When Will There Be Good News? (29 page)

'We hardly know each other,' she said when he proposed.

'Well, that's what marriage is for,' Jackson said, although his experience of marriage tended to indicate the opposite -the longer he and Josie were married the less they seemed to understand each other.

Tessa didn't change her name to his, she had never 'seen herself' as Mrs Brodie, she said. Josie hadn't changed her name either when she married him. The last 'Mrs Brodie' that Jackson knew was his mother. Jackson's sister, an old-fashioned girl in every sense, used to tell him that she couldn't wait to be married and ditch her maiden name and 'become Mrs Somebody Else'. That's what she was -a maiden, a virgin, 'saving herself for Mr Right'. There were always boys after her but she still hadn't found anyone steady when she was raped and murdered. She had a bottom drawer, a little chest in her room that was neatly layered with tea towels and embroidered traycloths and a stainless-steel cutlery set that she was adding to, one item a month. All for the life to come that never came. All these things seemed so far away now, not just Niamh herself but all the girls who saved embroidered tray-cloths and stainless-steel cutlery sets. Where were they now?

Most people carried a couple ofphoto albums with them through their lives but he had never come across a single photograph in Tessa's Covent Garden flat. Her parents were dead, killed in a car crash, but there was no sign they had ever existed. There was nothing from her childhood, no souvenirs of the past at all. 'I live in the past in my job,' she said. 'I like to keep my life in the present. And Ruskin says that every increased possession loads us with weariness, and he's right.'

There was something Spartan in Tessa's make-up that was appealing, especially after Julia, a woman who inclined to the rococo, a subject on which she had once given him an entertaining lecture that had somehow involved sex (typical Julia). Julia was much more educated than she allowed you to believe. Tessa would have been bemused by Julia if she had known her. As it was, she was indifferent, 'your ex', no interest, no jealousy (but what if she had known about the baby?). There was something refreshingly neutral about Tessa. He would never have thought he would find 'neutral' an attractive adjective for a woman. Just goes to show.

They had known each other for four months, they had bee
n
married for two. He had been engaged to Josie for over two year
s
before they married so he had no personal evidence that a lon
g
courtship was the foundation of a long marriage. ('Oh, I think w
e
were married long enough,' Josie said.) Nonetheless, the sudde
n
impulsive marriage to Tessa had been completely out of character fo
r
him. 'No, it wasn't,' Josie said, 'you've always been the most uxoriou
s
of men.' 'No, it wasn't,' Julia said, 'you were desperate to marry me
,
and think how disastrous that would have been.' For I am wanton an
d
lascivious and cannot live without a wife. He was neither wanton no
r
lascivious (or he liked to think he wasn't), but being married ha
d
always seemed an ideal state to him. The Garden of Eden, th
e
paradise lost.

'You're not actually very good at being married,' Josie said. 'You just think you are.' 'You're a lone wolf, Jackson,' Julia said. 'You just can't admit it.' Josie and Julia lived uncomfortably in his brain, conflated into the voice of his conscience, the twin recording angels of his behaviour. 'Marry in haste,' Josie's voice said. 'Repent at leisure,' Julia's concluded.

'What day is it?' he asked the policewoman.

'Friday.'

Tessa flew back into Heathrow first thing on Monday. He would be home by then, if not before. He would be there to meet her off the plane, as promised. It was good for a man to have a goal, it was good for a man to know where he was going. Jackson was going home.

They had met at a party. Jackson never went to parties. It was th
e
slimmest of chances, a confluence of the planets, a ripple in time.

He had bumped into his old commanding officer in the military police, in Regent Street of all places -again, not an endroit where Jackson was usually to be found. The Fates had clocked him crossing Regent Street, but for once in a good way.

His old boss was a rather roguish guy called Bernie, whomJackson hadn't seen for over twenty years. They had never had much in common apart from the job, but they had got on well and Jackson was surprised by his own pleasure at this unexpected encounter so when Bernie said, 'Look, I've got a few folk coming round next week to the flat for a drink, as casual as it gets, why not join us?' he had been tempted before eventually demurring, at which point he had found himself at the end of a charm offensive from Bernie which finally proved irresistible -or rather, it had become easier to say 'yes' than to keep on saying 'no'. In retrospect, he realized it wasn't so much pleasure at seeing Bernie as it was at unexpectedly getting a reminder of a life that was now lost, two old soldiers reminiscing about the past.

He had been surprised by two things. The first was Bernie's flat in Battersea which was plushly decorated and full of things -furniture, ornaments, paintings -that even Jackson could recognize as 'good'. Bernie had mentioned something about being 'in security' (what else?) when they met but Jackson had never suspected that security could be so well remunerated. Jackson didn't mention his own good fortune.

The second surprise was the guests Bernie had assembled. 'A few folk round for a drink' had transformed into what Jackson overheard a guest refer to as 'one ofBernie's famous soirees'. Jackson was pretty sure he'd never been to a 'soiree' before.

The flat was peopled by well-dressed London types -men in hip spectacles and women in ugly and extraordinarily uncomfortablelooking shoes. Jackson was innately suspicious ofwell-dressed men real men (i
. E
. men from the north) didn't have the time or the inclination to shop for designer clothes and he believed that no woman should wear a pair ofshoes that she couldn't, ifnecessary, run away in. (Although a couple of years ago he had observed a girl simply throwing her shoes away in order to run, but she had been Russian and crazy, albeit worryingly attractive. He still thought about her.) None of the women at Bernie's 'soiree' looked as if they would be prepared to toss away their Manolos and Jimmy Choos to make a quick getaway. Yes, he knew the names of designer shoemakers, and no, that wasn't the kind of stuff real men from the north should know, but he had been stuck in Toulouse airport with Marlee last summer and had been tutored relentlessly by her from the pages of Heat and OK!.

*

Bernie greeted him effusively at the door of the flat and led him int
o
the already slightly overheated crowd. How Bernie knew thes
e
people was puzzling. None of them seemed like the natural socia
l
circle of a fifty-year-old ex-RMP guy.

'Cocktail?' Bernie offered and Jackson said, 'It's against m
y
religion, got any beer?' and Bernie laughed and, punching him o
n
the arm, said, 'Same oldJackson.' Jackson didn't think he was the sam
e
old Jackson, he had shed several skins since last seeing Bernie (an
d
acquired a few new ones), but he didn't say so.

Jackson was no good at parties. He couldn't do small talk. Hi, my name's Jackson Brodie, I used to be a policeman. Maybe it was something to do with the lives he had led, first a soldier and then a policeman -neither profession exactly fostered idle chat. At first sight the people at Bernie's party (sorry, soiree) seemed strangely vacuous, as if they'd been hired for the night to play at being festive. Jackson found himself skulking around the fringes of the gathering like a latecomer to the waterhole, wondering how long he had to continue to endure the evening before he could make his gruff excuses and leave.

At which point,Tessa pitched up at his elbow and murmured into his ear, 'Isn't this ghastly?' Jackson was pleased to note that not only was she wearing a simple linen dress, made all the more attractive in contrast to the odd garb sported by some of the other women, but also low-heeled sandals that she could easily have run away in. She didn't choose to run, but stayed close to his side. 'You seem like a safe harbour,' she said.

After five minutes of conversation made awkward by the volume of noise in the room he had said boldly to her, 'Fancy getting out of here?' and she said, 'I can't think ofanything I'd like better,' and they'd gone to a pub over the river in Chelsea, not really Jackson's kind of place but nonetheless a thousand times better than Bernie's. They had talked until closing time over a civilized bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon before he walked her all the long way home to her flat ('smaller than a postage stamp') in Covent Garden. On the final stretch he took her hand ('Shy boys get nothing' -the words of his long-dead Lothario of a brother came unexpectedly into his head) and when they reached her door he had planted a firm but decorous kiss on her cheek and was rewarded by her saying, 'Shall we do this again? How about tomorrow?'

He couldn't have designed a better woman. She was cheerful, optimistic and sweet. She was funny, even comical sometimes, and much smarter than he was but unlike the previous women in his life didn't find it necessary to remind him of this fact at every turn. She was graceful Ca lot ofballet when I was young') and athletic ('tennis, ditto'), and liked animals and children but not to the point of being over-sentimental. She had a job she loved but that she was never overwhelmed by. She was fifteen years younger than he was ('Lucky dog,' Bernie said later when he 'caught up' with Jackson) and hadn't yet lost the glow of youthful enthusiasm, seemed, in fact, as if she might never lose it. She had long, light-brown hair, cut in a heavyfringed style that made her look like an actress or a model from the sixties Gackson's preferred look in a woman). She was someone who didn't need looking after but who nonetheless was properly grateful when he did look after her. She could drive and cook and even sew, knew how to do simple DIY, was surprisingly frugal but also knew how to be generous (witness the Breitling watch -her wedding present to him) and was the mistress of at least two sexual positions that Jackson had never tried before (hadn't even known existed, actually, but he kept that to himself). She was, in short, how God intended women to be.

How come she knew a guy like Bernie? 'Friend of a friend of a friend,' she said vaguely. 'I don't usually go to parties. I end up standing in a corner like a standard lamp. I'm not much good at small talk. I was taught by nuns until I was eleven -you learn silence early on.' Jackson's sister, Niamh, had been a convent girl. When she was thirteen she announced she wanted to become a nun. Their mother, despite being a devout Irish Catholic, was terrified. She had been looking forward to a future where a married Niamh popped in and out of her house, trailing babies in her wake. To everyone's relief, Niamh's enthusiasm for becoming a bride of Christ proved to be short-lived. Jackson was only six at the time but even then he knew that nuns spent their lives imprisoned away from their families and he couldn't bear the idea that Niamh, so full of life, could be shut away from him for ever.

And then, of course, she was.

He could feel his headaches breeding, stacking themselves one upon the other.

When he woke a second time the girl was sitting there again, blinking at him like a baby owl. She was speaking nonsense. 'Dr Foster went to Gloucester, all in a shower of rain.'

Out in the larger ward, Jackson could hear children's voices singing Christmas carols, quite badly. He noticed for the first time some half-hearted gaudy decorations hanging in his room. He had forgotten all about Christmas. He wondered if the girl was something to do with the carol concert. She looked about the same age as Marlee and was gazing at him intently as if she was expecting him to do something extraordinary.

'They said you were a soldier,' she said.

'A long time ago.'

'The nurse said. That's how they knew your blood group.'

'Yeah.' His voice was still croaky. He was a weak version of himself, a flawed clone, everything working but nothing quite right. 'My dad was a soldier.'

He struggled into a sitting position and she helped him with the pillows. 'Yeah? What regiment?' he asked, unexpectedly entering into his conversational comfort zone.

'Royal Scots,' the girl said.

'Were you here yesterday?' he said. 'The day before today,' he clarified. He was pleased to see that he was getting the hang of time again
. Y
esterday, today, tomorrow, that was how it went, one day after the next. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Julia had done Macbeth at Birmingham Rep, a crazed, blood-boltered Lady Macbeth. 'Acting with her hair again,' Amelia snorted in the seat next to him. Jackson thought she was good, better than he'd expected anyway.

'No,' she said. 'I've only just found you.'

He wondered if she was one of those volunteers, like prison visitors, who come and see people who don't have anyone else.

(Because apparently he didn't.) Perhaps the army had sent her, like a care package.

'You would have bled to death,' she said. She seemed very interested in his blood. His veins ran with the blood of strangers, he wondered if that had any implications for him. Had he lost his immunity to measles? Had he acquired a predisposition to something else? (Something that ran in the blood.) Was he carrying the DNA of strangers? There were a lot of unanswered questions surrounding his transfusion. Was this girl one of his donors? Too young surely.