Afterwards (2 page)

– How old are you, then?

– Thirty-one.

Alice looked at him, at his smile.

– Why?

– Too young for you.

Clare told her he was lovely. Thirty next birthday, as far as she knew. It was a Friday morning, and they were sitting on one of the benches in the hospital courtyard, drinking coffee. Willing summer to start early, their legs stretched out in front of them, faces turned to the sun. Alice had been at Clare’s house on Wednesday, after work, when Joseph came round to pick up the keys for a job he was doing with Stan. He was a plasterer, and Clare said they were glad to have him on their books: the best one they’d found this side of the river, and a useful painter and decorator too. He’d been working on and off for Stan for a while.

– It would be more on than off if we had our way, but Joseph’s in demand.

Stan did extensions for people, lofts too. He was from Wroslaw: Stanislaus. He’d been in London fifteen years, the last ten of them legal, after he got married to Clare. She took care of the books for him, and the business was doing well enough for her to go part-time at the hospital. They had two kids, and once they were both at school, Clare had done a couple of accountancy courses. She was the one who paid the wages, told Alice that Joseph was good about it if they ever had to be late, for whatever reason.

– He’s not a pushover or anything. He’ll always call you. But he’s not an arsehole about it like some of them can be.

Alice knew Clare was getting curious, had felt it earlier in the week too: that Clare was amused at how familiar she’d been with Joseph. But Alice didn’t bite, just sat and sipped her coffee, eyes shut against the sun, waited for Clare’s question to come.

– Why you asking, anyway?

– No reason.

– I’ve seen you talking.

Clare was smiling, Alice too: she still had her eyes closed, but she could hear it in her friend’s voice.

– Stan says he’s smart. A good finisher. I reckon he’d be nice to have around.

Alice knew Joseph liked her, but that didn’t mean anything would happen.
Will we, won’t we?
Go to bed together, like each other enough to keep going to bed together? It made Alice smile at herself: the way it distracted her, how much she was enjoying it. Days drifting at work, her head busy with what her body wanted.

It was easy when it happened. Quiet and clumsy, but effortless too. Afternoon, not drunk. Curtains closed against the day, but her bedroom was still light. The first time with clothes still on, the second without. Joseph took them off: smiling, self-conscious, intent. His bed-warm hands on her belly, between her thighs.

Alice liked the awkwardness of those first few times: the quiet and the question of what was going on between
them. When he left, Joseph would just say he’d see her soon, and Alice liked that too: the way he wasn’t asking or presuming, and how they managed neither to force nor avoid the question. She didn’t tell anyone for a while, not even Clare, and this made her laugh, because she was too old for that, surely:
can’t put a jinx on things by talking about them, can you?
She was enjoying all of it. The sex and the uncertainty, the finding out about someone and liking him, the phone messages on the fridge when she got home in the evening. Martha in the front room, buried in marking, calling through to her while she made some tea.

– Joseph rang. About half an hour ago.

– I saw, thanks.

Alice took the milk out and closed the fridge door. Looked at the scrap of paper stuck there, and the number that she still hadn’t written in her book.

– Should I be setting his place for breakfast, do you think?

Her flatmate was in the doorway, teasing. Alice waved her away, but she was aware she was smiling. Whatever came of it, she was glad it was happening. Her friends were too, the ones who guessed or got it out of her. Clare said:

– Good for you. You’ve had a rough time of it lately.

Joseph went round the back of his sister’s house to the kitchen door, found her standing by the sink holding a plate, hurrying a sandwich. She kissed him hello with her cheeks full of bread.

– Sorry, Joey. It’s a bit mad today.

He filled the kettle and Eve started on the dishes, talking to him over her shoulder.

– Ben’s still asleep, I’ll get him up in a minute. He’s due at nursery at two. I’ve got the buggy ready, his drink and that. You could just play with him in the garden or something till then.

– No problem.

Joseph yawned, hard, his eyes tearing up. He’d slept in until gone eleven that morning, could have stayed in bed all day. His first off in a couple of weeks, he’d been working straight through on two different jobs, and he stayed over at Alice’s last night: it ended up being a late one again. She didn’t wake him when she left for work, and the flat was empty when he got up. Felt weird to be helping himself to breakfast in her kitchen, so he went home. Found a message from Eve on the answerphone.

– You hungry, Joey? You had some lunch?

Eve had started on the surfaces, emptying her handful of crumbs into the bin as she was passing, the crusts of her sandwich she didn’t have time to be finishing.

– Haven’t managed breakfast yet. Do you want a cup?

– Can’t. Meant to be there for half one. The minister couldn’t make it any later.

Eve was doing the flowers for a wedding, a bigger job than her usual ones. Normally she managed to fit things around Ben, just about, because Arthur drove a cab and his shifts were flexible, only there were two drivers sick today, so he was covering and she had to meet the people up at the church. Joseph made tea for himself while his sister swept the floor around him, patting his legs to move him out of the way.

– Eve, come on, leave it. I’ll do it after you’ve gone.

She sat down and watched him rubbing his face.

– Haven’t seen much of you lately, brother.

– No. There’s been a lot of work going. Got a job up in Hackney starting next week, but it’ll slack off a bit after that, I reckon.

Eve looked at him a couple of seconds longer than usual. She wasn’t smiling, not exactly, but there was something in her face. Never asked him where he was this morning when she’d phoned. Joseph couldn’t tell if she was winding him up. She grabbed a gulp of his tea on her way out of the kitchen.

– I’ll go and get the little one up.

Joseph carried Ben out to the van to say goodbye to his mum, sat him up on his shoulders, so he could see her through the glass. Eve rolled down the window and blew a kiss at them, asked Joseph to make sure he locked the back door before he took Ben up the road.

– Don’t worry.

– Make yourself something to eat, skinny malink.

– I will.

She started winding the window up again, with that same look on her face from back in the kitchen. Hard not to smile. Joseph said:

– Her name’s Alice.

Eve laughed.

– About time, Joey.

She stuck her hand out of the window and waved at him and Ben as she drove away.

The Saturday traffic moved fast, dispersed, the South Circular was clear and Alice arrived sooner than she expected. Earlier than arranged with her grandfather and he wasn’t at home. She rang the bell a second time, just to be sure, before she let herself in.

Three letters lay unopened on the side table in the porch, one for her gran. The house was cool, dim, although the day outside was bright spring. The tiled hall was swept, the carpet runner clean, but surprisingly threadbare: there all her life and Alice had never noticed it before, that the red-green pattern had worn brown in places, marking the path of feet over years and decades. Two weeks since she was last here, and not quite four months since the funeral. When the house had been full of quiet guests holding plates of uneaten sandwiches, and her grandfather paced between them, shaking hands and saying thanks for coming, as if he wanted them all gone as soon as possible.

Alice didn’t like to go further inside the empty house, stepped out again through the porch, past the roses along the short gravel path to the gate. She looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of him, just pillar-box and lamp-post, bay windows. Parked cars and bedding plants. He didn’t say he had anything planned, but then why should he tell her his business? More empty hours to fill each day, more chores to do now he’s on his own.
Alice went inside and put the kettle on. In the kitchen, she noticed it too: everything clean and in its place, but somehow sparse and worn. Colours faded, numbers rubbed off the cooker dials over the years. The cupboards mostly empty, a few tins and jars, and though they were all spotless, they still smelled of crumbs.

The kettle roared and Alice pulled out mugs, teapot, a spoon from the drawer. Didn’t hear the key in the door.

– Hello hello. You’re early, dear. Or is it me? Late I mean?

Her grandfather called from the hallway and Alice stepped out to meet him. A quiet smile, smart in his blue blazer and tie. Pressed and trimmed and groomed. That familiar smell, as though he were freshly shaven, which he carried with him through the day.

– Hello, Grandad. Traffic was better than I thought.

– You came by car?

– I borrowed Martha’s. Easier than getting the train.

– Yes. We suburbanites are not well served these days.

Alice smiled at him: the usual pragmatics, the usual opening gambits. Her grandfather squeezed her shoulder in silent greeting. He looked well, she thought. A bit tired maybe.

– I put the kettle on.

– Yes, you’re a good girl.

He walked ahead of her back to the kitchen and Alice saw he was carrying her grandmother’s shopping bag. Carton of milk, tealeaves, newspaper, visible through the
string weave. He lifted it onto the worktop and started unpacking. Shopping seemed such an unlikely activity for him: he’d been doing it for a while, at least since Gran got ill, but Alice still wasn’t used to the idea.

– Shall I put these away?

– No, no, I’ll take care of things in here. You go and get some china for us to drink from.

He pushed her gently back out into the corridor. Alice could hear him working while she collected cups and saucers, the good spoons from the sideboard. There were a few cards on the shelf above, lilies and remembrance: most Alice had seen already and all from people she knew, family friends and neighbours, a modest circle of familiar names. Above them, at eye level, were the photos of her grandparents’ life together, their small family. Alice’s primary school photo, gappy teeth and bunches, her eighteenth birthday and her mum’s graduation. Mum and Alan walking in the Dales: Alice remembered taking that one, on holiday with them while she was still studying, not long after they got married. Her grandfather had been rearranging the pictures since the last time she saw them, and it made her pause. Touched her when she realised his wedding photo was now in the middle: he and Gran holding hands outside the old registry office in Lewisham. On either side were the portraits they gave each other while they were courting. Those pictures used to be in an album, Alice could remember which one, so he must have been out and bought frames for them: Gran in a silk blouse and Grandad in uniform, both taken in a studio, somewhere in Nairobi. The most recent photo had been moved: it stood on top of her grandmother’s piano now, opposite the chair her grandfather sat in when reading. It was of
the five of them, all together on their anniversary, their forty-fourth, and it was taken here, out on the patio. Alice, her mum and Alan, flanking the still-happy couple, holding their champagne glasses up to the camera. That was before Gran got ill and was still plump, her hair still curly, done every other Monday in the salon on the Sydenham Road, opposite the post office. Only four years ago, but it seemed a different time, a different woman. Alice wondered how long it would be before the image in the photo took over in her memory again. Her grandad called from the kitchen:

– It’s brewed, Alice. I’ll pour when you’re ready.

They took their teacups out into the garden and did the crossword together, sitting on the plastic chairs on the patio. They couldn’t finish it and fell silent over the last two clues. Five across and eight down. Alice followed her grandfather’s eyeline over the trim borders of the garden, couldn’t see what he was looking at, something in the middle distance. The cakes he bought this morning sat untouched on the table between them, iced fingers sweating in the sun.

– Did we have a reason for you coming?

Alice blinked.

– No, I just wanted to see how you were. Keep you company for a bit.

– Yes. Only this morning I couldn’t remember. Thought there might have been something to sign, but then I was sure I’d done all that.

The sun was strong on the back of her neck and her hair had grown hot. Alice sat up. She could see the kitchen clock through the open door: nearly five, and she’d been here longer than planned. She was seeing Joseph later, and had promised Martha the car would be back before dinner. Her grandad looked tired, eyes elsewhere, squinting against the sun. Alice started clearing the table, told him she’d wash up and then get going. Watched his face, but she got no response. Afterwards, in the car on the way home, she thought he couldn’t have heard her, because when she stood to take their plates inside he’d looked surprised, had pushed himself up out of his chair.

– Oh. You’re off. But you’ll come again soon, won’t you, Alice dear?

Been a while
. It had been a while since there was anyone interested, anyone interesting. Alice hadn’t been looking. She hadn’t felt the need, so Joseph was unexpected. Came at a time when she was still caught up in her grandmother’s illness and passing.

Nineteen months
, Alice counted them,
from diagnosis
. Plus the weeks before, made it almost two years. She’d always been regular about seeing her grandparents, and spent a lot more time with them after the treatment started. Helping her grandad with the chores, driving Gran to the hairdresser’s once a fortnight, while she could still manage the time under the dryers, before the chemo robbed her of her hair. Her grandmother kept up her music as long as she could, and Alice would sit next to her at the piano on free afternoons, following the notes and turning the pages. Gran started repeating and then missing phrases, more so as the months went on, and she was aware of it too, but she still wanted to play. Missed it when she went into the hospice. That was during her last weeks, over the winter. It was only two stops on the train from work, and Alice visited her daily. Brought her sheet music, read the interesting bits of the newspaper out loud to her: she always wanted the letters to the editor and the leader column first, the gardening articles at weekends. Alice carried on, even after Gran stopped asking. Talked to her quietly about work and the weather and what was happening on the ward
around them. Visitors coming and going and snow that wouldn’t settle. Anything really. Watching her grandmother’s half-closed eyes, her thin fingers dance and tug along the edges of the sheet.