Polly (39 page)

‘What I owe to you,' Jen said slowly, her face open and her tone soft, ‘is, like, my liberation, I guess.' She stood up and put her hands on her hips. Max noted that her legs were not quite so stunning without their high-heeled send off. Her knees were a little too knobbly, her calves rather straight, her ankles a little thick. ‘If it wasn't for you – for that one night,' she continued, ‘I couldn't have gotten Chip out my system, you know?' Max began a nod. ‘You're my saviour and I love you,' she stated, raising her hands as if she was helpless to do anything about the fact.

‘But,' Max stumbled, never knowing quite what an American truly meant when employing the word ‘love'.

Jen continued as if she had not heard him. ‘Back home, I met with someone from years back,' she elaborated, ‘high school, in fact. His name is Jesse. I was in love with him at fifteen.' She paused, raised her eyebrows at Max, and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I'm in love with him all over – yeah, and all over again!'

Max stared at her and heard the penny drop loudly in the sudden silence of the room. It released a laugh from the pit of his stomach. ‘I was worried,' he said, ‘that, well, I mean.'

‘I know, I know,' said Jen, now nodding in harmony with Max. ‘You didn't know how to say it was a one-nighter, right?'

‘Right,' said Max, stroking his palms, back and forth, along his thighs.

‘Should've come right out with it,' Jen shrugged.

‘I know,' Max said, ‘bloody English reserve and all that bollocks.'

‘Hey, I meant, both of us. We're adults, hey? But, like, I just feel so grateful to you,' she rushed. ‘It's crazy, I love you now, you know? I didn't when we had sex – I just thought you were cute and all. But now,
now
I love you – cos like, because of you I have my life back.'

‘And,' Max qualified, ‘you have Jesse.'

Jen clutched at her heart and fluttered her eyelashes comically for a few moments before regarding Max sternly. ‘And you?' she asked.

‘Me?'

‘What did you get out of it?' She sighed, placed the corkscrew back on the mantelpiece and took an orange from the fruit bowl, tossing it lightly from hand to hand. ‘What did you get, Max? Jeez, you lost your girl, hey?' Max shrugged and nodded and focused on the cat flap.

‘I think, actually, we may have lost each other,' he said, ‘lost the knowledge of what we had, lost sight of what we could have had, somewhere along the way.'

Jen went over to him, perched on the coffee table and took his hands in hers. ‘Go find her and find out,' she said unequivocally. ‘Go find her,' she repeated in urgent earnest, ‘and find out.'

With that, she bid Max good night, kissing him too, telling him she loved him, that he was her best buddy. Jen did not tell Max that Chip, utterly stunned not only by her survival but also by her discovery of a better life and love, had bragged most luridly about his couplings with Polly. Jen did not inform Max out of her respect for Polly.

Because Polly didn't yell at me, did she? That day, when she came back here? How come she didn't go right ahead and even up the score? Tell me she had screwed my then boyfriend? You know something, I might have. Actually, I guess I would have. But Polly Fenton did not. And you know why? Because she knew not to. And the pain she carries now, the weight of that burden, is probably far greater than that which we would have felt, had she told us. She's brave and she's good and she deserves Max back.

The light in the communal hallway remained on.

M
egan was going to be late for school. Dominic had left for a shoot in Bethnal Green. Max still slept. Megan would not be going anywhere until he surfaced. There was absolutely no way that she was going to encounter Jen before she'd had the chance to verify details with Max first.

‘I'm sorry,' she said over the telephone to the school bursar, ‘I'm going to be late this morning. I'm waiting for the man to fix it.' She did not elaborate on what it was that needed fixing but the bursar did not mind; Miss Reilly was entitled to be late just the once. Megan replaced the receiver and boiled the kettle, making a cup of tea expressly for holding, not drinking. She looked at her watch. Assembly.

Come on Max, wake up.

She flicked through the brothers' address book and was pleased to see she could now put faces to most of the names. She looked at her watch. First period.

Max, bloody wake up.

She thought how Polly would still be fast asleep. Right at that very moment. Over the sea and far away.

Oh, to be able to predict, let alone generate, a happy ending. Isn't that what friends are for? Or to pick up the pieces.

Megan looked at her watch. Second period was half-way through.

Right.

Max was in the thick of a nightmare in which Mrs Dale was torturing him with light bulbs, keys and torrid abuse. She was coming very close, her hands suddenly metamorphosing into claws. As she grabbed him, he hurled her away with all the strength he could muster, busting through the shoelaces she had tied around his limbs.

‘Fuck you!' Max hollered, propelling the loathsome hag away from him. ‘Get away!' He grabbed both his hands into tight, punch-ready fists, stood over her, bobbing and weaving, and made to aim.

‘Max!' she pleaded, using his Christian name and a soft voice for the first time.

Time to wake up, Max.

‘Megan – what on earth are you doing?' Max said blearily, observing his brother's girlfriend sitting in a heap under him. ‘What am I doing?' he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘Oh God!' He dived into bed so the duvet swallowed his nakedness.

Megan blinked and blushed. ‘What on earth were
you
doing?' she asked, scrambling to her feet and clutching her arm. ‘Ouch.'

‘Sorry, I thought you were someone else,' he said sheepishly, ‘I think I'll have a shower.'

‘Make it a cold one,' Megan suggested.

‘What time is it? Bloody hell, ten to ten.' Max leapt out of bed and then back into it immediately.

‘Towel?' Megan offered.

‘Please,' said Max, ‘isn't it Wednesday?'

‘It is indeed,' said Megan, handing him a towel and demurely averting her gaze.

Max wrapped the towel about his waist and Megan noticed, quite objectively, that his torso was more toned than his brother's. ‘If it's Wednesday and, oh God, five to ten, why aren't you at school?' Max asked.

‘Because,' said Megan, ‘I'm playing hookey.'

‘You? Why?' Max slung his hands on his hips.

‘Because,' said Megan, ‘I have something to do. Correction:
we
have something to do.'

‘We do?' Max ruffled his already sleep-tousled hair.

‘Do we!' Megan confirmed, zapping up the blind and wishing Dominic was as tidy as Max. ‘We're off to see Mr Fixit.'

‘Who he?' Max asked, yawning and stretching and wincing at his reflection.

‘He's my friend in the travel business,' Megan said, as if Max was dim, ‘Muswell Hill. You're going to America.'

‘I am?' Max's hands were back on his hips.

‘Yes,' Megan confirmed, ‘Standby, tonight. This afternoon, if we can make it.'

‘I don't know,' Max deliberated as kindly as he could, though he felt a little irritated, ‘I need to think about it.'

‘No you don't,' Megan announced in her teacher voice.

‘I don't think I'm ready,' Max persisted.

‘Correction: you don't
know
if you're ready,' Megan continued. ‘You have to go, Max. For her. For you. It's time.'

Max regarded her suspiciously and headed for the bathroom. Megan went to the kitchen and filled the kettle, making tea to drink this time. She looked at her wrist. It had two dark weals from Max's grab. She didn't mind that it hurt. But she hoped that the marks would disappear by the time she saw Dominic that evening.

‘It is, isn't it?' said Max, bringing her out of a daydream and back into the kitchen. Wednesday. Ten fifteen. Max in a denim shirt, jeans, desert boots; clean-shaven and wide awake.

‘It is what?' Megan asked.

‘Time,' Max said, turning away.

Max and Megan stood in Muswell Hill Broadway and stared at each other.

‘Oh my God,' Max said, slowly, his mouth remaining agape.

‘We've got just over three hours to get you there,' Megan all but shrieked. They laughed in short spurts, staring at each other intermittently, overusing the Lord's name in vain; infuriatingly rooted to the spot though acutely aware of how much they had to do and how little time they had.

‘Oh my God,' Megan gasped, one hand at her mouth, the other on Max's shoulder to steady them both.

‘God,' Max agreed.

‘Better bloody get going then,' Megan exclaimed.

‘Better bloody,' Max agreed.

‘It's all OK,' Megan said later, wrapping her arms around Dominic's neck and drawing him close for a long, steady kiss. ‘Everything's going to be OK.'

‘That's nice,' said Dominic, brushing her hair away from his lips and wondering to what she referred. ‘Max around?'

‘Nope, it's all OK,' Megan said, unbuttoning Dominic's shirt a few inches so she could kiss his chest and decide that she liked it much more than Max's anyway. ‘He's gone.'

‘Gone,' said Dominic, fighting to concentrate even with eyes shut. Megan murmured affirmatively while licking and nibbling at him.

‘Where?' Dominic croaked. ‘Gone where?'

‘To America?' Megan replied, looking up from his chest with a shrug, as if Dominic should have known all along and not interrupted her unnecessarily.

‘Has he?' Dominic jerked back a little, taking Megan's right hand and sucking her middle finger thoughtfully while she swooned. ‘Has he? Max? America?' Dominic repeated, his speech a little muffled as he tried not to bite Megan's finger as he spoke.

‘He has,' Megan confirmed, pushing both her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, knowing that such a motion would cause her breasts to jut and that Dominic would find his attention drawn magnetically to them. ‘He'll be on the plane now, about half an hour into the flight. Five and a half hours away from Boston. I'd say about nine hours away from Polly, in total.'

‘Nice tits,' marvelled Dominic, ‘I mean, nine hours.'

‘I wonder,' Megan purred.

‘I do too,' Dominic replied, a breast in each hand, a blouse and a bra in the way.

‘What'll happen?' Megan said, encircling her hands over his wrists and urging a more energetic fondle.

‘What'll be,' murmured Dominic, now very distracted, ‘will be. What is apparent is that we have the place to ourselves.' Dominic motioned to the fluffy rug from Ikea slyly, eyeing Megan up and down suggestively. Megan licked her lips in reply.

Later, while they returned the furniture to its more usual locations, Megan told Dominic of Max's evening with Jen.

‘It took me from here to Chiswick to summon the courage to ask him about it,' Megan said, ‘and then it took from the Hogarth roundabout to Heathrow for Max to recount the evening.'

‘That's lucky,' said Dominic, ‘you might have had to change course for Gatwick, or even Stansted, if it hadn't been quite so innocent.'

‘Exactly,' said Megan in earnest.

‘He'll be landing in a couple of hours,' said Dominic, scrutinizing the clock on the video.

‘Think everything will work out all right?' Megan asked.

Dominic pulled her close against him. ‘Depends what you mean by “all right”,' he said. ‘Say the conclusion they draw doesn't correspond with our hopes?'

‘Then that won't be all right,' Megan protested.

‘But it will,' Dominic reasoned, ‘really. If you think about it.'

Do I want to be on this plane? Making this journey? I don't know. I still don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I mean, going there; or coming here, rather – I'm less than two hours away from landing. I do know that it's time. I do know it's what I need to do. I just don't know what the right thing to do actually is. I don't know what I want.

‘Sir, duty free?'

‘No thank you.'

Free from duty? Do I want to be? How will I feel when I see her? Right now I feel very ambivalent. I feel a bit sick, too. I hate planes.

‘Sir, tea? Coffee?'

‘With caffeine?'

‘Yes sir, unless you'd prefer it without.'

Oh God. I don't believe it. Polly turns twenty-eight today, I mean tomorrow, or is it yesterday? Hang on. No, I land on her birthday. I forgot to send her a card.

‘Sir, more coffee?'

‘Please.'

I know, I could pretend that's the purpose for my visit – to deliver her birthday card by hand. No, I can't; that would give her the wrong idea and enforce affection. It would only raise hopes. Hold on, does that mean I'm making this trip to dash hopes, then? Anyway, is she still hoping for a reconciliation? How would I know? We haven't spoken. We haven't written. Not for nearly a month. How can either of us know how things stand?

‘I just want things to be resolved.'

‘Yes sir, more coffee?'

I'm twenty-eight years old. Crappy birthday to you – crappy bloody birthday to me. I am no longer in my mid-twenties. The year after next I'll be thirty. Where will I be the year after next?

‘Hey, Miss Fenton.'

‘Morning, Zoe – shouldn't you be in class?'

‘Shouldn't
you?
Miss Fenton? You OK? Hey? Want me to fetch someone?'

‘It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to.'

‘That's a song, huh?'

‘No, it's the truth.'

Miss Fenton cut a sorry figure as she turned from Zoe and made her way to class. It disturbed Zoe greatly to see her on the verge of tears. Teachers, like parents, don't cry, do they? Well, they shouldn't. Teachers are sort of parents anyway and, in the case of Miss Fenton, sometimes a whole lot better too.