Falling to Earth

by Deirdre Palmer

  ‘Jonno – Jonathan – is Tallulah’s boyfriend. You know, Tallulah who works for Karina? She’s been having a few problems and I thought I might be able to help.’

  ‘Forgive me if I’m being dense here, Juliet, but what have Tallulah’s problems got to do with you?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been wondering,’ Jonno said.

  ‘And you can shut up for a start,’ Juliet rounded on him.

  Jonno was clearly enjoying this. Gray, on the other hand, had a face as dark as the inside of a coal-shed and was brandishing the large pink bouquet he was carrying as if it was a weapon. Juliet wished she’d never started this. They were both right – Tallulah’s problems were nothing to do with her. She was sorry the girl had been so unhappy, it was true, but her own attack on Jonno had been due entirely to her own outrage at being made a fool of, her own stupid, damaged pride.

  She addressed Jonno in a tone which she hoped came across as light and conversational but probably fooled no-one. ‘Just make sure you take better care of Lou – Tallulah – in future.’ Not that he’d get the chance.

  ‘I will, and thanks for the advice.’ Jonno’s butter-wouldn’t-melt expression was doing overtime. He looked at Gray. ‘That’s a very feisty lady you’ve got there, an incredibly talented one, too. Her work is amazing. By the way, Juliet, did you get my note?’

  ‘Note? I didn’t get any note.’ What was he on about? Nothing probably. He was just saying any old thing in order to wind her up. Black spots began to dance before her eyes. She squeezed them shut. When she opened them again, Gray was looking from one to the other of them, clearly trying to make sense of all this.

  ‘What would you know about Juliet’s work?’ he said, looking not at Jonno but at Juliet.

  She jumped in before Jonno could do any more damage. ‘Jonno happened to see some of my drawings.’

  Gray’s lips began to form an enquiring ‘Oh?’ but he hesitated a shade too long. Taking advantage of the pause, she slipped her arm through his and manoeuvred him along the pavement, leaving Jonno having a good old chuckle at her expense, no doubt. Damn him!

  ‘Lovely flowers.’ Juliet ventured, when they reached the corner where Gray’s car was parked. ‘Aren’t you going to take them up to Karina?’

  ‘No. Funnily enough I’m not in the mood now.’ Snatching his arm away, Gray opened the car door and flung the bouquet on the passenger seat. ‘I presume your car’s here somewhere?’ Juliet nodded. ‘Right then.’ Gray ducked into the driver’s seat, revved up with unnecessary force and, without a backward glance, disappeared into the flow of traffic.

  He wasn’t there when Juliet got home. He didn’t arrive until gone half past nine by which time, having sat through dinner with Andrea and Rachel, fielded Rachel’s hundred questions about the baby and helped her with her maths homework, she had managed to escape upstairs. She was sitting on top of the bed, glancing through the evening paper, when she heard him come in. There was no-one else downstairs now. She tracked his movements – hall, kitchen, sitting room, then silence. She should go down and talk to him. No, why on earth should she? He was the one who had stormed off. Let him come to her.

  She turned her attention to the paper, read an article without assimilating a word of it, scanned the dancing print of the small ads, and eventually, a good twenty minutes later, the hall light went off, the stairs creaked and Gray walked purposefully into the room, switched the main light on and closed the door behind him.

  Juliet blinked. She lowered the paper and waited.

  ‘Well, who is he?’ Gray’s tone, if not accusing, wasn’t exactly conversational either.

  What had she expected? That she’d be excused from answering any awkward questions and they would just carry on as if this afternoon’s jolly little scene had never happened? It wasn’t difficult to see how her somewhat public altercation with Jonno could be misinterpreted by anyone not in possession of the full facts, and by the look of it, this particular ‘anyone’ was inclining further towards that view with every passing second. This was so unfair.

  She chanced a smile. ‘Come and sit down and I’ll explain. Where have you been anyway? Shall I go down and make you something to eat?’

  ‘No, I’m not hungry. I haven’t been anywhere in particular. I called into Al’s and dropped the flowers off… Juliet, just answer my question, please.’

  Gray stood stiffly at the end of the bed, obviously with no intention of sitting down, nor of coming anywhere near her at all, judging by his expression. Her heart slunk into its accustomed position, somewhere near the bottom of her ribcage. She put the paper down and slid her legs over the side of the bed, taking the opportunity to move a foot nearer Gray.

  ‘Jonno – Jonathan – is Tallulah’s boyfriend, you remember…?’

  ‘Yes, I know that. So what else is he?’

  ‘Nothing, he’s nothing. Not to me anyway.’

  ‘Not a stranger, though. I’m not stupid.’ Gray’s eyes glittered under the overhead light.

  ‘I never said you were. I was going to tell you what happened, honestly I was, before today I mean, but I wasn’t sure if I should as you were so upset over the other thing and Andrea said I shouldn’t say anything…’

  Gray twisted round, flinging up his arms. ‘Andrea! I might have known she’d be involved somewhere! Well, isn’t that just the ticket? Andrea knows all about it while I know nothing. You accuse me of keeping secrets then you go and share something like this with your so-called best friend and leave me in the dark. Well, thanks very much for that.’

  Juliet stood up and faced Gray. ‘No, I never told her. She didn’t know anything about it, not until the other night when we went to the pub, and for your information I tried to tell you, right at the start, but you were so wrapped up in your own little world you weren’t even listening!’

  ‘Oh, and that was my fault, was it?’

  ‘No, of course not, but I didn’t know that at the time, did I?’

  Gray huffed out his breath and ran a hand across his head. ‘No, all right, but you could have tried a bit harder. OK, look, let’s not try and re-write history. Just tell me now, will you, or is that too much to ask?’

  And so she told him. All of it. From the day Jonno landed on the roof terrace to today, to the point at which she’d fitted the pieces together and discovered the truth about him. And then she heard herself describing the panic, the desolation she’d felt when Gray had seemed gradually to be distancing himself from her emotionally, how she hadn’t felt able to please him any more, how she’d been certain that what she was experiencing was the prelude to his leaving her but she’d been afraid to confront him with her fears in case they turned into reality.

  Rachel was growing up, becoming her own separate person, needing her less, which was how it should be but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Andrea’s presence, although she hadn’t realised it before, had unsettled her because her friend, too, seemed no longer willing to share every aspect of her life. She had felt excluded – oh, yes, she knew how childish that sounded but to have a little secret of her own, something entirely separate from the demands of the rest of her life, had seemed mightily attractive at the time. And yes, to her utter shame, she had been tempted to take things further. Even when the danger had been staring her in the face, the adrenalin rush had been almost too hard to resist, but she had resisted and the reason she hadn’t told Gray, well, it was obvious, wasn’t it?

  Gray remained silent. He stood there looking at her, taking all this in. Juliet felt strangely calm, and sort of cleansed. Better out than in, her mother’s voice said.

  Eventually, Gray spoke, his tone alarmingly edgy. ‘You had no intention of telling me at all, did you, Juliet? If you hadn’t been found out I never would have known anything about it, would I?’

  She didn’t reply. She went to the window and perched on the edge of the sill, arms crossed. If he wasn’t going to believe a word she said, let him think what he damn well liked.

&nbs
p; ‘Right then,’ Gray continued, presumably interpreting her silence as assent. ‘You had no dealings with this Jonno character other than what you just told me, you didn’t return his calls and you told him you wanted nothing more to do with him. Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘So how do you explain this, then?’ Gray whipped a creased brown envelope from his trouser pocket and waved it at her.

  ‘What is it?’

  She stood up and reached for the envelope which she could see was addressed to her in unfamiliar handwriting. Gray whisked it out of her reach and opened it, his thumb impatient on the partially sealed flap. He drew out some kind of leaflet.

  ‘Open House,’ he said, holding it up. ‘It’s about Open House, the Brighton Festival artists’ thing. How to apply and all about it, and that’s not all.’ He shot Juliet an accusing look and turned the leaflet over. ‘There’s a note on the back. I’ll read it to you, shall I? Dear Juliet, you should go for this. Your work is amazing. Let me know the date of your first showing. I wouldn’t want to miss it. Jonno.’

  Juliet closed her eyes and opened them again. But why? Why would he do that to her? To cause trouble, because his pathetic attempt at seduction had failed? What a snake in the grass! Unless… unless this was the only tiny bit of him that was sincere, and he meant it as some kind of apology. After all, he couldn’t have known that someone else would open the envelope. Well, she’d never know now – not that she cared.

  ‘Where did you get that? I’ve never even seen it.’ She reached again for the leaflet and this time Gray let her take it. The envelope fluttered to the floor.

  ‘It was on my desk the day after I came home, with all my other post.’

  ‘And you opened it.’

  ‘Yes, by mistake.’

  ‘Why didn’t you give it to me, then?’

  ‘I wanted time to think about it.’

  Juliet swallowed hard. She could hardly make an issue of Gray not giving her the envelope, could she? Not now.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about doing Open House for a while. I’m sure I mentioned it…’

  ‘You did, yes.’

  ‘…but that was my own idea – it wasn’t because of anything he said. He saw some of my work, as I just told you, but I never discussed any of my plans with him. It didn’t come up, and anyway, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘So why did he send this if he knew he was never going to see you again?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Does it matter? It’s only a silly note. He’s a bastard. I told you.’

  But Gray was already heading for the door. Juliet followed him on to the landing, saw him reaching into the airing cupboard, dragging out a couple of pillows and an old patchwork quilt.

  ‘Gray, don’t, please. You’ll be uncomfortable on the sofa. It’s silly.’

  ‘Not the sofa.’ He nodded towards the little room next to their bedroom.

  Even sillier then. There was a blow-up mattress in there among the rest of the junk but even if he managed to find the pump there was barely an inch of spare floor space. What was he going to do, prop it up against the wall and sleep upright?

  Paralysed by disbelief and indignation, she stood and watched as, with a muttered ‘Goodnight’, Gray lumped the makeshift bedding under his arm, edged his way into the room and, with some difficulty, closed the door behind him. She was still standing there moments later when the door re-opened and Gray emerged holding aloft the exercise bike which he pitched with some force against the banisters, catching Juliet’s ankle sharply with the pedal.

  ‘Gray, for crying out loud..!’

  The door closed again. Juliet launched herself against it, tried to push it open but some obstacle within prevented it.

  ‘Gray, open this door!’ She pounded both fists against the panel. ‘Gray!’

  ‘What’s going on? What’s the bike doing out here?’

  Juliet stopped hammering and turned to Rachel who stood there in her pyjamas, eyes wide at the sight of her mother belting seven bells out of the spare room door.

  ‘Oh, darling, it’s all right. Go back to bed.’

  ‘Mum, what’s the matter? Where’s Gray?’

  Andrea appeared behind Rachel. ‘What the fu…?’

  Juliet looked at the still closed door then back at the pair of them.

  ‘Andrea, would you take Rachel back upstairs for me?’ Juliet made frantic don’t-ask faces at Andrea.

  ‘But Mum…’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Andrea made faces back. ‘Come and get me if you need me, Ju.’

  Andrea hustled a protesting Rachel up the stairs. Juliet turned her attention back to the door and gave the central panel one almighty wood-crackling thump. The door opened and Gray stuck his head round, his face like flint.

  ‘For God’s sake, Juliet! You’ll wake up the whole damn street!’

  ‘Good!’ She took the opportunity to push the door open a bit further. The ironing board that had been standing behind it crashed to the floor. ‘Now, are you going to stop behaving like a complete idiot and come out of there or do I have come in and get you?’

  ‘Oh, idiot now, is it?’ Gray crossed his arms over his bare chest. ‘Well, while you’re about it why don’t you list all my other shortcomings, then you can do a proper comparison between me and Mr Six-pack. Write a thesis on it. In fact, do what you want but don’t expect me to hang about while you make up your mind.’

  Mr Six-pack? He meant Jonno, of course. Gray was jealous of Jonno. How ridiculous! She launched herself forward, wedging herself in the doorway to stop him from shutting her out again. He’d run away from her once. She wasn’t about to let it happen a second time.

  ‘What do you mean make up my mind? You can’t seriously believe I would ever choose someone like him over you?’ How could Gray even think that? One look at his face told her that yes, apparently, he could. She took hold of his arm and gave it a tug. ‘This is getting stupid. Are you coming out of there or not?’

  Wordlessly, Gray shrugged her off, pushed past and stomped into their bedroom. She followed, closing the door behind them. At last. Now perhaps they could start to make sense of all this, although where she would scrape up the energy to do that tonight she had no idea.

  Without a glance in her direction, Gray peeled off his trousers, threw himself into bed and lay rigidly on his back, staring up the ceiling. Juliet switched off the central light, removed her t-shirt and jeans and slipped beneath the duvet, keeping firmly to her side of the mattress.

  ‘Sorry,’ Gray said, after several minutes of tense silence. ‘I shouldn’t have said those things.’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t.’

  ‘You can see how it looked, though.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive. You of all people should know that.’

  ‘Yes.’ He turned his head and looked at her. ‘All right, I was jealous, I admit it. I’m only human.’

  ‘Yes, well, there was no need to storm off like that.’

  Gray didn’t reply.

  ‘You have absolutely no reason to be jealous. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’m sorry.’ He turned over properly to face her, his eyes shining in the semi-darkness. ‘I’m not making excuses but I haven’t quite got over… the other thing. My head’s still a bit messed up.’

  ‘Yes, I know, and I’m sorry too but it doesn’t give you carte blanche to accuse me of… well, you know.’

  ‘No. It was only because I was so scared you were going to leave me.’

  Juliet was quiet for a moment, then she said: ‘It hurts, doesn’t it, thinking that. It taints your whole life with uncertainty, so much so that you’re almost afraid to put one foot in front of the other.’

  ‘And you suffered that far longer than I did. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to happen.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Juliet said. ‘We never do mean things to happen, not the bad things. It’s as if they’re all mapped out for us, waiting to trip us up when we least expe
ct it, but perhaps it’s best we don’t know. I know one thing though.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. I know that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

  ‘You’re not leaving me then?’

  The catch in his voice made her heart squeeze.

  ‘Of course I’m not…’ Something broke inside. A little sob rose from her throat as the tears she’d been holding back began spilling silently down her cheeks.

  Gray took her in his arms. ‘Don’t, darling. Please don’t. Everything will be all right now, you’ll see.’ He kissed the top of her head.

  She made an effort to stop crying. ‘I do hope so. I want that so much.’ Swallowing hard, she pulled away from Gray a little so she could look at him properly. ‘I was jealous too. I’ve only realised that lately.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes. I was jealous of…her, Tasmin, because all the time your attention was focussed on her, even though it was in a bad way, it wasn’t focussed on me. That doesn’t make me a very nice person, I know, but it’s true. I thought you ought to know.’ She sighed. ‘Sometimes I think I need too much from you and that isn’t fair.’

  ‘I’ll decide what’s fair.’ With gentle fingertips, Gray pushed Juliet’s hair back from her face. ‘You’re so beautiful…’

  She smiled. ‘Which, roughly translated, means, let’s change the subject…’

  Her hands reached round, bending his head towards hers. She kissed him, gently at first, then insistently, moving his lips apart with hers. His hands slid over her hot skin, unhooking her bra, cupping her breasts as a great shuddering sigh ran through him.

  24

  ‘She’s what?’ Gray’s attention snapped away from the ten o’clock news.

  Juliet had just been updating Gray on the latest developments in Andrea’s life, minus the bit about David. That little gem could keep for a while longer.

  ‘Going back to Declan. Oh, I know, but perhaps it isn’t as crazy as it sounds. She misses the house and Harrogate and she misses Confer - she loved that job, despite what she said about giving it up – and in a funny sort of way she misses Declan because he was part of all that. Anyway she isn’t going back to him as such, even though he isn’t with what’s-her-face any more. She says it’s more of a life-style arrangement, that she and Declan want the same things, basically, and if they made it work for all those years then they can do it again, only this time there’ll be no pretend marriage to get in the way.’