A Special Relationship

by Douglas Kennedy

  ‘Hello,’ Tony said quietly.

  I nodded back, noticing that he looked very tired. There was a long awkward moment where we stared at each other, and really didn’t know what to say next.

  ‘Well…’ he finally said. ‘I thought I should do this myself.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I bet you didn’t think I’d be the one to bring him.’

  ‘Tony,’ I said quietly, ‘I now try to think about you as little as possible. But thank you for bringing Jack home.’

  I held out my hand. He hesitated for just a moment, then slowly handed me the carry-chair. I took it. There was a brief moment when we both held on to him together. Then Tony let go. The shift in weight surprised me, but I didn’t place the carry-chair on the ground. I didn’t want to let go of Jack. I looked down at him. He was still sucking away on his pacifier, still hanging on to the bright yellow duck, oblivious to the fact that – with one simple act of exchange, one simple hand-over – the trajectory of his life had just changed. What that life would be – how it would turn out – was indeterminable. Just that it would now be different from the other life he might have had.

  There was another moment of awkward silence.

  ‘Well,’ I finally said, ‘I gather the one thing our solicitors have agreed upon is that you’re to have contact with Jack every other weekend. So I suppose I’ll expect you a week from Friday.’

  ‘Actually’ he said, avoiding my gaze, ‘we’re making the move to Australia next Wednesday.’

  He paused – as if he almost expected me to ask about whether he’d managed to work things out with Diane after all the courtroom revelations about his past bad behaviour. Or where they’d be living in Sydney. Or how his damn novel was shaping up. But I wasn’t going to ask him anything. I just wanted him to go away. So I said, ‘Then I suppose I won’t expect you a week from Friday.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  Another cumbersome silence. I said, ‘Well, when you’re next in London, you know where to find us.’

  ‘Are you going to remain in England?’ he asked.

  ‘At the moment, I haven’t decided anything. But as you and I have joint parental responsibility for our son, you will be among the first to know.’

  Tony looked down at Jack. He blinked hard several times, as if he was about to cry. But his eyes remained dry, his face impassive. I could see him eyeing my hand holding the carrying chair.

  ‘I suppose I should go,’ he said without looking up at me.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose you should.’

  ‘Goodbye then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He gazed at Jack, then back at me. And said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  His delivery was flat, toneless, almost strangely matter of fact. Was it an admission of guilt or remorse? A statement of regret at having done what he’d done? Or just the fatigued apology of a man who’d lost so much by trying to win? Damn him, it was such a classic Tony Hobbs moment. Enigmatic, obtuse, emotionally constipated, yet hinting at the wound within. An apology that wasn’t an apology that was an apology. Just what I expected from a man I knew so well… and didn’t know at all.

  I turned and brought Jack inside. I closed the door behind us. As if on cue, my son began to cry. I leaned down. I undid the straps that held him in the carry-chair. I lifted him up. But I didn’t instantly clutch him to me and burst into tears of gratitude. Because as I elevated him out of the chair – lifting him higher – to the point where he was level with my nose, I smelled a telltale smell. A full load.

  ‘Welcome back,’ I said, kissing him on the head. But he wasn’t soothed by my maternal cuddle. He just wanted his diaper changed.

  Half an hour later, as I was feeding him downstairs, the phone rang. It was Sandy in Boston, just checking in to make certain that the hand-over had happened. She was at a loss for words (something of a serious rarity for Sandy) when I told her that it was Tony who had shown up with Jack.

  ‘And he actually said sorry?’ she asked, sounding downright shocked.

  ‘In his own awkward way.’

  ‘You don’t think he was trying to wheedle his way back into your life, do you?’

  ‘He’s off to Sydney with his fancy lady in a couple of days, so no – I don’t think that’s on the cards. The fact is, I don’t know what to think about why he was there, why he apologized, what his actual “agenda” was… if, that is, there was any agenda at all. All I know is: I won’t be seeing him for a while, and that’s a very good thing.’

  ‘He can’t expect you to forgive him.’

  ‘No – but he can certainly want to be forgiven. Because we all want that, don’t we?’

  ‘Do I detect your absurd lingering guilt about Dad?’

  ‘Yes, you most certainly do.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to ask for my forgiveness here. Because what I told you back in London still holds: I don’t blame you. The big question here is: can you forgive yourself? You didn’t do anything wrong. But only you can decide that. Just as only Tony can decide that he did do something profoundly wrong. And once he decides that, maybe…’

  ‘What? A Pauline conversion? An open confession of transgression? He’s English, for God’s sake.’

  And I could have added: like certain self-loathing Brits, he hates our American belief that, with openness, honesty and a song in our heart, we can reinvent ourselves and do good. Over here, life’s a tragic muddle which you somehow negotiate. Back home, life’s also a tragic muddle, but we want to convince ourselves that we’re all still an unfinished project – and that, in time, we will make things right.

  ‘Well, in just a little while, you won’t have to deal with Englishness again,’ she said.

  This was Sandy’s great hope – and one that she had articulated to me five weeks earlier as we waited for her flight at Heathrow. The hearing had just ended. Tony and Company had left hurriedly – Diane Dexter having all but dashed alone up the aisle of the court as soon as Traynor had finished reading his decision. Tony followed in close pursuit, with Lucinda Fforde and the solicitor finding a moment to shake hands with Maeve and Nigel before heading off themselves. Which left the four of us sitting by ourselves in the court, still in shock, still trying to absorb the fact that it had gone our way. Maeve eventually broke the silence. Gathering up her papers, she said, ‘I’m not much of a gambler – but I certainly wouldn’t have put money on that outcome. My word…’

  She shook her head and allowed herself a little smile.

  Nigel was also suitably preoccupied and subdued as he repacked his roll-on case with thick files. I stood up and said, ‘I can’t thank you both enough. You really saved me from…’

  Nigel put up his hand, as if to say: ‘No emotionalism, please.’ But then he spoke. ‘I am pleased for you, Sally. Very pleased.’

  Meanwhile, Sandy just sat there with tears running down her face – my large, wonderful, far too gushy sister, emoting for the rest of us. Nigel seemed both touched and embarrassed by such raw sentiment. Maeve touched my arm and said, ‘You’re lucky in your sister.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, still too numb by the decision to know how to react. ‘And I think what we all need now is a celebratory drink.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Maeve said, ‘but I’m back in court tomorrow, and I’m really behind in preparation. So…’

  ‘Understood. Mr Clapp?’

  ‘I’ve got a house closing at five,’ he said.

  So I simply shook hands with them both, thanked Maeve again, and told Nigel I’d await his call once Tony’s people wanted to start negotiating terms and conditions for the divorce.

  ‘So you want to keep using me?’ he asked.

  ‘Who else would I use?’ I asked. And for the first time ever in my presence, Nigel Clapp smiled.

  When he left, Sandy said we should definitely down a celebratory drink… but at the airport, as she had a plane to catch. So we hopped the tube out to Heathrow, and got her checked in, and then drank a foul glas
s of red plonk in some departure lounge bar. That’s when she asked me, ‘So when are you and Jack moving to Boston?’ One thing at a time, I told her then. And now – as she raised this question again on this first afternoon at home with my son – my answer was even more ambiguous. ‘I haven’t decided anything yet.’

  ‘Surely, after all they did to you, you’re not going to stay.’

  I felt like telling her that the ‘they’ she spoke of wasn’t England or the English. Just two people who caused damage by wanting something they couldn’t have.

  ‘Like I said, I’m making no big choices right now.’

  ‘But you belong back in the States,’ she said.

  ‘I belong nowhere. Which – I’ve come to the conclusion – is no bad thing.’

  ‘You’ll never survive another damp winter over there,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve survived a little more than that recently.’

  ‘You know what I’m saying here – I want you back in Boston.’

  ‘And all I’m saying to you is: all options are open. But, for the moment, all I want to do is spend time with my son and experience something that’s been eluding me for around a year: normal life.’

  After a moment she said, ‘There is no such thing as normal life.’

  That was several weeks ago. And though I do agree with Sandy that normal life doesn’t exist, since then I have certainly been trying to lead something approaching a quiet, ordinary existence. I get up when Jack wakes me. I tend to his needs. We hang out. He sits in his carry-chair or his playpen while I work. We go to the supermarket, the High Street. Twice since he’s come home, I’ve entrusted him to a baby sitter for the evening, allowing me to sneak off to a movie with Julia. Other than that, we’ve been in each other’s company non-stop. And I like it that way – not just because it’s making up for a lot of lost time over the past few months, but also because it locks us into a routine together. No doubt, there will come a point when such a routine needs to be altered. But that’s the future. For the moment, however, the everydayness of our life strikes me as no bad thing.

  Especially since the sun has come out.

  ‘Five pounds says it won’t rain tomorrow,’ I told Julia as she poured herself another glass of wine.

  ‘You’re on,’ she said. ‘But you will lose.’

  ‘You mean, you’ve heard the weather forecast for tomorrow?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Then how can you be so sure it will rain?’

  ‘Innate pessimism… as opposed to your all-American positive attitude.’

  ‘I’m just a moderately hopeful type, that’s all.’

  ‘In England, that makes you an incurable optimist.’

  ‘Guilty as charged,’ I said. ‘You never really lose what you are.’

  And, of course, late that night, it did start to rain. I was up at the time with my sleep terrorist son, feeding him a bottle in the kitchen. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a large heaving clap of summer thunder announced that the heavens were about to open. Then, around five minutes later, they did just that. A real tropical downpour, which hammered at the windows with such percussive force that Jack pushed away the bottle and looked wide-eyed at the wet, black panes of glass.

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ I said, pulling him close to me. ‘It’s just the rain. And we better get used to it.’

  Acknowledgements

  I OWE AN enormous debt of thanks to Frances Hughes of Hughes Fowler Carruthers, Chancery Lane, London WC2A. Not only did Frances give me a crash course in the complexities of the English legal system, but she also vetted two early versions of the manuscript. I hope I never need her professional services.

  Dr Alan Campion made certain that all the medical terminology and procedure in the novel was appropriate. And a remarkable woman I will simply refer to as ‘Kate’ was invaluable to me when it came to detailing – with arresting honesty – her own nightmarish descent into the dark room that is postnatal depression.

  Any errors of legal or medical fact are my own.

  Two friends on opposite sides of the Atlantic – Christy Macintosh in Banff and Noeleen Dowling in Dublin – read different drafts of the book. They are my ‘constant readers’ – and never pull punches when it comes to telling me whether the narrative is on-or-off track.

  This novel was started in one of the Leighton Studios of the Banff Centre for the Arts, amidst the epic grandeur that is the Canadian Rockies. It is the best writing hideout imaginable.

  My editor, Sue Freestone, is one tough operator – and I am very grateful to have her in my corner. Just as my agent, Antony Harwood, is about the best friend this novelist could have.

  Finally, twenty years after we first met, I would like to thank Grace Carley for still being Grace Carley.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2003 by Douglas Kennedy

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2003 by Hutchinson

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  First Atria Paperback edition June 2010

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  ISBN: 978-1-4391-9913-8

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