The Trouble with Henry and Zoe (31 page)

‘Did you?’

‘My problem, son, is I’m a stubborn bastard. Scars to prove it too.’ Dad licks his finger and rubs away the number written on the back of his hand. ‘I’m glad you
stopped boxing,’ he says. ‘I’m proud of you. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I do now.’

Dad goes to cuff my ear, but instead puts his hand around my head and kisses me.

‘Have you told Mum?’ I say, putting a finger to my temple. ‘About . . . you know.’

‘Not yet, although she can probably guess. Thought we’d get this out of the way first. Not a bad night, eh?’

‘No, turned out alright in the end.’

‘Yeah,’ Dad says, ‘it does that sometimes.’

The wind is a cold hand pushing against my chest, pressing against my leaning body with enough force to support me at a frightening forwards angle. If the wind were to suddenly
drop, I could pitch teeth first into the railings or, worse, over the top and into the English Channel. Rachel and Vicky are flanking me, both leaning towards France.

‘You’ve lost too much weight,’ says Vicky.

‘Don’t talk to me about too much weight,’ says Rachel, still checking her watch. ‘And . . . and . . .
beep
. Exactly twenty-four hours left as a single
woman.’

She is visibly pregnant now, and no amount of white silk is going to disguise the fact. But she at least seems to have made her peace with the fact.

Vicky takes a sip from the hip flask and passes it to me. ‘It’s cute,’ she says. ‘Your baby being at your wedding.’

‘Be cuter if it was carrying flowers instead of ruining my waistline. Pass me that,’ she says, holding out her hand for the hip flask.

‘You’re not drinking?’ I say, twisting sideways to the wind, and righting my balance.

‘Of course not, but I can have a sniff, can’t I?’

‘So,’ says Vicky. ‘Where were we?’

‘Must we?’

‘It’s therapy, Zo. So, what have we got? Broken nose,’ she says marking her thumb with item number one on the list of bad things about Henry Smith.

‘Shaved head,’ says Rachel.

‘I like his nose,’ I say.

‘Not helpful, Zoe. Right, dentist; definite black mark.’

‘He does jigsaws,’ I say, smiling at the mental image.

‘Weird,’ says Vicky.

‘Definitely,’ says Rachel. ‘And he’s not exactly trendy.’

‘Good one,’ agrees Vicky. ‘Shapeless jeans. Although . . . quite a nice bum.’

‘True,’ agrees Rachel. ‘He is quite tight.’

‘Left his fiancée at the altar,’ I say, taking the hip flask. ‘End of list.’

‘I would fucking kill him,’ says Rachel. ‘I swear to God, I’d cut his whatsit off.’

‘Such a shame,’ says Vicky. ‘I mean, I know he’s a shitbag, but . . . I liked him.’

‘Me too,’ I say.

‘And, you know . . .’ Vicky takes the flask, ‘. . . better that than go through the motions then get divorced a year later, isn’t it?’

‘Seriously?’ says Rachel. ‘Leave me at the altar? I would cut his little Henry off.’

‘Actually . . .’ I say, raising my eyebrows.

‘Zoe!’ Vicky swats at my arm. ‘What are we talking here?’ She holds her hands apart, her eyes widening as she increases the distance between her palms.

‘Well, he’s no Manaconda,’ I say, and Vicky buries her face in her hands. ‘But . . . I’m not complaining.’

Rachel snips a pair of invisible shears at the air, grabs the severed member and throws it overboard. ‘Au revoir, ’enry.’

‘Au revoir.’

‘So,’ says Rachel, snatching the woollen cap from my head, ‘what’s all this ab . . . oh my fuck, Zoe!’

Vicky takes a full step backwards, as if my hacked hair might be contagious. ‘What did you do? What – did – you – do!?’

And all I can do is shrug. ‘Fancied a change?’

‘Good Christ, Zoe. Dye it red, put a bow in it, don’t . . . oh my God, what about the bloody pictures?’

‘I’m sorry. I’ll hold flowers, I’ll stand at the back.’

‘Too right you will,’ she says, taking a deep lungful of whisky vapour. ‘Too fucking right.’

‘Is there anything we can . . .’ Vicky is inspecting my head as if it were something half dead at the side of the road.

‘I swear to God,’ says Rachel, opening and closing her shears. ‘If I ever see that man again.’

The element of surprise is vital.

I know this from
The Graduate.
Had Ben called Elaine, sent a letter, arrived at her door with flowers, he would have been sent on his way without a happy ending. We see it, too, in
An
Affair to Remember
, and again in W
hen Harry Met Sally
. This is how the guy gets the gal.

If, that is, the gal can be got.

Dad talked about knowing when to quit, and knowing when to dig deep. I’m not ready to quit. What Zoe and I have is constrained and fated, but it ain’t over until she climbs on a
plane. Or until she laughs in my face approximately three hours from now. But, hey, it’s not like I’ve anything better to do.

London is still blinking the sleep from its eyes, the airport staff are tired and indifferent to my perky good humour, but I’ve been drinking strong coffee since four o’clock and I
am indifferent to their indifference – I am on a mission. As the engines rumble and vibrate, the horizon shades from black to purple to amber outside my window. Final checks have been
implemented and the flight crew have taken their seats. Accounting for the time difference, we will touch down in Paris at 7.50 a.m. From there I can catch a métro, two trains and a cab to
the vineyard in Bois de Saint-Benoît, arriving around midday local time. Or, I can spend in the region of one hundred and fifty euros on a taxi direct from the airport that should get me to
the hotel before Zoe gets out of bed. I’ll buy a pain au chocolat at the airport.

Christophe stirs in his sleep, his thick black hair still pulled into tufts. My hands sticky with his hair gel. And all I feel is disconnected.

I blame Vicky and her hip flask. God, please don’t let her find out; I’ve made enough mess with my DIY haircut. ‘Like a
lutin
, a . . .’ Christophe snapping his
fingers, ‘. . . fairy, you know, the pixie. Very Parisienne.’

Flattering, considering what I really look like is a recovering chemotherapy patient. But, yes,
très
flattering from this handsome Frenchman.
Better looking than Henry?
Peut-être; peut- être pas.
But not nearly as good a lover. Nothing wrong with his . . . technique, shall we say, and he certainly wasn’t short on stamina, but . . .
something to do with
fit
, perhaps. With rhythm and synchronicity.

For some reason I’m crying.

Nothing dramatic; pre-tears, really, a weight behind the flesh of my cheeks, and a sensation of rising moisture behind my eyelids. Quite refreshing, in this tired dehydrated doze. It’s
funny in a dark shade, but this infidelity – if that’s what it is – it reminds me of Alex. It’s something I try not to dwell on, but the thought presents itself sometimes
without invitation. Alex wasn’t himself in the weeks before he died . . . he was . . .
off
is how it felt, although the memory is fading now, just like the image of his face without a
visual prompt. I remember worrying that he was cheating on me, but looking back the idea seems . . . not implausible, but paranoid, maybe. Or unkind. More an expression of my insecurity or
unhappiness than Alex’s behaviour. But I’ll never know, and what does it matter or change?

Like fucking this Frenchman.

What does that matter?

Last night I told myself it didn’t matter at all, but sober Zoe (albeit très hungover Zoe) doesn’t find it so trivial. Cheap is how it feels. I have no problem with casual
sex, although I do think you can have too much of a good thing. But this, this sweaty collision with a stranger, it’s not casual; it’s soulless and joyless and maybe even a little bit
vindictive. But, I’m beyond beating myself up about it. It’s not like I’m cheating on anyone.

I slip out of bed and go to the bathroom to wash Christophe’s hair gel from my hands, brush my teeth, clean my face, scrub my body and wash what’s left of my hair. I’m
disappointed with myself, but at the same time I feel calm – as if all the conflict is over now. Deciding to travel is the first good decision I can remember making in a very long time, and
in under a month I’ll put that plan into effect.

It’s close to nine when I step out of the shower, but I’m not required to be anywhere for another two hours. Beyond the hotel grounds lie acres of forests and vines, and more than
food, water or aspirin, I need a big dose of solitude.

First, however, I need to remove a certain Monsieur from my room, preferably unobserved. He’s sitting up in bed, smoking an e-cigarette, which is both disappointing and ridiculous and
pretty much sums up the whole fiasco. He holds the plastic fag towards me, and I laugh out loud.

‘Pardon?’

‘Nothing, sorry, still a bit . . .’ I wobble my head, ‘. . . woozy.’

‘Woozy?’

‘Boozy. Tipsy, turvy, sorry . . .’ and I’m laughing like a lush. Laughing until I snort, in fact.

Christophe, it is clear, does not find my laughter endearing. But he’s not going to let it get in the way of one more roll in the hotel sheets.

‘You ’ave an osser hour,’ he says, folding back a corner of the blanket.

I shake my head.
Sorry.

‘Sirty minutes?’

Nope.
‘I have to find someone.’

Who?

‘She’s called Zoe.’

Christophe raises one eyebrow. Very Bond. ‘Zoe?’ he says. ‘Like you?’

‘A little,’ I say.

Christophe does that shrug that little French boys must be taught in primary school. ‘
A bientôt
.’

I do my best to return his nonchalant shrug, but I ruin it by laughing all over again.

The woman at Passport Control in Paris makes the sleepy airport staff back in London look like cheerleaders. She has been through every page of my passport and is now
scrutinizing my picture for the second time, squinting at me as if trying to reconcile the flesh version with the one-inch square photograph.

‘Haircut,’ I say, smiling and rubbing my hand over my shorn scalp.

‘
Pardon?
’

The woman looks like she cuts her own hair with a breadknife, having first turned around on the spot twenty times to make it interesting. ‘Me, I mean. My . . . hair. Different from the
photo,’ I say, holding out my hand for my passport.

The woman holds the document to the light.

‘
Qu’est-ce que c’est? Ici?
’

‘Sorry, my French is . . .
mal
?’

‘
Il y a un trou. Ici
.’

‘I’m sorry, I really don’t understand.’

The woman places my open passport on the counter, rotates it through one hundred and eighty degrees, and taps my impassive photograph. ‘
Sur les yeux.
’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s me.’

The woman shakes her head. ‘
C’est troué.
Regardez; look.’ And she points to her eyes, first one and then the other. So I look again at my face, and I have to
admit there is a certain deadness to my expression.

‘’oles,’ she says, and she turns the photograph page over, revealing two small protrusions corresponding to the position of my eyes. To further clarify the issue, the woman
folds the back cover away from the page and holds my picture against the glass. Sunlight shines through the two puncture marks on the photograph, turning me into Henry Smith the sinister
android.

‘Ah,’ I say, ‘holes.’ And I remember inspecting my passport for graffiti, scissor and burn marks outside April’s parents’ house. Right before George hurled a
burger at my chest. If I’d studied it for five seconds longer, I might have noticed the tiny holes where April, it seems, decided to jab a pair of pins through my eyeballs. And I remember her
laughter when I asked for my passport. Bravo April. Bravo.

‘Is no good,’ says the woman, closing my passport.

‘No, it’s fine, it’s me.’

‘M
ais, c’est troué.
’

‘It was a joke.’

‘Is funny?’ She doesn’t look amused.

‘Well, obviously not, no.’

‘You do it?’

‘Me? No! God no.’

‘Who do it?’

‘Hah, well, that would probably be my girlfriend. Well, fiancée, actually.’

‘Ah! Fiancée, you get marry, yes.’

‘Actually no, we broke up.’

‘Break up?’

I snap an invisible pencil, make the appropriate sound effect.

‘Oh.’

I nod at this woman, her tone softening now we have finally come to understand each other. ‘Yes, she went a little . . .’ I do a crazy face.

The woman shakes her head, and picks up the phone.

I’m a time traveller.

The return flight from Paris to London didn’t depart until seven in the evening. Arriving in London at approximately the same time. But you’d be surprised just how much gin and tonic
you can drink in the blink of an eye, particularly if you go for trebles. I don’t know whether or not time travel increases the effects of alcohol, but when I stood from my seat at Heathrow,
it was as if the plane had landed in a pocket of ground level turbulence. There’s probably a PhD in it all somewhere. Once a vandalized passport has been identified, it’s not even a
matter of discretion. The local authorities stick you on the first flight home, the airline gets slapped with a fine, you are penalized in units of time – a brief sentence served in departure
lounges, economy class and baggage reclaim. I drove here this morning, fourteen hours ago now, or maybe it’s sixteen accounting for the temporal nonsense. Whether I am coming or going is a
matter for debate. Either way, I am too drunk to walk straight let alone drive home through London traffic. But time travel can fix that one, too. Ten months ago, almost to the day, I booked a room
at the Hilton in Manchester airport after leaving my fiancée on her wedding day. Approximately three hundred days later, I book a room at the Heathrow Hilton, after leaving a different girl
at a different wedding.