After the Party (15 page)

He was a shit.

He really was a shit.

He'd known it for months, he'd felt the knowledge of his own fecklessness eating away inside him like a tumor. He should have spoken kindly to Jem. He should have been pleased for her. He should have said, “Wow, hon, that sounds great, fingers crossed that Karl will go for it.” He shouldn't be here, in Smith's spare room, he should be in his home, he should be offering to go out in the rain to collect Scarlett from nursery, he should be popping into Tesco on the way back to pick up some groceries, cooking something good for supper, insisting that Jem go out for the evening, take some time, that he would be
fine
with the baby, with
his
baby. He should not let his family exist in a different plane, he should not keep making excuses for his own absence, he should start to make friends with his baby boy and he should take more responsibility for his ravishing daughter and not just flourish her like a trophy.

He knew all of these things. He knew them intensely and deeply, in vivid shades of awareness. But he had no idea how to change his patterns of behavior. They were so profoundly etched into his being. And he was still so unflinchingly cross with Jem for her physical rejection of him, for her aloofness, for just forging on through life like a human plow, forward and onward with her jobs and her schedules and her own throbbing rhythms, never turning back to look at him with a fond smile,
are you there, are you keeping up, do you want to hold my hand?

He knew it was his own doing, he knew that since Blake was born he'd retreated from family life, he knew that the onus was probably on him to pull up his socks and get back into things without too much fuss. But he was stuck, suspended in a pit of resentment and fear.

He felt the top of his bedside cabinet with his left hand,
brought down the slim package of photos that Jem had packed for him. The first photo he pulled out was of Blake. He rubbed his eyes and he stared at the image, his gaze taking in every detail of the baby's face, his wide dark eyes, his pale ruff of hair, his neat ears clipped to the sides of his head like cashew nuts. Who was he, this boy? Where had he come from? What did he want? Ralph had never wanted a son. He'd assumed after making one girl that the next baby would follow suit. The sight of Blake's clearly boy-shaped genitalia on the ultrasound screen all those months ago had taken Ralph by surprise. He felt sure there'd been a mistake. “Are you sure?” he asked the sonographer. “Oh yes,” he'd replied happily, “one hundred percent. That's a boy.”

The sonographer had seemed so happy for Ralph. “One of each,” he'd said, as if he'd imagined Ralph to be desperate for a boy to complete his life. But Ralph had not been desperate for a boy. He'd wanted another Scarlett. Well, he hadn't wanted another baby at all, but if he was going to have one thrust upon him, the only palatable concept of babyness he could conjure up was one exactly the same as the one he'd already grown to know and to love.

He'd hoped right up until the very last moment, right up until Blake had slithered from between Jem's open thighs onto the bloodied hospital bed that there'd been a mistake, that the midwife would look at them both in surprise and exclaim, “Well, I never, it's a girl!” But instead Ralph had seen immediate evidence that his second child was indeed a boy, and not only that, a boy red of face and wide of mouth and angry of expression, a boy who appeared not to want to be here, a boy from perhaps another species. Ralph had been hoping for the moment to carry him swiftly away from his misgivings, waiting for his heart to fill with paternal pride,
my boy, my boy
. He waited
for the first thirty-six hours in a state of suspended animation, thinking: now, now I will get him, now he will enter my heart. But days and weeks and months had passed and Ralph still felt as though a stranger was in their midst. And not only that but a stranger who slept with his partner, who drank from her body, who occupied most of her waking thoughts.

He ran his thumb across the glossy skin of the photograph. He stared at the baby again, waiting for something to soften his heart. Just a baby, he thought to himself, just a tiny baby. But nothing gave. He was still stone.

He sighed and slid the photo back into the pocket. He was lost. Lost in his marriage. Lost in his career. Lost in his role as a father. And now he was lost here too, lost in California.

But the weirdest thing had happened to him last night.

There'd been a moment. When was it? About three in the morning, he supposed, halfway between the bar and Rosey's apartment block. He'd been ripe with beer, his head a soft sponge of cheer and joy, the warmth of the balmy Californian night wrapped around him, sleepless cicadas scratching a lazy rhythm in the bushes. They'd meandered across the busy oceanside drive, loosely together but not quite apart, bare arms occasionally brushing against each other. The boys from the band had left hours earlier, their pleasure curtailed by the prospect of early starts for day jobs and long cab rides home, but Rosey didn't work on Wednesday mornings and Ralph clearly had no reason to want to head home so they'd carried on, into the early hours, talking about things that Ralph had no recollection of this morning, the conversation like a high-speed train, a streak of words that had left no mark on his consciousness. But there was one moment he remembered vividly, just as they reached the other side of the road, the moon hanging heavy behind a
palm tree. Ralph had stopped, looked at the moon, looked at Rosey, looked behind him at the ocean and suddenly been overcome with emotion. Every beautiful moment of his life flooded through him. Every grand emotion he'd ever experienced came at him all at once and left him fighting for breath.

Was this it? he thought. Was this where it all stopped? All the sensation, all the joy, all the giddy delight of simply being? He was, he feared, too old to feel like this anymore. He thought about the first few years with Jem, how every single day had felt like a gift, when these moments had come thick and fast, when he'd barely had a chance to register one joyful moment before another had come hurtling up behind it. Was that youth? Was it love? Was it just a sugarcoated chemical fueling his brain? What was it? Where had it gone? And did he really have to run away, get drunk and flirt with another woman to feel it again?

Rosey had turned and smiled at him. “You okay?” she'd said.

He'd stared at her for a silent moment. “You're so beautiful,” he'd said (he felt sick with himself at this memory).

She'd looked at him quizzically. “That's what all the drunk guys say.”

“No, but really. You are so beautiful. Not in an ‘I want to fuck you' kind of way” (had he really said that, had he really said “fuck you”?) “just in a perfectly symmetrical, flawless bone structure kind of a way. I'd love to . . .” (God, this was probably the worst of it all) “I'd love to paint you.”

“Ha, well, feel free,” she'd said, though his muffled memories prevented him from being sure about her tone of voice; had she been flattered or embarrassed or quietly, sweetly condescending? He had no idea. He just knew that he'd said those things because he'd meant those things, because for the first time in a long time he was feeling like a fully functioning human being with a core and a purpose.

They'd moved on then, through a small shopping complex, past the restaurant where he'd had dinner with Smith that first night and into a courtyard apartment block. “This is me,” she'd said, “and you're sure you're okay getting a cab?”

He glanced about, feeling absolutely certain that he would be okay getting a cab and that even if he couldn't get a cab he'd be more than happy to walk on this perfect night.

He nodded. “I'll be fine,” he said.

“Okay, well, look, thanks for coming to see the band and thanks for letting me stay up late. It's been cool.”

“Yeah,” he'd said, steadying himself against saying anything else he might later regret, “it's been fun. I'll see you . . . I guess . . . ?”

“Tomorrow night? I think I've arranged to meet up with Smith, and since you are officially Gooseberry of the Week,” she said with a smile, “no doubt I'll see you then.”

He smiled happily, relieved that he would only have to wait a few more hours before seeing her again.

“And listen,” she continued, “if you were really bored, I'm going to church tomorrow, sixish. You could come along, see if you and God can, you know, hook up?” She laughed at the ludicrousness of the suggestion.

But Ralph didn't laugh. He nodded firmly. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah. Why not?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Great!” she said, her face breaking open into something soft and glad that Ralph hadn't seen before, “I'll pick you up. Five-thirtyish.”

“Excellent,” he said, forcing his hands down deep into his pockets and backing away from her. “See you then.”

She gave him a wave and a small smile, her face still washed over with the new softness, and it was then that it happened, a small, shocking moment that still reverberated around his
sore head today. Rosey had leaned in toward Ralph, her lips had touched his, not in a kiss—it was too dry and too soft to be a kiss—but not a peck either—it had been too gentle to be a peck—but something more like a caress. They'd pulled apart, not fast, but leisurely. “Oh,” Rosey had said, confirmation in that one syllable that something significant had just happened. She'd put her fingers to her lips and laughed. And then she'd slipped between her front door and the frame and disappeared.

Ralph didn't even look for a taxi that night. The straight grid lines of the seaside town and the distinctive landmarks of restaurants and bars made it simple to navigate his way back to Smith's apartment. He breathed the warm, briny air into his lungs, knowing that the opportunities to walk alone through a balmy night in a strange land were waning with every moment. He didn't feel like a forty-two-year-old man; he felt ageless, timeless, almost born again.

Was he in love? He had no idea.

For now, all Ralph knew was this: it was so late it was early and he felt like he was walking on sweet, sweet air.

B
y the time Jem had collected Scarlett from nursery and found her way to Joel's flat, her sheepskin boots had lost a large percentage of their former waterproof quality and the heels of her socks were damp. The unpleasant sensation of damp socks, added to the sense of having shiny, but not exactly well-arranged hair, and a three-year-old daughter who had done nothing but complain since her collection from nursery about the fact that they were not going straight home and that she “did not want to go to Jessica's house—I HATE Jessica's house,” led her to think that really, she may as well have just given in to Scarlett's terrifying will and headed straight home, possibly to break her No Wine Before 6 p.m. rule. But a date was a date and, she reasoned with herself, it would be good for Scarlett to have a local friend, especially as she had failed to provide her with a sister for regular girl play on rainy afternoons.

Jem made it up the last damp leg of the walk, to a sharp hill that ran up the side of Thai Dreams on Herne Hill and round a tight corner into a funny little mews that Jem had never even noticed before. The mews was modern, probably thrown together in the 1980s, and facing fairly rudely onto the rear ends of the shops in front. The lower floors of the boxy little houses were garages, with open concrete staircases leading to the upper floors. Joel's house was the second one along. Parked
outside was a squat Austin Mini in an indistinguishable shade of sludge, a car that looked like it had not been driven in many a year.

“I don't like it,” said Scarlett, backing away. “It's scary.”

Jem had to agree that it was far from salubrious, the sort of place that put you in mind of drug deals, and swaying drunks pissing up walls, and sociopaths hiding out in squalid solitude, sticking news cuttings of celebrities to their walls and playing with hunting knives. It did not look like the kind of place where you would bring up a child, especially not one with the sunny disposition of the fragrant Jessica.

Jem pressed the bell and waited for the crackle of the intercom to acknowledge her request.

“Hello!” It was a small voice. It was Jessica.

Scarlett looked at Jem gloomily as if her last possible avenue of salvation from the hellish prospect of the afternoon ahead, the possibility that Joel and Jessica
might not really live here
, had just been cruelly snatched from her.

“Hello!” chimed Jem. “It's Scarlett and her mum!”

The door buzzed and Jem and Scarlett gingerly stepped through into the hallway.

Scarlett crushed herself against Jem's waist while Jessica ran toward them, arms windmilling in their sockets, strawberry-blond hair hanging down her back in unkempt tangles. “Yay!” she hollered and then threw her arms around Scarlett in an enthusiastic embrace.

Jem felt Scarlett's small body stiffen and recoil. Jem felt the same mixture of emotions she always felt at these moments: pride that she had a child who did not throw herself like a treat at anyone who cared to have her, and concern that in not wishing to cuddle other more affectionate children she might give
people the impression that she was possibly unused to affection because she was given none at home.

“Come into my room! Come into my room!” Jessica hopped from one foot to the other, holding Scarlett's stiff, still-cold fingers in hers.

Joel appeared in the doorway at the top of the corridor. “Now, come on, Jess, give poor Scarlett a chance to at least take off her coat.”

Jem glanced up. There he was. Joel. He was wearing a gray lambswool crewneck and blue chinos. His feet were socked and he was wearing glasses. He looked like a geography teacher. “Find us all right?” he asked.