You, Me and Him (13 page)

I can see George’s pained face pressed against the glass. He’s hopping up and down in agony.

‘OK. Let’s consider the third option,’ I say, panicking like mad, ‘which I think you’re going to like. This will set you apart …’

‘MUM! I NEED THE LOO!’

Everyone in the meeting room turns round and looks at George. I put down my design. ‘I’m so sorry, please excuse me.’

‘Fine.’ Neil folds his arms tightly.

I run out of the room and grab George, leading him down the corridor. I am going to kill my son.

*

I’m driving George back to school ready to tell the headmaster exactly what I think of this lunchtime punishment. I’ve probably just lost Ruby a client; I might have lost my job, and all because of Ms Miles. ‘We’ll get back to you,’ Neil had said with a smile, showing me promptly to a door with a great big EXIT sign over it.

‘Why did you try and flush Jason’s hooded top down the loo?’

‘He made me.’

‘You could have said no.’

‘He said if I did it, I could play football in his team.’

‘And then?’

‘He said it was a joke or something. Ms Miles hates me. She calls me stupid.’

Right, that’s it.

I knock loudly on the headmaster’s door but don’t wait for a response. A thin man with fair hair sits behind a desk. ‘Er, hello,’ he says, ‘can I help?’ His office is small and tidy, each shelf completely filled with books.

‘Josie Greenwood. This is my son George whom apparently I have to collect every lunchtime now because you can’t cope.’ I sit down and cross my arms. ‘George, sit down.’

‘Don’t want to.’

‘I mucked up THE MOST important meeting today because …’

‘Mrs Greenwood, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You run the school, don’t you?’ I begin to tell him about the hood incident.

He holds up one thin hand like a human traffic indicator. He looks too insubstantial to run a fleapit, let alone a school. ‘I would like to talk to your son about this.’

George tells him. It seems they know each other quite well already.

‘I see. And do you think your behaviour was acceptable?’

‘It wasn’t my fault, Mr Phipps.’

‘Why?’

‘He made me do it.’

‘So, if I tell you to jump out of the window in my office, will you?’

‘George would jump off a skyscraper …’ I start, but Mr Phipps signals me to stop again. ‘Go on then, jump.’

George starts to jog up and down on the spot in preparation. ‘I want to be a fireman when I grow up,’ he says. That’s the first I’ve heard of it. He starts to run but Mr Phipps puts out a surprisingly strong arm to halt him.

‘If you jump, you’ll hurt yourself. Consider the question before acting on it.’

‘He can’t,’ I cut in. ‘It’s a classic symptom of ADHD.’

‘George, why don’t you go to the computer room, play some games until your mother and I come and get you?’

‘I can play Hangman!’ He sprints out of the office.

Mr Phipps turns to me. ‘I know George has ADHD. I see he’s on Action Plus and has been seen by an educational psychologist in the classroom.’

Action Plus is when the school contacts outside agencies such as educational psychologists, behavioural specialists, occupational and speech therapists, to assess a particular child in order to determine if they need a statement of special educational needs. Typically George behaved like an angel when they brought an observer into the lesson to monitor him so they didn’t feel it necessary to assess him further, but the school had told me they’d continue to keep ‘a close eye on him’.

‘One of my friends’ brothers had ADHD,’ Mr Phipps continues. ‘Still has it. He has learnt to control his behaviour, and I’m sure it’s possible for George to do so too, but he needs to be shown how. He’s a bright boy. There are ways the school can help; practical things like making sure his desk faces a blank wall so there’s as little distraction as possible.’

My anger starts to subside. ‘And teachers need to tap him when they want his attention, not shout like Ms Miles does.’

‘I agree with you that this lunchtime punishment is too disruptive. Also, I see George is behind on his reading and spelling. His handwriting is pretty poor too …’

I sigh with frustration. ‘We’ve been waiting well over a year for an occupational therapist to get him splints.’

‘I would like to give him a few extra lessons after school, if it’s all right by you?’

I smile. At last my son seems to have an ally at school and at least one tiny part of my day is being salvaged. ‘That’s more than all right. Extra lessons would be great, thank you.’

*

‘Why is he watching television?’ is the first thing Finn calls out to me when he arrives home. He drops his case on the floor and starts to undo his tie. ‘I hope you gave George serious time-out, Josie? Don’t you realise your mother and I have more important things to do than pick you up from school, George?’ Finn is looking for the television remote. He slips a hand down the side of the sofa. No luck. ‘George, I’m talking to you.’

His eyes are glued to the screen.

‘Finn, it’s been dealt with, OK?’ I take off my plastic apron featuring a picture of a barmaid with a huge cleavage. Granny gave it to Finn for Christmas.

‘He shouldn’t be allowed to watch anything tonight. He won’t learn what’s right or wrong that way.’

‘Finn, will you …’

‘Shouldn’t he be doing his homework?’

‘I’m trying to watch
Star Trek
, Dad. This is the good part.’

Finn strides across the room and turns the television off, tripping on a piece of Lego in the process and twisting his ankle. ‘Oh, fuck!’

‘Finn!’ I shout.

‘Mum! You said I could watch this if I was good.’ George starts to cry.

‘That’s my whole point. You haven’t been good today, have you?’

‘But Mum said …’

‘How would you like it if someone flushed Baby down the loo? It is not acceptable behaviour. Do you understand?’

‘Finn, stop shouting,’ I demand. George runs past us both and upstairs to his bedroom, slamming the door.

‘Fuck, fuck, FUCK!’ shouts George.

I shake my head. ‘Great. Now he knows the word fuck. We need to be consistent, Finn. It doesn’t help, you storming in here, undoing all the good work I’ve done. He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong now.’

‘We don’t set enough boundaries. It’s your fault he does these things again and again …’

‘You bastard!’ I exhale furiously.

The phone rings and I pick up. ‘Hi, Nicholas.’ It’s Finn’s father. ‘We’re fine, thanks.’

‘FUCK YOU!’ George shouts from upstairs followed by another slam of the door.

‘That noise?’ I say when Nicholas asks, appalled by my son’s language and ashamed by the example we set. ‘It’s the television.’

Finn’s lying on the sofa, hitting his face repeatedly with a cushion. ‘He’s right here.’ I cover the mouthpiece. ‘Take it,’ I snap. I can smell the mince burning. I hurl the phone at him.

‘Josie!’ He sits up. ‘Hi, Dad. Yeah, we’re fine. It’s the television, I’ve just turned it off. Work’s good. Busy … George is fine … Josie’s great.’ Aren’t grown-ups full of bullshit?

‘Can you hang on a minute, Dad?’ He opens the front door. ‘Josie!’ I hear him call down the street. ‘Come back!’

But I’m a long way away.

With each step I take all I can hear is, ‘It’s your fault, your fault.’ How is it possible that one man can make me the happiest girl alive one moment and the most miserable the next?

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘Where are you going with that bin?’ I stretched myself across Finn’s bed.

‘It’s the same as a “do not disturb” sign.’ He shoved it outside the door.

‘Do you put your bin out a lot?’

‘All the time.’ He started to laugh.

I threw a pillow at him. ‘You’re so arrogant!’

‘But beneath it I’m a crumbling mess.’

‘The bedder could do with giving this room a clean,’ I suggested.

‘Well, mine is old and has congestive cardiac failure.’

I turned to him. ‘In fact, why on earth should you have some poor man on his last legs cleaning up your rubbish?’

‘Fair enough, but I don’t let him. I give him a Jammie Dodger and we have a chat and a cup of tea.’ Finn circled the room with a hand. ‘Hence the delightful mess.’

‘You should clean it yourself. Do you put your bin out all the time?’ I couldn’t help asking again.

‘Why? Are you jealous?’

I readjusted my position. Finn took my hand and rubbed each fingertip in turn gently. ‘Yes.’ I lifted my face to his and we kissed. Now that we had slept together I felt even closer to him. Why had I been frightened about my first time? With Finn it already felt familiar. ‘I wish we’d met at a different time,’ he started to say. ‘Things could have been a whole lot different. You’re eighteen, and I act like a twelve year old.’

I feared where this was leading. Deep down I knew he was right. What was the point in starting a serious relationship when I was about to leave? It still hurt, though.

‘I think it’s better to be honest, don’t you?’

‘Yes, and no,’ I added. He was slipping away from me already.

‘I don’t regret anything, Josie.’

‘Thanks.’ I turned over onto my back.

‘All I’m trying to say, pretty inarticulately, is how much I’ve loved being with you.’ Already it was in the past tense and I hated it. ‘But we’re too young to be tied down. You’re going off travelling and …’ he paused for effect ‘… I’ll be here,
studying
.’

I turned onto my side to face him. ‘You’re not leaving then?’

‘I’d be mad to give it up. I am in a good position and I do want to be a doctor. I need to start growing up, not constantly finding excuses to do the easy thing and run.’ He twisted a strand of my hair in his fingers and tucked it behind my ear. ‘Thanks for coming over last night and giving me some home truths. How did you become so wise so young?’

‘I don’t know.’ I was still thinking about not being with him. ‘I wish you’d told me about your dad.’

‘I’m sorry. It was like I was rebelling against any kind of relationship, thinking they were all doomed like my parents’.’ Finn cleared his throat. ‘Tell me where you’re travelling? Imagine this,’ he touched my bare stomach and outlined a rough shape, ‘is a map of Europe.’ I reached for his hand and guided him to different places using the tip of his finger.

*

‘So what happened with your parents?’ I asked. We were still in bed, sitting up, the duvet wrapped around us both, eating bacon and mayonnaise sandwiches. Finn grabbed a pillow and rested his back against it.

‘It’s a long story,’ he warned me.

‘We have all day in bed, don’t we?’

‘If that’s the case,’ he smiled, discarding the food and leaning across to kiss me, ‘we could be doing something much more interesting.’ His hand was inside my T-shirt.

‘Finn, behave! I’m being serious, I want to know,’ I said, though I made no attempt to move his hand.

‘OK. My father, Nicholas, lives for success, money and work. When he was in his teens his father used to beat him with a wooden spoon, literally, saying, “You have to work hard to provide for your family otherwise you are worth nothing.”’

‘That’s pretty extreme.’

‘Dad’s father was a piano tuner, spent all his time away from home tuning the damn things, but didn’t make any money. He was terrified my father would turn out to be poor like him. Dad won this scholarship to a private school but they couldn’t even afford to pay for his school meals. My father’s biggest fear in life has been not being able to provide for Ed and me. And Mum, of course.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He set up his own IT consultancy company and took the business to America when I was five. We lived in Connecticut. Mum hated it. It was in the middle of nowhere, she was lonely. I don’t think she even liked looking after Ed and me. That generation often had children because they thought they should, not because they wanted to. She certainly didn’t want us.’

‘But that’s terrible! I can’t imagine having a child and not being interested in him or her, loving them more than anything in the world.’

He laughed ironically. ‘Well, the only person Mum cares about is herself.’ His voice started to tremble, the hurt coming from deep within, a place I wanted to reach. ‘My dad got back late from work one day and by then she’d attacked the booze cabinet and was shouting about how miserable she was in this “godforsaken place”.’

‘Did you hear all of this?’

‘It was hard not to. Dad kept on saying, “Gwen dear, let’s not discuss this in front of the children.” He couldn’t see the problem. He was the provider, why couldn’t she be the stay-at-home mum?’

‘So what happened this time?’

‘She’s left him, for good. She’s done it before, for the same man … Richard. I was fifteen then.’ He let out a deep breath. ‘I was walking down the corridor when this man strolls past me wearing my father’s purple dressing gown. He says, “Do you have any shampoo?”’

‘No way. Where was your dad anyway?’

‘On a business trip. I confronted them both of course.’

‘What did you say?’

‘“What are you doing on my father’s side of the bed?”’ Finn said it with such clarity, as if he could see his adulterous mother right in front of him. ‘“Who is he, Mum?” I asked. “Oh,” she says, “this is Dicky. He’s a member of my bridge club.”

‘She said it with no hint of apology. It was as if she felt she’d suffered enough in her marriage, why shouldn’t she have some fun now? I never said anything to Dad.’

‘What about Ed?’

‘I didn’t tell him either. It’s strange, we’re twins but I’ve always felt like the older brother, like I’ve needed to protect him. He’s much nicer than me.’ Finn laughed. ‘He never says a bad word about anyone, not even Mum. Ed soon found out, though. I was sixteen and we were about to go to Dorset for the weekend. Mum came into my bedroom while Ed and I were packing and said, “I’ve got something to tell you both. I don’t love your father anymore and I won’t be coming to Dorset.”’

‘She walked out on you? I don’t know how she could do that. How?’

‘Don’t know. Ed cried. I couldn’t show what I felt, I just stared at her.’

‘But then she went back to your dad?’

‘Mum’s as restless as a butterfly. Dad thinks she’s got Attention Deficit Disorder. She goes back to him, he forgives her, and then she leaves him again. Oh, Granny hates her for that, calls her “Gwen the Gold Digger”. The thing is, Dad still loves her.’

‘Is that it now, for good? I mean, how much can your father take?’

‘I hope so.’ Finn was shaking his head. ‘I called Mum and told her I was going to give up Cambridge, that I was worried about him. “Go to the doctor’s,” she said, “take some happy pills and get on with it.”’

‘Finn, I’m so sorry. How’s Ed taking it?’

‘OK. He’s busy doing some drama course in London. He has the nice bit of Mum in him, the flightiness. If it tears him up inside, well, he hides it. But I can’t forgive her and I could never forgive someone who did that to me. You have a good time before you get married, go out, get laid … Sorry,’ he quickly said to me, ‘you know what I mean. Just don’t get married if you’re not prepared to stay faithful.’

I considered this. ‘OK, but what if you still loved that person with all your heart and they were truly sorry? If it was just the one time and it was a terrible mistake? Could you forgive them then?’

‘No. You get only one chance. What?’

‘I’m surprised, that’s all.’

‘You see people like my parents and you realise you have the choice of being like them, because that’s all you know, or being positively the other way. I know which I want to be. What about your parents?’

‘The only drama might be Dad putting one of his maroon socks into the white wash.’

‘I crave boring.’ Finn laughed. ‘Mum probably had all these romantic fantasies about being married. Dad was her first love. She expected excitement, not a man who worked every minute of the day.’ He opened a plastic box with a chocolate brownie in it and offered me a bite. ‘Important lesson, Josie Greenwood!’

‘What’s that?’ I took a large one.

‘Don’t marry the first person you sleep with.’ He smiled sheepishly at me.

‘But I was hoping we could set a date?’

‘You wouldn’t cheat on someone when you were married, would you?’

‘I wouldn’t cheat on someone when I was dating,’ I said, ‘but you have no problem with that.’ I got out of bed but felt a strong arm pull me back. ‘Let go!’ I said, trying to wriggle free.

‘It meant nothing.’ I escaped his grip but he leant over me, both arms imprisoning my body.

‘So why did you do it? You’re coming over all sanctimonious now but …’

‘I felt so guilty, J, that’s why I couldn’t even talk to you at the club. I was angry with myself, not you.’ He kissed one of my cheeks. ‘It was stupid.’ He kissed the other. ‘I regretted it the moment it happened.’

‘Was it Dominique?’

‘Yes.’ I tried to move but he clamped his hands round my arms. ‘I swear it was nothing. With you, it’s different.’

I rolled my eyes.

‘Christ, Josie, I’ve never felt like this.’

I put a hand over his mouth and he kissed my palm. I wanted to absorb every feature on his face. His light brown eyes, soft hair, the shadow that fell across his cheekbone, his small neat ears, the scar to the left of his eye, each contour and shift of expression, the way a smile lit his face as if someone was about to tell him the most exciting story. His hands that were always so busy drumming on coffee tables, playing a record, lighting a cigarette, touching me. I wanted to take him with me.

‘You’re amazing,’ he said.

‘Carry on.’

‘Beautiful … smart … strong.’

We both sat up now. I held my arms around my knees, cold at the thought that this was all about to end. Was I ever going to see him again?

He handed me an empty matchbox. ‘You’re going away present,’ he said.

‘Oh, you shouldn’t have. A whole matchbox.’

‘Open it.’

I slid open the drawer. Inside he had written, ‘I love you’.

I held his face in my hands. ‘I love you too.’

‘What do we do now?’ he said. ‘Write to each other?’ There was a glimmer of hope in that. ‘Maybe we can make this work?’