Dream On (29 page)

He sat up. He was putting a stop to it.  She'd only
been with Max - what, a few months? What was that, in comparison with all the
years they'd had together?

Dave reached for his phone. He couldn't have
Ariel. At that precise moment, now she was gone, it all seemed like a fantasy;
deep down, he'd known he would never be able to hold her. But Janice and
Harley, that was something different. That was something he
could
have. They were reality, his life. His
family.

Contacts. All a bit blurry. Ah yes, there she
was. After JJ Taxis and before two people called Jeff.
Don't know anyone
called Jeff,
Dave thought.
Wonder who they are?

Janice. What next?

Green telephone receiver bit.

Ring ring. Ring ring.

"Hello, Dave! How's things?"

"Okay - Jan, are you busy?"

"No, not particularly. Harley's just gone to bed. I'm doing the ironing, that's all."

Dave took a mouthful of lager. "Is Max there?"

"No, why? D'you want to talk to him? No, I'm on
my own. Max had a meet - he's seeing some friends tonight."

"Can I come round?"

"Well - okay, I suppose so, if you want. Harley's
asleep, though - "

"That's okay. It's you I want to see. I'll get a cab,
be with you in fifteen, okay?"

JJ Taxis. Handy, that.

In the five minutes while he was waiting, Dave gulped
down the rest of the can of lager, changed his t-shirt for a clean white one
(Janice liked him in white t-shirts), brushed his teeth, threw a Bic razor
around his chin - hadn't bothered much about that sort of thing for the last
few weeks; he was starting to look more grunge than rocker, he thought. Slapped on a bit of Ritchie's Fahrenheit (
Dior aftershave?
) as the taxi
pulled up outside, and he was on his way.

Janice knew he was quite alarmingly pissed the
minute she opened the door.

He kissed her when she let him in; she drew back from him,
and laughed.

"Bloody hell, you reek of drink! What's all this
about?" she asked, and followed him into the living room, where he flopped down,
just as he'd always done, at the end of the sofa nearest the window.

"I just wanted to see you. I want to talk to you
about something."

"Okay." He looked agitated, she thought. As if he
was up to something; she knew that look of old. "D'you want a beer? Another beer, I should say!"

"Yes - yes please, that'd be nice."

She went into the kitchen and poured a can of
Grolsch into a pint glass; she didn't know why she still kept lager in the
fridge; force of habit, she supposed. She poured a glass of white wine for
herself, and went back into the living room.

"Come on, then," she said, sitting down in the
armchair opposite him, "out with it."

He drank thirstily, and draped his arm across the
back of the sofa. "Are you happy?" he asked.

"Yes. Very. Why?"

"Oh." He looked around the room. "I mean, really happy. Like we used to be."

Janice laughed. "I'm not the same person I was when we
were happy together. It's a different sort of happiness."

He grinned at her. "What, the boring middle aged sort?"

She laughed. "No. Not that, not at all."

He frowned, then. "Jan - "

"What?"

He leant forward and rubbed his hands together,
staring at them. Then he looked up at her. "Look, I've got to ask this. Have you ever thought - well, what I'm saying is, would you ever consider us
getting back together again?"

Janice couldn't believe her ears.

He sat there, eagerly, as if awaiting a positive
affirmation.

As if she was going to throw her arms around him
and say
yes, yes yes!

"What?"
she said. "You
ask this, now? After all I went through last year when you started seeing
Alison Swan? You come here now, because she's buggered off and left you,
and you think you can just walk straight back in, as if nothing's happened?"

Funny, he looked exactly like Harley did when she
was telling him off.

"It's not like that. I was doing some thinking
tonight. Ariel - she and I, it was never going to last. She was
always going to go away again. But you and me - you and me and Harley,
we're a family."

She shook her head. "I can't believe I'm hearing this. D'you know, I always wondered if you would do this, when she left you. Because that's why you're here, isn't it? You wouldn't be here if she
hadn't gone! Dave, are you completely stupid? We were talking about
getting back together again, we were still sleeping together, only - what, eight
or ten months ago, and then suddenly that was all forgotten, all those years
together, when the great Alison Swan showed up again. Don't you know what
that did to me? It was like - well, like you'd just tossed me aside as if
I didn't matter at all! Look, I'm over it now, but - well, I don't mind
telling you I was in a bit of a state about it, until I pulled myself together,
which I did pretty sharpish. But it was bloody awful at the time."

At least he looked well and truly ashamed, she thought.

"I know," he said, "and I'm sorry, I really am. I
just had my head turned, you know, it was all the stuff with Thor, and
everything - "

"Yes, exactly, all that band stuff again." She took
a large gulp of wine. "It's always like that when you're doing something
musically, isn't it? You think you're destined for higher things, and you
forget all about Harley and me.  Oh, I know exactly what happened. I
know
you, Dave. You started having all your rock and roll dreams again, and you
wanted a rock and roll girlfriend to complete the picture. Now the band's
gone, and she's gone, and you think I'm going to be there to pick up the pieces
again."

"It's not like that."

"No? What is it
like,
then?"

"Can I have a fag in here?"

"No."

He breathed out, long and hard. "This is real
life. You and me and our son, here. It's what matters." He leant forward and
touched her hand. "If the world was ending, I wouldn't care about anything
else, I'd just want to be with you and H."

She hated it. Why did Dave always do this to her? She knew it was all a load of rubbish with nothing to back it up, even if he
didn't. He was drunk; probably just maudlin and lonely, if only he had enough
self-knowledge to realise that.

Alas, though, that didn't stop her wanting him.

Wanting him. That was all, she realised, as a
massive flood of relief washed over her. She still
wanted
him, fancied
him, but she wasn't in love with him anymore. How could she be? You couldn't
love two people at once, not truly, could you? She still cared for him, loved
him in a way, but it was Max with whom she was in love. Just as Dave still
cared for her, but was in love with Alison Swan, whatever he said to the
contrary. Funny how that didn't hurt, not anymore.

"Dave," she said, and reached out to hold his hand
for a moment. "I think you've forgotten something."

"What?"

"I'm with Max."

He smiled. "Yeah, but you're not with Max like we were
together, are you? You don't live together, you haven't got a son
together. You're not in love with him, I know you're not. I know
you, too, Janice. I mean, Max is a great bloke, I bet he really
looks after you and makes you feel dead safe and all that, but you're not in
love with him, not like you're in love with me."

"
Was
in love with you, Dave," she
said. "You're wrong. Dave, I'm sorry, you're wrong. I
am
in love with
Max. And no, not because he looks after me and makes me feel dead safe -
though yes, he does those things, too - but because I just am. In love
with him."

"But not like you were in love with me," Dave said;
there was an air of desperation about him, she thought, though it made her feel
sad, not triumphant; she'd never imagined this day would actually come.

"No, not like I was in love with you," she said. "Love is
different at different times in your life, I suppose. But I'm really,
truly in love with him. We're - we're going to get married."

Dave looked as though someone had punched him; he
slumped back onto the sofa. "Married?"

"Yes. You know, that thing people do when they
want to spend the rest of their lives together." Janice couldn't help it; that
bit
did
make her feel just a little bit smug. How hard it was not to
add the words
'so there!'
Dave had never talked about getting married,
not once.

"Kids?" Dave said, as if he was so shocked he could
only speak in monosyllables. Quite effective, really.

"Probably, in the future. Not too far into it, if you
must know. Give it a year or so."

"What if I said I'd marry you? As soon as you like?"

"It's too late, Dave."

He stared at her. "Max - he's not adopting Harley."

"Of course he's not. Don't be ridiculous. You're Harley's father, he'd never try to take that away from you."

"Big of him."

"Oh, come on, don't be like that," said Janice. "Max is
brilliant with Harley, but he'd never try to take your place."

Dave sighed. "Yeah, I know." He drank down the
rest of his lager, and put the glass on the table. "Tell me something."

"What?"

"If you weren't with Max, would you have had me back?"

She closed her eyes. "It's impossible to say. You're talking about a hypothetical situation.
I don't know what I'd do in one of those, because I'm not in it."
And I don't want to know,
she
thought. She had a feeling that, given time, she might have allowed him back,
yes. And then, one day, she would have got hurt, all over again. Probably
next time Alison Swan rode back into town. Thank God for Max. He'd saved her
life.

Dave stood up. "Think I'll walk home," he said. He looked around the room. "I always thought this would be my home again, one
day."

"Well, it won't be ours, not for much longer. We're
going to move out to Marsham to live at Max's, probably during Harley's summer
holidays."

"Yes. Of course. Of course you are. It'll
be funny, though, won't it, thinking of some other people living here."

"Mm."

"I'll get off then," Dave said, picking up his leather
jacket.

When she showed him out, he looked back at her. "You seem different, now, Jan. When I think about you, when I first met
you. You seem completely different."

She smiled. "I've grown up."

"Yeah." He shrugged, and smiled. "Bollocks to that, eh?"

They both laughed, and then he reached for her and
they hugged. She watched him as he walked down the road. As he got to the end
of the close, he turned to wave. Just then, Max's car rounded the corner; Dave
waved to him, too. And then he was gone.

The final of Raw Talent was to take place at the
end of May, and would be a fight to the death for a singer songwriter called
Danny Coldham, a three girl vocal harmony group called Athena - and Melodie
Joy.

Already, the show's publicists were worried. Danny Coldham
was predicted to win, but it was Melodie who was getting the column inches in
the entertainment and gossip columns of the tabloid press (mostly due to her
antics in nightclubs with a couple of lesser known footballers), however much
they tried to push the other contestants.

"This was supposed to be a show with a bit of
sophistication, to bring forth a worthy artiste with some musical expertise,"
complained Rachel Mackie, the show's researcher, when she brought forth the
results from the opinion poll she'd run the day before. "What if she wins? Come on, can't we fix it so that Danny does?"

"Another comment like that and you're down the
road," said Ed Campion. "If the public wants Melodie Joy, then that's what the
public shall have."

"She's going to be a star," said Glenn Hunter,
A&R man. "We're signing her, whatever happens."

"I don't want her at Serendipity," said Shelley
Mayes, the festival organiser. "Danny or Athena, but not that silly little
scrubber."

"Oh, she won't win," said Glenn. "The voting public are
mostly youngish and female, and they're going to vote for Danny, because he's
hot, or for Athena, because they want to be like them, but they won't vote for
Melodie. She's only collected half the votes they have, hasn't she, Ed? She only got into the final by the skin of her teeth. But she's the one
who's going to make it. She's the star of the show. I reckon she's
got at least one fifteen minutes' worth going for her. You listen to one
who knows!"

In July, back in Fennington St Mary, a heavily pregnant
girl called Kerry accepted a cup of tea from her mother, and eased herself into
a comfortable position on the settee.

"It's good to see you, Mum," she said, "we've certainly got
a bit to catch up on, ain't we?"

"I'll say!" said her mother. "So, Jeremy Kyle it is,
then?"

"That's right," said Kerry. "First week in August, they've
put it forward. They rang me the other day. I said to them, I said,
you'd better get us on soon, 'cause they reckon I might be early and I don't
want to run the risk of going into labour on national television, do I?"

"Yeah, I have to say, you look enormous for six and
a half months. Mind you, I was massive when I was carrying you." Her mother
laughed, and sipped her tea. "I bet that Shane Cowley got the fright of his
life when your Uncle Patrick turned up at his front door."

"Yeah, well, it wasn't hard, was it? I mean, how
many Bon Jovi tribute bands are there likely to be in
Spalding?
" She
spat the word out, and laughed. "Me Uncle Pat warned him, didn't he? Right back when I first found out I'd fallen, I made sure of that, 'cause I had
a feeling he was going to try and duck out of it. But Uncle Patrick, he
went round his flat and he said to him, he said, don't you think you can dodge
your responsibilities, or you'll have me to deal with!"