One Thing Led to Another (25 page)

‘The Ex Sex was incredible, far better than it had ever been when we were actually going out. A month after we’d done it for the fourth time – drunk of course, after a wedding – I found out I was pregnant. “You’re not going to keep it, are you?” he said, the fear of God in his eyes. “Yes,” I said, “Of course I’m going to keep it. It’s the only good thing I’m ever likely to get from you.”’

Sufia, 35, Manchester

‘Needs a lick of paint, a bit of updating but space wise, you ain’t gonna get better than this for the money,’ says Craig from Kinleigh Folkard and Heyworth (or Kinleigh Fuck Hard and Pay Less as Jim and I have taken to calling it), throwing the keys up and down in his hand.

We’re at the second viewing of a flat in Camberwell. A second floor, one bed flat in a faded Victorian mansion block. It’s got potential – light, high ceilings and for the price (£189,000 – right at the top of my budget) it’s big. But nobody’s lived in it for years and apart from a pink mattress pushed up against the wall, there’s no sign of life. I look around it, struggling to imagine myself living there.

‘Is there an option to knock this wall through and then create two bedrooms and make the bedroom into a lounge?’ says Jim, knocking on the wall as if he knows what he’s talking about.

Craig from KFH strokes his goatee – trimmed within an inch of his job – and repositions his feet, wider still. ‘I can’t see why not,’ he shrugs. ‘But wouldn’t you just rather have one big bedroom?

‘She’s expecting a baby in December,’ says Jim, his voice echoes in the empty space. ‘So an opportunity to make it into a two bedroom flat, would be ideal.’

‘Oh, congratulations…’ Craig’s eyes plunge to my cleavage. ‘I did wonder if you might be expecting.’ He suddenly frowns. ‘But, so…’ the cognitive process is obviously just spluttering into action, ‘why are you not looking for a place together?’

‘We’re not together,’ says Jim. I’m hurt how readily.

‘Oh, right,’ the concentration is etched on Craig’s face. ‘But the baby…?’

‘Is mine,’ says Jim.

Craig pulls a face.

‘It’s complicated,’ I say with a half-hearted smile.

Craig nods, clearly embarrassed that he now seems to be witnessing the messy aftermath of a nasty split. Why would he know we’d never even been together?

‘Well, being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, that’s for sure,’ he says, carrying on breezily. ‘Our little bruiser’s five months now. My missus said the worst thing was the breastfeeding coz, er…I couldn’t exactly help her with that bit!’ When he laughs, he reveals a set of perfect veneers. ‘But, I mean…’ he puffs out air through his lips then assumes a solemn face, like putting on mask. ‘I can’t imagine what it must be like on your own.’

Jim’s stretches his lips as if to say sorry. I shrug. I’m used to this now, then give Craig my best empty smile.

Is this what I have to look forward to? Being a pitiful figure in society’s eyes? Craig from KFH will probably go back to his wife and say ‘quit your whinging, woman, I saw a girl in a hell of a worse state than you today.’ He probably thinks Jim’s a total bastard and just dumped me, which of course could not be further from the truth.

I stroke the walls of the flat – flakes of peeling paint fall to the ground. I try to think of something to say that sounds like I really want it. Like I’m a serious buyer.

‘So I could definitely convert this room into two then?’ Craig nods. Jim smiles encouragingly. ‘But what about the décor? I mean…’ I’m looking for any excuse to not take the flat. The thought of leaving my cocoon at Jim’s fills me with a nauseating dread.

‘It’s purely cosmetic,’ says Jim. His face is animated, full of enthusiasm. ‘You’ve got to imagine what it’ll look like when you’ve got all your own stuff in. And I’ll help you decorate. Me and Awful could do it in a weekend.’

Yeah, alright I want to say. You don’t need to be so bloody positive about it all. You could be more devastated to see me go.

‘I think you should put an offer in,’ says Jim. Craig looks at the floor and taps one, shiny shoe, eager not to look too pushy but I can practically hear the £ signs rotating in his eye sockets.

‘It’s a great location, it’s got loads of potential and it’s big, Tess. Better a big flat that needs work than a swanky one you couldn’t swing a cat in.’

‘So, er…is that a yes then?’ ventures Craig, when Jim and I have stood looking at each other for a few moments, both trying and failing to read each other’s thoughts.

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it’s definitely a yes.’ I’m smiling, there’s no way I want Jim to see how I’m really feeling but my throat aches with the effort of it all.

We decide on an offer of £185,500, Craig calls the vendors and it’s accepted on the spot.

‘Awesome!’ beams Craig. He attempts to give me a high five but my hand misses and almost smacks the side of his head. ‘You just got yourself a belter of a flat.’

Jim steps forward and gives me a big hug. As I hold him tight, possibly longer and tighter than I should, I am sure I feel him pull away.

One thing that’s been happening since we went to Whitstable is that Jim’s been going out a lot more. It’s like those first few weeks we lived together when we used to stay in and just chat were a novelty, and now he’s eager to keep his distance. I feel more alone in the house somehow, like we’re not a unit, albeit a somewhat unconventional one, anymore.

Jim pops his head around my bedroom door where I’m lying on my bed reading the
Bundle of Joy
book. ‘So er…see you later then.’

‘OK. Go easy on Awful, you know what a light-weight he is. I don’t want him getting another crippling hangover and you breaking another toe covering his lesson.’

‘Yes dear,’ jokes Jim, then he cranes his neck to get a look at what I’m reading. ‘You still reading that book then?’

‘Looks like it,’ I say, suddenly self-conscious. ‘I’m on number ninety-six so just another five to go.’

Jim’s face disappears from my door then reappears and hesitates as if he’s not sure whether to speak or not.

‘You’re not obsessing about what I said to you, are you?’ he says. ‘You know, about how you were always comparing us and should read some more of those stories if, you really want to know about real life.’

‘No, don’t worry, I’m not that paranoid!’ I lie.

‘Good. I wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up. Now I’ll probably be late so I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘Have a good one.’

I hear the click of the front door and then the silence descends, deafening as a storm. I lie there, the book laid on my bump and I look around at this room that won’t be mine soon, that will be our baby’s room, not even a room in my house. Will it be a girl’s? All flower fairies and gingham? Or will it be a boy’s, with pirates and trains? I imagine Jim coming in here in the middle of the night to soothe our baby to sleep when I’m not here. Will
he
be OK on his own, let alone me? It’s, like, we’re both fast-tracking to single parents status, without having practised as a couple first.

I get up off the bed and on some sort of auto-pilot, go into Jim’s room. It smells of him – of Lynx (Jim’s never been one for aftershave), the papery smell of bookshops, the slightly metallic and woody smell of school.

I browse his shelves full of books. Books that tell a million stories, not just the one between the covers. There’s a Faber and Faber collection of war poetry, lots of Iain Banks, every single William Boyd. There’s a 1970s handbook entitled:
How to Get Defined Abs in Thirty Days
sporting a picture of a man in knee socks and very short shorts. On the bottom shelf there’s the Asterix collection (trendy cool) the Famous Five (classically cool) and a series about a pony called Gill (
Gill’s Gymkhana
,
Gill’s New Stable…)
– not so cool at all, he kept quiet about that one).

I sit on his bed then lie back onto the tartan pillows. They smell of boy, of Jim. I take the photo – that same photo in the red frame of us in Norfolk – and I hold it close to my face, then up above me so I can see it in the weak evening light. Gina and Vicks leaning into each other, me, already a shitty shade of brown after one day in the sun, sitting on the deckchair, leaning into Jim. I look closely at my face, and I see it now, like seeing a vital clue in a forensic photo.

All that stuff about it being a ridiculous idea to ask him
out, that Jim’s rejection saved me from myself, was a lie, a total lie! Inside I was crushed, in some small way I suppose I always have been. But I put it to the back of my mind and I tried to believe what Jim told me: we were friends, soul-mates. Best not to ruin it, eh? And besides, how can you be in love with someone who’s not in love with you back?

But I seem to have managed it nonetheless. Because I
am
in love, I am ridiculously in love with Jim Ashcroft: His skinniness, in all its Scottish, transluscent glory, his stupid bouncy walk and his worrying taste in ties. I love the way he stirs his tea for
hours,
how he uses a letter knife to open his post. I love to watch as he reads a newspaper, mouthing the words, and want to lay him down and ravish him when he comes in from football all sweaty and alive. But most of all I love the way he takes things as he finds them – me included – like it would never occur to him to be so arrogant as to want to change
anyone.

I put the photo back and am overwhelmed with a sense of missing Jim, of wanting to be near him, of sadness that I, we, seem to have totally screwed this up. Fucking hell Tess, Why didn’t you push it? push it when we were in Whitstable, tell him how you feel? Take a risk!

I have a sudden urge to look at the baby pictures he showed me the other night. I want to imagine what our baby will look like. I want to feel close to Jim.

I remember he kept the photos in albums in a long white Ikea box. I lay on the floor and look under his bed, rammed full with old trainers and three inches of dust. I see the white box and start to pull it out but then another box, a dark red one next to it, catches my eye. It has a little label on the side: ‘letters and stuff’ written in Jim’s writing, in bright green pen.

Curiosity gets the better of me. I slide it out, put it on the bed, then get up on the bed too and open it, sitting cross-legged. Inside, there are a few letters from his mum which I
don’t look at, that feels too private and some sweet postcards from Annalisa. They’re all about people Jim’s probably never heard of, a Reiki convention she went to, the fact her ex is about to have his house repossessed and all signed off: I kiss you, lost boy! She’s barmy, Annalisa, nutty as they come, but she ‘got’ Jim, and she was probably secretly gutted when he emailed to tell her our news, even though she’d never have said.

There’s two letters from Ken Livingstone’s office (
Dear Mr Ashcroft, I am sorry to hear you feel you must dispute your parking fine…
) – and a collection of postcards tied together with an elastic band. I know I recognize the writing on them, but I can’t quite place it. Then as I see where they’re from – two from Lake Malawi, one from Harare, one from a safari camp in Chobe, Botswana – I realize that the writing is mine.

I take one, the one from Malawi and angle Jim’s poise lamp so I can see it clearly:

Dear Jim, it says.

Am ill, (could s**t through the eye of a needle as my dad would say) which is why am lying in my tent writing this now. Not the best week: had camera nicked at Lilongwe station, got so caned on Malawi Gold hash cakes (was upset about camera) that I hallucinated, fell down ditch and sprained my ankle and now this, clearly the onset of malaria. Missing you guys like mad, especially you, miss our deep chats and your impressions of Broke-Snell. (Does she still drop a foie-gras-flavoured one every time she leaves? Hee hee!) Call me you b***rd! (V’s got the number of this camp.) See you soon (if I don’t die before then, that is), Love ya loads Tess xxx

So he got them, he got the postcards! But he never mentioned them. So I was right. I put the elastic band back around them,
just the way Jim had done before me, so that they are contained, compartmentalized, filed for no future use.

I put them back in the box, slide it back under his bed, then go downstairs and eat two bowls of Frosties without the milk because we haven’t got any and I can’t be bothered to go and get some.

I watch
When a Man Loves a Woman
on DVD, more because I just want to have a good cry than because I actually want to see it (I know the lines off by heart). And it does the job, I cry my eyes out. And then at eleven o’clock, I hear the key turn in the lock which makes me jump because I wasn’t expecting Jim back so early and I look a total state: swollen eyes, swollen lips, the works.

‘You’re back early,’ I say, having turned the DVD onto TV and slapped my face a bit in a last ditch attempt to look normal.

‘
Jesus,
’ gasps Jim. ‘Look at your face. You’ve been crying?’

‘Doesn’t take much,’ I say, forcing a smile, gesturing to the empty DVD box. ‘It’s a right weepy, gets me every time.’

Jim just stands there looking at me. He knows I’m bull-shitting and that surely just watching a film, even a tear-jerker, can’t render anyone in this state. He takes off his coat and sits down on the chair opposite, not on the sofa next to me, I notice.

‘It’s the moving thing isn’t it?’ he says, so softly it makes me well up again.

‘Yeah, I s’pose. It freaked me out a bit.’

‘Look, I’m not going to chuck you out before the baby comes,’ he says, as if that’s going to make me feel less like a stranger in my own (albeit) temporary home than I already do.

‘I know,’ I say, chin trembling. ‘But I don’t want to outstay my welcome, you know. And I have to get used to this idea of being a single mum, Jim. This is going to be my life, my future.’

Jim sighs, looks at the floor, then at me again, his face serious.

‘Look, if it makes a difference, I really feel for you, OK? I probably haven’t been very sympathetic, getting at you for being ungrateful and you probably feel like you have to hide your feelings now. But I know it must be tough for you getting your head around being a single mum, the flat, moving out, everything happening so fast.’