Ghosts in the Morning (16 page)

It hadn’t always been like
that
.
Before, when the children were young, we used to do things on a Sunday.
Together.
We would go for long walks
, “adventure walks” we called them
;
tramping happily along the footpaths that
edged Jersey’s imposing north coast cliffs, or baiting the waves along St. Ouen’s majestic beach
, to see who could stand at the edge of the surf for the longest, without getting wet by an incoming wave.
But, as the
kids got older,
gradually the walks became less frequent, the call of the television with its ubiquitous football became stronger, and then eventually the adventure walks stopped.

‘Andrea?’

‘Eh, yes?’

‘So
?’ Graham sounded impatient.

‘So what?’

‘So,
what do you think?
Shall we go out for
Sunday lunch?’

‘Er, oh, um, okay, yes, I suppose.’

‘Right, okay,
okay, good,
that’s settled then
. I’ll, er, I’ll
book somewhere.’

Graham headed off downstairs.
Ah well, I thought, maybe a glass of wine at lunch would ease the
throbbing
pain in my head.

***

‘Well, this makes a nice change, doesn’t it? Must say, I haven’t been in this pub for ages,
I had
forgot
ten
how quaint it is.’

‘I assume by quaint, you mean you bang your head on the beams when you walk in?’ Daniel said with a sarcastic smile.

‘
Yes, but remember there’s a lot of
history in those beams, son.’ Graham tutted. ‘
Something
that
you young people don’t seem to appreciate any more.
You’ve got no
sense of
...no sense of history, no concept or understanding of
where you came from
, I mean, well, how things used to be
.
For instance, did
you know
that
this is one of the oldest pubs in Jersey – that wooden bar
over
there is actually made from the wreckage of a hull of a smuggling ship that ran aground on the rocks in the bay.’

‘Yeah, righto, Dad. How would you know that anyway, you’re just making it up
?
’

‘I’m not son, I’m not. I know my history.’ Graham paused and looked down. ‘Besides, it says so right here on the front page of the menu.’

They both laughed and I joined in. I had forgotten that Graham could sometimes be funny.

‘So, Daniel, any new girlfriends on the horizon?’ I tried to keep my tone light, tried to force the question to sound innocent.

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Mum
?’

‘It’s not supposed to
mean
anything.’

‘So why are you asking that then
?’

‘Nothing, Daniel, just asking, that’s all.
It’s not a trick question.
’

‘Well for your information, no.
’ Daniel glared at me. ‘
Not that’s it any of your business
, anyway
.’

I glared
back at him
. ‘I am your mother, Daniel, it is normal for me to ask these sorts of questions, you know. I just wondered i
f there was anyone, that’s all
, I mean -
’

‘Give the lad a break, Andrea,’ Graham interrupted. ‘H
e’s too young to be worrying about that sort of thing, anyway.’

‘Or too old,’ I muttered and bit my lip.

‘Are you ready to order?’ The waiter was brusque, unsmiling
,
and standing too close to me at the edge of the table. I felt hemmed in.

‘Er, yes, yes we are,’ Graham said
, without asking for my acquiescence
.

The waiter scribbled our orders and turned away. I opened my mouth to continue
the discussion,
I wanted
to ask about the girl
– Jadie-Lee -
but Daniel
must have sensed what was coming and
was quicker.

‘So, Dad, who do you reckon is going to win this afternoon?’

‘Hmm, not sure. Fairly academic though,
to be honest. Both clubs are destined for a mid-table position, it’s that kind of
clash,
it
won’t impact the big boys at the top.’

I zoned out
as they talked about the ‘
big teams
’ and ‘
away form
’ and ‘
European trophies
’
. I hated football,
I
couldn’t see the point of it. It seemed wrong, somehow; grown men heaping adulation on younger, fitter men – just boys some of those players,
even if they were
very rich boys - purely because they had the dubious talent of kicking a ball hard in the right direction
. T
hese grown men would buy expensive shirts for themselves and their children, shirts that bore the names of the young football-kicking boys
on the back and advertising on the front.
I mean they pay to be advertising boards for large companies, how stupid is that?
Th
en soon enough they would have to discard
their
silly, expensive shirts because their
lovely, loyal
player
went and
changed teams. All that posturing by the players in front of the fans, all that hand clutched to heart, that badge kissing, went straight out of the window when another club waved a few more thousand pounds under their noses, and
so
the shirts would be in the bin, and a
long would come a
new player
to
be saluted, worshipped
, and another shirt bought
.

The waiter returned with three steaming plates loaded with Sunday roast, and dumped them down without a word.
He’
s not getting a tip
,
I thought.

I cut into a potato. It was slightly hard, not fluffy like the ones I made. I stabbed my fork into the Yorkshire pudding and it
deflated with a warm, moist sigh
. I
turned my head slightly and took a breath, and paused until
the waiter was on his way back to the kitchen and then
I called out ‘
excuse me
’ and signalled him back.
I pointed to my glass
of wine
and asked for another. I didn’t add ‘please’.
I could feel my headache easing with each sip. Graham smiled at me, and I noticed a fleck of mustard on his silly, wispy attempt at a moustache. I
forced a smile
back
, still surprised at
this change in Graham. He seemed to really be making an effort
, I didn’t understand it
.

‘
I was thinking that, after lunch, er, m
aybe we could go for a walk along the beach
,
what do you reckon?’

‘Er, love to Dad, but
–’ Daniel was looking down at his phone, texting while he ate. I hated this modern world, where common manners took second place to technology
, I wanted to pick up his phone and smash it. I squeezed my fingers tight
. ‘
See, Dad,
Paul’s coming down to pick me up after lunch, we’re going for a few drinks,
we’re
maybe
thinking of going
to the pictures.’

‘What
are
you going to see?’ I said.

‘Dunno.’ Daniel mumbled. He was still texting, and I
looked across at
the log fire that was merrily burning in the corner of the pub.
I wondered how long it would take for his phone to melt in that fire.

Graham was looking at me, his eyebrows
still
raised.
‘Er, what do you think, Andrea, shall we go for a little stroll?’

‘Er, I suppose, er, yes
, okay, yes, maybe we could go for a little walk.’

I cut into my roast beef and shuddered.
It was cooked rare in the middle,
there
blood ooz
ing
from the flesh. I tugged at the muscle fibres with the knife, trying to cut around the bloody section. I was a good cook, I knew that this was the way it should be cooked
, I knew
meat should never be overdone
,
but I was no purist when it came to
actually
eating it
. I liked my meat to be well done,
I didn’t like to see a
hint of blood.

A piece of sinew was twisted in the tines of the fork and
I thought of the rugby player’s face
. It had
looked like raw beef,
T-bone steak
, I remembered the gristle and bone protruding through the sticky red mass. I closed my eyes. ‘
You fucking fat cow
’, that’s what he’d said, he’d thrown the words out like confetti,
seemingly
unaware that words
aren’t
confetti, sometimes
words
can be grenades, sometimes they can produce an explosion...

‘Andrea, are you alright?’ Graham said.

‘Er, yes, yes, I’m fine.’

The rugby player
must have been doing the Movember thing too,
I remembered
he had the beginnings of a moustache, I
had seen
the downy hair mixed with blood and snot and bone...

‘You don’t look fine, Andrea, are you sure you’re feeling okay
?
’

‘I’m just a bit tired after my night out with Anita, that’s all
, not used to a late night, I guess. Exc
use me a moment, I just need to go for a quick
pee
,’ I said.

I dashed to the toilet, locked the door of the cubicle and threw up.

Chapter 10

The mobile phone stared up at me
from the table
,
willing
me to pick it up.
It wasn’t mine, it was Graham’s, I really shouldn’t, spying wasn’t a good thing, but still...

Graham really
must be out of sorts. Firstly, his change at the weekend, what with Sunday lunch and a walk on the beach, and this behaviour had continued for several days now, he had been far nicer, more attentive, than he had been in a long while. A
nd now this
; i
t was unheard of for him to forget to take his phone with him to work
, I couldn’t remember one single occasion when this had happened before, he usually checked he had his phone before he worried about his keys.

There
had to be
a reason
why Graham was acting like this,
a reason why he was acting like
he actually cared about me, about us
as a family
.
I knew I was guilty of a high degree of cynicism but that didn’t mean it was misplaced. I knew that h
is head was normally full of Nikki
, so why the sudden change?

I picked up th
e phone and saw that it needed a pass code to unlock it. I typed in the digits of Graham’s birthday backwards – I knew it would be the same as the Sky PIN number, Graham didn’t have the imagination to use anything else. It would be the same number for all of his bank cards too.

Hey, presto
. I thumbed to the text messages and scrolled down.
There were a few texts from Piers and from Harry, one of the guys that Graham played badminton with. There were also a few messages from
‘
Work
’.
I shook my head and said ‘
he must think I’m
bloody
stupid
’ – his important work colleagues, the ones who would ring him, were in his phone by their own names, not some generic ‘
Work
’ caption. It had to be Nikki.

I clicked on the most recent ‘
Work
’ message.

Yes,
Graham,
I am seeing some1 else
,
so
pls dont call again

I sighed. Things were beginning to make sense. I clicked on the previous ‘
Work
’ message.