You, Me and Other People (27 page)

‘I’m really not sure about this.’ Beth has insisted on driving and now addresses the windscreen.

‘Look, I don’t need or expect you to come in, but I have to talk to him.’ I hear the words but don’t mean them. I need her in there with me. The shakes have gone but I’m not sure I trust myself to do this properly. ‘You were right. He, they, need to know.’

‘I’ll come in with you.’ She doesn’t realize it, but she’s nodding, as if to convince herself. ‘I mean, if you’d like, I’ll come in with you.’

‘I’d like … please.’

Ben has the letter in his hand. He has read it once and is now reading it again. His free hand scratches his hairline just above his right ear.

‘Right,’ he says, finally putting it down on the coffee table in between him and Karen and Beth and me. Karen is quiet. She has, I’ve noticed, a waxen look about her. Her eyes, normally bright and wide awake, have dark circles hovering beneath them. Her skin is blemished and her spiky hair looks lifeless. She has lost weight, something – with her height and build – she can’t afford.

‘May I?’ she asks.

Ben nods. ‘Why don’t you read it out loud?’ He sits back on the sofa, closes his eyes.

Karen starts to read. ‘
Adam
,’ she begins, ‘
I know you’ll find this, find us and for that I’m sorry. I came to bed tonight and found your mother cold, stone cold. She had taken a whole bottle of her tablets. I got in beside her and cuddled her, but no one’s coming back from that. So I’ve spent half the night wondering what to do and to be honest there’s no choice. I can’t live life without her. I simply can’t. You and Ben are grown-up now. You’ll both be all right. She found out for certain this week that Ben is not my son
.’

Karen stops reading, raises her right hand to her heart and pats it, gently. Then she reaches for Ben’s hand before continuing.

‘
After his recent bout of pneumonia in hospital, I made her have Ben’s blood group checked against mine. I made her do it so I could know, but I suppose I’ve always known and me making her do it has pushed her over the edge. I can’t really live with that
.

‘
I’m sorry. I hope you’re strong enough for this, Adam. Do what you will with the information about Ben. Tell him or don’t, but please look after him and look after yourself
.

‘
Dad
.’

‘So,’ Ben says. ‘No real surprise there. What I don’t get is why you never told me?’ He is staring across the room at me.

‘You were so cut up when they died, felt they should never have left us. I did want to tell you but there was never,
ever
a good time.’

‘Jesus, Adam, it’s been over twenty years—’

I interrupt him. ‘When would have been right, Ben? When you were about to start uni? Or maybe when you failed your first-year exams? What about your finals – remember that year? Or afterwards during your working life, when you were made redundant twice? Or maybe during one of the six years you were with Elise, when you both tried so hard to have a child?’

Ben sighs, a slight flush rising in his cheeks. Karen grips his hand tighter.

‘Dear God, Ben! I know I’m often accused of doing things or not doing things for my own selfish reasons. But this? I had nothing to gain by keeping it from you. I did it to avoid hurting you.’

‘Do you know who my father is?’

‘No. I do not.’ I am aware of a sweat developing under my arms during this Darth Vader moment.

Karen shoots a look at Beth and suggests making coffee; Beth follows her to the kitchen. Ben and I are left, absorbed by our own thoughts, the silence in the room palpable. Minutes later, Beth and Karen return with the drinks.

‘Why now?’ My brother is first to speak.

I glance across at Beth.

‘I asked him to tell you,’ she says. ‘I asked him to tell you this afternoon and he knew if he didn’t do it straight away, he’d talk himself out of it.’

Karen frowns.

‘Ben, you did your grieving over all those years.’ I almost choke at the mention of grief. ‘I’ve realized lately that I have yet to do mine. Maybe telling you is part of that.’

‘Plus … Karen is having a baby.’ Beth addresses Ben. ‘When you have your baby, God forbid, what if you had to face what Kiera Pugh did? What if you needed to know?’

‘I don’t know who your father is, Ben.’ It’s my turn to slouch back in a chair. ‘But if you ever need to try and find out, I do know someone it might have been.’

‘Tell me everything.’ Ben hunches forward, his head in his hands. ‘Everything you know. Now.’ He closes his eyes again. Karen cuddles up against him, slides an arm around him.

I tell them about the time I found Mum with a guy when I was at college. I tell them about the time many years earlier that I’d seen Mum in town having lunch with that same man. I remind Ben of the times the man had been present in our home over the years. He was an old school friend, someone we knew only as ‘Dave’.

‘Right,’ he says again when I’ve finished talking.

‘You know what? It’s late.’ I stand and Beth stands up right after me. ‘We should go.’ I catch Ben’s eye. ‘I’m sorry. You guys have a lot to talk about.’

Ben gets to his feet, crosses the room, opens his arms and envelops me. ‘No, I’m sorry for what they did – to you, to me, to us.’

I pull back. ‘They were flawed, very fucking flawed, but they probably did their best.’

I look at Karen, who is unconsciously rubbing her tummy. ‘Beth says you’re not feeling great. It passes. In a few weeks’ time, you’ll be glowing.’

‘And a few weeks after that,’ she too stands up, ‘I’ll be fat.’ Ben pulls her to him. I can see he’s already in protection mode.

It’s as if he’s read my mind. ‘I know you were only trying to protect me, but you are hereby officially released from that.’

We say goodbye quickly; enough has been said. Back in the car, Beth asks me what I want to do. I shrug, unsure of what she means.

‘Do you want me to drop you back to the storage depot to get your car? Or you could just come back to mine, the spare room is made up. I can drop you to your car early in the morning.’

No contest.

It’s ten thirty. I’m in Beth’s kitchen sipping hot chocolate.

‘Are you hungry?’

I shake my head.

‘Well, we should eat something. All I’ve had all day is half a Danish. While you were in the loo, I took some shepherd’s pie out of the freezer. It’s in the oven.’

A freezer full of food. It’s one of Beth’s things. There was always cooked home-made food ready to come out of the freezer at The Lodge, usually the end of a lasagne. ‘Not lasagne?’ I ask.

She grimaces. ‘I never make it any more,’ she says, reading a text that has just pinged on her phone.

‘I’m not stopping any plans you had, am I?’

She shakes her head and I can see she’s lying.

‘You’re lying,’ I say. ‘I’ve always been a better liar than you.’

‘You have. Okay, I did have plans, but they can wait.’

‘The guy you’re seeing?’

She hesitates, then nods.

‘I’m sorry. I’ve messed up your night.’

‘It’s fine.’ She pats my arm as she makes her way to the oven. ‘We’ve rearranged.’

‘Is it serious? This thing with this guy?’ I’m half hoping she’ll lie again if it is.

‘I’m not sure. He’s a lovely man, seems kind, sincere. We get along.’

My chest feels like there is a tightening vice around it. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘No …’ She comes to the table and sits beside me. ‘Tonight, we talk about you. Anything you want to talk about. Anything that didn’t get said at The Rookery. I can take it if you can.’

I say nothing.

‘Look, it’s not obligatory either. It’s just you seem to want to talk now whenever we’re together. And I don’t want you to feel that you can’t. If you’re up to it, I don’t want you to hold back.’

‘What if all I have to say is that I want
you
back.’

She has her elbow on the table, her hand over her mouth, thumb placed on one cheek and her fingers stroking her lips side to side. I want to reach across and kiss her, taste her again, but I wait for her to speak. ‘It’s not going to happen, Adam.’

‘Because of this other guy?’

She sighs aloud. ‘No. He has nothing to do with you and me. You and me are like Humpty Dumpty. Not even the king’s horses and—’

‘I made mistakes, Beth.’

‘Who’s Rosie?’

‘She was a girl at The Rookery. Just a young girl I met there.’

Beth makes a face. ‘Were you and she …?’

‘God, no. She’s no older than Meg. She was a girl in group therapy. Had been abused by her father.’

‘Shit.’

‘She was great, a really wise old soul in a young person’s body, you know?’

Beth nods.

‘She killed herself. Hanged herself with my Dr Who scarf, the one you got me a few Christmases ago. I’d lent it to her to keep warm.’

Beth’s mouth drops open.

‘I know. It’s like flies to shit: trouble and death – all drawn to me. It’s why I left early.’

She goes to the fridge, pours two glasses of wine and hands me one. ‘What did the police say?’

‘She left a note. There was no doubt that she … They still have my scarf.’

Beth takes a sip of wine. ‘You seemed so together when you left The Rookery. Even when you left early, I was so sure that it had worked for you.’

‘It helped. I left the morning after they found Rosie. I couldn’t bear more navel-gazing over the whole thing. Tom would have had me talking about my parents and her for another year. I just had to get out of there.’

She walks to her oven. It’s a small range, not like the one she had at The Lodge. She pulls down the door and, with gloved hands, removes the pie, placing it in the centre of the table. ‘Leave it for a while,’ she says. ‘It’s hot.’

There is a silence sitting between us right next to the pie. I break it first. ‘I guess I’m a work in progress.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault, any of it.’

‘I know that, but it’s still shitty.’

‘That, it is.’

‘Are you going to be okay?’

I reach across, touch her face with my fingertips and stroke her cheek. A memory flashes in my head. Me bringing her coffee in the loft at The Lodge. Her, perched in her wheelie office chair, both screens lit up in front of her, her headphones on. She’s singing, quite loudly but doesn’t realize it. Her eyes are closed. Both her palms are up and she’s pushing the air rhythmically, shoo-bopping to some track. Beth … ‘Did you mean what you said? That there’s no chance for us?’

She chews her bottom lip, nods her head. ‘I meant it,’ she whispers. Tears cloud her eyes as she places her own hand over mine.

‘I’ll be okay.’ I sit back in my chair. ‘Not as okay as I’d be with you, but I’ll be okay without you.’ I can’t help staring at my wife’s beautiful face. I can’t bear the fact that someone else will look on her beautiful face and touch her like I just have. In my head, I wish I could summon all the king’s horses and prove her wrong. But she’s probably right, and there is nothing else to be said.

The next morning it is strange to wake up in a single bed in Beth’s house. It is strange to have her dropping me off at a storage depot in Wandsworth. It’s strange to feel the way I feel, like something has lifted from my shoulders – but what, I don’t know. I can’t make sense of it. In the office I bury myself in work. I glance at, but don’t read, the ten CVs Matt has asked me to study. ‘We really have to appoint someone soon!’ is what he’s scrawled on a Post-it attached to the pile.

At midday, it’s also strange to bump into my brother in the corridor. For a moment, I wonder if I’m dreaming, then I remember he’s doing some forensic accounting for us, some due diligence stuff on the US expansion.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘You okay?’ He looks drawn, charcoal shading under his eyes.

‘I’m okay.’ I give him a hug. ‘You? Did you get any sleep?’

He tells me he did, chats for a while about work stuff. It’s a bit like last night didn’t happen, but I know Ben, and he’s just taking time to absorb everything. I listen patiently, aware I’m now running late. Glancing at my wrist, I tell him I’ve got to run. Sorry.

‘You all set for next week?’ he calls back to me.

I smile and nod, don’t tell him that I haven’t started to pack my stuff from his flat. I don’t tell him that I haven’t got any further on the flat in Fulham. Having accepted my offer, they’re pressuring me for solicitor’s details and I’ve not called them back. I tell him none of this and head down the corridor towards the boardroom. The Granger brothers will be sitting in there with Matt, plus two people they’re introducing us to with huge family office needs in New York.

All of this seems and smells like chaos, but I’m strangely calm. Since early this morning, lying in Beth’s spare room, I’ve known how all these jigsaw pieces will fall. I’ve seen how the new picture will look. It’s not ideal. It’s far from my ideal, which saw Beth and me finding a new way of being – slowly but surely getting back together. Since this morning, I’ve seen that the new world order means that loving Beth means letting her go. Thank you, Rosie Bloomfield, for your wisdom. As I place my hand on the door to the boardroom, I do it in the knowledge that I’m going to suggest dumping the CVs, ceasing the search for a new hire. I’ll kill a few birds with one stone. I’ll go to New York.

I’m fine. Meg is fine. Jon is fine. Karen is pukey but fine. Ben is fine. Adam is … okay. ‘Fall Apart’ has trended on Twitter. My website has, according to Bear, had so many hits that it almost crashed. Production is in place for Marilee Garcia to release ‘Fine’ as a follow-up single. Money that I could only dream about has hit my bank account this morning. Everything is fine.

Only it’s not really. I have a bad feeling I can’t shake off. Ever since the night Adam stayed over. I’m terrified that because I let him back in my space, somehow he’s infiltrated it, somehow he’s just here. And he wasn’t here before I let him stay. I flick the kettle on to boil.

My hands shuffle through the brochures on the table. Jon brought them around last night – various options for garden rooms. We’ve measured it out and I can have a pimped-up shed as a proper music studio in the back of the garden without it impacting on the space too much. That way I keep the garage. Giles says it’s a great idea, that I should always do that for resale purposes. So, I decide this morning, I’m going to have me a garden studio. I hover my forefinger above one of the brochures, let it land on it. This one – I’ll have this one.

I pour the water into two cups from the kettle and head back upstairs. In my bedroom, he’s still lying down, his face turned towards the window. Slices of light slip through a crack in the curtains, which I hate but he loves. I place a cup of tea beside him, bend over to kiss him. ‘Jon, some tea.’ He takes my hand and kisses it.

Without opening his eyes, he says, ‘Thanks.’ I know he’ll take a few minutes to wake up. I know he won’t mind if his tea is cold. He’ll still drink it. He’ll still have a smile on his face. And I know all of this after only a few weeks of him waking in my bed or me waking in his.

I sit up, on my side, plumping the pillows behind me, and sip my tea. In a few minutes, I’ll have a shower and I’ll try to wash it off – this feeling that I can’t shake. Last night, when Jon and I made love, I imagined he was Adam. I feel so bad about this, I can barely admit it to myself. I don’t think I could ever say it aloud. If I was still seeing Dr Caroline Gothenburg, would I admit it? Would I say, ‘Last night I was making love to the man in my life. I imagined he was Adam. Not Johnny Depp. Not Liam Neeson. Adam.’

I drink my cooling tea, listen to Jon’s gentle snore, reach out and stroke his back softly. He stirs a little. If I could see his face, he’d have a tiny smile on it, just a faint curve on one side of his mouth. He has a lovely mouth – full plump lips and a Cupid’s bow that many women would kill for. I love how he kisses me. They’re not melting kisses, or Pink-type ‘I am going to die right here and now’ kisses, but they’re tender and loving and …

In the shower, I soap my body all over. I have a chat with Lucy Fir and Babushka. Lucy is, for once, trying to reason with me rather than shouting in my ear. She asks me if I want tender and loving in my life. Babushka interrupts. She tells me what I don’t need in my life is Adam. She is firm. She is adamant. She asks me to remember how the man makes me feel when he hurts me and he will hurt me again if I let him. That, Babushka says, is certain. I rinse the soap, stand under the scalding spray for ages, let the water run over my neck muscles. I stretch my legs, my arms, my fingers. Singing softly, I acknowledge the voices in my head. Round one to Babushka.

Towel around my head, dressing gown on, I head back downstairs. It’s Saturday. Jon has obviously decided to sleep in. I look out over my garden, think back to the days in The Lodge. The reality is I feel for Adam. He’s in my head because I feel for him since the scene with Ben last week. It’s tragic stuff, but his tragic stuff, I remind myself. I cannot own it because I feel sorry for him and I cannot let him commandeer head-space that currently belongs to Jon. Or Johnny Depp. Or Liam Neeson.

Closing my eyes, I rub them with my thumb and forefinger. Though I need him to be gone from my head, I accept he probably never will be. He’ll always be there lurking in the background, looking on. And I’ll probably let him, because I loved him so very much for such a long time. I still do. I acknowledge I love the man, not in the same way I did, but I can’t turn it off completely. I can’t close it off and tighten it like a tap. It’s different. I still call it love but it’s not the same. I smile, tell Babushka and Lucy to move over and let him in. I reassure them that he won’t be there often, but ask them that, when he is, to please play nicely.

While I make my second cup of tea of the morning, I start to plan how my studio will look. I take a few sips then run up the stairs. I pull the towel from my head and lean over Jon, tickling his face with my wet hair.

‘You’ll catch cold,’ he mutters, his hand reaching out and opening my dressing gown. I let it slide off me and he pulls me in beside him. ‘Good morning, Beth-all,’ he says. ‘How are we feeling this morning?’

I giggle. I told him once about Lucy and Babushka and now he refers to me as ‘we’. If only he knew, Adam has been offered some space as well. It may not be a long-term thing, probably just a short-term lease, but I’ll see. For now, I ignore my busy head and enjoy being cuddled by this man. No one else. This man. Jon no ‘h’ Roper.

It’s only two hours later that my rationale is challenged. I have metaphorically put my husband to bed. I have filed him appropriately, kindly allowed him into my head under controlled supervision.

So why, when I listen to his voice on the phone, does my stomach plummet and my heart hurt? He talks for a while. There are lots of good reasons, all of which I agree with. I know this because I’m nodding, but he can’t know it because I’m speechless.

‘Beth, are you there?’

‘I’m here …’

‘You’re not saying much.’

‘I’m not sure what to say. Two weeks ago you were buying a flat in Fulham. Today, you’re moving to New York.’

Jon looks up from reading his newspaper at the table. ‘Adam’, he mouths to me. I nod.

‘It’s really the best thing, for all the reasons I’ve just said. Besides, it’s not forever. I could have it all set up in six months or it could take a lot longer. Who knows?’

‘Who knows?’ I repeat.

‘How do you feel about it?’

I want to burst out laughing, but stop myself. Now? Now, he thinks to ask me how I feel. ‘You have to do what you have to do,’ I say. ‘Meg will miss you. We’ll both miss you.’

He sighs. ‘You know I’ll miss you both more. Anyway, I’m off in five days.’

‘So soon?’

‘There’s no point in waiting. I have to move out of Ben’s. We need someone in New York urgently. No reason it can’t be me.’

‘What will you do? Get a flat there?’

‘A hotel for a few weeks until I find my feet. The office is sorted, more minor hires in place. I’ll find a flat in a few weeks. Listen, I’m trying to arrange a meal. A kind of Last Supper. You, me, Meg, Jack, Ben and Karen. Sybil if she’ll come. Are you free tomorrow night?’

I look across at Jon, who’s pretending that he’s not listening. ‘I will be. Let me know where and when.’

‘I’ll text you later. Just need to talk to Ben.’

‘Have you talked to Meg?’

‘I called you first.’

I don’t reply.

‘Hey, I heard your song on the radio this morning. Surreal … That lyric, the one about falling apart and the glue?’

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s good. Great lyric. Great song. You bloody deserve all the success, Beth, you really do.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Of course, you wouldn’t have been able to tap into heartbreak with such feeling unless I’d been a shit. So I like to think in some way I’ve helped.’

I can almost see him grinning.

‘That’s what Josh says.’

‘He’s right.’ Adam laughs.

‘Probably …’

Jon stands, gathers up the brochures and moves to the living room. We’re going out in a minute to the showroom, to choose the size and model and order it.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I say. ‘We’re heading out in a minute.’

I know all he hears in that sentence is the ‘we’, but that’s okay.

‘See you tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I’ll text you the details when I’ve spoken to everyone.’

‘Okay, bye.’ I hang up the phone and stare at it. Adam is going to New York. To live. In New York.

‘We should go soon if you have to be in work by one?’ Jon speaks without looking up from the chair he has moved to. He’s right. I have to cover for Steph at the office this afternoon and I’d really rather not. And, although I’ve made the decision to leave the agency to devote all my time to songwriting, I’m torn. I will really miss Giles and the crew. I pull my open laptop towards me and open my mailbox. In the ‘drafts’, the email that I’ve written resigning from the company is sitting waiting to be sent. My forefinger hovers for just a few moments before I lower it and press send … Adam. Is going. To New York.

‘Right,’ I tell Jon. ‘Just let me get my jacket.’ I run up the stairs, stop at the top, rub the left-hand side of my chest. Adam is going to New York. Not Fulham. New York. It’s a little bit further away. I exhale slowly. And it’s the right thing. It’s the right thing for him. I look down to the hall over the banisters. Jon smiles up at me. It’s the right thing for everyone.

Guido’s, an Italian restaurant in Weybridge, is where we have had many a happy family meal. For this reason, I’d rather be somewhere else. I’d rather Adam had chosen another restaurant, one where maybe we could create new memories. The last time I was here was months ago with Meg, just after Adam left, and I feel the past wrap itself around me like an old cardigan as soon as I enter.

I’m last to arrive. I kiss everyone on the cheek and take my seat between Meg and Mum at the circular table. Opposite us, Karen and Ben sit almost clamped to each other. They have the look of love and fear combined that is present in all pregnant couples. Adam is sitting beside Meg, who has Jack on her other side. He’s talking to Ben as Meg and Adam chat animatedly about shopping trips and having somewhere to stay in New York. She has even mentioned she may take a master’s degree there.

My mother rests a hand on my leg, squeezes it. ‘Keep it together,’ she whispers, and I give a silent nod, trying not to think of losing Meg to the Big Apple.

There is a lot of conversation around the table tonight, not much of it coming from me. Mum tells us she is starting a new course in September, a foundation degree in counselling. Adam catches my eye and we both start to laugh.

‘Now, Sybil?’ He has never called my mum ‘Mum’, despite her requests over the years for him to do so. ‘Now, you do the counselling?’

The joke is almost lost on her, but not quite. ‘Like you’d have listened to me, either of you, as a mother or a counsellor … You may laugh, but I’d like to make a difference.’

‘You make a difference to me, Mum.’ I smile at her.

‘And me, Nan.’

‘And me, Sybil,’ Adam admits. ‘To be fair, even when I deserved shooting, you never did. So thank you.’ Adam raises his glass in her direction. Mum smiles, a little embarrassed, then changes the subject and asks Karen if she has stopped throwing up yet, just as my spaghetti alla puttanesca arrives.

Garlic bread, bruschetta, three flavours of spaghetti fill the centre of the table, yet Karen picks at a small wheat cracker from a box in her bag.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I don’t trust myself to eat.’

‘It’ll pass,’ I tell her. ‘Like most things in life, the discomfort is temporary.’

‘That’s ironic, you saying that, sitting here,’ she says.

‘I know.’

Adam is filling my glass and looking at me. It’s sweet, a loving glance; one that says he’d do anything for me. In a strange way he is, he’s moving away … I smile back, excuse myself for a moment to visit the loo.

The Ladies at Guido’s is tiny. It has two loo cubicles and one shared sink area. When I enter, I see another woman at the sink and automatically stand back to let her leave the room. As she turns, her face breaks into a wide grin. ‘Beth! I thought it was you but wasn’t sure. Haven’t got my glasses on.’

Caroline looks gorgeous, dressed in a slinky black jersey all-in-one outfit.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t have greeted you outside, but in here?’ She gestures to the loo’s surroundings. ‘How are you? How are things?’

‘Good.’ I nod. ‘It’s nice to see you.’

‘I have to confess I’ve been following you on Twitter. Your song … I’m thrilled for you. You finally gagged that saboteur, eh?’

‘Oh, she tosses the gag off every now and then, but I think I have her measure.’

I can’t help thinking about the first time Caroline and I met. I was betrayed, panicked and afraid.

‘And you?’ she asks, tentatively.

‘I’m better, much better,’ I tell her. ‘I think I’ve found Beth again.’

‘I’m glad,’ she smiles. ‘And—’

‘Adam’s outside, with the rest of the family.’

She’s nodding, her eyes careful not to judge what that may or may not mean. I think about what I’ve just said. He is the father of my only child and my first love. He is family, always will be.

‘We’re not together,’ I tell her. ‘A lot has happened, too much to come back from really. But we’re okay with it, both of us moving on. I’ve met a new man.’

‘You have?’ Caroline looks as if she’s about to do a happy dance. ‘I’m pleased for you.’

‘And Adam, Adam is moving to the States this week. New York.’

Her eyebrows go north but she says nothing. We swap a few more facts, a few more niceties. She tells me her door is always open and she leaves. I follow her out, back to the table. Taking my seat, I realize that I have forgotten to have a pee. But I also realize that I feel good, weightless. I have a new man in my life. I have a lovely family that, some day, he may be a part of. Jon may join this round table group along with Karen and Ben’s baby sometime soon. In the meantime, I’m happy for Adam to go. The reality is that Jon and I have a chance to grow if he’s not around. We have a chance to see if there is something real without him looking on.

And Adam. He will miss us, but he’ll survive and he won’t be alone for long. Survival is in every strand of his DNA, but being on his own is not. I’m guessing it won’t be very long before I’m told from the States, ‘There’s this woman and …’