Seeing Other People (40 page)

‘But we’ve got unfinished business.’ She reached out and took my hand. ‘That night, the night you were attacked, I was hoping you were going to come over and meet me, don’t you remember?’

‘All too clearly.’ I pulled my hand away from her.

‘So now you’re playing the innocent? I saw the way you were looking at me that day in the café. You wanted me like I wanted you. It’s just the guilt talking but there’s no need to feel guilty. We’re both adults here. No one needs to get hurt. And anyway, it’s like they say, you only live once.’

You. Only. Live. Once.

There it was again: the blank cheque to absolve us from all our responsibilities.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ I said, looking her straight in the eye. ‘You do only live once so you’ve got to get it right, and this, you and me, isn’t right. I have the life I want, it’s just taken me a while to realise that.’

Bella laughed. ‘Have you any idea how many guys would jump at the chance to be with me? I could have any man I want.’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘You can’t.’ And without another word I walked away.

As I emerged from Lewisham station an hour later and began my walk home I went over the events of the day in my head. Had I been too blunt with Bella? After all I was the one who was married, not her. But I’d had to make it clear that nothing was ever going to happen between us. She was undeniably beautiful but it was the attention she’d paid me I’d really been attracted to. When I’d felt invisible she alone had seen me, and that in turn had made me look at myself in a new light. But it was only ever going to end badly. Penny and the kids were my world, they were all I wanted, and thanks to everything I’d learned all I needed too. I’d never been so grateful to be me, never been so thankful to come home.

The house was in darkness as I approached, which was odd as Penny and the kids should’ve been back a couple of hours before but then I wondered whether Penny had had some sort of emergency at work and I’d missed a call from her to collect the kids from the childminder. I checked my phone but there were no messages and so I let myself in and switched on the hallway light. I called out a hello but the house was deadly quiet. I felt a sense of panic rise up within me as I recalled how silent the house had been in the dream world the day the kids had gone missing. I dialled Penny’s number but it went straight to voicemail. I headed to the kitchen hoping she might have left a note on the fridge door. As I reached for the kitchen light there was a peal of giggles followed by a roar of ‘Surprise!’ I flicked the switch and illuminated a room filled not only with balloons, banners and a table groaning with party food but all of my friends and family too.

‘I know my memory isn’t what it used to be but I’m pretty sure it’s not my birthday . . . is it?’

Penny laughed, throwing her arms around me. ‘It was all the kids’ doing. This morning on the way to school I asked them what they wanted to do tonight and without any kind of prompting they both said that we should throw a party for you.’

‘But why?’

‘It’s like Rosie explained to me this morning after giving me a detailed description of the cake we should buy for you: you shouldn’t always have to wait for something big to happen to celebrate. Sometimes you want to throw a party just because you’re happy. And we are Joe, aren’t we?’

‘Yes,’ I replied as the kids came to join us in our embrace. ‘I couldn’t be any happier.’

It was late by the time the last of the revellers had gone and having sent the kids upstairs to get ready for bed we managed to get halfway through clearing up the kitchen before I suggested that we leave the rest until morning. Like me, Penny was shattered, and so thankfully she agreed without hesitation and we made our way upstairs.

Jack was fast asleep when we looked in on him. He was sprawled across the bed in his usual style with an arm and a leg poking out from underneath his Spiderman covers. Penny tucked both limbs out of the cold, kissed his head and whispered in his ear, ‘Good night, my sweet boy.’ I kissed him too and then we left the room careful to position the door just the way he liked it – not so open that monsters could come in and get him but not so closed that we couldn’t hear him if he called out in the night.

It didn’t feel right not to check in with Rosie too and sure enough she was also asleep with a book open on her chest and her hand still clutching the frog she’d owned since she was a baby. I took the book from her hands, tucked the frog under the duvet next to her and then we both kissed our girl goodnight.

‘They’re still so small,’ whispered Penny as we stood in the darkness of the hallway.

‘I know,’ I murmured. ‘They’re tiny.’

Climbing into bed I leaned over to kiss a sleepy Penny goodnight when there was a familiar tapping on the bedroom door and silhouetted against the light from the hallway was Jack clutching his favourite teddy.

His voice was tired and fragile. ‘I had a bad dream,’ he said plaintively. ‘Can I get in with you?’

Watching him in the doorway looking so small and thin it was impossible to reject him.

I hadn’t finished pulling back the covers before Jack had wriggled into his rightful spot between me and Penny.

‘This is the best place in the world to be,’ he said, nestling in the crook of my arm, ‘I don’t ever want to be anywhere else.’

I hoped that Jack might drift off now that he was in our bed but it wasn’t much of a surprise when it didn’t happen. Instead for the next few minutes it was question after question of the ‘Who’s your favourite superhero?’ and ‘Daddy, why does the inside of my head feel itchy sometimes?’ variety which only stopped when Rosie knocked at the door and asked to join us too. Once she’d spotted Jack however she didn’t even bother to wait for Penny and me to reply. She simply squeezed herself in next to her brother and after a few minutes of bickering both children were soon fast asleep. A few minutes more and Penny was snoring gently too, leaving me lying awake in the darkness, grinning like an idiot. Between all that had happened and everything that I thought had happened I was exhausted and more than a little bewildered but I was home at last, where I belonged. Jack was right: this bed with my family in it really was the best place in the world to be.

One Year Later

‘Rosie, you move left a bit . . . Jack, tuck your head in . . . Melody, you’re fine where you are and Tom, just straighten your back, mate, so the whole thing doesn’t collapse when we put Suzuki on top.’

I picked up a grinning Suzuki still wet from the sea, his wetsuit caked in sand, and placed him on top of the human pyramid Van had spent the past twenty minutes constructing.

A cheer went up from the assembled crowd of parents and partners: Paul and his fiancée were shouting words of encouragement; Van’s new girlfriend was furiously snapping away at the scene with her camera phone; and Stewart was hovering around the back of the kids with me ready to steady any wobbling child. In front of this tiny gymnastic formation stood Penny, looking on through eyes half covered by her hands, laughing in spite of herself. A few seconds later, a sneeze from Jack and the whole thing fell apart. There were kids everywhere, but thankfully no tears or major injuries.

Penny came up behind me and put her arms around my waist. ‘When you said you wanted to go on holiday with your divorced dad mates I thought you’d lost your mind but this has got to be the best fun I’ve had in ages!’

I grinned and kissed her hand. ‘I always knew it would be.’

The guys and I had been friends for nearly a year now after Van called me out of the blue one day and asked if I wanted to join him and the other guys for a drink. It completely threw him when my reaction to his question was to laugh uncontrollably and agree to meet them without the merest hint of resistance but my biggest reaction came when he named the pub we were to meet in: the Red Lion on Wood Green High Street. I couldn’t believe it. What were the chances of Van choosing the same pub as the one in my dream? The only thing I could think was that he must have mentioned it to me in passing on the day of the photoshoot before I was mugged. Spooky coincidences aside however, the guys and I got on like a house on fire that night in part because they were all so easy-going but mostly I suspect because I felt so well disposed towards them thanks to my dream memories. Over the next few months even though the real me had a lot less in common with them than the dream me, we became good friends. In fact it was I who suggested the holiday one wet April evening when we were in the pub celebrating Paul’s engagement to his girlfriend, but funnily enough it was Stewart who made it all happen when he turned up at the pub the following week with a plan of where we should go and what we should do. And now we were here it felt odd because very little of it so far was how I remembered it being: Paul and Van both had new partners and Stewart’s kids were here on holiday thanks to improving relations with his ex and, of course, I was here with Penny.

Desperate to get back into the sea the kids grabbed Penny by the arm. ‘We want you to come in with us, Mum, you’ll love it. The water’s freezing but you get used to it after a while.’

‘Can’t wait,’ said Penny, pulling a face over her shoulder as she was forcibly manoeuvred to the water’s edge. ‘If I’m not back in five minutes I’m counting on you to stage a rescue.’

Grinning as I watched them go, I thought to myself how wonderful it was to have Penny count on me for anything. When I remember how close I’d come to taking the wrong path and losing it all it still makes me shudder, especially when I think about Penny falling for Scott and the kids moving to Harrogate even though none of it really happened.

And boy was I grateful that dreams didn’t come true. Especially when it came to applying to secondary schools for Rosie. Penny thought I’d lost the plot when I’d insisted that I had a ‘gut feeling’ Rosie wouldn’t get into Watermill Lane, and started looking on RightMove for potential new homes near good schools in Sussex that we either couldn’t afford or could at a pinch if we spent our whole lives commuting. On the day we heard the news that Rosie in fact been offered a place at Watermill Lane I could barely believe it and had to read the email three times before the news actually sank in. ‘You have the worst “gut feeling” in the world,’ Penny had chided me that evening as we’d celebrated the news with the kids in Nando’s.

And as for Penny and me we were better than ever. Yes, we were both still working long hours in the same jobs, and some weeks it felt like we hadn’t had five minutes alone to catch up with each other, but despite it all I didn’t doubt who we were or what we stood for and when we did get time together we made sure that it counted. And yes, we were still in the middle of our lives and in the middle of our relationship. But none of that mattered now because we were in this together, walking side by side along the same road towards a brighter future.

Later that afternoon, having grown tired of acrobatics, the whole group of us went for a stroll along the beach. While the kids walked ahead by the edge of the water we lagged behind talking about how odd it was that we were all friends.

‘On paper you wouldn’t think it would work,’ said Van. ‘You know with me being a rock legend and all and you guys being mere mortals.’

Paul laughed. ‘As someone who has seen you play live I can only agree.’

‘To give him his dues,’ added Stewart, ‘he does know how to party.’

‘Funnily enough,’ I said, joining the conversation. ‘I’ve been meaning to take Penny to a Man Halen gig for the longest time.’

‘We should make it a date,’ said Penny. ‘It’s years since I’ve been to a gig. Probably at least twenty.’ She nudged me playfully with her elbow. ‘If you play your cards right I might even dig out my black woollen tights and eyeliner just for the occasion.’

I stopped and stared at Penny. ‘What did you just say?’

She looked at me, concerned. ‘I said I might even dig out my black woollen tights and eyeliner just for the occasion. Have I said something wrong? You’re looking at me like it’s a really big deal.’

How to tell her that it was? Her words were exactly the ones she’d said to me in the dream world when I’d invited her to see Van’s band play.

I opened my mouth to speak but before I could say a word the kids started calling us and we went over to see what the commotion was all about.

‘Look what someone’s done,’ said Rosie, pointing. She was standing in front of a huge heart drawn in the sand with an arrow running through it. In the centre it said, ‘J.C. 4 P.C. forever.’

Rosie looked at me accusingly. ‘J.C. and P.C., that’s you and Mum: Joe Clarke and Penny Clarke. When did you do this?’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been with you guys all day.’

Rosie pulled a face. ‘Mum, you’re always telling me and Jack not to lie, tell Dad to tell the truth.’

‘But I am telling you the truth,’ I protested.

Penny laughed. ‘I wouldn’t say Dad’s lying exactly, I think he’s just pulling our legs, aren’t you, Joe?’

‘I’m not pulling anything. I’m telling you I didn’t do that.’

‘Well then, maybe it’s just a coincidence.’

Rosie stared at me, hands on hips. ‘But there’s no one else around! Do you honestly think we believe that some random J.C. happened to stop here just before we arrived to draw a big heart in the sand to tell another random P.C. that he loved her? I don’t think so!’