yellow hair and about six weeks early.’
The next hour flies by extremely pleasantly as the sky darkens and Shorling’s silvery Christmas lights twinkle in the distance.
‘So,’ Harvey says as they head back along the coastal path, ‘you’ve told me about Rob, but what about you? Are you seeing anyone at the moment?’
His blatant question makes her break into a smile. ‘Nope. I did have dinner with someone a couple of days ago – the man I got Buddy from, actually – but it ended pretty abruptly with the leaky ear thing, and I think
that’s that.’ She decides not to mention that she’s slightly put out that James hasn’t called since, not even to ask about how things turned out with Freddie.
‘What,’ Harvey asks, frowning, ‘because of the corn, you mean? Why would that put someone off?’
Kerry shrugs. ‘Well, he has one grown-up son who seems really sweet and sorted, and I suspect he was horrified that a perfectly enjoyable evening can end up with us hurtling off to A&E. Anyway,’ she adds quickly, glancing down at Buddy, ‘he’s the only man in my life these days. I’ve decided it’s a whole lot simpler that way.’
‘Oh, come on. It’s no fun going out with someone whose poo you have to pick up in a bag.’
‘There are far worse things,’ she says, smirking. ‘I know he’s not the most obedient dog – I mean, I can’t see him trotting off to fetch my Saturday Guardian anytime soon – but apart from that, he’s so undemanding and simple and at the moment, that’s just what I need.’
‘Undemanding and simple,’ Harvey muses. ‘So that’s what you look for in a man.’
‘Yes, although I don’t mind if he rolls over for a belly tickle now and then. Anyway, listen – I’m starving and I know the cupboards are bare at home. I’d better pick up some supplies.’
Harvey bunches his hands into his jeans pockets. ‘You’re welcome to come back to mine if you like.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she says quickly. ‘Buddy and I were thinking of having a romantic Saturday night in.’
‘Ethan will be there,’ Harvey adds, as if keen to convey that he has no intention of pouncing on her, ‘and there’s a lamb dansak I made last night, always better the next day …’
‘Well, that sounds great,’ she says with a wide smile. ‘I’d love to come if you’re sure that’s okay. Just let me drop Buddy off at home.’
‘You needn’t do that. Just bring him with you.’
‘But I thought you said Ethan was allergic to dogs?’
‘He’ll be fine for a while,’ Harvey says with a grin. ‘Anyway, it’ll pay him back for his little prank with my wig.’
