Separate Beds (24 page)

They were a party of eight, which had meant two taxis (Emily had worried about her share of the fare), and some more than passable Sauvignon Blanc had been rushed to the table. It was all very pleasant.

Mike had sat himself down beside her, and his manners turned out to be good. What a difference it made to be asked questions about oneself. So many of the men, in particular bankers and lawyers, she sat next to at dinner parties just talked about themselves.

‘So,’ Mike was saying, as he tackled his grilled half-lobster, ‘have you given up your ambitions to write or are they merely on hold?’

This was tricky. Emily regarded the modest omelette and tomato salad adorning her plate. She did not wish to suggest that she was not wholehearted about the job. On the other hand, she was not about to do a St Peter and deny the thing she loved. Mike poured a garlic-butter puddle over the lobster. Noting the way the yellow gloss
settled over the white flesh, she replied, ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that it takes time to become a writer and I see it as something for the future.’ Mike raised an eyebrow. ‘And I’m committed to this work.’
Press releases, for Heaven’s sake
. ‘Writing, er, needs patience.’

Go on
, she thought.
Dig yourself into a big hole
.

‘Does it?’ He was indeed laughing at her, but with some sympathy. ‘As a member of Generation Impermanence, I think it’s a good thing to consider something is with you for the duration.’

‘Good,’ she murmured, still fascinated by the yellow-red combination of lobster shell and butter.

‘Emily, would you like a piece of lobster?’ Without waiting for an answer, he speared a chunk and placed it on her side plate. ‘You should have ordered some.’

‘It’s a little too extravagant.’ All the same, she took the lobster and wolfed it.

‘You have butter on your chin.’ He offered her the corner of his napkin. ‘That’s better.’ He smiled. ‘You don’t have to worry, this is on expenses.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ His smile broadened and, with that, Mike proceeded to initiate Emily into the office politics. These were, by his account, pitiless and intricate – and also, to her surprise, fascinating. So, too, was the group discussion on the geopolitical fortunes of Condor Oil.

All the while they continued to drink the good wine and to eat the excellent food. Emily abandoned some of her nervousness, laughed frequently, contributed her mite to the conversation, promised to tell Mike more about the (temporarily) abandoned novel and, once back in the office,
found herself cruising through the afternoon’s work on an agreeable plateau.

Once upon a time, long ago, he and Mia had lain out on the lawn in the back garden and stared up into the sky. Mia wiled away the time by describing the clouds. ‘Flirty’, ‘bad-tempered’ or ‘languorous’. Not so good at words, he had been hard pressed to match her verbal dexterity – and, at this miserable point in his life, with his feelings locked in frozen storage and inaccessible, he was even less eloquent and tongue-tied.

Mia had the knack of pushing Jake to take a closer look at his surroundings: to take notice of people, issues, objects in a way his parents failed to. Nothing new in that, he supposed, as a new recruit into parent rank. To be ignored must be one of the eternal sorrows of the parent – and those, he was aware, lay ahead.

Today, as he picked his way over the cobbles to the workshop, the clouds were definitely languorous and, with the air warming for summer, the adjacent canal was beginning to smell. Tucked into Victorian railway arches, the other businesses – a motorcycle-repair outfit, a second-hand music shop stuffed with old records and DVDs, and a second-hand bookshop – were up and running.

‘Hi,’ he called out to Dave, who was stacking boxes of books inside his cramped interior.

Dave looked up. ‘Jake, hi. Can you build me a bigger shop?’

Unlocking the door, the familiar scent of wood, resin and varnish washed over Jake. He hovered in the doorway, fighting off the inertia and despair that threatened to dissolve whatever resolution he still retained.

Here’s the thing, Jake. One minute at a time.

Unlocking the filing cabinet, he extracted his order and account books. It took a cursory glance to confirm that he had logged in only one commission for a small display cabinet, despatched the previous week.

The order book was now empty.

Jake sat down at the bench. How to resurrect an almost-dead business? Advertising – required funds. Internet marketing – he would investigate. Personal contacts – limited but worth a try. Business plan – would ring accountant. Credit – try bank.

He could hear Jocasta’s voice: ‘For God’s sake, Jake, if you’re running a business you have to be practical and hard-headed.’ She was always pressing him to set up systems, apply for grants and make friends with his clients.

He had laughed, buried his face in her hair, and whispered, ‘But that’s not the point. I want to be free to design without fuss.’

And Jocasta’s exasperated ‘You won’t have a business, then.’

Perhaps she had had a point.

Jake hit the phone and embarked on an extensive ringing round of clients and contacts to see if there was any business to be had. The exercise took up half the morning, and the results were patchy. It was increasingly clear that things had changed. In times of plenty, it was hail-to-thecraftsman-king. In times of economic uncertainty, the craftsman was dispensable.

‘No dice for me either,’ said his friend Bob, who specialized in historic wood restoration, when Jake rang him. ‘The fountain has dried up and thirsty we will be.’

‘Thanks, Bob.’

‘Any time.’

Jake also rang the letting agency to check that the rent was coming in from the house and was relieved to be told that all was in order. In the back of his mind, there was the hope that he and Maisie would be able to move home in the not-so-distant future.

‘Have you got a plan?’ Tom had asked him, only the previous evening.

‘As much of a plan as you, Dad.’

Tom gestured to a pile of white envelopes on the table waiting for stamps and said curtly, ‘Job applications, actually.’

His mother had been ironing the Interview Shirt for his father and the cluck of the steam iron punctuated their exchange. ‘Dad,’ said Jake, as polite as he could muster, ‘don’t you think you should be doing that?’

He had caught his father on the hop, if not the raw. Annie propped up the iron, which hissed in a friendly manner. Tom’s brows snapped together. There was a second or two of impending storm before he joined Annie at the ironing board. ‘Should I be doing this, Annie?’

‘
Dad
… you shouldn’t have to ask.’

‘Sweet of you, Tom.’

Tom moved Annie away from the ironing board. ‘Isn’t it?’

Later on, his mother had drawn him aside and taken his hand. ‘Jake, darling. You look exhausted.’

‘I am,’ he said and, seduced by her tender concern, permitted her to see some of his turmoil. ‘It’s not just looking after Maisie, it’s more I can’t see where I’m going now. I can’t see what’s best.’

She stroked his fingers, pressing down slightly on the joints in an effort to massage away the tension. It was as if she was saying, I helped to give you life, but only you can run with it.

Jake looked up from his desk and eyed the stack of wood at one end of the workshop. Walnut, cherry, pine – an inventory sounding sweetly on his inner ear – that provided the vocabulary by which he lived. As he mused over it, it occurred to him that, since the wood was valuable, he should put an extra lock on the door. Jocasta had always said he should.

And where was she? Tucked up in a big soft American bed with Noah … Jake raked his wounds.
Stop. Don’t think about a naked Jocasta
. Neither would he reflect on the narrow single bed to which circumstances had banished
him
.

The phone still depressingly silent, he paced around. Assembled in neat rows, his woodwork tools were as he had left them, now so little used that a layer of astral dust had sifted over them. He touched one or two, to allow himself to feel their familiar shapes. Finally he threw out a couple of empty tins just to feel he’d done something.

Someone knocked at the door and pushed it open a trifle. ‘Hi – anyone there?’

Annoyed at the interruption, Jake swung round. ‘Yes?’

The door opened properly and a girl appeared. ‘Are you the repair shop?’

‘No.’

Dressed in high-waisted trousers and a gingham blouse, she was tall with plenty of curves, fresh-faced and rather lovely. ‘Oh. Is there anywhere I could get a heater fixed?’ She hovered on her Doc Martens. ‘It’s my lifeline.’

He noted the weary inflexion. ‘Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy another one?’

A pair of rather fierce eyes were directed on him with a look to curdle milk. ‘No,’ she responded flatly. ‘That would be a waste.’

Right, he thought. Got the picture. Earth maiden. Greener than chlorophyll. Dolphin-friendly nets. Retreadtyre shoes. Depressing light bulbs …

She cast a look around the workshop. ‘Could
you
help?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Oh.’ She raised a hand to brush back her hair from her ears and he spotted a livid bruise on the wrist. ‘OK. Sorry I asked.’

He worried about the bruise. ‘Perhaps I could take a look.’

The restorative effect of his words was nothing short of miraculous. ‘Wonderful.’ She disappeared only to reappear, dragging a cumbersome electric heater with her good hand.

Jake was appalled. ‘Is that how you got that bruise? How far have you had to carry it?’

She gestured out of the window to the block of flats that towered grimly in the distance. ‘Not too far.’ She glanced at the pile of Jake’s ledgers and the leather satchel he used to carry papers, and a smile glimmered at the corners of her mouth. ‘But a little different from here, shall we say?’

He noticed that she winced when she nursed her wrist. ‘OK. Let me look.’ He bent over to diagnose the heater’s ills.

While he did so, the girl roamed the studio. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘Three years.’ He teased a wire out of the plug. ‘But not for much longer. Business has more or less collapsed.’

‘And you’re giving up.’ It was a statement but, to his surprise, he detected criticism. She ran a finger over a plank of English walnut and inspected the shelves of tools. ‘You’re very orderly.’ She leaned forward and sniffed. ‘Nice.’

The fault was easy to spot. ‘Loose wire,’ said Jake. ‘It needs replacing. If you hang on a minute, I think I can do it for you.’ He hoicked open a drawer, which contained his graded coils of wire.

She said politely and seriously, ‘You
are
tidy.’

Because he was so rattled, the observation grated on Jake. ‘You have to be.’ He selected the wire and banged shut the drawer. ‘Otherwise you get distracted. If everything’s in place, you’re free to think about the important things.’

‘Such as?’

He looked up. She was leaning against the workbench, eyes half closed, drowsing almost and obviously exhausted, and he knew that she was not interested in his answer.

Leaving her to her reverie, he worked in silence. The repair was simple and took no time. He reached down and plugged the heater into the socket. Almost immediately, a smell of burning dust filled the workshop.

The girl’s eyes flicked open. ‘You do know how things work.’

‘I’ve tinkered a bit. I like to get to the heart of an object. The chicken-and-egg sequences of gadgets.’

‘So,’ she murmured, ‘unlike the little boy pulling wings off flies, you dismembered kettles and dreamed of steam engines.’

Despite himself Jake laughed – and felt better. ‘You’ve
got it. Finding the shape that lies in the wood or the block of marble – or, believe it or not, a heater.’

She sent him a slightly sceptical look. ‘Brilliant,’ she said at last, and a proper smile lit up her beautiful features. ‘Thank you. You’ve no idea what a difference …’ She dug around in her trouser pocket and produced a ticky-tacky purse of a sort often found in catalogues that sold products from the Third World. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Nothing.’

A hint of obstinacy. ‘I insist.’

‘Insist away, but it’s on the house.’

She was the first to look down. ‘Then thank you again.’

Jake helped her to carry the heater to the door. As she lifted it up, she asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Jake. And yours?’

‘Ruth.’

In the afternoon she was back. This time with a toaster tucked under her arm. ‘I’m being a bad penny, I’m afraid.’

He grinned. ‘Surely not.’

‘I’ve been telling my old ladies about you.’ She proffered the toaster on two hands, treating Jake to a full view of the bruise. ‘It belongs to my next-door neighbour. Mary’s pretty elderly and she’s really missing her toast. Could you?’

Jake had already run through a toaster’s components in his head. Fuse, element, et cetera.

‘She wants to pay.’

He gave the toaster a preliminary once-over. Crumbs rained on to the bench and he brushed them into the bin. ‘If it’s the element, I’ll have to send off for a replacement. That’s easy enough.’

‘Will this do?’ She proffered a note.

‘Sure.’

Ruth stuffed her hands into the pocket of the pea-jacket she now wore over the gingham blouse – a jaunty version of the Marseille sailor. ‘There’s plenty more where that’s come from.’ She gestured to the stack of wood. ‘I need a bookshelf and a work station. Maybe … if the business …’ She reached over and touched the edge of the bench. ‘It’s good to meet someone who can actually make things and mend them.’ She seemed to be perfectly at ease. ‘You see – I mean, now that everybody’s up against it, things will have to be mended because people won’t be able to afford new things.’

Jake had sussed the problem. He tapped the side of the toaster. ‘I’m pretty sure it’s the element. It’ll take a week, but it’ll be quite safe if you leave it here. It could do with a clean-out too.’ He checked his watch. ‘I’ll have to go. My father’s looking after my daughter and I promised I wouldn’t be late.’

‘How old is she?’