Chances (24 page)

Hullo, DeeDee.

Funnily enough, I imagined you looking just like this – though I thought you’d be fair not dark.

DeeDee smiled back.

Laughter lines.

A lovely smile, slightly askew and all the more attractive for it.

Vita found she didn’t really spend much time looking at Jonty and Oliver, skipping over their details. She was transfixed by DeeDee, wanting to commit her face to memory, wanting to look deep into those eyes, trying to work out how tall she’d been, what clothes she liked. Lilac and navy had obviously been her colours. What her hands were like. A wedding ring and an engagement ring. Pierced ears – look at that – twice in each ear!

And then Vita turned to find Oliver and Jonty standing there, staring at her, holding plates with enormous wedges of lemon cake and mountains of raspberries. Just standing stock-still, staring at her. Vita was so shocked, she dropped the frame and it fell to the floor. It didn’t break but it fell loudly and then she was stooping to pick it up, saying, Sorry! Sorry! and feeling utterly mortified. I wasn’t snooping, she cried to herself, I just wanted to see what she looked like.

‘I’m so sorry!’

What on earth was she meant to say now? Oh, how beautiful your late wife was, Oliver? Jonty, your mum looked so lovely? Had she even put the photo back in the right place, at the right angle? And now – how to cross the chasm from here, to her chair just there?

She made it back, acutely aware that her face wasn’t just red, it was now prickled with sweat.

‘I –’ Christ, she could cry.

‘Don’t worry, Vita,’ Oliver said, and he put his hand, his beautiful warm hand, gently on her wrist. In front of her, the great big chunk of her cake; across from her, Jonty.

‘Cake looks cool,’ Jonty said. He looked alarmed – as if Vita might be on the verge of one of the funny turns like the first time he met her.

‘My dad,’ she said to Jonty. ‘He died when I was your age – well, I was fourteen at the time.’

Jonty looked at his dad. Then he looked at Vita. ‘What of?’

‘Leukaemia,’ she said.

‘Ours was a road accident,’ said Jonty.

‘I know,’ said Vita softly, looking down reverently, ‘and I’m so sorry.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Jonty.

‘Vita,’ said Oliver, ‘we are happy to have you here – both of us, aren’t we, Jonty? We’re a bit out of practice, of course. But you are welcome.’

‘Shall we just eat cake?’ Jonty asked.

The raspberries were sweet, so very sweet. So beautiful. So full of summer.

‘Coffee?’ Oliver offered, as soon as the dessert had been finished – and the cake was so good they’d scoffed it down in a matter of minutes. ‘We have mints – a selection box. M&S.’

‘Lovely,’ said Vita, ‘but I’m going to help clear up. And you must let me – or I’ll take the rest of the cake home with me.’

They all walked through to the kitchen carrying the dirty dishes. The kitchen looked war torn. There were plates and bowls and all manner of utensils lying in chaos on every available surface. The oven was still on.

‘Lord,’ Vita said.

‘The thing is, Jamie Oliver probably has legions of skivvies,’ said Oliver, ‘but I’m Jamie Oliver Oliver and I just have a Jonty.’

Vita laughed. ‘Come on – it won’t take a mo’.’

While Oliver boiled the kettle and rooted around in a cupboard for ground coffee, while Jonty half-heartedly piled things up whilst trying to read passages of
Q
, Vita made a start by swilling plates under the hot tap.

And then she flipped down the dishwasher door and started loading it.

‘No!’ Oliver shouted. ‘Don’t!’

‘Seriously – I’m an expert,’ and she continued to stack the racks.

‘Please, Vita – just leave it.’

She laughed at his distress. Hadn’t he done plenty? The host most certainly with the most. ‘Honestly – I’m a whizz,’ she said. ‘I bet I can load every single thing in.’

‘Just – STOP.’

And he was emphatic. And his voice was hoarse. And Vita was shocked to see him and Jonty looking aghast, as though they’d seen a ghost, as though Vita had committed a terrible, terrible crime.

‘Please,’ he said and his voice was controlled, odd. ‘Just go through. Take a seat. We’ll bring coffee in to you.’

She could but nod; her mind a whirl about just what she’d done. What
had
she done? She went into the sitting room as asked and sat quietly, as if in disgrace. She was too nervous to mooch over to browse the books because there were too many photos of DeeDee dotted around the shelves. She felt dreadful, with a stomach stuffed full of food from a meal that had lasted twenty-five minutes flat and a mind full of conflicting emotions and questions arising from a moment’s unwitting offence. And then she saw it. Saw Oliver standing in the kitchen, head hung low. She saw Jonty walk over to him and the two of them lay a hand on each other’s shoulders. And then she watched them slowly unstacking the dishwasher, taking every single item out and piling it up again, haphazardly on the worktop. And she thought, Oh God. Oh God. And it wasn’t the ignominy of her unwitting faux pas. It was the realization that DeeDee was still very much in the kitchen. Not just in the kitchen; everywhere.

Vita realized that the time it had taken Oliver to invite her to his home had little to do with Jonty and everything to do with DeeDee. Vita glanced at a photo of her and whispered through smarting eyes, I didn’t mean to trespass. She thought, I don’t feel I should be here. This house was DeeDee’s. Everything in it was hers, including Oliver and Jonty. This family was taken already. And when Oliver came back in with coffee and posh mints and his lovely smile, Vita thought to herself, This is hopeless. This is utterly, utterly without hope.

Loss.

Loss was the key.

Vita was at a loss, not knowing what to do but having an overriding feeling that Oliver’s loss – and Jonty being inextricably bound in it – was beyond any ability Vita could possibly have to counteract it.

‘It would be easier, somehow, if Oliver was divorced,’ she confided to Michelle who could do no more than listen and dole out tissues. ‘I still don’t know what I did, really. Something about helping in the kitchen – it felt as extreme as if I’d found her clothes and tried them on.’

‘Did Oliver say anything? When he drove you home?’

‘It was dreadful. It was awful, stilted, light chit-chat about lemon cake.’

‘What did you say, though – did you say anything?’

‘I didn’t feel I could. It was as if the matter was closed. I didn’t even feel I could apologize for whatever it was that I’d done. So I just went all light and chit-chatty back. But there was this elephant in the car, Michelle. It must’ve filled his rear-view mirror. Certainly it felt like it was crushing the breath out of me. It was a dark shadow cast over him when he pulled up. You could see it – it was as if he was hollowed out.’

‘Did you ask him in?’

Vita shook her head.

‘Did you ask him anything?’

She shook her head again.

‘Did you kiss?’

‘In an etiquette kind of way.’

‘Poor sod,’ said Michelle, ‘he probably felt even worse.’

They sat side by side on Vita’s couch, watching her hands shred tissues.

‘And it was almost a week ago?’ Michelle said.

Vita nodded.

‘And you haven’t heard from him?’

‘He phoned – the following afternoon. But he didn’t leave a message.’

‘And you haven’t phoned him back?’

Vita shook her head.

‘Perhaps he phoned to explain. Maybe he thought you don’t want to hear?’

‘Perhaps I don’t. Perhaps it’s too tangled, all of this, for me.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Vita shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s up to me.’ She thought about it. ‘Is it?’

Michelle thought about it too. ‘Honey, I honestly don’t know. I don’t know anyone else in this situation – anyone our age, having to deal with life after death. But – oughtn’t you to phone him?’

Vita went very, very quiet. ‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear it – I don’t want to go through the being-dumped bit. I think I’ll just let it fizzle.’

‘Maybe dumping you is the last thing on his mind?’

‘But I daren’t become involved if there’s no future and there can be no future if he’s still so happily-sadly married. The hurt – I can’t put myself through it. I need to be more responsible for myself now.’

Michelle held her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘It’s good to know there are good guys out there though, hey? It’s good to know that you, too, can feel it all – despite the Tim crap. You
felt
it, with Oliver. It’s just very unjust that the timing was skewed.’

‘I’ve never felt anything like it,’ Vita smiled forlornly. ‘It was fast for me – and real. From the start.’

‘I know.’

‘He’s special,’ Vita could only whisper, ‘but he’s still DeeDee’s.’

‘I know,’ Michelle whispered back. ‘And as your best friend, I’m telling you that you can’t let yourself fall in love with a man who’s involved with another woman. Ever again. Christ – the irony. It’s like Tim – but so
not
like Tim.’

‘I know,’ Vita wept, ‘I know.’

The week passed, crawled along. It limped into the next; and soon it would be a fortnight since that supper. And Oliver was something of a nightmare to work with and a nightmare to live with and Jonty had him in both.

‘Is your pa all right, mate?’ Boz asked. ‘I almost think he shouldn’t be wielding a chainsaw at the moment.’

Jonty shrugged. ‘It was that lady – the cagoule lady. Vita.’

‘I thought that was a good thing?’

‘Me too,’ said Jonty, ‘I thought she was nice. Cool, actually. Good for my dad. But she seems to have gone.’

‘Has he said anything?’

‘He shouted at her not to load the dishwasher.’

‘You what? I meant – has he said anything
, to you
? And what’s with the dishwasher?’

Jonty thought about it. And then it struck him. That dishwasher was running their lives – it had been crazy when his mum was alive and somehow, it was even crazier now she was dead. Who the fuck has a dishwasher for a shrine? Life would be so much easier if they used the frikkin’ thing. And then he had a light-bulb moment. ‘Boz – I know we’re due at wherever we’re due – but do you think we could go via town, via that shop, That Shop?’

‘That’s cool, mate,’ said Boz and he ruffled Jonty’s hair and gave him a gentle punch on the arm. ‘We’ll go in on the way back.’

‘I need to go in on my own.’

‘That’s cool too, mate.’

And Jonty thought, I think I might tell Boz what’s with the dishwasher. He’s like an older brother. It’ll be good to talk.

Although the final bank holiday weekend of the year was about to start, there was an unmistakable back-to-school feeling in Wynford, not just in the wares and window displays, but in the way that mothers now marched with their children, as though to put an efficiency back into their lives, as though there had to be a purpose to their pace between places in which items for school could be ticked off lists. Vita had put pencil boxes and satchels, personalized drinking flasks and colourful notebooks in the window display; pots crammed with pens, bowls with fruit-scented erasers and safety sharpeners by the till. The shop was now busiest mid-mornings. It was as if, to shop during what soon would be school hours, was a last nod to the freedom of the summer holidays. She had a manic trade in etching children’s names onto traditional wooden pencil boxes, using a special hot iron pen for the purpose. She couldn’t offer a while-you-wait service because she liked to spend time on the calligraphy. But she also found that offering a next-day personalization service for free meant that the customer came in twice and usually spent money on both visits. This time last year, Tim had insisted she charge two pounds for the service. But this year he seemed to have disappeared from the life of the shop, as well as from Vita’s.

She reckoned she could finish her book by closing time. She was going to go to Michelle’s tonight to help with tomorrow’s BBQ. She was seeing her mum on Sunday. She hadn’t thought about bank holiday Monday yet. Candy perhaps. Something – she’d have to have something organized. She hadn’t had a customer since mid-afternoon and now it was tea-time. She went to the back, poured herself the last of the iced coffee, a jug of which she made each morning. She drank far more iced coffee than she ever drank hot.

Buy de-caff.

She wrote a Post-it and stuck it to the fridge door and went back into the shop to find Jonty waiting patiently by the till.

‘Hiya,’ he gave his awkward half-height wave. He’d had a haircut and yet his fringe appeared longer than ever. And very black. All the more so because the T-shirt emblazoned with a skeleton was incongruously yellow.

‘Hi?’

‘I – er.’ He shuffled and mumbled and fiddled with the erasers. ‘This is totally strawberryish,’ he marvelled.

‘Sniff the green one.’

‘Wow.’ He sniffed again. ‘Wow – that’s mega-appley.’

‘Weird, aren’t they.’

‘How much are they?’

‘Fifty pence.’

He started rooting around in his pocket.

‘Don’t be daft, Jonty – have one,’ she said, ‘take a couple.’

‘Seriously?’ She might as well have offered him free gold ingots.

‘They cost me pennies.’

He chose an apple one. And a strawberry one too. Vita doubted very much whether he’d actually take them to school.

‘I got my GCSEs,’ he told her. And by the time she’d finally coaxed out of him that the two he had taken a year early both achieved A*, he’d turned the colour of the strawberry eraser.

‘That’s amazing!’ she said. And she thought, Oliver must be cock-a-hoop. And then she thought, DeeDee would have been so very proud.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘y’know. I’d better scoot.’

She looked at him. ‘Nice to see you – thanks for calling in.’

And Jonty very nearly left it at that.

‘Um, Vita.’ His voice had changed. And so had his demeanour. He was standing tall, looking right at her. ‘I just wanted to say – you weren’t to know. About the dishwasher.’

‘It’s OK, Jonty – honestly, I understa—’

But he cut her off. He raised his hand as if stopping traffic. ‘The really really stupid thing about it is that Mum and Dad used to argue the whole time about it. It used to really wind Mum up because Dad was so crap at putting things in. And it used to totally get on Dad’s nerves the way Mum was obsessed with doing it her way. The
whole
time.’

He looked at Vita who was looking right back at him.

‘I wish my dad would use the frikkin’ thing – we both hate bloody washing up. Did you see how many teaspoons and mugs we have? We buy loads – and pile them up for Mrs Blackthorne to do. She’s our cleaner.’

Vita smiled. It was she who washed all the mugs, all the time, in the shop. She missed not having a dishwasher at Pear Tree Cottage. She’d loved stacking Tim’s. She didn’t remember whether they’d ever fallen out about it. At the time, she never really noticed how equally or otherwise the division of labour fell.

‘Anyway,’ Jonty said, ‘it’s just – I know this sounds bizarre – but it’s just that we haven’t actually used it since Mum died. Not once. Not a single time.’ He gave Vita a contorted smile as if he’d just confessed the most excruciatingly embarrassing thing.

‘So Dad was a bit –’ He stumbled for vocabulary. ‘A bit –’ He paused. ‘You know what, he sort of overreacted, I think. If you want my opinion. For what it’s worth.’

‘I wish I’d known,’ Vita said regretfully.

‘I wish I’d thought to tell you,’ said Jonty. ‘I wish we had. But in some ways it did some good. It – it –’ He fumbled around for the words. And when they came he spoke them with a deep American accent. ‘
It, like, totally broke the spell of the dishwasher, man
.’

Vita laughed.

Jonty looked at the floor. He seemed to shrink back to teenager stature again, as if he’d been granted just a few minutes of time as an adult. ‘Anyway, I wanted you to know that. And I wanted you to know that Dad’s been in a crap mood. And I wanted you to know that too. In case, you know, he phones. Or in case you feel like phoning him? Or something. I dunno. I don’t know how these things are done. I don’t have a girlfriend – thank
God
.’

Vita was overwhelmed with the same compulsion to hug the kid that she’d experienced at his house. But the table was between them, as were all the words and sentiments with which he’d come in, all on his own, to deliver. All she could do was give him the eraser that was mega-bananary too.

* * *

It was the upturned mug full of sedimenty water that did it. That, and the forks still with food gunk on them. It was very late. Oliver was unloading the dishwasher which he’d used for the first time, cursing the thing for not cleaning properly. And then he thought, I should have let Vita stack it last week. She’d’ve known just how to do it. And then he thought, Oh God – I thought of Vita in the first instance. Vita came first, into my mind. And he went up to bed and picked up the photo of DeeDee and sat on the floor holding it in his hands as he wept. But DeeDee just kept on smiling, over his shoulder. Smiling and smiling that fantastic wonky grin of hers.

Oliver slept fitfully for an hour or two, soon wide awake in the small hours.

He dressed silently.

He left the house soundlessly, put the car into neutral and rolled down the drive without the engine on. Then he drove away as quietly as could and drove fast to Wynfordbury Hall, parking up by the great iron gates. The moon picked out the swirls and curlicues, transforming them from metal into lace. They were shut. He didn’t expect them to be open, he didn’t need them to be, he didn’t even check. He walked alongside the wall, trailing his hand against the lichen-licked stones until he found the place he was looking for. You’d’ve thought, by now, all these years later, they’d’ve fixed it. But they hadn’t. And so he climbed, a little less easily than he’d done the first time, but he made it up and over and soon enough he was walking through the trees in the moonlight.