‘I’m not sure I can, can I?’
Tiana grabs a handful of crisps. ‘Why not?’ we both say at the same time.
‘Clarky won’t bite! My new year’s resolution was to meet five new people this year,’ Tiana continues, crunching, ‘and already I’ve smashed that target.’
Clarky puts the guitar down by the fireplace and walks towards us, but not before mouthing a ‘sorry’ in my direction and then throwing a mini-sausage at George who howls with laughter and throws one back at twice the speed.
‘There’s no chance Imogen was born sunny-side up,’ he says.
Aggie coils her long auburn hair into a bun and lets it loose again. ‘What do you do, Clarky?’
‘I play the violin.’
She looks at me in triumph. ‘Can you make a living out of that?’
I laugh at her directness.
‘Er, that’s a good question. Well, I’m available for birthdays, christenings, ruby wedding anniversaries, weddings – you name it. Let’s face it, for money I’ll do anything.’
*
Everyone has left. Clarky helped Aggie carry Eliot down the steps and then she offered him a lift home. The funny thing is, I had expected him to stay.
‘’Bye. Happy Birthday, George,’ they all shouted out of the windows before the white van raced off into the distance.
As Mum left, she tried to comfort me, telling me that today was a success because George, in his own way, had enjoyed it.
Now he is lying on our bed with a wet Mr Muki laid out on a damp towel across one of the pillows, his pyjamas are on inside out and he still has chocolate crumbs in his hair. It doesn’t matter. I need to take a leaf out of Aggie’s book.
I walk downstairs, ignore the washing up and make myself a cup of camomile tea. I wonder if Aggie will ask Clarky out? Would he go for someone like her? She is tall like me. His last official girlfriend was called Annabel. She was just over five foot and wore little pumps and neat pleated skirts. She looked like a sparrow hanging off his arm. ‘All she wants to do is settle down and bake scones,’ Clarky told me when they broke up two months later. Justin normally goes for quiet girls whereas Aggie’s the type to speak her mind. I like her, though, very much. Maybe someone like Aggie is exactly what he needs? Clarky’s great with George, too, so he wouldn’t have a problem with Eliot. I laugh at myself. Already I am playing Happy Families. Switch off. I shut my eyes and press an imaginary button on my head.
*
The front door opens. ‘Mum!’ I hear George screaming. ‘MUM!’
Finn comes into the room and throws his briefcase down. ‘What’s that burning smell? Where’s George?’
I run upstairs.
‘What’s that smell?’ Finn runs after me.
‘George, are you OK?’ I call.
‘Muki’s on fire!’ I fling open the bedroom door. The puppet is lying across the bedside table lamp, burning to death.
‘He was cold after his bath, I wanted to warm him up,’ George says, teeth chattering with fear.
I grab him but he’s piping hot. ‘Shit!’ I shout, withdrawing my hand. Finn takes him instead and runs to the bathroom where he throws the rabbit into some cold water. I unplug the lamp immediately.
‘Is Mr Muki dead?’ George starts to cry. ‘It’s not my fault, Dad. I wanted to keep him warm.’
‘George, quiet,’ Finn says sharply.
‘Have I killed him?’ He’s sobbing now.
Finn lays Mr Muki on the towel and starts to make the sound of an ambulance siren. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I ask him.
‘Mr Muki has been brought into Accident and Emergency. He needs open-heart surgery. Stand back.’
‘Is he going to be all right, Dad?’
‘Shh. I need absolute silence. Keep back.’ Finn listens to Mr Muki’s heartbeat and does pretend cardiac arrest treatment. After a couple of minutes: ‘That was a narrow escape,’ he informs us seriously.
‘Is he alive, Dad?’
‘He’s pulled through …’
‘He’s alive!’
‘… but if that’s ever done again, Mr Muki won’t make it next time. Do you understand, George? You cannot put anything on lights. ..’
He nods.
‘Do you understand?’ Finn repeats firmly.
‘I understand. Thank you, Dad.’ George hugs him tightly.
‘Go to bed, OK. I’ll come and say good night in a minute.’ George jumps up and cradles Mr Muki in his arms. The rabbit’s fur is burnt and his eyes charred as black as coal.
What was Aggie talking about? I only have to turn my back for a second and the house will burn down. I’m crying now. My back hurts; my hand hurts. I’m so tired.
‘Hey.’ Finn kneels down by the bed.
‘It’s my fault.’
‘Let me take a look at that hand.’ He walks into the bathroom and returns with a cold flannel. He presses it against my lobster-coloured skin, the coldness stinging against the heat.
‘Will I live, Doctor?’
‘It’s touch and go.’
‘I shouldn’t have fallen asleep but children’s parties are exhausting.’
‘Even if no one turns up?’ We both laugh helplessly.
I shift over so he can lie down with me and we’re quiet for a couple of minutes until Finn says, ‘We’ve got the twenty-week scan tomorrow, haven’t we?’
‘Mmm,’ I murmur. ‘You’ll be there, won’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘What would have happened if you hadn’t come back?’
‘Don’t think about it. It’s OK now, that’s all that counts.’
We haven’t hugged for a long time. I try to imagine not having Finn in my life. I hold on even tighter.
‘Although,’ he starts again, ‘that damn rabbit could have burnt our house down. Imagine having to tell the insurance people. Who gave him that scary puppet anyway?’
‘Clarky.’
‘Clarky,’ he repeats slowly. ‘I should have guessed.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I was staring at my computer screen waiting for my boss to deign to come into the office. He was the laziest genius I knew.
After Cambridge and travelling with Clarky, I had gained my degree in typography and was now a PA, working for a leading London designer, David Hamilton. His offices were along Westbourne Grove, the seedier side near Bayswater. David was a wildly contradictory character: temperamental, brilliant, flamboyant, frustrating, creative and infuriating. I hadn’t realised quite how successful and well known he was in the industry until I started working for him. He was heralded as one of the most important designers of the 1980s. For my interview I had dressed in a long polka dot skirt that Mum had insisted was the thing to wear. I felt I would have stood more of a chance of getting a trendy media job if I’d been wearing suspenders and a black leather jacket.
‘
Alice in Wonderland
was my favourite book as a child.’ David winked at me when he told me I’d got the job. There was a frisson of chemistry between us. I abandoned the skirt after that.
He loved to stroll into the office around mid-day, wearing dark jeans, black cowboy boots and a white shirt that showed off a few stray dark hairs on his chest. Sometimes a tall long-legged model would strut behind him, mascara smudged around her eyes, looking like she had just crawled out of his bed. He was constantly hungover and clutching a Styrofoam cup of strong coffee in one hand, a bacon sandwich in the other. ‘What have you got in your in-tray, Josie?’ he’d ask, perching on the corner of my desk and flicking the plastic lid off his take-out coffee.
‘Josie, wake him up and get his arse into the office, OK?’ was a typical morning call from a client.
‘I’ll try him again,’ I’d say, feeling more like the nagging wife as I picked up the phone.
‘People who start the day early are very boring, Josie,’ was David’s justification.
‘That sounds more like an excuse to stay in bed.’
‘Do you really want to work for a boring person?’ I knew he was smiling then.
‘No. I wouldn’t mind a social life, though.’
*
Still no sign of my boss. I picked up the phone. How long could he get away with this? I punched in a number. ‘Are we still meeting tonight?’ I asked Alex. He’d been my boyfriend since my final year at Reading: ambitious, clean-living (he liked to ‘detox’ once a month), and being positively nice was a hobby with him.
‘I’ve got a mountain of work to get through.’ He worked for a bank in London. ‘What time’s the concert?’
‘Seven-thirty. If it’s difficult we can meet afterwards.’
‘I’ll try my very hardest, pumpkin.’
I put the phone down and started tapping my desk with a rubber-ended pencil. It was time for a caffeine fix. I walked outside, into the hustle and bustle of London traffic and people. I needed a new job, one where I was doing the designing; I wanted to use my degree. I had loved my job to begin with but now I was ready for more responsibility. I crossed the zebra crossing and a tall man walked past me, striding in the opposite direction. I turned round. There was something about his face, the way he walked, that click of the heel against the pavement. It couldn’t have been, could it? I stood motionless in the middle of the road until a car beeped at me and I was forced to move on.
I headed for Starbucks and bought a latte. I sat on a stool near the window and gazed out on to the busy London street. For the past month I hadn’t been able to get Finn out of my mind. I’d lie awake at night and wonder what he was doing now. Had he finished his medicine degree? Had he met anyone else? Was he married? Happy?
He was relentlessly in my thoughts; I’d even been dreaming about him. It was always the same dream, where his hand held mine but his touch was so light. I was terrified of losing it again. I’d wake up feeling this closeness to him, a layer of warmth wrapped around my body. As I rolled over, wanting to rest my head against his chest and hear the reassuring beat of his heart, instead I’d hear, ‘Morning, precious.’ And there was Alex, propped up against the bedhead reading the newspaper. ‘You were restless in the night,’ he’d say. ‘Things on your mind, pumpkin?’
After I left Cambridge Finn and I had kept in touch to begin with but our calls became less and less frequent until they fizzled out all together. There were many moments when I felt so angry with him, angry that he had left me
wanting
. I’d close my eyes when I kissed other men and imagine they were Finn. What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I feel anything anymore? I threw myself into my work instead. Painting was my therapy. When I’d met Alex in my final year, I tried to make myself believe I could love him.
I had been with Tiana one evening recently at her flat in Pimlico, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eating fish and chips. Tiana’s flat was the size of a shoebox, but so inviting that I never wanted to leave. Her bedroom was fit for a princess to sleep in – dark red silk bedspread, ornate silver mirror, crystal chandelier with fake diamond and pearl drops. ‘I work in a cut-throat world,’ she’d say, ‘so when I come home I want to be surrounded by prettiness.’
‘Shall I contact Finn?’ I asked her, dipping a chip into mayonnaise.
‘Definitely. Why don’t you try his college?’ she suggested. ‘They’d at least forward mail to him. Go on, I’d like to meet him.’
I had thought about this already but allowed myself to think of all the reasons not to, the main one being fear. Perhaps I had been thinking about him because Alex was getting too serious about me and my mother was getting way too serious about
him
. He’d told her she had the most beautiful garden he had ever seen. ‘When is that delightful young man coming for lunch again?’ she’d asked recently. ‘I’d love to show him my new herb pots.’
I looked at my watch. Nearly midday. David still wouldn’t have arrived in the office so I had time to order another latte. He’d better not be too late because I couldn’t stay tonight. It was Clarky’s concert.
Now, Clarky was a person I couldn’t talk to about Finn. Everything about him shut down and switched off if I tried. The only thing he’d once said to me, shortly after we’d returned from Europe, was that I had to stop looking back on Finn through rose-tinted glasses. It had been lust, that was all. ‘Don’t worry about it, J, we all make mistakes.’
His words cut right through me. ‘Meaning?’
‘We think we’re in love but …’
‘Are you still talking about Finn and me?’
He’d laughed at my question. ‘Who else? You were just stupid and starry-eyed, let it be.’
Let it be.
Clarky was another story altogether and one that wasn’t so easy to piece together.
We had climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, strolled along the Champs Elysées, exhausted every museum in Madrid, gone on long bicycle rides in Barcelona. I’d painted on the beach while Clarky sat absorbed in a paperback. He’d made me go to a few operas in exchange for accompanying me to art galleries. He’d helped me get Finn out of my mind. Or so I always maintained. ‘You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?’ Clarky had asked one day when we were in Paris.
‘No.’
‘For most men it’s out of sight, out of mind.’
‘I’m not thinking about him, OK?’
‘Fine. Good.’ He wrapped an arm around me. ‘Because we’re in one of the most romantic cities in the world, let’s not waste our time dwelling on thoughts of Finn. We’re going to meet a lot more people at university and it would be foolish to feel tied to anyone while we’re only nineteen. It’ll get easier, I promise.’
The fact that we were seeing and experiencing so many different things certainly helped too. Clarky and I became even closer; I hadn’t thought it possible to know someone as well as I knew him.
‘Don’t do that!’ He’d been standing at the sink at the time, after brushing his teeth, spitting water out like a dead fish. ‘Ugh! Stop it!’ I cried.
‘Josie, do you realise you click your tongue against the roof of your mouth?’ he said one day, watching me as I drew on the beach.
‘I don’t.’
‘Yes, you do. And you do this when you’re writing.’ He was biting his lip, chin stuck out, pretending to write against the table.
‘I don’t!’
‘Sorry, you do.’
‘Well, this is you playing the violin.’ I’d given myself a double chin and pressed my lips tightly shut as I played the imaginary instrument.
‘I get so swept away in the music that I forget what I look like.’
‘And you do this with your nose when you’re in a mood.’ I’d touched the end of mine and given it a tug.
‘I get that from my father. It’s a control thing.’
*
Then there was that one night when we were in Venice. It was our last destination before we went home for the summer.
We’d been eating out, couples surrounding us on every table. Hands were being held, people were kissing at every opportunity, street vendors were selling dark red roses from champagne buckets, men ushering them over with a click of their fingers, ready to hand their girls a single symbolic stem. Meals were followed by romantic evening strolls in the square or late-night trips on gondolas, being serenaded on the water. ‘I
will
marry you!’ I heard from every street corner. If you were single it felt as if your face was being rubbed in it. ‘Come back when you’re in love,’ the skies seemed to hiss at you.
Clarky and I had been walking back to our hotel one evening. My head was spinning from too much red wine. The buildings, the light on the water, candles in the restaurants – everything was lit up with hope and love. I’d felt so happy walking with him. We had a contest as to who could walk in the straightest line.
Outside our hotel room we’d kissed goodnight clumsily on the cheek but then Clarky had knocked on my door five minutes later and staggered in before waiting for me to respond. The weird thing was I had expected him to come back. I was standing naked in front of the cracked bathroom mirror. Giggling, I’d grabbed a skimpy towel from the rail but it barely covered my bottom. ‘I’ve run out of toothpaste,’ he’d said, leaning one hand against the wall. He was still in his jeans and cord shirt. Turning to get him some, I felt a hand on the back of my waist and the towel dropped to the floor as he twisted me back round to face him. ‘You’ve run out of toothpaste!’ I’d laughed, pulling his shirt off, drink not allowing me to feel any inhibition.
‘And you were actually going to get me some?’ He’d kissed me then and his mouth smelled of mint. His arms went around me and I kissed him back; it felt great to be held. He pulled me closer. ‘You’re beautiful, so beautiful.’
‘You’re drunk, so drunk.’ We’d fallen onto the bed, high on red wine; high on each other.
*
The morning after I had looked over at Clarky who lay with one arm above his head, his lips slightly parted as if someone were about to sprinkle something magical into his mouth. I could hear his breathing. Quietly I lifted the duvet and found my clothes in the bathroom. I looked in the mirror. Black smudges around my eyes, skin blotched from alcohol, and hair that wasn’t easy to control at the best of times, sticking out all over the place as if I’d suffered a major electrical shock. I got dressed and shut the door softly behind me.
I walked to a bar, sat down in a crumpled heap and drank a cup of strong coffee. What had we done? It was sort of nice, I’d decided, twisting a strand of hair nervously around my fingers. It wasn’t the same as Finn. Oh, God, how could I put it? Sleeping with Finn had always felt strangely familiar, yet with Clarky our lack of inhibition had surprised me. But Clarky and me? Only the other night we had been sitting watching a movie in my room, eating a takeaway, Justin happily clipping his toenails.
‘D’you have to do that in here?’ I’d asked. How on earth had we moved from that to passionate sex?
We never talked about that night.
We met later on that day, bumping into one another awkwardly in the hotel reception area.
‘Hi!’ Clarky had smiled at me over-enthusiastically, like a host pretending it was wonderful that their guest was staying on for another month. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked him.
‘Great, but tired. Very tired, in fact.’
‘It’s only eight o’clock. Do you want a drink? Something to eat?’
‘I’m having an early night, need to nurse my hangover,’ he replied.
‘Are you really all right?’
‘Fine. See you in the morning.’
I was staring at him as if he were a ghost. Had I imagined last night?
The summer before we both started university Clarky went out of his way to avoid me. I’d walk into a room and he’d walk out with some excuse; if I was with Tiana all his attention would be directed towards her. I’d felt invisible and acutely aware of the way he was behaving, but he seemed oblivious. Tiana told me men don’t confront anything, especially something as tricky as sleeping with a best mate. ‘By the time you’re both at university things will be back to normal,’ she’d promised.
*
I stared into my coffee. I wasn’t in love with Clarky back then, but I was confused by his behaviour. His avoidance had hurt me and I missed him as a friend. I started to wish we’d never done it. It had been a terrible idea, mixing friendship with sex. It was a lethal combination, like business and pleasure. If I could rewind time I’d have been cleverer about it, I thought as I put my coat on and walked back to the office. Why had I acted like a useless lump of stone whenever he was around me? Why couldn’t I tell him that we needed to talk about it, just so we could get back to normal? Lots of people had one-night stands. I’d wanted to laugh about it, feel at ease with him again. Instead our silence about ‘that one night’ was building it into something deeper and more complicated than it should have been.
When we were at university the time apart and distance between us helped. And things did go back to normal. After about six months we became close again, as if nothing had happened. Only every now and then did we make references to it. When friends commented on how close we were, we were both single and had we ever, ‘you know,’ Clarky would say quickly, ‘Been there, done that,’ and I’d laugh, saying in a voice I hardly recognised as my own, ‘Blame it on the red wine.’ We still hadn’t talked about it properly and I doubted now we ever would.