by Emlyn Rees
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Fred says, walking into the kitchen.
‘No need,’ I trill, but I know I’m sounding skittish and nervous. ‘I brought some breakfast.’ I hold up the paper bag from across the road. ‘Coffee and sausage sandwiches.’
Fred ruffles his hair and sort of yawns down his nose.
‘You do eat breakfast?’ I check.
Fred smiles, breaking his yawn. ‘Of course. Sorry, I’m just not very awake yet.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Late night?’
‘Hm. I had to go out with a whole load of people from work. We ended up at some bar. I bailed out at about four this morning, I think.’
‘Very glam,’ I say, smiling, but inside I feel deflated. I’ve spent most of the last few days thinking about all the things we still have in common, but I’ve just been kidding myself. The reality is that Fred’s life is completely different from mine. At four o’clock this morning I was thinking about getting up, not going to bed.
I look around the kitchen, but there doesn’t seem to be a space on which to put my bag. There’s a laptop open on the pine table, surrounded by piles of papers, while the work surface is stacked with a couple of dirty plates, next to an Indian-takeaway bag. I peek out through the dirty glass door in the living room, wishing I could open it and let some fresh air in.
‘What’s out there?’ I ask.
‘It’s nothing much. Just a roof terrace. I’ll show you, if you like.’
I nod and Fred walks over and opens the doors.
The view is amazing and I breathe in deeply. ‘It’s lovely,’ I say, wandering over the wooden decking to look between the chimney pots. ‘You could make it a complete haven up here with a bit of work. Look at all this light; it’s wonderful.’
‘Is it? I’d never really thought about it.’ Fred squints in the sunshine. ‘I’ve certainly never been up here at this time before.’
‘You’re so lucky to have this space. I’d be out here every day if I were you,’ I say, sitting on one of the plastic chairs, and taking the coffee cups out of the paper carrier bag and placing them on the disused window box.
Fred flops down in the other chair and crosses his foot over his knee. He blinks heavily as I hand him the sandwich, bound in greaseproof paper. He unwraps it, checking its contents. ‘Drowning in ketchup. I’m amazed you remembered.’
‘Just like Miles used to make …’ I stop abruptly, tripped up by my insensitivity. We stare at each other for a moment and I put my hand to my mouth.
‘Sorry … I didn’t mean –’ I begin.
Fred shakes his head and smiles. ‘It’s OK. I can handle it.’
I pass over his coffee. ‘Breakfast is the least I can do to say thank you for the other night,’ I say with a smile. ‘You have a new, adoring fan.’
‘Really? That’s very nice of you. I didn’t know you still cared.’
‘Not me,’ I tut, smiling. ‘Joe. He thinks you’re chocolate. Actually, I think he wants to be you.’
‘I hope you’ve put him off.’
‘I tried, but it wasn’t easy.’
Fred grins. ‘Well, I’m glad he enjoyed himself.’ He pauses and squints through one eye, against the sun. ‘What about you?’
‘Me?’ I ask. ‘I thought it was incredible. Actually, that’s why I’m here. I am the bearer of fantastic news and I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer.’ I smile at Fred and he raises his eyebrows at me. ‘Peter. Your Peter from the other night,’ I explain. ‘He’s come up trumps. More than trumps. I went to his offices and he’s given me a contract to do their flowers every week.’
Fred shuffles up in his seat. ‘Mickey, that’s great.’
‘You’re telling me. What he’s proposing to pay me is enough to cover my rates. It’s all thanks to you.’
Fred holds his sandwich. ‘Let’s call it quits. This is just what I need.’
‘Joe’s happier as well,’ I continue. ‘You wouldn’t recognise him; he’s a different person since the other night. He’s been bragging to everyone about it and he’s even made arrangements with the boy he met there, Tyler, for the weekend.’ I take a bite out of my sandwich.
Fred smiles as he finishes a mouthful. ‘You know,’ he says. ‘Joe’s so … cool, isn’t he? I’ve never really known a child before. I mean, not since I was one myself. I assumed they’d be a bit of a … burden. But … he’s –’ Fred pauses and gropes for the word. ‘Interesting.’
I can’t help snorting with laughter, as I lever the plastic lid off my coffee cup. ‘Don’t sound so shocked,’ I tell him. ‘Children aren’t aliens. You were a kid once, remember. And I seem to recall you were … moderately interesting.’
Fred pulls a face at me. ‘I suppose. I guess I’d forgotten.’
‘Anyway. Joe’s had good parenting,’ I tease modestly. ‘Of course he’s cool.’
Fred nods and glances down at his sandwich, then back at me. He looks as if he’s about to say something.
‘What?’ I ask, still smiling.
‘Nothing. It’s nothing.’
‘What?’
‘It’s … It doesn’t matter, it’s just …’ Fred shifts nervously in his seat. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but when we were at the launch, I mentioned Martin to Joe when we were at the sushi stand …’
‘And?’
‘I thought Martin was Joe’s father, but Joe said he wasn’t. He seemed a bit embarrassed. It took me by surprise, that’s all.’
‘Oh, I see.’
I look down at my lap. There’s a part of me that always feels defensive when I hear Joe talking about his father or Martin to anyone. I spend so much time trying my best to be two parents that when Joe mentions his confused upbringing it trips me up. I never think it’s an issue, but I suppose for Joe it must be. I’m surprised he talked to Fred about it.
Fred looks embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything –’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I interrupt. ‘I don’t mind. It’s just a long story, that’s all.’
Continuing to munch, Fred sweeps out his arm, as if we have all the time in the world and I feel like I do owe him an explanation for Joe’s sake. Joe hates explaining things himself, so I guess it’s up to me. I’m about to do my usual jaunty gloss over the details, when it occurs to me that I haven’t trusted anyone enough to tell them my story for a very long time. I look at Fred’s expectant face and suddenly it feels right to tell him, as if he should know it all anyway. As the facts tumble out, I feel relieved.
I met Dan at a gig in Camden when I was nineteen. At the time I’d hardly ever been to London, certainly on my own. Even so, I was at my most cocky and confident as I strode into the bar and clapped eyes on him. He was two years older than me, played in a band and had more wild dreams than I’d ever imagined possible. I was intoxicated by him, hooked on his dark good looks and, from the first night, I hardly strayed out of his sight. Within a month I’d left home and moved in with him to a tiny bedsit in Brixton.
I loved London and, coming from Rushton, was totally seduced by the anonymity of it all. I loved the fact that every time I met someone new and introduced myself they didn’t look at me knowingly and say, ‘Oh, so you’re that Mickey Maloney.’ It was as if I’d shed a skin and was starting again as a new person.
Then there was Dan. I spent all my time hanging out with him, swooning around and generally being in love with the idea of being in love. I felt as if he adored me, but in reality he only threw me titbits of attention when I flattered him, or bolstered the enormous expectations he had of the successful, glittering future that was always going to happen at any moment.
Looking back, the two years we spent together were like a giant holiday. Far from the grown-up idyll I thought I was living, we both behaved like carefree and irresponsible teenagers left to their own devices. Every week we drew the dole, drank cheap cans of beer and behaved like sex-starved rabbits. Our love shack, as we called it, was grotty and damp, but it seemed like paradise to
me. For the first time since Fred, with Dan I thought that anything was possible. He called me his muse and, even though I couldn’t afford to eat anything other than pot noodles, it didn’t seem to matter. We were being creative and nothing could stand in our way.
That was, until I got pregnant.
At first, Dan was over the moon and made a thousand promises about our future. It seemed as if having a family was the most natural thing in the world. Dan would write poems to his unborn child, boast about me to his friends and kiss my stomach over and over again.
But then Joe was born and everything changed. Suddenly there were three of us instead of two and it all started to fall apart. Dan got angry that I couldn’t go out with him, or stay up all night like I used to, and he couldn’t deal with it when Joe cried.
When Joe was two months old I came back from the shops one day and there was a tear-stained note. Dan had written every predictable cliché about loving me for ever, but he couldn’t give up on his dream of making it with his band. As if a light suddenly went on, I realised I’d been dumped good and proper. I had no choice but to go back to Rushton with my tail between my legs.
‘Shit, Mickey, I’m sorry,’ Fred mutters, when I’ve finished telling him all this.
He frowns sympathetically at me, but I wave my hand. ‘Don’t be, it’s ancient history,’ I say, meaning it. Actually, I feel rather happy talking about Dan. My usual ‘things didn’t work out’ explanation is designed to keep people from knowing the truth, but it feels refreshing to let Fred in. It’s kind of liberating for once to tell the facts as they were, and not to heap all the blame conveniently on myself, just to avoid talking about it.
‘Aren’t you bitter?’ asks Fred. ‘I would be.’
‘No, I’ve got Joe. He makes up for everything.’
‘And have you seen Dan since?’
I shake my head and shrug. ‘Vanished into thin air. I doubt he’ll show his face. He owes me nine years of child support. Anyway, I don’t want to see him and it’d be terrible for Joe. I think he’s got a certain idea of his father, which I doubt Dan could ever live up to.’
‘And Martin? How does he fit in?’
‘Martin came along just when I thought living at home with Mum and a small baby was going to drive me insane. When he asked me to marry him, I said yes more out of some crazy notion that Joe needed a father figure in his life than anything else.’
Fred leans back in his chair. He makes a good listener. ‘What was Martin like?’ he asks.
‘Dull,’ I reply. ‘Fine on paper and I did try really hard to fall in love with him, but all the time I was with him I felt like I was doing life, rather than living it. He was the absolute opposite of Dan. It only took about two months before I realised that I’d shrunk into Martin’s never-ending routine. Drinks with the boys on a Friday, football on Saturdays, washing the car on Sundays and so it went on … and on.’
‘It doesn’t sound very you.’
‘I tried to make it me, but in the end I just couldn’t. All the time, I felt like a spectator watching myself from the corner of the room, until I finally came to my senses.’
‘When did it end?’
‘Just over three years ago. Ever since I’d gone back to Rushton after living with Dan, I’d wanted to come back to London. When I realised I was perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet I left. I felt determined to make a go of things myself. Poor old Martin. I think I hurt him quite a bit and it wasn’t exactly fair on Joe.’
Fred’s silent for a long moment. When I look up at him, he’s staring right at me and there’s something in his eyes that makes my heart start pounding.
‘Do you think you could ever fall in love again, Mickey?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, shrugging, my voice hoarse. Coughing, I break eye contact and try to laugh off the moment. ‘Anything’s possible. Anyway, what is love? You’re the expert. You tell me. You’re the one about to get married.’
Fred stretches and looks at his toes. He smiles wryly to himself. ‘Ah, Rebecca,’ he says, but he almost sounds wistful, as if he’s reluctant to speak her name.
‘Yes, Rebecca,’ I say pointedly, feeling like we’ve said far too much and gone much too long without mentioning her. ‘How is the future Mrs Roper?’
‘Wilson.’
‘Sorry!’ I flap my hand, embarrassed. ‘Wilson. Well, when do I get to meet her?’
Fred stares out across the rooftops and doesn’t answer.
‘She … she does know about me?’ I check.
Fred sighs a heavy sigh and rubs his eyes before he looks up at me. His face is serious. ‘Not exactly. Not at the moment,’ he admits. ‘It’s tricky –’
‘Tricky?’ I interrupt. ‘What’s so tricky?’
‘She doesn’t know.’
‘What do you mean?’
Fred takes a deep breath. ‘She doesn’t know about Miles.’
I’m so shocked by this that for a moment I can’t say anything. ‘You mean –’
Fred nods. ‘She knows that I lived in Rushton, but she doesn’t know that I was ever called Roper, or what happened to Miles.’
I’m dumbfounded. ‘I see,’ I manage.
‘There seemed to be no point in telling her. Nobody knows, really, except you.’ He exhales guiltily when he sees my look of disbelief. ‘I … I can’t really mention it now. It’s too late. And anyway, I don’t want to. I’m happy with the way things are. The past is the past.’
‘Oh. And I suppose that includes me?’
Fred shakes his head. ‘No, of course it doesn’t.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, it’s great seeing you again. I really mean that. And I will tell Rebecca about you and everything apart from the stuff about Miles. I was going to anyway. I –’
‘All of it? About you taking me and Joe to the launch the other night?’
Fred nods.
‘I’m not going to see you again if it means sneaking around behind her back. It’s not fair.’
‘I know …’
‘Please don’t be flaky,’ I insist. ‘I can’t stand flaky men.’
Fred looks sheepishly at me and I glance sideways at him, giving him a beady scowl. ‘Promise me?’ I insist.
‘I promise.’
‘Hm,’ I reply, standing up to stretch my legs, smoothing down my jeans. Folding my arms, I walk around the roof terrace and finally sit down on the low wall.
Fred stands and comes to sit next to me. Behind us, four storeys below, traffic is starting to build along the street and I can see people walking towards the tube. It seems like a different world from up here.
‘I suppose I should think about going to work,’ says Fred, sighing after a while.
‘Don’t sound so enthusiastic.’ I chuckle.
‘You always did make me want to skive. Being up here makes it all seem a bit pointless and frantic. I wish we could just spend the day doing nothing.’
‘So do I,’ I say, meaning it more than ever.
We both look at the view.
‘Hey. Saved your life.’ He laughs, suddenly jolting me. He pulls me upright by my arm and we both giggle. Then, for a second, my eyes lock with his, our faces just inches apart, and I hold my breath.
Chapter V
Fred
1985, the worst year of my life, began as the best.
I remember my time with Mickey as one long embrace. We started kissing in the snow outside Rushton Memorial Hall in December 1984 and hardly came up for air before I was sent back to boarding school in the new year. I don’t know if what grew between us during those first few months was love, but it was powerful enough to leave me breathless with tears some nights as I lay in my dormitory bed and thought of Mickey back home. She seemed so far away and all I wanted to do was reach out and touch her hand.
As the year progressed and one school term passed into another, I’d dream at nights of being in Rushton. I’d float through the rooms of my house like a ghost, passing Miles in c
orridors and on landings, watching him talking in whispers to shadowy, wraithlike figures, retreating behind closed doors whenever he noticed me. Drifting onwards, I’d listen to Mum as she worked in the kitchen, or spoke on the phone, or sorted out clothes for charity jumble sales, and the familiar sound of her voice always filled me with peace. Invariably, though, I’d end up tramping the roads and lanes of the village, hand in hand with Mickey, as a summer sun blazed down and threw our shadows like grotesque giants against the walls and hedges. Each journey would end with that moment of five summers before, with the two of us standing by the churchyard gate, gazing up at the starling as it broke across the rust-red sky and my heart split open for the very first time.
With morning, these dreams would collapse. Summoned by the high-pitched rattle of electric bells, I’d find myself back in my dormitory, listening to the alien noise of twenty other fifteen-year-old boys waking, farting and squabbling over basins, toothbrushes, spot creams and deodorants. I’d rise and wash and dress, and join the chattering stream of my fellow pupils, which flowed up to the dining room in Main School, for breakfast and the start of another day.
Sited on a hundred-acre estate in the heart of the Cotswolds, Greenaway College was – and, as far as I know, still is – home to around three hundred boys, ranging in age from thirteen to eighteen. Originally a Norman manor house, it had grown over the years into a sprawling collection of honey-coloured buildings the size of a small village. At some point (I forget the date), a Victorian industrialist called Endicot Greenaway had bought the lot and founded a feeder school for the governing ranks of the British Empire. I remember how the names of the school’s glorious dead were carved into the backs of chairs in dormitories and classrooms, next to the battles and foreign campaigns which had claimed their lives.
I was in the fifth form, halfway through my allotted time here. Unless I succeeded in persuading Miles and Mum to let me go to a sixth-form college nearer home, two and a half more years stretched ahead of me before I’d be done with this place. Everything I took for granted in Rushton – buses, shops, freedom of movement and, most important of all, Mickey – was now either inaccessible or prohibited. They belonged to the outside world and I was no longer in it. I was fifteen years old and five foot ten, and the only thing I knew about life was that it existed outside these buildings and fields.
