TWNS-2-6-Kindle Master

by Alexander, Nick

  “Weren’t you a bit in love with him at the beginning?” Sean asks.

  “God, Mum tells you… told you… everything,” April says, faking outrage. “And I wasn’t in love with him. I just…” She shrugs coyly. “I had a crush, that’s all. He’s pretty good looking. But he knows it, if you know what I mean.”

  “Right,” Sean says.

  “Waaay too busy being cool,” April explains.

  “Yes. I know the type.”

  The doorbell rings, so April turns to head to the front door. “Great,” she says. “I’m starving.”

  When Sean gets to the kitchen, Ronan is already unpacking a series of metal trays from a carrier bag. “Hey, Sean,” he says.

  Sean slaps him gently on the back then squeezes his shoulder. “Hi Ronan,” he says. “You brought food. I was intending to take you both out somewhere.”

  “You can do that tomorrow,” April says, peeling back the cardboard lid of one of the containers and peering at the contents, then dipping a finger in and sucking it. “We thought this would be nice,” she explains. “Just the three of us.”

  “No Aisha, either?” Ronan asks, his Irish lilt making the word Aisha run into the following word either to form one long list of vowels.

  “No. She’s out with friends,” April tells him. “… said she was going clubbing afterwards, I think.”

  Together, they divvy out the curries before moving to the fold-out table in the lounge.

  “This is such a nice flat,” Sean says, looking around. “It reminds me of being a student.”

  April laughs. “Only, we’re not students, are we? We’re thirty-something professionals. But no one can afford a flat anymore in London.”

  “Sure,” Sean says. “But I still think it’s kind of fun. How much do you pay again?”

  “A thousand a month,” April says.

  “Each? Wow.”

  “Yes. It’s going up to £1200 a month in June, too.”

  “Only…” Ronan starts. But April shoots him a glare, effectively silencing him.

  “Only what?” Sean asks.

  “Only nothing. So, how have you been, Dad?”

  “Yeah,” Ronan says, forking mushroom Biryani to his mouth. “How have you been?”

  April, who isn’t drinking, waits until the second bottle of Chardonnay has been opened before she dares to say what’s on her mind.

  “So Dad,” she says. “Ronan and I… um… we have something to tell you.”

  Sean sips at his wine and nods encouragingly. “Go on?”

  April glances at Ronan. “Shall I, or…?” she asks.

  Ronan shrugs. “Whatever you want. It’s up to you.”

  “Right,” April says, taking a deep breath. “So, we want to move in together. We’ve found a great little flat in South Hampstead that we can just about afford. It’s small…”

  “But lovely,” Ronan interjects.

  “It is,” April agrees. “And it has a little box room Ronan can use as an office.”

  “You know that I work from home most of the time, right?” Ronan asks.

  Sean nods. “Sounds good,” he says, wrinkling his brow and smiling simultaneously because he senses that there’s more to come. “But won’t you miss this place? I thought you liked sharing with Matt and Aisha.”

  “God, no,” April says. “No, I’m sick to death of sharing.”

  “Aisha steals her makeup,” Ronan says, raising his eyebrows. “And Matt won’t do any housework.”

  “Ah,” Sean says. “The joys of sharing. I remember it well.”

  “We just want a place of our own,” April says. “You get to a certain age and you just want to be on your own, you know?”

  Sean nods knowingly. “And then you get to a certain age and the worst thing you can imagine is being on your own.”

  April bites her bottom lip. “Sorry, I’m being insensitive,” she says. “I need a padlock on my mouth or something. I always have done.”

  “Not at all, sweetheart,” Sean says. “I’m just being silly because I’m jealous of your setup here. I want to live in Matt’s cool room and mix records at parties, I think.”

  “You could move into April’s room,” Ronan offers, jokingly. “It’ll be free soon.”

  “The commute might be a bit of a drag,” Sean says. “To Cambridge, I mean.”

  “Anyway,” April says, sounding frustrated by all the small-talk. “There’s another reason we need to move.”

  “There is?”

  She glances at Ronan and reaches for his wrist before turning back to face Sean. “I’m pregnant,” she says. “So we really need to sort out our own place before that happens.”

  “God!” Sean says. “You’re pregnant?”

  Despite the fact that he thought he had sounded pretty convincing, April pulls a face. “You knew. Did Mum tell you that we were trying?”

  “No,” Sean says. He looks at Ronan and, despite himself, wonders if the baby is Ronan’s. And then he looks at April and wonders, then forcefully decides, that she is his daughter. “Nope,” he says. “She really didn’t say a word.”

  “Huh,” April says. She’s clearly unconvinced.

  “She didn’t,” Sean insists, even though he’s not sure why he’s lying. Perhaps because Catherine has told him not in person but on the tapes. And April doesn’t know about the tapes, yet, does she? “But it’s not a new concept, you know?” Sean continues. “Boy meets girl. Girl gets pregnant… Plus, I noticed that you’re not drinking.”

  “Ah,” April says. “Yes, I suppose with my track record that is a bit of a giveaway. Anyway, you can understand now why we need our own place.”

  “You know we had you in a shared student house for your first two years,” Sean reminds her.

  “Yes. But like I said. I’m not a student.”

  “No. That’s true. I wasn’t saying…”

  “The thing is,” April interrupts. “We need your help.”

  “OK. Fire away.”

  “They need a guarantor. For the rent. It’s two thousand two hundred a month.”

  “It’s only because I’m self-employed,” Ronan tells him. “I mean, we can pay it. But we need to convince them of that.”

  “Of course,” Sean says. “No problem.”

  “Really?” April asks.

  “Of course. Why would I say no?”

  April’s features slip into a cute frown. She leans in and pecks her father on the cheek. “Oh, thanks Big Daddy,” she says. “You’re the best, you are.”

  “You’re welcome, Little Daughter.”

  “I would ask my dad,” Ronan says. “But…”

  Sean raises one hand, interrupting him. “It’s not a problem,” he says. “Really.” His voice sounded slightly broken, and he realises that he’s unexpectedly on the verge of tears. “Sorry, um… need the loo,” he says, stumbling from the table before they can notice.

  In the bathroom, he closes and locks the door, then sits on the closed toilet seat and rubs his brow. He swallows with difficulty. Because, yes, despite having prepared himself for this moment, he’s upset. Catherine’s absence, at this specific moment in his life, feels devastating.

  After a minute or so, he stands and looks into the mirror, at his own, glistening eyes.

  He hears Catherine’s voice saying, “I never wanted grandchildren. Other people’s kids have always seemed a special kind of hell.” He hadn’t realised it before, but he now knows that it was a lie designed to make him feel better. Because of course nothing, quite simply nothing, would have made Catherine happier than meeting her daughter’s first child.

  When Sean gets back from the bathroom, April and Ronan are smiling at him and looking expectant. There’s a vaguely fake air to their expressions from which Sean deduces that they’ve been discussing something contentious in his absence.

  “So, there’s one more thing,” April says, as Sean resumes eating. “We don’t… We don’t think we want to get married.”

  “OK,�
�� Sean says, slowly. “Why not?”

  April screws up her nose. “We just don’t really believe in it. Neither of us do.”

  “That’s fair enough. It’s entirely up to you two, I would think. As long as you agree.”

  “We basically do,” April says. “You don’t mind, then?”

  “Do I mind not having to pay for your huge, white wedding?” Sean asks. “Uh… let me see…”

  “And you’re not shocked?”

  Sean laughs.

  “Do you think… ? How do you think… ?” April stammers.

  “What would Mum have said?” Sean prompts.

  “Yeah.” April nods. “She wouldn’t have minded, would she?”

  “I doubt it,” Sean says. “But I really couldn’t say.”

  “I don’t think she would have minded,” April says, clearly trying to convince herself. “I honestly don’t.”

  “It’s immaterial,” Sean says with a sad shake of his head. “She’s not here, sweetheart.”

  During the train journey back to Cambridge, Sean tries but fails to sleep.

  To say that he had not slept well in Matt’s bed would be an understatement. The streetlamp outside had shone directly on his face (there were no curtains) and Matt’s lumpy, sagging mattress was quite simply the worst Sean has ever known. Matt needs, Sean thinks, to spend a little more on his bedding and a little less on records. He berates himself for being an old fogey as soon as he thinks this, but the fact remains that it’s true. The bed really had been awful.

  By Saturday morning, Sean’s back had been stiff, and by Sunday, he had been thinking that he would have to book an appointment with an osteopath just to get his vertebrae yanked back into line.

  But despite his lack of sleep and despite the gentle motion of the train, Sean’s unable to doze. His mind, instead, is running over April’s declarations, and the experience of the anti-Brexit demonstration. Because, yes, the demonstration had been a disappointment.

  They had joined the straggling line of protesters just as they were leaving Hyde Park but within an hour they had abandoned the procession to duck into a branch of Pizza Hut instead.

  “I feel like a real traitor,” Sean had said, once they were seated. The last stragglers were still walking past the window.

  “Now you know why my generation doesn’t go to demos,” April said. “It’s just too depressing.”

  “Surely it’s depressing because no one goes, not the other way around?”

  “I think it’s like a vicious circle of apathy,” Ronan suggested.

  “Plus, it doesn’t change anything, Dad,” April said. “Do you remember all the people who protested against the Iraq war? There were millions of them. But it didn’t change a thing. That’s how they’ve turned us into such an apathetic nation. By never listening. By not giving a damn what people think.”

  Thinking back to Catherine’s similar analysis of the miners’ strike, Sean could only concur.

  “But to concentrate on the serious stuff,” Ronan had said. “What kind of pizza are you having?”

  Once home, Sean is finally able to catch up on his missing sleep. He lies down on the sofa and it’s only when he wakes up to darkness that he remembers he still hasn’t opened this weekend’s package. He glances at the broadband box and sees that it’s almost seven-thirty. He’ll make dinner and then he’ll open the next envelope and he’ll spend the evening with Catherine. It will be almost like not eating alone, he thinks.

  Snapshot #11

  35 mm format, black and white. Young people are dancing in the middle of a lounge. On the settee, which has been pushed to the far side of the room, can be seen three young men. They are grinning and holding bottles of beer. Draped across their knees is a young woman with long hair whose face is too blurred by movement to be identifiable.

  Sean recognises two of the men on the sofa immediately. The man on the left was Andy. He looked so much like Sean that people had called them “the twins”.

  The man on the right they had nicknamed Dave the Rave to distinguish him from Dave the Shave (who was beardless) and Original Dave (who had simply got there first). Dave the Rave never missed a party and had been the first person Sean ever saw performing the big box, little box, cardboard box dance. The guy in the middle, Sean never knew, but he seems to remember that he had been a friend of a friend who had turned up with the stunning Swedish exchange student in a mini-skirt. Sean can still picture the girlfriend vividly. And in his memory, she is still one of the most beautiful women he has ever seen.

  “Who the hell is she?” Sean had asked Andy, on laying eyes upon her.

  “She’s hot, huh?” Andy had said. “Her name’s Leah, I think.”

  “Princess Leah?”

  “Exactly.”

  “She’s smoking hot,” Sean had mumbled.

  “Hum,” Andy had said, laughing. “You regretting that wedding, mate? Already?”

  Troubled by Andy’s comment as well as his own inability to drag his eyes from Princess Leah, Sean had gone in search of Catherine, who had vanished.

  He had found her in the back garden, vomiting into a dustbin. Half walking, half carrying her home had saved him from his indisputable attraction to Princess Leah of Sweden.

  It had been one of those moments when he had imagined that it might just be worth risking everything for a fling, for a simple moment with someone that beautiful. He had realised that physical attraction could be so powerful that one could become stupid enough to throw everything important down the drain. He had never, thank God, bumped into her again.

  Cassette #11

  Hello Sean.

  It’s eleven o’clock on Friday morning and I’ve just seen the oncologist. He gave me the results of yesterday’s CAT scan and the results aren’t great, I’m afraid. I’m a bit in shock, I think, and trying to take my mind off it by doing another one of these tapes.

  That crazily expensive drug I’ve been on, the gem-city-din or whatever it’s called, the one which has been making me so ill that I can’t walk, hasn’t been working at all, it turns out. The doc wants to schedule a meeting with both of us to discuss what he called “remaining options” but to be honest, I’m not hopeful. I don’t think that any of the remaining options are going to be much fun.

  The good news is that they stopped giving me that rubbish immediately, so I should be able to come home for the weekend. I think that I’ll leave it until Monday morning to tell you the bad news. I’ll have to make something up, I suppose. I’m desperate for a normal weekend with you, that’s the thing. I’m desperate for a weekend where we can talk about something other than my desire to vomit or the survival rates of different types of cancers.

  Anyway, I had a little cry after he told me, but I’m all right again now. I’m ready to talk about the next photo. This little project is really helping me get through all of this.

  It’s funny, because I realised that these tapes are turning into a whole different thing.

  At the beginning, I just wanted to tell you some things you didn’t know about me, I just wanted to share some secrets. But it’s becoming more like the complete story of us. It’s becoming more and more like that novel I always said I’d write. Perhaps you can get it typed up and publish it one day. Anyway, I hope you’re not bored yet. You were, after all, there for most of this.

  I had thought there would be more photos like this one. There were so many parties, after all. But I suppose we were too busy getting drunk to take pictures.

  I think the only reason we have a picture of this one is because Theresa was going through her photography phase. She had set up a darkroom in our dusty cellar with an enlarger and everything. This black and white one will definitely be one of hers. I may even have helped develop it.

  I don’t think her photography thing lasted for more than six months, but it was fun for a while. All of her mates from the photography society used to traipse through the house, and they were all pretty nice people. They all used to fawn over Apri
l, I remember. We had lots of black and white photos of her at one stage, but they all seem to have vanished. Perhaps they’re in that other box in the loft.

  We were the strangest students, weren’t we? Especially me, of course, because I wasn’t a student at all. We were a married couple with a toddler, and yet you were also a budding architect. And even if I spent my days looking after April, I felt like a student as well. A student of life, perhaps.

  I’ve always thought that at least half of what you learn through being at college is life stuff, rather than the proper stuff you learn in lessons. It’s why I was so determined that April should go to college. It was learning how to live in a shared house and arguing until three in the morning about washing up and God and politics, and electricity bills that made us who we ended up being. Learning to love and have friendships and let go of them when people got to the ends of their courses, too. And the incredible thing for me was that I got to participate in all of that by proxy. So despite being basically a chavvy bird from a council estate, I still got to do the whole student thing. I got exposed to feminism and socialism and Buddhism, and a hundred different isms. And I made some really great friends.

  And when we weren’t putting the world to rights, we were partying. We never needed much of an excuse, did we? A few bottles of home-brew and a record player and we were away. That’s me in the photo as I’m sure you realised. I had just smoked my second ever joint, but hadn’t thrown up yet.

  I’m not sure that you’ll remember this, but you found me out in the garden, being sick, and I lied and said I’d just had too much to drink. But it was Alistair’s joint that had pushed me over the edge. That’s when I decided that joints really weren’t for me.

  I owned up to you the next morning, and you said you’d tried it too and had also been sick. Neither of us really liked smoking grass, which was probably a blessing. The people who did like the stuff were the ones who got kicked off their courses. It isn’t, I don’t think, the most motivational drug!