Before I Met You

by Lisa Jewell

  ‘So, when ...’ she paused, not wanting to push too hard on the subject of future plans, but needing something to hold on to, however small, ‘... when do you think you might stop touring? When do you think you might settle?’

  Godfrey laughed. ‘That is the greatest mystery of all, my sweetheart. As long as we are in demand then we will keep on. There is too much money being made. When the people stop coming to see us then we will all have to choose new paths.’

  ‘But, Godfrey, you are such a fine musician, possibly the greatest clarinettist in the world. Do you need to keep travelling with the orchestra? Could you not, possibly, give them your notice, take a position at the clubs in London, maybe with the Love Brothers?’

  Godfrey smiled wryly and brought Arlette closer to him. ‘After Manchester,’ he said, ‘we will be back in London, possibly for a long time. Certainly for some weeks. I have promised Mr Cook another year. After that, well, yes, a London spot with the Love Brothers, a little house ...’

  Arlette’s heart jumped.

  ‘A little wife ...’

  Arlette turned then and stared at him sternly, for this was no matter for humour.

  ‘A little family. A little dog.’

  ‘Godfrey!’ she chided. ‘That is not remotely funny.’

  ‘And neither was it intended to be, Arlette.’

  She paused and stared first at him, then out towards the river and then again back at him. ‘Mr Pickle,’ she said, ‘what on earth ...?’

  ‘Miss De La Mare,’ he smiled affectionately, ‘I am not in a position to make you a formal proposal of marriage, but you are the only woman I have ever met who I would want to be in a little house with, do you see? Other women make me want to get on boats and run away. You, you make me want to stay somewhere, so that I can see your face every day. So that I can hold you every day and watch you grow and change and get older. You make me want to be an adult man. You make me want to settle down.’

  Arlette wrinkled her nose and said, ‘Oh, my beautiful Godfrey. How simply frightful.’

  He glanced at her with surprise.

  ‘A girl like me does not want to make a man think about small houses and settling down. I want to make a man think about big houses. And big adventures. All the things we can do together.’

  He widened his eyes and then he laughed. ‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed with a smile. ‘A big house. Of course. And a big dog. And a big family. Can you imagine our babies, Arlette De La Mare? Can you see them?’

  She smiled and nodded, for she had already passed many a quiet moment imagining the children that she and Godfrey could make together.

  ‘I suppose what I am trying, very badly, to say is that I want you, Arlette. I want you for a long time. I want you to be mine and for me to be yours. In a little house. In a big house. On a ship running away together. Whatever it may be. Can you see that, Arlette? Can you feel it?’

  Arlette closed her eyes, let the warm September breeze pass over her and through her, let the moment open up and swallow her, and she did feel it. She felt it in every nerve, every bone in her body.

  ‘I am yours, Godfrey,’ she said. ‘For ever.’

  He brought her close to his body and held her there. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then let for ever begin tonight.’

  41

  1995

  JOHN BRIGHTLY HAD already packed away his stall and left by the time Betty got home from work the next day. She felt curiously deflated, having assumed that he would still be there, wanting to share her first day with someone. With anyone. She thought about calling Bella, or her mum, or even Joe Joe, although history had taught her that she could only understand about thirty per cent of what he said when they spoke on the phone. Then she checked her purse for twenty-pence pieces and sighed when she realised she didn’t have enough to make a phone call.

  But she needed desperately to talk to someone.

  So many remarkable things had happened today.

  Isabel O’Dell had popped over to pick up a serving dish!

  She’d had tea with Ed and Sam Todd’s nanny and their two horribly behaved children!

  She’d seen a plaster cast of Amy Metz’s vagina in the bathroom!

  She’d played football in the park with Donny and his little friend Jackson, who just happened to be the son of the world-famous film star, Jonny Clyde!

  Then she remembered something. Her new phone. In her handbag. Amy had given it to her today, told her she could make private calls on it ‘within reason’. She took the steps to her flat two at a time, made herself a roll-up and a cup of tea and went onto the fire escape.

  There she stared for a moment at the device in her hand. Amy had given her a crash course in its use but she still struggled to remember where the on switch was. She finally figured it out, and typed in Bella’s number.

  ‘Guess where I’m calling you from?’ she began.

  ‘The Presidential Suite at the Ritz?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neptune?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The bowels of the earth?’

  ‘No. I’m calling you from outside.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, I am outdoors and calling you from my new mobile phone.’

  ‘Cool! And how, pray, can you afford a mobile phone on Wendy’s wages?’

  ‘Oh, Bella, I have got so much to tell you. It is unbelievable!’

  By the time Betty had finished telling Bella all her news, starting with, ‘Well, first of all I was having a coffee in this greasy spoon, and me and Dom Jones got talking ...’ and ending on a final, triumphant, ‘... and tomorrow I’m taking them all to play at Daisy Snow’s house!’ she had racked up almost thirty minutes of phone time to be paid for by Amy Metz.

  ‘Shit,’ she said, ‘Bella, I’m going to have to go. This call’s probably cost about a hundred pounds.’ As she said these words she heard a loud cough from across the yard and jumped when she saw Dom sitting on his windowledge, watching her with a smile on his face.

  ‘Keep talking!’ he hollered through cupped hands. ‘I’ll pay for it!’

  ‘Christ!’ she shouted back. ‘How long have you been sitting there?’

  ‘Long enough.’

  ‘I haven’t said anything that breaks the terms of my contract,’ she called.

  ‘I believe you,’ he teased, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ asked Bella.

  ‘Him,’ she hissed. ‘Jones.’

  ‘You’re talking to Dom Jones? While you’re on the phone to me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘God. And I’m sitting here with goose shit under my fingernails wondering if the five-day-old shepherd’s pie in the fridge is still OK to eat. You win.’

  ‘It’s not as glamorous as it sounds,’ Betty replied unconvincingly.

  ‘That’s utter shit and you know it, Betty Dean.’

  ‘Well, yeah, maybe a bit.’ She glanced across again at Dom and saw him looking at her expectantly. ‘Look,’ she said to Bella, ‘I really do need to go now.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Bella. ‘Do not let me keep you from Dom Jones.’

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘Love you, too.’

  She turned off the phone and turned back to Dom. ‘How are you?’ she shouted across.

  ‘Tired,’ he said. ‘Went on a bit late last night.’

  ‘I thought it might,’ she said.

  ‘Was I being a wanker?’

  She shrugged and smiled. ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a chicken in the oven. Wanna come over? I’m sober.’ He smiled uncertainly and Betty felt her heart melt at the sight of him. He was a different person entirely from the idiot at the Groucho the night before. He was lonely and she was lonely, and not only that but she was absolutely starving and had not had anything as homely and nutritious as roast chicken for nearly three months.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘When do you want
me?’

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘come over now.’

  Dom’s house smelled good. Dom also smelled good when he leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. His hair was slightly damp at the ends, suggesting a recent shower. The TV was on, showing an old episode of Prime Suspect. Although it was high summer and still bright outside, it felt dark and autumnal in here, with curtains drawn and windows masked with milky film. For a moment it felt almost as if Betty could be anywhere, anywhere at all. It was impossible to believe that beyond the drawn curtains was the mayhem and hedonism of a summer’s night in Soho.

  ‘Wine? Beer? Elderflower cordial?’

  ‘What are you having?’

  ‘I was going to stick to the cordial tonight. After last night. But don’t let that stop you.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘I’ll have a cordial.’

  ‘Sure?’

  She nodded. Her heart wanted a drink, her head told her that when her alarm went off at six o’clock tomorrow morning she’d be glad that she hadn’t listened to her heart.

  ‘Listen,’ Dom began. ‘I wanted to say sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For being such a dick last night.’

  ‘Honestly,’ she said. ‘You weren’t. You were fine.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I’m just ...’ He paused and twisted the top off a bottle of cordial. ‘When I drink it’s like I revert to being a brainless teenage boy. And honestly, truly,’ he put his hand to his heart, ‘that’s not what I am.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Betty said. ‘We’re all a bit different when we’ve had a drink.’

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re not. Some people become better versions of themselves when they drink. You know, funnier, happier, more affectionate, more honest. And then some people, like me, become lesser versions of themselves. Mawkish, immature and narcissistic, in my case.’

  ‘Don’t forget “lecherous”,’ she added.

  ‘Oh, fuck, was I?’

  ‘There was a buttock squeeze towards the end.’

  His face crumpled. ‘Oh God, Christ, how disgusting. I’m so sorry. I’m a dick. Really. Of the absolutely highest order.’ He sighed and stared sadly at the floor for a moment. ‘My apologies. So, anyway. Welcome back to me, the booze-free version. And tell me you like sweet potato, please!’ He wrung his hands together and looked at her hopefully.

  ‘Love sweet potato,’ she said.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘One good thing that I picked up from my years living with a crazy vegetarian Californian. The joy of the sweet potato. Fucking love them.’

  He laid the table as they chatted and Betty sat in the armchair, sipped her cordial and ate the Kettle Chips he’d put in a bowl for her. She watched him pull a hefty candle down from a shelf, place it in the centre of the table and light it.

  ‘What do you want to listen to?’ he asked, flicking through a rack of CDs. ‘And, yes, you don’t need to tell me: not Wall. I may not remember squeezing your arse, but I do remember you telling me you weren’t a fan.’

  Betty laughed. ‘Yes, sorry about that, but you were so gasping for compliments ...’

  ‘I don’t blame you, honestly. I spend my whole life picking people out of my arse, it’s good for me to get some honest feedback. Reggae?’ He pulled out a CD and waved it at her and she nodded. The music softened the atmosphere and Betty felt herself begin to relax.

  ‘So,’ Dom said. ‘How was your first day at work?’

  She laughed. ‘Surely you already know the answer to that after ear-wigging my phone call out there.’

  He laughed. ‘I was just winding you up. I didn’t hear a word you were saying. Honest.’ He flicked on the gas beneath a pan of water and pulled a bag of green beans out of the fridge.

  ‘It was good,’ she said. ‘Full on. But good.’

  He smiled knowingly. ‘I’ll ask you again in a week. The longest we’ve managed to keep a nanny is four months.’

  ‘Now he tells me!’ she cried indignantly.

  ‘Nothing to do with my perfect children, I hasten to add.’

  ‘Amy, you mean?’

  ‘Bless her little heart,’ he said, half under his breath.

  ‘She was fine.’

  ‘Give her a chance,’ he muttered, trimming the tops off the beans.

  Betty laughed. ‘She was fine!’ she reiterated. ‘Perfectly nice.’

  ‘I think it helps that you’re not a real nanny.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got nothing to compare her to, no other children to compare ours with. You’re a clean slate.’ He looked at her and smiled. ‘She’ll be on strictly best behaviour for you.’

  Betty shrugged. ‘Well, it’s only been one day. I’m going to take it a day at a time. I didn’t really come to London to be a nanny.’

  Dom glanced at her again. ‘What did you come to London for?’

  ‘To see the Queen.’

  He laughed. ‘No. Really. I mean I know you had the big Soho dream and all that, but what did you want to do when you got here?’

  Betty stared down into her cordial and shrugged. ‘No idea, really,’ she said. ‘I was on a kind of mission. Trying to find someone.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ He looked at her with interest.

  ‘Long story,’ she said. ‘But I think, really, I just thought I’d show up and everyone would be tripping over themselves to fit me into their lives. I thought I was just the right girl for everything, you know. The perfect fit. I even went into the Groucho, just after I arrived, looking for a job.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ he smiled. ‘And what did they say?’

  ‘They very charmingly told me to fuck off.’

  He laughed. ‘I could get you a job there, you know. Tomorrow, if that’s what you wanted?’

  ‘I don’t think it is any more. All the jobs I went for I was convinced that this was it. This was my destiny. This was where I belonged. But now, I think I’ve realised that my destiny is still just a dot on the horizon. I’m nowhere near it yet. I studied art.’ She shrugged. ‘That could still lead somewhere. This nanny thing might turn into a career. Anything could happen. I’m so young ...’

  ‘That you are, Betty. That you are.’

  ‘And you know, my grandmother ...’ She paused, as the thought had only just occurred to her and she hadn’t worked out what it meant yet. ‘Well, I thought she’d spent her life on Guernsey. I thought that had been her entire existence. Her husband. Her house. Her son. The Yacht Club. But now it turns out that she was here, too. That she came to London when she was my age. That she hung around with jazz musicians. And artists. You know, there’s an actual portrait of her in the National Portrait Gallery.’

  ‘What! Seriously? Your grandmother?’

  ‘Yeah. My grandmother. And I just think, well, if she could have started her adult life like that, all those dreams and plans, all those ideas she must have had about how everything was going to turn out, yet she ended up back in her childhood home having a son she detested, then really, you’ve just got to go with the flow, haven’t you? Because, really,’ she shrugged again, ‘anything can happen. Can’t it?’

  Dom nodded and smiled. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I guess so. Although, in my case, I’ve been pretty much on a one-track journey since I was a kid.’

  ‘Well, yes, and you’re still young ...’

  ‘Relatively.’

  ‘Yes. Relatively. So this might not be your destiny. I mean, you might end up – I don’t know – being a pig farmer or something. You might look back on all this and think: what the hell was all that pop-star stuff about? This is where I was always meant to be.’

  Dom looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Hmm,’ he said, touching his chin, ‘a pig farmer. I can see that. I can. And you could be the pig farmer’s wife.’ He laughed, lightly, leaching any awkwardness from his comment. ‘Imagine that,’ he said quietly. ‘Imagine that.’

  As he said it, Betty had a terrible overwhelming jolt of longing. Almost premonitory
. She saw herself sitting at a long wooden table with Dom and his children, pouring milk into beakers. Beyond the windows she saw acres of rolling meadows and fields of fat, pink pigs. She smelled something wholesome roasting in the oven. Her. The farmer’s wife. The ex-pop star’s wife. The reformed hedonist’s wife. She could see it and smell it. Then she shook it, quite violently, from her head.

  She was doing it again. Seeing her destiny carved into every fleeting comment, every half-formed moment. Her destiny did not lie in Dom Jones’s retirement plans; it lay here, in this very moment, drinking cordial, about to eat chicken and sweet potatoes. Because for all she knew, she too could end up back in Guernsey, seeing out her years alone in a big cold house on a cliff.

  ‘Breast or leg?’ asked Dom, carving knife poised above the golden chicken.

  ‘Both,’ said Betty, reeling herself back into the present. ‘Thank you.’

  The food was delicious. Betty ate as if she hadn’t eaten for a month. They talked easily over the meal, about Arlette and her missing beneficiary, about Gideon Worsley and the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, about Alexandra and her room of old clothes, about a woman called Clara Pickle.

  Dom was dumbstruck.

  ‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘Really amazing. You could write a book about it.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Yeah. Maybe. But first of all I need to find out what the ending is going to be.’

  ‘That’s true,’ agreed Dom. ‘And how are you going to do that?’

  ‘Don’t know. Alexandra’s friend is seeing what he can uncover. John from outside my house said he’d do some research for me, too.’

  ‘That’s the record, guy, yeah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good bloke.’

  ‘Yes. He is.’

  ‘I reckon he’s got the hots for you.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yeah.’ Dom smiled mischievously. ‘Whenever I go and ask after you, he kind of bristles a bit. You know.’