Julia Gets a Life

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

‘How can I? He’s twenty four, for God’s sake! And he lives in London, and I live in Cardiff, and what about Max and Emma?’

  ‘What about Max and Emma? Why are Max and Emma a problem?’

  ‘Because it’ll be awful for them.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because it will. Because you didn’t see Max’s face when he thought I was going out with you.’

  ‘But I am – was – his teacher. Of course he was embarrassed. This is completely different. I think you misjudge how much importance children place on age. They probably couldn’t care less. You’re both ancient to Max, probably.’

  ‘And then there’s Richard..’

  ‘What the hell’s it got to do with him?’

  ‘Well, nothing, but…’

  ‘But he’ll disapprove, right?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of his business…but..oh, I don’t know. I just can’t see it.’

  ‘So why don’t you try it on for size and find out?’

  ‘Because I’m all done with trying things on for size. And because, as soon as I think about it with anything approaching a rational mind, I can’t quite believe it. How can I feel so….so…obsessed about someone I have only met on two occasions? I’m thirty eight…’

  ‘As you are all too fond of saying…’

  ‘But it’s true! Far too old to be toying with notions of love at first sight or any of that nonsense..’

  ‘Quite right. That is nonsense. But that doesn’t mean you can’t feel intensely attracted to someone, does it?’

  ‘No. But I don’t trust that feeling. It’s just sex, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. I mean, it can be…’

  Sure can. I sigh.

  ‘That’s what Craig said, funnily enough.’

  ‘About you?’

  I shake my head and try not to look disingenuous. ‘We were just talking. He said sex was just sex. No big deal on its own.’

  ‘And you think that’s how he maybe feels about you, right?’

  ‘No. Yes. I don’t know. That’s what’s so hard. I don’t think so. But then….well, it’s not unreasonable, is it? Listen, did you ever have a one night stand?’

  ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘Well, it’s like, you know how if you do, then immediately after, or the next morning, or whatever, you think “what have I done?”’

  ‘Or just ugh!’

  ‘Yes! You realise straight away that you really don’t like them at all, don’t you? Or they you. Whatever.’

  Howard nods.

  ‘Well, after Craig and I…you know…the first time, we slept, and then when we woke up, I was pleased to be there. I wanted to do it all over again.’

  ‘I think I realised that much….’

  ‘No. But the point is, he obviously felt like that too, or he would have gone back to his room, wouldn’t he? End of story. So what we’ve got here is not just sex, is it?’

  ‘So, fine. Where’s the problem? You really like each other. That’s great.’

  ‘But if that’s the case, how can I keep this going? If I can’t pretend it’s just sex, then I can’t help thinking about the future, can I? It’s just what you do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Whoah! You’ve got to stop all this navel-gazing. You’re running rings around yourself. What does it matter? Just see how things shape up. You’re free, he’s free, what’s to stop you? It’s nothing to do with anyone else, end of story. Julia, Who is going to get hurt?’

  Do I really need to answer that?

  And boy, will I get hurt. It’s all very well zapping about the place pretending to be a walking sex manual, but it’s actually a load of garbage. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself sex is just sex, it isn’t. Period. Not for girls. All this time I’ve spent feeling like a good shag would be just the ticket/give me back some self esteem/make me feel like I’ve got even with Richard/tone up my pelvic floor etc., and I’ve just been deluding myself. There is no such thing as having a satisfactory shag, then saying thank you very much and goodbye. You can either have an unsatisfactory shag (ta for nothing, I’m off) or you can have a very satisfactory shag, in which case you want to do it again. And again, and again, and again. Until such time as one of you goes off the idea, or you grow old, shrivel up and go to Bingo instead. It’s called love. It’s what happens.

  If you’re a girl. If you’re male, on the other hand, whilst you are still as much prey to the pull of love as of lust, you can also, if you feel like it, sling your todger pretty much where ever you damn well fancy without compromising the integrity of your finer feelings one jot. Which is not to say that’s what all men do. Just that they can. If they want to. I can’t help thinking how nice it would be if men all got pregnant, like seahorses.

  Similarly, I can’t help feeling that I’m not very well.

  ‘Howard, ‘I say (and the irony is not lost on me). ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  I’m in Howard’s bed. At last!

  If he wasn’t so busy fetching iced flannels and washing up bowls for me to throw up in and such like, I’m sure we’d be having a really good, ironic type giggle about it. And Nick’s here now, of course, padding around being cringe-makingly helpful. So I can’t help but enjoy a small nugget of satisfaction that he’ll be getting none of that sort of thing in this bedroom tonight.

  The general consensus is that the Doner’s the culprit. And that there’s no way that I should be driving home. About which, if I didn’t feel so awful, I’d be pleased. My home feels right now like there’s nothing connecting me to it. No children, no food (bar Lily’s quiche), no duelling stereos, no-one stomping around bemoaning maternal ironing deficiencies, in short – no real life. So I’m going to spend the night here and abandon the idea of trying to drag myself into work tomorrow. Howard, he assures me, will take care of everything.

  It is comforting to drift in and out of sleep, listening to muted conversation, picking out the odd word from the hum of white noise from the TV. Nick brings me water. Says ‘how did the weekend shape up for you in the end?’

  I tell him ‘okay.’

  He says he’s glad he wasn’t arrested. That Earth Patrol are very pleased with the way everything went. That Brighton looked bombed on Saturday. Did I see it? (Did I see anything?) We skirt around references to things that may involve references to the thing we seem to have a tacit agreement not to refer to. Plus I really can’t be bothered. He knows what I think.

  When I get home again, finally, on Monday evening, it is to a house that now not only feels empty and lonely, but that also contains the pungent and bitter aroma of a bacon frying bonanza two days ago. I throw out the quiche (Sorry, Lily. Nothing personal), take myself up to bed, and lie, sleepless yet exhausted, trying to re-connect to some semblance of sanity.

  Of course, you can’t carry on like this indefinitely. God alone knows how people with roller coaster emotional lives ever get an iota of ordinary stuff done in their lives. I manage not the tiniest iota of sleep all night, and instead fill the hours with minute dissection of every thought, whim and emotion that floats into my mind. Statistics pop up to taunt me; his youth, my great age, my two children, our lifestyles, the roadworks on the M4, the availability of groupies, the fact that when he’s forty six I’ll be sixty, etc. That I’ve known him for a total of about forty nine hours, at least six of which we spent asleep, in my bed. (Come to think of it, it only takes forty five hours of flying to get a private pilot’s licence, doesn’t it? That must count for something – though goodness knows what.) That I’m actually just stupid.

  On Tuesday I’m feeling like I died and went to a pulpers, so I elect to allow myself another day in bed. Which is another thing. How many man hours are lost due to this sort of rubbish?

  When I arrive back at work on Wednesday (having taken only four days off sick in my entire employment with TOYL – these two, plus when Richard left, plus a septic laparoscopy scar) it is to be greeted not by Rani, b
ut by the Area Manger, who seems to care little about the state of my health.

  ‘Ah, Julia,’ he trots out, ‘Glad you managed to join us. I wonder if you’d care to step into the office for a moment. I’d like a quick word before I move on to Bridgend.’

  I do not care in the least for stepping anywhere with the fat git, but needs must, so I follow him in. He sprawls (sort of spreads) in the swivel chair.

  One side effect of my burgeoning career re-birth is a permanent, low key, guilty undercurrent type feeling. Though what I have been doing for Colin can surely in no way affect the quality of my work for TOYL (apt acronym), it is almost as though my dissatisfaction and boredom might seep through my fingers, contaminate my equipment and freeze up my clients. At the very least affect relations with Milo and Doodles.

  But it is relations with the now virtually recumbent AM that clearly need sorting, though at this point I’ve not the slightest idea why.

  ‘I’m feeling much better now,’ I say. (And thanks, toad face, for not asking.) ‘No more kebabs for me for a while!’

  ‘Kebabs?’

  ‘The food poisoning….’

  ‘Julia, the details are of no consequence. What is at issue…’

  At issue? Of no consequence? What gives here?

  ‘...is the fact that it simply isn’t good enough. If you are unwell then you must telephone and let somebody know. We had a completely full appointment book – you know what it’s like during the school holidays – and only one photographer. We had to turn people away – and you know how I feel about that. Especially given that we’re completely snowed under with enquiries about our Captured for Christmas media initiative.’

  More crappy offers to have to stitch people up with.

  ‘Hold on, ‘I said. ‘You were telephoned. My friend called first thing on Monday morning….’

  ‘There was no call. No message. Nobody had the slightest idea where you were. And given that you’d also just finished a week’s leave, you could have been in Timbuktu for all we knew….. ’

  ‘But he did call. Of course he called. Why would he tell me he was going to call and then not?’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, whatever. I consider it your responsibility, and I am, frankly, disappointed.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry you feel like that. It won’t happen again.’

  (Too bloody right, it won’t. Because you can shove your job up your fat behind, and stick a zoom up there as well.)

  ‘Forget it,’ says Rani. ‘And don’t take it personally. He’s in a strop because he ended up having to get behind the camera himself for a change, instead of farting about on fact finding missions and expense account lunches. And guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not a single one of the pix he took Monday came out. We just found out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Lens cover still on.’

  When I get home Wednesday night I call Howard and tell him what happened.

  ‘I did call,’ he assures me. ‘Though I did have to leave a message on their ansafone. Which might explain it.’

  Ah.

  ‘Well, I guess it never got there,’ I say. ‘But don’t worry. They can’t function without me, so there’s not a lot the old sod can do.’

  ‘Hang on, here it is.’ He reads out the number. I don’t recognise it.

  ‘Where d’you get that?’

  ‘Directory enquiries. I didn’t want to rummage in your bag.’

  Later, I call it myself, out of interest.

  ‘Welcome!’ it prattles, ‘To Time Of Your Life. Is there someone special you’d like to capture for Christmas?’

  I stick out my tongue, purse my lips and blow.

  And Craig, Craig, Craig, Craig, Craig.

  Why haven’t you rung me?

  I have become so detached by now from normal circadian rhythms (in subconscious preparation for rock-wife lifestyle? no, no, NO!) that I elect to cut the grass on Thursday morning, before work.

  The postman therefore finds me in shorts, vest and flip flops when he comes to deliver such post as a sad, lonely person like me can expect. And it’s paltry. A postcard of the channel tunnel, of all things.

  ‘You know you’re risking a toe, don’t you?’ the postman observes.

  I glance down at my feet, wondering if he’s mistaking my Calypso Blue nail polish for some sort of tropical infection.

  ‘Erm…’

  ‘One slip of that mower and you’ll lose a digit. You mark my words.’

  Oh, I see.

  I said,

  ‘I’m very careful.’

  ‘Hmm. You can never be too careful where electricity’s concerned. Got a power breaker, have you?’

  ‘Erm…’

  ‘Friend of mine’s sister in law would have died if she’d not been in wellingtons, you know. Hover mower slipped – just like that – swish! – and the cable was cut. Could’ve died. Just like that. Third degree burns right up her legs. Bad business…’

  ‘Erm…’

  ‘Still. Nice day for it. Bye.’

  I turn over the postcard.

  Julia!

  The big news is a trip. We are driving to Bordeaux to meet my mother (with Malcolm) before next term begins. I couldn’t get you on the phone and I couldn’t find a time to come to you. Then I remembered on the journey here – I have switched your telephone ringer off (you know why!!!!!). Oops! So now I know why you were not at home! You were! Sorry! I will see you soon – and much fatter!

  Lily (and Malcolm). xxxx

  Yes! So that’s why Craig hasn’t rung me! Or rather, why I haven’t realised that Craig has rung me. And he has rung me. Of that I am in absolutely no doubt at all.

  I shower, go to work, hate work, take fifteen minutes for lunch in which I do not eat, but instead stare absently out of a far flung toilet window (just off haberdashery), hate work some more, put the Tweenies to bed (last client nauseating Mrs Worthington-type Mother with offspring catatonic at concept of Bella being shoved in old banana box), and, finally, stomp off to the multi-storey.

  It is there, among the exhaust fume and urine scented air pockets, that a new thought pops unexpectedly into my brain. If he had phoned and it hadn’t been answered, he would surely have left a message on the answering machine. But he hasn’t. He hasn’t. I drive home dejected.

  Once again, my house is empty and my fridge is empty, and as soon as the word ‘Pringle’ springs to mind, it is joined by a rasping sob, a pathetic flurry of tears and a bout of hand-wringing so intense that I must force myself to watch East Enders, to get affairs of the heart into some sort of perspective. I wish my children were home.

  Chapter 26

  Fifteen minutes later, my wish is granted. I am trying to lose myself in yet another programme involving handsome young vets and cows’ bottoms (what is it with the British that a conjunction of this kind is such a perennial favourite?) when there is not so much a knock as a clamour at the front door. And some ringing; ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong!!!!!!!!!

  ‘All right, I’m coming!’ I call out, somewhat irritably. A woman in the throes of emotional distress does not want to get embroiled in conversations about novelty in-fridge air fresheners or flexible rubber drain covers. And then I open the door. It is not Mr Gadget.

  ‘Mum, you’re here!’ (Max)

  ‘Where else would I be?’

  ‘In prison, of course!’ (Emma)

  ‘For what, exactly?’

  ‘For drugs!’ (Both)

  Oh.

  And then Richard comes trundling up the path, bearing backpacks, and we all go inside.

  Where I am immediately subject to the kind of interrogation one would usually associate with an international money laundering and extortion type enterprises.

  Richard sits wearily on a kitchen chair. It is, I’ll allow, a long drive from Quimper.

  ‘And we have been,’ he assures me, ‘worried sick.’

 
‘But why?’

  He rolls his eyes and tuts irritably. ‘Because we thought you’d been banged up in jail somewhere.’

  ‘In jail?’

  ‘Yes. After that drugs bust.’

  ‘You mean the one in Brighton? I wasn’t even there.’

  Richard chucks me a look of naked suspicion, then whips a piece of paper out of his trouser pocket, in the manner of someone who’s serving a writ.

  ‘We thought you’d been sent to prison, Mum,’ says Max gravely.

  I take it and unfold it. It is a newspaper cutting. Dated Monday. The Herald.

  I read it, agog. It is an almost exact copy of the piece in the Saturday night Brighton Reporter. Except with one important addition. My name.

  ‘Good God, someone did!’ I said. ‘Someone did what I said they would! Oh, this is awful! What will everyone think?’

  ‘What do you mean? Did what?’

  ‘Put my name in the paper. Nigel and Craig said they wouldn’t. But how did this end up in here anyway? This is an almost word for word copy of the report in a local paper, in Brighton. Oh, this is awful! Suppose…’

  Richard waves a hand to stop me. ‘Julia, what are you talking about? Nigel who? And were you there or weren’t you?’

  ‘I wasn’t there. Not by then, anyway. We were on the beach, doing a shoot. We saw the police cars and everything, and Nigel…’

  ‘Craig?’ asks Max. ‘Craig James? Cool!’

  Richard stabs a finger at the paper. ‘It says here that you were.’

  ‘But it didn’t in the Reporter. And why would the Herald put this in anyway?’

  ‘It happens all the time. Parliament’s in recess, everyone’s on holiday, there’s no real news to report. And Depth is the Herald’s supplement, isn’t it?’

  I nod. Awful.

  ‘God knows how your name got in there, then. But the point is that we’ve been trying to get hold of you since Tuesday. Where on earth have you been?’

  ‘I’ve been here.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since Sunday morning. When I got back from Brighton. Well, apart from spending Sunday night at Howard’s…

  ‘Howard’s?’ (Richard, Max, Emma. Close part harmony.)

  I can’t even face beginning to explain.