You, Me and Other People (13 page)

Roberto is an Italian-born barber who has always wanted to be a chef. He has been cutting my hair for nearly fifteen years and I’ve yet to pay a visit to him during which he doesn’t discuss food with a passion missing from many Michelin-starred successes. It’s a busy Saturday morning in the salon, and I’m zoning out as he chats about his brother’s bistro in Highgate and how I should visit. The veal milanese is apparently ‘magnifico’. I only ever visit Highgate to see my dead parents and, somehow, I don’t imagine I’ll be stopping off for a meal en route. I smile agreeably as Roberto works his magic with the scissors.

I’m reading a newspaper; when my eyes land on the date, I’m momentarily stunned as I work it out. It is just over three months since I left home. Since I lived in my own house. Which means it’s probably over four months since I last made love to my wife. I swallow hard at the thought and am filled with an overwhelming desire to see her, hold her. Aware it’s not going to happen, I think back to the night I left and how I felt. I was certain that Beth would need a cooling-off period and then take me back. Even when that looked unlikely, I was certain that we’d someday get back together. Today, nothing is certain in my life. That is the only certain thing.

I walked to Roberto’s this morning and Ben agreed to collect me here. I see him pull up outside. We are going straight for a training session at a park nearby. At my feet lies a gym bag – trainers, running kit, all within. Ben has decided to start my training programme with a running schedule. I am apparently going to run three kilometres today. A glance at my watch tells me that is thirty minutes away. I’m terrified. I haven’t run in years – I hope I can actually deliver this feat. I’ve already told Kiera, and though she was thrilled at the intent behind my mini-marathon, she reminded me I still have to speak to Meg. Fundraising is great, but it’s stem cells that Noah needs.

I remove my phone from my pocket and text her. She hasn’t responded to two texts and one call. I’m beginning to worry.

‘Pumpkin, U around L8ter? X’

She replies immediately. ‘It’s Saturday. I’m twenty, what do you think?’

‘OK, wen can I c u next?’

‘I’m going home tomorrow to do a clear-out of my bedroom. Mum’s nagging, says I have to “clear out my shit as the house may have to be sold”. I think it’s time for you to start with a GG (grand gesture) or two??? Seriously, Dad, get a grip. Meet me at home in the morning. Mum’s working, so she won’t be there.’

Shit …

‘OK’, I text, but it’s really not. I don’t think I can tell Meg what I need to tell her in our family home.

‘Can’t I just take U out for lunch?’

‘No time and Jack cooking dinner for us later on. Have to do it. If you want to see me, that’s where I’ll be! x’

I agree ten o’clock Sunday and send her back a kiss. I can’t believe I got one from her.

Just as I stand up and make my way to Roberto’s till, Ben pops his head around the door.

I hold five fingers up. ‘I’ll be there in five. I just need to change,’ I add, heading to Roberto’s tiny loo.

When I leave the building, I try everything to postpone my first training session. Ben is having none of it. I feign illness, a headache, a sore leg. I even try being honest and tell him I’m terrified. I ask him whose crazy idea it had been anyway. He reminds me it was mine. I suggest we go and visit Mum and Dad instead, try and shame him into doing it by reminding him it’s been years. I even tell him I’ll treat him to a veal milanese at a local bistro. He quietly reassures me that, though that’s a great idea, we can do it after the three-kilometre run.

Every part of me hurts, but I did it. We stretched for ten minutes before and after, and I ran, without stopping, for three kilometres. I could have continued, but Ben told me to stop, not to overdo things on the first day. I’m pleased. If I can start like this, I can build things up slowly. I’m already looking forward to a run along the river tomorrow morning before I go to meet Meg.

‘Lunch before the cemetery or after?’ Ben is driving and we are near Highgate.

‘After, if you don’t mind? Look, we really don’t have to go. If you need to get back to Karen … I only suggested it to get out of the run.’

‘I know, but I should go. You’re right. It’s been too long.’ He runs a hand through his hair and I wonder how often he thinks of Mum and Dad, how often he thought of them while travelling the world.

I say nothing, try and change out of my kit in the back of the car, which is a feat in itself.

‘Did you hear Beth’s news?’ He looks at me in the rear-view mirror.

‘How would I?’

‘Well, I guess you would if you ever called her. If you kept up an interest in what she does?’

I feel the sting of his words, but bite my tongue. ‘What news?’

‘She’s been chosen to do the movie song.’ He checks my reaction in the mirror.

I stop what I’m doing. ‘Wow … Well, good on her … That’s fantastic. What—’

‘Just call her, Adam. There is no earthly reason why you shouldn’t. Use the news as an excuse. It might be good to talk to her about her and not you. Put you both on a new page?’

I tuck my shirt into my jeans and sit back, aware he’s still watching me. ‘You’re right. I’ll call her tonight.’

‘Good … Do it soon. She’s off to Los Angeles next week.’

My eyebrows both travel upwards. ‘Really?’

‘Meeting the producers. Business-class ticket – paid for by the film company.’

‘Wow,’ I say again. I feel weird. My spirits feel strangely uplifted at the news. She’s earned this success and deserves it after years of hard work and rejection. I’m not sure, but I think it’s pride and I can’t help wondering if I have the right.

‘Make sure you call her.’ Ben drives up a side street just outside the cemetery. Just past the main gates, he stares upwards. ‘I’d forgotten how big these oaks are. They’re amazing, aren’t they? Remember our one? How big it was?’

The memory is a fond one. We never exactly owned a tree, Ben and I, but there was one that we called ours and it wasn’t an oak. It was a sweet chestnut with an enormous gnarled trunk, about a five-minute walk from our house on a local farmer’s private land. We’d sneak in there to the small lake with this solitary tree by its side, hook up our swing made from some old rope from Dad’s shed. Each summer we’d return, set it up, and swing until exhaustion took over. It seems weird looking back that we were never discovered or asked to leave.

‘Mum never wondered why our clothes were wet.’

‘Fun times,’ I reply, and he nods, smiling wide. ‘Up ahead, left. You’ll have to park there, then we walk a few minutes.’

‘Do you know what Beth’s song is called?’ I ask Ben. After any nostalgic memory, I automatically end up thinking about her.

‘“Fall Apart”.’

I nod. ‘Sounds like a new one.’

‘It is.’ He gets out of the car. ‘Something she tells me she’s had first-hand experience of. So, at least you were useful for raw material.’ He smiles again, but I don’t think it’s funny.

At the graveside, it’s him who seems uncomfortable. ‘Relax, Ben. Just talk to them. In your head.’

‘I have been here before, you know.’ He is indignant.

‘Have you ever talked to Beth about this?’ Ben asks. He is standing, staring into the distance. I am stooped over the vases, trying to avoid kneeling on the damp grass.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’ His question is almost as simple as my monosyllabic reply, but I’m seized by a horrible panic.

‘I have never needed to – and for fuck’s sake, don’t you go telling Karen either … In fact, you need to promise me you can keep your mouth shut to Karen. Those two are joined at the hip. If you tell her anything, she won’t be able to help herself. I—’

‘Whoa! Stop now. I haven’t said a word – about anything.’

‘Well, don’t. Ben, I can rely on you, can’t I?’ I touch his arm.

‘Always,’ he says, before looping his through mine. ‘We done here?’ He doesn’t wait to see if I am, just tugs me away, back in the direction of the car.

‘That time, I know we don’t talk about it … It was what Picasso would call “a blue period”.’

I nod. My stomach is still gnawing away on itself at the thought of Ben discussing our past with Beth via Karen.

‘You were the strong one, held it all together. You found us a home, got me into uni. I owe you.’

‘You don’t owe me anything. Not a thing. Except maybe to keep your trap shut with Karen.’

He stops walking, tilts his head as if to repeat, ‘What did I just say?’

We carry on back to the car park. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just with you and Karen together, I know the natural thing to do is to share, to be honest.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe we’ve both got faulty DNA there.’ He grins.

‘I’m serious, Ben. And don’t put yourself in the same boat as me. You were always totally honest with Elise, even when it hurt her at the end. I admired that. It’s the way you are and that’s what worries me.’

‘Adam, you’ve got a lot worse shit coming your way. Noah? You have to tell Meg, and she’ll have to be tested and …’ He doesn’t finish but, if he had, he would have reminded me that Beth was going to find all of that out soon anyway. He would also have added that now might be as good a time as any to tell Beth that my parents had not both died in a car accident. He might have intimated that how they did die has somehow affected me in my adult life and I might have laughed it off, as I always do.

‘So, where’s this veal milanese then?’ He rubs his tummy like a child.

I try not to groan out loud. We did say we’d do it, so I just point him towards Roberto’s brother’s restaurant.

Pulling into the gravel driveway, my senses seem amplified. The stones crushing beneath the wheels and the voice in my head telling me to turn around are deafening. My fingers, wrapped around the steering wheel, are white and numb. The pungent scent of Beth’s potted hyacinths assaults me from the front door. And there’s something in my mouth that tastes like pure fear.

I push the doorbell and hear the sound of Meg skipping down the stairs.

‘I was up in my room,’ she complains. ‘Why didn’t you just let yourself in?’

‘New locks.’

She tilts her head, as if suddenly remembering something important. Her ponytail swishes from side to side. ‘Ahh, yes,’ she says, as I pass through the door into the hallway. Beth’s words still adorn the hallway wall. ‘Come on up. Shut your eyes when you get there. I’ve a pot of coffee, two mugs.’

I’m immediately saddened by the pictures on the stairwell and notice there’s a new one, a black and white of Beth and her parents and Simon. I resist the urge to touch them as I climb the steps, wanting to use my fingers to expand the images, like on a phone. Make them bigger. Make those memories feel real.

She’s right. Her bedroom looks like a warzone. She points me to a chair, gives me a black sack and explains that anything she hands me must go in the sack. I sit, bag in hand, like an obedient child. Her head jerks towards the coffee. ‘Help yourself.’

I nod.

‘Are you all right?’ she asks. ‘You look a little pale. I got your email about the run. You’re not overdoing it, are you? It’s a long time since you’ve done anything to keep fit.’

I nod some more.

She hands me some clothes. I pile them in the bag. She pulls a furry toy, a small ragged Eeyore, from the bottom of a wardrobe. ‘Dad, look, it’s Eeyore.’ She giggles.

‘So it is, love.’

‘Do you remember when we got him?’

‘I do …’ Like it was yesterday. She had been about five or six and was obsessed with Winnie-the-Pooh. We’d spotted the lone Eeyore amongst hundreds of Winnies and she’d begged us to buy him – told us he was lonely and that she was meant to be his mummy.

I lean forward, rest my elbow on my lap, my chin in my hand. ‘Meg …’

‘Hmmm?’ She’s looking out of the window, lost in the memory of Eeyore.

‘We have to talk.’

‘I know, you’re right.’ She jumps up, walks to her desk and pours two mugs of coffee. ‘I met Nana yesterday.’ She hands me one, smiling broadly. ‘Oh, she gave me a letter for you. An old-fashioned letter, eh, Dad? Some people still write them apparently.’ She lifts a jacket from the back of her desk chair and rummages through a deep pocket, pulls out a tissue, loose coins and a crumpled envelope. I take it from her, push it deep into my own jacket pocket. It can wait.

‘Aren’t you going to read it? Never mind.’ She waves it away like it’s already forgotten. ‘The thing is, Nana and I had some great ideas. We had a bit of a Grand Gesture brainstorming session.’

‘Meg.’

‘Yes?’ She seems exasperated that I’ve interrupted her flow.

‘We need to talk. At least, I need to talk and you need to listen?’

She pulls the desk chair away from the desk and plonks down heavily. ‘Go on,’ she says, ‘I’m listening, but I warn you, I’m not up for excuses. I know you want Mum back. Her, I’m really not so sure of, but that’s what we’re going to work on and, frankly, I need you both back together. Soon.’

I can’t find the voice. There is no way that the words can come out.

‘Isn’t her news brilliant? She seems so excited about LA.’ I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.

‘She is.’ Meg smiles. ‘And you know what? The song is fantastic, definitely one of her best. I’m so proud of her.’

‘Me too … me too … Meg, look, there’s something I want your help with.’

She eyeballs me, suddenly intrigued. Maybe it’s my tone. Desperate …

‘What?’ She sips her coffee, makes a face as it’s obviously lukewarm.

‘Years ago, you know already, I—’

‘Dad, what is wrong with you?’ She stares at me as if I’m an interesting lab specimen.

‘Years ago, more than ten years ago, I … I cheated on your mother. One night. One night only …’

She gapes. ‘I do not need to know this.’ Her head moves side to side.

‘You do, Meg. You do.’ I’m aware of the distress in my voice. ‘The woman, Kiera Granger – she had a child. My child. I knew, but she wanted me to have nothing to do with it. I—’

Meg’s head is suddenly still, statue still. Nothing moves, not even her pupils. Her face is ashen, her expression one of total disbelief, total distrust.