The One Before the One (26 page)

I wasn’t expecting this and for a minute I’m thrown until suddenly, like a light out of nowhere, it becomes dazzlingly clear.

‘Someone who lets me be me, rather than tries to be my father.’

And it was true. I lost my dad to Cassandra and Lexi and jumped straight into the arms of Martin who was basically another father figure. I loved him, but I outgrew him.

Mum looks at me; she’s trying to compute. Just fill the silence, keep filling the silence …

‘I – I felt so guilty,’ I begin. ‘All that money wasted, all that excitement about the wedding, I felt I’d let you down. I know how much you loved Martin …’

Mum takes my hands in both her hands, strokes them with her thumb.

‘Yes, but I love
you
more,’ she says. ‘You’re my
daughter,
you silly banana [only Mum would say something like silly banana at a time like this]. Your father and I only ever wanted you to be happy. To think you didn’t feel you could talk to us, that you thought we’d be more worried about the money
than your happiness?’ Her eyes start to water. ‘Well, that hurts.’

I sit there, holding her hands,
feeling
like a silly banana. And I’d spent a year drowning in guilt? Thinking she’d disown me, or shout at me, or be bitterly disappointed if I told her the truth? When all the time, she was my mum. Of
course
she was. All she’d ever wanted was my happiness. I’d underestimated her.

She’s still holding my hands, still stroking me with her thumb and it feels lovely, reassuring.

‘You know, marriage is a serious thing,’ she says. ‘I mean, I wish your father and I hadn’t just launched into it like we did; we were totally incompatible from the start. At least you had the good sense and the courage to get out of it before it started. You were brave. Really brave.’

That’s the second time someone has said that to me.

‘So, you’re not annoyed?’

‘Oh, livid. No, course I’m not annoyed!’ She looks at her watch. ‘Actually, I’ve got something to tell you too.’ She sweeps her new fringe across her face and looks around the room. ‘I’ve got a friend.’

‘Friend?’

‘Oh, a boyfriend then.’

‘Oh,
Mum
!’

I feel a sudden swell of happiness in my chest. It takes me quite by surprise. It all made sense now. The new clothes, the new hair, the house that felt full and bright for the first time ever. It was because she was happy.

‘Well, I’m definitely happier,’ she says, with typical understatement when I put this to her.

‘So, so what’s he like? Is he nice?’

I want to ask her endless questions. I’m impressed! Intrigued. At thirty-two, I struggled to get a boyfriend and she managed to bag one at fifty-seven?

He was a good ’un, too. A right silver fox. I found that
out when he walked through the door of Betty’s approximately twenty seconds later.

Things I Learned about My Mum’s New Boyfriend (my mum’s first-ever boyfriend) that Afternoon. He was called Charlie.

He was fifty-three (toy boy, too. Bloody good work!).

He wore stylish but sensible clothes: a corduroy jacket, M&S jumper, jeans and brogues and a genuine smile.

He was a paramedic (calm, practical, great in a crisis).

And looked like he could model for a life insurance advert. (‘A dead ringer for Richard Chamberlain, no?’ said Mum, proudly. ‘In his
Thornbirds
days?’)

He loved DIY and carpentry.

He was the absolute polar opposite to my dad in every single way.

And he made my mum ridiculously happy.

I’ll never forget the look on her face when she introduced us:

‘Caroline this is Charlie. Charlie, this is my daughter, Caroline …’

It was so full of hope – like a teenager introducing their boyfriend to their parents for the first time. She was all flustered; her hands kept going to her new hair. When Charlie went to the toilet, he kissed her. He’d even miss her in the loo?

Turns out old Charlie’s become a bit of a regular fixture at Coppice Avenue. Hence the marmalade.

After half an hour or so, Charlie gives Mum another kiss – me trying really hard not to stare – and goes to see his daughter. Mum and I sit on the slope of grass in front of the war memorial just outside Betty’s, and continue our chat. Mum’s open, she’s relaxed. I’ve never been able to talk to her like this in my life. I think about telling her about Toby.
I’d done to Rachel what Cassandra had done to Mum, after all, maybe Mum would have some advice from the other side? I decide no, though. Some things even your mother doesn’t need to know. The affair was over now – what was the point in confessing all? I needed to move on.

After all, she had.

The sun’s come out now. Mum lies back on the grass.

‘So, what do you think of Charlie?’ she asks.

‘I think he’s great, Mum. Really, great.’

‘The polar opposite of your father?’

‘Er yeah, just a bit.’

‘I don’t think your father ever erected a piece of flat-pack furniture in twenty-two years of marriage to me. Charlie erected an entire dining room in one afternoon.’

We both start laughing.

Neither of us says anything for a while. I watch the clouds drift above us, just enjoying being here and feeling, for the first time in my life, like an equal to Mum. Like we’re two women trying to make the best of things.

Then she says:

‘It must have been tough for you growing up. Us two as your parents. Me depressed, your father feckless.’

I think about Wayne. ‘At least you were there,’ I say. ‘At least I had a mum and dad – very good ones in lots of ways.’

She turns her head.

‘Do you think so?’ she says.

‘Course I do. You loved us, didn’t you? You did your best.’

‘I beat myself up for so many years,’ she says. ‘Worried what the divorce did to you and Chris. Did it screw you up? Make it difficult to settle down? Did you miss your father being around?’

‘Oh probably,’ I say. ‘But let’s face it, there are worse things that can happen to a child than a divorce. At least I got a sister out of it.’

She smiles. I wonder if she realizes now, that this is how I see it. That Lexi’s a positive thing to come out of all of this, not some bloodied by-product of a messy war.

There’s a pause, then she says:

‘Do you know what, Caroline? I’m not angry at him any more.’

‘Who?’ I say.

‘Your dad,’ she says. ‘Your stupid bloody father! I was probably as unbearable to live with as he was. I nagged him, and we just didn’t appreciate where each other was coming from in the end. No point being bitter for the rest of your life, though, eh? Or feeling guilty?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Don’t feel guilty on my part, Mum.’

I think that’s probably the most sensible thing she’s ever said in her life.

Mum’s going for a drink with Charlie that night, so I leave at 6 p.m. For the first time ever, though, I’m not gagging to get back in the car and would have stayed for longer if I could. But that’s the point, I couldn’t. I couldn’t because Mum had stuff to do and her own life now. She didn’t need me so much and, in a funny old way, that made me feel closer to her.

It’s still warm and humid and Lexi’s sitting on the front doorstep under the glare of a street-lamp when I get back, wearing beaten-up boots and a stripy dress. The sun’s low in the sky, casting an orange glow over the front of the house.

‘And how was Gwen?’ she says, as I get out of the car.

‘Oh, distinctly less embittered. Looking great.
In love.’

Lexi frowns, incredulous. ‘No fucking way!’

‘Yes, fucking way.’ I open the boot. ‘And he was cute.’

‘What, you met him?’

‘Yup, he’s called Charlie.’

‘Young Charlie, eh?’ says Lexi.

‘Well he’s not that young, he’s fifty-three.’

‘But she’s got a boyfriend, though. Gwen’s got a man!’

‘I know, miracles do happen, hey? You never know, it might be me one of these days.’

I try to get past her to get into the house but she puts her arm out.

She’s got to tell me something, she says. Something that can’t wait.

‘Wayne goes to Sheffield on my birthday,’ she says. My heart stops.

‘Oh?’

‘They told him they want him to start earlier than planned, so …’

My hands shake as I try to get my keys in the door. I don’t know what she expected me to say. So, he was leaving earlier than expected.

Lexi stands up and blocks my way to the door. What on earth was she playing at?

‘It’s awful, Caroline. You have to stop him!’

I roll my eyes and try to push her gently out of the way.

‘Lexi, he’s a free man, a big boy. He knows what’s right for him. I can’t
make
him do anything.’

‘But you’re so right for each other!’ says Lexi, exasperated, standing square in front of the door now. ‘He told me about the date. We talk, you know. He told me, and he said, and I quote, that it was “magic". He thinks you don’t care, he wants you to stop him going to Sheffield. He wants to make a go of things with you but he just hasn’t got the guts to come straight out with it.

My heart is racing now. I stand with the key in my hand. My hands are still shaking.

‘And, has he actually said as much?’

‘Well, no, but …’

‘Well, there we are,’ I say, pushing her out of the way again.

‘But don’t you see,
you
have to take action.
You
have to say what you feel.’

‘How do you know how I feel?’

‘Right.’ She’s got her head in her hand now. She’s taking this role very seriously.

‘But you care about him, right?’

Care about him? I thought. Did thinking about him every minute of every day, count as caring? Reading each chapter of his book, over and over again in the hope of absorbing some sense of him, not of Kevin but Wayne? Closing my eyes and imagining kissing him again, like some teenage female version of Kevin Hart, for goodness’ sake. Reliving every second of the picnic in the park …

‘Yes, I care about him,’ I say.

‘Oh, thank
fuck
for that. So call him. Now. Before it’s too late.’

I shake my head at her.

‘Lex, I know you mean well, but this is not some film. This is real life and in real life, you don’t run to airports, or to people’s houses, or houseboats for that matter, in the pouring rain, declaring your undying love, telling them not to go and expect them to not think you’re batty, okay?’

Lexi sighs and removes her arm from the side of the door.

‘Now, can I get into my own house, please?’

Lexi’s eighteenth birthday is one of those glorious September days. The sun is low and glittering. The trees, so full and green as I remember them from the day she arrived, are sparser now and tinged with gold. I am in my bedroom, wrapping Wayne’s leaving present: a notebook. A5. Fabric. With a picture of a vintage Vespa on the front – nothing special, really, but it reminded me of him and I want him to continue writing.
Love is a Battlefield: Kevin Hart’s Reports from the Frontline of Love
is stuck in my head now and I want it to live on.

I take a silver pen:
For Kevin,
I write inside the front cover.
May he live on and win his battles! I shall miss you, Caroline
xxxx

It’s been two weeks since our date and that lives on in my memory, too. It feels like a dream now, the feeling of the engine drumming into my thighs, that delicious thrill mixed with terror as I finally managed to extricate my arms from around Wayne’s throat. The way London zipped by like a lifetime before me. Sometimes, when I think of us lying in that hammock, the pink dawn through the porthole above us, Wayne’s warm body next to mine, I can’t help but catch my breath. Was that really me? Caroline Steele? Did that really happen?

But this is right. This is the way things are. Experiences we have are all the more potent because they can’t last for ever, after all. I want to box up that night and inhale it, but all good things come to an end. Bittersweet and all that.

There’s a knock at the door.

‘Can I enter, madame?’ says Lexi.

She comes in and I push the present underneath the duvet.

‘Hey!’ She smiles, head curled around the doorframe. She looks like the archetypal Londoner these days: gone are the gold leggings and the flashy T-shirt. In their place, a jaunty blue beret that highlights her eyes and a little vintage dress. ‘Is that another present for me?’

She jumps onto the bed and paws the tissue paper.

‘Get off!’ I say. ‘Give that to me!’

‘Aha, so it
is
for me?’

‘No, it is not! You’ve had your presents.’

She looks at me, mock sternly. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘So who’s it for?’

‘It’s for Wayne,’ I say, taking the package and unwrapping it. ‘A leaving present. Do you like it?’

She takes it in her hand. I tense.
Don’t open the front cover.

‘It’s perfect,’ she says. ‘He’s gonna love it.’ Then she takes both my hands and I know what she’s going to say.

‘You know, it’s not too late. You could call him. Call him now. Tell him not to go. I know he’d listen to you, Caroline, I know …’

I put my arms around her.

‘Alexis Steele, for a seventeen-year-old girl – sorry, an
eighteen-year-old
girl – you’re such an old romantic. But sorry, I’m not going to call him.’ I shrug. ‘It’s okay. I’m okay about this, you know, and it’s not like Sheffield is Africa, is it? We can go and see him, me and you. I could come up and see you
in Doncaster and we could go together to Sheffield, take him out on the town. It’ll be fun.’

She smiles, sadly. ‘Okay. I guess you’re a thirty-two-year-old woman and you know your own mind.’ Something inside me flinched. ‘But you liked him, didn’t you? Perhaps
more
than like?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I really like him. But, you know, you can’t keep everyone, Lexi, and I’m just glad I met him, you know? I have you to thank for that. Wayne Campbell turned out to be pretty good for both of us, didn’t he?’

She gives a sad smile.

It’s 2 p.m. and in half an hour we’re meeting people in Battersea Park for a birthday picnic for Lexi. They’ve got a fairground up in the park today, so it’s going to be extra special, extra fun. A great big sendoff, because this time tomorrow she’ll be back in Doncaster. The summer, over.

A sound like a lion roaring. Lexi’s mobile. She sits up on her knees and answers it, then starts to giggle.

‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ she’s saying. ‘I bet I can guess what it is. What? No way! Did you? Okay, okay. Oh, and bring your camera,’ she says. ‘I want a picture of us both to take home.’

Jerome.

Since she finally got Clark out of her life, she has become very friendly with the boy she met on the train and I can’t help but think that things have come full circle. If the Clark thing had never happened – if this whole summer hadn’t happened – maybe she’d have stepped off the train and into a summer fling with him? Not that they’re having any kind of ‘fling’, of course. She’s adamant about that. But they’ve taken to hanging around London together, taking arty photos of the city and of one another, going to markets and exhibitions, far more cool and cultural than any installation art about ‘Otherness’ by Jergen bloody Rindblatten could ever be!

She comes off the phone.

‘Jerome, eh?’ I tease and she rolls her eyes.

‘One hundred per cent platonic. Thanks very much.’

And that’s great, I think, that’s perfect, really. Friends with someone her own age who likes her for her. This is how it’s meant to be.

We lie back on the bed.

‘I can’t believe you’re leaving me,’ I say. ‘What am I going to do without you?’

‘Oh, get back to normal life, have a clean house,
no
fun! Get a bloody
boyfriend,’
she says, nudging me in the side.

‘Oh, and I will, don’t you go worrying your little head about that. I’m a changed woman. You watch, I’ll be married in a year, massive do at St Paul’s Cathedral to some member of the aristocracy, you my head bridesmaid, resplendent in vintage, me wearing a gigantic meringue.’

She gasps. ‘Oh my God, we forgot! The wedding dress. The last thing on the list!’

She’s right, we were going to sell the wedding dress, flog it on eBay, give it to a dress shop, burn the damn thing. It smells of fags, anyway.

But lately, I’ve been thinking of Wayne and his tattoos. His battle scars. The stories that make up his life. Poor bugger will never be able to get rid of Tracey or Justine or Christabel, but he doesn’t seem to want to, either. They are part of him, like the dress and the wedding that never happened are part of me, really. They’re my story, too.

‘Actually, I’ve kind of had a change of heart about that one,’ I say. ‘I think I’ll keep it after all.’

‘Really?’ says Lexi, wrinkling her nose.

‘Yeah, you never know, when you marry Jerome you can wear it!’

‘Shut up,’ she says, rolling her eyes.

* * *

We’re downstairs now. The sun-filled lounge is full of cards and balloons; it’s twenty minutes till party time, twenty-four hours before Lexi goes and it feels likes the official end of summer. I feel suddenly exhausted, like I’ve lived a lifetime in this house.

The bell goes. ‘That’ll be that there Jerome Montaigne!’ says Lexi in her ‘exaggerated Yorkshire’ voice, hopping towards the door excitedly, but I know there’s a chance it might be someone else.

The five whole minutes of yelps and squeals and hysterical laughter confirms I was right. A full-figured, cherubically pretty blonde stands in my hallway holding a Best Friend 18 Today balloon and an enormous bunch of flowers.

‘Carly Greenford. Oh. My. God! What are you
doing
here!’ Lexi looks like she might wet herself with excitement.

They dance around the hallway, hugging one another until they collapse in a frenzied heap on my rug.

‘Happy?’ I laugh. I’m applying lipstick in the hallway mirror. ‘She’s a trouper, that one. I only called her yesterday and she dropped everything.’

Lexi hugs me so tight she nearly winds me.

‘Happy?’ she says, looking at me through the mirror, and, for the first time in my life, I see similarities between us. Something about the serious chin, the little rosebud mouth. ‘This is the ultimate birthday present. The best, ever. You’re a genius! Thank you.’

We put Carly’s flowers in a vase, then Jerome arrives and takes some photos of the birthday girl. Finally, we’re ready to go.

Lexi opens the front door to a blinding sun.

‘Let’s do this,’ she says. ‘Let’s have it, people!’

But I hold on behind.

‘You go onto the park, I’ll find you in a minute.’

There’s just one thing I have to do.

* * *

The letter sits on the windowsill. It arrived yesterday, a small, cream envelope, thick with paper.

The postcode is Clapham. I only know one person who lives in Clapham. But from the elegant, feminine writing, I know it’s not from him.

I sit down at the kitchen table and open the letter. The house is suddenly quiet now and I have a sudden pang of dread, like, this is how it’s going to be from now on.

My hand goes to my mouth as I start to read.

I sit there, my hands shaking, tears rolling down my face. She was so brave. So brave and so honest. Had I ever been that brave and honest in my entire life?

I fold the letter back up and put it in its envelope. Then I wash my face, reapply all the make-up that’s slid down my cheeks, take Wayne’s present from where Lexi left it on the bed, and walk to her party.

The park is throbbing with life and noise. The fairground is set up around the bandstand – waltzers, Dodgems, a terrifying
zig-zagging thing that flings you around and then upside down. There are stalls along one side selling burgers and hot dogs. The air smells deliciously of candyfloss and fast-food grease.

I look at my watch. Half past two. In fifteen minutes, Wayne will be down here to collect his leaving present, say his goodbyes and that will be it.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ I’d said to him. ‘It’s nothing big – don’t get too excited – but it’s something I thought you could remember this summer by, each time you use it.’

Dave was going to get a new boat partner when he heard Wayne was leaving, but since Wayne’s been manning his shop at Camden Market (and, I like to think, since Lexi’s been working her magic), he reckons he’s made enough money to set himself up for a bit and he’s going to move out and get a flat somewhere instead. Turns out the novelty of sleeping in a hammock wears off after a while.

I can hear Lexi’s squeals from a mile off. She’s being thrown around on the waltzers, Jerome one side, Carly on the other, head pinned to the back of her seat by G-force, eyes squeezed shut in an expression of pure, delighted abandon. After Clark’s arrest, she told Carly the truth about her and Clark. Turns out, in true teenage form, that Carly thought that Lexi and Clark were having the sex life of the century – that they were swinging from the chandeliers! The lies we tell for the sake of our pride …

Out of my peripheral vision, I see someone in top-to-toe cream get up from the sea of picnic blankets around me and stride towards me. My dad. He’s wearing leather sandals, a linen suit and a red T-shirt that says
ANIMAL
on it, and I think how sweet and vaguely ridiculous he looks. He flings both arms around me, the champagne from his glass sploshing on the grass.

‘Caro. Hello, honeybun. How are you?’

‘I’m good, Dad,’ I say, kissing him back, then wiping off
the champagne dribbling down my dress. ‘Great you made it down here. Perfect day or what?’

Cassandra’s waving at me from the picnic basket; two large, bangle-laden arms and a vision in lilac tie-dye. I wave back and she raises her glass.

‘Well, Cassandra’s pissed,’ I say, and Dad laughs out loud.

‘Birthday Girl’s not far behind,’ he says, gesturing towards Lexi.

I look over at my sister. She’s off the waltzers now, staggering, still dizzy, arm-in-arm with her posse, a bottle of champagne swinging louchely from her hand.

She’s definitely decided not to go back to sixth form. She starts on a business course next week instead, but something tells me she’s going to be all right. More than all right. It turns out, after all, that my sister is a sales and negotiations genius. Some sort of whiz kid at people skills.