I stared at the card. Jessica. Jessie. The music had reached the frenetic day-of-reckoning bit; I stopped it. Could it be her? Perhaps she’d joined him for the little holiday he mentioned. I ran my eyes over the boxes on the pink card: date of birth... She was twenty-six... Came in at eight in the evening on Sunday, so could have been accompanied by Alejandro... The diagram of her pretty blue eye showed a peripheral white spot in the cornea and a small area of redness, all of which had resolved by her third visit. Culture was negative. She was inflammatory, not infective. Just an also-ran. I turned the notes over: an N1 address, and, most helpfully, both a land line and a mobile number. The Occupation box was empty: I was tempted to enter Dancer’s Maid.
I picked up the questionnaire. She had the neat round writing of a 13-year-old. She couldn’t spell ‘definitely’ and needed to replace her contact lens storage case more frequently. She had signed consent to be contacted for clarification, but the questionnaire was faultless and willing to please, with several jolly exclamation marks.
I was poked in the back: Lisa was telling me to come to the canteen and have lunch before it closed. I wasn’t hungry but went along and let her point out the comely nurse who’d been spotted groping a married consultant in the library, and an unprepossessing but apparently single doctor who she’d been out with a few times and who was going to be using our office. Then I went to Casualty and checked the disappearance rate of the clipboards and pens, the height of the pile of questionnaires, and the obligingness of the triage nurses who gave them out. I looked in the pathology lab for results forms. I rechecked my post pigeonhole. I bought a small packet of paracetamol from the Friends’ shop. But sooner or later I was going to have to go back to my desk and decide what to do about Jessie.
4.
I was one of those pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers; I was going through the motions, imitating myself quite well, but I wasn’t there. And there was a whole bank holiday weekend to get through.
Kenny needed new school shoes. We went to the shop in Haywards Heath and learnt that a driver, accidentally putting their foot on the accelerator rather than the brake, had driven into the shop. I looked at the giant sticking plaster covering the shattered frontage and started laughing, imagining the satisfaction of ramming into the place and sending the disproportionately varied selection of girls’ shoes flying into the air. But the shop was open for business as usual and they weren’t amused. Kenny was flapping his hands and describing a scene from Dr Who that he must have seen as a parallel devastation. Then I suddenly visualized his cereal bowl with his ‘special vitamin’ lying unswallowed beside it. We were heading for a perfect storm: a pod-mother, a shoe shop and an un-pilled Kenny.
I had to practically sit on him to try and get his feet measured, while he continued to describe the Dr Who scene, knocking shoes off the shelves in demonstration of it. As usual, other mothers gawped in horror at my harridan self and what they saw as an appallingly behaved 10-year-old boy, rather than a very tall 8-year-old with Asperger’s syndrome and attention deficit disorder. I then learnt that the only black school shoes available in four-and-a-half-E were lace-ups. Why would he want those, I asked. When did you last wear a lace-up shoe? And anyway, he can’t do laces. A dog-eared catalogue was produced, but the only Velcro shoe identified was not in stock, might or might not be in the daily delivery, might or might not be available from other branches – none of which were answering their phones – and most definitely could not be ordered.
I suddenly couldn’t face dragging Kenny round other towns for the rest of the day; I had other tedious tasks lined up, like badgering Seb to revise for his end-of-year exams. ‘Why the hell not?’ I exclaimed, plunging the entire shop into silence. ‘Have you ever actually tried?’
‘Yeah, why the hell not? You’re not even trying,’ echoed Kenny, standing up on the blue and green squares that passed for seats. ‘We’re not going to three towns like last time. And if you didn’t sell these,’ he added, kicking over a stand of socks with a twanging crash, ‘you’d have more room for shoes.’
‘Kenny! Oh I am sorry...’ I said, picking up the stand, but it was no good, I was shaking with laughter. Within minutes the shoes were ordered. Victorious but frayed, I was aware that my parenting was hitting an all-time low. Or so I thought.
I dropped Kenny off with Jez before swinging off to pick up Seb from the Saturday lunchtime school bus stop. He’d ‘forgotten’ to bring home his school bag, no doubt thinking he’d ensured himself a weekend free of exam revision. He was wrong. I swerved the car off in the direction of school, ignoring his what-the-fucks. Nearly an hour later I shoved him out of the car, shouting ‘when the hell are you going to get your arse in gear?’ to the hand-over-mouth amusement of the loafing youths whose parents had wisely decided to have themselves a teenager-free weekend.
When we got back, Jez came running out like a charging bull: I’d forgotten my mobile, Seb’s was off, so how was he to know what the hell we were doing? How could I be so stupid, so bloody typical, he thought we’d had an accident, lunch was ruined.
The day dragged on: Jez aggressively mowing the lawn; Kenny hunched over a mindless computer game; Seb lolling on his bed pretending to revise while messaging on his laptop to booming club music and periodically demanding to go to Brighton. And I lay on the sun lounger under a pair of black-out sunglasses, nursing a pounding headache that drew sympathy from no one but allowed me to opt out of any further parental duties and ponder what kind of Saturday afternoon Alejandro and Jessie were having. Enjoying a late barbecue lunch in a small but suntrap town garden. Alone, or with interesting, creative friends. Wandering arm-in-arm through an outdoor art exhibition or antiques market. Making love with the sudden inspiration of the child-free. Or perhaps Alejandro had a performance tonight and she was pampering him, planning to meet him after proudly watching him from the front row and go for an Italian dinner.
In the evening Jez and I sat on the decking with a glass of wine; it looked like I’d been forgiven.
‘Look, I went to see the Leonards on Thursday and... Well, they said they’d really like me to go into partnership with them. Her husband isn’t really fit enough to cope with it anymore, he’s let the business run down a bit.’
‘Christ. What will it involve?’
‘Bit of everything really, the orders, the website, liaising with the potters and discussing designs... Look at these things, they really are beautiful...’ He passed me a faded pamphlet of pots and urns with the grinning creased faces of two Greek men on the front. ‘More?’ he said picking up the wine bottle.
I put a hand over my glass. ‘Liaising... in Crete.’
‘Yes. Elizabeth’s going to introduce me and then after a couple of visits she’ll leave that side of it to me. It’s going to be a lot more fun than waiting around for illustrating jobs.’
‘And the art shop?’
‘Yes. And good timing too, because Bill doesn’t need me anymore.’
‘Well that was bound to happen.’
‘She’s booked for us to go out to Crete on the seventeenth for three days, but don’t worry – I’ve got my Dad lined up for babysitting on the Monday.’
‘Oh, right. And are you going to be on some kind of a salary or...?’
‘Well I’ll be on commission and get expenses paid... it’s early days... the business needs building up again.’ He finished his glass. ‘What’s the matter? This is really good news – it would be nice if you could show some enthusiasm.’
‘It would be nice if you could have discussed it before you –’
‘Oh for God’s sake, I just knew you’d be –’
‘No, it’s just... Look I’m glad you’re going to be doing something you’re enthusiastic about, but what about our partnership? Aren’t we meant to make this kind of decision together?’
He stared at the table. ‘Okay, perhaps I should have... but you’ll get to like Elizabeth you know... she’s invited us to lunch tomorrow. Oh, but it’
ll have to be just me and Kenny because you’ll be taking Seb to his audition. Kenny’s going to love it – they’re rearing a lamb in their barn.’ He looked at me for a moment. ‘Look I’m sorry. But I’ve got a good feeling about this. It’ll be great, you’ll see. And maybe we could go to the bank again and ask to increase our mortgage, stretch it or whatever, to give us a bit of money to tide us over...’
We exchanged a smile: joint visits to banks, solicitors and accountants always had us looking sideways at each other and competing to see who could first spot the other glazing over.
‘Yes, it’s been a while. And it was amazing last time – somehow we came out with a lump of money and lower mortgage payments. Never did understand how that worked.’
‘Well they changed the mortgage to a different type, a...’ He grinned and shrugged: neither of us could remember a thing about our mortgage. ‘I’ll call and fix a date. Time we had a day off together anyway. It’ll be fun – have lunch somewhere, drive around and see how Teddington’s doing.’ He got up and put his arms round me. ‘God, you’re freezing! Let’s go in and warm you up shall we?’
***
‘Seb. Eleven o’clock. You really need to get up. We need to warm your voice up, get water down you, go over the songs. Come on. Breakfast. Shower.’
No response.
‘Seb!’ I yanked the curtains open, sending a couple of lighters and a pile of coins on the windowsill clattering on to the bedside table right by his head.
‘Uh! I was asleep!’
‘No you weren’t. And it’s not my fault – you can’t move in here.’ I stepped back over amplifier leads, a laptop and a pile of inside-out clothes. ‘And if you weren’t up all night messaging your cyber girlfriends you wouldn’t be so tired. Come on, time to get up and get on with some real life.’
The duvet was back over his head.
‘Seb!’
No response. We were running out of time. I grabbed the edge of the duvet cover and pulled it on to the floor, looking away in case I revealed anything I didn’t want to see.
‘For fuck’s sake! Leave me alone!’
‘If I did you’d just lie in bed all day and miss everything.’
‘Exactly.’
‘What?’
‘I’m not going.’
‘You what?’
Then he sat up. ‘I’m not going to the audition. Me, Ollie and Ben, Jen and a friend of hers are meeting in Brighton. I don’t want to give up months of Sundays for rehearsals, I just want to relax.’
‘What are you on about? You’re permanently relaxed. Horizontal.’ I thought it might be nerves, like when he went impossibly stroppy before the My Fair Lady audition but came back later with a victorious fist in the air. ‘Look, they rang to check you’re coming – they clearly have you in mind for Marius. It’s Les Misérables, just what you always wanted, with the best–’
‘No! No! No! I’m not doing it! Forget it!’
And then it hit me. I was going to have to watch him start throwing everything away: his talent, years of work, our partnership – all that sharing of dreams, ideas, anxiety and excitement that bound us together. I started to pull the framed pictures of him off the walls: small and wide-eyed as Oliver; airborne in the Opera Society’s Oklahoma; precociously handsome in High School Musical and Hairspray; and centre stage and spot-lit, posturing in tight jeans like some blonde Freddie Mercury, in Brighton Players’ We Will Rock You.
‘Let me help you forget,’ I said through my teeth, and started flinging them onto the floor. But he just sat there, looking at his hands. If he could at least have looked at me.
‘What is your problem? You got the menopause or something?’
And in desperation to get through to him that there was a real, hurting person in front of him, I threw the last picture – the largest production, the best moment of his life, he’d said – straight at him. It should have hit his shoulder, but suddenly he looked up.
He screamed. My professional reflex must have registered that his eyes were okay, but beyond that I didn’t want to know. I rushed out, slamming the door.
We never discussed it, and, as far as I know, Seb never told anyone. Later he would come back from Brighton to a tidied room and tell Jez that a shopkeeper had put a plaster on his cheek after he walked into the corner of a shelf.
When Jez came back I told him about Seb going to Brighton instead of doing the audition, and he said, couldn’t I see that coming? He’d become a kamikaze pilot and had selected the target with the most impact.
I tried to help in the garden while Kenny lined up his collection of sheep on the decking. But Jez was getting uptight about the advancing garden Open Day, especially as Elizabeth had reminded him that the BBC would be selecting some Sussex gardens to be featured in a series about the National Garden Scheme. I wanted to say that they would hardly choose ours: opening for the first time, for only one day, and much smaller than most.
‘Unbelievable. You’ve just walked right past the border I’ve been working on and not even noticed. There, look, the canna indica... Oh no, what the hell have you done to this hebe? Those were buds you’ve just cut off, you idiot. Just ask will you? Or better still, just stick to the wood. Weed it, edit it or whatever you do in there.’
I wandered off to the wood and sat on the bench surrounded by Seb’s cigarette ends. What a bloody awful weekend, I thought, but actually, they’d been that way for a while. Most of the elements were playing on constant repeat; it was just a question of volume.
Was it so strange that Jessie would give up her vocation for such a charismatic, beautiful man; visits to the most interesting artistic cities of the world; frequent escapes from the soul-sapping English weather to the sunny sensuality of Cuba, and as many ballet performances as she could stand? How could one woman be so lucky. It was unbearably unfair. So I tried to imagine her wondering about his avoidance of marital commitment, discovering his likely infidelities, tolerating his taking her for granted, bearing the brunt of his moods, physical exhaustion and pain. But I wasn’t convinced. I needed to know that her life wasn’t perfect. I had to know: it was just a case of figuring out how.
5.
Over the long weekend I’d become less certain that this patient was Jessie: it isn’t an uncommon name and Cuba isn’t an uncommon holiday destination. I went in to work early and rang her landline, knowing that the hospital phone number, for some reason I’d never understood but was now grateful for, is withheld. It was nearly nine o’clock; according to the day-in-the-life interview, Alejandro should have just finished his breakfast – porridge, eggs, toast and coffee – and be getting ready to leave for his 10.30 class at the Royal Opera House. I was confident that I’d recognise his voice, but there was a querying hello from a young woman, which didn’t prove anything, so I hung up.
Clutching my map, I walked the route I’d already committed to memory, slowing as I neared the road and feeling rather queasy. I walked down the odd- number side until I was opposite 214: a Victorian terrace with a red painted door – his favourite colour. In films there’s always a large-windowed cafe opposite the building that’s being watched, but only a post box was on offer here. Or houses are observed from a slouched-down position in a car, but it would have been very hard to explain to Jez why I was driving to work for the first time in seventeen years.
Nine twenty. My heart was beginning to race; what if Alejandro came out and recognised me? Or worse, spotted me through his net curtains and worried for my sanity? I cursed myself for forgetting my sunglasses, but then they would have looked a bit silly with the spitting rain and darkening sky. I let my hair flop over my face and pretended to be consulting my map, while trying to keep watch out of the corner of my eye.
‘Lost? Where you looking for?’ said a voice next to me.
My heart felt like it had jumped right out of my chest. My only chance was to keep looking down, as if mesmerised by the intricate lacework of yellow and white roads.
‘Oh. It’s okay,
I think I’ve got it,’ I managed.
‘O-kay,’ he said with a chuckle, and crossed the road. A tall, dark pony-tailed man, I now saw, in a paint-splattered t-shirt and track suit bottoms. He disappeared into the propped open door of number 212.
I wanted to just keep walking, but my new working hours meant that if I didn’t see this out I’d probably have it hanging over me until the following week. It was a mission that had to be accomplished; a fact-finding one, like finding references in the hospital library, but rather more scary – and as the dark clouds started to give up their wares, a lot more uncomfortable.
Nine thirty. Surely he had to leave before too much longer. I imagined him coming out of the shower, vigorously rubbing himself dry, putting on his dance belt, asking Jessie if his favourite practice clothes were dry. The wave of misery washed over me, followed by the usual irritation; I was becoming familiar with my symptoms. What was the point of this? I had the method, and possibly the participants, but no objectives.
Nine thirty-five. Perhaps he ran on Cuban time. Perhaps he’d leave at the last minute in a contracted cab, the day-in-the-life bit about the bus travel being put in just to make him sound more grounded. In which case he could probably leave at about ten and still make it. I put the map book in my pocket and leaned against a gate post, periodically looking at my watch, taking out my phone and texting, as if the person I was visiting was unexpectedly out. I was getting very wet, my hair slicking down on my head. Come on Alejandro, I thought, I’ve had enough of this. And then the red door opened. Out came a woman wrestling with an umbrella, followed by another in a hooded mac. They exchanged a few words and went off in different directions. Either could have been her. Seeing the mac I suddenly remembered that my jacket had a hood, but you had to unzip the collar and unfurl it, and later reverse the procedure, so I’d never bothered. But then I hadn’t stood for ages in the rain since I used to watch an 11-year-old Seb in school football matches. I felt for the zip and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. So I yanked the sodden jacket half off my shoulder and craned my neck to see the damn thing, which had stuck its mouth into some of the lining. I wiggled it about to free it, opened the collar and let the flimsy hood fall over my head and face. I cursed myself for my inattention, glanced back at number 214.
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