One Thing Led to Another (29 page)

I get back home at two in the afternoon and the house is still eerily quiet. ‘Jim?’ I call out but there’s no answer. ‘Jim are you in?’ Nothing. I run upstairs, his bed’s made, just as it was the day I left for Morecambe. I go back down to the kitchen and look at the notepad near the phone – perhaps he’s left a note to say where he is but there’s nothing. I go to the fridge to get a drink. The note is written on a pink post it note.

Dear Tess,

I can’t handle it – this just good friends thing, the Laurence thing. I thought I could but I can’t. I’ve gone away for a couple of days. I’ll be OK, please don’t worry. I love you, Jim x

p.s. Jocelyn rang

Shit.

‘I was pregnant once. I was twenty-eight and had just been promoted to news editor on the
Essex Chron and Echo
. My boyfriend didn’t want the kid, he was twelve years older than me and said if I kept it, I could forget ever realizing my dream of working on a National. I never realized that dream anyway and I never got the kid. I’ve never really forgiven him for that.’

Judith, 41, Hounslow.

I have to find him. Whatever it takes, I have to find Jim.

There’s only two places I think he can be. I’ll try one and if he’s not there I’ll go to the second. I run upstairs, throw a few things into a bag: knickers, moisturizer and the
Bundle of Joy
book, I don’t know why, I just get the feeling I’m going to need it.

The house is full of Jim: His Adidas top hung up on the banister, his socks on the radiators.

In the kitchen sink is a mug,
his
mug that says, ‘Why am I such a Mug?’ And a plate still with the remnants of marmite crumpets smeared on the side and I wonder, what was going through his head when he ate breakfast this morning? I dread to think.

I go into his room, it smells so much of him, and I ache for him. I want Jim. I walk over to where the computer is on a small desk in the corner, piled high at the sides with assessment papers, meticulously put together lesson plans, a copy of
Henry IV.
I log onto Google and thank God when I find what I am looking for. He didn’t try hard to conceal it, did he want me to know?

‘B&Bs in Whitstable’. It’s still typed into the search box. I am not surprised, not really, it was either there or home and I know that home is hardly a sanctuary for Jim. There’s a train in just over an hour. If I hurry, I might just get there. So, I get my bag, keys, phone and purse and run to the bus stop on Lordship Lane.

But just as I am about to cross the road, I see Rachel. She is not at the bus stop as usual, but this side of the road, a little bit along, carrying Matilda.

I try to look calm, but I can’t hide the fact that I’m flustered. ‘Hi,’ I wave, ‘how are you? Good?’

‘Hi,’ she says, but she is looking down, the brim of her sun-hat is covering her face.

‘Are you OK?’ I walk towards her, a bit worried now. ‘I haven’t seen you since…’

‘Not really.’ She looks up at me, her eyes are full of fear, her right eye is swollen, half-closed and bruised.

‘Oh my God, what happened to your face?!’ The train that leaves in less than an hour is calling me but I can’t
not
do something, I can’t ignore this. ‘Look, do you want to go for a coffee?’ I say, ‘We could have a chat? I’m worried.’

‘I can’t,’ she says, and at that point, a car rolls up, a black Golf, the same car I saw that day, and…Alan is driving. It all clicks into place. He doesn’t look at me, he just stares straight ahead. She gets in the back, sitting Matilda on her lap, puts the seat-belt on and she doesn’t look at me either. Then he revs the engine and it is only as he screeches off that
I meet his eyes; cold, dead eyes, glaring at me and then she’s gone again, and I am left standing on the pavement, feeling sick to the stomach and resolving, that whatever happens after today, I will find her too.

The number 36 bus crawls down Kennington Road but my heart is racing and I’m thinking of Jocelyn. Why did she call me on a Saturday? She never calls at the weekend. I think about calling her and asking her what she said but I’d rather spare myself the details. I am a coward.

Instead I take the note, curled up in my palm and look at it again ‘I love you,’ he’s written. Not, ‘love Jim’, or ‘much love, Jim’, but I LOVE YOU, and the urge to find him and to explain everything is so strong it’s like a madness has taken over me.

The bus takes an age, all the time the stress building inside me, making my fingers curl inwards and the muscles of my face contort. As soon as the bus doors open I jump off and leg it, bag tearing over the tarmac behind, holding my bump into Victoria station. I have three minutes to spare: ‘Platform 2 for Dover Priory!’ shouts the voice over the tannoy. But I haven’t got a ticket, fuck it, I haven’t got time to get a ticket. I run over to the gate, it’s worth a try.

‘I need to get that train and I don’t have time to get a ticket can I buy one on the train?’ I plead, breathlessly.

The man shakes his head. I hear a whistle blow.

‘Please?
’ I beg. I can feel the panic rattle inside me like a kettle on the brink of boiling and the tears start to well. ‘ I have to meet my, my…the father…’ Showing the bump works a treat, the man sighs and nods. ‘Thank you so much!’ I shout and as I run off down the platform I blow him a kiss.

I only just make it on as the doors are closing and then we creak off into the wide, sunny blue. We pass Battersea, Clapham, kids playing in playgrounds, the multi-coloured
bustle of Brixton Market. In fifteen minutes we have left London behind and all there is at either side are fields of barley, silver-green, swaying in the breeze, like plants on the ocean floor. I am aware now, with some distance between us, what a cobbled together life I have left back there, and how much this, whatever I am rolling towards, feels like my one and only chance of happiness.

The countryside stretches, sun-soaked at either side. The hot summer has already blanched the fields and it is only July. Soon, in a few days, Jim will break up for the summer, then it will be August, autumn and where will we be then?

A bunch of girls get on at Rochester. They look about eighteen, no more than twenty. The stereotypes are all there: the rebel with her kohl eyes and bleached blonde hair; the Prom Princess, I bet she gets all the boys; the ring-leader, ponytail swinging, commanding respect from her disciples as if she were Jesus. The outsider sits next to me: overweight, awkward in her own skin, hiding behind a strawberry blonde fringe. And where am I? Age twenty, in this group of girls about to hit the seaside? There I am, that one there, laughing along with the ring-leader, thinking I have life all worked out and that everything’s going to fall into place just because I am me, because I am lucky.

We finally get to Whitstable, I follow the old fashioned sign labelled The Sea Front. But the way it takes me is not the tourist route, it is not the Whitstable of that day Jim and I spent together. This is normal life: streets of terraces, kids playing outside on their bikes in the evening sun. I reach the harbour, the smell of the sea hits me, catapulting me back, the memory as strong as a photograph. Beyond the boats, which sit in the deep, walled-in marina, is a huge yellow crane, dipping then rising, lifting bundles of stone from one point to another. It is noisy and dirty but somehow just being here relaxes me.

I walk along and reach the quiet of the beach, to the yacht club where the masts creak in the heat. Outside the club is a family with a little girl, probably aged about seven. She’s wearing pink towelling shorts over a striped swimming costume. She’s sitting on her dad’s knee, swinging her legs and drinking coca-cola through a curly straw and I wonder, at what point, life stopped feeling like that.

I really have no idea where Jim might be right now, I don’t know what B&B he chose, or if he even booked a B&B at all. I know, almost certainly, he won’t be in the one we stayed in – it would be far too indulgent for Jim – and besides, there’s too many good memories there. But I have an idea that’s worth a shot.

The Old Neptune. I can see it in the distance like a ship itself, moored up on the shingle beach, all lopsided and white-washed. It’s 6.15 p.m. and still warm. Jim wouldn’t be in a hotel room in weather like this and yet, with his skin, I can’t see him laid out frazzling on the beach either. I pass The Whitstable Oyster Company with its red and white tablecloths and London clientele – mainly wealthy couples in their 60s who take a gin and tonic in the afternoon. I am nearly there now, I check the masses of people laid out on the beach, just in case but I know I’ve got it right, I just know he’ll be there.

But he’s not.

I look outside, scan each and every table rammed with rowdy, faceless tourists who clock my anxious face then move their feet and peer under their tables as if they think I am looking for a lost bag. I go inside the pub where a few local fishermen are gathered around the ornate bar supping pints of ale, their bellies protruding from their overalls. ‘Has a tall, dark-haired guy been in here recently?’ I ask. ‘Northern accent? Good looking?’ ‘Wouldn’t know if
he had, love, three sheets to the wind now,’ one says, the others laugh and look at me, like I am from some other planet. I check inside the toilets but then I give up. I think about calling him on his mobile, but that just seems crass, it has to be a last resort. And so I stand on the beach for a while, deciding what to do. I look out at the sea and take a moment to try to describe it, just like Jim and I did on the beach, but the words won’t come, it’s like my imagination disappeared with that day. Or is it that I can only do it when I’m happy?

I leave the beach, take the steps that lead me onto the main promenade and decide to carry on, what else is there to do? The beach widens, that same stretch we sat on, then the shingle thins and in ten minutes or so I am at that cluster of beach huts again, standing bright like boiled sweets in the sun. I stop by them, aimless now, peer into the ones that seem to have entire beds in there, sofas, armchairs, mini interior design projects with pretty bunting and vintage kettles.

‘Ah, so
you
fancy one now, do you?’

I start and look around me, I can’t tell where the voice is coming from. And then I see him. Jim. Sitting on the steps of a ramshackle hut, a pint in his hand, squinting in the sun.

‘Hello,’ I say, I can’t help but beam. He’s got his jeans rolled up and already his shins are burning. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Shouldn’t I be the one asking you that?’ he says. ‘I’m having a sundowner, well, an early one anyway.’

‘Can I join you?’ I ask tentatively. He gestures beside him, and I sit down, the shells crackling like fire beneath my feet.

‘You didn’t have to come, that wasn’t the idea. How did you know where I was, anyway?’

‘You left the computer on, B&Bs in Whitstable was still typed into Google.’

He tuts.

‘Couldn’t even find one, anyway, everywhere’s booked up, start of the school holidays for some kids, I s’pose.’

We sit, unsaid words humming like bluebottles above our heads.

‘Jim, are you OK?’ I say, unable to bear it any longer. ‘I’m so sorry you must be so angry with me.’

‘No,’ says Jim. ‘Not anymore.’ He takes a piece of paper out of his jeans and unfolds it. ‘I wrote this for you. I know it’s not going to change anything, I was maybe just going to keep it, never even show it to you, but it helped to write it.’

I take the piece of paper. ‘Shall I read it now?’

‘Na,’ Jim scrunches up his nose, ‘read it another time when I’m not here.’

‘What’s it about?’ I say.

‘Oh nothing, it’s just to say thank you, that’s all.’

‘Thank you? What for?’

‘For making me feel this. I did it, Tess.’ He looks at me now. ‘I did it, I fell in love, didn’t I?’

‘Like your friend from school,’ I say. Jim looks down and smiles, because he knows what I am thinking and he knows I am right.

‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘like my friend from school.’

I feel dizzy, it’s like all my feelings, every good, happy feeling I’ve ever felt is rolled up and fizzing in my head like a ball of dynamite ready to explode.

‘But Jim.’

‘No, honestly, don’t, it’s alright,’ he says. ‘I know we can’t have the happy ever after and all that, but as far as I’m concerned, I am happy. I’m glad I know you, I’m glad all this happened, it’s made me feel things I never knew I was capable of feeling. And even if I never feel this again, I know I felt it once. And that’s enough. Maybe that’s enough.’

‘But
Jim,
’ I put my hand on his arm. ‘You
can
have it, don’t you realize?’

‘What?’

‘That thing, that happy ever after thing. Well, not that, that’s all bollocks, but me, us, a real family.’

He looks at me stunned.

‘I feel it too, Jim. I love you too!’ I say, eyes shining.

‘Love me?’

‘
In
love with you, then. God…’ I laugh. ‘So in love with you it’s ridiculous!

‘What? But what about Laurence? What about what you said…’

‘Laurence? I never wanted Laurence, Jim, Laurence was just a distraction. I only ever wanted you but you didn’t seem interested. I mean, for Christ’s sake you couldn’t get me into that Camberwell flat quickly enough, you did a better job than Craig from Kinleigh Fuck Hard and Pay Less at getting me to buy that flat!’

Jim looks at me incredulously and laughs.

‘Only because I couldn’t handle it any longer! You being in my house, the dreading you leaving, the wanting to have sex with you, like
all
the time, have you any idea what that does to a man? And to love you,’ he rests his head on his knees and looks at me, ‘God, I wanted to love you so fucking much.’

The heat of the day has made the sky hazy so that it melts into the sea and you can’t see where one starts and the other begins.

I look at Jim. A speedboat cuts through the horizon, like a zip. Then he turns to face me, ‘Come here,’ he says. And when we kiss, falling back onto the sand as we do, it feels like I might combust with joy, and the feeling that nothing, ever, in my whole entire life, has ever felt this good.

‘So you know Jocelyn…’ I say. I have to be brave. We’re
lying next to each other on the sand now, our hands entwined, looking up at the cloudless sky. ‘What did she actually say?’

‘God knows,’ says Jim. ‘Some babble about a silver teddy bear she saw and will we be having a christening?’

I smile, I squeeze his hand tight. I
am
lucky, after all. And I feel, for the first time in months, that I am not hankering after the past, or wishing for the future I am just here, in the here and now.