The New Woman (36 page)

‘Half the women in that house are after you, Jim. You’ve made me feel a whole lot better about myself. I’m so grateful.’

‘God. Please don’t be grateful! Anything but gratitude. It implies . . . what does it imply? . . . polite obligation. I was hoping for something quite a lot more passionate.’

‘All right. I’ll try to be ungrateful.’

‘Better.’

I collected my thoughts. There were things I had to say, and I wanted to get it right.

‘You and I go way back,’ I said. ‘You know how much I value that. You’re top of the list of men I’m tempted to sleep with. In fact, you
are
the list.’

‘But?’

‘But . . . Luke.’

‘Eilish, Luke’s been gone for months.’ He sounded exasperated, and I didn’t blame him.

‘Nearly six,’ I agreed. ‘And I’m about to apply for decree absolute.’

‘And he’s about to become a woman. I like him, I admire what he’s doing, and I really do hope he’ll be happy . . . but you’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you, and you deserve to be happy too.’

One last firework shot up. A rocket; brightly coloured. It hung high above the horizon before bursting apart with a distant crackle.

I sighed. ‘You’re right. That’s why I thought perhaps I could let go now, tonight, and start a new life; but it doesn’t work like that. I can’t just forget the last thirty years and fall joyously into bed with you. Not yet, anyway. I’m very, very sorry, because it would have been a lot of fun.’

‘It would.’

He was silent for a time. I heard him shift in his chair.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I can take rejection on the chin. What I want to hear from you is a promise that this won’t change things. We were bloody good friends before—and we still are. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘And you promise to call on me if you need anything?’

‘I promise.’

‘And you’ll come inside now, and help me hand out cups of coffee to fifty drunk people?’

‘I’d be honoured,’ I said.

He stood up, and reached for my hand.

Thirty-seven

Luke

On New Year’s Day, I woke to a hangover and low spirits. The emotion of the night before had worn off and left me flat. For a time, I found I couldn’t even get out of bed. It would take too much effort to get dressed or make coffee or eat. I’d felt like this before, and I feared it. ‘Watch out for depression,’ Usha had said. ‘Be alert to it.’

I wondered whether it might help to go to a local cafe, just for some human company; but I pictured myself sitting alone at a table, surrounded by couples and families all in holiday mode. I picked up the phone to call Eilish, then remembered she’d been to a party and might not appreciate her no-good cross-dressing husband waking her. Anyway, what if she wasn’t alone? What if she and Jim . . . ? Appalling possibility. It made me feel far, far worse.

I had to fight this descent. I had to get up and get going, to behave like a useful human being with a role in life. I decided to go into Bannermans, where I had plenty to be getting on with. At that thought I took a shower and dressed in Luke’s going-into-work-on-a-public-holiday clothes: corduroy trousers, a collared shirt and a jersey. It was a costume that felt more and more alien. My hair was becoming too long for conventionality now, curling
down the back of my neck. On a whim I pulled a ribbon out of the drawer and tied my greying locks into a ponytail. It was a very small ponytail, like a paintbrush, and it looked silly—ageing rocker meets square solicitor—but it felt rebellious and made me smile, so I left it there.

Our divorce was well underway. Papers lay beside the toaster where I’d thrown them in disgust, but I couldn’t ignore them forever. I leafed through the pile, wondering whether today was the day to tackle them once and for all. I had already offered far more than half of our joint assets to Eilish, including Smith’s Barn, but it seemed that her solicitor was not a trusting person. She wanted bank statements; she wanted valuations; she wanted details about the pension; she wanted sworn affidavits; she wanted exhaustive lists. All of this was leading inexorably towards decree absolute, the death knell of our marriage.

I was shovelling the papers into my briefcase when I heard the sound of shoes on the area steps, and a female voice. Tearing the ribbon out of my hair, I swung around to peer through the window. The door was locked and bolted; there was no need for me to behave like a scared rabbit. The next moment I saw who it was and my heart leaped—I mean really, it leaped with joy. I rushed to the door, fumbled with the locks and threw it open.

And there they were. Carmela stood in jeans and boots and padded jacket, looking nervous. A bright-eyed baby gazed at me over her shoulder, strapped to her back by a band of cloth. Holding his mother’s hand, hopping from foot to foot and yelling,
Grandpa!
at the top of his lungs, was a small boy whom I loved.

‘Happy New Year,’ said Carmela.

Five minutes later, Nico was drinking hot milk and looking at me over his mug, talking and talking because he had a million things to say. I was sitting with one arm around his shoulder, ruffling his hair. Carmela had taken Rosa from her back and was feeding
her (
She gets milk from there
, Nico whispered knowledgeably.
It doesn’t hurt Mummy because Rosa hasn’t got any teeth yet
).

‘Carmela, does . . .’ I stopped, and reframed the question. Nico had big ears. ‘Have you notified all parties of this official visit?’

She raised one eyebrow. ‘Not yet. All parties have been called out to an emergency involving a canine and a large red passenger service vehicle.’ I think she saw my concern, because she smiled. ‘Don’t worry about the reaction of all parties. It’s my problem.’

Distracted by our talking, Rosa stopped sucking and tried to pull herself upright. She was a curious little thing, interested in all the goings-on in her world. I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

‘Would you like to hold her?’ Carmela asked me.

‘Could I?’

By way of a reply, she lowered my granddaughter into my arms.

She had tiny curling feet, and round cheeks. I held her carefully, mesmerised by such miniature perfection. At first she whimpered and looked back at Carmela, but when I said her name she turned her head to see who I was. Her fingers closed around my shirt front. Nico tickled her toes while I burbled nonsense and made idiotic grinning faces, tucking her closer into my arms so that she felt secure. Suddenly, she seemed to get the joke. Her mouth opened and her face split into a toothless smile.

‘She likes you, Grandpa,’ said Nico.

I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. For the second time in twelve hours, I was in tears.

Simon

He was on duty over New Year, so he had to keep off the booze. Probably a good thing. There were two calls in the night but neither concerned anything life-threatening. The first real emergency came at seven, just as he was stepping out of the shower.

‘Fred Bibby here,’ said a quiet voice. ‘My dog’s Floss. Wire-haired terrier.’

After a moment’s thought, Simon remembered. Fred Bibby was an ex-serviceman in his eighties, and Floss was a complete airhead.

He reached for his clothes, dressing as he talked. ‘Go ahead, Mr Bibby. What’s up?’

The old man sounded asthmatic, wheezing with each breath. ‘She took off after a bloody cat. Wouldn’t come back no matter how much I called, got across the road, and I thought she’d be all right, but then she turned around, tried to get back to me and jumped out right in front of the bus. Wasn’t the driver’s fault. He was white as a sheet, white as a sheet, you never saw a man so upset. She can’t get up. Can I bring her in?’

Simon was dressed and grabbing his car keys in three minutes flat. His family were eating breakfast in their nightclothes.

‘You have to go?’ asked Carmela.

‘’Fraid so.’

‘How long will you be?’

‘Hard to say. Maybe not long. Not many dogs get hit by buses and live to tell the tale.’ He kissed each of them. Rosa waved her arms and beamed at him. She was four months old now, and undeniably a person in her own right.

As it turned out, Floss had been lucky. Her pelvis was fractured but the prognosis was good. Simon stayed at the surgery for the rest of the morning, doing the rounds in the clinic and phoning owners. He arrived home at two o’clock, with the beginnings of a headache, to find his family pretty much where he’d left them. Rosa was lying under her baby gym, kicking the toys.

‘Jeepers!’ cried Simon. ‘Haven’t you lot left the room since I’ve been gone?’

‘Have some lunch,’ said Carmela. ‘We treated ourselves to quiche from the delicatessen. I’ve kept it warm for you.’ She crossed to the oven and took out a plate.

Simon picked Rosa up and sat with her on a stool. ‘“This is the way the ladies ride,”’ he sang, bouncing her gently. ‘“Trit-trot,
trit-trot. This is the way the gentlemen ride. Gall-op! Gall-op! Gall-op!”’

The baby screeched with delight. Nico joined in, shouting the words—not an elegant sight, as his mouth was full of quiche. Father and son yelled the last lines together: ‘“This is the way the drunkard rides! Slip . . . slide . . . And DOWN we go!”’

‘She likes that bit,’ said Nico. ‘Daddy, guess where we’ve been? We’ve been somewhere a
loooong
way!’

‘Shh, Nico. Not now,’ said Carmela, quite sharply.

‘A dastardly secret!’ cried Simon, thinking this was all a game. ‘Where have you been? Let me think . . . To the North Pole, to try and persuade Father Christmas you’ve been good?’

‘No!’

‘No? Um, to the moon?’

Nico laughed raucously. ‘No, silly! We saw someone. Guess who we saw?’

‘The Queen?’

‘We saw Grandpa!’ Nico was prancing around in a circle. ‘We went to his house under the ground.’

‘Nico,’ snapped Carmela. There were crimson spots on her cheeks. ‘I think Rosa has a dirty nappy. Could you be a very grown-up boy and fetch the changing bag? And if you choose a story from your bookcase, I will read it to you. Off you go, please.’

Nico stopped prancing. ‘I’ll get “The Magic Crayon”,’ he said happily. The next moment, his footsteps were clattering up the stairs.

There was a very nasty silence in the kitchen.

‘I looked at Rosa,’ Carmela said. ‘And I looked at Nico. I saw the joy they bring. I knew it was wrong to shut him out.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Shush,’ warned Carmela, but it was too late. Rosa was startled by the shout, so close to her ear. She wailed tragically, holding out her arms to her mother.

‘I don’t believe this,’ snapped Simon, handing the baby over. ‘Go on, then. Go back to Mummy.’

‘Don’t be such a child. It isn’t her fault.’

‘No. It’s yours.’ Simon stood up, reaching for his jacket. ‘The one thing you knew I didn’t want to happen, and you waited until my back was turned and did it anyway. It was a bloody deceitful, downright shitty thing to do.’

‘He is the grandfather of my children! And you know what? I’m not sorry. If you’d seen the look on his face when he spotted us at the door! He held Rosa. He wept. If you had seen Nico’s happiness, I don’t think you would be so angry, Simon. I really don’t.’

Simon imagined his dad holding Rosa. His father, and his baby—it should have been such a precious moment. He was afraid he might be going to cry. He needed a drink.

‘I’m going back to work,’ he muttered.

‘You can’t keep running away, Simon.’

‘If I stay here any longer there’s going to be an almighty row. D’you want that?’

Her eyes shone with fury. ‘Maybe there are things that need to be said. I want an adult husband, not a little spoiled brat who thinks only of himself.’

Simon strode out, letting the door slam behind him.

He found a thousand things to do in the surgery, then went to the pub and sank several pints. He sat hunched over, hands hanging between his knees. His head was pounding. He didn’t trust many people in this world. For much of his life he’d felt alien, as though he were gatecrashing a party to which everybody else was invited; but he’d trusted his dad, and he’d trusted Carmela. Those two people had conspired against him today, and he felt as though he’d been run over by a steamroller. He’d never asked for this. He’d never asked for any of this.