After the Break

by Penny Smith

  Katie took her time, didn’t fall over, but was last. I was so worried before I set off that there was a small pile of bricks where I was standing,’ she told the group.

  Crystal looked confused. I didn’t see any bricks and I came down after you,’ she said.

  ‘You know,’ said Paul, I used to go out with Tessa Sanderson. But she chucked me.’

  ‘Did she?’ asked Crystal, concerned.

  ‘Stop taking the piss, you two,’ said Peter. He put an arm round Crystal. ‘Paul’s making a joke about the fact that Tessa Sanderson was a javelin thrower.’

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘You see,’ said Peter, throwing a glance at Paul, ‘some people don’t remember the Old Days.

  ‘Fatima Whitbread?’ asked Paul.

  Katie bit her lip, trying to remember the punchline. Her frown cleared. ‘No. Guffed in your Grolsch!’ she declared.

  He smiled approvingly.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Siobhan was with the VT editor, her truncheon-like big toes, with bright red nail polish, right on the edge of the table. He found it a gross infringement of his human rights to have them so close to his workspace, but she was renowned for her vicious streak so he kept his mouth tightly shut as he obeyed her orders. ‘Go back again to where Paul is talking to Katie at the top of the mountain,’ she said.

  Obediently he spooled to the sequence.

  She leaned forward. ‘Time code ten thirty-eight,’ she said, as he played it. ‘We’ll take it from where Katie says she’s thinking of a hard thing and his response.’

  He pressed the button.

  They watched as the columnist made his comment, and winked.

  ‘That’s a bit out of order, isn’t it? It makes it sound like it’s entirely a conversation about his, erm, manhood?’

  ‘If I want your input, I’ll ask for it. Otherwise shut the fuck up or I’ll have you taken off the production,’ she said, not looking away from the screen. ‘Now put in the section where she’s skiing and falls over.’

  He did as he was told, harbouring evil thoughts, as he spooled forwards.

  Siobhan called the time codes and he cut the pieces together. It really was above and beyond manipulation. He wondered if he should complain to his bosses–but he might end up sacked for his trouble. Actually, what did he care? The celebrities were all a bunch of losers getting paid a fortune for making tits of themselves. He’d get tanked up and forget about it as soon as his shift was over.

  He continued to cut the tape, and paste over the cracks with shots decided by Siobhan. Katie’s fall and rub down from Paul, her flirting with the doctor…

  Siobhan was extremely happy. She stood up and stretched in a way that she imagined was sexy and lithe.

  ‘Bitch,’ said the VT editor to the door as she left–but not loud enough for her to hear. He had a mortgage to pay.

  As the VT editor was lining up his fourth bourbon on the rocks, Bob Hewlett, landscape gardener from Yorkshire and erstwhile lover of Katie Fisher, was absent-mindedly opening a bottle of Rioja in the kitchen at his house in Hawes. He was in a quandary. He stood picking at one of his sideburns and debating his options. His girlfriend, marine biologist Clare McMurray, was gorgeous, but he could no longer deny that the ghost of Katie hung over their relationship.

  Normally Bob felt that he was very good at getting on with things. The past was the past. Move on. But a newspaper article about Katie being in Celebrity X-Treme, illustrated with a photograph of her smiling, had given him such a punch in the stomach that he felt queasy.

  It had been his decision to end their romance after her drunken kiss with a man in a nightclub. Actually, he could have got over that–but she hadn’t seen fit to warn him that it might be in the newspapers, and that had been cowardly. And how could he trust someone who’d fall into someone else’s arms after a few drinks?

  Their rekindled affair had been snookered by his own dalliance with Clare, which he hadn’t told Katie about. Well, he’d been single by that time, hadn’t he? Deep down, he knew he should have brought it up. Sauce for the goose et cetera. The time had never seemed right, though. And, anyway, why should he? Yes, he should have done. All right, all right, all right, already.

  He poured a tumbler of wine. Why did life have to be so blasted complicated? Why did brains have to keep on raking up stuff instead of leaving it in a pile to mulch down and melt away? He had a fantastic woman. Sex on tap–or as on tap as it was possible to be when the two of them lived so far apart. But could he imagine her as the mother of his future children? Could he have children? Did he want children?

  Oddly, when he’d been with Katie, he had imagined the two of them with a brace of progeny running round the house, Caligula the cat being joined by a dog, a hamster, stick insects, a collection of handmade pottery dinosaurs, potato-cut paintings…sticky fingerprints on the walls and sticky kisses all over his face.

  He was quite lost in contemplation of this idyll when Harry phoned to ask him if he fancied a quick snifter down the pub. ‘I’ll ask Clare,’ he said. ‘She’s just packing her bag to go to Wales or Ireland or wherever the hell she’s off to now.’

  He called up to her. ‘Do you want a drink at the pub before you go? With Harry?’

  He spoke to Harry again: ‘Fine. See you in ten.’

  Harry lived in the next village, with his wife and daughter Elizabeth, to whom Bob was godfather. He was one of the few people who knew everything there was to know about Bob’s love life. He was already at the bar when Bob and Clare arrived.

  ‘How’s work?’ Harry asked her, as he tried to catch the landlord’s eye.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Up to my ears as usual. Studying sea vegetables at the moment.’

  ‘Fun?’

  ‘Interesting. And cold.’

  ‘Are you doing all right, Bob?’

  ‘Fair to middling, as Dad always used to say. You know. I miss him as much now as I did when he died. Too late now to ask him whether it was fair to middling or whether he couldn’t be bothered to say anything else.’

  ‘Which means that work is fair to middling. Or is it crap?’ asked Harry, as they stuck their pints to an unwashed table, and Clare sipped her glass of lime and soda water.

  ‘No. Work is definitely fair to middling. I’m ever hopeful of the big project that’ll make me a fortune.’

  ‘Remain optimistic at all times,’ said Clare, jauntily.

  ‘As you know, Harry, it’s difficult in the current economic–’

  ‘Climate,’ Clare helped out. ‘Although I’m finding the climate quite challenging–one day I need a thermal suit, the next it’s T-shirt weather. Spring. Not easy when you’re out.’

  Bob didn’t continue.

  ‘How’s the watch business?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s fine. Could be better,’ Harry said.

  Clare’s mobile beeped. She flicked it open. ‘That’s the answer to the question you were asking earlier,’ she said to Bob. ‘Apparently that song was written in 1967 by Mike d’Abo from Manfred Mann and then it was performed by Rod Stewart in ’seventy and the Stereophonies in 2001.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘As I said.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘We were having a dispute about “Handbags and Gladrags,” Harry’

  ‘Great song.’

  ‘Agreed. I can’t remember if that was the name of the album as well. I may AQA that one, too. I should get a BlackBerry. It would save me a fortune on texting. Do you ever use the service? It’s brilliant. Text any question and they send you back the answer.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘I work from home. I Google.’

  ‘O to work from home. You boys are so lucky. No bosses.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’d better go. Only time for a quick one. Arf, arf. Very Finbarr Saunders and his double-entendres.’ She drained her glass and stood up.

  ‘Thanks for a wonderful day, my little sausage,’ she said, kissing Bob on the top of his head. ‘Well worth the detour. See you soon
. ’Bye, Harry’ She waved as she bounced off to the door.

  There was a small silence as both men gazed at their pints.

  ‘All going well, there, is it?’ asked Harry, sensing that Bob was not happy.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Bob, taking a long swig of beer. I think I’m going to get a packet of crisps. Do you want anything?’

  ‘A proper answer when you get back?’

  ‘I’ll work on one,’ said Bob, heading back to the bar.

  He bought four packets of crisps–one packet each, one for sharing and one for his dinner. He hadn’t been shopping and there was nothing in the house but tins of things he didn’t fancy. He threw them onto the table. A smorgasbord for your delectation and delight.’

  ‘And the answer to the question? I’m only asking because you’ve got a face like a smacked arse and you look like shit.’

  ‘You’re no oil painting yourself. Twat,’ said Bob, picking up the packet of cracked-pepper and sea-salt crisps. He opened them slowly. ‘Do you ever think you should just stop thinking and get on with it?’

  ‘In every area of life, or one in particular?’

  ‘Clare is gorgeous. She’s virtually my dream date. Tall, leggy, red hair, et cetera, et cetera…and a marine biologist. If I’d written out a list of requirements when I was sixteen and in a permanent state of erection she would have ticked every box.’

  ‘I can hear an enormous “but” coming in.’

  ‘Yes. It is.’ He paused for two sips of beer and another handful of crisps.

  ‘Katie?’ prompted Harry, who had been through the whole sorry saga.

  ‘Exactly,’ sighed Bob. ‘I don’t know whether it’s because she’s in the papers all the sodding time with this show she’s in or…’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Exactly’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Neither does what I think.’

  They sat there companionably drinking their beer, while the hubbub around them rose and fell. Eventually Harry broke the seal on another bag of crisps. ‘So what is it, then?’

  Bob looked up from his consideration of the foam at the side of the glass.

  ‘I think it’s because Clare doesn’t need me. She’s too independent. I think I want someone to look after–even if they don’t think they need looking after. Clare is always keen to come up here and hang out any weekend that she’s free…sometimes, like today, come up for just one day. She’s fun. Et cetera. Et cetera. Yes, I know I keep saying “et cetera”. But she also pisses me off big-time. You saw that this evening, with her finishing my sentences. And, yes, again, I know…’ he said, seeing Harry raise his eyebrows ‘…I know everyone pisses us off at some time or another. And there’s also another major irritation. We’ll be lying in bed, and we’ll be nattering away. And something will come up, as in that question about Rod Stewart’s song, and she’s immediately on to it.’

  Harry smiled.

  ‘Yes, I know I’m a bloody big Googler too, but this is beyond the pale. I reckon she’d Google or AQA in the middle of a–in the middle of a…whatever…if she could get her fingers to the mobile or the keyboard.’

  ‘When you’d prefer her fingers to be on your keyboard.’ Harry nodded sagely.

  ‘Exactly And that isn’t the only thing. She’s so capable. She’s got her own set of drills and screwdrivers and she was telling me the other day how she’s knocking down a wall’

  ‘That is impressive,’ Harry said, mouth pursed.

  ‘Well, it’s only a small wall, and it isn’t a supporting one, but…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sophie wouldn’t do that, would she?’

  ‘Oh, she might if there was a handbag behind the wall in an “impossible to get your hands on” colour. But she’d probably just charge at it with a battering ram under one arm.’

  ‘You see. That’s what I mean. She needs you to do a proper job. Clare makes me feel less of a…less of a…’

  ‘Less of a man.’

  ‘Well, yes. Not to put too fine a point on it. She makes me feel a bit useless. Like, what am I offering? I’m a prostitute.’

  ‘Prostitute?’

  ‘No. OK. No. But all I’m there for is sex.’

  ‘There are those who’d think that was the best of all possible worlds.’

  ‘Yes. Not me, though. And that’s why Katie keeps getting back into my head. She’s capable and incapable in equal measures. I want to look after her.’ He corrected himself. ‘Wanted to look after her…and possibly still want to look after her.’

  ‘Is that because she’s with someone else? Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Bob opened his third packet of crisps.

  ‘Early dinner?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you said that that packet was for dinner.’

  ‘I’ll get some peanuts. I don’t know whether it’s a dog-in-the-manger problem or whether I’ve never really given up on her. Anyway. This is dull, dull, dull. It’s been going round in my head so much I don’t know what I’m thinking any more, or if I’m using it as an excuse.’

  ‘An excuse for what?’

  ‘An excuse to end it with Clare. What else can I say to her? “I want you to leave me alone because you’re too good with a drill bit, you keep interrupting and you’ve got a Google habit that turns me off’? Not a thumping great reason to end a perfectly good relationship, is it?’

  ‘Unless it’s true,’ said Harry. ‘And you don’t have to put it in those words. More to the point, though, is why finish with Clare when Katie’s with someone else?’

  ‘I know.’ Bob groaned, then laughed bitterly. ‘Which is why I’m finding it almost impossible to make a decision. Can I have your life, please?’

  ‘Hmm. You can if you want. I’ve got a very demanding client at the moment. He wants an original 1950s Rolex wind-up watch to give to his wife for her birthday. He phones me virtually on an hourly basis. Plus I’ve taken apart a very old pocket watch for another very demanding client, spent about seven thousand man-hours trying to track down parts for it. Sorted it out. And now he’s gone and snuffed it. And I haven’t the heart to ask his widow for payment since she was a friend of my father’s. Oh, and Sophie’s pre-menstrual and keeps shouting at me because I haven’t done the washing/tidying/dusting the underneath of the skirting board/got her pregnant again. And Elizabeth is being a bully at school and they’ve told us that if she does it again, they’ll have to ask us to take her out.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Bob, draining the last of his pint. ‘Quite puts my little worries into perspective, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Harry. Actually, I wasn’t trying to put you down. It’s just that the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side. Is all. You moron.’

  Bob smiled. ‘Another?’

  ‘Yes. Might as well. It’s not what you’d call a long walk home from here.’

  ‘And I could have one and walk it off on the way back. I could definitely do with a bit of exercise,’ said Bob, tapping his stomach and pushing it out under his fingers. ‘Do you think we need more crisps to go with my dinner peanuts?’

  ‘Of course. No calories in a measly old bag of crisps, eh?’

  It was nine o’clock. By throwing-out time, they were talking complete gibberish and Harry knew he was going to be in trouble. ‘This,’ he said portentously, as they stood outside the pub, ‘is where it’s better to be going home to nothing and nobody.’

  ‘Caligula is not nothing,’ said Bob, emphatically.

  ‘Caligula is a cat. A cat is almost nothing.’

  ‘Say that again, and I’ll take you down.’

  ‘A cat is nothing.’

  ‘Name your weapon.’

  ‘Spoons.’

  ‘Right. Spoons at dawn.’

  ‘Fine. Now bugger off. I’ve got a beating to take from my wife.’

  They meandered into the dark, as the moon tripped in and out of some clouds that
had wandered away with a warm wind moving in from the west.

  Not that many miles away as the crow flew, Katie’s parents settled in to watch their daughter make an idiot of herself on television, as her mother put it. Jack said he thought Katie was taking a calculated risk.

  ‘You always stick up for her,’ said Lynda, as they sat down on the sofa before the programme began, ‘but my view is that she’s been lucky. Up until now, her youth has carried her through.’ She hoicked the dog’s back end from the carpet in front of her favourite television-watching chair. ‘I have a foreboding that this will be the final straw. Have you broken wind or is it Hercules?’ she asked, her nostrils twitching.

  ‘As if,’ harrumphed Jack who, they both knew, had taken to blaming the dog in such circumstances. ‘Hercules,’ he growled threateningly.

  The dog looked up guiltily, sniffed his bottom, staggered to his feet and left the sitting room for his basket.

  ‘Did you put that pan in to soak?’ asked Lynda.

  ‘Of course. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about anything to do with the kitchen,’ he said patronizingly.

  ‘Don’t patronize me.’

  ‘As if.’

  ‘And what’s this “as if” business? Since when did you start saying as if?

  ‘Since when did you start asking me about putting pans to soak? You haven’t been near the kitchen in decades.’

  ‘Let’s not have a row.’

  ‘Well, really. As soon as I defend my daughter, you get all quarrelsome.’

  ‘I am not quarrelsome. And she’s my daughter too.’

  ‘Well, you’d never know it to hear you talk about her. You’ve always got a down on her.’

  ‘I have not. I’ve got a more realistic view of her. Now, ssh. It’s about to start.’

  Nothing more was said while they watched the programme go out.

  The dog, who had come back in under cover of Celebrity X-Treme and passed out on the carpet, stretched, yawned and broke wind.

  ‘Was that you?’ asked Lynda.

  ‘No,’ Jack responded, truthfully this time.

  She pressed the off button. ‘Well, I think she’s done enough,’ she said.