A Spot of Bother (23 page)

74

Jamie was kneeling
on the stairs with a washing-up bowl of soapy water sponging his father’s blood from the carpet.

That was the problem with books and films. When the big stuff happened there was orchestral music and everyone knew where to get a tourniquet and there was never an ice-cream van going by outside. Then the big stuff happened in real life and your knees hurt and the disposable cloth wipe was disintegrating in your hands and it was obvious there was going to be some kind of permanent stain.

Jamie got back to the house first and when Katie and Ray pulled up beside him, Mum shot out of the passenger door like the car was on fire, which was a little odd. And there was this panic going on because Jacob obviously couldn’t go into the house on account of the blood (Ray’s description made it sound more like redecoration than spillage). But the panic was being done entirely with hand gestures so that Jacob didn’t get wind of what was happening.

And Jamie could see what Katie meant about Ray being capable. Because he pulled a tent out of the boot and told Jacob the two of them were sleeping in the garden because there was a crocodile in the house and if Jacob was really lucky he wouldn’t have to go inside and wash and he could wee in the flower bed.

But it wasn’t a job. You didn’t marry someone because they were capable. You married someone because you were in love. And there was something unsexy about being too capable. Capable was a dad thing.

Though, obviously, if Ray was their father he would have gone to the doctor. Or used the right tools and not left something semi-attached.

Jamie was still soaping the stairs when Katie materialized in front of him.

“You don’t think he was going to keep it, do you?” She was waving an empty ice-cream tub.

“What’s
it,
by the way?” asked Jamie.

“Left hip,” said Katie, making a little scissor gesture next to the pocket of her jeans.

“How much?” asked Jamie.

“Large burger,” said Katie. “Apparently. I didn’t see the actual wound. Anyway…that’s the bathroom done. Mum’s finished the kitchen. Give me that stuff and you can go out and see how Ray and Jacob are doing.”

“You’d rather clean blood out of a carpet than go and talk to your fiancé.”

“If you’re going to be horrible you can do it yourself.”

“Sorry,” said Jamie. “Offer accepted.”

“Besides,” said Katie, “much as it pains me to say this, women are just better at cleaning.”

The sky was overcast and the garden was very dark indeed. Jamie had to stand on the patio for thirty seconds before he could see anything at all.

Ray had pitched the tent as far away from Katie’s family as possible. When Jamie reached it a disembodied voice said, “Hello Jamie.”

Ray was sitting with his back to the house. His head was a silhouette, his expression unreadable.

“I brought you a coffee.” Jamie handed it over.

“Cheers.”

Ray was sitting on a camping mat. He hotched backward, offering Jamie the other end.

Jamie sat down. The mat was slightly warm. There were little breathy snores from inside the tent.

“So, what did he do to himself?” asked Ray.

“Shit,” said Jamie. “Nobody’s told you, have they. I’m sorry.”

Jamie told the story and Ray let out a long whistle. “What a nutter.”

He seemed impressed and for a couple of seconds Jamie was oddly proud of his father.

They sat in silence.

It was like the teenage-party thing. Without “Hi, Ho, Silver Lining.” And Jamie wasn’t alone in the garden. But it was all right. Ray had been banished in some obscure way and that made him an outsider, too. Plus Jamie couldn’t see him, so he didn’t take up as much space as usual.

Ray said, “I did a runner.”

“Come again.”

“Katie went out for a coffee with Graham. I followed them.”

“Ooh, that’s not good, is it.”

“Wanted to kill him, to be honest,” said Ray. “I threw this dustbin. Knew I’d blown it. So I bottled. Slept at the house of this bloke from work.” He paused. “Of course, that was worse than following her to the caff.”

Jamie didn’t know what to say. Talking to Ray was hard enough in broad daylight. With no body language it was pretty much impossible.

“Actually,” said Ray, “it’s not really about Graham. Graham was just a…”

“Catalyst?” said Jamie, glad of a chance to make a contribution.

“A symptom,” said Ray, politely. “Katie doesn’t love me. I don’t think she ever has. But she’s trying really hard. Because she’s frightened I’m going to chuck her out of the house.”

“Uh-huh,” said Jamie.

“I’m not going to chuck her out of the house.”

“Thank you.” It sounded weird. But correcting it would have sounded weirder.

“But you don’t marry someone if you don’t love them, do you,” said Ray.

“No,” said Jamie, though people obviously did.

They sat for a while, listening to a distant train (how strange that you only ever heard them at night). It was oddly pleasant. What with Ray being a bit crestfallen. And Jamie not being able to see him. So Jamie said, “God, the famous Graham,” in a sort of speaking-out-loud way as if he was talking to a friend.

He could feel Ray flinch. Even in the dark.

“You’ve met him,” said Jamie. “You know what he’s like.”

“I try to keep a low profile,” said Ray.

Jamie sipped his coffee. “Well, obviously he’s incredibly good-looking.” This was probably not the right thing to say. “But that’s all he is. He’s boring. And shallow. And weak. And actually not very intelligent. Except you don’t really notice at first. Because he’s cute, and laid-back, and confident. So you kind of assume he’s got some grand plan.” He glanced back toward the house and noticed a broken pane in the kitchen window which had been neatly filled with a rectangle of wood. “He works for an insurance company…It’s not often that someone has a job that makes mine seem exciting.”

Jamie was rather enjoying talking to Ray in the dark like this. The strangeness, the secretness. The way it made things easier to say. So much so that Jamie let his guard down and found himself having a brief but very specific sexual fantasy about Ray and only realized what he was doing about three seconds in, which was like treading on a slug in the kitchen at night, because it was wrong in so many ways.

Ray said, “Your mum’s not too chuffed about having me in the family, is she.”

And Jamie thought,
What the hell,
and said, “Not much. But she thought the sun shone out of Graham’s arse. So she’s hardly the world’s best judge of character.” Was this wise? He could have done with seeing Ray’s face at this point. “Of course when Graham walked out on Katie and Jacob she decided he was a servant of Satan.”

Ray wasn’t saying anything.

A light went on upstairs and his mother appeared briefly at the bedroom window and glanced down into the dark garden. She looked small and sad.

Jamie said, “You hang on in there,” and realized he wanted Ray and Katie to stay together and wasn’t entirely sure why. Because he needed something to go right when everything else was going wrong? Or was he starting to like the man?

“Thanks, mate,” said Ray.

And Jamie paused and said, “Tony chucked me.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he said this either.

“And you want to get back together…”

Jamie tried to say yes but the thought of saying it made him feel slightly choked up and he didn’t feel close enough to Ray for that. “Mmm-hmm.”

“Your fault or his?”

Jamie decided to go for it. It was a kind of penance. Like diving into a cold pool. It would be character building. If he cried, sod it. He’d made a fool of himself enough times already this week. “I wanted to be with someone. And I wanted to stay single at the same time.”

“So you can, like, shag other blokes?”

“No, not even that.” Strangely, he didn’t feel like crying. Quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps it was the darkness, but it was easier talking about this to Ray than to anyone in his own family. Katie included. “I didn’t want to compromise. I didn’t want to share stuff. I didn’t want to have to make sacrifices. Which is stupid. I can see that now.” He paused. “You love someone, you’ve got to let something go.”

“Spot on,” said Ray.

“I fucked up,” said Jamie. “And I’m not sure how to mend it.”

“You hang on in there, too,” said Ray.

Jamie brushed an insect off his face.

“The stupid thing…” said Ray.

“What’s the stupid thing?” asked Jamie.

“I love her. She’s bloody hard work, but I love her. And I know I’m not very bright. And I know I do some moronic things. But I care about her. I really do.”

On cue, the kitchen door opened and Katie emerged carrying a plate.

“Where are you?” She walked gingerly onto the lawn and trod on something. “Shit.” She bent down to retrieve a dropped fork.

“We’re here,” said Jamie.

She made her way over. “There’s supper inside. Why don’t you two go and get something to eat and I’ll sit with Jacob.”

“You give me that,” said Ray. “I’ll stay out here.”

“All right,” said Katie. She sounded like she’d had enough disagreements for one day. She gave the plate to Ray. “Spaghetti Bolognese. You sure you don’t want a man portion?”

“I’ll be fine,” said Ray.

Katie got down onto her hands and knees and put her head inside the tent. She snuggled close to Jacob and kissed his cheek. “Sleep tight, banana.” Then she got up again and turned to Jamie. “Come on. We’d better go and keep Mum company.”

She headed back toward the house.

Jamie got to his feet. He put his hand on Ray’s shoulder and patted it gently. Ray didn’t react.

He walked over the damp grass toward the lit house.

75

Katie knew there was
going to be a row over supper. She could feel it in the air. If things went particularly badly they could have an argument about her own wedding, Dad’s mental health and Mum’s lover all at the same time.

Halfway through the spaghetti Bolognese Mum said she sincerely hoped Dad wouldn’t be having any more silly accidents. There was a slightly hunted look on her face and it seemed pretty obvious to Katie that she knew the chisel story was bollocks but wanted to make sure neither of them did. There was one of those uneasy silences where you can hear everyone chewing and the scrape of cutlery and Jamie saved the situation by saying, “And if he does, let’s hope he does it in the garden,” which allowed them to defuse the tension with a bit of forced laughter.

They were clearing the plates when Mum dropped the big one. “So, is there going to be a wedding or not?”

Katie gritted her teeth. “I just don’t know, OK?”

“Well, we’re going to have to know pretty soon. I mean it’s all very well us being sympathetic, but I’ve got to make some rather difficult phone calls and I’d rather not leave them any longer than I have to.”

Katie put her hands flat on the table to calm herself. “What do you want me to say? I don’t know. Things are difficult at the moment.”

Jamie paused in the doorway with the plates.

“Well, do you love him or not?” asked Mum.

And that was when Katie really lost it. “What the hell do you know about love?”

Mum looked as if she’d been slapped.

Jamie said, “Hang on. Hang on. Let’s not have a shouting match. Please.”

“Butt out,” said Katie.

Jean sat back in her chair and closed her eyes and said, “Well, if you’re feeling like that then I think it’s safe to assume that there’s going to be no wedding.”

Jamie’s hands were actually shaking. He put the plates back down on the table. “Katie. Mum. Can we just leave this, OK? I think we’ve all been through enough already.”

“What the fuck has this got to do with you?” said Katie, and she knew it was childish and spiteful but she needed sympathy, not a bloody lecture.

Then Jamie lost it, too, which she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

“It’s got everything to do with me. You’re my sister. And you’re my mother. And the two of you are screwing everything up.”

“Jamie…” said Mum, as if he was six.

Jamie ignored her and turned to Katie. “I’ve spent the last twenty minutes sitting outside with Ray and he’s a really nice guy and he’s busting a gut to make it easy for you.”

Katie said, “Well, you’ve changed your tune.”

“Shut up and listen,” said Jamie. “He’s putting up with all this crap. And he’s giving you a place to live for as long as you like even though you don’t love him, because he cares for you and he cares for Jacob. He drives up here and sits in the garden because he’s perfectly aware that Mum and Dad don’t like him—”

“I never said that,” countered Mum weakly.

“And I’ve sat with Dad today and talked to him and there is something seriously wrong with him and he didn’t have an accident with a stupid fucking chisel. He was chopping himself up with a pair of scissors and you’re hoping it’ll all blow over. Well, it’s not going to blow over. He needs someone to listen to him or he’s going to stick his head in the oven and we’re all going to end up feeling like shit because we pretended there was nothing wrong.”

Katie was so stunned by Jamie’s sudden character change that she didn’t hear what he was saying. No one spoke for a couple of seconds and then Mum started to cry very quietly.

Jamie said, “I’m going to take some pudding into the garden,” and walked out, leaving the plates on the table.

76

Jean went upstairs
and lay down on the bed and cried until she had run out of tears.

She felt desperately lonely.

Because of Jamie, mostly. Katie she could understand. Katie was going through a difficult time. And Katie argued with everyone, about everything. But what had come over Jamie? Did he have any idea of what she had been through today?

She no longer understood the men in her family.

She sat up and blew her nose on a tissue from the box on the bedside table.

Though, to be frank, she wasn’t sure that she ever had.

She remembered Jamie at five. Going off to his room “to be private.” Even now they would be talking sometimes and it was like talking to someone in Spain. You got the basics. The time of day. Directions to the beach. But there was a whole level you were missing because you didn’t speak the language properly.

And it might have been all right if she could just give him a cuddle sometimes. But he wasn’t the cuddling sort. No more than George was.

She walked over to the window and pulled the curtains back and looked down into the darkened garden. There was a tent somewhere in the shadows under the trees at the far end.

The idea of swapping places with Ray seemed suddenly very attractive, being down there in a sleeping bag with Jacob.

Away from the house. Away from her family. Away from everything.