by Lisa Jewell
His mother sighed and grimaced. ‘Yes. I was at school with her. But I didn’t know her. She didn’t know me. And it was nothing, literally nothing whatsoever to do with your father. Because, you know, everyone knew. Everyone knew what was going on. That Viva had a huge crush on your dad. Followed him about. Stalked him virtually. But he wasn’t interested. And that was probably why she killed herself. But nobody would want to admit that.’ His mum drew in her breath, long and deep. She massaged her forehead with her fingertips and then she said, ‘Her suicide was nothing to do with your dad. Nothing.’
‘Mum,’ Freddie said, feeling redness hurtling through his gut and his head and his chest. ‘Why are you protecting him? Why are you so obsessed with him? Why is everyone so obsessed with him?’
‘They are not—’
‘They are, Mum! That Viva girl was; you are. And there’s that woman at number fourteen. Joey. She’s always hanging about with big moon eyes.’
‘Oh, that’s ridiculous.’
‘No it’s not! I’ve got photos of her, Mum, standing outside our door staring up. Dad gives her lifts in his car. She went to the pub with him once. And I’ve seen her sometimes standing at the end of her garden staring up at our house. I’ve even seen her touching Dad’s car when she walks past it. And everywhere we’ve ever lived there’s been something going on in the background. And you know, people with Asperger’s find it really hard to deal with change and making friends and yet, because of Dad saying I shouldn’t have a label and because of his stupid career, I’ve been moved around all over the country all the time and I shouldn’t have been. I should have been allowed to stay in one place. But no. Because of Dad. Everything is because of fucking Dad.’
He paused for a moment. He’d already said ten times more than he’d expected to say. But his mum was still listening, and he might never feel able to talk to her like this again. He sucked in his cheeks and let them go. ‘You were really young when you got together with Dad. He’d been your teacher. That’s quite bad, when you think about it, even though it ended up fine. But it shows, it shows that he’s prepared to do things that are quite bad, things that a responsible adult shouldn’t do. And there’s a girl down in the village, Mum, she’s fifteen and she’s in love with him too and Dad meets up with her at night sometimes, he has special meetings with her in his office at school. She’s the whole reason he went on that trip to Seville! And my friend told me that this girl might even be pregnant by him!’
He saw her flinch, as though he’d just flicked water at her face. ‘Please, Freddie,’ she said. ‘That’s enough. Stop it. Just stop it.’
‘I don’t want to stop, though. I can’t stop. It’s all just coming out of me and I can’t stop it.’
‘Freddie. Please. Just go. I’m ill and you are being vile and I absolutely cannot take it.’
‘I’m not being vile, Mum. I’m being real. And truthful. It’s you and Dad who are being vile. By lying all the time. About me. About everything.’
‘Get out, Freddie!’
‘No! I won’t.’
‘Yes! You will! Now!’
‘No.’ He folded his arms hard across his chest. ‘I won’t.’
Suddenly she sat bolt upright and she leaned right into his face and screamed, ‘Get out now, you fucking little shit! Now!’ And then she pushed him, hard, right in his gut, so that he could feel all the air he’d just breathed in turn into a hard ball and smash into the base of his spine and he fell backwards and then he looked at his mum, waiting for her face to turn soft, for her to look shocked at what had just happened.
But she didn’t; she just stared at him and then in a really calm, really hard voice, she said, ‘Get off the floor and get the fuck out of my room.’
This time he did. He scrambled to his feet, strode to the door and ran up to his bedroom, three stairs at a time.
56
Alfie got back from work at midnight. He slid into bed beside her smelling of shower gel and toothpaste, and also something else, something Joey couldn’t quite define but which made her feel strangely queasy.
She crawled into the open space between his arms that he offered up to her and buried her face between the solid planes of his pectorals and she breathed in hard, a sense of release and relief, but also of sadness, that by this time tomorrow night she would have done something unbearable and irreversible, something cruel and shattering. She felt his heart beating under her cheek, a slow, hypnotic pulse, the rhythm of his life force, his innocence, his purity. She sighed and held him tighter. She didn’t want to let him go. But she didn’t want to let go of her feelings for Tom either.
‘How was your night?’ she asked, her lips grazing the sweet-smelling fuzz on his chest.
‘It was …’ He paused. She felt him tighten up, heard his heart begin to pound a little faster, a little harder. But then he loosened again, kissed her behind her ear. ‘It was fine,’ he said. ‘Busy. But good.’
‘Good,’ she said, burrowing herself back into Alfie’s body, her hands curled in towards her chin. She took a deep breath to calm her heart. And as she did so, it hit her, hard and clear. The smell on Alfie. It wasn’t shower gel. He didn’t use shower gel. It was perfume. And it wasn’t hers.
57
Freddie’s dad got back from work really late that night.
Freddie watched the time on his bedside, watched it drip slowly through the minutes. He was too scared to go downstairs. He’d spent all night in his room waiting to hear the soft footsteps of his mum coming up to make her peace, to apologise for calling him a little shit, maybe to bring him up some supper. But she hadn’t. The house had stayed silent. His stomach growled and he thought of steaming bowls of Maggi chicken noodles and towers of thick buttered toast. He remembered the big box of chocolates his dad had brought home a couple of nights ago, a gift from a grateful parent. There was an espresso martini truffle in there that he would love to eat right now. And a soft hazelnut mousse.
He didn’t know why he was too scared to go downstairs. It was stupid. But it felt as though there was a hungry lion in the house, something dark and unpredictable locked away behind his parents’ bedroom door.
Jenna had messaged him a couple of hours ago. Her friend wasn’t pregnant and she wasn’t having an affair with his dad. Freddie had felt a terrible rush of guilt remembering the things he’d thought, the terrible things he’d said to his mum about his dad. He wanted to make everything right. He wanted to fix his mess.
At the sound of his dad’s car door locking on the street outside, Freddie jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs. He heard the front door open and saw the light go on in the kitchen.
‘Dad,’ he whispered into the gloom.
His dad turned and said, ‘Freddie! You’re up late.’
He edged into the kitchen and leaned against the wall. ‘I was hungry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had any supper.’
‘Why not?’
‘I had a row with Mum. I thought she might bring me something up as a peace offering. She didn’t.’
‘You had a row? What about?’
‘About you. About not telling me that I have Asperger’s. And some other things.’
His dad opened a cupboard and pulled out a loaf of bread. ‘Toast?’ he said, waving it in his direction.
‘Yes,’ said Freddie. ‘Three slices please.’
‘Well, we can only get four at a time in the toaster, so how about we start with two each?’
‘OK.’
His dad stood over the toaster for a while, staring down into it. The back of his shirt was all creased from where he’d been squashed against a chair all day. Freddie held his breath through the silence, not wanting to break it with even the smallest noise.
Finally his dad turned and looked at him. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s all this about Asperger’s?’
‘Someone asked me, today, if I had it. And I remembered that teacher in Manchester who said I did. And you and Mum taking me out for tea and telling me that I sho
uldn’t have a label. And I’ve been googling it and a lot of it sounds like me. Like the fact that my voice is so high-pitched, for example. And that I find it hard to look people in the eye sometimes. The fact that I am so good at languages and accents, because some people with Asperger’s like collecting things and I like to collect languages and accents. And sometimes people with Asperger’s are really good at chess, not that I really care about chess any more. But overall, I tick a lot of Asperger’s boxes. And I actually think it would be quite great to have a label, if it was a label that made me understand myself better. And I’m cross, really, that I haven’t had that.’
The toast popped up then and his dad turned back to take it out and butter it for them. It was Dad’s favourite bread – of course – with a thick jacket of seeds and nuts. Usually Freddie would reject it on the grounds of the seeds and the nuts, not to mention the unfairness of them never having plain white bread. But tonight he was too hungry to care.
His dad cut the toast together in a pile and then passed Freddie his two slices. Freddie pulled the crusts carefully away from the soft centres and then rammed a piece into his mouth. His dad sat down and stared at Freddie with his tired green eyes and said, ‘I’m really, really sorry.’
Freddie hadn’t expected his dad to say sorry. He wasn’t sure how to react.
‘You know, it was such a long time ago and you were so little and it seemed far too early to be calling you things. I just wanted to wait and see. See how it went. And every time we took you to a new school I’d be waiting to see if anyone would say anything, if we’d be called in for another little meeting. But nobody ever did. Not really.’
‘Not really?’ said Freddie.
‘Well, there was one teacher, in Mold, Miss Camilleri. Remember her?’
‘Yes. She was Maltese. She taught me how to sing “Happy Birthday To You” in Maltese.’
‘Yes. That’s right. She did say something once, at a parent–teacher meeting. She asked if you’d ever had a diagnosis. And we said yes. But then we left Mold three weeks later and never followed it up. But that was the only time, in seven, eight years. And you’ve been doing so well. I just thought … I thought I was doing the right thing.’
‘I find it surprising, as a professional educationalist, that you would choose to ignore a diagnosis like that.’
‘I didn’t ignore it, Freddie. I just wanted to wait and see. I’ve been watching you. All along. Watching everything you do, waiting to see if you needed us to step in and give you extra support. But you never did. Because, Freddie, you are just totally brilliant. And I am so proud of you.’
Freddie smiled, just a flicker of a smile, as much as he could muster. ‘I am clever,’ he said. ‘But I am also quite shy and find making friends very difficult, and I think I make some really bad mistakes with people, and I misunderstand them, and it might be useful for me now, maybe, to have some extra support. I’d like my label please.’
‘Here?’ asked his dad, pointing at the kitchen table. ‘Or out in the world?’
‘Out in the world. At school. Yes.’
His dad nodded and ate some toast. ‘I’ll make an appointment at your school,’ he said. ‘For next week. We’ll get it all sorted. And Freddie?’
‘Yes?’
‘I am really sorry. I thought I was doing it for the best.’
‘That’s OK, Dad.’
‘So, what else did you and your mum argue about?’
Freddie looked at his dad. He was now at the opposite end of the spectrum to the angry bear that lived inside him. He looked soft and kind. A teddy bear. A nice dad. Not a bad man. Not a man who made teenagers pregnant and made them kill themselves and strangled his wife in bed at night and had affairs with blondes in red suede boots.
‘Nothing,’ Freddie said. ‘That was it really. And she got really, really cross and pushed me over and called me a fucking little shit.’
His dad sighed. ‘Your mum’s in a strange mood at the moment. A very strange mood. I’m sorry you were on the receiving end of it.’
Freddie shrugged and picked up the last half-slice of toast. ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind.’
His dad smiled at him and Freddie smiled back. But inside all he could think was: Dad, what really happened to Genevieve Hart?
58
24 March
Joey threw Dawn a cheery goodbye and left, her heart thumping hard under the cheap lace of her brand-new bra. It was Friday night, she was on her way to meet Tom and she was so scared she wanted to throw up.
Tom had booked them into a remarkably beautiful hotel on the harbour. She hadn’t been expecting the Bristol Harbour to be something so grand; she’d been imagining a Holiday Inn or a Novotel type of affair. Something modern and convenient. Something suitable for a discreet one-night stand. But this was a grand boutique hotel, high ceilings, arched windows, teal velvet and bronze light fittings, perfumed with scented candles. This was a honeymoon hotel.
‘I have a reservation,’ she said to the girl behind the desk. ‘In the name of Mr Darwin?’
‘Yes,’ said the woman, staring at her computer. ‘Yes. Just the one night?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Just the one night.’
Joey handed the receptionist her card. Tom had said he’d pay her back with cash, that it would keep things cleaner, and simpler.
Their room was on the first floor. It had a view over the twinkling lights of the city. It had a tall, golden, buttoned-velvet bedhead and a red velvet armchair with turquoise silk cushions. It was the nicest hotel room Joey had ever been in. She took off her boots and let her feet sink into the soft patterned rug.
Alfie texted again: Are you on your way home?
No, she replied, I’m going shopping.
Food shopping?
No. Clothes and stuff.
How long?
No idea. As long as it takes.
Text me when you’re on your way back.
Will do.
Love you.
Joey couldn’t quite bring herself to return the sentiment so typed in a love-heart emoji instead and turned off her phone.
Tom had said he’d get away when he could. He’d said he’d text when he was on his way. It was twenty past seven. She looked in the minibar. Then she looked at the price list for the things in the minibar and decided not to take anything out of it. She went and put her toothbrush and toothpaste in the marble bathroom. She checked her reflection. She looked fine. The dress she’d chosen in a wild, blue shopping panic yesterday was actually quite nice. Her skin was OK. Her hair was behaving. She put on an extra coat of red lipstick and went and sat on the bed.
And then the nerves kicked in. Big, sickening waves of terror and uncertainty.
What exactly was she doing here? What on earth was her objective? Tom had said that they would do this only once and then move on. But move on to what, exactly? They would still be neighbours. She would still bump into him in the wine shop. See him in the bar at the Melville. There would be a couple – maybe more – of intensely awkward years and then Tom and his strange wife and odd son would move out and on to the next place and the next school and she would never see him again.
Joey suddenly realised that the ache inside her, the burning flame of desire that had informed her entire existence for the last three months – it wasn’t profound. It wasn’t meaningful. It was simply an itch that needed to be scratched, no more profound than any other itch she’d ever had. And surely her life should be more than just a long, unfulfilling process of itch-scratching.
She checked the time. It was nearly seven thirty. She put her hand to herself, looking for the hot, urgent tautness that had been there for weeks. But it was gone; she could almost feel the dregs of it, ebbing, drizzling away.
And then there was a gentle knock at the door.
59
Freddie saw her the moment he walked in. She was wearing his dress. ‘You’re wearing my dress,’ he said.
Romola looked at him stra
ngely. ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is not your dress. It’s my dress. You gave it to me.’
‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘You look beautiful in it.’
‘Thank you. You look incredibly cool.’
Freddie glanced down at his black suit and red tie and shiny black shoes and said, ‘Thank you.’ Then he said, ‘You didn’t tell me if you wanted me to be your date or not. I just decided I’d come anyway.’
Romola smiled. ‘I’m glad you came. I couldn’t decide and I couldn’t decide and I kept thinking about what I should say to you because I knew you’d be waiting to find out. And then my mum said I should leave it to destiny. So that’s what I did.’
‘Destiny?’
‘Yes. She said I should just come to the dance and that if you came too I could decide then.’
‘And have you decided?’
She looked him up and down and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Literally this very minute. I’d like you to be my date.’
60
Tom stood shyly in the doorway for a moment looking exhausted before collapsing on to the edge of the bed a foot or so away from Joey and saying, ‘Christ. I am shattered.’
She was unsure how to respond so she jumped to her feet and grabbed the room-service menu from the desk. ‘A cocktail?’ she suggested. ‘Some wine?’
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I drove. I shouldn’t …’
‘No,’ she agreed.
‘But you order something. Please.’
