His 'n' Hers (34 page)

‘No one important,’ I reply hastily, as I look forlornly at the wedding present in my hands. ‘I’ll come back another time.’

‘No, you won’t,’ says a voice behind me. I turn round and Alison is standing a few yards away from me. She’s wearing a red Puffa jacket, faded blue jogging bottoms, trainers and a green woolly hat that has clearly seen better days.

‘How are you?’ she asks.

‘I’m okay,’ I reply. ‘How about you?’

‘Not too bad,’ she says, smiling at me. She looks down at her jogging bottoms. ‘Sorry, I must look like a right scruff. Jane insisted she wanted an omelette for breakfast. I only nipped out to the shops to get some eggs.’ She waves the box in her hand. ‘I wasn’t expecting guests.’

‘I’m not really a guest.’ I look over at the taxi. ‘I’m not staying. The reason I’m here is to wish you and Marcus all the best and give you a present.’

Alison smiles. ‘Jim, you really didn’t need to do this.’

‘I know,’ I reply. ‘I just wanted to.’

‘Is it what I think it is?’

‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘Depends on what you think it might be.’

Alison looks at the box with a huge grin on her face. ‘Well, shall we look at the clues? One, the box you’ve got in your hands used to contain crisps, which is a bit of a giveaway unless you’ve actually bought me some crisps. Two, whatever is inside that box appears to be moving pretty rapidly of its own free will. And three . . .’ Alison falters and starts to laugh, then to cry, and then to laugh and cry at the same time, which is something I’d never seen before. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s just that I still miss Disco so much.’

Slowly Alison walks towards me, almost not daring to look at what’s inside the box. When she reaches me and we’re standing right in front of each other I take the eggs from her and hand the box to her. She sets it on the ground, opens the flaps and looks inside.

‘He’s eight weeks old,’ I tell her, as she pulls out a jet black kitten and cradles him to her. He has huge green eyes and when he yawns as he looks at Alison they seem to get even larger. I can tell immediately that for both of them it’s love at first sight.

‘He’s gorgeous,’ says Alison, trying to hold the wriggling bundle of fur while simultaneously wiping away the tears. ‘Absolutely gorgeous. You really didn’t need to do this, Jim. You didn’t.’

‘I know,’ I say softly. ‘I did it because I wanted to, that’s all. I know how much you loved Disco. And I know that Lucy can never be a replacement for her but . . . you know, she can be something different, can’t she? She can be a new beginning.’

Alison smiles, even though the tears are still falling. ‘Who’s Lucy?’

‘The kitten.’

‘But you referred to it earlier as he.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘But if he’s a he, why is he called Lucy?’

‘You know me,’ I reply. ‘I’ve always been terrible at cats’ names. I’m sure you and Marcus can come up with something better.’

Alison smiles sadly, and there’s a silence.

‘If I was going to keep him,’ she says eventually, with her eyes fixed on the kitten, ‘I’d never call him Lucy in a million years. He looks like a Harry. And I think you should call him that.’ She looks up at me briefly and our eyes meet.

Even after all this time apart I can tell when something’s wrong with her just by a look, or one of the dozens of invisible signals you learn to read when you know someone as well as you know yourself. ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘Why can’t you keep Harry? You haven’t already got a kitten, have you?’

She shakes her head.

‘So what is it?’

‘I just can’t accept him, that’s all,’ she says, as she places Harry back in the box, closes the flaps to stop him escaping, then puts it at my feet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m really sorry.’ And she walks away from me towards her front door.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘I didn’t come here to upset you, Al, honestly. I came here to try to do something nice because . . . I don’t know . . . you make me want to do nice things. Is it so wrong to want to give your ex-wife a wedding present?’

Alison turns to me with tears in her eyes. ‘It is, if she didn’t get married.’

‘What?’ I say, stunned. ‘But it was all going to happen on Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it?’ She nods. ‘And it didn’t happen?’ She shakes her head. I pause before asking one final question. ‘But you’re still together?’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Yeah?’ I reply. ‘Well, I’ve got a long story of my own. Helen and I have split up.’

‘But I thought you said she was the One.’

‘We all make mistakes, I suppose,’ I reply, looking down at the crisps box wobbling at my feet as Harry bounds around it, clearly frustrated at being parted from his new mistress. ‘Some of us more than others. But that’s life, isn’t it? None of us is perfect. And sometimes it takes a while to get things right but we get there in the end.’ I kneel down, open the flaps, reach inside the box and take out Harry. ‘But wedding or no wedding,’ I say, walking over to Alison, ‘long story or short, I want you to have Harry. He’s yours. I can tell just by looking at the two of you that this is going to be the love story of the decade.’

Alison takes him from my hands and pulls him tightly to her as she looks across at the cab. ‘Don’t go,’ she says quietly.

‘I really should clear off,’ I reply. ‘I told myself on the way over here that I was just going to give you the present and go.’ I step forward and kiss Alison’s cheek. ‘Take care,’ I tell her, ‘and have a good life,’ and then I whisper in Harry’s ear, ‘Look after her for me. And try to keep her off the fags because those things will kill her one day.’

‘You can’t go, Jim,’ says Alison, as I’m half-way to the taxi.

‘Come on, Al, I have to,’ I reply.

‘You can’t,’ says Alison, laughing. ‘How am I going to make Jane’s omelette without you?’

I look down at my hands and see she’s right. ‘I’m sorry,’ I reply, walking back to her. ‘I didn’t realise.’

‘A likely story,’ says Alison, as I offer them to her.

She sighs theatrically. ‘Can’t you see I’ve got my hands full?’ she says, indicating with her eyes to Harry, who is trying to crawl up her Puffa jacket. ‘You’re such a typical bloke sometimes.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Bring them inside for me, stay for breakfast with me and Jane, and then this afternoon you and I can go to the pub and trade those long stories we both mentioned.’

‘I would,’ I say uncomfortably, ‘but you know what happened last time we went to the pub to talk.’

‘I do,’ she says, and smiles mischievously. With that she places Harry back in his box, fishes out her house keys from her coat pocket and opens the front door.

I remain rooted to the spot.

‘Are you coming or what?’ she asks.

I look at Alison, then at the cab, and then at her again. And as I wave off the taxi and walk towards her, I’m certain that these next few steps will take my life in a completely different direction.

The right direction.

This time.

Mike Gayle is the author of eight best-selling novels and has contributed to a variety of magazines including
FHM
,
Sunday Times Style
and
Cosmopolitan
.

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