The Girl From Barefoot House (55 page)

‘Christ, Josie, that guy’s a dork,’ Jack said disgustedly when they were in bed. ‘Why didn’t you and he get hitched?’

Because he’s a dork, Josie wanted to say, but held her tongue. It was unfair to make fun of a nice, decent man like Ben. ‘It just never seemed the right time.’

‘He’s still in love with you. His eyes followed you everywhere. And he hates me.’ He spoke matter-of-factly, with a certain amount of satisfaction. ‘Come here!’ He folded her in his arms. ‘Whose woman are you?’

‘Yours, Jack,’ she whispered.

‘What was the dork like in bed?’

‘Not very good,’ she said truthfully. ‘He never turned me on, not like you.’ She stroked his face. ‘There’s never been anyone like you. Kiss me, Jack, quickly. I can’t wait.’

On Monday Ben came to Barefoot House to apologise. ‘I’m sorry about the way I behaved,’ he said stiffly. ‘It got to me, I suppose, seeing you and him together.’ His lips pursed. ‘I won’t pretend to like him, because I don’t. He’s not worthy of you.’

‘And you are?’

He went red. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. If you were going to leave me, I wish it had been for someone … different.’

‘We’re together because we love each other, Ben,’ Josie said gently, and immediately wished she hadn’t because he looked as if he was about to burst into tears.

‘I realise that.’ He nodded. ‘I’ve just got to learn to live with it, that’s all.’

Another May, Josie’s fifty-fourth birthday, and the day Dinah had a second son, Christopher, two ounces heavier than Oliver. ‘Though I only had two stitches this time,’ she said happily when Josie went to see her in hospital. During the birth she’d stayed in their small house in Crouch End looking after Oliver, who would be three next week.

‘Another two babies, and you mightn’t need stitches at all. The more grandchildren the better, as far as I’m concerned.’ She already haunted Mothercare, buying toys and clothes for Oliver. The dark-eyed, dark-haired baby in her arms reminded her very much of Laura, though she didn’t say so. She tearfully kissed the sleepy face.

Dinah wrinkled her nose. ‘Two’s my lot, I’m afraid. Peter thinks it’s wrong to over-populate the world. There’s hardly enough food for the people there are now, though I intend to try and change his mind. I’d like to have another two babies – a daughter would be nice, for a change, like.’

‘I’ll get your dad to work on him.’ Peter took far more notice of Jack than he did of his own father. They shared the same radical views. Ben, once the champion of the Peasants’ Revolt, had become very pro-establishment over the years, whereas Jack remained a die-hard Socialist.

Dinah looked worried. ‘Is Dad okay? I wish he was here.’

‘He wanted to come, I told you, but he was feeling tired. He’ll be sixty next year, Dinah. He’s slowing down.’

‘He drinks too much, doesn’t he, Mum? You can’t help but notice, though I’ve never seen him pissed.’ Dinah pleated and unpleated the sheet between her fingers. Her eyes were scared. ‘I wish you’d make him stop.’

‘Nothing on earth can stop your dad drinking, Dinah. I’ve reached the age when I realise it’s no use trying to change people. They are what they are, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’

When Josie got back to Mosely Drive it was almost dark, and Jack appeared to be out. Their little Arabian palace was unnaturally quiet, unusually cold. The bell mobile in the living room was tinkling eerily – she must do something about the draught from the French windows. There was a musty smell, as if the place had been empty for weeks. For some reason she shivered. This was a house that was rarely still, and silence sat uneasily on the warmly coloured rooms with their foreign furniture and exotic ornaments.

She switched on lights, and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. In the lounge, she turned on the gas fire with real flames. ‘That’s better,’ she muttered. ‘More like home.’

Where was Jack? She searched for a note to tell her where he’d gone. When she’d called from London to say what time she would be home, he’d promised to have a pot of tea waiting. He’d been in the study when she’d phoned.

With a feeling of alarm she went into the hall and opened the study door – and a great black hole seemed to open in front of her. Jack was lying on the settee, and
she knew straight away that he was dead. His face was sickly pale, his lips curved in the slightest of smiles. He had rested his head on a green satin pillow, one hand cupping his chin, the other hanging limply. His body, from head to toe, seemed to be covered in a grey veil, like the finest of cobwebs. A half-empty bottle of whisky was on the desk.

‘
Jack!
’ She screamed, and the veil disappeared. Jack opened his eyes, and said blearily, ‘Hi, sweetheart. I must have dropped off. Hey, guess what, I’ve started a play.’

‘You bugger!’ She sank, shaking, into a chair, her hand pressed to her crazily beating heart. ‘I thought you were dead!’

‘I’m very much alive, Josie. Well, almost. I’ve got pins and needles in my legs.’ He tried to stand, laughed and fell back. ‘They’ll go in a minute.’

Perhaps it was because she had thought him dead, or that she had been away for ten whole days, but Josie was suddenly struck by how old he looked, and so very frail. She hadn’t realised that his hair had turned quite so grey, or that he had a slight stoop, or that the flesh on his neck was hanging loosely. Had his wrists always been so thin, with the bones protruding sharply, like little white doorknobs? His eyes, though, his eyes were just the same – warm, brown, smiling at her from the face more heavily lined than she remembered.

He made another attempt to get up, and Josie said, ‘Stay there, darling. The kettle’s just boiled. I’ll make some tea.’

She put milk in cups, two sugars for Jack, none for her, and spread a plate with chocolate biscuits. She’d make a proper meal in a minute, something quick from the freezer. In the lounge the bell mobile tinkled, and she thought again about the draught, but all the while there
was a buzzing in her head, a feeling of dread in her bones, because she knew, somehow she just knew, that Jack was dying. She had seen it in his face, as if death were lurking somewhere near, waiting to pounce. There’d been a feeling in the air when she came in, a haunted quietness, like the calm before the storm. If she hadn’t arrived when she did, she felt convinced that death would have taken from her the man she loved.

He was passing blood. She found it on his clothes, but he flatly refused to see a doctor. ‘I don’t want to know what’s wrong,’ he said, so airily that she wanted to thump him.

‘You might only need a few tablets.’

He smiled sweetly. ‘I don’t think so, sweetheart.’

She stamped her foot. ‘Since when have you been such an expert on medical matters?’

‘I’m an expert when it comes to treatment for myself. No doctors, no tablets. And kindly don’t mention the words “hospital” or “operations” in my presence. I’m having no truck with either.’

Josie rang Dottie and told her about Jack’s intransigence.

‘I don’t blame him,’ Dottie said gruffly. ‘It’s his body. I said that to you once before. It’s up to him how it’s treated.’

‘That’s stupid,’ Josie wept. She told her about the blood on his clothes. ‘What can it mean?’

‘Do you want me to be brutally honest?’

Josie hesitated. ‘Yes, please.’

‘It might be something quite innocent, but Jack’s drunk so much for so long that his insides have probably rotted. It could be cancer.’

‘Oh, God,
no
!’

‘It’s probably why he won’t see a doctor. He doesn’t want all that radiotherapy rubbish. In fact,’ Dottie said thoughtfully, ‘we talked about it once. We both agreed we’d sooner die than have treatment that can drag on for years. Relatives suffer as much as the patient. I said I’d like to meet me maker with a fag in my hand, and Jack said he wanted to go holding a glass of Jack Daniels.’

He was visibly getting weaker and weaker, day by day. He ate scarcely anything. They didn’t go out much. Francie came round on Saturday afternoons with half a dozen cans of beer, and they watched football on television.

It had happened, like every major event in her life, in the twinkling of an eye. Josie had gone to London to see a new life being born, and returned to find another life being slowly snuffed out.

‘
Make
him go to the doctor, Mum,’ Dinah raged on the phone.

‘I can’t, luv. He refuses to budge.’

‘Then get the doctor to come to
him
.’

‘I did, and your dad refused to see him. He went into his study and played New Orleans jazz at top blast.’

‘Is he depressed?’ Dinah asked curiously.

‘No, he’s perfectly happy. There’s people dropping in to see him all day long. He’s busy writing his play, and drinking like a fish, which is probably why he doesn’t have any pain. It’s almost as if …’ Josie paused.

‘As if what, Mum?’

‘As if he
doesn’t care
.’ She suppressed a sob.

‘But, Mum,’ Dinah cried despairingly, ‘he’s always been so full of life. Why on earth should he not care?’

‘I don’t know, Dinah. I wish I did.’

They had begun to talk openly about death. ‘No Requiem Mass, no priests, no prayers, no hymns,’ he said
lightly. ‘If there must be music, I want Louis Armstrong, Jerryroll Morton and Ella Fitzgerald singing “Every Time We Say Goodbye”.’

‘Fuck off,’ Josie said.

He looked at her, pretending to be shocked. ‘I’ve never heard you use that word before.’

‘I never have. How dare you sit there, dictating the music for your funeral? Have you got no thought for me?’ She burst into tears. ‘I haven’t the remotest idea how I’ll live without you.’

‘You’ll get over me in time, Jose,’ he said, so complacently that she nearly threw her book at him. ‘Everyone gets over everything in time.’

‘Have you got over Laura?
I
haven’t. A day never goes by when I don’t think about her.’

His thin face paled. ‘That day is indelibly etched in my mind. It will be a relief to escape. I don’t believe in an afterlife but, you never know, sweetheart, if there’s a heaven, I might meet our little girl.’

‘Oh,
God
, Jack. I don’t think I can take any more of this.’

By now, he was housebound. Every part of him was gradually breaking down. His legs wouldn’t carry him far, his hands could barely grasp a cup. He felt the cold acutely, even though it was a fine, warm summer. His study was a hothouse, where he worked feverishly on his play, still able to type. ‘It’s the best thing I’ve ever done,’ he gloated. You would never guess from his voice, from his laugh or the warm brown smiling eyes that he was a dying man.

‘Can I read it?’ Josie asked.

‘No, you cannot. I’ll not forget the way you treated my other plays. You kicked them, if I remember rightly.’

‘I won’t kick this one,’ she promised.

‘You’re not touching this play until it’s in a sealed envelope.’ He grinned. ‘Then you can post it. Now go away. I’m in a hurry to finish.’

His meaning was obvious. Josie went into the kitchen and threw a cup at the wall.

She had forgotten she was supposed to be running a busy publishing company, but Barefoot House seemed to be coping quite well without her. Dottie Venables produced a charming saga every year, and each one sold in its hundreds of thousands; William Friars’s Bootle thrillers continued to be hits, particularly in the States, where he had a large cult following. The anonymous young Irish writer who called herself Lesley O’Rourke never wrote another book, but
My Favourite Murderer
continued to sell well in the shops. There were other new writers that she’d never met. One of these days I must catch up on them, she thought, and remembered what would have to happen before she did.

The play was done. It was called
The Last Post
. ‘You called it after the house?’ Josie was startled. ‘What’s it about?’

‘Mind your own business.’

‘Am I allowed to know where you’re sending it?’

‘I can’t keep that a secret, it’s on the envelope. It’s going to Max Stafford-Clark at the Royal Court. I met him once. Tomorrow I shall run off a copy and send it to another theatre, and another the day after, and the day after that. This play is going to every theatre in the country.’

Josie hurried to the post office with the large brown
envelope under her arm. She would have given everything she possessed in return for Jack’s play being accepted before he died.

She rang Francie. ‘Can you do me a letterhead, just one sheet?’

‘It must be for a very important letter, Jose.’

‘It is.’ She explained what it was for. ‘I’ll send you the particulars – I got them from the London phone directory. I’ll type the letter meself.’

‘I’ll get it done today, Jose.’

‘There’s no need to rush.’ There had to be a decent interval between the play’s arrival and acceptance by the theatre. She prayed Jack would last that long.

Dinah rang. ‘Mum, I’m pregnant,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Good heavens, Dinah.’ Josie sat down quickly. ‘I’m thrilled to bits, but Christopher’s only four months old. You’re going to have two babies on your hands. I thought you didn’t want to over-populate the world?’

‘One of the reasons the world is over-populated is that some women think they can’t become pregnant if they’re breast-feeding and not having periods.’

‘You mean they can?’

‘I’m living proof. Not that I mind, but Peter’s a bit fed up. Anyroad, that’s only half me news. The other half is we’re getting married.’

Josie’s hand tightened on the receiver. If only they’d thought of it before, when Jack … ‘That’s marvellous, luv. I wish your dad was well enough to be there.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of getting married in London. We’ve booked the registry office in Brougham Terrace for half past two on the fourteenth of September, two weeks on Friday. Can you put us up? If Dad can give me away, it’ll be the best wedding
ever
!’

Only close friends and relatives had been invited to the actual ceremony – Ben, obviously, Colette, Jeremy, and the twins, Marigold and Jonathan, Dottie Venables, Richard White from Barefoot House who’d once worked with Dinah, Francie O’Leary and his sons, Lily’s two girls and Oliver, in new shorts and his first proper shirt. Josie would carry Christopher.