Before I Met You (16 page)

She would have seen all this and she would probably have decided to stay at home and not wander the early morning streets of Soho in plain sight of the world.

But she hadn’t seen any of these things. She imagined herself to look glamorously careworn, sweetly rumpled. She sat in an Italian coffee shop on Wardour Street nursing an extra large cappuccino and smoking a roll-up, feeling like a character in a novel. She’d felt lonely last night. Now she felt alive again. Early morning Soho, in her party clothes, surrounded by chattering Italians in stained white shirts, the hiss and clatter of espresso machines, the smell of bacon, the vague edges of a hangover. She smiled to herself and thought that if the sixteen-year-old version of herself had walked past this window and seen her sitting there, she’d have wished to be her.

And as she thought that, the door of the café swung open and a small man walked in. A small man in a short-sleeved T-shirt, in spite of the chill, one hand holding a lit cigarette, his other
hand
in his jeans pocket, dark hair tousled and hanging around his face, a cloud of stardust glittering in his aura.

Betty froze.

It was him.

It was Dom Jones.

She put a hand to her cheek, a cheek that had suddenly, inexplicably, flushed red. She watched him from the corner of her eye, standing at the counter, ordering a full breakfast, with extra bacon and strong tea. She saw him take a seat at a table in the corner, pull a phone out of his pocket and tap something into it, scratch his scalp through his thick hair, put out his cigarette in a small metal ashtray, identical to the one on Betty’s table, and pull open a newspaper.

She saw his right leg, jigging up and down beneath the table, one hand nonchalantly scratching at his crotch through the denim of his jeans. She saw that he had a two-day stubble on his chin and that his eyes looked puffy and blank.

Unwritten rules said she should leave him be, like a free-roaming animal in a zoo. Look, don’t touch. But there was too much connecting them this damp June morning, and before she could censor herself or ask herself what she was hoping to achieve she had turned fully towards him, waited a beat for him to acknowledge her gaze and then said, ‘Hi.’

He looked annoyed for a moment. He threw her a tight smile, nodded tersely. But then she saw it, in his eyes, a tiny glint of recognition.

‘Do I know you?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said, ‘well, not properly. I live in the building opposite you. You know? Across the courtyard.’

He looked at her blankly, his tired eyes taking in the detail of her, still failing to make the connection, until his eyes alighted upon the packet of Golden Virginia on the table in front of her and he nodded slowly and said, ‘Ah, yeah, the girl on the fire escape. Yeah. I know you.’

That should have been the end of the conversation. What else was there to say? But Betty still felt it, this sense that she and this man had something to talk about, that she was allowed to engage with him.

‘Sorry about the noise last night,’ she said. ‘Hope we didn’t disturb you.’

He moved his paper away from himself, a gesture that Betty took as an acceptance of her attempt at social intercourse. ‘You fuckers,’ he said, with a wry smile. He leaned back into his chair and gazed at her impenetrably. ‘You absolute fuckers. I went to bed early last night, too. First time I’ve been to bed early in about six months.’

Betty clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘I’m really sorry.’

She could see from the curl of his mouth that he wasn’t really cross.

‘It’s all right. I moved to a bedroom on the street, took a temazepam. Feel like shit now; that stuff really knocks you out.’

She smiled at him encouragingly, amazed by how normal it felt to be chatting to Dom Jones in a café.

He picked his cigarettes from the table and offered the pack to Betty. Her instinct was to say no. She hated cigarettes. All that gunk and poison. But she absolutely had to smoke one of his cigarettes. She would regret it when she was ninety if she didn’t. She took one and let him light it for her.

‘Good party?’ he asked, blowing some smoke out of the corner of his mouth.

She nodded. ‘Yeah, well, it wasn’t really
my
party. It was supposed to be a housewarming. But in reality I think it was just an excuse for my friend to invite everyone in London with a foreign accent.’

‘And you were just trapped there with nowhere to go?’ he smiled at her knowingly.

‘That kind of thing.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I remember those kinds of parties. I used to lock my bedroom door and pee in a bottle until it was over.’

A short silence followed, during which time Dom’s breakfast was delivered to his table. It looked amazing, particularly the eggs, two glistening white and yellow discs, shiny as glass. She wanted eggs. But she could not afford eggs. Eggs on toast, according to the illuminated price list above the counter, were £2.50 and she had only £3.50 left in her purse to last her until her next pay cheque. She stared at the eggs lustfully, while Dom Jones folded away his newspaper and poured sugar into his tea from a glass canister.

She was about to move back to her table, aware that the conversational window had just closed up, when Dom picked up his knife and fork and said, ‘So, how long have you been living over there?’

She picked up her cappuccino and took a sip from it. ‘Three weeks and five days,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘right. So not much longer than me then.’

She feigned ignorance of his current domestic situation and looked at him quizzically.

‘Yeah, I’ve had the place for three years but only lived there for a month or two before I moved out again. And now I’m back.’

‘Oh,’ she said cautiously, ‘right.’

‘And where were you before you were in a flat in Soho?’

‘I was in Guernsey,’ she said.

‘Oh, right. That’s an island, yeah?’

She laughed. ‘Yes. A very small one.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, sawing through a piece of toast and egg, ‘I think I’ve got some offshore accounts over there.’ He paused and shrugged. ‘Or maybe Jersey. One or other.’ He put the egg and toast in his mouth and Betty experienced a surreal moment of thinking, I am watching Dom Jones eat an egg. She put it to the back of her mind and continued her approximation of a cool chick who could not care less about celebrities eating eggs.

‘And you’re working at Wendy’s, yeah?’

She looked at him with surprise. ‘How did you know that?’

‘I saw you,’ he said, ‘remember, in your uniform? You had blond hair then …’ He looked disconsolately at her head as though her current lack of blond hair was a great personal sadness to him.

‘Hair situation’s gone a bit pear-shaped,’ she said. ‘I really need to get it coloured professionally, but I can’t afford to. So until then I’m stuck in a hat.’

He sliced through a thick sausage, heartily and crudely, attacking it like a lumberjack. ‘And what’s it like,’ he continued, talking with his mouth full, ‘working at Wendy’s?’

She shrugged. ‘Not as bad as you might think. Nice people. Nice boss. Free dinners.’

‘I love Wendy’s,’ he said. ‘Always used to go in there after a gig, before … you know … before I couldn’t any more.’

She left his allusion to his supernova fame hanging uncommented upon.

‘Do you still do those chicken sandwiches,’ he asked, his body wriggling with boyish excitement, ‘you know, with the spicy sauce?’

‘Yes. They’re a bestseller, actually.’

‘God, I used to love those. That takes me back.’ His eyes filled with a nostalgic mist. ‘Yeah,’ he sighed. ‘Wendy’s, Shaftesbury Avenue,
youth
.’

‘You’re still young!’

‘Yeah, I’m young, but I’m not
youthful
. Once you’ve crossed over from twenty-five, that’s it,’ he clicked his fingers, ‘youth takes a ride. Then you get to be young for as long as you like. I’m going to be young until I’m about forty, I reckon. Maybe even forty-five.’ He winked and chuckled to himself. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Twenty-two. Twenty-three next month.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘youth. Yeah. There it is. Twenty-two. Man. I would give a lot to be twenty-two again.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Seriously. You wouldn’t. It’s shit. I live in a cupboard. Or actually, a cupboard
within
a cupboard. My downstairs neighbour is a crazy Asian dyke. I’ve got literally
no money
. And because no one in this whole city would give me a job I like, I flip burgers all day. It
sucks
being twenty-two, seriously.’

Dom laughed and wiped the corners of his mouth with a paper napkin.

‘Yeah, right, I get it. And I do remember being twenty-two, and I did live in a squat, and I did have crappy jobs, but I suppose I’m looking at it through this, like, bottle bottom. It’s distorted; seems so long ago I’ve forgotten what it felt like. And what sort of jobs were you looking for? Before you ended up at Wendy’s?’

She told him about the art galleries and the boutiques and the temping appointments at button factories. ‘My problem is, I’ve got no work experience,’ she said, ‘and because I’ve got no work experience, I can’t get a job. And it’s just a vicious cycle.’

‘What did you do in Guernsey? I mean, you’re nearly twenty-three, you must have been doing
something
, right?’

‘I was looking after my grandmother,’ Betty said. ‘She had Alzheimer’s and brain damage from a stroke. No one else wanted to live with her, so I did.’

She saw a flash of something across his features, something bright and dazzling. She couldn’t decipher it for a moment and then realised with a swell of pride that it was respect. He had thought she was an amusing young girl, some kind of diverting reflection of his own shabby, youthful existence. And now he thought she was something more than that.

‘Wow,’ he said, after a moment. ‘That’s, er …’

‘It was nothing,’ she shrugged. ‘I loved her.’

‘So what, you did everything? Bum-wiping, the lot?’

‘Yes. The lot.’

‘On your own?’

‘Well, yes, most of the time. There was a carer, but only eight to five. I was there twenty-four-seven.’

He nodded knowingly. ‘Amazing,’ he said, ‘what you’ll do for someone you love.’ He glanced at his wristwatch and tucked his cutlery together on his plate. ‘I’ve got to run,’ he said. ‘The wife’s dropping the kids off.’

‘You’ve got kids?’ she asked, amazing herself with her fine acting skills.

‘Yes, three. Tiny ones.’ He raised his eyebrows exasperatedly. ‘And no nanny. Should be an interesting day.’

‘I can help,’ she said, the words propelled from her mouth by the force of some kind of latent insanity.

He looked at her questioningly. ‘What?’

‘I’m not working today. Well, not till later. I could come and help you. With your kids.’ She smiled a panicky, I’m-not-crazy-I-swear kind of smile.

He stopped completely in his tracks, then. She watched him, watched a thousand different and conflicting thoughts hurtling through his mind. He put a hand to his chin and rubbed it gently. Then he put his other hand to the back of his neck and squeezed it. He gazed at the floor and then at the ceiling. And then he stared straight into Betty’s eyes and said, ‘Yeah. Shit. Why not? I mean, if you’re sure. I can pay you. Obviously. Tell me how much you want.’

She shrugged and smiled. ‘Nothing. I don’t want anything. I just like kids and my flat is full of people with hangovers and I’ve got nothing better to do.’ This wasn’t strictly true. She planned to go to St Anne’s Court today, to see the building where Clara Pickle had once lived, see if there was anything new she could dredge up from that. But really, she suspected that was another dead end. And what was happening here now, in this steamed-up café, was too remarkable to ignore. She shrugged again and then Dom smiled at her.

‘I don’t know what it is …’ he said vaguely, as though he were thinking out loud, ‘what it is, about you …?’ And then in a louder voice, he said, ‘Cool. Excellent. Well, you want to come now?’

She fingered the rip in the seam of her dress absent-mindedly and shook her head. ‘I might pop home, first,’ she said, ‘have a shower, brush my teeth, that kind of thing.’

He looked at her, half smiling, half dazed, as though trying to ignore a persistent voice in his head telling him not to let her in his home whilst at the same time not quite believing his luck.

‘Cool,’ he said again. ‘Great. Well, you know where I am. Peter Street. Number nine. I’ll see you there in, what, half an hour?’

She nodded and tried to exude an overwhelming aura of trustworthiness and sanity. ‘Roughly,’ she said.

‘Good,’ he said. Then he scratched his head, again, put his hands into his pockets and turned to leave. He stopped at the door of the café and turned back towards her. ‘Don’t tell anyone, though, will you? Don’t tell them where you’re going?’

She gave him her best Guide’s honour fingers-up and waited until he’d disappeared from view before exhaling and collapsing bodily and dramatically onto the slightly greasy tabletop.

21

WHEN BETTY GOT
home five minutes later and finally made it to the bathroom, she saw the full horror of the reality of her appearance. She stared into the bathroom mirror for so long and with such distress that all the features on her face seemed to start moving around, wriggling like fish.

She attacked her face in the shower with a bar of soap and a facial scrub. While she scrubbed she told herself it was good that she hadn’t known how bad she’d looked. If she’d known how bad she’d looked she would never have left the flat, let alone have had the gall to start a conversation with a pop star. If she’d known how bad she’d looked she would not be on her way into the pop star’s house to help him look after his children for a day.

She put on a black and white striped Lycra dress with the sleeves pushed up, knee-high boots and a denim jacket. She tucked all her hair inside the silver beret, reapplied her make-up, sprayed on some perfume, ignored every attempt by Joe Joe to find out where she was going all dressed up like that, and left the house feeling sick with nerves and excitement.