The Boy Next Door

by Emlyn Rees

  ‘What if it happens again?’ I ask her, considering that I might be wrong about this and that I might actually be suffering from a genuine medical ailment.

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘But what if it does?’

  ‘There’s always Viagra,’ she suggests, only half joking.

  ‘That might not work, either,’ I say. ‘And then what? We won’t be able to have sex … we won’t be able to have children … it’ll affect everything …’

  She pouts at me reprovingly. ‘Children?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘you know, little people.’

  ‘Since when did children become a part of the plan?’ she asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Propping herself up on her elbow, she questions me back: ‘What do you mean, what do I mean? What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She cocks her head to one side, unconvinced. ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You must have meant something,’ she says, sensibly enough, ‘or you wouldn’t have said it, would you?’

  ‘OK,’ I concede, ‘it’s something I thought I might like to do one day, something I thought we might like to do …’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Well, I hadn’t thought about it that hard. After we’re married, I suppose …’

  ‘No, I mean when did you think about it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I bluster. ‘I can’t name a date or anything. I just did. You know, looking at other people.’

  ‘What other people?’

  ‘People with children,’ I say vaguely. ‘You know, friends of ours with children.’

  ‘We don’t have any friends with children,’ Rebecca points out. And she’s right. It occurs to me for the first time: we don’t. Only now, of course, an image of Mickey this afternoon springs out at me and my earlier pledge not to think about her falls by the wayside again.

  ‘Yes,’ I equivocate, ‘well, maybe we should question that.’ I’m confused, confused by all these questions, and confused because the easy answers in my head are the ones about Mickey and Joe and how happy they looked and how happy looking at them made me feel – answers that I can’t give to Rebecca.

  ‘Question it?’ Rebecca mocks. ‘What do you want to do, Fred? Head up to the Queen’s Park playground and round some of them up? Stick them in your phone under P for parents? Have them round once a month to discuss nappy rash and school selection procedures?’

  ‘No,’ I say, trying to sound as reasonable as possible before this tirade. ‘I’m simply saying that it’s a normal thing. And … and it’s an important thing,’ I add, gathering impetus, ‘… and –’

  Rebecca snorts dismissively. ‘The reason’, she interrupts, ‘we don’t have any friends with children, Fred, is because people with children are boring. What?’ she says, her eyes shining, obviously having read the indignation in my face and throwing some back in response. ‘Just because it sounds callous doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’

  ‘They’re not boring,’ I object.

  She shakes her head, a look of bemusement on her face. ‘I can’t believe you’re getting broody.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Well, it sure sounds that way from here …’ She gives me a patient smile, before rolling languidly over to the side of the bed, and kneeling up as she pulls on a shirt.

  ‘Think about it,’ she tells me, flopping back down on to the bed. ‘Parents, by definition, are responsible. And being responsible’, she goes on, ‘means being dull. They don’t drink,’ she informs me, ‘and they don’t party. What they do do is sit at home and vegetate. And do you want to know why?’ she asks, before filibustering on before I get a chance to intervene. ‘Because they’ve opted out. Because they’ve poured all their energies into their offspring and they’ve emptied themselves out in the process. Because they’re no longer out there competing with the rest of us. And, fine, one day I might be ready for that. One day, I might need the rest and might decide to hand the baton over. But not now. For fuck’s sake, Fred,’ she says, giving me this wild grin. ‘I’m too young.’ She leans over and kisses me on the cheek. ‘And so’, she adds pointedly, ‘are you.’

  ‘That’s what I told your father,’ I say.

  She looks surprised by this information and, somehow, this cheers me up. ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘I told him that we were too young to have children.’

  Her look of surprise remains. ‘He asked you about that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The week before last. That day the vicar came over.’

  Rebecca shakes her head, grinning. ‘The cheeky old sod,’ she says affectionately. ‘How did he react?’

  ‘He agreed.’

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘there you go, then.’

  Again, I find myself objecting. ‘Well, nothing. What’s our age got to do with anything? Plenty of people younger than us have children. You know, ten years younger than us … more, even … I bet if you asked them they wouldn’t say that they were bored or opting out.’

  ‘Probably not, but they wouldn’t know any better, would they? If that’s what they’ve been doing with their lives since they left school, then they’d have no idea about what they’ve been missing out on.’ She shrugs, perching her right ankle over her knee and starting to pick at the nail on her big toe. ‘Young mums. Yeuch,’ she groans. ‘Personally, I can’t think of anything worse than being trapped looking after some brat when you should be out there having fun. Talk about wasting your life.’

  I’m about to reply, but then I stop myself. I close my mouth and I stop listening, too. There’s no point in taking this argument any further. It’s not like either of us has been drinking. It’s not like Rebecca doesn’t mean what she’s been saying, any more than me. But even though I know she’s entitled to her opinion, I can’t shake the feeling of disgust she’s dredged up inside me. I have this wonderful projection of Mickey and Joe in my mind. They’re walking through a park, hand in hand, chattering busily and laughing. And then I have Rebecca’s words, tearing the whole scene to shreds.

  I look around Rebecca’s room and take it all in: the vast imported Balinese wardrobe, the aluminium-finish television, the Virgin Select dressing gown on the peg on the back of the reclaimed wooden door, the Philip Stark lamp on the dressing table and the Lloyd Loom chair, neatly positioned in front of the spot-lit Portobello Road boutique mirror. Then I look at Rebecca herself. She’s side on to me now, reaching out for the television remote control, oblivious to the sudden importance of this conversation to me. I run my eyes over her beautiful features before staring at my own reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Oh, Fred?’ she says, turning back to me as the television flickers into life.

  ‘What?’ I ask, unmoving.

  ‘Is it all right if you move your car?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She gives me a pained look. ‘It’s just that it makes the street look so terribly shabby,’ she explains, ‘and I’ve got an estate agent coming round later to do an evaluation so that we can get this place on the market and start looking for somewhere to move into together after the wedding.’ She smiles at me and blows me a kiss before focusing her attention back on the TV. ‘Thanks, sweetie,’ she adds, finding a quiz show and turning up the volume.

  With still a whole stack of last-minute loose ends left to tie up for Saturday’s games channel publicity bash, I leave work early on Thursday (around 7 p.m.) and take the tube over to Knightsbridge.

  It’s Phil’s twenty-seventh birthday and he’s asked us all along for a picnic. He was my flatmate for the first couple of years after I moved to London and he’s now going out with Katie, Rebecca’s best friend from college.

  It’s a warm evening and there are plenty of other groups of people scattered around Hyde Park, playing football, cuddling in the long grass, or simply sitting under trees reading books and newspapers. But still, Phil’s gang of fifteen o
r so of our friends aren’t difficult to spot, their noise and animation easily giving them away. Even from fifty yards off you can tell that they’re drunk. Akash is chasing a squealing Michelle around a bench at the edge of the lake, and some of the others are clustered round a sturdy old beech, heaving down on the lower branches, trying to dislodge what I guess must be a frisbee. I see Rebecca and Eddie, sitting on a rug at the hub of all this action. They haven’t spotted me and I watch them for a couple of seconds, laughing together, before going over to join them.

  ‘You look shattered,’ Rebecca tells me. ‘How did the meeting go?’ She’s wearing a smart grey business skirt and a white silk top. Her shoes and jacket are by her side and her feet are bare.

  I think back to this afternoon, to the lengthy sales stats meeting with Susan and Michael. I gaze across at the shimmering gold of the Albert Memorial and my eyelids weigh down. ‘Exhausting,’ I reply, reaching for a beer.

  ‘Want some?’ Eddie asks, his grin set and his eyes unfocused, as he offers me the joint he’s been smoking.

  I shake my head. ‘Better not,’ I say. ‘It’ll just knock me out.’

  He passes the joint to Rebecca, who inhales deeply, before lying down on her back and staring up at the sky, continuing to smoke.

  Over the next hour or so I do my best to join in. I play frisbee for a while and then drink a few beers with Phil and Chas, who quiz me about what we’re doing for my stag night, which is taking place in two weeks’ time. Somehow, though, the beer fails to take effect, or raise me up from my low in any way. Instead, it has the same result that gin always has on me, pushing me down deeper into myself.

  Getting Mickey out of my head is proving harder than I could ever have imagined. It’s as if the burst of latent emotion I felt for her outside her shop planted roots there and has grown ever since, so that now I can feel it stretching, groaning inside me like a tree in the wind.

  ‘Listen,’ I tell Rebecca, walking over to where she and Eddie are sitting, giggling on the rug. I crouch down in front of her. ‘I think I’m going to head home,’ I say.

  Rebecca stares at me through uncomprehending, stoned eyes. ‘But why?’ she asks. ‘We’re having a nice, chilled time …’

  ‘Yeah,’ Eddie adds, ‘stay.’

  ‘I’ve got a whole stack of stuff to do before Saturday,’ I say.

  ‘What’s Saturday?’ Eddie asks.

  ‘His big games launch,’ Rebecca fills in for me.

  ‘Oh,’ Eddie says, cracking open another can of beer.

  I look Rebecca up and down. Things have been a little awkward between us since Saturday’s bathroom episode. We made love on Tuesday morning before work, but it was a sleepy and forgetful affair, which failed to clear the air between us. ‘Are you going to come or not?’ I ask her.

  ‘What?’ she queries. ‘Now, or to the launch?’

  ‘Both.’

  I watch her brow knit in concentration as she lights a cigarette. ‘Saturday’s out,’ she eventually says. ‘I’m going round to see the dressmaker.’ She pauses, as she inhales on her cigarette. ‘And now … I think I’ll hang around here a while,’ she decides. She smiles at me apologetically. ‘Is that all right, baby?’ she enquires. ‘Only I’m probably a bit too stoned to be much company for you … I’ll head back to mine later … let you get some rest.’

  ‘Fine,’ I say. I don’t blame her. It’s a beautiful evening and, in any other mood, I’d be staying put, too. ‘Are you going to be all right for getting home?’ I check.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘sure.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Eddie reassures me, giving me a Boy Scout salute. ‘I’ll make sure she gets in a cab.’

  Leaning forward, I kiss Rebecca. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow, then,’ I say. ‘Give me a call.’

  Back home, I sit down at the desk in my bedroom and unlock the second drawer down. Inside is a shoebox full of family photos that I rescued from the bin after I caught my mother throwing them out soon after we moved to Scotland. It’s travelled with me from flat to flat ever since, but this is the first time I’ve ever flipped through its contents. Finally, I find the photograph I’m looking for.

  It’s in black and white, and captures a moment from the first day that Mickey and I spent in one another’s company. In it, we’re lying side by side on a tartan-patterned rug in Mickey’s parents’ back garden. Our fingers are intertwined and we’re gazing up at the sky. Mum is sitting on the rug beside us, smiling for the camera. In the background, half obscured by a giant porcupine of pampas, is Mickey’s mother, Marie. She’s wearing a wide-brimmed hat and an extravagant sarong, and is talking to Miles. You can just about make out Scott, Mickey’s elder brother, sitting on the back doorstep. Mickey’s father, Geoff, is nowhere to be seen, making me think that it must have been him who operated the camera. A shadow stretches across the garden from the faded, creosoted wooden fence that formed the boundary between our two homes.

  The photo was taken on Mickey’s first birthday. I was eight months old. Sitting here now, I realise that from that frozen moment on, the clocks of our lives started ticking again, and anything and everything was possible.

  *

  ‘I hate him.’

  I was lying on the flat asphalt roof of Dave Kirby’s garage over on the other side of Rushton from my house and I was talking about Miles. The sound of David Bowie singing ‘Ashes to Ashes’ drifted up from a radio playing in the garden next door, along with the hot sizzle and smell of barbecued chicken. It was the day before term started at Bowley Comprehensive and a week before I’d join the fifth form of Rathborne Preparatory School for boys.

  Two months before, at the end of the summer term, Mickey and I had walked together out of the gates of Rushton Primary School, and across the bridge and up the Avenue to our homes for the last time. Miles was pulling me out of state education and putting me into the private, fee-paying system instead. After two years at Rathborne I would sit my Common Entrance exams and be sent off to a boarding school. Mickey and I would never sit in the same class again.

  Dave, long-legged and lanky, the captain of our football team at Rushton Primary and one of my best friends, was stretched out on his stomach next to me, training a pair of battered binoculars across the road. The burnt backs of his knees blinked like bloodshot eyes as he bounced his heels on his navy-blue shorts and the newly grown black hairs on his shins glistened with sweat. It was a hot and humid Sunday, two months before my eleventh birthday.

  Dave’s gaze was fixed on Sam Johnson’s house, the last in Fern Road. The stone walls of its back garden were six feet high and, from our elevated position, you could look down into the back left-hand corner of the garden. Two red beach towels lay there, unoccupied, on the yellowed grass next to a sprawling, blooming rhododendron bush. Miles was at the front of my mind, so much so that he might have been lying there himself, repeating time and time again what he’d told me the day before: ‘You’re a chatty kid, Fred. You’ll adapt.’

  ‘You can’t hate him,’ Pippa said, ‘he’s your dad.’

  I turned on to my side so I could face her. Pippa was dark-haired and gawky, and her spectacles flashed in the sun, making me shield my eyes with my hand. She was wearing tight green shorts and a yellow crop top, and her feet were bare.

  Mickey had become firm friends with Pippa over the last six months. They caught the bus into Bowley sometimes to go shopping for clothes in Miss Selfridge and Dorothy Perkins, and to try on make-up in Brown’s department store. Being a boy, I was automatically excluded from going with Mickey on these adventures, ending up hanging out with Dave instead down at the video arcades in Houndsfield Street, spending our pocket money on rubbing out each other’s names from the Space Invaders’ Hall of Fame.

  I glanced over at Mickey, who lay next to Pippa in chopped-off jeans and her brother Scott’s Blondie T-shirt. Her face, brown as a hazelnut from eight weeks of mucking about out of doors, was turned up to the cloudless sky and her eyes were hidden by a pair of her
mum’s sunglasses, so big that they made her face look like a fly’s. She hadn’t stirred a muscle for the last half-hour and didn’t do so now.

  ‘So what?’ I challenged Pippa.

  ‘So …’ Pippa’s voice trailed off for a moment and I raised my eyebrows at her. ‘So …’ she continued, thinking some more, ‘… so without him you wouldn’t even be here.’

  The sheer logic of what she’d just said momentarily stumped me, but it didn’t prevent me from snapping back, ‘Well, maybe I’d prefer it that way.’

  Pippa looked at me sidelong, her expression a mixture of suspicion and amusement. She nudged Mickey in the ribs. ‘Did you hear that, Mickey?’ she asked. ‘Fred wishes he was dead.’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘You might as well have,’ Pippa pointed out.

  ‘I never,’ I insisted. ‘You’re twisting my words. I said I hated Miles. I never said anything about wanting to die.’

  Mickey slowly rolled over, dropped her mum’s sunglasses down on to the tip of her nose and peered over the top of them at Pippa. ‘It won’t make any difference,’ she said.

  ‘What won’t?’ Pippa asked.

  ‘Fred having to go the posh kids’ school. Just because he goes there doesn’t mean he has to turn into a posh kid himself.’ Mickey grinned at me. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she reassured me. ‘Nothing’s going to change. You wait and see.’