by Anna Bell
‘I didn’t even know he could cook,’ says Judy.
She goes to take over but he bats her away.
‘It’s fine, I’m making an omelette. Do you want one?’
‘OK,’ she says, giving Sasha a hug before she sits down at the table with Rach.
Max pulls out Herbes de Provence and puts them on the counter next to the carton of eggs.
‘Where do I find a whisk?’ he says, digging around in the pot of utensils until he finds one.
‘This feels almost like when you used to sleep over when we were kids, Ellie,’ says Rach. ‘Well, except for Max’s cooking – we wouldn’t have been eating anything he cooked.’
‘You were missing out. Do you not remember that macaroni cheese I cooked in home ec? I got an A in it.’
‘I’m pretty sure you just used to get Carly Simmons to cook for you,’ says Rach, rolling her eyes.
‘Hey, I think most of it was my own work, thank you very much,’ he says, flashing a winning smile. ‘Or at least I did provide all the ingredients.’
‘Mum used to weigh it all out and put it in little Tupperware pots for you.’
‘Did I?’ says Judy, a small smile on her lips.
It stings that Max is acting exactly the same with Rach and his mum as he normally would, yet almost like a stranger with Sasha and me. This new normal is going to take some getting used to.
‘That was delicious, even if I do say so myself.’ Max pushes his plate away and picks up his phone after he’s finished his omelette. ‘I’m pleased I use the same password for every phone or else I’d have been screwed,’ he says, cracking a joke, like only Max could at a time like this.
‘Actually, you’ve got fingerprint recognition on this phone. There, on the back, it scans your fingerprint,’ I say, turning it to show him.
‘Holy shit, we do live in the future,’ he says, his eyes lighting up. ‘What else has happened tech wise? I see we haven’t got a robot washing the dishes yet.’
For the first time since leaving the hospital, he’s actually excited about discovering something about his new life, and it’s not even related to football.
‘Um, pretty sure they had dishwashers in 2014,’ says Rach. ‘But, knowing you, you probably wouldn’t have known what one was.’
‘Very funny. You know what I meant.’
‘Unfortunately, we don’t have any real-life robots,’ Judy says. ‘Alexa, what are the biggest technological advances from the last five years?’
The mechanical voice of Alexa fills the room. ‘The top ten technological advances in the last five years are practical augmented reality, AI in apps…’
Max spins round and stares in wonderment at the little speaker on the counter and listens with great interest to the list.
‘I can’t believe you have this. Mum, when did you get all tech savvy?’
‘You bought it for me for Christmas, but I quite like her. She keeps me company.’
‘I bet this is all your doing, isn’t it? It’s a bit Star Trek,’ he says to me.
‘Sometimes I think there are two women in our marriage and Alexa’s one of them. You’re very fond of her,’ I tell him.
‘Am I? What do I use it for?’
‘Everything. Football results, music, the weather.’
‘Huh. How do I do it?’
‘You say, “Alexa,” and then you ask your question.’
‘OK. Alexa, what division are Brighton in?’ he says slowly and loudly, like a British person abroad that doesn’t speak the language.
‘Brighton and Hove Albion FC are in the Premiership.’
‘Yeah, they are,’ he says, doing a fist pump.
He picks up his phone again and starts swiping.
‘Are you looking for things to jog your memory? Maybe looking through your messages will help,’ says Rach.
‘No, I was going to text Dad to see what time he was going to be home.’
Judy and I exchange looks.
‘Have you not told him about Dad?’ says Rach, looking at us in horror.
‘What do you mean, tell me about Dad?’ says Max; he’s only half listening as he’s scrolling through his phone.
‘Just that he’s away, on a golfing holiday, with Graham, and he won’t be back for a few weeks,’ Judy says, parroting it out in a way that makes me think she rehearsed it.
Rachel opens her mouth to protest. ‘Ouch,’ she says, looking under the table where I imagine she just received a kick.
‘But when I spoke to him yesterday, he said that he’d be back tomorrow, which is today,’ says Max, looking up over his phone.
‘You can’t have spoken to your father yesterday,’ says Judy; she starts fiddling with the collar of her high-necked blouse. ‘He’s got bad signal on his holiday.’
Rachel’s eyes are practically bulging out of her head, but she doesn’t say anything.
‘It seemed all right. I called him when I found someone living at my old flat in Brixton and he told me to come back here and that you’d help me. That’s when I found my season ticket.’
Judy’s neck starting to turn red where her blouse is scratching against it. I open my mouth to tell them that I think it would be best to tell him the truth when the doorbell rings. We all look at up at the kitchen door that leads to the hallway.
‘Maybe that’s him now,’ says Max, scraping his chair along the floor as he gets up. ‘Forgotten his key or something.’
Judy looks at me in horror and we’re both thinking the same thing: that it can’t possibly be him.
Max walks out of the room and Rachel gets up and closes the kitchen door before turning her attention to us.
‘Bloody hell, you were at that hospital for hours and when you said you were filling him on what’s been going on I thought you’d told him the big stuff,’ she says.
‘We had, there’s been a lot he didn’t know about Brexit, Trump, Boris becoming PM, the climate change emergency, Supermarket Sweep making a comeback,’ says Judy, not looking her in the eye.
‘For God’s sake,’ says Rachel.
‘It’s just not the kind of thing you can blurt out sitting on a hospital bed,’ Judy says. ‘Those curtains are so thin.’
Rachel rolls her eyes again. She’s always been the rip-off-the-band-aid kind of person who will always tell you exactly how it is. It’s actually a great quality in a friend once you get used to someone being brutally honest at every moment. It’s saved me from a lot of things over the years; getting my hair permed in Year 8; dodgy midnight snogs with undesirable men when I was wearing beer goggles; a fishtail wedding dress that would have seriously hampered my ability to dance.
‘You should have told him yesterday,’ says Rach.
‘Look, the doctor thinks that Max’s memory loss is only going to be transient. He should remember everything in the next few days and then we’d have put him through all that for nothing,’ says Judy, crossing her arms over her chest.
‘What if he really has spoken to Dad and that’s him at the door?’
‘It’s more likely to be Elvis,’ mutters Judy. ‘He won’t have got on a plane, he just won’t have.’
We hear a woman’s laugh.
‘I knew Mick wouldn’t have come,’ says Judy, sighing with relief.
‘I’ll go and see who it is,’ I say, not wanting a repeat of last night where Max was hitting on any woman that he saw.
‘Oh, Gaby,’ I say, relieved to see Rach’s girlfriend at the door.
‘Sorry, I don’t want to intrude but I finished my shift on call and I thought I’d come.’
‘Of course, come in.’
‘Yeah, come on in,’ says Max and I notice his demeanour has changed. He’s standing a little bit taller; he’s smiling a little bit more. Oh no. This is just what Max was doing with the female doctor last night.
Max ushers her in and leads her to the kitchen.
‘I’ll shut the front door then,’ I mutter, slamming it shut and following them down the hallway.
<
br /> ‘Hey, you came,’ says Rach, sounding surprised as we walk back into the kitchen.
‘So, you’re Rach’s doctor friend. Have you come to check me out too?’ he says with a wink.
‘Oh,’ says Gaby, throwing me a quizzical look, ‘it sounds to me like your doctor yesterday gave you all the right advice. Be gentle, don’t force things, and hopefully with the help of the psychotherapist your memories will come back soon. And in the meantime, I’m here to support you all.’
‘That’s a very nice, friendly thing to do. Rach is lucky with all her friends; she has so many pretty friends now.’
‘Yes, including the one that’s your wife,’ I say, putting my hand up.
‘Oh yeah,’ he says with a hint of a laugh, almost like I’ve told a joke. It’s as if he can’t take us being together seriously at all. ‘It’s hard for me to go from being single to suddenly being “taken”,’ he says, turning back to Gaby and doing air quotes.
Gaby’s eyes widen slightly and she looks at me. I shrug back. I’m trying to keep telling myself that this is not my husband, that he doesn’t know any better.
‘That’s OK, Max,’ she says, giving him a pat on the arm that’s almost like a slap. She walks over and puts her hand on Rach’s shoulder. ‘I’m taken too.’
Rach rubs Gaby’s hand.
‘Max, this is my girlfriend, Gaby.’
‘Yeah, she said she was your friend,’ says Max, and it dawns on me that Max doesn’t know that Rach is a lesbian.
‘No, I mean, she’s my partner.’
‘Your partner,’ he says slowly as if it’s sinking in. ‘You’re…’
‘Uh-huh,’ says Rach and Gaby sits down next to her and they hold hands.
‘Oh right, wow. OK, that’s a lot to take in. So, Robbie was…?’
‘Yeah, I guess I knew that something wasn’t quite right,’ says Rach, shuddering at the mention of her ex-boyfriend.
‘Right, OK,’ says Max. ‘Let’s get this straight then. I’m married to Ellie, Rach is a lesbian and is dating Gaby here, and I have a daughter who is almost two.’
‘Plus, you have another child on the way,’ chips in Rach.
‘Right,’ he says, screwing up his eyes like it’s too much to take in. ‘At least nothing’s changed with you, huh, Mum?’
He laughs and Judy’s face turns pale. She goes to open her mouth but the sound of a key turning in the front door lock stops her. We all look around the kitchen, looking to see who’s not here, before Judy shrieks with alarm.
‘That’ll be Dad,’ says Max.
The door slams shut and footsteps come down the hallway, and then, sure enough, Mick walks through the door with his dark tanned skin.
‘What the actual—’ says Rachel.
‘I got here as soon as I could. I was so worried after your phone call yesterday. What’s going on?’
For a second no one says anything but then Max walks forward and wraps his arms around him.
‘Dad, you came back early.’
‘You asked me to come, so I did.’
Tears are welling up in Mick’s eyes; I know that Max’s refusal to speak to him over the last few years has hit him hard. I glance at Judy; her eyes are wild with panic. But then I look back at Max and see how happy he is to see his dad and I feel awful that any second now we’re going to have to burst that bubble.
Chapter 6
Max wastes no time filling in the details of his memory loss with his dad. At any moment I’m expecting Judy to wade in and tell him the truth about their marital status, but she doesn’t. She’s standing there, her shaking hands, fiddling with the collar of her blouse.
Judy starts walking across to Max; I think that she’s realised that now is the time to come clean, but it’s not Max she’s making a beeline for, it’s Mick.
My whole body tenses. The last time they were in the same room was at our wedding, and they almost came to blows. After that, things still hadn’t improved, particularly since they’d started discussing selling the house, but now a smile spreads across her face leaving me even more stunned.
‘Darling, you’re home,’ she says in an overly theatrical shrill. My mouth drops a little as I watch her slip her arms around him. I see that Rach’s does, too. ‘I’m so pleased you could cut your trip short.’
Mick flinches as she wraps him up in a big hug. Max, unaware of the awkward tension, sits down at the table and Judy seizes the opportunity to whisper something in Mick’s ear. Mick’s brow wrinkles and he nods before Judy pulls out of the hug and takes hold of his hand. It reminds me of the type of handhold I do with Sasha when I’m trying to drag her along the pavement in a direction she doesn’t want to go.
‘We’re just trying to bring Max up to speed with what’s been happening, seeing as though he has lost his memory of the last five years,’ Judy says, leading Mick over to the table. ‘Although we’re trying our best not to overwhelm him. So much has happened in the world in that time. Can you even remember what we were doing five years ago?’ she says, tinkling with laughter and squeezing his hand tighter. ‘He’s just found out about Rach and Gaby.’
‘All right, Rach?’ he asks, giving her a tentative smile.
Rach nods back. ‘Yeah, thanks, Dad.’ Her voice is strained. They still at least talk to one another, but they’re nowhere near as close as they used to be.
Rach and Gaby went and stayed at his new house for a night when they were in Portugal last year – she didn’t really want to go into details but reading between the lines I don’t think she gelled with her potential new step-mum Ruby.
‘Nice to see you, Gaby,’ says Mick.
‘You too,’ she says.
‘Isn’t this a nice belated birthday present?’ says Max, smiling at his mum, ignoring all the subtext of the glances and hostile body language around the table. ‘Having Dad back early.’
‘Oh, absolutely. Happy birthday to me,’ she says, smiling through the sarcasm.
‘Oh yes. Happy birthday,’ says Mick, looking a bit flustered before he leans forward and gives his ex-wife an awkward peck on the cheek. ‘Sixty-five?’
‘Ha ha ha. Always the joker,’ she says through gritted teeth. ‘Sixty-two.’
Sasha drops her bowl off the high chair and Mick spins round and looks at her in wonderment. I’ve sent him photos of Sasha, and we skype so that he can see her, but this is the first time he’s ever met her in person.
‘Sasha,’ he says warmly.
Thank God she can’t talk properly. I’m grateful that he doesn’t try and reach out to take her. She’s not good with strangers. But she looks up and smiles at him at least.
‘You must be tired after your trip,’ says Judy, swooping in. ‘Do you want to rest a little upstairs?’
‘Um,’ he says, faltering. ‘I’ll just have a coffee instead.’
‘I’ll make one,’ I say, jumping at the chance to leave the awkwardness at the table.
‘And I’ll help,’ says Gaby, clearly thinking the same.
Mick starts quizzing Max and Judy about what was said in the hospital while Gaby picks up the kettle and the two of us go over to the sink at the end of the kitchen.
‘Surely we should tell Max about his mum and dad splitting up?’ Gaby says to me, with a frown.
‘Of course we should, but it’s not our place,’ I say. ‘This has got to be their decision. The doctor last night said not to shock him.’
‘I don’t think this is what he meant,’ she says, sighing. ‘As a doctor, I’d advise you all to tell him.’
‘And as the girlfriend of his sister what do you advise?’
‘Not to get on the wrong side of the mother-in-law,’ she says with another sigh. ‘I guess that’s why you can’t treat family members.’
We both look over at the table where Judy and Mick are sitting, holding hands.
Gaby turns off the tap and goes to plugs the kettle back in, whilst I start spooning ground coffee into the cafétière.
‘How’s Graham, D
ad?’ asks Max. I spray coffee all over the counter and spin around.
‘Oh, I’m sure he’s good, wouldn’t you say, Judy?’ says Mick, raising an eyebrow. I hadn’t even considered how Graham would fit in to all this. If Judy and Mick are pretending to be together, Judy can’t exactly have him as her boyfriend.
‘Of course, but obviously you’d know better having spent the last couple of weeks playing golf with him,’ she says, with a smile that contradicts the forceful look in her eyes.
‘Two weeks playing golf?’ says Max, slapping a confused-looking Mick on the back. ‘Retirement’s suiting you well, then? And there was us worrying that you weren’t going to know what to do with yourself when you stopped working.’
‘Oh, Mick’s had no trouble filling his time since he stopped work. Golf, Pilates,’ says Judy, pleased with her subtle dig.
Mick laughs back and he gives Judy a squeeze that induces more fake laughter.
It’s the first time in years that I’ve seen the two of them act civilly with each other; I didn’t realise they were still capable of doing so – even if they are putting it on for Max’s benefit.
To think I’d considered Judy a terrible actress for all these years. We were once reluctantly dragged to watch her in an amateur dramatics play, but if she acted this well, I’m sure the show would have been a sell-out.
Sasha starts to get bored in the high chair, so I wipe her mouth with some kitchen roll and pick her up.
She pulls towards Max, muttering her favourite ‘Da-da-da’ noises.
‘Is she saying “Dad”?’ he says, still looking at her with a degree of caution.
‘Her version of it; it was her first word. Do you want to hold her?’ I say, hoping he will, because right now she’s so wriggly it’s uncomfortable holding her.
He pushes his chair back and takes a deep breath.
‘OK, OK,’ he says, wincing. ‘How do I do this?’
‘Just take her and she’ll do the rest,’ I say, handing her over.
She soon settles herself on his lap and starts tugging at his ears, causing him to laugh and my heart to swell. I turn back to finish making the coffee but Gaby’s already done it. She places the cafétière on the table and I start putting out the mugs so that everyone can help themselves.
