Starting Over (19 page)

But that was all he got out, because I dug my big toes into the ancient carpet and dropped my shoulder as I brought a right uppercut into his abdomen, then threw a left hook to his jaw which broke with a surprisingly loud crack. As he was dropping, I drove a right cross into his face with all my weight behind it, and even though he was falling away from me I felt the teeth as they shattered against my knuckles. He went down the stairs like an overweight stuntman, coming to a halt where my father and the girls were waiting.

‘When did you learn to box?’ my father asked me.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, my heart pounding.

It was still dark when we got her home.

Lara was waiting at the window, every light in the house on, and the door was already open as we came up the path. Lara reached out for Ruby, but she walked straight past her.

The three of us watched her slowly climb the stairs, and I had that old feeling from around ten years ago, the feeling I had when she dashed into a road without looking, or danced on a coffee table covered with glasses, or reached out for a lit candle, or dangled upside down from a climbing frame until her face turned scarlet – that parental feeling you get when your kid just about gets away with some act of childish madness, a trembling rage mixed with a relief that is so overwhelming you don’t know whether to cry or scream.

‘She’s okay,’ I said to Lara. ‘Just leave her for a bit.’

She looked at me and my dad and shook her head. My hair was all over the place. I was holding my hand where the skin had torn on my knuckles. My father patted her shoulder and chuckled, as if to say,
Kids, eh?

‘You’re bleeding,’ she said.

‘I’m fine,’ I said.

She started to babble a bit. ‘But where was she? What happened? Should you call the station, get someone to come out?’

I looked at my old man and smiled.
I am the law.

‘I mean real policemen,’ Lara said, deflating us a bit, ‘not you two.’

‘She’s all right,’ I said. ‘She was frightened for a while, but she’s all right now. I promise you.’

Lara looked upstairs and we could hear Ruby clumping around in her room. And I saw it all well up in her – the relief and the strain, the stress of being the only parent in the house. Every line in her face seemed to tighten with it all.

‘That little…’

I touched her arm, and she looked at me.

‘She’s just young,’ I said. ‘I think it’s just that, Lara.’

We went into the kitchen and Lara made tea. After a bit, we left my dad and went upstairs. The door to Ruby’s bedroom was closed. The DO NOT DISTURB sign still hung from the doorknob. Lara knocked softly and went inside without waiting. I stood in the doorway, watching her.

The curtains were drawn and Ruby was buried deep inside her bed, the duvet pulled up so high that only a tuft of brown hair was sticking out. For the first time I noticed she had blonde highlights. Lara touched the tuft of hair, and then she gently kissed it, and then she sat there for a while as if not quite knowing what to do. Ruby did not move, but I don’t think she was sleeping.

So we went downstairs and made more tea, and some toast. Ruby’s favourite. Thick sliced white bread, lavishly buttered, and strong tea with one heaped spoonful of brown sugar and just a dash of semi-skimmed milk. That’s the way we all drank it in our family. Builder’s tea, Lara called it.

Lara put it all on a pink tray, a relic from our daughter’s childhood, and I followed her as she carried it upstairs. She didn’t knock this time, just quietly opened the door, put the tray on the floor and left. She looked like a warden feeding her prisoner, and for some reason that made me choke up. Perhaps it was just exhaustion. I watched Lara gently close the door behind her. I thought that perhaps Ruby was sleeping now.

But later, when it was starting to get light and it was time
for my dad and me to go, I went upstairs and the pink tray was sitting outside Ruby’s bedroom door. The DO NOT DISTURB sign was still in place, but the tea and the toast had gone.

As Jazzie B sang about the Africa Centre being the centre of the world, I sipped champagne from a paper cup and felt my body start to sway to Soul II Soul. I made a vow to not get drunk. Not tonight. Not on Lara’s fortieth birthday. Then the DJ put on some early Duran Duran, and my body stopped moving. So I couldn’t have been that drunk.

They had let her have the school hall where she taught dance. I would have thought it was way too big, this great assembly hall in an inner-city comprehensive, but the place was full. Because they all came. All the friends that she had drifted away from, or who had drifted away from her, as the years and partners and children got in the way. But they were here tonight, and as they filled the floor to the sounds of the eighties, I remembered many of them from way back at the start, all these dancers in their twenties who would go from
Les Misérables
to the Africa Centre and keep on dancing. They were middle-aged women now, but there was still something about the way they moved to Blondie, Wham!, Madonna, Michael Jackson and the Thompson Twins – a
strange and inexplicable passion of Lara’s, the Thompson Twins – you could see that they still had it in their blood. Their husbands, knocking on a bit now, struggled to keep up, the way I had struggled to keep up. Lara was in the middle of them, dancing with her daughter, and shouting something up at the DJ on the stage.

‘“Girls Just Want to Have Fun”!’ she shouted, and he nodded. He got it. A request. The Style Council somehow segued into the exultant opening of the Cyndi Lauper classic. I went to check on my parents.

They were on the far side of the throng, watching the action. My mum was smiling and tapping her foot to ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’. My dad was thoughtful, an unopened can of Red Stripe in his hand, flinching a bit at the volume. Nan was with them, sipping a sherry that she had already made last for two hours, and nodding her head as if she had always considered this to be Cyndi Lauper’s finest moment. The three of them sat on their rickety school chairs, forming a little ghetto of old people, and I asked them if I could get them a drink. But they were all fine. ‘Don’t worry,’ my mum said. ‘You go and enjoy yourself, love.’

And I thought that maybe she was right. I could have a few more drinks without the risk of running amok. Maybe I could even go and have a dance. Perhaps I should wait for a bit of danceable music to come on – New Order, Yazoo, Divine, I wasn’t fussy – and get out there. Throw some shapes, as my daughter would say. I watched her laughing with her mother, the pair of them shining with sweat and punching the air to some prehistoric Kylie.

On my way to the bar – a wooden table more used to serving tea and biscuits at PTA meetings – I came across
Rufus, Alfie in his arms, jogging up and down on the spot, the carrot-haired kid laughing hysterically. Nancy stood next to them, but lost in another world, watching the dancing. Her little black dress was like a second skin, and she gnawed at her bottom lip and clutched her handbag in both hands, as if uncertain whether she should have a dance or go home. I could see the gentle swell of her belly clearly now. Keith walked by, glanced longingly at Nancy’s rear, and kept walking, his eyebrows raised. He found me at the bar, putting on my dancing shoes with Red Bull and vodka.

‘Got some ID, sonny?’ he said, slapping me on the back. He got a beer and turned to face the dance floor, but his eyes drifted back to Nancy’s rear end.

‘The kid’s probably having the best sex of his life,’ he said philosophically.

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I said.

Keith sighed and raised his beer can. We clinked drinks. ‘The eighties,’ he said. ‘The decade that taste forgot. Or was that the seventies? Or the sixties?’

I shook my head. I couldn’t remember. But as ‘Material Girl’ gave way to ‘How Soon Is Now?’ I thought, But it’s always good, isn’t it? When you’re young. How could it be anything but good?

Then Martin turned up. All self-effacing and handsome, hovering in the doorway, dressed in a striped shirt and black jeans, like a banker on the first day of the weekend. Lara spotted him and came through the dancing mob to get him, her face all wet and happy. And she did this thing to him – this little peck on the lips, a kiss that seemed more about reassurance than passion. She took his hand. I looked away, sinking my drink, choking it all down. The loss. The jealousy.
The thought of her with another man. It was a sickening lump of gristle that I had to fight to hold down. It was as real as that.

‘She looks great,’ Keith said.

‘Yeah,’ I said, wondering how long before I could decently go home.

At first Martin played it beautifully. He was taken to the centre of the throng to meet Lara’s oldest and dearest friends – all those girls who’d played peasants and prostitutes in
Les Mis
twenty years ago – but it was difficult to talk out there, or even to hear someone’s name. So Lara dragged Martin to the bar – they were holding hands all this time – with a few happy forty-something women in tow. Martin looked at me and smiled. I nodded, and twisted my mouth into this stiff rictus grin, and moved away as slowly as I could without breaking into a trot. And I saw how far from the shore we had let our marriage drift.

Lara’s friends screamed when the Human League’s ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ came on, and they bopped back to the centre of the dance floor where their husbands – mostly city guys who had been real studs two decades back – were gasping for breath and holding their tickers. But Lara led Martin around the fringes of the party to meet the old folks. Nan was all smiles, nodding happily as Lara made the introductions, then over the heads of the dancers I saw the utter confusion on the faces of my mum and dad as Martin stooped his large frame to shake their hands. But they were decent people, and easily won over with a bit of prefabricated charm, and soon they were smiling along with Martin and Lara, the happy couple.

I turned to go. I was determined that I wasn’t going to look back. But Soul II Soul’s ‘Back to Life’ came on as I got
to the door – Caron Wheeler with the voice of a lovesick angel – and I couldn’t stop myself. And as I turned I saw Lara trying to lead Martin to the dance floor. And I saw him refusing. I mean, really refusing. Shaking his head and lifting a protesting hand, and all the while this embarrassed smile. The man meant it. He wasn’t going to dance. Lara danced with her nan instead. She slowly led the old lady to the floor where they gently swayed from side to side to something by Spandau Ballet, holding hands all the while, and Martin stood on the sidelines with his petrified grin.

And so I knew he had no chance.

Time was away and somewhere else as I busied myself in the kitchen, making myself a nice cup of builder’s tea. Strong. One sugar. A dash of semi-skimmed – just a dash. And drink it while it’s hot. Builder’s tea. The way we all drink it in my family.

It was very late now, so late that very soon it would be early, and as I moved around the darkened kitchen of the old house, I could feel more than hear that it was almost empty.

Rufus had gone home with Nancy and her boy. Ruby had gone home with her grandparents. There was only Lara and Martin in the house, asleep in what I could remember an estate agent once calling the master bedroom.

And me, of course. Down in the kitchen with my builder’s tea. Watching the windows for the first sign of the new day, and seeing nothing. The nights were getting longer now.

Then they must have heard me. I heard footsteps on their floor – my ceiling. Whispered, urgent voices. One of them – Martin – going into Rufus’ room and rummaging for a weapon. A baseball bat banged on the floor like a
wooden leg. Then Lara’s soft footsteps coming downstairs. She was wearing a simple silk kimono over pyjamas. I can’t tell you how relieved that made me feel. I was afraid she might be in some kind of sex wear. Dressed like a – but I don’t even want to think about it. She stopped breathing when she saw me.

‘I want to come home,’ I whispered.

She was standing in the doorway. ‘Maybe you should call first,’ she said quietly, shaking her head. ‘This is a bit on the creepy side.’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was trying to keep the noise down.’ I lifted my mug of builder’s tea in salute and apology.

‘Martin has called the police,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest. She still hadn’t come into the kitchen. She nodded at my tea. ‘If you drink quickly, you might just have time to finish it before they get here.’ She had been speaking in a stage whisper, but now the volume was rising. ‘You bloody maniac,’ she said. ‘Breaking and entering in the middle of the night.’

‘I had to tell you. About the coming home thing.’

‘Right now? Right this very minute?’

‘Because soon it will be too late. If you let this guy get between us. Great party, by the way. Happy birthday.’

She came slowly into the kitchen and sat down at the table. ‘It’s not my birthday any more,’ she said, running a hand across her face. ‘Forty. How did that happen?’ I sat down at the far end of the table. Our old places. I smiled at her and she shook her head again. ‘Can’t you see how weird this is?’

‘But the thing is – you chose me. And I chose you.’

‘A long time ago.’

‘Nothing has changed,’ I said. ‘You’re still my North Star.
You’re the light that I follow. It doesn’t make sense without you. None of it.’

She looked up, as if something had suddenly occurred to her. ‘Are you on drugs?’

‘I just had to tell you, Lara. Not that man. Please – if you’re going to dump me, dump me for a guy who will dance.’

Martin came into the kitchen in his pants. He had a great body, actually. If I had a body like that, I would probably walk about in my pants. With my sophisticated radar for violence, I immediately noticed that he wasn’t carrying a baseball bat. Just his BlackBerry. You could take someone’s eye out with one of those things. I suspected that he had been sitting on the stairs listening to us. In his pants. It’s a difficult look to pull off.

‘The police are on their way,’ he said, and just at that moment I heard the siren. I wondered if it was for us. Impressive response time, I thought. ‘Kick him out,’ Martin demanded. ‘Kick him out or I’ll do it myself.’

Lara looked at the table.

‘Just…leave him alone, will you?’ she said.

Martin’s jaw dropped. His good teeth glinted in the fading moonlight. ‘You’re not listening to his bullshit, are you?’ he said. ‘Because I’m not listening to it.’ And then he looked at me for the first time. ‘You’ve been making her life a misery for years. With your cigarettes and your selfishness and your scrotum-hugging jeans.’

I looked at Lara accusingly. She looked away.

‘Oh yes, I’ve heard all about you,’ Martin continued triumphantly. ‘And I know exactly what you need.’

He went back upstairs to get his baseball bat.

We watched him walk from the kitchen.

‘You have to go,’ she said. ‘The police will arrest you. And he will hurt you. And – and I want you to go.’ ‘Do you?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said, as if this was her final decision. She placed her hands on the kitchen table. ‘We all have to move on, George. We all have to start over.’

‘But I can’t,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want to. Because it is you. And it is you if we are together or if we’re apart.’

‘A bit awkward, that,’ Lara said, her voice a little softer than before. ‘A bit awkward about it being me, if we are together or apart.’

‘You can see the problem,’ I said.

‘Absolutely,’ she said.

‘I know you’re not the best-looking woman in the world,’ I said.

‘And you were doing so well,’ she said.

‘But there’s no face on the planet that I would rather look at,’ I said.

‘You haven’t seen them all.’

‘Enough to know,’ I said. ‘Enough to know the face that I will be thinking of when I take my last breath.’

Martin came back into the kitchen. I had expected him to be holding a baseball bat above his head, but he was unarmed. Maybe he thought that he would be the one to get nicked if he hit my head for a home run. He was probably right. Then he looked about, and snatched up a frying pan.

‘Get out,’ he said, more confident now he was armed with a cooking implement. ‘Get out or I’ll mess you up so bad you’ll never be the same again.’

I stood up but made no move for the door. He edged towards me, the frying pan twitching above his head. He stole a quick glance at Lara.

‘How did he get in here anyway?’ he said. ‘The long-haired freak.’

And I could hear our siren now. It was just a few streets away. An eight-, nine-minute response time. Not bad. They were coming for me.

But Lara was smiling. Now she was standing too.

‘He has the key,’ she said. ‘He’s always had the key.’

I took it out of my pocket and placed it on the table. ‘You can have it back, if you like,’ I said. ‘But I love you, Lara.’ I held up a hand. ‘You don’t have to say it back.’

And then he hit me with the frying pan.

I saw it coming from a mile away. He made the classic mistake of bringing his arm way back before he swung. He practically sent me an email. He wasn’t used to hitting people. I caught the blow on my forearm and I would have happily given him a bunch of fives in the cakehole if Lara’s voice had not stopped me.

‘Please, just go,’ she said.

I looked at him and he looked at me. He was still holding the frying pan. I couldn’t tell if he was planning to hit me again or rustle up some breakfast. Neither of us moved. Outside, a bird began to sing. We looked at Lara.

‘Both of you,’ she said.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when I could sleep through the day. It was lovely. My mum would sing and do her work and my dad would grumble over his chores and the sun would shine beyond my blackout curtains and none of it would disturb those long happy hours of oblivion.

But now I lay in my single bed, turning over my pillow a hundred times, emptying my washing-machine mind of all thought, and still sleep would not come. I felt the bone-deep
weariness of my body, and craved rest, almost wept for the lost land of nod, yet still I remained bobbing above the surface of consciousness. Where does it go? This glorious ability to sleep your life away?