The Road to Zoe

by Alexander, Nick

  ‘Shit,’ the man says. ‘Sorry, but I’ve only been here a couple of months.’

  ‘Have you seen any post for her?’

  The guy half-glances at a shelf behind him, which is piled up with junk mail. ‘Never,’ he says.

  ‘And does anyone else live here?’ Jessica asks. ‘Is there anyone else who might know something?’

  ‘You could ask Kira, I s’pose,’ he says. ‘Kira’s been here years. She knows everyone, Kira does.’

  ‘That would be great,’ I say. ‘Is Kira here now?’

  The man sniffs noisily, snottily. ‘Not till seven,’ he says. ‘Maybe eight.’

  ‘This evening?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll, um, leave her a note or something. Otherwise she probably won’t open the door. She gets nervous, Kira does.’

  ‘He was pretty helpful,’ I say as we walk back up the hill to the car.

  ‘He was,’ Jess agrees. ‘Actually, so was the woman in the other place, really. Once she got over finding a couple of Mormons on the doorstep.’

  ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses, actually,’ I correct her.

  ‘Yeah, but you look more like a Mormon. Always nicely dressed, those Mormon boys.’

  ‘Are you taking the piss out of my clothes again?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe just a bit,’ Jess grins.

  ‘I thought you liked the way I dress. You told me it was sexy.’

  ‘It is, actually,’ she says. ‘But I’m thinking you might need to broaden your wardrobe. One suit does not fit all circumstances, you know?’

  ‘I could always get some Nikies,’ I suggest, jokingly.

  ‘I think you’d look pretty hot in activewear,’ Jess laughs. ‘There’s more than one way to look sexy, you know.’

  From Lawrence Hill, we drive out to Clifton, where they don’t appear to have any council houses. Instead, the streets are lined with grand Georgian townhouses. It reminds me a bit of Chelsea.

  We wander past leafy padlocked parks and peer at the menus of organic vegan restaurants – the contrast with Filwood is quite shocking, really. The final clouds have vanished, too, so it feels as if even the weather might be better in this part of town.

  We duck into a coffee shop called Himalaya. It has stripped floorboards and mismatched funky furniture. Jazz is playing through Bose speakers. The facade has curved-glass bay windows through which the sun is streaming. We order soya cappuccinos and a slice of vegan carrot cake to share.

  ‘It’s a whole different world here,’ I say, glancing out at the street to where a bearded man is cycling past, his daughter in the child-seat on the back.

  ‘Different to where?’ a voice asks, and we look up to see the owner standing over us with our drinks.

  ‘Oh, we’re staying on the other side of town,’ I explain. ‘It’s not quite the same.’

  ‘We’re in Filwood,’ Jess explains.

  ‘Now why would anyone want to stay in Filwood?’ the guy laughs as he puts our drinks down, and though we both know what he means, and though his laughter is genuine enough, something about the comment troubles me.

  It’s not until we’re back outside that Jess puts words to my unease. ‘That was really quite revealing,’ she says. ‘About the state of Britain today, I mean.’

  ‘How so?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, there wasn’t any compassion there, was there? No sadness over the state of the other side of town. No outrage that there’s masses of money here for vegan cappuccinos but not enough five miles away to even keep a Salvation Army shop open. Just that sneering British determination to avoid ever having to be confronted with the riff-raff.’

  ‘He wasn’t exactly sneering,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ Jessica agrees. ‘But I honestly don’t think he gives a shit about the state of Filwood, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Perhaps not.’

  After consulting some online guide on her phone for a bit, Jess leads us to the Lido. ‘It’s supposed to be beautiful,’ she tells me. And with its vast blue-tiled, heated outdoor pool and gourmet restaurant down one side, beautiful is what it is.

  As an excuse to visit, we take seats in the café and order overpriced cups of tea.

  Occasionally people appear from the far end of the pool before disappearing into the individual changing booths along the far side. They then reappear in their bathing costumes before plunging into the glowing pool. It looks a bit like one of David Hockney’s California paintings.

  ‘So, guess how much it costs to swim in here,’ Jessica says, after a fresh bout of googling.

  ‘Um, too much for the folks who live in Filwood?’ I ask, trying to head off her next rant before it gets started.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jessica says. ‘I would say so. It’s twenty quid a pop.’

  ‘Twenty quid?! Just to swim?’

  ‘Well, you get access to the sauna, too. Lovely, though. I mean, I would, if I was loaded. If money was no limit, I’d be here every day, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘Yes, I think I probably would.’

  ‘We all would. That’s the trouble. There was a public pool in Filwood until 2006, you know,’ Jess informs me while scrolling down her screen. ‘But they closed it due to government cutbacks.’

  ‘Nice,’ I say, sipping my tea and discreetly watching a very fit woman behind Jessica’s head as she dives perfectly into the far end of the pool. ‘Why would poor people possibly need access to a pool?’

  ‘They’re even closing that community centre behind where we’re staying,’ Jessica says, waving her phone at me. ‘There’s a whole article here on the fight to keep it open.’

  ‘God, that’s not right, is it?’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s the only thing left. There’s nothing else there at all, is there?’

  ‘No,’ Jess says. ‘No, there isn’t.’

  From the Lido, we walk out to the famous suspension bridge. It’s really just something to do, a destination to head for, but when we get there, the bridge is pretty impressive.

  A plaque tells us that it was built in 1864, and after a brief discussion about quite how, in 1864, they managed to drag the massive cables that hold the bridge up across the River Avon, we decide to cross to the far side where there is apparently a visitors’ centre.

  ‘Loads of people throw themselves off here,’ Jessica informs me, as we pass by an advertisement for the Samaritans.

  ‘That’s a cheery thought,’ I comment. ‘I love travelling with you.’

  ‘You know, my mum tried to kill herself when Dad left,’ Jessica continues, making me feel bad about my flippant comment. ‘I mean, only in a half-hearted sort of way. I don’t think she ever thought she’d actually die. But it was tough, as a kid. It was hard to convince ourselves that we really mattered that much to her after that. I can’t say it left me feeling particularly important. Or especially loved.’

  ‘No,’ I say, taking her hand. ‘No, that’s awful.’

  ‘Was your mum OK?’ Jess asks. ‘I mean, when your dad left? I’m assuming he left her, did he? It’s generally the dads who go.’

  ‘Yeah, she was OK,’ I say. ‘She’s quite tough, my mum. And I’m not sure who left who, really. I mean, Dad moved out, but I’m not sure whose decision that was. We never really talk about it. I think they both agreed.’

  ‘But he remarried, right?’

  ‘Not for years. But yeah, he did eventually.’

  ‘That’s weird,’ Jessica says.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Not knowing whose fault it was.’

  ‘It’s always everyone’s fault in a way, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘Sort of everyone’s fault and no one’s fault at the same time.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Jessica says, frowning in a complex manner, as if she’s trying the thought on for size. ‘Perhaps.’

  Mainly because it’s so warm inside, and so very, very cold outside, we spend quite a while in the visitors’ centre. Looking at images of the bridge being built is surprisingly interesting, even if the presentations are rather sketchy abo
ut quite how they got those impossible cables across the river.

  By the time we get back outside, it’s pitch black. I check my phone and announce that it’s five-thirty. ‘So what do you want to do now?’ I ask.

  ‘Shall we go somewhere nice and eat a bit early?’ Jess suggests. ‘I’m a bit tired and hungry, to be honest. Then we can check Zoe’s place on the way back and get an early night – maybe pick up a bottle of wine or something?’

  She winks at me as she says this, and I think about the implications of an early night with a bottle of wine and have to struggle not to think about it any further. I find Jessica incredibly fit, and it doesn’t take much to get myself all worked up. ‘That guy said she won’t be there until eight,’ I remind her, ‘so we can’t go back too early.’

  ‘Sure, but by the time we’ve found somewhere and eaten, that’ll be fine, won’t it?’ Jess says. ‘Come on, I saw some vegan places on TripAdvisor. They’re in, like, shipping containers or something, down on the riverfront. Wapping Wharf, I think it’s called. Let’s try there.’

  We park in a scrappy car park behind the wharf and walk down to the dockside. The streetlamps are reflecting prettily in the rippling water, but an icy wind makes it all but impossible to stay outdoors, so we duck into the first bar we come across.

  ‘It’s cold out there, huh?’ The smiling, hipster barman laughs as we unbutton our coats.

  ‘It is,’ I agree, even though the truth is that it isn’t much warmer in here. I scan the empty bar and see that there are four cheap blow heaters in the corners of the room. The architects don’t seem to have given much thought to how to heat this particular shipping container in winter.

  We order two craft beers from the massive list and then move to the two seats closest to a blow heater.

  ‘Everywhere’s so quiet,’ Jess says.

  ‘Monday night in January,’ I say. ‘I bet it has a different feel to it in summer.’

  Jess nods and sips at her beer. ‘Well, everywhere’s nicer in summer, isn’t it? I often think that all these trendy redevelopments are basically attempts to be more European. We all want to be Spanish, really, don’t we? It’s just that we don’t have the weather for it, so it’s all a bit hopeless.’

  I nod and lick my lips. I’ve been thinking, most of the afternoon, about what Jess told me about her mother and how I didn’t really respond. I feel like I should have said something caring or profound, perhaps. But the truth is that it took me a bit by surprise. I’m worried I appeared indifferent.

  ‘You OK?’ Jess asks. She’s clearly picked something up in my expression.

  ‘I was thinking about what you told me,’ I admit. ‘About your mum. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say when you told me that.’

  Jessica shrugs and reaches for my wrist. ‘Hey,’ she says, ‘don’t worry. There’s nothing to say. I only mentioned it because of that Samaritans sign on the bridge.’

  ‘All the same,’ I say. ‘I sounded like I was making light of it, but I really wasn’t.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Winston and I joke about it all the time. We call it Mum’s fake suicide. I mean, she survived, after all.’

  ‘I just hadn’t realised what a hard time you had,’ I say, flipping my hand over to take Jess’s within my own.

  ‘You know,’ Jessica says, ‘when you’re a social worker, you realise that most people have had a hard time. And a lot of them have had a much harder time than yourself. When you’re dealing with kids whose parents are in prison and who are constantly shuffled from one foster family to another, it tends to put your own shit into perspective.’

  ‘I suppose it must,’ I say. My phone buzzes at that moment, so I slide it from my inside coat pocket and check the screen.

  ‘Take it if you want,’ Jess says.

  I shake my head. ‘It’s just Scott,’ I explain. ‘I’ll phone him back another time.’

  ‘How long were they together?’ Jess asks, once I’ve put my phone away. ‘Scott and your mum, I mean. Two years or something, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that. A bit more, maybe.’

  ‘And does she mind that you’ve stayed in touch?’

  I laugh. ‘No,’ I say. ‘Because she doesn’t know.’

  ‘So, she would mind?’

  ‘I don’t think she’d be particularly comfortable with it. I mean, they’re not on speaking terms or anything.’

  ‘But you decided to keep in touch all the same?’

  ‘I didn’t really decide,’ I tell her. ‘It more just sort of happened. Because we get on really well.’

  ‘So you weren’t jealous when he turned up?’

  ‘Jealous?’ I ask. ‘Of what?’

  Jessica shrugs. ‘Kids often are,’ she says. ‘They generally resent their parents’ new partners. The only time my mum ever dated anyone, I hated him. I mean, he was an absolute tosser, so that wasn’t entirely my fault. But even if he’d been nice, I doubt we could have been mates. I was way too angry about Dad leaving to be nice to Mum’s new boyfriend.’

  I nod. ‘That’s what Zoe was like,’ I say. ‘She hated Scott’s guts. But not me. I really liked him.’

  I loved my dad, but unlike Zoe, I didn’t feel I’d lost him. He was still there, if anything more present than when he’d been living at home. He was forever bringing us presents and taking us places at the weekend. And in addition to this, we suddenly had Scott.

  Where Dad was a clever but, I suppose, quite a rigid sort of a bloke, Scott was fun and sporty. You could wrestle with Scott, if you know what I mean. Perhaps it’s because he was younger than Dad, or maybe it’s just because he wasn’t my dad, but he really felt more like a mate.

  I’d never tell Dad this, of course, but in a way Scott suited me better. Though Dad had always made a champion effort to seem interested in football or iPhone apps or space rockets or whatever I was currently into, he was never really that convincing. He always seemed like an adult who was humouring me just a bit, whereas Scott was genuinely interested in these things. Sometimes Mum had to interrupt us when we got yakking. ‘Can we talk about something other than the moon landing?’ she’d ask. ‘Because I’m feeling a bit left out here.’

  Scott was cool to hang out with, too. Where Dad warned me not to climb trees, Scott taught me how to do it better – how to get right to the top and how to use a harness so that when I fell, all I did was swing around. Scott had no objection to spending two hours up on the field in drizzle so I could improve my goal-keeping skills either. And unlike Dad, Scott was actually a decent striker. So I suppose that, if I had to sum it up, I felt like I’d gained an extra dad. Or at the very least, a new best friend.

  Zoe didn’t see things like that at all, of course. She’d been up and down and all over the place ever since Dad had left, but when Scott appeared on the scene she lost the plot completely.

  She seethed with resentment at the fact that Scott was supposedly trying to replace our father. She’d get angry if she got home and Scott was there, but even angrier if Mum went over to Scott’s place instead. If I told her to lay off, or that I liked him, it made her furious. Zoe’s reasons to dislike Scott seemed endless, really.

  He tried being nice to her, to begin with. He offered to drive her places, or help her with her homework. He cracked jokes and even bought her stuff. But nothing worked. She’d ‘set against him’, as Mum would say, from the very first moment they’d met. And there was nothing he could do that would ever change her mind.

  The funniest thing was what happened if he touched her, because Scott was a very tactile person, forever touching your arm when he spoke to you, or stroking your head when he walked by. But when Scott touched Zoe, who really wasn’t tactile, she shrieked. It was quite weird, actually, almost as if he’d given her an electric shock or something. If she was standing when he touched her, she’d literally jump back a few feet. Scott and I used to joke about that. He’d reach out with one finger to touch me and I’d throw myself back against the wall as if he’
d been holding a phaser gun and then die, loudly, on the lounge carpet. ‘You have been Zoe’d!’ he’d say.

  Sometimes I wondered if the problem wasn’t actually that Zoe fancied Scott and was embarrassed about it. He was certainly a good-looking guy, and his age difference with Zoe wasn’t that much bigger than the difference between him and Mum, after all.

  Anyway, I was happy, Mum was happy; Scott was happy. It was just Zoe who was out of control.

  It wouldn’t have been too much of a problem; I mean, we’d all got used to working around Zoe’s moods. She’d been difficult for as long as I could remember. But then she wilfully began to wind Scott up. And as time went by, she discovered that she was really, really good at that. In a way, winding Scott up was Zoe’s superpower. And once she’d discovered it, there was no real way that the relationship could last.

  Once we’ve finished our drinks, we button our coats back up and head out into the icy evening. We check out the various restaurants on Wapping Wharf, but the vegan place that Jess had hoped to eat in is closed on Mondays, and the others are either totally empty, which is somehow intimidating, or full, or outrageously expensive.

  We almost eat in a little Indian place, but then the owner comes running outside to urge us indoors, and for some reason, because her desperation somehow embarrasses us, we stare at our feet and shuffle away. ‘I feel like we should eat there,’ Jess says, once we’re out of earshot. ‘But she was just that bit too intense.’

  We end up in a place called Root, which at first glance seems to combine both affordable food and some vegan options for Jess.

  Once we’re seated, however, once our drinks have been served and it’s too late to leave, the waitress asks, ‘So, have you eaten with us before? Do you know how it all works?’

  There’s something pretentious about her introduction, and Jess, who apparently had the same thought, makes me splutter into my beer when she replies, ‘Well, I assume it’s, like, a restaurant? So I’m guessing that we order food and then eat it?’