All the Hopeful Lovers (27 page)

‘Satis-fuck-tion!’ cries Matey. ‘Satis-fuck-tion!’

‘You’re a comedian, Matey,’ says Kenny.

It’s a well-rehearsed act, presumably performed many times before. Belinda wants to laugh, both at Kenny and with him, but she also wants to maintain some last vestige of distance.

‘I can see you two have done this before,’ she says.

‘Oh, yes,’ says Kenny. ‘But this is the gala performance.’

‘I don’t know that we should,’ she says.

Kenny gives her a look that’s puzzled and sweet at the same time. ‘I’ve been waiting so long, gorgeous. Now you’re here, it’s a dream come true.’

‘Is it, Kenny?’

This is the point of no return. Now is her last chance to make her excuses and leave. But what can she say? That he’s grown old? That his humour isn’t to her taste? That she doesn’t find him attractive? He’s crass and he has no understanding of her, but he wants her so much, which is a gift of a kind. And the plain fact of the matter is she finds she hasn’t got it in her to disappoint him. His expression of desire has set the terms of their encounter. The appropriate response on her part can only be to satisfy his desire. For any other course of action she must generate what amounts to a counter-desire, she must show anger or disgust, she must hurt and humiliate him. Does he deserve that?

You make your bed, you have to lie on it.

‘So how about you get your kit off?’ he says.

‘I’ll undress in the bathroom,’ she says.

The light in the bathroom is brutal. She avoids looking at herself in the mirror as she undresses. The pretty bra and knickers come off too. Kenny has ordained that they cut to the action. Naked among the white tiles Belinda feels herself shivering.

Hey, it won’t take long. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.

‘Kenny,’ she calls through the closed door. ‘Turn out the light.’

‘Whatever you say, sunshine.’

The lamp clicks off in the bedroom. The bathroom light switch is on the outside of the door. She opens the door a crack and feels for it.

‘Don’t I get a look?’

She opens the bathroom door so that he can see her naked but in silhouette. She stands tall to lift her breasts, and pulls her tummy muscles in. Then she finds the light switch and plunges them into darkness.

As she lies down on the bed beside him he says, ‘We’ve got all the time in the world, gorgeous. I took a little blue pill. Matey’s good for hours.’

No one notices Cas leave the house, which is the way he wants it. It’s Wednesday morning and his mum is out at work. Alan is in his study, Alice is in her room, and the man building the new bathroom is at the top of the house. Cas has not asked if it’s okay to go out because then they’ll want to know where he’s going, and he means it to be a surprise.

Cas is going to visit his half-father Guy in London.

He’s been planning the journey for days. He’s wearing his camouflage coat, which is warm and waterproof and zips up to his chin. He’s going to go by train. He’s copied down Guy’s address and phone number from the computer. Guy lives at 19 Windsor Street N1. Cas knows Guy will be pleased to see him, but more than that he’ll be amazed that Cas has come all by himself. That’s really what Cas is doing it for, that look of amazement on Guy’s face. He’s taking Roboguy with him in a Tesco carrier bag. He wants to show Guy the dance he can now make Roboguy do.

The station is close to where they live. He finds it without difficulty and goes through the swing doors into the ticket office. There’s a long queue for tickets. Cas thinks that as a child he doesn’t need a ticket, but just in case he’s brought some money with him. He borrowed the money from his mum’s purse. He has a ten pound note.

Into the ticket office comes a chattering laughing swarm of children accompanied by several adults. The children are older than Cas, but not much. There must be twenty of them at least. Cas watches them, wondering if they have to have tickets. One of them, a stocky girl in a pink tracksuit, sees him staring at her and puts her tongue out at him.

The grown-ups with them start to herd the children through the side gate. The station man holds the gate open for them. He doesn’t ask to see any tickets. So Cas knows he’s right and he doesn’t need a ticket. He follows the children through the gate, and down the steps to the platform.

He doesn’t need his ten pounds after all. He’s pleased about that. He can put it back in Mum’s purse and she’ll never know.

There turn out to be several platforms. The crowd of children line up on the platform by the café. They want to go into the café but the grown-ups won’t let them. They have to wait for the train to come.

Cas goes into the café because he’s travelling on his own and has no grown-up to stop him. He thinks he might spend some of his ten pounds there. He examines the cakes on display in the glass case on the counter. There’s flapjacks and there’s chocolate brownies. Behind the counter a man in a black apron is pouring tea and singing to himself. Cas likes brownies best, but only if they’re gooey inside. Some brownies are dry inside, like ordinary cake. It’s much the same with flapjacks. You don’t want the hard kind, and you don’t want the dusty kind. You want the chewy kind. These ones are all wrapped in clear plastic wrappings, and kept under a glass lid, so you can’t even squeeze one to find out.

A train comes roaring into the platform.

‘Does that train go to London?’ Cas says to the man with the teapot.

‘Certainly does, young man.’

Cas hurries outside and sees the herd of children getting onto the train. They must all be going to London too. No surprise there. That’s where people go on trains.

He gets into the same carriage as them, but doesn’t sit too close, because he doesn’t like the girl in the pink tracksuit. His seat has a fold-down table in front. He folds it down and it makes a screamy noise. Hastily he folds it up again.

The train leaves the station. Outside the window the fields are grey and the winter trees are bare. For a while he can see the river where there are sometimes swans, but today there are no swans. A crowd of birds flies across the sky. Probably they’re migrating. Cas holds the Tesco bag with Roboguy in it close to his chest and thinks about how surprised Guy will be when he sees him. ‘You came all on your own?’ he’ll say. ‘That’s amazing.’

The train stops at a station, but you can easily tell it’s not London because outside is all fields and white fences. London is all houses. Also the other children aren’t getting off. They’re making a lot of noise, kicking each other and laughing. Cas wonders what they’re going to do in London. Go Christmas shopping, maybe. People do that in London.

Just the name itself excites Cas. London. You can tell from the name how big it is. Cas has never been there before. Mum goes there just about every day. Alan goes there. Alice lives there. Guy lives there. It’s where everything important happens.

Guy’s street, Windsor Street, is the same name the Queen has. It’s the Queen’s last name like Cas’s last name is Strachan, though Alice’s last name is Dickinson, like Mum’s. It could have been Caulder, which is Guy’s last name, since he’s her dad. If Guy was Cas’s dad he’d have called himself Cas Caulder. He asked Alice once if she’d rather be Alice Caulder but she said no.

He wants to pull the fold-out table down again so he can stand Roboguy on it and make him dance but he doesn’t like the screamy noise the table makes. He feels hungry. He wishes he’d bought a flapjack. When you’re really hungry you don’t care if it’s chewy or not.

Outside the window there are buildings now. Big buildings. Now there’s a big car park. It’s huge.

The children are being made to get up and put their backpacks on. It must be London. Some of them are jumping up and down. They’re excited. So Cas gets up. He’s excited too.

The train stops and they all get out. Cas gets out too. He wishes he’d brought his backpack, it’s annoying carrying the Tesco bag, it bangs against his knees. He follows the children down steps, along an underground tunnel, into a ticket hall. And then they all go out into the cold air of a street.

London is very big and strange. There are lots of taxis, and a road beyond where cars pass all the time, nose to tail. A bus is waiting for the children. They all get in, with their grown-ups, and the bus drives away.

Cas stands by the taxis and looks around. There are lots of ways to go. He wonders which way goes to Windsor Street. He wants to do it all himself so that Guy will be amazed, but it’s more confusing than he expected. People keep pushing past him. Cars drive up, car doors open and close, cars go hurrying away. There’s a flower shop and a sandwich shop and across the road a place that sells cars. He’s got Guy’s phone number, he can always call him. But that would spoil the surprise.

He decides to ask the lady in the flower shop.

‘Please, do you know the way to Windsor Street?’

The lady has very thin hair, you can see her head skin through it. She’s wrapping up some flowers for a man.

‘Windsor Street? Can’t say I do, dear.’

The man knows.

‘It’s off the Wivelsfield Road, isn’t it? You go down Sussex Road into Wivelsfield Road, take the first – no, the second right, which is Edward Road, then you take a left into – Lord, I’ll forget my own name next! What’s it called? Vale Road. Left into Vale Road. The next left is Windsor Close.’

His flowers are ready and paid for. The lady is unimpressed.

‘How’s the little lad supposed to remember all that?’

‘Windsor Close. You nearly had me there. Who needs SatNav, eh?’

He leaves the shop. The lady frowns down at Cas.

‘It’s a long way,’ she says. ‘Can’t someone come and fetch you?’

‘It’s where my dad lives,’ says Cas. ‘My half-dad.’

‘I should get him to come and fetch you.’

‘It’s supposed to be a surprise.’

The lady looks at Cas, squeezing her lips together, making the ends of her mouth go down.

‘You got a phone number for your dad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why don’t I call him and tell him you’re at the station?’

‘But then it won’t be a surprise.’

‘Even so, love. You shouldn’t be walking all the way down the Wivelsfield Road by yourself. And I can’t leave the shop to come with you.’

‘Well,’ says Cas, ‘I suppose at least I’ve come this far all on my own.’

He gives the lady Guy’s phone number.

‘What’s your name, pet?’

‘Cas.’

She calls the number. Cas listens intently but can only hear her end of the conversation.

‘Hello?’ she says. ‘I’ve got a little lad here called Cas. He wants you to pick him up from the station.’

She listens to the voice on the phone. Cas doesn’t like it that Guy is talking to the lady and not to him.

‘There’s only the one station,’ the lady says to the phone.

Cas pulls at the lady’s arm.

‘Let me speak to him.’

The lady gives him the phone.

‘Hello?’ says Cas. ‘Is that Guy?’

‘Caspar,’ says Guy’s voice. ‘What’s going on? Where are you?’

‘I’ve come to see you,’ says Cas. ‘I’ve got Roboguy. I can make him do a dance. I’ve come all by myself.’

‘Where are you, Cas?’

‘I’m in London. At the station.’

‘Which station?’

‘You know,’ says Cas. ‘The one the train goes to.’

‘Let me have a word with that woman again.’

Cas gives the lady back the phone. The lady looks flustered.

‘He’s only a little lad,’ she says. ‘He’s got himself into a muddle. He’s in the flower shop by the taxi rank. Betty’s Blooms. I’m Betty. He’s in Haywards Heath.’

Alice has vowed to herself she will finish her short story before Christmas. She’s started stories many times before but has never finished them. Something happens between the first rush of excitement when the story idea forms in her head, and the actual tapping of sentences onto the screen. It’s like cresting a hill on a bicycle: the surge of speed at the start of the descent, so effortless, so purely powerful, then slower and slower until she rolls to the inevitable standstill, all impetus spent. And there ahead, another hill to climb.

She thinks of Alan, pushing himself on, writing a screenplay he no longer believes in. How do you do it?

This is what it comes down to: I can only do things I want to do.

She feels ashamed of herself, but the shame fails to prod her into action. She stares at her laptop screen and she knows with absolute certainty that she will never finish her story. The impulse has gone. She’s lost interest.

What is this fickle interest that lands now here, now there, and always moves on? Its will is stronger than her own. She has become its slave. How do other people, normal people, ever manage to do anything they don’t feel like doing?

Partly it’s the thing about being alone. You need other people to push you along. You need other people to talk it over with, someone to tell how useless you are, someone who says, Hey, you’re not alone. But who? She doesn’t want to interrupt Alan in his work, and her mother is out.

I could call Jack.

She dismisses the thought with a laugh. Jack wants Chloe to call him, not her. But then it strikes her that he may need someone to share his problems with as much as she does. The great thing about her and Jack is they know nothing’s going to happen between them, which makes everything so much easier. It’s like having a gay friend.

She needs a pretext for calling him, even so. She could tell him something about Chloe. Chloe remains the unlikely link between them.

So first she calls Chloe.

Chloe picks up right away. She’s on a train.

‘I expect I’ll go into a tunnel any minute. Any more action your end? Has Jack called you?’

‘Of course he hasn’t called me. It’s you he wants.’

‘Tell him, no chance. Tell him I’m in love.’

‘Are you?’

‘Cra-a-azy in love. I’m so, so, so crazy about this man.’

‘What man?’

‘He’s an older man. That’s all I’m saying. Alice, find yourself a grown-up. Don’t waste your time with boys.’

‘Jesus, Chloe. You don’t hang about. When did this happen?’

‘I met him at the weekend. I’m on my way to him now. We’re going to celebrate our hundredth-hour anniversary together this evening.’

‘Wow! So who is he?’

‘Total secret, babe. I could tell you but I’d have to kill you. Here it comes. Here comes the tunnel. Bye-eee!’

Chloe is swallowed up by the tunnel. Alice remains, alone in her silent room. The drama of Chloe’s love life shines a cold bright light on her own passivity.

Why don’t I go crazy over some man? Young, old, who cares?

Jack can forget his fantasy.

She catches the bitterness in her thought and is ashamed. Even so, she should tell him, shouldn’t she? Every moment he spends pining for Chloe is a wasted moment. At least until Chloe’s current passion has run its course.

She calls Jack. He’s at home, alone in his room like her.

‘It’s about Chloe. I thought you should know. She’s got some other guy.’

‘Yes, I know. She’s got a boyfriend in Exeter.’

‘No, this is a new other guy. An older man.’

Jack goes quiet.

‘It’s all very new. She met him at the weekend.’

‘When she wasn’t meeting me.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Oh, hell.’

He sounds so miserable.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alice says.

‘Back to staring at the wall.’

‘Come over here. Stare at my wall.’

‘Okay.’

As easy as that. No burden of expectation. They like each other’s company. Why not?

Alice makes no attempt to go back to her story now. In her heart she knows she’ll never complete it. But the space around her has stopped oppressing her. She’s no longer becalmed. She’s waiting. Jack’s coming round.

She hears the steady pad-pad-pad of the builder passing shoeless up the stairs. She thinks maybe she’ll go and talk to Cas. Then she thinks she’ll make herself a cup of coffee. But in the end what she does is play some music and sit by the window looking out over the street and wait for Jack.

Cas sat by the window all day, waiting for Guy. When was that? Saturday. Could be five minutes ago, could be a century.

The odd thing is, waiting is okay. Alice doesn’t feel impatient. She feels happier than she’s been all morning. Nothing is happening, but in a little while something will happen. Jack will come. That brings with it no great change in her life. Nothing of any significance will improve. But for now the passing minutes have taken on a direction, and so she is released from passivity. It’s like being on a train, gazing out of the window at the world going by.

Down in the street cars crawl past, jolting over the bumps placed on the road to slow them down. It’s called traffic calming. An odd name, given that what it does is make the cars bounce up and down. Now a car has decided to pull into a parking space and all the others have to wait while it attempts the manoeuvre. Jack will have to park somewhere, most likely in the Priory car park. The parking tickets there are for half an hour, an hour, or two hours. Which one will he get?

Chloe’s known her older man for a hundred hours, almost. Idly, Alice does the sums in her head. That’s four twenty-fours and a few left over, and today is Wednesday. She must have met him on Saturday, after she came round to plot Operation Jack.

A man comes down the street carrying a Christmas tree sleeved in orange netting, its branches flattened to its trunk. Alan says he’s going to get a Christmas tree but he keeps forgetting. Mum says she’s been sick of Christmas since September, because of all the Christmas-themed articles she has to write. A day on a turkey farm. How we secretly love round-robin Christmas letters.

She listens to the music, the song is all about love gone wrong, about what you don’t have, what’s there for a moment and then it’s gone, an electric frustration. Why can’t anyone make it work?

Then there he is, coming up the street, hands in his pockets, head down, not knowing she sees him. Oh, Jack. She runs down the stairs and has the door open before he rings the bell.

They settle in the kitchen. They huddle round the kettle like hunters round the fire. She forages for biscuits and finds Rich Tea. Cas must have finished the cookies.

‘Actually they’re the best for dunking,’ Jack says.

He smiles at her. His voice is soft, defeated.

‘So who’s this older man of Chloe’s?’ he says.

‘She won’t tell me. He’s a secret. I expect he’s married.’

‘Oh, well.’

He dunks with care, balancing the biscuit as he carries it from the mug to his mouth.

‘At least you’ve had a real love affair,’ says Alice. ‘Being broken-hearted is quite glamorous, really.’

‘I’d rather be loved back.’

‘Try option three. Not having anyone in the first place.’

‘I’ve been there too.’

‘I’m still there. It’s like those board games where you have to throw a six to get started. Everyone else is off and running, but I’m still on the edge of the board trying to throw a bloody six.’

She watches him dunking. He leaves his biscuit in far longer than she does hers, but it never breaks.

‘How do you do that?’

‘Years of practice,’ he says. ‘Nerves of steel.’

‘Mine falls off.’

‘Keep it vertical as you take it out. Turning it horizontal subjects it to too much stress.’

She tries it his way.

‘Hey! It works!’

‘Don’t tell everyone.’

‘It’s so soggy.’

‘Melts in the mouth, right?’

For a few moments Alice concentrates on perfecting her dunking technique. As she does so she ponders the enigma of Chloe. How is it that someone as clever and interesting as Jack cares about someone as obvious as Chloe?

‘So what is it about Chloe?’ she says.

‘What’s what about Chloe?’

‘Why do boys go for her? Why do you go for her?’

‘Oh.’ He looks uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know, really.’

‘I mean, I know she’s pretty and everything. But I mean, how does that work? Why does being pretty matter so much?’

‘Christ, Alice, I’ve no idea. Maybe it’s evolution.’

‘But how? Why should our genes care about prettiness? It’s not as if it’s got anything to do with survival, or fertility, or the things genes care about.’

‘I suppose it’s like flowers attracting bees.’

‘Bees go to the boring flowers too.’

‘Do they?’

‘Animals don’t only go for the pretty ones. If you’re a dog any bitch will do so long as she’s on heat.’

Jack blinks at that.

‘Well, sorry. But it’s true.’

‘Even so,’ says Jack. ‘We’re not dogs. Or bees. It’s all much more complicated.’

‘So tell me. Maybe I can learn something. God knows, I need to.’

Jack frowns, and dunks, and thinks.

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘It is all very odd. I’m actually not all that interested in Chloe, but I really want … It’s something physical.’

‘Yes, Jack. It’s called sex. But why her?’

Jack tries to work it out. She can see him interrogating his own responses.

‘When you look at Chloe,’ he says, ‘you get this feeling she’d be good to kiss.’ He looks up, suddenly concerned. ‘Do you really want to hear this?’

‘Yes, I absolutely do. Go on.’

‘You feel like she wants to be kissed. And cuddled. You feel like she wants it.’

‘How does she make you feel that?’

‘It’s how she looks at you. How her body is. I don’t know. She just really makes you feel like – like – you know.’

‘I can guess.’

He grins at her little ruefully.

‘But how?’ Alice persists. ‘Just by being pretty?’

‘Not exactly. More because she’s …’

Once again he runs out of words.

‘Because she’s up for it?’

‘Maybe.’

‘But it can’t be that, Jack. If it was then any girl could get any boy just by being easy. And you know it doesn’t work like that.’

‘No. No.’ He’s still puzzling it out. ‘I think it’s about how Chloe makes you feel about yourself. You don’t feel useless with Chloe. You feel quite good, actually. Like you’re quite a guy.’

‘Aha!’

‘Aha what?’

‘I bet that’s it. I hadn’t thought of that. She makes you feel manly. She’s all girly-girly sexy, and that makes you feel manly. Boys like that, don’t they? They worry a lot about how manly they are.’

‘Do they?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Well, I do, it’s true.’

‘And you’ve got to feel manly to do it. I mean, you’ve got to, haven’t you? Or it doesn’t work. So the more girly the girl is the more manly the boy feels, and that makes him want to do it with her.’

Jack doesn’t deny this.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he says. ‘You do really want to feel wanted. Not just because you’re a nice guy. You want to feel physically wanted. Actually you can’t really believe that would ever happen. But it’s what you want.’

‘Oh, Jack.’

‘Am I talking bollocks?’

‘No. It’s just so exactly how a girl feels, too. Oh, God. Why does it all have to be so difficult?’

‘There’s something else, too. Something a bit rubbish.’

‘Come on, then. We might as well go all the way.’

‘You want your friends to fancy your girlfriend.’

‘Why wouldn’t you? What’s so rubbish about that?’

‘It’s just that you want it quite a lot.’

‘And that’s all about looks.’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Though here’s a question. Suppose there was a girl who was okay-looking, not gorgeous, not a dog. Suppose all your friends fancied her. Would that make you fancy her too?’

Jack nods slowly.

‘I suppose Hannah was like that,’ he says. ‘She wasn’t gorgeous.’

‘She wasn’t gorgeous but you fell in love with her.’

‘She was beautiful. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she was beautiful.’

Alice gazes at Jack in an awed silence.

‘What?’ he says.

‘You loved her, so she became beautiful.’

A statement not a question.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh my God. So it’s true.’

The phone rings, making them both jump.

‘It’s okay,’ Alice says. ‘Alan’ll pick it up.’