by Julie Cohen
I’m not normally an argumentative person, but it’s the way Ewan regards me, as if I’m strange or dangerous.
‘Grabbing and kissing someone who’s practically a stranger isn’t out of character for you,’ he says. ‘It was the way you looked afterwards that was weird. You looked stoned.’
‘I’m not on drugs.’ I sit in one of the leather armchairs. It’s cool against my bare legs. ‘It’s good manners to offer someone a cup of tea when they come to visit you.’
‘You’ve come here to ask me why I’m sad, and then demand a cup of tea?’
‘No. I’m also here to apologize. I’m sorry for forcing kisses on you yesterday. It was out of order and I shouldn’t have done it.’
The corner of his mouth quirks. ‘I never said I didn’t like it.’
Desire rises up so quickly I have to catch my breath and I nearly bolt from my chair. But there’s no scent. I can control myself.
‘We can’t do that again,’ I say.
‘Agreed.’
We look at each other. I’m remembering how, after he got over his surprise, he held me tightly and kissed me back. I’m thinking of how it was the same as ten years ago but different, because his body has filled out, because we’re both older. I wonder what differences he found in me and whether they mattered.
‘Because I’m married,’ I say. ‘And you’re a father.’
‘I’ll make the goddamn cup of tea.’ He turns and goes into what I presume is the kitchen.
I don’t want a cup of tea. I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay here long enough to drink it. I have come to satisfy my curiosity, and that’s it. I look around Ewan’s living room trying to work out what his life is like now. The room is neat and bare. There are no books, no empty cups, no clutter. The long, high dining table is empty, with no decorations. There aren’t any photographs on the walls; there are no personal items here at all. It could be a hotel suite. Lauren’s flat is austere, but she has a couple of vases, some photographs, even a knick-knack or two. Ewan’s flat has nothing. It could belong to anybody. He could be anybody.
Also, there are no guitars.
‘Tea,’ he says, coming back into the room and handing me a black mug. He doesn’t have one for himself. He sits in the other armchair, watching me.
‘You don’t have much stuff,’ I comment.
‘My cleaning lady was here this morning and her life is hard enough. I cleared out the clutter for her.’
‘Even the guitars?’
‘I … got rid of my guitars.’ He looks away.
‘I thought you played guitar for a living.’
‘I did. I’m finished.’ He folds his arms. ‘Is it impolite to ask you to drink your tea and then leave? I ask for information’s sake. I’ve got things to do.’
‘If you’re this unwelcoming to everyone, you must not have many friends.’
‘I don’t. Not any more.’
‘You didn’t ask me to meet you at Greenwich because you needed a friend. If it was because of that, you’d have been much nicer to me.’
‘Maybe I would have let you carry on kissing me, as well. Would that have been more friendly?’
He purses his mouth in a way he always did when he was trying to be provocative. He’s probably trying to get me to go away, but he could equally be trying to flirt with me.
If he starts actively flirting with me I will be doomed. He’s so beautiful, even slumped in a chair, even wearing jeans with holes in the knees and no shoes, with an expression on his face like he wants to cause trouble. I should go. And yet I’m still curious. I want to know why I’m having these feelings for him, aside from the obvious attraction. I want to know why he keeps sending me away and then pulling me back. I want to know if I made the right decision ten years ago when I broke up with him for what I thought was for ever.
‘Why are you sad?’ I ask him again. ‘Is it because you don’t see your daughter?’
‘That is none of your business.’
I take a sip of my tea and wrinkle up my nose. ‘You forgot the sugar.’ He makes an exasperated noise and starts to get up, but I beat him to it. ‘I’ll do it,’ I say. ‘I can find the kitchen. Don’t exert yourself on my account.’
The kitchen is just as modern and spotless as the living room. There are no child’s drawings on the stainless-steel refrigerator, no fruit bowl, no signs of cooking or eating at all. There’s a stainless-steel canister saying SUGAR by the stainless-steel kettle, but I ignore it and check under the sink for the bin. That, at least, has several takeaway containers in it along with my used tea bag so I do know that Ewan eats occasionally. Quietly, I start opening cupboards. They probably won’t give me any of the answers I’m looking for, but then again kitchen cabinets can tell you a lot. For example, in our cottage we have a cabinet half-full of cat food for a cat we don’t own. A psychoanalyst would have a field day with that.
One cabinet is full of glasses and black mugs like the one he gave me. One is stacked with crockery. One is empty, one holds a single can of baked beans, and the one by the stainless-steel sink contains a one-and-a-half-litre bottle of whisky, three packets of prescription sedatives and an empty glass.
I stare at it. I notice that the bottle hasn’t been opened. Quickly, I check each of the packets. They are all in Ewan’s name, and aside from one missing pill, all the blister packs are full.
I close the cupboard just in time, before I hear Ewan’s footsteps approaching the kitchen on the hardwood floor. When he enters the room I’m stirring my tea.
‘Thought you got lost,’ he says.
‘I like to stir it a lot. So why don’t you have your own band?’
‘Are you going to drink that?’
I take my cup to the sink and put some cold water into it to make it a better temperature to drink. ‘Why don’t you have your own band?’ I ask again, focusing on the tap.
‘It didn’t work out.’
‘What happened to your guitars?’
‘I threw them out of the window.’
This makes me look at him. He’s serious. ‘You what?’
‘I threw them out of the window. You wanted to know, so I’ve told you. I didn’t want them any more.’
‘Why?’
He stands there in the doorway, silent. We were standing about this far apart when I kissed him. And I’m feeling agitated, nervous in my stomach. I’ve started to notice I often get this feeling before I smell frangipani. I’m becoming able to predict when I’m going to feel love. That must be pretty unusual – not for me, of course, but for humanity in general.
‘Where’s your husband?’ he asks. ‘Does he know you’re spending so much time with me?’
I drink down the mug of tea, standing at the sink, all at once without pausing. ‘Okay, bye then,’ I say. I head for the door, but of course Ewan is standing in my way.
‘Flick,’ he says. ‘You’re not lying about the drugs, are you?’
‘I’m not lying to you about anything,’ I say, quickly though, because any moment now, I might not be responsible for my actions. ‘Though I think you’re hiding the truth about one or two things. Now, weren’t you eager for me to leave?’
He stands aside and I go.
Quinn
‘WHAT’S THAT PART? It says, where do I work. What should I put for that? Should I put down Chair of the WI, do you think?’
‘It’s up to you, Mum. It’s your profile.’
Molly leaned over him, one hand on his shoulder, squinting at the computer screen. Quinn turned aside slightly, to pick up his cup of tea. This afternoon was too hot for tea, but Molly always insisted.
‘Or maybe the bit of bookkeeping I do for Turner and Wickham. Yes, put that down.’ Quinn began to type it in. ‘But will the WI ladies get upset, do you think, if they see that? Will they think that I think it’s not really a job, being Chair? Because it is a lot of work, as you know.’
‘I think you should be able to put whatever you like.’
‘It is
n’t easy, though, is it? I don’t want to offend anyone.’
Quinn rubbed his eyes. On reflection, today was not the best day for him to volunteer to help Mum with her social networking projects. That phone call from Felicity last night, saying how she wanted to pretend to be in bed with him. How it had taken every ounce of will not to shout out, Come home! I’ll get in the car and fetch you now!
If she needed time, he had to give her time. If he crowded her it wouldn’t work. They would be back to where they’d been before; she’d be full of secrets, disconnected.
He hadn’t slept. He’d controlled his breathing, slowed it, deepened it, so that he could listen to her. It reminded him of being a child, when he’d heard his parents arguing downstairs, and he’d lain in bed trying to hear and not to hear at the same time. His mother would always check on him afterwards. She would come up, her breathing quick, her hands smoothing his bedding. He would pretend to be fast asleep. She would push back his fringe to feel his forehead, as if he were the one who had something wrong with him, and he would want to open his eyes and say, ‘Mum? What’s wrong with you and Daddy?’
But if he said it, it would be real. All the pretending they did that everything was all right, all day long, would be for nothing. The thin walls would collapse and it would be his fault.
He never said anything. He breathed steadily with his eyes closed and felt his mother watching him, as if to confirm he was the one who was keeping it all together with his silence. She would kiss him softly, and in the morning at breakfast everything would be normal again. A full set of thin walls up, growing thicker and stronger with each passing day.
It had been ages since he’d thought about that.
‘Maybe we should see what Dad has on his page,’ said his mother.
‘Dad has a Facebook page?’
‘Of course he does, doesn’t everyone? How do I find it?’
Last night, over the phone, as he pretended to be asleep, Felicity had caught her breath and then breathed in, deeply and long. She was dreaming about something. He wanted to ask her what that was, too, and he knew he never would. He listened for a long time, not saying anything, not asleep. And then she must have rolled over onto her phone because it disconnected and he lay there in his bed alone until it was time to get up.
‘There! Look at that! Doesn’t he have a lot of friends?’
Derek Wickham had sixty-seven friends on Facebook. From the looks of it, they were all people Derek knew from the village, from the golf club, from the council. His mum pointed at the list and Quinn clicked it, so they could see all sixty-seven. Suz was there, and their cousins Catherine and Frederick, and one or two people Quinn recognized distantly.
‘Why aren’t you one of his friends? You have a thing, don’t you?’
‘I haven’t checked my personal one in a while.’ Why would Dad need a Facebook page? Was it, as Mum said, just because everyone did?
‘Look, he likes Felicity! Oh, I want to like her too. Do you like her, on your page?’
‘It’s a fan page for her books, not really for her. Her publishers made her set it up. I don’t think she uses it much.’
‘It’s a whole new world, isn’t it, liking and friending and all that? I think Marian said the WI had one. Should we have a look?’
He pushed back the office chair and stood up. ‘Maybe it would be better if you did this instead of me. It’s good practice for you.’
‘No, no, Quinn, you know me, I’m hopeless with computers. Sit back down, please, sweetheart. Can you help me with my M&S order after this? Speaking of Felicity, how is she? How much longer is she staying in London for?’
He closed his eyes, only briefly. ‘I’m not sure, Mum. The deadline’s pretty tight and she has a lot of work to do.’
‘That must be so hard, the two of you being apart when you’re trying for a baby. I hope she can finish quickly. Have you decided what she’ll do yet, about her work when the baby comes?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I was thinking I would pop round tomorrow and help you with a bit of housework. These old houses get full of dust so quickly. I hope she’s back soon. There’s no point in wasting time when you’re trying for a baby, especially in your thirties. I was reading an article about it the other day, how so many couples leave it too long to try to conceive and run into all of these problems. But I’m sure that won’t happen with you. And work, of course, is important too these days.’
There won’t be a baby. She’s not dreaming about me. It’s over. We just haven’t admitted it yet.
‘Was there anything else you wanted to add to your profile, Mum?’
‘I don’t know, I think I should try to be friends with all the people he’s friends with, don’t you? Look at Suz’s photo, isn’t that a lovely one. I wonder how many friends she has. She was always so popular. Oh, wait, what does your father say he does for employment? Semi-retired? Do you think I should put that too?’
Chapter Nineteen
I’VE MET A group of my illustrator friends in Clerkenwell for dinner and drinks. I haven’t seen several of these people in a while; they all live in London and I haven’t always been able to get here for their meet-ups. Quinn and I went to Andrew and Tom’s wedding a few months ago, which is the last time I saw most of them. As always, we slide into a familiar conversation about editors and agents, deadlines and falling book sales, the projects we’re working on and the projects we’re working on next and the projects we wish we were working on but aren’t because we’ve been told they won’t sell.
It’s quite a different type of discussion from the ones my mother used to have with her artist mates. Esther wasn’t interested in commerce. Even when her paintings started selling for quite big sums she would immediately change the subject or leave the room whenever someone started talking about money, or working on a commission. To her, art was life, not a living.
I met Andrew and Tom, Naomi and Yvonne and Bindu and Yann at a lunch arranged by a children’s illustrators’ society. At first I was shocked by how frankly they talked about the fact that they got paid for their work. Then I realized that I found it rather refreshing. These people had passion, but they were practical, too – much more practical than I’ve ever been.
I’ve told them that I’m down in London on my own working on the latest Igor book. Bindu, who has three children all under the age of six, went into raptures of envy. ‘You must be getting so much done without any interruptions.’
‘I am.’ The flat is covered with sheets of paper, abandoned sketches, things torn up. After leaving Ewan’s flat earlier today, in the nick of time, I spent the afternoon drawing, and failing. ‘I wish I could say any of it was good. I can’t seem to concentrate.’
‘Too quiet. You can borrow my kids if you like.’
‘It’ll come,’ Naomi tells me over the rim of her virgin mojito. ‘You have to work through the bad stuff before you get to the good stuff.’
‘Like life, unfortunately,’ sighs Yvonne, who also does theatre design and is the most self-consciously artistic of anyone around the table. She always wears black and has stopped straightening her hair, so it stands up in gorgeous curls all over her head.
‘How’s that scrumptious husband of yours, Fifi?’ Tom calls to me across the table.
‘Tom has a crush,’ explains Andrew, though it isn’t necessary because Tom has a crush on everyone.
‘I’d drop you in a minute for him,’ says Tom.
‘Oh, I wish you would.’
‘Quinn is fine.’ I turn to Yvonne. ‘What bad stuff are you going through?’
‘Aside from that hair,’ Tom calls.
‘Plumbers,’ says Yvonne, and launches into her unfortunate domestic story.
I’m on my third margarita before I get up the courage to ask my friends about what’s been on my mind since earlier. ‘Imagine you’re at someone’s house and you’re looking through the kitchen cupboards. Mostly they’re empty, except for one of them which has a bottle of whis
ky in it. A big bottle, a litre and a half. And several packets of sleeping tablets. And an empty glass. What would you think was going on?’
My friends are creative. They love problems like this.
‘Self-medication,’ says Andrew immediately. ‘Person has trouble sleeping.’
‘Except the bottle hasn’t been opened, and practically none of the tablets have been taken, either.’
‘They’ve just got new supplies in?’
‘They’re an alcoholic,’ says Naomi, who doesn’t drink, and doesn’t tell us why not.
‘They could be an alcoholic,’ I conceded. ‘I didn’t find any empty bottles, though. Just this one that was untouched. And he hasn’t seemed drunk when I’ve spoken with him.’
‘Could be concealing it well, though. People do.’
‘Any kids?’ asks Bindu. ‘They could be hiding the party stuff.’
‘No one takes sleeping tablets to party,’ says Tom. ‘Are you sure they weren’t Es?’
‘They were prescription, all in his name.’
‘I hide my prescription medicine in the kitchen cabinet,’ says Bindu. ‘Up out of reach. I keep the Pimm’s there too.’
‘Is that all you keep there?’ I ask.
‘No, there’s a bunch of stuff there that I don’t want my kids to get their hands on. Matches, glue, the good chocolate.’
‘Was it good whisky?’ asks Tom. I shake my head. ‘He’s a drunk, then. A drunk who’s recently done the recycling.’
‘Who does he live with?’ asks Bindu.
‘No one, I don’t think. Although he said his cleaning lady had been in. So maybe he was hiding them from her.’
‘Or she’d tidied them away.’
‘He actually said he’d done the tidying before she came over. So he chose to put all of them away together in the same place. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be together. But why was there a glass there too? The glasses were all in another cupboard.’
‘Probably wants to have a glass handy in case he needs to take a sleeping tablet in the middle of the night.’
‘Chased down with whisky?’
