Vince and Joy

by Lisa Jewell

  Vince expected to see Jess’s face light up with pleasure at this suggestion, but instead she frowned. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘no. I don’t think so. That flat’s so miserable. And I can’t quite imagine what Jon would make of dear old Clive.’ She said Clive’s name is if it were slang for a sexually transmitted disease and, for the first time in his life, Vince felt defensive of his dreary flatmate.

  ‘What’s wrong with Clive?’

  She threw him a questioning glance. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said, ‘you know exactly what’s wrong with Clive. He’s old and he’s weird… ’

  ‘He’s not weird.’

  ‘OK. Not weird, exactly – but he wears strange clothes and he talks so… slowly… it… makes… you… want… give… up… living. And besides, I haven’t seen Jon for four years. I want him to stay with me. He’s good for my soul. He makes me happy.’

  Vince gulped. He knew Jess wasn’t deliberately trying to upset him. Jess had no guile, no notion of game playing. People had total responsibility for handling their own emotions, as far as she was concerned. It wasn’t her job to censor her actions, to edit her feelings. It was the other person’s job to grow up and take it. She had no interest in dealing with other people’s insecurities and that was why Vince was sitting here, taking deep breaths and behaving in a reasonable fashion, when what he really wanted to do was have a full-blown tantrum and storm off like a girl.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, finally. ‘It was just a thought.’

  Jess beamed at him and clasped his hand. ‘My two best boys, under the same roof,’ she said. ‘So exciting!’

  And as she said it, a mental stopwatch clicked on in Vince’s head, painfully ticking down the seconds until Monday night… until Jon Gavin.

  Forty-One

  George stood beside his car, outside the station.

  He was wearing the shirt he’d worn on their wedding day six years earlier. The top two buttons were undone and the white of the piqué cotton against his olive skin looked cool and fresh. He’d done something different to his hair, too. It was cut shorter, closer to his skull. It looked good. His hands clasped a large bunch of white flowers, unidentifiable from this distance, but probably arum lilies.

  Joy pulled her coat tightly around her and smiled uncertainly. In her left hand was a Selfridges carrier bag containing some toiletries, her pyjamas, her diary and a packet of Lil-lets. She’d packed them on Friday while George was in the garden, thrown things into the bag randomly, urgently, fuelled by adrenalin. She’d forgotten her moisturizer and had to use her mother’s cold cream that smelled of damp porches. And she’d brought only one change of clothing, a black Lycra shirt that was now in her mother’s linen basket. She’d intended to come back for everything else, fill the boot of her mother’s car, drive across London yet again.

  Instead she was coming back to stay – to make another go of it. Her heart filled up with disappointment, drip by drip. Disappointment in herself. All the planning, the subterfuge, the courage she’d had to muster to leave the house on Friday lunchtime, all the nerves and the tension and the sheer terror of getting on that train three days ago, all for nothing. One phone call from George and she was back. One ten-minute conversation filled with promises of change and improvement, declarations of love and adoration. That was all it had taken.

  George had bought flowers.

  She was back at square one.

  She flashed her Travelcard at the young man with the pied hair, the young man she saw every day on her way to and from work, the young man she thought she’d never have to see again after Friday, and took a deep breath. She felt shy as she approached George, awkward. She couldn’t remember which muscles to use to make her face smile.

  He beamed at her, his face wrinkling into soft folds of happiness. ‘You look beautiful,’ he said, handing her the flowers and taking her carrier bag from her in one smooth movement, ‘absolutely beautiful.’

  She smiled tightly, no longer sure how to accept a compliment from George after so many years. ‘You’re wearing your wedding shirt,’ she said, fingering one of the buttons.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, glancing down at it, ‘I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to wear it again – now seemed as good a moment as any. I found a piece of confetti, caught under the collar. It was a horseshoe. It struck me as rather portentous.’ He grinned and held the passenger door open for her. ‘It’s lovely to see you,’ he said, ‘really lovely. I’ve missed you.’

  Joy slid into the passenger seat and smiled up at George. ‘I missed you too,’ she said. And in a strange way, she had. She hadn’t missed his long, painful silences or their ritual Saturday-night sex. She hadn’t missed the small-ness of their life together or the near-squalor that they had somehow managed to end up living in. But she’d missed him. In the days before she left, as she contemplated the enormity of what she was about to do, she’d opened the wardrobe and sniffed one of George’s suits, and as his scent hit the back of her nose she’d hugged the suit to her and cried into the lapels.

  Another time, she’d caught a glimpse of the back of George’s head, the softness of his neck, the little trickle of a burgundy birthmark just peeping from his hairline, a tuft of unruly hair sticking up at an angle, and had suddenly and overpoweringly seen him as a little boy, a small, lonely child with no parents, no friends, no one at all apart from her. She’d wanted to get up and hug him, bury his face in her shoulder, but he would have looked at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses and shrugged her off. They didn’t do affection any more.

  She should have seen these as signs that she wasn’t ready to go, that even though every bone in her body ached with the desire to escape from the tiny, messy, cold and suffocating world that she had somehow found herself in, her head wasn’t ready to make the leap back to shore. She’d been adrift at sea for so long, she’d lost her land legs. She couldn’t remember how to be without George. She was lost with him and lost without.

  ‘So,’ said George, buckling up his seat belt, ‘I’ve booked us dinner at the new Japanese place. Is that OK?’

  ‘Lovely,’ she said, ‘I’m in a fishy mood.’

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Excellent. But first, let’s get you home.’

  Forty-Two

  Jon Gavin arrived on the same day as Jess’s fourth period.

  He was sitting on Jess’s sofa when Vince got to her flat at seven o’clock that evening. He got to his feet the moment Vince walked in and shook him vigorously by the hand.

  ‘Vince. It’s an honour to finally meet you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Vince, staring into a pair of the most dazzlingly blue eyes he’d ever seen in his life, ‘you, too.’

  ‘Jessie’s really been talking you up – Vince this, Vince that… ‘ He smiled and let Vince’s hand drop.

  Jessie? How come he was allowed to call her Jessie? Vince had called her Jessie once and she’d snapped that only her father was allowed to call her that. ‘Well, that’s nice to hear,’ he said, smiling back.

  Jon was shorter than he looked in photos, but that was the only thing about his physical appearance that Vince could take any comfort from. He was dressed casually in combat type trousers and a crewneck in soft grey lambs-wool. His hair was shorn into an all-over number two, but not because he was losing it – it was thick and covered his scalp densely like plush velvet – it was shorn because it suited him shorn, because he had incredible bone structure and a well-shaped skull. It was shorn because it set off his ridiculously blue eyes and thick, dark eyelashes so well.

  He even had nice feet.

  The one part of the anatomy that was more often than not to be found lacking in aesthetic appeal, the one bit that was allowed, expected, to be horrible, and Jon’s were, like the rest of him, tanned, shapely and toned.

  Vince wished he’d made more of an effort getting dressed this morning. Spending all day sitting in a car, his primary concern regarding clothing was comfort. He wished he’d had his hair cut, too. It always tended to look thic
ker when he’d just had it cut. He felt pasty, British, bald and old. He felt totally and utterly inadequate.

  Jess emerged from the kitchen in jersey trousers and a tight vest top with no bra. Vince stared helplessly at the profile of her nipples. Yesterday they’d been his nipples; today he was sharing them with another man.

  ‘Good evening, my lovely man.’ She planted a warm kiss on his cheek and cupped his right buttock. ‘I see you’ve made your acquaintances?’

  They both nodded and smiled.

  ‘Bloody period just started,’ she tutted, arranging cutlery on the dining table. ‘Just now – about half an hour before you got here.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Vince, glancing at Jon to see how he would react to this unexpected and somewhat personal announcement.

  But Jon looked completely unfazed. ‘Oh, shit, Jess,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry’

  ‘Erm, does Jon… have you told him… ?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said lightly.

  ‘But I thought we said we weren’t going to tell anyone.’

  ‘No – you said you weren’t going to tell anyone. I just chose not to. Until now’

  ‘Oh,’ said Vince, ‘right.’

  ‘Hey, look,’ said Jon, ‘don’t worry about it. If you guys are trying to keep it low-key, you can trust me. I won’t blab.’

  ‘No, no, that’s fine. It’s just, you know, if people know then they start wondering why it’s taking so long and it’s just added pressure, and we just want the whole thing to be, you know, fun.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Jon, ‘I totally understand, I really do. I just think it’s fantastic. I’m so excited for you guys. Little Jessie, going to be a mummy’ He beamed at Jess and she beamed at him. ‘No one deserves it more than you.’ And then they suddenly swooped on each other and hugged for a full twenty seconds.

  ‘Oh, Jon,’ said Jess, her arms circled loosely round his waist, ‘it’s so good to have you here.’

  ‘It’s so good to be here.’ He kissed her on the forehead, then hugged her again. They both made squeezy bear-hug noises while Vince stood and watched, feeling completely excess to requirements.

  ‘Promise me you’ll never go away again.’

  ‘Ah, now. You know I can’t promise that. But I do promise not to leave it so long between visits next time.’

  ‘That’ll do for now,’ she smiled, and pulled away from him, but not before tapping him lightly on the bum with the palm of her hand.

  Vince cleared his throat, not to draw attention to himself, but out of sheer embarrassment. He felt like he was watching young lovers. He felt like he should excuse himself from the room. Instead, he fell to the sofa and picked up a copy of Jon’s in-flight magazine.

  ‘How was your, er… flight?’ he managed, flicking mindlessly through the thick, glossy pages.

  ‘Good,’ said Jon, joining him on the sofa, ‘yeah. Not bad. Bit of turbulence coming in, but otherwise it was cool.’

  ‘Virgin any good?’ he asked, pointing at the magazine. He didn’t know why he’d asked this, had no idea whatsoever. He had no intention of flying anywhere any time soon, but the image of Jess’s hand on Jon’s arse was stuck in his mind like a paused video and he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘great. Upper Class – not first class as such, more like business, but pretty good value for money, I thought.’

  Vince gulped. Jon was the kind of guy who flew first class as a matter of course. He’d feared as much. He’d suspected that that casual, understated lambswool sweater had a glimmer of something expensive about it, that those worn-out combats weren’t from Gap. And that tiny silver hoop in his left lobe was starting to look more and more platinum by the minute.

  He was working-class boy made good.

  He was handsome and rich and successful.

  He was warm and friendly and confident.

  He was everything that Vince wasn’t. And everything that he wanted to be.

  ‘Right. I hope you two are hungry. I’ve made enough for at least eight hungry men.’

  ‘What are we having?’ Vince rubbed his hands, trying to work some enthusiasm into himself.

  ‘Spaghetti and meatballs.’

  ‘Oh, you beauty!’ said Jon. ‘My favourite! I can’t believe you remembered.’

  ‘How could I forget!’ Jess winked at him and disappeared into the kitchen.

  ‘Wow,’ said Vince, his voice cracking slightly with the strain of not sounding peeved, ‘you are honoured. All I ever get is steamed fish and vegetables.’

  Jon shrugged. ‘Ah, well,’ he said, ‘maybe you should try leaving the country for four years.’ He smiled at Vince, as if to underline the fact that he wasn’t being serious, but it didn’t matter anyway.

  Vince was way too far down Insecurity Avenue to be guided back now.

  Forty-Three

  Jon was perfect. Absolutely perfect, in every way.

  He didn’t walk around in skimpy towels and he didn’t get in Vince and Jess’s way. He didn’t talk through The Sopranos and he didn’t watch Ri:se in the mornings. He didn’t hog the phone and he didn’t flirt with Jess. He didn’t show off about his sexy job and he didn’t flash his cash.

  His sofa bed was folded away every morning before Vince and Jess had even stirred, the cushions replaced in the exact configuration in which he’d found them. He watered all of Jess’s desiccated plants and somehow brought them back to life. He made the best cup of tea this side of Vince’s grandmother and was always in a good mood, the kind of good mood that rubbed off on Vince and put an extra spring in his step when he left Jess’s flat in the morning. Vince had used the bathroom one morning after Jon had been in there for long enough to suggest a bowel movement and the room had smelled, literally, of roses.

  He even complimented Vince on his skills as a driving instructor.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I never thought I’d live to see Jess behind the wheel of a car, let alone survive with Jess behind the wheel of a car! But she’s really good. You must be a great teacher.’

  Vince didn’t want to tell him that Jess was actually a natural driver, that his teaching had nothing to do with it, and smiled nonchalantly instead, gratefully absorbing his approval.

  Vince was walking a tightrope between love and hate. Some days he wanted to slap Jon on the back and tell him how great he was. Other days he wanted to throw acid in his face.

  At a time in his life when Vince had finally started to feel like a man, when everything was falling into place, Jon had come along and made him start questioning everything. He’d accepted that someone as sexy and cool and charismatic as Jess wanted to be with him because he had only one context in which to view her. Without Jon, Jess was just a low-paid hospital radio producer who lived in a small rented flat in Enfield, went to yoga three times a week at the local church hall, shopped at Budgen’s, drove a Micra, cut her own hair and liked having a lot of sex.

  In the context of Jon, however, she suddenly became an exotic creature who could have married a successful music producer and spent her life flitting between LA, Sydney and Cape Town. She could have had platinum credit cards, diamond earrings and beautiful children with thick hair. She could have had her own yoga instructor, a macrobiotic chef and a four-wheel drive Jeep. In the context of Jon, everything about Jess looked different. In the context of Jon, she and Vince made absolutely zero sense as a couple, and the whole notion of them making a baby together seemed somehow comical.

  In the context of Jon, Jess, basically, was completely out of Vince’s league.

  ‘Why did you and Jon split up?’ he asked her one night. He held his breath, hoping for an explanation that would put his mind at rest – that they’d split up because Jon was impotent, because she stopped fancying him, because he was a brutal serial killer – anything. He should have known that he wouldn’t get what he wanted.

  ‘I don’t know, really,’ she said, running her fingertip around the curves of his ear. ‘Jon was really ambitious when h
e was younger. I just wanted to party. I think we kind of went on different journeys, drifted apart.’

  ‘Ha,’ he said, attempting to sound blasé, ‘ironic, really, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That you split up because you were too much of a party girl and now you’re so abstemious – maybe if you’d stuck together for a bit longer you would have drifted back together again.’ Say no, he thought, his teeth clenched tightly together, say no. Laugh sardonically. Shrug it off. Pooh-pooh the very notion. Please.

  ‘Hmm,’ she said, ‘I never really thought about that before. It’s possible, I guess. But, you know, life has its own agenda. Jon and I split up for a reason. You and I met for a reason. It’s all predestined, isn’t it? No point wondering what if… ?’

  Vince nodded, but inside he was shouting, ‘Bullshit!’ He hated all that destiny bollocks. His old flatmate Cass had tried to shove it down his throat. All that business with Joy and that stupid bloody cat. She’d tried to persuade him that it was a sign, that it meant something, when all it had meant was that Joy had chosen to live in the same part of London as him for a while and that Cass’s cat had good taste in people.

  If destiny could bring two people together, then it could just as easily tear them apart, and, if it could tear two people apart, then it could just as easily bring them back together again. There was no beginning, middle and end to destiny. It wasn’t neat and manageable. It was random and scary. It did what it wanted. And if it wanted to bring Jon back into Jess’s life so that she could suddenly wonder what the hell she was doing trying to make babies with a loser like Vince, then it would.