by Laura Kemp
Since then, he’d known he’d never be lucky enough never to see her again. Life punched you in the balls like that. He’d carried that lurking dread of bumping into her for years: yes, it had subsided when he’d got to London but it was always there. Then when Vee had come back, he’d felt it acutely, stabbing him every now and again, but he’d been so wrapped up in her that he’d kidded himself, pushing it out of his head because he’d found her. Now it possessed him entirely. But strangely he accepted it: because it had caught up with him. Like it was a fair cop. Anger, too, there was that, finding out that Kate hadn’t given him Vicky’s letter. What if he’d read it and he and Vicky had had eight years together and all of this could’ve been avoided? But what ifs were worth jack shit. He’d thought about telling Kate to do one when she’d messaged ‘we need to talk’. He hadn’t even been surprised to have heard from her. Somehow, pointlessly, he hoped it would mean that Vee would forgive him: if he could show he could face up to things, then she might let him love her. It was worth it because without her, having had her, was like walking on broken glass. But in his heart of hearts, he reckoned it was over. She’d cut him out completely. All he had of her now was the memory of her next to him, her energy charging him, soothing him.
A deep breath then: he was a man, he wanted to get this over with. The air settled him a bit and from his metal table and chair he took in the waterfront of Cardiff Bay. Shiny and sleek, it was impossible to see how it had once been derelict wasteland. Beautiful, it was. Big open spaces, a wide plaza full of kids scooting and dogs chasing the wind. He savoured it sadly. It might be the last time he was here. Because he would leave, that was almost certain, there was nothing to keep him here. He’d had a couple of phone interviews with American companies interested in his applications: one offer so far depending on the visa stuff. Nothing from Apple as yet – that hadn’t stopped him cramming posts on websites by anonymous employees, who revealed the mad questions, technical issues and brainteasers they were asked during the mammoth selection process. But actually, he found he didn’t care now, as long as he could get out of this country.
A sip of his espresso burned his throat as he saw her. Kate was heading towards him along the boardwalk, her face checking every person sat outside the cafe. She walked differently, not stumbling and pissed like the last time he remembered, but with grace, appearing capable, grown-up. He felt queasy at the thought that he’d slept with her, so he crossed his legs to anchor himself.
Finally, she clocked him with a stare, a shifty fiddle with her bag betraying the nerves beneath her composure, and then she was at his table.
Murphy’s mouth was dry, so he took a sip of his coffee.
She raised her sunglasses and stuck them on top of her head.
It was brave, that. Like a peace offering. But he couldn’t do the same. Not yet. He needed to wait and see what she said.
‘Hi,’ she said, pulling a seat back to join him, dropping her bag, tucking her hair behind her ears. Moving naturally, not rigid like he was.
Guarded still, he nodded. ‘Hi.’
She waved at a waiter, who came over and she ordered green tea. She was one of ‘those’, cleaned up obviously in natural fibres. No make-up, or hardly any, free of the troubled torment of her early twenties.
His body went into fight or flight mode but somehow he managed to wait for her to talk because she had been the one to start this.
‘Thanks for coming. I appreciate it.’
He shrugged his shoulders and drank again. She sat herself up straight and then swallowed, preparing.
‘Murphy, there’s something you need to know.’ No beating about the bush, no small talk, he could cope with that. She stared right at him, the hoods of her eyelids creased now in serious concentration. It disarmed him. Completely.
‘Right,’ escaped from his mouth because he understood this was going to be important. An apology, he expected that, because why else would she be here? Or maybe she’d spoken to Vee and it was part of some deal to set things straight.
‘I want to apologize. For the way I behaved. The letter.’ Her eyes bored into his, needing him to see she meant it. He took off his sunnies to show he was listening. Because all of that shit from the past, despite what she’d done and how Vee and him had nearly made it, he just wanted the turmoil to be over. Now she was here, unconfrontational, he could see that his finger-jabbing fantasies of how she’d fucked him over wouldn’t happen. What was the point anyway when he would be leaving?
‘It’s all right,’ he found himself saying, looking at her then at his lap and blowing out of his cheeks, feeling a weight off him. ‘It’s time to let it go.’
‘It is… and it isn’t.’ Kate stopped to clear her throat.
He felt like a tortoise as he pulled his head into his neck, wondering what she meant.
‘The thing is…’ Kate rubbed the end of her nose and blinked hard.
Prickles of alarm went off all over Murphy’s scalp. What was it? What was she going to say?
‘The night we spent together, when I came back from travelling…’ She looked at her palms now.
‘Yeah?’ he said, holding his breath, feeling his frown.
‘I fell pregnant.’ She raised her face to his but he was thrown because she didn’t look upset.
Murphy’s heart though was banging. Pregnant. Shit. Immediately, he felt sorry for her, that she’d had to go through with a termination by herself. No matter what had happened between them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, feeling inadequate, impotent.
‘Don’t be,’ she said, which was odd, and she had a shine in her eyes. ‘it was, it is, the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘What do you mean? How?’
Stoic, she looked. He’d seen that in Mam.
‘I should’ve told you, I know, and I was going to. But I wasn’t well, depression, postnatal problems—’
Murphy felt himself paling at her language, which suggested she’d had the baby. Fuck.
‘Postnatal? You mean, you had the…’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You have a son, Murphy. He’s… wonderful.’
Her eyes weren’t afraid. But inside he was going mental. Confusion, disbelief, the fucking unbelievable fact that he was a father and had been for… how many years? Seven. And he hadn’t known it. And oh, he covered his face with his hands and breathed hard, then the screech of metal against the concrete floor.
‘I’m a dad?’
Blurred eyes as he saw Kate had moved closer.
‘Yes.’ She was examining him as if he was a patient. She’d come to terms with it, she’d had years to, but he was all over the place.
‘I just can’t… it’s so hard to… take in.’
A shot of fury and helplessness and desperation. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you say? Why the fuck didn’t I know?’ He searched her face for answers that he already knew.
‘I was ill. We were young. It wasn’t the right time for you or me.’
He knew this, but still. ‘But I wish I’d known.’
His shoulders sagged and he heard a sob, his own. The days and weeks and months and years that he’d walked this earth, not knowing he had a son, that he was a father.
‘I’m sorry. I made an absolute cock-up of it all. I can only apologize.’
‘But where’s he now?’ he asked, feeling an urge to look around just in case he was about to be unveiled in some Surprise, Surprise thing. ‘What’s his name?’ He didn’t even know his own child’s name.
‘Griff. He lives with my sister and her husband. He’s got my surname, Charlie kept hers. I couldn’t look after him. Charlie couldn’t have kids, so I gave him up for her.’
‘You gave him away?’ he gasped unable to comprehend how someone could do that but knowing Kate could’ve done nothing else because she was ill. His heart was in two now – one half cracked by the lies, the other by the horror she must’ve been through.
‘I was very depressed when I was pregnant. I wasn’t well, mentall
y, when we…Expecting made me worse. Then once he'd gone, I was put on medication. I’d always resisted it before, stupidly, but that was the depth of my illness. I felt suicidal so I gave in and I thank God I did because it began my recovery. I had therapy and then things improved a great deal. Charlie and Tom, her husband, they brought him up, beautifully. He’s such a gorgeous boy. We’ve only just told him. That he’s mine. He’s dealt with it very well. Accepts it. He thinks he has three dads now, including my… Jack.’
‘Does he know about me?’ Murphy felt a desperate need to hear if he was, would be, a part of his life. Because now that he knew, he’d have to see him. He knew he loved him already.
‘He knows he has a father who isn’t Tom.’
‘What, well, can I meet him?’ He shook his head at the image of them being introduced. Trying to catch up on seven years. Never having touched his skin. He’d never contemplated fatherhood before - how could he when he’d been put off by his dad's neglect? So Murphy was staggered to find his mind now accepted it as fact - he was a dad and he would do his best in spite of his upbringing.
‘We can discuss that once it’s all settled down. Of course. If…’
And there it was. The look in her eyes, the first time she’d shown any real trepidation. It was like a hammer on his skull because she was doubting him: wondering if he would be a negative influence in her boy’s life.
Fury grabbed him by the scruff. She was judging him on his father.
‘Just because I have a shit dad doesn’t mean I would be.’
Kate shut her eyes from the force of his blow.
‘No, I know,’ she said. ‘My mum, it’s the same thing with me, history doesn’t have to repeat itself.’
He felt the anger breaking up, melting.
‘Vee?’ he said, weakly. ‘Does she know?’
‘Yes. She guessed. I’m ashamed of it all, the way I’ve handled it.’
Of course, Vee wasn’t stupid. The game was up - now he had lost her completely. ‘Look, I’ll do my bit. More than that, I need to see him.’
‘Yes.’
‘Whatever it takes. All of it. It sounds so lame and I’m not going to go through it all, because you’ve all done the work, but I can do it too. And money, God, I’m a prick for even saying it, but… you know. Anything. Tell me, is he happy? Have you got a photo?’
It was a big blurt but he couldn’t stop it.
‘He’s the happiest child I’ve ever met,’ she said, taking her phone, tapping in her passcode and handing it over.
Happy. His child. He’d take that, he realized that he’d be miserable forever if his son could be happy.
‘Go to photos, there’s an album, it’s called Griffy…’
Gasping, he saw him. Big brown eyes like his, thick eyelashes, lips like an angel, chestnut hair which was shaggy, just as the style he was growing. All legs and bruised knees and skinny and pulling faces and posing for the camera.
He loved him, he knew it. Just like that.
‘Does he like school? What does he like doing?’
‘He loves school,’ Kate said, smiling. She lifted an eyebrow which said ‘unlike you’. And he found the edges of his mouth turning up. ‘Very good at maths…’ Like her. ‘But imaginative, writes funny stories about robots. Plays rugby, football, loves swimming…’
He had a whole life going on that Murphy was unaware of. It was cutting him up.
‘…but Minecraft, computers, that’s his thing.’
He looked up.
‘Must be in his DNA,’ she said. It was a minor acknowledgement but it made him dizzy.
‘When’s his birthday? When was he born?’
‘December the twenty-first.’
It hit him hard. His Mam would never have seen him had he even known. She’d died in the November. ‘I wish my mam could’ve held him,’ he said, knowing it was useless.
‘Regrets,’ Kate said, ‘I’ve got more than Frank Sinatra.’ She said it without humour. ‘But you know something, Murphy, it’s taken me this long to see that acceptance is ultimately contentment.’
‘Vee,’ he said to Kate, looking down at his hands and at the nail which had already begun to heal. ‘She came back into my life. Into yours. And without her I’d never have known.’
‘You can either be cross about it or you can take it with gratitude.’
His father, he’d be over the moon at being a grandad – probably say ‘thank God because I always thought you were a poofter’ – and Orla, well, she’d love bomb that kid. The swell of emotion was threatening towards positivity.
It was like the photos of his son: he’d seen a version of himself. A genuinely happy one. But the problem was, was he capable of it?
*
Ibiza, September 2009
‘Oi, Midas!’
Mikey tuts from his bobbing pink lilo and keeps his head on the pillow. He’s not going to grace that piss-take which the boys have come up with because ‘everything he touches turns to gold’.
‘What you having?’ Now that he will answer. He pushes his neon green Wayfarer sunglasses onto his brow and squints through the dazzling Ibiza sunshine to see Hugo at the villa’s terrace bar. They’ve only been up an hour – the other three are still in bed – but Hugo’s already on something, he’s chewing like mad. Charlie, probably. It’s so common here, that if you ask for Coke somewhere, you have to clarify you mean the drink. He isn’t into it, he’s tried it once but it wasn’t all that: sort of seedy, and when the others are on it they think they’re fucking Sorted Simons when all they’re doing is talking shite.
‘One of those retro cocktails, with an umbrella and flamingo ice cubes,’ Mikey says, ‘or a lager. Whatever’s going.’
Knowing it’s shallow but unable to help himself, he admires his forty-eight-hour mahogany tan which begins on his toes all the way up to his chest. He’s never had one before – he didn’t know he was capable of it, always hiding from the UV in his jeans. But then that’s been the story of the last eighteen months, denying Kat's existence and hurting from Vicky's rejection, waiting in vain for her to come back to him: he’s gone from lonely despair on Orla’s floor to thousand-thread count sheets. Headhunted by a former Apple guy, he was taken on by Kode, an app development company in Islington. He’s got his own office, they call them ‘labs’ because they’re a bit like that, you know, up themselves but then it does feel like they’re at the frontier. And they’re making money, shitloads of it. They’ve all got old-fashioned school-type desks, there’s a jukebox in the loungey area, ‘the reloading room’, and they have dress-up Fridays, when everyone wears three-piece suits. He’s got a moustache, an ironic handle bar, which he waxes for effect. The weird thing is everyone thinks he’s cool because he sort of appeared under the radar. Like they ask his opinion loads and he’s seen as a sort of enigma. It’s embarrassing, but they pile it on him. The work is incredible. Mobile first, desktop second, that’s the thinking there, making apps which are intuitive for top brands. He does the prototypes, native for everyone, bespoke, fulfilling the brief, usually of functionality and style. It’s a different world: he never has to buy his own dinner anymore. It’s like Club bloody Tropicana, drinks are freeee. All because of Steve Jobs. Murphy remembers he almost cried when he heard he was having a liver transplant in the summer. It made him think of Mam. And Dad’s drinking. But you’ve just got to get on with things. Like Apple, pressing forward with its awesome iPhone 3GS. It’s rumoured there’s a tablet coming next year. That’s why desktop is dying. Mobile is the future.
Even better, his app is almost ready to go – the latest effects make Smash The Suburbs a bit of a laugh, slaying zombies in golf slacks on a new-build estate. He’s gone out on a limb with his main player, a punky girl as opposed to the gun-toting bad boys everywhere. Yeah, Orla said she looks like Vicky, but that’s a coincidence, that is. She’s faded from his mind big-time, he’s come to terms with her disappearing act and life is busy enough to forget her. Especially with all the inte
rest he’s getting from women. He doesn’t want to become a playboy but it’s hard resisting when good-looking clients cosy up to him. But he usually ducks out, he’s no good at relationships so he heads to the gym because he’s started working out, it helps him focus. Anyway, as soon as he’s done, he’ll submit Smash to Apple to see if it’ll make their App Store. He doesn’t expect anything – it’ll be one of ten thousand they receive each week. Christ, the suburbs are as distant now as his misery: he can’t get over how he’s made it. Working out, working hard and now the reward, a few lazy days and large nights.
He settles back with his palms knitted behind his neck and takes in the view. The infinity pool seamlessly becomes the Med where super yachts are anchored. This place is a palace in Cala Jondal where it’s too expensive for the lager louts.
He wants to cool his feet in the water so he peels his legs off the scorching plastic inflatable. It reminds him of the seats in the family car, where him and Orla would sit baking, supposedly on holiday, their thighs sweating then near-tearing when they moved to reach for the pop and crisps passed through the window while Mam and Dad were in the pub.
He couldn’t be further from that here in this five-bed villa with its Bang and Olufsen speakers. It’s all sliding glass doors and white walls, tasteful, on trend. Every room is a double en-suite, each with a flat-screen TV, and the communal space is amazing – a shaded rooftop chill-out zone, a disco area and tables and chairs inside and out so you can eat wherever takes your fancy. Low-lit night-lighting too for what they call ambience. There’s hospitality too, so if you want a car or a boat, you just click your fingers. But the best bit is getting VIP tickets to the clubs. It’s part of the deal sorted by his workmate Hugo, who’s a professional wanker. In the nicest sense of the word. Cafe Mambo last night for sundowners and then Pacha tonight. They’re also going to Space and Privilege.
