State We're In (25 page)

I miss
Dean
. It is ridiculous but true.

I wish I'd asked for his mobile number or an email address. It would have been sensible to have a contact here in this unfamiliar city. Sensible and comforting. And something more. Something I cannot examine, admit to or even consider.

I spot my bag trundling around the conveyor belt and sweep it up. I thrust out my chin, a physical and mental act of defiance that makes me feel an iota stronger and more sure. Enough of this wishing and hoping and dreaming; I have been doing that for years, to no avail. It's time to get real, to get serious. To be practical. I need to focus on getting into the city, on checking into the hotel, on buying clothes and on
Martin
. I have to put one foot in front of the other and do what I've promised myself I am here to do.

Yet I can't quite imagine what is next, not clearly, not any more. I can't quite imagine Martin's face, not clearly.

Not any more.

All I see is Dean. Dean's reluctant smile, Dean's tanned hands. I can hear Dean's funny and clever quips echoing through my head. He has a strange way of looking at the world. Slightly savage, slightly damaged. Is that because he's losing his dad, or is there more? What is the deal with him and his father? I'd have liked to have the time to find out, but it needed coaxing. I'd have liked to make things better. Just a tiny bit. If I could. I remember his laugh. The big one. The real one. It's brave and occasional and brilliant. I can smell his cologne.

I walk through the corridor that leads landside and cross my fingers that there'll be a bus into the city; my hundred and fifty dollars cash won't go far if I have to pay for a cab. I have to stop thinking about Dean. Think about Martin. Yet I keep hearing Dean's voice, repeating my name.
Jo. Jo.
It strains above the noise of airport greetings, clanking trolleys and the endless bustle of countless busy people dashing across the polished tiles.

Jo!
The tone is persistent, insistent. In fact so persistent and insistent it doesn't sound as though it's in my head; it sounds real. I turn to where the voice is coming from. And there he is. Like a great big smile. Dean. He waves to me from the glass doors that lead outside to the taxi rank.

‘Jo, do you want to share a ride? I can drop you off at the hotel,' he yells.

As my eyes land on him, rest on him, I suddenly feel wrapped in certainty and strength again. I fight down tears of relief. With him by my side I am sure I can do anything, anything at all, including destroying a wedding. I hurry towards him. Towards his smile and the sense that he'll look after things, sort things out. I beam at him and he beams back. I'm surrounded by fresh air, a welcome change after the plane and the endless corridors of air-conditioning, and I tell myself that what I'm feeling is all about relief and friendship and nothing to do with falling in love.

‘I thought you'd be long gone.'

‘I started to worry that you wouldn't be able to find the hotel. Or that maybe there wouldn't be rooms and you'd need somewhere else.' He shrugs, trying to downplay his thoughtfulness.

‘I'd have managed,' I lie. I doubt I would have, but I don't want to appear too pathetic. Dean doesn't look convinced.

‘And this wedding you're going to. This non-wedding.' He rakes his fingers through his hair; he looks uncomfortable. Unsure. ‘I wondered whether you brought anything with you to wear.'

‘No, no, I haven't. I was just thinking about that.'

‘And whether you knew where to go to shop.'

‘No clue.'

‘I could help with that,' offers Dean with another shrug. ‘I could show you where my sister likes to shop when she comes to visit me.'

‘You'd do that?'

‘This doesn't mean I'm endorsing what you are doing.'

‘OK.'

‘I think what you are doing is suicide.'

‘Right.'

‘I just want you to look your best as you are going to your death.' He grins.

Without over-thinking it, I rush at him, fling my arms around him and pull him into a tight hug. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.'

More cautiously, he pats my back and mutters, ‘No biggie.'

I
recognise her the moment she walks in, which is a miracle, because my vision is letting me down and, well, it's been forever. Some might make something of that. There isn't anything to make of it. I recognise her because she hasn't changed. Inevitably, there are a few more lines around her eyes, the skin underneath her jaw has slackened a fraction and she is perhaps three or four pounds heavier – she carries it all on her stomach. But on the plus side, her clothes are even posher than they were – and they were always refined, a cut above. She's wearing white linen trousers and a thin woollen navy top, probably cashmere, I'd guess. The top wafts gently around her as she walks towards me, caressing her shoulders, hips, breasts. Her hair is a little longer than I remember, softer, feathered. She used to wear it in the Purdey style, inspired by
The New Avengers
; she had the cheekbones and the endless legs to carry it off. There were a lot of Joanna Lumley wannabes back then. Clara was one of the few who was convincing.

Yes, not bad at all. She has that air. The air of a woman who was once something in the seventies; awake and aware, desirable when we really knew how to desire. If you've once had it, you're forever conscious of it. Some wear their past glory with bitter disappointment that they're so far from their triumphant conquests now, others with blithe ignorance that this is the case. She wears hers with a quiet dignity; about her is just a whispered hint that she was once fabulous and is now a woman who is not bad for her age. She has definitely aged better than anyone else I know; certainly better than I have. I'm jabbed by a lawless spike of admiration mixed with miserable anger that this should be the case. The moment I see her, I realise that this is what I wanted. Her here. One last time. What I've secretly hoped for ever since I sent the letter. But in the instant I realise as much, I am infused with another thought: I wish she hadn't come.

It would have been better if she'd remembered me as I was.

I'm not usually one for feeling sorry for myself, but this reunion – this stroll down memory lane, or whatever we're going to do – would be a damn sight easier if that bloody catheter wasn't so prominent. She can see my piss. Who wants that? No one. Not after what we were.

The bloke in the bed opposite hears her shoes clip-clattering through the ward and strains to sit up for a better look. It's obvious he doesn't get enough; he's a shadow of a man. I've seen his wife. She's big, bespectacled and bossy. She comes here with bags of grapes and her cheap magazines, hair perpetually tied back in a greasy ponytail. She gobbles the grapes while reading the gossip and lecturing him about cutting back on cigarettes. I've never seen her offer him the fruit. I think he's going to have another stroke when he clocks Clara. He beams like an idiot. I gave her that. Before me she was pretty. After me she was noticed. She was more.

‘Hello, Eddie.'

There's pity in her eyes, shining where longing, lust and hate have been. I try to ignore it because it's embarrassing. The last thing I want to see. ‘Well hello, sweetheart.' I try for the old confident swagger in my tone; it's swallowed because I haven't breath to spare. ‘It's been a long time.'

She sits down. Back straight, head up. ‘Has it? Suddenly it seems like yesterday.' She smiles.

And there it is. Bang. The same smile. Slow; starts on one side of her mouth, the right side. At once provocative, teasing and true.

And I know the facts. I'm a dying old bastard. She's someone else's wife who, despite expensive haircuts and make-up and what not, has seen better days as well. But her smile hasn't changed. It's all still there in her smile.

And fuck, this woman loves me.

D
ean had often shopped with women. It was something he did with flair, as he had plenty of style and plenty of cash. He liked dressing women up, watching them become what they secretly hoped they could be: their best selves. He saw it as a hobby, a little like other people viewed interior decorating. Women, on the whole, appreciated his generosity and were happy enough to be indulged, so he often brought dates shopping. The expeditions were normally missions: a performance, a ritual.

Foreplay.

Dean's shopping party with Jo was a completely different experience. Of course she wasn't his date, so there was no question that he should pick up the tab, but the main difference was that she viewed shopping as an opportunity for fun, not a killer hunt. Despite their time constraints, she gamely tried on the most beautiful and ugly pieces in each shop, ‘Just to see.' She had clear opinions of her own and she saw potential in pieces that he might have overlooked. Besides, she looked pretty good in almost everything (with the exception of the green cheesecloth maxi dress, which really was hideous), and so it was simply a pleasure to see her emerge from the changing room, grinning and giggling.

Initially Dean had considered visiting a number of expensive, upmarket shops, the ones he usually frequented, but then he remembered that she'd only travelled club class because she'd got an upgrade, and so he tactfully asked what her budget was.

‘Modest,' she'd replied.

‘Like five hundred dollars?'

‘Closer to two.'

‘But you've packed shoes, right?'

‘No.'

‘So two hundred dollars including shoes?' He hoped he hadn't betrayed his shock; he didn't want her to feel bad about her cash limits. Even after years of being financially comfortable, he still remembered that miserable feeling keenly.

‘Actually, one hundred and fifty, and I also need a bag. If I spend more I'll have to slam it on a card, and my cards are just about maxed out with the cost of the plane ticket, and I still have to pay for the hotel,' she'd explained with a shrug and a smile. There it was again, her rare and amazing honesty. ‘It wouldn't be fair to Martin to start married life with a load of debt.' And there it was again, her dangerous self-delusion.

Dean had thought they'd wander the ‘Magnificent Mile', a stretch of North Michigan Avenue between Oak Street and the Chicago River, an area that was a mix between New York's Fifth Avenue and Beverly Hills's Rodeo Drive. OK, he hadn't expected her to buy Bulgari jewellery, Prada bags, or Salvatore Ferragamo shoes, but he had thought they might pop into one of the indoor high-rise malls, where pretty boutiques aplenty were tucked away. Once he heard her budget limitations, he Googled outlet malls.

‘Wow, that's quite a drive,' Jo commented nervously when he showed her the location of the mall on his phone.

‘I'm not going to abduct you, if that's what you're thinking. We'll take a cab.'

‘I wasn't thinking that.' She paused. ‘Although now you've said it, I feel foolish, because maybe I should have been thinking that, but I wasn't because I trust you. I was just concerned that I'd be taking up your whole afternoon.'

‘Don't worry about it, I don't have any plans.'

‘Well, if you're sure …'

He knew she was tempted. ‘It's that or a thrift store.'

She lit up. ‘A thrift store sounds fun.'

‘Yeah, doesn't it? It's not. I don't think an XXL pullover will cut it at the wedding, even if you accessorise it with a two-dollar scarf made by an eight year old in an underdeveloped country. Let's go to the outlet. I think you're going to need to wear something designer as armour, even if it's last season's design.'

He hadn't intended to hang around the airport taxi rank. He certainly hadn't intended offering to take her shopping. The problem was, every time he tried to leave her, he found he couldn't. It was the craziest thing. Chicago was a busy and confusing city; at every moment it was sliced like a cake by countless trains rattling across bridges, hurtling people from A to B and back again. She'd never find her way around. It wasn't just her big harp seal eyes and her big come-to-mama breasts; there was something far more elusive and far more intriguing about her that he couldn't quite shake. He was fascinated by her … her what? Her romanticism? Her idiocy? Different names, same thing, surely. He'd encountered plenty of women who flashed their eyes and their tits to catch his attention, or played the helpless-female card so that he'd felt duty-bound to pay for dinners and cabs, but he'd always found it easy to simply walk away whenever he chose; as the waiter brought their coats, as the cab door closed, before the sun came up. Rarely later than that. He never got involved. But Jo was different. He
was
involved. Not in the traditional sense, obviously, but in some indefinable, elusive way. She wasn't an archetypal damsel in distress. That would have irritated him. She wasn't asking him to save her. The opposite: she was determined that this Martin bloke was going to do that; she didn't need Dean. Which was great, because he didn't like to be needed. Yet … Yet he couldn't walk away from her. He certainly hadn't planned to take her to dinner, but what the hell?

The light had started to fade from the day by the time they agreed to go to the restaurant at Millennium Park. Families with kids in buggies were going home for a night in front of the TV, and packs on the pull were emerging. She'd demurred when he first suggested dinner, but he knew it wasn't because she didn't want to be with him; she was worried whether she could afford it. Aware of her lack of cash, he was concerned that if he didn't feed her, she might resort to eating tissues in the hotel bathroom.

‘I insist, my treat. I can't let a fellow Brit come to Chicago and not see some of the sights, let alone fail to taste a Colossal Chicago Char Dog.'