The Trouble with Henry and Zoe (26 page)

I’ve been exposed and found lacking.

After introducing her to the old matinee idols, square-jawed and sure-minded, Zoe has presented me with a golden opportunity to play the heart-throb. But I have missed my cue.

It may be the middle of summer, but it’s been an overcast day with high winds on the south west coast of England. Zoe’s parents are on holiday in Copenhagen, and their converted
farmhouse, with its brick walls and high ceilings, is as cold as a church. We could throw on an extra jumper, of course, but where’s the romance in that? Zoe sent me outside to chop wood;
perhaps expecting me to strip down to my white vest and cleave logs with brutal precision. That’s how Clark Gable would do it, or Cary Grant. I don’t have a white vest, and I’ve
never touched an axe in my life. Watching me swing, miss and come within an inch of removing my toes, I must have looked more like Benny Hill than Errol Flynn. So Zoe prepared the firewood while I
removed the splinters from my hand. And then, when my fire died for the third time, Zoe stepped up again, to provide heat while I chopped vegetables and uncorked the wine.

I can’t even fly a kite.

Zoe swapped her shifts at the Duck, working Thursday and Friday night to free up today and tomorrow for an impromptu weekend away. We set off shortly after sunrise this morning, our train
arriving on the Cornish coast five hours later, while the weather was still trying to make up its mind. Her parents’ house is a thirty-minute walk from the train station via the beach, where
the Goldmans own a blue and white striped hut like something off a postcard. In amongst the deckchairs and spiders and deflated beach balls, Zoe found a kettle, mugs and a jar of instant coffee. We
drank it black, watching the intrepid surfers paddle out and wait and ride back to the shore. Zoe laughed and took black and white photographs as I laid the kite on the sand, walking backwards and
unravelling string in preparation of a fast sprint and vertical launch. But before I could offer the kite to the wind, the wind would flip the thing over, dragging it sideways across the sand or
tangling the string around my feet. Zoe watched this farce for ten minutes before intervening. What you do, she told me, is keep the kite on a short length, letting the wind play with it at close
range, before gradually letting the string out until the red and yellow diamond is no bigger than a postage stamp against the grey sky. There is a lesson to be learned, I’m sure. Maybe
someone should write a children’s book about it. Kitty the Kite, a lesson about letting go, or holding on.

‘Sitting comfortably?’ says Zoe.

And I’m not lying when I say that I am. Thanks to Zoe, the fire is roaring; and thanks to her father we are drinking red wine from a cut-glass decanter. Whether the vessel has improved
this bottle of inexpensive wine, who knows, but it certainly adds to the effect.

Zoe stretches her feet and rests them in my lap. ‘Then I’ll begin,’ she says, in her best storytelling voice:

‘Hippochondriac rolled out of his mud bed and yaaaaaaaaaaaawned. “I wish I could yawn like that,” said Irrelephant. “You’re probably the most best yawner in the
morner.”’

‘I think we read this one on the way down,’ I say.

‘Did we? Are you sure?’

‘I never forget an Irrelephant.’

‘Sorry,’ says Zoe. ‘Am I being a bore?’

I shake my head, but can’t suppress a yawn. ‘Sea air,’ I say. ‘Chopping logs.’

‘Shit, I am, aren’t I? I am bloody borangutan.’

‘I don’t remember a borangutan.’

‘Joke,’ says Zoe.

‘Funny. Didn’t you say – when we were on the bridge – that you were thinking of writing something?’

‘Seems like a long time ago,’ Zoe says.

‘The bridge or the story?’

‘Both, I suppose.’ Zoe wipes her cheeks, and I see that there are tears in her eyes.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Just remembering.’

‘Alex?’

Zoe nods. ‘The day he . . . that morning, I had this idea, a silly idea for a book. And I thought,
yeah, I’ll write that later
. But then . . .’

‘You miss him.’

Zoe nods. ‘Sometimes. He was . . . we had some good times together.’ Zoe’s hand goes to her hair, wrapping the white strand around two fingers. ‘Did I tell you how I
ended up in publishing?’

‘No.’

‘You know I was a lawyer, right? Well, I was
miserable
. Hated it. I had eczema on my legs from stress and . . . it was a bit like being on the rebound, I think. Alex came along, and
I just . . .’ Zoe makes a grasping gesture at the air in front of her. ‘Just clung on. Don’t get me wrong, he was fun and caring and . . . you’ve seen his
picture.’

‘Handsome.’

Zoe nods. ‘You’re handsome, too, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’

‘We moved in together pretty quickly,’ Zoe says. ‘He supported me while I quit law and found my way into publishing. It was like a lifeline.’

‘He sounds like a good guy.’

‘He was. I’ve never told anyone this before,’ she says, staring into the fire, ‘but, I didn’t love him. Maybe at first, but . . . not really. It was a . . .’
Zoe shakes her head, lets herself cry quietly for a moment.

‘Did he know?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, maybe that’s . . . you know . . .’

Small mercy is what I want to say, but it feels insincere and trivial, and I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence. Zoe understands me, all the same.

‘I used to be thankful that I never told him, but . . . I’m not so sure anymore. I feel like he died under a lie, and I . . . I feel so bad about that. If I’d told him, maybe .
. .’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘And you know what else? If I’d told him, then maybe I wouldn’t be travelling in seven weeks. Maybe I wouldn’t have met you? And . . .’

I could say I understand, and hold Zoe’s hand while she cries. But saying it is easy, and meaningless and hollow. Proving I understand, though; reciprocating Zoe’s honesty and
showing that I recognize her guilt and confusion, isn’t that the best thing I can do? Isn’t it the only thing?

‘Before I came to London,’ I say, ‘I was engaged.’

Zoe sits up, wipes her eyes and looks at me calmly. ‘To be married?’

I nod. ‘Except . . .’

‘You didn’t marry her?’

‘April. No, I didn’t marry her.’

‘Because?’

‘I didn’t love her,’ I say.

Zoe smiles, sadly and – it seems to me – complicitly. ‘Bad scene.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Was she pretty?’

I nod. Zoe kicks me.

‘Oh, right, sorry. And you’re pretty, too. Obviously.’

‘Obviously. So, what happened?’

And where does all this candour end? We have seven weeks left and I’m tired of keeping secrets and pretending to be someone I’m not. But at the same time, how much truth is enough,
how much is too much, and how much can a person handle in one sitting?

‘What is it?’ asks Zoe, as if reading my mind.

‘I called it off,’ I say.

‘Just like that?’

‘Well, it didn’t go down as well as the proposal . . .’

Zoe laughs, and I hate myself for making light of what I did to April.

‘And . . .?’

‘I’ve known her since we were kids,’ I say. ‘Went to the same school. And, well, it’s a small village. Very small.’

‘I see. So . . .’ Zoe cocks a thumb off to one side. ‘You left?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Sorry, I don’t mean to be . . . it must have been awful. God, that poor girl. I’m sorry, I . . .
God!
’

‘I know. But . . . if I hadn’t, then I wouldn’t have met you, would I?’

Zoe shakes her head. ‘I’m glad you did,’ she says. ‘Well . . . kind of.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Kind of.’

For all the sex, sea air and wine I can’t sleep.

Apart from his camera, all of Alex’s things are gone. His bike, his decks, even his records. They fetched a couple of hundred pounds less than I’d hoped, but with additional shifts
at the Duck and accumulated holiday pay from work, all systems are still go, the spreadsheet still holds, and I can still afford to leave Henry behind. It’s beyond frustrating. Henry, on the
other hand, is handling it all with noble stoicism. No, not noble; it’s annoying. A bit more moping wouldn’t go amiss, a bit more ‘please don’t go’.

Kind of
, he said.

I’m glad I met you . . .
kind of
.

I mean, come
on
, Henry. I’m teeing this up for you, already. Three little words is all I’m asking for.

I’ll miss you.

It’s not like I’m asking him to tell me he . . .

There is something there, though; something mutual that scores higher than ‘LIKE’ on the Scrabble board. Something that maybe I’d be a complete and utter idiot to walk away
from. And maybe this is the real reason I can’t sleep – the worry that I might be seven weeks away from making a huge mistake.

Outside, the wind is howling in from the coast, banging the gate and making the washing line whine like a tormented ghost. Normally I find the sounds of harsh weather comforting, but
tonight’s elemental cacophony has me as keyed up as a frightened child.

Henry is sleeping like a baby.

I want our fast-expiring time to count, so when Mum invited me to Copenhagen with her and Dad, I said no. Henry, on the other hand, broke the news today that he’s heading back to his own
hometown in a couple of weeks. And I’m not invited. He didn’t explicitly say as much, but then neither did he say:
Hey, seeing as you invited me to see the house where you grew up,
why don’t I return the favour
. It crossed my mind to invite myself, but, call it pride, I want it to come from Henry. Not that I didn’t hint:
I wonder what I’ll do that
weekend? I’ve never been to the Peaks. I do love a ramble in the hillside.
But the bait went untook.

The wind sounds like thrown gravel and the gate bangs again, loud enough this time that even Henry stirs.

‘Humhh, wassat?’

‘Storm,’ I tell him. ‘Ghosts of sailors.’

Another bang, metallic sounding, and then . . .

‘Is that the door!’

‘Shit, Henry! I . . . I don’t know . . . maybe.’

Henry is out of bed without hesitation, pulling on his boxer shorts, shushing me silent with a finger and indicating for me to stay put.

Ideally Zoe would have played hockey at school; or rounders or golf or even snooker. The closest thing in her bedroom to a weapon, however, is a badminton racquet with busted
strings. Chances are I’m up against nothing more solid than the wind, but Zoe is pretty jumpy, and besides, this is my chance to make up for the wood-chopping debacle.

The stairs creak under my feet, but the wind is howling with such ferocity the sound is all but drowned out. The front door is closed.

But just as I relax my grip on the racquet, I hear something from the boot room at the rear of the house. An unequivocal thump and the sound of a male voice cursing. All systems are on high
alert now, and my first thought is that Mad George has tracked me down to the coast and has come to finish me off. My second thought is that I wish I was wearing something more protective than a
pair of boxer shorts. There is an umbrella beside the door, and I’m weighing up its merits as a means of defence versus a badminton racquet, when the sound of shuffling footsteps galvanizes
me into action.

‘Get the fuck out!’ I shout. ‘I’m armed!’

A female voice screams, her voice merging with the wind in a terrifying scything harmony.

‘Don’t shoot!’ shouts a male voice. ‘Please don’t shoot.’

The woman screams again.

Amid the sounds of scuffling and retreat, a measured male voice is saying: ‘We’re . . . we’re leaving, we’re leaving. Don’t do anything foolish now, stay calm,
we’re leaving.’

‘Rodney!’ says the woman. ‘Get out!’

Zoe appears halfway down the stairs.

‘Dad?’

‘Well,’ says Mum, ‘this is . . . nice.’

Introductions have been made, weapons laid down, bodies clothed. The cushions from the sofa are still scattered on the floor and it wouldn’t take Miss Marple to deduce that someone got
frisky in front of the fire this evening.

‘So,’ says Dad, ‘a dentist?’

‘That’s right,’ says Henry. ‘For my . . . you know, sins. Sorry about the . . .’ He brandishes an invisible badminton racquet.

‘At least it wasn’t loaded,’ says Mum, laughing.

‘Argh!’ I say, affecting pantomime panic. ‘Please don’t shoot!’

‘Well, it was a bit of a bloody surprise, Zozo. Thought you were busy.’

I nod at Henry. ‘Busy busy,’ I say, although I’m not sure why. ‘Anyway, you’re not meant to be back until Monday.’

‘Sorry to inconvenience you,’ Mum says, but she makes it plain that she’s teasing. She puts her hands to my cheeks, staring at me intently as if trying to solve the riddle of
my face. It’s not the first time she has done this; her eyes are bloodshot, as if she has been crying or drinking, and it’s vaguely unnerving.

‘More tea, anyone?’ asks Henry, tapping the pot. His shirt is mis-buttoned.

It’s almost two in the morning and we’re sitting around drinking tea like it’s Sunday morning. Which, now that I think about it, it is.

‘Thank you, Henry,’ says Mum, clearly taken by my new friend. Maybe it was the sight of him in his underpants, poised for action.

‘Had to come back for a . . .’ Dad glances at Mum.

‘A meeting,’ she finishes. ‘Monday morning. So . . .’ glancing again at Henry, ‘. . . this
is
nice.’

‘Sorry for not coming to Copenhagen,’ I say. ‘Henry and me—’

‘I,’ says Dad.

‘Henry and
I
. . . well . . . it’s . . . I was going to tell you soon, but . . .’

Mum and Dad have become rigid in their seats, their faces fixed somewhere between dread and anticipation.

‘No no no,’ I say, ‘nothing like that; I’m going . . . travelling.’

‘A holiday?’ says Dad.

‘Travelling,’ I say, shaking my head.