Julia Gets a Life (32 page)

            And stomp off across the grass.

            And such is my air of preoccupied scowling that a rustle starts up at the fence round the compound, and I realise the waves are intended for me.

            But there is no pleasure to be had in being assumed a pop star. I let myself into the trailer feeling impotent and furious and relieved to find it now empty. I simply do not know what I should do.

            If I call Howard and tell him, am I not, as Nick said, just going to make things worse? If his Mother is very ill that’s the last thing he needs. And yet how can I just stand back and let this guy betray him? I consider his words about it all meaning nothing.
Bastard.
How can it mean nothing?
Bastard.
And won’t he just keep right on doing it? Yes, of course he will.
Bastard.
And then there is Aids.
God.
I feel a shudder go through me. Perhaps I should go right back out there and ask him if he’d like me to fetch him a condom. Here, Nick. Shag away. Just, you know, doing my bit for the planet.

            I do nothing, of course. I open the fridge and take out a Coke, then sit down at the table amongst the baseball caps and guitar cases and little plastic baskets that
Kite
keep their wallets and
keys and loose change in, and wonder why people have to hurt each other all the time.

            I do not wonder for long. Within moments the trailer is full of voices and sweaty bodies and the snap of ring pulls, and the curiously reassuring company of these overgrown Max clones.

            ‘Snap-snap time?’ says Tim. ‘Here -’

            He puts a finger up each nostril and one each side of his mouth. I oblige by whipping my camera to my face and catching it before he can remove them.

            ‘Off the record,’ he says, on his way back out.

            ‘For my private collection,’ I reassure him.

            ‘You want to watch her,’ says Nigel, who passes him in the doorway. She’ll have that lot in Hello! if you’re not careful. So. What’s next. Hmmm. Oh.
Symbiosis
. Christ. Get the windows shut, Craig. Then Heidi’s doing the Young Patrollers comp. winners. Then, yes...Julia, do you want to come along to the signing with us?’

            ‘Yes, I do. But Nigel, is there a phone somewhere I could use?’

            He throws me his mobile then pulls a beer from the fridge.

            ‘Right, you guys. See you in thirty,’ he says.

            Craig and Davey take their cans and bags of crisps to the other end of the trailer. I move over to the bench seat by the window to pick up a signal. This caravan, inside, is just like any other. Dralon and pink floral curtains and Formica.

            Howard answers almost immediately and I feel suddenly unprepared for his cheerful tone.

            ‘Julia! How are you? Are you at Rock Up Front?’

            I say yes, and he tells me how he’s been trying to get hold of me, to let me know how he and Nick were supposed to be going too, but how he couldn’t because of his mum being so ill.

            ‘And did you meet up with Nick yet? I told him to look out for you. Though I wasn’t sure if you’d be slumming it with the proles.’

            Which is about the size of it, in Nick’s case, unbeknown to him.

            ‘Yes, just a moment ago. That’s why I called. He told me about your mum not being very well...’

            ‘No. She’s not too good, but bearing up. They’ve taken her back in.’

            ‘I know. Is she okay. I mean...’

            I flounder. What I want to say is ‘is she dying?’ but I realise I just don’t have the vocabulary to hand to put it any other way. How did I get to be so old without learning how to deal with stuff like this? But he rescues me, of course.

            ‘They’re sorting out a hospice place for her. She’s not in any pain.’ He chuckles. ‘Bit spaced out though. How’s Nick? Working hard, I hope.’

            I find a laugh from somewhere and send it along to meet his.

            ‘Not at all,’ I say. ‘looks like a pretty cushy number to me.’

            ‘Are you going to get together with him later? I thought you two lost souls could....’

            ‘Er..no. I have to stick with
Kite
pretty much right through now. And they’re not doing their set till nine, and then there’s going to be some sort of TV appeal going out. I have to get shots of all that stuff. You know...’

            ‘Sure. He’ll just have to keep himself out of trouble, won’t he?’

            ‘I wish you’d been able to come, Howard.’

            ‘I know. Another time. Hey, and I’m getting next term’s curriculum planning licked into shape, so it’s not all bad. You’re home tomorrow?’

            ‘Sunday. Colin booked me into the hotel for two nights in case we decide to do a shoot tomorrow. Or sleep, more likely, after tonight’s revels. Look, I hope your Mum’s okay...’

            ‘She’s doing all right. Look, give my love to Nick, yeah? And a kiss?’

           
Bastard.

           
I stab the power off. Something in the set of my shoulders must be giving me away, because I hear a sound behind me and a voice says;

            ‘Something up, Mrs Potter?’

            Craig has taken to calling me Mrs Potter since we met again this morning. I didn’t like it at first - what with the Richard connection and all that - but now I find I rather like it.

            ‘Oh, nothing.’ I sigh and sit down.

            He sits also.

            ‘Yes there is.’

            ‘Oh, it’s just that I just heard that a friend of mine’s Mum isn’t very well. She has cancer. I don’t think she’s got very long.’

            ‘Oh, I’m sorry. What kind of cancer?’

            It’s a reasonable enough question, but I realise I don’t even really know.

            ‘I think she has secondaries in her bones, or something. I don’t know. I don’t actually know her that well. It’s just that my friend...’

            ‘She’s cut up, I suppose. Who wouldn’t be?’

            ‘He - he’s a he, my friend - Howard - he sounded so....so
okay
. You know? It’s so...’

            ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? That he’s okay, coping...’

            ‘I know, but...oh...’

            I twist my lens cover round and round and round. Is this really something I should be talking about?

            ‘Nothing,’ I finish.

            ‘What? Tell me.’

            ‘Well, it’s just that I just found out the guy he is with is seeing someone else. Here.
Now
. That’s all. And I don’t know if I should tell him, you know, with his Mum...’

            ‘So he’s gay, yes? So I wouldn’t bother. It’s probably no big deal. Or maybe...’

            ‘Which is just what
he
said. That it was nothing.
Bastard.
’

            ‘Then maybe it isn’t. You know, maybe they are both okay about that sort of thing..’

            ‘Okay? How can it be okay? Howard loves him, and he’s screwing some other guy.’

            ‘So what. Sex is just sex. If he says it means nothing then maybe he’s telling the truth. I’d keep schtum, if I were you.’

            ‘Sex is just sex? You sound just like my husband did. Let me tell you, it may be nothing to the person doing it, but is sure as hell is something to the one who gets betrayed.’

            He spreads his palms.

            ‘Which is just what I’m saying. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. But if he’s going to be hurt it’s going to happen anyway, isn’t it?’

            I stare at him, realisation dawning. I’m just not in step with the world any more. Sex is just some cheap commodity. And if nobody knows, then...

            I stand up, and realise I’m shaking. Shouldn’t have turned down the burger earlier.

            ‘Like your manager’s wife, I suppose. While he’s having sex with Jacinta Cave? No problem, eh? Just a bit of fun?’

            ‘What
are
you on about?’

            ‘I guess if everybody’s doing it, why not, eh?
Eh?
’

            ‘What the hell do you know about it?’

            ‘Everything I need to, by the look of things. I guess I’m just some sort of dinosaur...’

            He stands as well, towering over me.

            ‘Julia, Nigel’s wife’s two hundred miles away in hospital, for fuck’s sake. Has been for almost three years now. She’s quadriplegic. We don’t even know if she’s....Look, I thought you knew about the accident.....’

            ‘Accident? What accident?’

            ‘The car smash. Look, you didn’t....’

            But he doesn’t get a chance to tell me what it is I didn’t, because tears muscle in and rearrange my face for me, and I start (infuriatingly) weeping and wailing all over him.

            He, of course, does the only thing to do in such circumstances, and puts an arm around me. We sit back down, and while I sniff and snuffle and sob and suchlike, he says,

            ‘Bloody hell! What the fuck did I say?’

            I shake my head and accept the sweet-wrapper sized swizzle of pink tissue he’s found for me.

            ‘Nothing!’ I cry, ‘Oh, God. I feel
awful
. I’m just so bloody – so
fucking
fed up.’

            ‘Whoah! You swore!’

            ‘I’m sorry.’ I feel my face begin to redden.

            He smiles. ‘Hey, but it’s not such a big deal, is it? Your friend will be fine. He’s a grown up. He’ll sort it.’

            ‘Oh, I know. I’m just so, oh, I don’t know, disappointed, I guess...’

            ‘Hardly something to cry about.’

            ‘I know. I’m not crying about that, I suppose.’

            ‘What then?’

            I blow gingerly into my pink scrap.

            ‘Life.’

            He laughs. ‘Ah. Only a little thing then.’

            I laugh too, despite myself.

             ‘
My
life, and how it doesn’t seem to be shaping up quite how I imagined it. I suppose I’ve been deluding myself. I thought that once I got over what Richard did life would be different, somehow. All excitement and adventure and new possibilities and old lost opportunities coming around again, and, and..’

            He glances up as a muffled cheer fills the caravan momentarily. Then turns back to me.

            ‘And?’

            ‘And it’s all the same shit.’