‘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.’
‘What’s true?’ says Jack.
‘Oh, all that Keats stuff. You know. Beauty is truth and truth beauty. I bet Fanny Brawne wasn’t gorgeous.’
Footsteps hammer down the stairs. Alan appears, looking panicky.
‘Cas has run off!’ he says. ‘That was Guy on the phone. Cas called him. He’s at Haywards Heath station.’
‘What!’
‘I’m going to jump on the next train.’
‘But how? I don’t understand.’
‘Stay here, in case I miss them. Guy’s on his way to Haywards Heath from London. Christ, Alice. He must have been gone for hours!’
Alan leaves at a run, pelting up Friars Walk to the station.
Alice is confused and frightened.
‘What’s he doing in Haywards Heath?’
Sudden panic overwhelms her. Anyone could take him. He’d go with anyone. Please be safe, little Cas. What are you doing? Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have come with you. Please be safe, darling.
Jack takes in the situation and speaks quietly, calmly.
‘He’s phoned Guy, so he’s all right. Guy’s on his way to pick him up. He’ll be home in an hour.’
‘I shouldn’t have neglected him. It’s all my fault. I’m so selfish. All I think about is my own stupid miseries. What’s he doing in Haywards Heath?’
‘Where does Guy live?’
‘In London.’
‘There you are. He was going to London. Like Dick Whittington. He probably took a red spotted handkerchief.’
‘Oh, Cas. Oh, my darling little brother.’
She’s starting to cry.
‘He’s having a wonderful adventure. He’ll be just fine.’
‘But Jack,’ says Alice, now weeping freely, ‘he’s in Haywards Heath!’
She bursts into violent sobs. He takes her in his arms, as if she’s a frightened child just woken from a bad dream. He rocks her gently in his arms.
‘He’s fine,’ he murmurs. ‘Cas is fine. He’s having an adventure.’
She clings to him, her face on his shoulder, her tears wetting his T-shirt. Slowly her sobbing ceases. She starts to hiccup. She dries her eyes with her sleeve.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
The hiccups won’t stop. She holds her breath and the trapped hiccup makes her chest jump.
‘Are you okay now?’ says Jack. ‘I feel like I’m in the way. This is family stuff. I should go.’
‘Please don’t go. Not yet. Stay with me till they get back.’
Neither of them has any idea how long that will be. Jack has the sensible idea of looking up the train times. Alan will have caught the 12.19 that gets to Haywards Heath at 12.35. The first train back leaves Haywards Heath at 12.50 and gets to Lewes at 13.07. That leaves at least three-quarters of an hour before they can be home.
‘I’ll go crazy,’ says Alice. ‘I can’t stand it.’
At least the hiccups have stopped.
‘Let’s watch a DVD,’ says Jack.
‘Watch a DVD? What are you talking about?’
‘Come on. Where do you keep your DVDs?’
He goes into the living room and finds a mess of DVDs all round the television. He gets down on his knees and pushes them about.
‘Here we are,’ he says. ‘Fawlty Towers. Perfect.’
So they sit and watch Fawlty Towers, Alice with both the house cordless phone and her own mobile on her lap. She means to think about Cas all the time but when you’re watching a screen you find it takes over your mind, and soon she’s laughing and squirming as she always does at Fawlty Towers.
The phone rings. It’s Alan. They’ve got Cas and they’re on their way back, all three of them. Cas is fine.
Alice feels a deep flood of gratitude wash through her. For Cas being safe. For Jack being with her. For being able to laugh. She curls up on the sofa like a child, hugging her knees tight.
‘I’m happy now. Remind me if I ever complain again. There is such a thing as happiness.’
They watch the rest of the episode, and half the next, until the wanderer returns.
Cas comes bouncing in through the door with a cheerful, ‘Hello! I’m back!’
Alice seizes him in her arms and smothers him with kisses.
‘Cas, darling, darling, darling! What a bad, bad boy!’
‘I went to London,’ says Cas. He’s entirely unrepentant. All the attention has gone to his head. ‘All by myself!’
‘How am I going to tell Liz?’ says Alan, following behind. ‘She’ll crucify me.’
‘Don’t tell her,’ says Guy, coming in after Alan.
Jack makes himself useful. ‘Tea? Coffee?’
‘You don’t have a beer, do you?’ says Guy.
Jack finds a beer in the fridge. Cas is hungry and asks for Coco Pops. Alice sees to it.
‘Not that you deserve it,’ she says.
‘We’ve given him the talking-to,’ says Alan. ‘Haven’t we, Cas? You won’t run off like that again.’
‘No,’ says Cas. ‘I did it for a surprise.’
‘Yes, well, we were all surprised.’
‘Surprise isn’t the half of it,’ says Guy. ‘I was in the middle of a client meeting.’ He checks his watch. ‘And I’ve got a date in town at six twenty-five.’
‘What are you?’ says Alan. ‘A dentist?’
‘It’s an anniversary.’
‘Guy, you have to see Roboguy dance,’ says Cas, mouth brown with chocolate milk.
‘Okay, buddy, but move it along. I have to be getting back.’
Cas jumps up to fetch his robot from the Tesco bag. Guy catches Alice’s eye.
‘This is my reward,’ he says. ‘They say no good deed ever goes unpunished.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Alice. It annoys her the way Guy has paid her no attention as usual.
‘I bring Cas a present and my whole life gets turned upside down.’
Cas has Roboguy on the kitchen table now.
‘Watch this.’
He makes the robot caper round the table. The sight is utterly ludicrous. Everyone laug
hs. At the end of the dance the robot and Cas bow together. Everyone claps.
‘I’m off now, little buddy.’
Alice is wondering what Guy means by saying his whole life has been turned upside down. He has a date in town. An anniversary.
Then she gets it.
Guy is leaving. He makes his goodbyes. Shakes Cas by the hand.
‘I’ll walk up to the station with you,’ says Alice.
Anger is building within her. She waits until they’re out of earshot of the house.
‘You and Chloe,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘You’re having a thing with Chloe.’
‘So?’
No attempt to deny it. His usual smiling blue-eyed self.
‘She’s my age. It’s disgusting. How can you do that? How can you?’
‘She’s grown up, Alice, and it’s none of your fucking business, okay?’
Despite the swear word he speaks without rancour, with a kind of friendly reasonableness. Alice feels herself shaking with rage.
‘You’re sick!’ she says. ‘You’re a sick old pervert! She’s my friend, of course it’s my fucking business! What the fuck do you think you’re doing, waltzing into my house and getting off with my friends?’
‘Ask your friend, don’t ask me. She came on to me like a bloody heat-seeking missile.’
‘So? Are you helpless? Couldn’t you protect yourself?’
‘Frankly, I don’t see the problem here. We’re talking about two consenting adults—’
‘You’re my father!’
They’ve reached the station forecourt. Taxis are lined up, their drivers chatting in a small cluster.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘You’re my father!’ she screams.
She starts hitting him, more like pushes than blows. The taxi drivers look on. He doesn’t resist.
‘Steady,’ he says. ‘Steady.’
She runs out of anger. She starts to cry.
‘You’ve got to let me have a life, babe,’ he says.
‘Yes. Okay. Have your fucking life.’
She turns and leaves him there. She walks fast, still crying, not looking back. She half expects him to come after her but he doesn’t. So fine. He’s got a date.
She means to sort herself out before she goes back into the house but Jack is outside in the street. He sees her tears.
‘I didn’t want to go without saying goodbye,’ he says.
No point in pretending. Alice realizes she wants someone else to know.