State We're In (40 page)

As Dean ran his hands over her waist, her hip bones, her thighs, he began to wonder. Could he make the leap? He was self-aware enough to know that if he were ever to draw up his own to-do list, a list requiring him to move outside his comfort zone, to confront his fears and add a new dimension to his already successful, action-packed, adventurous – although somewhat insular – life, there would be just two things written on it:

1. Tell someone about my mother
   
2. Fall in love
   

The only two things he'd never tried.

Dean watched as Jo reluctantly climbed out of bed, searched around for something to wear and then went to the kitchen to forage for a drink. She settled on his scruffy sweat pants and a saggy T-shirt, her sexy red dress long since discarded, a crumpled heap by the bed. Other than the light from the hall and the skyline, the room was dark. Dean was losing sense of time, but a glance at the bedside clock informed him that it was nearly midnight. The day had scurried away on a breeze of endless smiles, laughter and conversation. He spent a few minutes enjoying it for a second time, then Jo returned to the bedroom carrying two mugs.

‘I unearthed some tea bags from the back of your cupboard, but we've used up all the milk so we'll have to drink it black.' She handed him a mug. ‘Careful, it's boiling and I don't want you blistering your tongue.' Her smile was at once concerned and wanton. It was an irresistible combination; they both were aware of what she wanted from his tongue. She tentatively perched on the edge of the bed. Dean was already familiar enough with her to know when she wanted to say something but was struggling to find the right words. ‘So, my flight home is tomorrow evening.'

‘Right.'

‘Then you'll finally have time to food-shop.'

Dean didn't know how to reply. He hadn't really given much thought to tomorrow, or the day after, or the one after that; it wasn't his habit. However, it now started to dawn on him that he might need to make it his habit. If he was hoping to have a relationship with Jo then planning would be required as she lived a continent away. He was pretty sure he was hoping to have a relationship with her. It was clear
she
was hoping to have a relationship with
him
; he wasn't being especially vain, but women invariably wanted a relationship with him, and Jo had done nothing to hide her enthusiasm about relationships in general, him in particular. There would be complications, of course. He'd need to look into that Skyping business he'd recently read about, and his phone bills would no doubt go through the roof. He wondered whether he had any more European business trips planned. It didn't really matter; he could afford a couple of flights anyway, and he had a mountain of air miles that he could use. It would be a start.

He had a vague sense that they ought to talk about the logistics, about the future.

‘I was wondering whether …' He coughed, surprisingly unsure of exactly how to phrase it. ‘Whether we should swap phone numbers,' he concluded. It was woefully inadequate and he was aware of as much. He looked at Jo, concerned that she might find him lacking. It was strange to suddenly be so unsure around a woman.

‘Definitely. Actually, I've just updated the contacts in your phone. I've already plugged in my phone number, but mine is a company phone and I guess they'll soon realise I have it and insist I give it back. I'll need to set up a new email account too. And because people are always losing their phones, I've jotted down my sister's numbers on that notepad by the fridge. And, erm, her address, you know, in case you wanted to write the traditional way, or send flowers.' She smiled sheepishly. ‘I left my parents' number and address as well, although God knows who lives there now. I want you to be able to reach me, and losing touch is so easily done when there's no fixed abode.'

Dean burst out laughing. His laugh hit the wall and ricocheted around the room. He loved this woman's honesty. Who else would expose themselves in such a way? She'd left herself open, emotionally naked, so much more daring than physical nudity. She'd put herself at his mercy; she'd done so because she trusted him. Jo grinned back at him. Her grin pushed through her blush; she was blushing as she too was considering who would expose themselves in such a way. Dean shook his head in wonder. Even if keeping in touch was going to be a logistical nightmare, he was sure she was worth it. He kissed her again, a long and lingering kiss.

‘So what shall we do tomorrow?' he asked.

‘Don't you have to work? It's Monday.'

‘I'll bunk off, say I'm ill.'

‘Won't you get into trouble? What if someone finds out?'

‘Well, I'll take holiday, then.'

‘You'd use up your leave to go souvenir shopping with your new girlfriend?'

‘So, you're my girlfriend, are you?'

Jo hesitated. ‘Well, love interest, then.'

‘Love interest,' Dean mocked gently. ‘Where do you find these phrases?'

‘Do you know, you can be objectionable? What would you like to call me?'

‘Actually, I'm OK with girlfriend
or
love interest,' he admitted. ‘Although I am a bit worried about souvenir shopping.' Jo grinned back; it was a face-splitting smile. She yanked off the T-shirt and wriggled out of his sweat pants and clambered back under the covers. Dean realised that she'd needed to be fortified by tea and clothes to have that conversation; now she relaxed and smudged back into him. They lay silently for minutes, and he brushed his hand over her silky hair; it felt good.

‘You know what I was just thinking about?' she said.

‘What?'

‘Your mum.'

‘Oh.'

‘I mean, OK, you are at a dead end in your relationship with your dad—'

‘Literally.'

‘Oh yes, sorry.' Jo looked as though she didn't know whether to laugh or cry over her lack of tact. She rushed on. ‘But what about your mum?'

‘It's too late for a relationship with my mother.'

‘Don't say that. Tell me more about her.'

Jo turned her sun-kissed – or, more likely considering their location, wind-kissed – face towards Dean. She looked vivid and healthy. She possessed a luminosity that he hadn't seen in her before. She had an air of excitement around her, the sort of excitement that comes with experimentation. She was experimenting with life and there was nothing finer. Dean knew this from his very many adrenalin rushes. He decided he too needed to take the plunge. The dim, warm room that smelt of sex cocooned him, her brilliance lit his way.

‘She was once a very beautiful woman, certainly on the outside. She had to have been to have hooked Eddie Taylor, who from all accounts – even my mother's reluctant one – was quite a catch. I can't remember far enough back to know with any conviction whether she ever glowed on the inside. I suppose that it's quite possible that she did, once upon a time. I don't know. If so, he snuffed out any lightness or beauty that she may have possessed. When he slammed the door closed, we all fell into darkness. I suppose it's equally possible that they were both always irredeemably bad, and like had simply drawn to like. I hardly know which would be worse.'

‘I don't understand why there was no support, why nobody else stepped in. Weren't there any other relatives? Someone who could have taken you in or at least helped out before things got so dire?'

‘My mother was an only child and she lost her parents not long after she married Eddie. I suppose I have to recognise how hard it must have been for her when Eddie left. She was isolated. Drinking was a comfort and a substitute for company. There was a great-aunt at one point. I don't know what happened there. Maybe she died, or maybe my mother drove her away. She did that to a lot of people.'

‘What about your paternal grandparents?'

‘They bailed on us too. I don't know why. I don't know whether they were ashamed of their son's behaviour or whether they backed him; maybe they loathed my mother. Or perhaps two young kids were simply too much work. Our relationship had degenerated into two parcels each a year, Christmas and birthdays, by the time we were taken into care. They visited the children's home that first night, of course. They had to – the social services called them – but I can't remember them visiting again.'

‘It doesn't sound like your mother had much help.'

‘No, she didn't. Eddie must have known that when he left us for the rich bitch. A woman who ultimately was so in love with her husband, so bound up with her own family ties, that she didn't even want my father.' Dean could not hide the bitterness.

‘When did you last see your mum?'

‘Years ago, Jo.'

‘When?'

‘I was fourteen.'

‘Oh, Dean, I think you should call her.' Jo looked animated. She was awash with the radiance of the newly in love. She didn't believe any hurdle was insurmountable; she didn't believe there was a hurt that could not be forgiven, a wound that could not be patched.

‘I can't,' said Dean flatly.

‘Of course you can. Don't be stubborn. I bet she's dying to hear from you.'

‘No.'

‘Just pick up the phone.' Jo grabbed the handset of his landline and was holding it out towards him. It was unlikely that he knew his mother's number off by heart, but she was too excited and animated to consider such practicalities. ‘Things are always salvageable. Think back to the last time you visited her; really, was it that bad?'

‘I remember it very clearly.'

With horrible clarity he remembered the interior of the little red Toyota that the social worker drove. It was an old car but she kept it clean; it smelt of pine air freshener and there were always imperial mints in the glove compartment. The social worker invariably offered them; Zoe would accept, Dean would refuse. He didn't want anything from the social services, not even a sodding mint, and he wasn't going to co-operate by allowing her to think she could make him feel even a tiny bit better, as if a mint could do that anyway. On the infrequent and chaperoned visits to their mother's, he'd keep his hand on the door handle for the entire journey. The moment the car started to slow, as it pulled up outside his mother's tiny council flat, he'd hastily fling open the door and jump out. He remembered doing exactly the same thing that last time they'd visited.

His mother had moved to Epping by then, into a scruffy, insignificant place. She'd drunk away their house in Clapham and everything in it. She was lucky: at least this new flat had a minute, neglected outside area, although the reality was no one felt comfortable describing the scruffy patch as a garden. She got this perk on account of her having children; the idea was for their time there to be made as pleasant as possible. Dean remembered thinking that they'd need more than a few shrubs and a thin covering of scorched grass to make the visits bearable. That last time he'd noticed that the outside space had been cemented over, suggesting that even the council had given up on the fairy tale that he and Zoe would ever benefit from the fresh air. He'd noticed that weeds had already sprung up through cracks in the cement and he'd almost admired their tenacity. There was a lean-to shelter bolted on to the outside of his mother's ground-floor flat, a dubious home improvement that was the legacy of a previous tenant; the roof was made of corrugated plastic, which had yellowed with age. Dean could see piles of junk stacked inside, waist-high towers of cardboard boxes and cheap weekly magazines. He also remembered that there was a cracked plastic sledge propped up against the back wall – he'd wondered who it belonged to; he knew it had never belonged to him – and there was the inevitable upturned supermarket shopping trolley. He'd thought, well, at least she's eating, but in the next moment he realised that the trolley was just as likely to have been used to bring home booze. In the garden there was a skeletal Christmas tree. It was May. It had probably belonged to one of the neighbours. His mother hadn't celebrated Christmas for years.

He'd run down the path before Zoe had even unfastened her seat belt. The social worker thought it was keenness to see his mother. It wasn't; he just wanted to check the state of his mother and the flat before Zoe was confronted with either. Just a fraction of a minute was usually enough to work out if Diane was drunk or sober, if the flat was just a pigsty or a distinct health hazard. He always hated pushing open the back door. His mother was not the sort of woman who got much company. That much was betrayed by her eternally grubby cardigan, her lack of make-up and her self-conscious stance. The air in the rooms was always stale, smeared with sweat and cigarette smoke.

‘She's dead, Jo.'

Silence. There were no words.

‘She killed herself. A cocktail of sleeping pills, vodka and her own vomit. There's some question whether it was intentional or not. It doesn't matter, does it? I was the one who found her, on that last visit.'

She often forgot to lock the back door, too drunk to care, too poor for anyone to want to steal anything from her. He'd pushed open the door with the vigour and force of a fourteen-year-old boy. It had cracked against her head as she lay sprawled on the floor. He'd smelt her vomit and her death instantly.

‘No.' Jo reached out for Dean's hand and brought it to her lips. She gently kissed his fingers as he fought the memory of trying to use his too thin, too young body to block Zoe's view. His shoulders simply hadn't been broad enough.

‘I almost missed her at first, as weak and pathetic as she'd been. Almost.' Dean looked embarrassed to admit as much. ‘Then there was more ferocious and extreme anger, but eventually I got past blaming her and hating her. I recognised that she was simply helpless and hopeless. I blamed my father more. Loathed him. But he's dying now too.'

‘So it's all over,' suggested Jo. Was Dean free to love now he could stop hating?