One Thing Led to Another (23 page)

‘Yeah,’ laughs Jim, but I can tell he’s not really interested, ‘absolutely shattered.’

We get home, open the front gate. A cloud eclipses the front garden, turning it dark. I can’t stop thinking how they seemed, the three of them there, I can’t help thinking that won’t be us, we won’t be a family. I try to imagine Jim at the hospital, cheering me on, I try to imagine those first few nights with a new-born, us in separate bedrooms, but I can’t. I think about what I imagined having a baby would be like and it definitely wasn’t this.

Jim searches about in his pockets for the front door keys, I stand there thinking for the first time, that I don’t really want to go in.

Keep talking.

‘They seemed really in love, you know,
together,
considering they’ve got a small baby.’

Jim lets us into the flat and turns off the burglar alarm.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘they did seem pretty solid.’

‘It’s a lucky baby, that baby,’ I sigh. So does Jim, but not in the same way.

‘For a start, she’ll be streets ahead in the looks department.’

Jim throws the keys onto the table, opens the cupboard and takes out a glass.

‘Imagine having parents who look like that!’

He turns on the tap, fills the glass and downs it in one.

‘It’s a rare thing to have parents who are so in love. I know I felt secure to have my parents, it will be hard for our baby…’

‘For fuck’s sake, Tess!’

Jim slams the glass down on the side. I nearly jump out of my skin.

‘Shut the fuck up!’

I look at him, stunned.

‘Why do you keep doing this?’

He turns round, tears fill my eyes.

‘Yeah that’s right, you cry, go on.’ He puts his head in his hands. ‘It’s all about you, isn’t it? Never anybody else. You don’t get it, do you?’ He glares at me now.

‘Get what? I’m sorry. Why are you so upset with me?’

‘You’re always putting this down, our baby, this pregnancy, you’re always comparing us to other people.’

I stand there, bewildered.

He storms through to the lounge, picks up my book, the
Bundle of Joy
book, and hurls it on the floor.

‘Have you read this?’ he shouts.

‘Yes, you know I have,’ I say.

‘Have you read all these stories?’

‘Yes!’ I protest, ‘of course I have.’

‘Are any of them fucking perfect?’

I can’t answer, I’m crying too much.

‘Because they’re not, are they? None of them are. None of them prove this theory you seem to have that everyone
except you has got it so good. Well you don’t know anything Tess, you know shit about real life which surprises me considering the people you meet and talk to every day in your job. At least this baby will have a father.’

‘A brilliant one,’ I say, walking towards him, he turns away from me.

‘At least I want this baby. Do you know about my dad?’

‘What, that he was an alcoholic?’

‘That he beat my mum to a pulp?’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t…’

‘In front of me and my sister?’

I close my eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I didn’t…you never told me…’

‘It’s alright for you, Tess, with your dad who really loves you, who thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Mine was a total arsehole, he chose booze over his own family. Then he fucked off out of my life and he never came back. This is my chance, don’t you get it?’

He’s still shouting but his voice is cracking.

‘My chance not to screw up, not to be like my dad. When you told me you were pregnant, it was the best fucking day of my life and yet you put everything down, put a downer on it all. Just because it’s not totally perfect.’

I try to say something, but I’m appalled with myself, I can’t find the words. Then to my horror, Jim bursts into tears. He stands there, quivering like a little boy. I walk towards him. I want to hold him, now, more than anything in the world. I want to take everything back, I want to start again.

I take another step, I hold out my arms.

‘Not now,’ he says, then he walks out of the room. Ten seconds later, I hear his bedroom door slam shut.

I stand in the kitchen, the blood rushes in my ears. I am glued to the spot, I am appalled with myself. I am a bitch.
An absolute bitch. How could I have been so insensitive? So blind, so self absorbed?!

I pick my book up off the floor, put it on the kitchen table and go into the lounge. I lie down on the sofa and close my eyes. I hear an aeroplane overhead, but not a murmur from upstairs. Then I close my eyes, jaw jammed shut, and the tears flow. Tears of self-loathing. I think of Jim upstairs and I wrap my arms around myself and imagine, really hard, that I am holding Jim.

I must have drifted off because the next thing I know, Jim’s sitting on the sofa.

‘Hello,’ he says. ‘Did you fall asleep?’

I blink at him. ‘I must have nodded off.’

‘I’m sorry Tess.’

‘No, Jim,
please.
I’m sorry,
so
sorry. I had no idea how I was coming across.’

‘Yeah but I shouldn’t have sounded off like that, it was dramatic and unfair of me, you weren’t to know all that stuff. Even
I’d
forgotten that stuff.’

We don’t say anything for a minute or two, next door some music starts up, then Jim takes a breath, he starts to talk.

‘I miss him,’ he says. ‘I think that’s the thing. I’ve never admitted that to myself before, but I realize, it’s true.’

‘Your dad you mean?’

‘Yeah, him. He was a total shit, but he was still my dad. And he wasn’t always like that,’ he continues. I just let him talk. ‘It was the booze that did it, he was an alright dad before that.’

‘What was he like?’ I ask.

‘Just normal. He’d take me fishing and to the park, kick a football around with me, boy stuff I suppose. But when it all kicked off with the drinking, I don’t know, he just changed almost overnight. Suddenly he was so apathetic about life, about us, everything.’

‘That must have been really hard to take.’

‘I was only a teenager, I don’t think I could make sense of it, I just felt…I don’t know…confused and pissed off with him.’

‘Totally unsurprisingly.’

We talk for an hour, Jim opens up like never before. He tells me how his dad used to come home in the early hours, how he came to dread the sound of his drunken singing outside his bedroom window. He tells me how he often scraped his dad off the kitchen floor then listened to his parents’ screaming matches in the bedroom next door. There was the time he saw his dad throw a steel lamp at his mum, slicing into her temple. I listen, appalled; he talks and talks. Then, when he’s finished, we eat the brownies and Jim laughs, embarrassed at how I must really be worried about having this baby, now I know where he really comes from (I’m not). Then he says, Let’s go somewhere.’

‘Where? What do you mean?’

‘Let’s go to the seaside, to Whitstable, let’s just book a B&B.’

His face lights up because he’s guessed what I’m thinking.

‘Separate beds of course, don’t look at me like that!’

I’d just landed the job of my dreams – secretary for the MD of Yorkshire Fittings. I’d been to Leeds and spent the best part of my first salary on a Biba dress and chisel-toe shoes. Then I found out I was thirteen weeks pregnant. I was devastated. In those days you didn’t work late into pregnancy, so it hardly seemed worth even starting. Worst thing was, I never did get into that dress after that, even after our Steven was born.

Janet, 56, Pontefract

The morning’s clouds eventually crack under the pressure of a fiercely hot sun. Every man and his dog has got the same idea – escape the City, head for the coast and the A2 is packed, the traffic crawls and my bum cheeks are fused to the seat with sweat. Jim’s got a cheesy piano house mix-tape circa 1998 thumping out of the sunroof. I can’t resist doing a piss-take ‘rave on’ gesture out of the window.

‘Can you stop doing that?’ says Jim.

‘Doing what?’

‘That thing with your hand. It’s really embarrassing.’

It amuses me greatly that he’s embarrassed since it happens so rarely. I carry on, he shakes his head with despair.

Driving to Whitstable feels like driving to the end of the world. Steep chalky cliffs rise up on our left, on our right, the gently undulating downs of Kent. The only sign of civilization for miles is a fragmented town built into a craggy hillside. Even the names of the places: Gravesend, Ebbsfleet, have a world’s-end feel about them. It’s hard to believe that such a sparkling, white-washed gem, lies in wait, some thirty miles south.

Eventually though, we turn off the motorway. Charmless dormer bungalows lead into the town with its tea rooms, tiny doorways and shops that sell doorstops that say ‘Gone to the Beach’. Red-faced men and sun-kissed girls with bikini straps dangling, pour out of pubs, drinking in the sun.

The cry of gulls is everywhere, it reminds me of home.

‘So where is this place then?’ Jim leans forward in his seat like an elderly driver. ‘You booked it, this ninety quid a night place.’

‘It’s my treat, Jim,’ I protest. ‘One night’s not going to break the bank and anyway, you deserve it, it’s the least I can do. Especially when you consider I don’t pay you any rent.’

The B&B’s called Cove House. It’s tucked behind the seafront amongst the rickety old fishermens’ cottages in one of the sleepy lanes.

The heat hits us like a wall when we get out of the car. The white of the buildings dazzles against a deep blue sky.

‘Check it out.’ Jim stands, hands on hips in front of the smart, double-fronted house with its white clapboard façade. Baskets ablaze with magenta flowers hang at both sides of the front door. Somewhere in the eaves, a wood pigeon coos.

The owner – a large woman with a sun-worn face – shows us to our room then she leaves and we look at each other and burst out laughing. ‘Nice work Jarvis!’ ‘Oh my God it’s gorge!’ I squeal, ‘I’m so clever!’ Stripped wood floors, rolltop bath, a huge white, Victorian wardrobe with pebbles trapped in the glass. Oh, and one, (all be it a beautiful white cast iron one) bed.

‘Just the one bed then?’ smirks Jim.

‘Oh!’ I clasp a hand to my mouth. ‘Sorry I must have thought double meant twin.’

What if he thinks I did it on purpose? What if he thinks I’ve set him up?!

‘It’s alright,’ says Jim, clocking the worry on my face. ‘We did, once or twice, sleep in a bed together remember, so I’m sure we’ll cope.’

We could have spent all day marvelling at the Molton Brown goodies and the widescreen TV but a perfect square of glistening sea is calling us from our sash window so we dump our stuff and go.

Jim buys a tub of cockles from a van and we wander along the sea wall, following the curve of the beach full with pale bodies laid out like fish drying in the sun.

‘So, Jim?’

I have an uncontrollable urge to ask him questions.

‘What do you want to do with your life? You know, what are your dreams for the future?’

‘Bloody hell,’ laughs Jim. ‘What kind of a question is that? I can barely get my head around today, let alone the future.’

‘OK, but do you want to carry on teaching?’

‘Yeah,’ he shrugs, ‘definitely, I love it.’

‘And what about ambitions?’

‘Just to be happy.’

We step onto the beach, the shells crunch beneath our feet. ‘You alright?’ Jim asks.

‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Just checking, that’s all, that you’re not withering in the heat.’

We walk for almost an hour Jim making me laugh with stories of the kids at school. How they take the piss out of his car, his clothes, his
everything.

‘Doesn’t it bother you?’ I say. I hate to think of him being taunted, poor bloke!

‘Don’t be silly,’ he laughs. ‘They’re just kids, it goes the territory, you’ve got to rise above it and just get on with the job.’

The beach widens and gets quieter, upon the verge of grass to the left is a cluster of brightly painted beach huts.

‘Now you’re talking,’ says Jim. ‘I could really fancy one of those.’

‘What would you do in it?’ I ask.

‘Nothing, that’s the whole point. A bit of musing, a game of scrabble, a few sundowners with someone special.’

We’ve gravitated to the beach now, we’re lying face up on our towels.

‘Do you reckon you’ll ever settle down?’ I say, it just comes out.

‘I don’t know,’ says Jim. ‘I hope so, one day.’

I close my eyes, light dances on my eyelids. I can hear the chatter of children and the womb-like rush of the sea.

‘I suppose,’ he starts. Then he pauses, he takes a breath. ‘I suppose I’ve never had much evidence, you know, that it works.’

‘What works?’ I say, turning on my side to face him.

‘Well,
life,
’ he says, picking at his towel. ‘But mainly commitment, you know, relationships,
love
.’

I open my mouth to speak but Jim carries on.

‘I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I stopped believing, when I got to be a teenager probably, in that happy ever after thing. It never crossed my mind after that – that I’d ever be married with kids, it’s just not something I envisaged.’

‘Maybe having an alcoholic father who beat up your mum, and a crack addict sister didn’t help,’ I blurt out. ‘Oh God, sorry.’

‘It’s alright,’ shrugs Jim. ‘It’s taken me all this time to realize it myself.’

‘Do you think you ever will?’ I ask. ‘Get married that is. Obviously the kid thing’s somewhat taken care of…!’

‘Maybe,’ he shrugs. ‘Yeah, I think so. I’ll probably end up like this friend
of mine, he was just like me. Dodgy childhood, various short-term girlfriends, could never get it together and then, one day, he just met the right girl.’

‘And then what?’ I ask. He looks at me and the sunlight pierces his eyes turning them a kaleidoscope of green and gold.

‘And then that was it, he did it, didn’t he? He fell in love.’

I sigh, contentedly, and feel the warmth of the pebbles on my hand.

‘Who’s that friend, then?’ I say, after a pause. ‘You’ve not mentioned him before.’

‘Oh just a lad who teaches at school,’ says Jim.

‘Well, good for him,’ I say.

I lie back down.

‘Anyway,’ says Jim, when we’ve drifted off into our own headspace for a few moments. ‘Enough about me, what about you, eh Jarvis? What are your big plans?’

‘Oh I dunno,’ I say. ‘Become a better writer.’

‘How do you propose to do that?’

‘Get a job on a better magazine. Maybe do a creative writing course.’

‘Really?’ says Jim, sitting half up. ‘You never told me you wanted to do that.’

‘Well there’s only so long one can stomach triumph over tragedy, and besides, I want to write proper stuff.’

‘Proper stuff?’

‘Yeah you know, proper creative writing, fiction, poetry. I’m so impressed with Rich doing his script.’

‘Come on then,’ says Jim, sitting up, suddenly excited. ‘Let’s do it, let’s practise now.’

‘What do you mean?’ I say, screwing up my face.

‘Describe the sea,’ he orders.

‘Describe the sea?’

‘Yeah describe the sea, you know, as if you were writing a description.’

I sit up, cross-legged on my towel and frown at him, but secretly, I’m already loving this.

‘What?’ I say, ‘like I’m reading a book aloud?’

‘Exactly that. Look at the sea, really look at it, think about how you can describe it in as original and powerful a way as possible and then do it. I want to see you really use your powers of imagination, all your senses. No clichés please.’

‘Bloody hell,’ I laugh, ‘I’m glad you’re not my teacher. You’re scary.’

Jim doesn’t flinch.

I look out at the sea – beautiful but fairly uneventful today, close my eyes and pray for inspiration.

‘Right,’ I start. ‘No, sorry I feel like a tit.’

‘JARVIS.’

I try again.

‘The sea,’ I start, resisting the temptation to just take the piss, ‘was gun-metal grey and gentle waves dawdled to the shore, as if from a long and satisfying walk.’

‘Nice,’ says Jim, sounding annoyingly surprised, ‘original, nice personification. Bit overdone perhaps, what with the walk analogy.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I already thought that as soon as it came out of my mouth,’ I say, surprised at how seriously I’m already taking this. ‘And “gun-metal grey”,’ I say, critiquing myself. ‘Bit of a cliché?’

‘Possibly, yes.’

And so over the course of the next ten minutes, the sea becomes elephant grey (if it’s a rough, stampeding sea), stone-grey, moon-grey (that was Jim’s. Very nice). We particularly like my suggestion of dove-grey for a peaceful sea, perhaps very early in the morning.

‘Now your turn,’ I say. ‘What about the clouds, the sky?’

‘Right,’ says Jim with comical seriousness, reaching for his sunglasses so he can look at the sky.

The scoop of skin revealed by his round-neck T-shirt is already turning rhubarb red in the sun…

‘Wisps of clouds like cotton wool…punctuated an azure-blue sky,’ he begins. ‘And as the day came to a close…’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ I cut in. ‘If “cotton wool clouds” isn’t a cliché, I don’t know what is and “azure-blue sky”?! That’s worse than “gun-metal grey sea” surely!’

‘Yeah, alright,’ says Jim, with a mixture of hurt and amusement. ‘You win. You’re right, it’s harder than it seems.’

We really get into it though, this becomes our game for the whole weekend. Seagulls no longer merely squawk or screech, they bleat and whine, the sun becomes a cracked egg, a girl has skin the colour of Dime bars. And I lose count of how many times Jim tries to better his crap cotton wool moment (‘clouds like starved sheep’ causes the orange juice I am drinking to come down my nose I am laughing so much). It became an ongoing competition to out-describe one another and kept us entertained all day long.

‘You’re good, Tess,’ Jim said, as we collected out stuff from the beach. ‘You’re a better wordsmith than me and I teach creative writing. Why don’t you start writing yourself? Go to an evening class or workshop?’

‘Think I will, although I’d die of embarrassment if had to read it out and besides, I’ll have a baby.’

‘I’d look after the baby,’ says Jim.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ he backtracks. ‘If I could have Friday night out, and maybe Tuesday night out. Then there’s the football on a Saturday…’

I give him the withering wife look.

‘I’m only jesting,’ he says, ‘kind of.’

By the time we’ve left the beach, it’s gone six p.m. As we stroll back to the B&B, along the parched grass behind the beach huts, our shadows are long in front of us and the only sounds are the distant whirr of a lawnmower and the surge of the sea.

‘Do you want to go in the bathroom first? Since it will take you about five times longer than me to get ready?’ Jim asks when we get back to the coolness of our room. He switches on Sky Sports and takes off his T-shirt, flopping onto the bed. Then immediately bolting upright.

‘Ow shit!’ he shouts, ‘Jesus that hurt!’

‘Oh my God!’ I look at him, horrified. ‘Look at your sunburn!’

Jim’s arms, Jim’s neck, Jim’s chest and shins…Jim’s everywhere that wasn’t covered with clothes, is a violent shade of pink.

‘Oh Jim,’ I say, covering my mouth, ‘that looks so sore.’

He gets up from the bed, wincing, and shuffles over to the long mirror.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ he says, examining himself. ‘Why do I always do this?’

‘Because you think you’ve got Mediterranean skin?’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I mean what factor did you have on? Four? You’re Scottish, Jim. Deal with it.’

Thank God I thought to bring the Aloe-Vera.

‘Look at the colour of you,’ Jim tuts, sitting opposite me on the bed as I reach for the cream. ‘You’ve gone nut-brown in a day for God’s sake.’

‘I’ve got my dad’s Cornish heritage to thank for that,’ I say, gently smoothing the cream in on his ankles, trying desperately not to press too hard. ‘Does that hurt?’

He shakes his head.

‘That’s why I’m this weird mixture of dark hair and blue eyes but with mucky coloured skin.’

‘Are your eyes blue?’ Jim says.

I look up at him and flutter my eyelashes, self-consciously.

‘They’re not, they’re kind of sea-greeny-blue.’ He peers at me. ‘Gorgeous colour, actually.’

I pump some more cream out onto one hand, then take Jim’s foot in both. I concentrate on the ankle and the instep, going in tiny circular motions, then take each burnt little crisp of a toe, rubbing it in gently.

‘You’ve got nice feet.’ I say. ‘Not like my podgy horrible ones.’

‘Oh well, let’s hope he or she gets my feet then. And preferably your everything else.’

The evening sun floods the room. Through our open sash window, we can still hear the hiss and crackle of the sea as it laps the beach then retreats. I finish one foot and move onto the other, Jim closes his eyes, completely relaxed.

‘There you go,’ I say, putting the bottle to one side. ‘That should be nice and cool for you now.’

‘Thanks,’ says Jim. ‘That feels really nice. Although I’m sure I’m supposed to be the one giving you a massage.’

I run a bath, add a few drops of my mother-to-be bath oil and sink into the steamy, fragrant water, my bump sticking out like an island. Next door I can hear football commentary and the odd empassioned cry from Jim. ‘Back o’ the net!’ ‘That was shit!’ ‘What a fucking beauty!’ It’s oddly soothing.