A Place for Us (7 page)

Joe

T
EN DAYS AFTER
his accident, Joe Thorne left the Oak Tree and, carefully carrying his package wrapped in brown paper under one arm, walked up to Winterfold. He couldn’t help but be nervous. He’d mentioned he was doing this catering gig to a couple of people. “Ooh, up at the Winters’, are you? That’s good,” Sheila had said. “Listen here, Bob, Joe’s going up to Winterfold.”

Bob, their one regular, had raised his eyebrows.

“Right, then,” he’d said. And he’d almost looked impressed.

The early autumn sunshine was like misty gold, flooding the quiet streets as he strode past the war memorial and the post office. Susan Talbot, the postmistress, was standing in the doorway talking to her mother, Joan. Joe raised his bandaged hand at her and Susan smiled widely at him, waving enthusiastically. Joe felt bad about Susan. He wasn’t sure why, just that she was always on at him. Last time she’d wanted him to lug some boxes around, then stay for a cup of tea, then the rest of it, and she’d gone a bit funny when, in the course of conversation (in truth, when she’d asked him outright), he’d said he wasn’t really looking for a relationship. Not at the moment.

“No time for love?” Susan had said. “All work and no play . . .” She’d smiled brightly at him and he’d frowned, because he hated that look on her face like she was making the best of it. “You want to be careful, Joe, my dear. A good-looking chap like you, those lovely blue eyes and those cheekbones to die for, all going to waste! Someone should enjoy them. You can’t just coop yourself up in that flat night after night on your own.”

It had freaked him out, more than a little bit. The way she’d stared at him, as though she knew something.

Now he nodded at her in a friendly way and carried on, clutching the brown paper package under his arm so tightly that he gave a tiny moan as his finger throbbed once more.

Bill Winter was a good doctor. The nurse at the hospital in Bath where Joe had ended up that day told him Bill had saved his finger and maybe his whole hand—Joe thought that was a bit dramatic, but they’d said if blood poisoning had set in it’d have been serious. Who’d want a chef who couldn’t use a knife, whisk a sauce, knead dough? What would he have done? He’d have lost his job here, that was for sure. He’d have had to do something else, become a bartender, maybe. Besides, he wanted to help Jemma out with money, even if she said she didn’t need it, didn’t need anything, as she kept telling him. Not now she was with Ian.

Jemma had canceled Jamie’s last visit, a couple of weeks ago; something about
The Gruffalo
onstage and how he couldn’t miss it, everyone in his class was going. Joe hadn’t seen his son for two months. Jamie had been down to stay in late July, just after school holidays had started. It had been brilliant. They’d gone swimming in the river at Farleigh Hungerford. They’d camped out at Sheila’s—Joe’s rooms above the pub were tiny, and Sheila had a cottage with a long garden that stretched down to the woods, where you heard foxes fighting and owls hooting and the strange, rustling sound of unknown creatures nearby. They’d made a fire, Joe had cooked the Oak Tree’s own delicious herby sausages and put them in his own rosemary and walnut bread rolls, slathered with mustard, and there the two of them had sat, out under the stars, munching away together, and Joe couldn’t remember ever feeling this happy. He’d made Sheila some treacly, creamy truffles to say thanks for the garden loan. He and Jamie had made a box for them out of cardboard and decorated it—the felt-tip marks where they’d overshot the cardboard were still on his kitchen table—blue, orange, and green scribbles, made in a second; and now when Joe saw them every night, he felt the sharp pang of Jamie’s absence. Sheila had cooed with delight when he gave her the box, the night after he’d got back from taking Jamie home to York.

“You shouldn’t have, it was my pleasure, Joe. He’s lovely. You must be very proud of him.”

“I am,” he’d said, swallowing hard. “Nothing to do with me, though.”

“You’re joking, aren’t you? He’s the spitting image of you, my dear, it’s uncanny.” Then she’d seen his expression. “Oh, Joe. I promise you, he is. And he’s welcome anytime you want.”

He would always love Sheila for saying that, but being here was taking him away from his son, more and more. This restaurant, two hundred and fifty miles away from his son. Why had he thought he could do it? Why was he screwing everything up here? Why wasn’t he back in York, or even Leeds, or back with Mum in Pickering, helping her out?

Jemma and Ian were getting married next year, and though he honestly wished them well and was glad for Jemma that she could have all the manicures she wanted, Joe was the one left behind. He’d never been right for her. He’d never really understood why she’d come over to him in the first place. She’d been way out of his league. He’d only been in the club because one of the chefs was leaving. It was a footballer’s place, and she was the kind of girl you saw with footballers.

Joe’s sister, Michelle, had warned him off her. “She’s trouble, Joe. She’s after your money.”

Joe had said quietly, “She knows I don’t have any money.”

“You’re her cute bit of action on the side before she bags herself a millionaire, Joe,” she told him. Michelle was a realist. “You don’t understand women, okay? You’re not that fat spotty kid with the knee-high socks and Mam’s apron on making brownies anymore, right, love? You’re . . . ugh.” She’d closed her eyes and shuddered. “You’re a good-looking lad, and you’re nice, okay? All my friends are after you. So just use your head.”

They’d only been dating a few months when Jemma told him she was pregnant. Joe was over the moon, but she wasn’t. She was scared. He could see now that the game she was playing was to get herself some security, because she’d failed at school and her mum had nothing, and her dad, like his, was long gone. Jemma was like Michelle: she didn’t have any qualifications, anything to give. The only thing she had was her body
and her looks, and she’d used them to get him, someone who wouldn’t hit her or cheat on her; but the moment she’d decided it’d be him, she’d realized she didn’t really love him anyway. She was nearly five months gone by that point.

If they’d been older and wiser, maybe it could have worked. If he’d been mature enough to see how young and scared she really was and how a lot of the crap she pulled was because she was frightened and wanted to test him, maybe he’d have kept her. But she started going out again when Jamie was only a few weeks old, and coming back at all hours, and he was working all hours too, and they were shouting when they were together, her yelling at him because he was never around and didn’t earn enough money, and the flat in Leeds was tiny and both of them were so tired all the time, they could only be vile to each other. She’d start shouting at him—completely wild, she’d get—and Joe would stare at his son, his tiny red wrinkled head, solemn mouth, beady black eyes that opened wide, the sudden smile when you picked him up. He’d wonder: Could Jamie hear the terrible things his mum and dad were saying to each other? Was it damaging him, making him believe the world was full of anger and sadness?

One day he’d got back from the restaurant at four in the morning, and they were gone. Just a note, and it said,
Sorry, Joe. I can’t do this anymore. You can see Jamie whenever. J. x PS You were lovely.

•   •   •

It was fine to start with. He saw Jamie every weekend, some weekdays, took him out and about, to the park, to the playgroup at the church hall. He loved kids, and the mums were always friendly; Joe loved it. Then Jemma moved to York and it got a bit harder to see Jamie, but it was still okay. Joe kept on working, head down, not living much, going on the occasional date, the odd pint with an old mate. Really, just waiting for his weekends with Jamie, time he could make into bricks, a substantial bulk of memory.

Then, at Jamie’s third birthday party, there was Ian Sinclair, a lawyer. Jemma had cut his hair and he’d asked her out, and now he was here in her living room, snapping away with a massive expensive Nikon camera and his own present, a bright red sit-on truck for Jamie. Joe had turned up late with a Victoria sponge made by his
mother, which Liddy had laboriously decorated all over with Smarties. It had got squashed on the bus. He’d stood at the back chatting to Jemma’s neighbor Lisa, then tried to pick up Jamie but he’d wailed and screamed. Then he’d given him a bow and arrow set, and Jemma had practically stabbed him with it: “What the hell is he going to do with that, Joe? Walk down Museum Gardens and shoot something? Are you serious?”

Ian Sinclair had handed round a train-shaped cake and given the grown-ups each a fondant fancy, both of which he’d ordered in from Bettys. Joe’s present was rolled up in its plastic bag, put down beside the sofa on the floor. On the way back from the bathroom Joe caught sight of his mum’s squashed cake, abandoned untouched in the sterile, brand-new kitchen, buttery grease blotting the now-bent paper plates Liddy had carefully sandwiched it between. Joe ended up drinking too much with Lisa, the neighbor, then going back to her flat, where they had sex, he was sure—he couldn’t ever remember and that made it worse somehow.

It got worse: the next day, as he was leaving, Jemma appeared on the pavement, shaking with rage.

“Things are changing, Joe. Okay?” She jabbed her finger on the window of Ian’s jeep, which she used to drive Jamie to the child-minder’s. “I’m sick of you hanging round like a dog that’s lost its owner. He’ll always be your son, don’t you understand that?”

Joe could see Jamie, strapped into his car seat, watching his father, thumb in mouth, a little confused. His thick curls were stuck to his head; he still looked half-asleep. He reached forward and jabbed at the window with one small finger. “Dad?”

“Go and get your own life,” Jemma hissed at Joe. “Seriously.”

She was right, of course. But Joe didn’t know what his own life looked like. His dad had left when he was five and Michelle was eight, and he’d come back lots at the start, then not at all. Derek Thorne was a liar and a gambler who took money off their mother, and once hit her when he was drunk. The worst thing was, Joe remembered him pretty well. He’d always thought he was a brilliant dad, till the moment he’d upped and left. Joe didn’t know where he’d gone; his mum never wanted to talk about it, his sister hated him, and that was it. . . . It wasn’t even dramatic. He’d just sort of faded away.

Now Joe saw that it could happen very easily. How careful he had to be, to maintain his amicable relationship with Jemma and Ian. Because the memories of his times with Jamie were growing more and more precious.
He
was Jamie’s dad, not Ian, and nothing could change that. And he didn’t want to be a dick about it; he wasn’t some Fathers4Justice idiot. He didn’t ever want to get in the way of Ian. Ian was the one who’d be there at night when he woke up, who’d hug Jamie when he was scared of monsters under the bed. He would do all that. . . .

Joe stopped halfway up the hill, breathing in the scent of fallen leaves, wood smoke, rain, and blinked back the sharp tears in his eyes. The memory of his son’s wriggly, sturdy body against his when they hugged was exquisite pleasure mixed with aching pain in his heart. The smell of wood smoke in his hair, his head next to his father’s in the tent at night that summer. His low, dry voice, the way he slept with his fists scrunched up tight—he’d always done that, ever since he was a baby. His gummy teeth, his babbling chatter about children at school, and how his best friend was a girl called Esme.

Joe knew he had to keep going, now he was in this situation. But he was already screwing it up, he felt. It was already maybe too late.

•   •   •

It was a ten-minute walk out to Winterfold. The lane grew steeper, winding up through the trees past the ruins of the old priory and then ending with a wooden gate, and there was the name of the house, carved into the low wall behind.
Winterfold.
Joe hesitated before unhooking the latch. Though he didn’t care much about money or privilege, he found he was nervous, walking up the gravel drive, as though he were entering another world.

The trees were dry, the dark olive-green leaves burnished with bright yellow. The branches rustled softly as Joe looked up to see Winterfold in front of him. The front door was right at the center of an L, so the house seemed to hug you. The bottom half was golden-gray local Bath stone, sprinkled with white lichen, and it was topped by four great gables in wooden clapboard, two on either side, each with a dormer window, like eyes peering down. Wisteria twisted and turned along the edge of the lowest beam. Joe peered into one of the
low leaded windows by the door, then jumped. Someone was moving around inside.

Joe went up to the great blackened oak door on which were carved intricate repeating patterns of berries and leaves. The knocker was in the shape of an owl. It stared at him, unblinking. He knocked firmly and stepped back, feeling like Jack coming to see the giant in his home.

He waited for what seemed like ages, then reached forward to knock again, and as the door opened he fell forward, almost lurching into Martha Winter’s arms.

“Well. Hello, Joe. It’s lovely to see you. How’s your hand?”

“It’s much better.” He fumbled for the parcel under his arm. “I brought you something, actually. To thank you. They said if Dr. Winter hadn’t acted so fast, I’d have lost the finger.”

“Come inside.” Martha unwrapped the bread, her fingertips running over the cracked, crusty surface. “Tiger bread—it’s my favorite, did you know that? No? Well, it’s very clever of you. Joe, I didn’t want anything. Anyone would have done the same. It’s my son you should be thanking.”

“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

“You haven’t been here before, have you? It’s lovely in the afternoons, when the sun starts to come over the hill.”

Somehow she’d taken his coat off and it was hanging on the old carved row of hooks. He glanced left as they passed through the hall: a huge, light sitting room, lined with dark wooden cupboards, whitewashed walls slit by black beams. The French windows were open and beyond them was the garden, a green mist splashed with reds, blues, and pinks.