Vince and Joy (13 page)

‘She must have said
something?
Given you some kind of reason?’

‘She said she wanted me to open up to her. Fuck knows what that meant.’

‘Hmmm. Yes. I can see that. You are a bit… unforthcoming.’

‘With what?! I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘Yes, but you look like you do. You look…
mysterious.’

‘Mysterious.’

‘Uh-huh. The scars, the brooding brow, the overcoat. You look like you’re full of secrets and angst.’

‘Me?’

‘Yeah, you. Quite fancied you the first time I came to see the flat.’ ‘You did?’

‘Uh-huh. But then I realized you were just – ‘ She clamped her mouth shut. ‘Nothing.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Jesus, Cass. You can’t just start saying something like that, then stop. You realized I was just what?’

Cass sighed, and brought her knees back up to her chin – she was one of those bendy girls who always had to sit in strange positions, whether it was cross-legged, on counters, on the floor, in foetal scrunches. ‘Just… a
bloke.
You know.’

‘No, I don’t know. Just a bloke. What does that mean? Is that a
bad
thing?’

‘No. Not a bad thing, as such. But just – maybe a bit of a letdown when you look so…
dangerous?

‘I look dangerous?’

‘Yes. But you’re not. You’re safe. And safe is nice; safe is good. Safe is really, really lovely. But I can see that some girls might feel a bit
short-changed
if they thought they were getting a challenge.’

Vince shook his head in disbelief. ‘Jesus. So that’s all girls want, is it? Challenges? And danger?’

‘Yeah. Well, some girls do. Not all girls. Some girls like suckers.’

‘Christ. Now you’re saying I’m a sucker?!’

‘No. Not at all. But you’re soft. And you’re reliable. You could be taken for a sucker by the wrong girl.’

‘Well, it’s not happened to me yet.’ Vince folded his arms angrily and defensively.

‘Good,’ said Cass, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. ‘I’m glad. So, back to your romantic history. Who was there before Helen?’

Vince sighed. ‘Well, there was Kelly – that was a couple of weeks – then there was Lizzie for a few months, and
before that there was Jayne for a year – she went back to Australia. And that’s it really.’

‘And what about at school? Who was your first girlfriend?’

‘I didn’t have a girlfriend at school.’

‘Oh, come on. You must have!’

‘No. I was too ugly to have a girlfriend. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was nineteen,’ he boasted.

‘No way!’ Cass sat upright with undisguised delight.

‘Yeah. Well, three days before my nineteenth birthday, actually’

‘Shit – you
were
a slow starter. And who was that to?’

‘What?’

‘Your virginity – who did you lose it to? Was it your first love?’

‘No. It was just a girl.’

‘What girl?’

‘A girl I met on holiday’

‘What was her name?’

‘Joy. Joy Downer.’

‘So you remember her surname, then? It can’t have been that casual. No one remembers the surnames of casual shags.’

‘Well – it was kind of intense but brief, let’s put it like that.’

‘A holiday romance?’

‘Yeah. That kind of thing. We fell in love, we had sex, then she left me a Dear John letter and did a moonlight flit.’

‘Ow,’ said Cass, flinching slightly. ‘Nasty. Why did she dump you?’

Vince shrugged. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘The letter got rained on. It was all streaky.’

‘So how do you know it was a Dear John?’

‘Because the only words on it that were legible were “I feel so ashamed.” The same night we’d had sex. What else could that have meant?’

‘Have you still got it?’

‘What – the letter?’

‘Yes. The streaky old letter. Is it here?’ Cass bristled with excitement.

‘Erm – yeah, actually. I think it is.’ Vince had a pathological nostalgia for paper and was incapable of throwing away anything with handwriting on it. Consequently he had a cardboard box at the bottom of his wardrobe filled with five years’ worth of birthday cards, party invitations and letters. He even kept Post-It notes with tedious little messages on them about remembering to leave money for the milkman and apologies for eating the Singapore noodles he’d left in the fridge. So it was inevitable that Joy’s crispy little note would be somewhere in his room.

‘Ooh – find it, will you? I want to see it.’

‘What for?’

‘I’m going to read it.’

‘But I told you, it’s illegible.’

‘No, I mean read its energy’

‘Oh, God.’ He raised his eyebrows at the ceiling.

‘Oh, come on, Vincent. Humour me. Look – your cards are telling you to look at your past for regrets and blockages, and you’re telling me that there was this girl you fell in love with who mysteriously disappeared and
left you a soggy note. I think this calls for further investigation. I think you should get that note!’

Vince sighed, but slouched to his bedroom and pulled the box out of his wardrobe. He had a vague notion that the note was probably somewhere in the vicinity of his dissertation notes and finally found it buried between the pages of a notebook he’d used for his first week at college, next to a photocopied sheet of induction notes and a yellow-with-age till receipt from Safeway dated 23-09-87.

‘Wow,’ said Cass, feeling the note gently between her fingertips, ‘this letter is just loaded with energy’ She laid it gently on the tabletop and smoothed it out. ‘It’s so heavy with vibes she needn’t have bothered writing a word.’

‘Look, Cass…’ – he reached out to take the letter from her – ‘can’t we just go back to the tarot thing?’

‘Yes, but not yet.’ She clutched the letter towards her. ‘There’s sadness in this letter – tears.’

‘Cass… ‘ he reached feebly for the letter again, but she leaped from her chair and strode to the other side of the kitchen.

‘Vincent, will you just let me do this. This is important.’ She held the letter up again and closed her eyes. ‘Tears, angry, sad tears. You know something?’ She lowered the letter and faced him. ‘I don’t think this is a Dear John letter at all. I think there’s much more to it than that. What happened that night, the night she left?’

‘Oh, God,’ said Vince gloomily, ‘nothing much. We spent the day with my mum and Chris, we had a barbecue with her parents, then we went off and had sex in a field.’

‘And how was it?’

‘Cass!’

‘No, I mean, was it a positive experience?’

‘Yes, thanks for asking.’

‘And afterwards, what were her last words to you?’

‘I dunno. It’s so long ago. Just something about see you tomorrow, I suppose.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Well, did she say she’d enjoyed it?’

‘What – the sex?’

‘Yes.’

‘Probably. I can’t remember.’

‘And then what?’

‘Well, we just sort of kissed and hugged.’

‘And?’

‘Oh, God, Cass.’ He glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to twelve. ‘Can we stop this now? It’s getting really late. I want to go to bed.’

‘No, no, no,’ she said, bounding towards him. ‘No. Don’t go to bed. I need to know more about this girl. What was she like? Was she pretty?’

‘Yes, she was very pretty. She was very nice, very sexy and very pretty, and losing my virginity to her was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now – can I go to bed?’

‘Α-ha! Finally, we’re getting somewhere. So, you have this perfect night with this perfect woman who then disappears overnight, and you never see her again and you never find out why. I would say that that is the root of all your woes. You’ve been left in limbo by this girl – for
whatever mysterious reasons – and you’ve not been able to move on since. You’re stranded in this perfect moment that nothing else will ever live up to. God, it’s so tragic. You’ve got to find this woman!’

‘What!’

‘Seriously. You’ve got to find her and talk to her and find out why she left.’

‘Cass,’ Vince said, getting to his feet and running his fingers through his hair, ‘I appreciate your enthusiasm and everything, I really do, but it’s nearly midnight, this is a totally stupid conversation and I’m going to bed.’

‘No! We’ve got to make a plan! We’ve got to find Joy Downer! We’ve got to –
Madeleine!
’ They both turned at the familiar sound of the cat flap creaking open. ‘
Madeleine!
You’re home!’ Cass suddenly dropped the note she’d been waving in the air and flew towards the back door, scooping up an indifferent-looking Madeleine and holding her aloft. ‘Oh, God, where’ve you been, you bad girl? We’ve been so worried about you.’ – Vince raised an eyebrow at his unfounded inclusion in this statement of concern – ‘We’ve looked all over Finsbury Park for you. Oh, you smell all funny. You smell of… ‘ She stuck her nose into the cat’s profuse fur and took a deep sniff. ‘Urgh –
Obsession
. God, I hate Obsession. I used to have a flatmate who didn’t wash her bed sheets – just squirted them every now and then with Obsession. Ever since I’ve just – urgh. You stink, Madam Madeleine. Stink, stink, stink. I can’t believe you’ve been sitting in someone else’s house all cosy and warm, getting cuddles off some
stinky perfumed woman
while we trawled the streets for you in the freezing
cold… Honestly!’ She put the cat down on the floor and went straight to the cupboard where she kept her food. ‘You’re a bad girl. A very, very bad girl. Now, how d’you fancy a nice bowl of tuna flakes… ?’

Vince retrieved the rain-spattered little note from the middle of the kitchen table and quietly slunk out of the kitchen, making his escape while the irrepressible Cass’s attention was focused elsewhere.

He felt totally drained as he slipped under his duvet a few minutes later. If only that ridiculous cat hadn’t gone missing he’d have been able to redeem a truly crap day by watching a video, downing a couple of beers and having an early night. As it was he felt like his ego had been pulled through a mangle, bottom first. Not only had he suddenly been made to realize that he was a total dullard and a source of great disappointment to every woman he’d ever met, but also he’d been forced to revive memories he’d really rather have left loitering in the past. Memories of having his heart ripped out of his chest and put back in upside down. Humiliating memories of giving his entire self to another person for the first time in his life and having it returned to him the next morning, like a shirt that didn’t fit.

As he lay in bed, torturing himself with negative thoughts, his door slowly opened and a shaft of light fell across his duvet. There was then a gentle thud and crackle of cotton as something landed on his bed, followed by a loud and contented purr that rippled through the darkness like aural bubbles. And even though Vince didn’t share Cass’s enthusiasm for the creature, in his current state of emotional delicacy he couldn’t help but take
comfort from the fact that tonight, for the very first time, Madeleine had chosen to favour
him
with her nocturnal presence.

Vince was heading home for Kyle’s third birthday party that afternoon and, as ever, had left it until the last minute to get his present. It didn’t seem possible that it had been three years since Kyle was born. It felt like yesterday. Kyle’s arrival into the world on 9 September 1990 had been one of the most incredible days of Vince’s life. Chris had phoned him at six-thirty in the morning to tell him that Kirsty was six centimetres dilated and that if he wanted to get a hot-off-the-press viewing of his little brother or sister he should get to the hospital immediately. He’d been in a state of a shock for a few moments, not entirely sure what it meant to be six centimetres dilated, but presuming that it meant that some hole or other was readying itself for a head to come through it. And then the adrenalin had kicked in and he’d suddenly realized what was happening. He was minutes away from no longer being an only child.

It was just gone eight o’clock when he was told that his mother was in surgery, that the baby had been in distress so they’d taken her in for an emergency Caesarean. He’d waited outside the operating theatre pacing back and forth in a wholly clichéd manner until Chris had emerged ten minutes later, dressed head to toe in green scrubs and cradling a white bundle in his arms that looked way too small to be a baby.

‘It’s a boy,’ he’d said, wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye. It’s a lovely little boy. Look.’

And Vince had peered down into a small opening at the top of the blanket bundle and seen a pair of enormous blinking eyes, a squishy nose and a squiggle of damp dark hair and had thought that his little brother was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.