The Trouble with Henry and Zoe (24 page)

‘For God’s sake, Clive, just because the boy has suddenly embraced his . . .’ My mum’s eyes go to my hair, and her expression changes from indignance to dread.
‘Son,’ she says, ‘is that why you left April? Living a lie? Isn’t that what they call it? Oh, Henry.’

‘I’m not gay.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ says my dad. ‘I mean . . . thank God.’

My mum is still examining me shrewdly, the anger tightening her features again. ‘But there is someone, isn’t there?’

‘What? Don’t be . . . silly.’

‘Name?’

‘Who?’

‘I’m your mother, Henry. I know your stupid sodding face, and I know when you’re hiding something. Name?’

‘Zoe.’

‘Oh,’ says Mum, smiling insincerely. ‘I see. Zoe, is it?’

‘Sheila, give it—’

‘Didn’t bring her with you, heh? Didn’t bring
Zoe
with you?’

My mum is on her feet, and Big Boots rises to meet her, positioning himself between us.

‘Does she know? This . . .
Zoe
?’ as if, instead of her name, my mother is stating my girlfriend’s crime, condition or other failing:
Killer, cheater, bitch.

‘Mum, please.’

‘Wait a minute, how long have you b—’

‘Mum, it’s been a few weeks, it has nothing to do with me and . . .’

‘Who, April? What’s the matter, can’t you say her name now?’

‘Sheila, sit down.’

Mum walks backwards to her chair and drops into it in a defeated heap. ‘She’s like a daughter to me.’

‘I know. What about me, Mum? What about what I want and what I’m going through?’

Mum looks as if she’s been slapped. But instead of angry, she looks all of a sudden contrite. ‘
Like
, I said. I said she was
like
a daughter . . . that’s
all.’

Dad perches on the edge of Mum’s chair, takes her hand and rests it on his thigh. It’s an unusually tender gesture, and it does me good to see it. Perhaps my stupidity and subsequent
exile has brought them closer together. I know I don’t deserve any kind of silver lining, but if this is one, then I’ll take it.

‘It’s been difficult, son,’ says my dad. ‘For all of us.’

‘How is she?’ I say. ‘April?’ And my mother is right, her name does feel strange in my mouth.

Mum and Dad look at each other and something passes between them.

‘What?’ I ask.

They look at each other’s hands, and Mum lets her head list sideways onto my father’s chest.

‘She’s seeing someone?’ I ask.

My mother looks at me with exasperation. ‘Well, did you expect her to wait for you, Henry?’

‘No.’

‘After everything you did to the poor girl?’

‘I said no.’

‘Becau—’

‘So,’ says Dad, ‘what’s the plan?’

I shake my head. ‘Don’t have one.’

‘Well, there’s a sodding surprise,’ says Mum, snatching her hand from Dad’s grip.

The house was finished three months before the wedding, making it one year old this July. Maybe today is its birthday. I have been inside before, April and I both have, but
never at the same time – someone, it could have been me – deemed it to be bad luck.

I feel nothing towards this brick cube. No regret, no loss, no sense that this is where I should be. Yet here I am. Standing at the foot of the short drive, behind the closed gate, staring at
the shut curtains.

April chose the carpets, wallpaper, curtains, the paint, the cupboard doors and everything behind them. There were discussions, but only in the sense that April was thinking aloud and trying out
the
sounds
of various fixtures, fittings and ideas. When she asked what colour I wanted to paint the front door, my mind went blank with the shock of being consulted. I said blue, for no
reason other than it was the colour of April’s nail varnish and she was growing impatient. April produced a colour card filled with twenty-five shades of the single colour and I dropped my
finger onto its approximate centre.

The door is now black. My meagre input painted over and obliterated.

I have been standing here for five minutes now, but the coursing panic has abated not one bit. And I suspect it won’t even if I stand here all day. As I put my hand on the gate, the front
door opens and I all but turn and run. Perhaps the only thing that stays my feet is the pure blanching shock of seeing my former best friend standing in the doorway of my former future house.
He’s tanned, looks like he’s lost two stone and recently had a very good haircut. He looks extraordinarily well, even in a pair of bright orange slippers.

‘Brian?’

‘Tea?’ he says, holding one of a pair of blue mugs towards me. I was with April when she picked out those mugs.

‘You don’t have anything stronger, do you?’

Brian laughs. ‘Not before six, no.’

He sits on the front step, and I sit down beside him.

‘Nice slippers,’ I say.

‘Thanks. Oh, and fuck off.’

‘Cheers,’ I say, clinking my mug against Brian’s. ‘It’s good to see you.’

Brian nods:
Yes, it is.

We drink our tea in silence for a while, exchanging the occasional sideways glance and half smile.

‘I’m glad it’s you,’ I say.

‘Yeah, me too. Not going to knock my tooth out again, are you?’

‘I won’t if you won’t.’

Brian laughs under his breath. ‘The Dentist.’

‘Do you remember making those birdhouses?’ I say.

Brian nods. ‘There’s still plenty of fences with missing panels round and about.’

Wrecking one thing to make another.

‘I’m sorry I dropped you in it,’ I say. ‘At the . . . castle.’

‘It’s not me you need to apologize to,’ Brian says, looking over his shoulder to the house.

‘How is she?’

Brian nods:
Good
. ‘I knew you weren’t right,’ he says. ‘You and April.’

‘You didn’t think to share this?’

Brian shrugs. ‘Not my place, is it. And anyway, would you have listened?’

Maybe. Very very maybe.

‘So what’s this?’ I say, indicating the two of us sitting on the doorstep like a pair of little boys.

‘I just wanted to talk to you first. Get one thing out of the way before the other, you know.’

‘Thanks.’

Brian takes a deep, bracing breath. ‘I suppose we should go in.’

‘Is it six o’clock yet?’ I ask.

We both know six is a long way off, but Brian checks his watch reflexively. ‘Close enough,’ he says. ‘Ready?’

‘No.’

Brian opens the door. ‘After you.’

In all the years I was with April, I don’t think I ever saw her reading a book, but she’s reading one now.

Sitting on the sofa with her back to me, her blonde hair in a high neat ponytail, she closes the book, sets it down on the coffee table, pauses for what could be two seconds or eight thousand
years, and then turns to face me. Like Brian, she is radiating good health. Tanned, clear skinned, bright eyed, she looks amazing.

‘You’re late,’ she says.

My game plan, such as it was, consisted of receiving abuse gratefully and with contrition, and then apologizing to April and any attendant family into submission. But April’s composure and
lack of apoplectic outrage, it throws me.

‘That’s . . . that’s a good one.’

April cocks her head with pantomime smugness. ‘Well, I’ve had time to work on it, haven’t I.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m so, so sorry, April.’

And now her face hardens. ‘Jesus Christ, Henry. Where do I begin? How could you do that to someone you’re supposed to love? To someone who . . .’ She puts a hand to her eye,
then takes a slow, deep breath, regaining her composure as if willing herself – commanding herself – not to cry. ‘Have you any idea what you did to me?’

I have nothing to say, and all I can do is shake my head.

‘If you didn’t want to marry me, why propose, Henry? Why?’

‘I did. But . . .’

‘Do you think you’re better than me?’

‘No. Never.’

‘I wonder about that, you know. But I’m real people, Henry! I like who I am and where I’m from. And the way you treated me is . . . I don’t even know what it
is.’

‘Sweetheart . . .’ says Brian. ‘Nice and easy, yes?’

April closes her eyes and allows her features to relax.

‘Do you want anything?’ he asks.

April opens her eyes, nods. ‘I’ll have one of those teas,’ she says, and when she smiles at Brian, she winks. Her eyes follow him out of the room and the affection is
absolutely sincere.

She is still sitting on the sofa, head turned to the side so she can see me standing in the doorway. I decide to risk moving further into the room. I make it as far as the armchair, but before I
get a chance to sit, April shakes her head, says, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Right, I’m . . . sorry. I never thought I was better than you,’ I say. ‘I loved you.’

‘Loved. You’re a coward, do you know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, shut up! Yes. You should have told me. To my face, not in a stupid . . .’ April picks up a piece of folded paper from the coffee table, clenches it in her fist and throws it at
me. I don’t need to pick it up to know this is the letter I left behind on the morning of our wedding.

‘Pick it up,’ April says. ‘Take it with you because I’ve read it enough times.’

I do what I’m told and shove the balled-up note into my pocket.

‘We were kids when we met
,’ April says, sneering.

‘April, please—’

‘Y
ou’ll always have a special place in my heart
. I mean, my God! Did you not cringe when you wrote that . . .
shit
!’

‘I should have told you.’

‘Yes, you fucking should. It’s the very
very
least you should have done. Do you know what? I’m glad you did it.’

April looks at me, as if waiting for a response, but we both know there isn’t one.

‘Do you want to know why I’m glad?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Two reasons, Henry. First, because you are clearly a cruel, weak, fickle bastard. And I’m glad I found out before things got any more complicated. The thought that I might have had
a baby with you makes me physically sick.’

April is glaring at me, waiting for a reaction, so I nod, mutter
sorry
under my breath.

‘And second?’ April asks. ‘Second, because I am happy now. With Brian. Happier than I ever was with you. And I’m not just saying that to make myself feel better.
I’m saying it because it’s true.’

‘I’m glad you’re happy.’

April nods. ‘I suppose I should thank you . . . but I never will.’

And it isn’t until she begins the process of standing up from the sofa that I notice the bump. It’s a big bump.

‘Oh my God,’ I say, pointing at April’s stomach, and dropping into the armchair after all. The bump looks even bigger from down here and I jump back to my feet. ‘Oh my
good G— wait, what month is it?’

‘It’s July, Henry.’

‘Wh . . . w . . .’

‘October,’ April says. ‘We were meant to get married in
October
.’

I start counting on my fingers: ‘October, November, December, Ja—’

‘Nine,’ April says. ‘Nine months ago.’

The book on the coffee table is titled 5
01 Baby Names
; it’s impossible to tell at what letter it is splayed open, but it looks pretty central – M, maybe; N, perhaps, none of
which clarifies anything.

‘You’re pregnant,’ I say, looking for some stability in solid fact, but not finding much.

‘Who told?’ says April.

Again, I point at the bump, which can’t possibly have grown in the last thirty seconds, but nevertheless appears to be expanding before my eyes. ‘Is it . . .?’

‘Yes?’ says April.

I swivel the finger around so that it’s now pointing at me. ‘Is it . . .?’

‘Mine,’ says Brian’s voice from behind me. He is carrying a small round tray, red with white polka dots, which I seem to remember buying in the Trafford Centre about twelve
months ago. ‘Here you go . . .’ Brian hands a mug of herbal tea to April, then a tumbler of whisky to me. I empty it in a single swallow.

‘Congratulations,’ I finally manage. ‘How . . . long?’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Brian, ‘it’s definitely mine.’

‘Eight months,’ says April, a touch of defiance in her expression.

‘So you . . .’

Brian shrugs.

‘November,’ says April, looking at my hands, and I realize I am counting on my fingers again.

‘Congratulations.’

‘Yeah, you said that.’

‘Another?’ says Brian, reaching for my glass.

‘Henry has to go now,’ says April.

Brian and I shake hands, and then we hug. ‘Give it time,’ he whispers into my ear, clapping a hand on my back.

I was supposed to carry April over this threshold, into the house. Instead, she escorts me in the opposite direction, my best friend’s baby growing inside her.

‘I’m happy for you,’ I say.

‘I suppose that makes it easier for you, does it?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe a little.’

‘Well, don’t think I forgive you, because I don’t. I fucking don’t, Henry.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ll always be
that
girl, thanks to you. That girl who . . .’

I nod towards the house. ‘What about Brian, the baby?’

‘Brian’s amazing.’ April’s face comes alive when she says his name. ‘And he’ll make an amazing father,’ she says. ‘But it doesn’t change . .
. it doesn’t make what you did right.’

‘I’m sorry, all I am is sorry.’

April nods. ‘Yeah, I know. So,’ she says, crossing her arms, ‘you seeing anyone?’

‘I . . . kind of.’

April shakes her head. ‘
Kind of?
You’re amazing, Henry.’

‘It’s complicated. She’s had . . .’

‘You know what, Henry? I don’t want to know. Just . . . Actually, I really hope you sort yourself out, okay. I hope you and whatever she’s called get together and fall in love
and . . . I really do.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And then I hope she leaves you standing at the altar.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Yeah, fair enough. And call your mother more.’

‘Right.’

‘Make sure you do, she misses you, Henry. Big Boots, too.’

‘I will. Thank you.’ I go to hug her, but April steps away from me.