‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Um, of course! When is New Year’s Eve? I mean, what day does it fall on?’
‘It’s the Monday night,’ Ant said. ‘So I’d pick them up on Friday and bring them back on Tuesday the first.’
‘But in exchange I can have them for the whole of Christmas week?’ I asked. As far as my hours at the farm shop were concerned, Ant’s timing was perfect. I felt like there had to be a catch.
‘Yes, the whole of Christmas week,’ Ant said, sounding sarcastic. ‘Amy and me are going to Broadstairs to see Mum anyway, so . . .’
‘Gosh,’ I said. ‘How lovely.’ I hadn’t been trying to sound facetious – it had just slipped out.
Ant merely raised an eyebrow. Nothing I said seemed to upset him these days, which was a constant source of surprise.
He must have explained the plan to the girls that day because in the evening, while I was getting Lucy ready for bed, she said, ‘Mummy, you know how we’re spending Christmas here . . . ?’
‘Yes, sweetheart?’ I replied, pulling her pyjama top over her head.
‘Can Ben come too?’
I paused and smiled at my daughter. ‘That’s a lovely idea,’ I told her. ‘You can ask him tomorrow at school.’
Whether Lucy forgot to ask Ben, or whether Ben forgot to mention it to Joe, I’ll never know, but the longer I waited for a reply to come, the more convinced I became that it was the best idea ever. It simply had to happen.
My mind was filled with strange – some would say not particularly healthy – images of Joe and I hosting Christmas like a makeshift replacement family. But though I told myself to stop it, I couldn’t help but think that it would be absolutely lovely.
I had to phone Joe repeatedly to make it happen, but eventually he accepted my invitation. He’d been struggling to think what to cook anyway, he said.
They arrived on Christmas morning, about ten, their arms laden with packages.
Joe was wearing the same blue suit I’d seen at that dinner party way back when, and I was shocked when I calculated that way back when was only, in fact, six months ago. It felt so much longer, a whole lifetime ago, really, and he’d lost so much weight since then that his trousers bunched at the waist where he’d had to cinch them in with a belt.
As the girls had already opened their ‘Father Christmas’ presents, and Ben had done the same before coming to ours, we saved our fresh batch of gifts for after lunch. While the children played in the lounge with their new toys, Joe kept me company in the kitchen.
At first he just chatted shyly to me while I cooked, but after a few gin and tonics he relaxed and started to help.
In deference to Joe’s sensibilities, I’d made, for the first time ever, a River Cottage recipe nut roast. It wasn’t actually vegan, I explained, but at least it was vegetarian. This made Joe laugh because, he revealed, he hadn’t been eating vegan, or even vegetarian, since Amy left.
‘Oh God, you don’t mind, do you?’ I asked, wondering if there was any chicken still in the freezer. ‘You weren’t hoping for turkey or something, were you?’
‘Not at all,’ Joe said. ‘Nut roast is fine. Nut roast is better than fine. I should be vegan. I should totally be vegan. But everything’s hard enough, you know, without trying to source vegan food on top of everything else.’
I glanced over and saw that he was busy digging for ice cubes in my freezer, apparently making yet another round of gin and tonics. ‘Not for me, Joe,’ I told him. ‘I think two’s about my limit.’
‘Two’s not even my minimum,’ he said.
‘You want to watch that,’ I said. ‘Alcohol will destroy you if you let it.’
‘Yeah,’ Joe laughed. ‘Right.’
‘No, seriously, Joe,’ I said. ‘You’re talking to the daughter of an alcoholic, here. It killed my father at fifty-three.’
‘Oh,’ Joe said. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realise. I don’t usually drink that much . . . It’s just things are a bit difficult at the moment.’
‘Sure,’ I said. Then, ‘Are they? Really difficult, I mean?’
‘I’ll get a grip on it in the new year. I promise,’ Joe said.
The gravy was ready, so I pulled the Yorkshire puddings from the oven and began to plate up. As I did so, I thought about the fact that he’d completely ignored my question and felt bad for having asked it. It was hardly a suitable subject for Christmas, after all. ‘Can you get the roast and maybe try to tip it on to that plate?’ I asked him, pointing, and he took a swig from his drink and moved to the oven.
But as, beside me, he did what I’d asked, he surprised me by saying, ‘In answer to your question, though, yes. Yes, things have been difficult. This separation is the most difficult thing I’ve ever lived through.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I told him. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. Especially not today.’
‘No, it’s nice,’ Joe said, smiling at me sadly. ‘It’s really bloody nice that you care.’
The dinner was lovely. My nut roast was excellent, even if I do say so myself, and the Yorkshire puddings were, Joe said, the best he’d ever tasted. With him having lived all those years with master-chef Amy, I kind of doubted that was true, but they were certainly the best I’d ever made.
After a shop-bought pudding, the kids opened another batch of presents, and while they played, Joe and I cleared the dining-room table.
Once this was done, we sat in the kitchen and chatted as we drank our coffee. I’d forgotten how honest and direct he was, and we found ourselves talking quite intimately about our feelings.
Joe admitted once again that things had never been quite right with Amy, but that he loved her all the same, in spite of her faults. He said that he was quite shocked at his own reaction to the separation, at how blindingly sad he felt about it all. He’d downed half a bottle of gin by then, plus at least three-quarters of a bottle of wine, so his eyes glistened as he spoke – his emotions were never far below the surface.
For the first time, I found myself expressing how I felt about things as well. I told Joe that I was fairly happy at the moment, though I was scared about what the future might bring. I admitted to enjoying my little job at the farm shop, and dancing around the kitchen with the girls. I told him about my solitary Sundays too and Joe said that he knew exactly how those felt.
I was surprised to find myself opening up in that way, and I wondered why it was so easy to talk to him. I decided it must be because his own heart was so definitively on his sleeve. Plus, it was a very long time since anyone had asked me to express how I was feeling – since anyone had even seemed genuinely interested, in fact.
Among the second set of presents, the ones that were officially from Ant and me rather than Father Christmas, was a half-sized guitar for Lucy. She’d been begging me for one ever since they’d started music lessons at school, and though I’d been loath to submit myself to that kind of sonic torture, I’d finally caved in.
‘Bit of an own goal, that one,’ Joe laughed, as Lucy ripped off the wrapping paper.
‘I know,’ I told him. ‘I’m crazy.’
‘Can you play?’ he asked me.
I laughed and shook my head. ‘But they’re getting lessons at school next term, and she insists she wants to learn guitar, so maybe she’ll teach me.’
‘I want to be a singer,’ Lucy informed us, striking a sassy pose with her new guitar, and strumming the strings tunelessly. ‘I’m gonna be in a band, like The Aces.’
‘The Aces?’ Joe repeated, turning to me.
‘A girl band . . . youngsters. They’re OK, actually,’ I explained. ‘Quite rocky.’
‘They’re the best group ever, Mummy,’ Lucy said, twanging the strings of the guitar again and starting to sing just as tunelessly.
‘Could be worse,’ Joe said. ‘She could have started singing like Anne-Marie.’
‘Oh, the 2002 girl?’ I said. ‘That song makes my ears bleed.’
‘Mine too!’ Joe said. ‘I have to turn the radio off every time. Absolutely b
loody unbearable.’
Lucy was still strumming the guitar tunelessly and Joe pulled a face as if he was in pain and reached out for it. ‘That guitar needs tuning,’ he said. ‘Give it here.’
‘Uh-uh,’ Lucy said.
‘Just for a minute,’ he said. ‘So I can tune it for you.’
‘Do you really know how to tune a guitar?’ I asked, as my daughter reluctantly handed it over.
‘Sure,’ Joe said. ‘I used to play quite a lot. Nowadays, not so much.’
‘He writes songs, too,’ Ben announced proudly. ‘Don’t you, Dad?’
‘Again,’ Joe said, fingering a chord and strumming before starting to fiddle with the tuning keys. ‘Nowadays, not so much.’
I was surprised by this. I’d always taken Joe at face value, accepting the quiet blokey exterior that he appeared so determined to project. But the more I spoke to him, the more hidden depths he seemed to reveal.
Sarah had just opened a package from Ant to find a battery-operated dog that performed tricks, and it seemed to be a hit with all three children. So while they were distracted with the trick-loving pup, Joe bent over the little guitar, forming chords and strumming and tuning until it sounded right.
‘There you go,’ he said, holding out the guitar once he’d finished, but Lucy was no longer interested. She was too busy playing with Sarah’s puppy.
‘That didn’t last long,’ I said. ‘I knew it was a mistake. Quite an expensive one, too.’
‘Oh, she’ll come back to it,’ Joe said, propping the guitar against the sofa. ‘Great gift, by the way. Well done. I wish I’d thought of it for Ben.’
‘Go on, play something then,’ I urged him, laughing.
‘Oh, it’s too small for my big fat fingers,’ he said, grinning.
‘Go on, Dad,’ Ben urged, looking up from one of his presents, a flashing hi-tech gyroscope.
Joe glanced at me and raised an eyebrow. ‘Ben used to love it when I played,’ he said. ‘I don’t really remember when I stopped.’ He shrugged and reached for the guitar and then picked out a few bars of a tune before pausing.
‘Oasis!’ I said, impressed.
‘Well spotted,’ Joe said. ‘But the guitar’s too small. I can only really strum chords.’
‘Then strum something,’ I said.
He sighed deeply and stared into the middle distance for a moment, thinking.
‘Oh, go on,’ I begged. ‘Please?’
He looked back at me, smiled sadly and shrugged, and then finally started to play.
When he started singing, the tears came from nowhere – they were a complete surprise even to me. Even now, I’m not quite sure why I cried so suddenly. It was almost certainly something to do with the lyrics. The song he’d chosen was ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles, and the notion of a past without troubles was certainly a tear-jerker at this point in both our lives. But more than the words to the song, it was something about having another person sing to me, there in the intimacy of my lounge. Joe’s voice was gorgeous – rounded and warm and soft – and it was a moment of such unexpected beauty, a moment that felt so shockingly personal, that it tapped into something that I’d completely forgotten existed. The beauty of life, perhaps. The beauty of other humans, maybe – the beauty of profound sadness, of life, of love, of all of it . . . As for the singer, I think it was at that moment that I saw him properly for the first time. And that, too, felt like a revelation.
Joe was concentrating so hard positioning his fingers on the tiny frets that he didn’t even notice I was crying until he reached the second chorus and looked up, whereupon he stopped playing immediately. ‘Shit,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘I’m sorry. Bad choice of song?’
I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. I shook my head and swallowed and smiled, and then swiped away the tears with the back of my hand. ‘That was just so . . .’ I said. ‘God, your voice!’
‘Yeah, bad, huh?’ he said.
‘No, no, not at all. You sing beautifully, Joe. I’m in shock.’
The children had stopped playing and were staring at us. Ben was glancing back and forth between his father and me, wide-eyed. ‘You made Heather cry, Dad,’ he said.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Joe replied, frowning at me concernedly. ‘I guess my playing really is that bad.’
Christmas had been a success. With it being the first one since Ant had left, it struck me that was no mean feat. So for a few days afterwards, as Sarah broke her expensive trick puppy by throwing it down the stairs and as Lucy discovered that playing the guitar was ‘just too hard, Mummy’, I continued to surf on the buzz of that success. Lurking on the edge of consciousness was the approaching New Year’s Eve, but I was too scared to look it in the eye.
I’ve never much liked New Year, if truth be told. Oh, maybe once or twice when I was at nursing college, but then only because I was so drunk I couldn’t even remember what naughtiness I’d got up to. It’s something about all that expectation that gets me: the expectation that you’re going to – or must – have fun; the expectation that the coming year actually merits celebration when all past experience suggests that’s almost certainly wishful thinking. But this year, without the kids, the whole concept of New Year’s Eve left me feeling terrified.
Ant had picked up the girls late Friday afternoon. He’d rented a cottage in Wales, he said, and snow was forecast. There would be an open fire and they had marshmallows to toast. The girls were excited and climbed into the car with an enthusiasm that pained me.
Catching sight of Amy in the passenger seat peering out at me, I waved them off and closed the front door. I stood for a moment, contemplating the silence of the house. I blew through pursed lips. ‘You’re OK,’ I said out loud. ‘You can do this.’
Friday evening was fine. Actually, if I’m honest, I’d even have to say it was nice. I heated up a frozen quiche and downed the best part of a bottle of wine. I watched a romantic comedy on Sky and ate a family-size bar of Fruit and Nut.
Saturday was OK, too. I hoovered and mopped, I stripped, washed and folded; I took pleasure in how clean my house looked.
But Sunday left me edgy, and by Monday I was feeling tearful. It was silly, I told myself. New Year’s Eve was an evening like any other. It was better than spending it with Ant, after all! I could snuggle with a book. I could eat anything I wanted. I’d be fine!
By seven I was flailing, so I phoned Kerry in Rome. She was getting ready for a night on the town, she said. A friend of hers was DJing in a nightclub. She’d probably be out dancing until dawn.
I was shocked by the contrast between our lives. How come lesbians get to have all the fun? I wondered. I supposed it was the fact that Kerry didn’t have kids that made the difference, but then my own children were away for the weekend, and I wasn’t heading out clubbing, was I?
I told her about Christmas and she said the obvious thing: why didn’t I invite Joe over? That was another idea I’d had floating on the edge of consciousness for days, another thing I’d been refusing to confront face on.
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘It would be weird.’
‘Why would it be any weirder than Christmas?’ Kerry asked.
‘Well, to start with, there’d be no kids,’ I explained. ‘So it would be just the two of us. It would be awkward.’
‘Then go out,’ Kerry said. ‘Go to the pub. Have a drink.’
‘I never really go to pubs. Or not in the evening, at any rate.’
‘Well, try it,’ she said. ‘Make an effort, for Christ’s sake. Or go to a restaurant. Take him for a nice meal out.’
‘Then it would really feel like a date,’ I said, finally spearing the elephant in the room.
‘Oh,’ Kerry said, and I could sense that I suddenly had her full attention. ‘You don’t fancy him, do you?’
‘Of course I don’t. No, absolutely not.’
‘Well then,’ Kerry said. ‘Where’s the problem?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It just doesn’t feel right
, I suppose.’
‘What’s he like, anyway?’ she asked then. ‘This Joe . . . Tell me about him.’
‘He’s just a really nice bloke. He’s ordinary.’
‘Ordinary,’ Kerry repeated. ‘Ordinary, as in boring?’
‘No, more in a good way,’ I told her. ‘He’s quite clever, actually. He’s one of those people who, if you talk to him, he knows what you mean immediately. You don’t have to spell everything out. He’s got that, you know, emotional intelligence, I think they call it. He reads people quite well. He likes to joke quite a lot, too. He’s quite funny when he wants to be. He surprised me on Christmas day – I gave Lucy a guitar – and Joe picked it up and started playing. Just like that. He’s really good, actually, and his voice is incredible. He’s ever so honest, as well. Quite shockingly honest sometimes. But it’s better to know where you stand with people, don’t you think?’ I suddenly realised how long I’d been talking about Joe and pulled a face. ‘Anyway . . .’ I added vaguely. It was an invitation to Kerry to change the subject.
Instead, she said, ‘And physically?’
‘Oh, he’s really nothing special, Kes,’ I said, trying to make up for my bout of overenthusiasm for all things Joe. But as I said it, I pictured his chunky body and, for the first time ever, imagined myself kissing him. The image my mind had created shocked me, and I felt lucky that Kerry wasn’t there to see me blush.
‘Tall, short?’ Kerry said. ‘I’m just trying to imagine him.’
‘He’s sort of average height and chunky,’ I said. ‘Thickset.’
‘You mean fat?’
‘No, no, he isn’t fat at all. His job’s pretty physical – he’s a kitchen fitter. So no, he’s quite muscular, but in a sort of rugby-man kind of way. Not like a runner or whatever.’
‘Right,’ Kerry said. ‘So let me get this right. He’s clever and funny and sings; he’s fit and looks like a rugby-man . . . But you don’t fancy him at all.’
‘No,’ I said. Then, ‘Oh, I don’t know, Kes! But there’s nothing cooking there anyway, so . . .’
From Something Old Page 26
