After the Party (18 page)

Suddenly there was a man in the room. He'd appeared from behind the altar, clutching a mug of coffee. He was small and wiry, dressed in a turquoise Hawaiian shirt and three-quarter-length trousers. Even though he wasn't wearing a dog collar it was entirely without question that he was a priest. He smiled broadly at Ralph and then stopped for a moment. Ralph smiled back at him.

“You got everything you need?” the man asked.

Ralph shrugged. And then he smiled. “Yes,” he said, feeling the full meaning of the question and of his answer. “Yes. I have. Thank you.”

“Great.” The priest winked at him and then carried on through to a door on the other side of the altar.

N
o,” said Karl. “No fucking way.”

Jem sighed. She was halfway through a ham and mustard sandwich, which she'd been thoroughly enjoying, but at his words she let it fall to the plate. She wished that Karl were her child, she wished that she could just say, “Because I said so,” and that that would be the end of it. But Karl was not just an adult, he was also an incredibly stubborn adult, an adult who did not know what was best for him and had no interest in anybody else's opinions on the matter. She sighed again and turned to face the back door.

“Karl,” she said, in her best agenting voice. “I know it has certain . . .
negative
associations, but you have to think about the bigger picture. Think about Tony Blackburn . . .”

“Well,
exactly
,” he boomed. “I mean that fucking comparison has been haunting me for long enough as it is. The last thing I want to do is to draw attention to it yet again.”

Jem didn't like to say that she doubted anyone remembered the brief flurry of press reports about his public meltdown on the airwaves of All London Radio all those years ago and that actually it was unlikely that anyone remembered that Tony Blackburn had ever been on
I'm a Celebrity
now anyway, and that really Karl's fame was so ephemeral and so indefinable that it barely mattered either way.

Instead she said: “We won't let that happen. It was a long time ago. The world's moved on. You are more than just the bloke who did a Tony Blackburn. The public do not see you that way anymore.”

“Yeah, and that's half the problem. How do they ‘see' me? And will being bombarded with me and my big fat hairy arse on the telly for two fucking weeks make them want to see me ever again? I don't think so.”

Jem tried to push the image of Karl's big fat hairy arse from her mind and concentrate on the job in hand. “Look,” she said, taking her voice down a notch from businesslike to friendly, “I personally think that, a) you will actually enjoy it, and b) it will do wonders for your profile. You're a great guy. You're likable. You could even win it, you know?” And this she actually meant, because Karl, for all his faults, did have a very agreeable demeanor and a gentle vulnerability that drew people to him.

“Pah!” he guffawed disdainfully. “Yeah,
right
. Look, anyhow, let me think on it. I have to say, I fucking
hate
the idea, but just for you, my little duck, I will think on it. Okay?”

“Fine,” she said, her eye drawn back to her ham and mustard sandwich. “Thinking. That's a good start. But don't think too long, okay, we don't want them to go off the boil.”

“I'll be in touch,” he said, and then he hung up, not because he was rude, but because Karl was partly 1940s tobacco-chewing, plaid-shirt-wearing maverick cowboy, and Jem didn't suppose that they ever said good-bye in the westerns.

Jem exhaled, glad that that was over and that, all things considered, it had gone rather well. If he had agreed that readily to giving it some thought, then there was a higher than average chance that he would say yes. She picked up her sandwich and finished it with a renewed appetite.

•  •  •

When Blake awoke from a nap thirty minutes later, Jem looked out of the window and decided that since, for the first time in more than twenty-four hours, it was not raining, she would celebrate by going for a walk. She changed him and zipped him into his fleecy suit and strapped him to her front, facing forward instead of into her bosom, as he would be watching, not sleeping. Jem had a peculiar aversion to prams or strollers or whatever it was that she was supposed to call them nowadays but could never quite be sure. They were such cumbersome, unattractive pieces of equipment, even when tarted up by famous fashion designers, and they just lent something dowdy and beaten down to her whole demeanor.

She pulled on her parka, grabbed an umbrella, just in case, and headed for the nearest shops. One of the things that Jem liked best about the high street where they lived was that there was absolutely nowhere for her to spend her money. Unless she were to develop a serious plantain habit or an addiction to cheap plastic storage boxes, her hard-earned cash was safe. So heading for the shops generally meant bypassing a couple dozen entirely unappealing retailers on her way to Tesco. But today, with a spring in her step and a rush of something youthful and rather silly to her head, she decided to venture further afield. She decided on a whim and fancy and a spritz of spontaneity to go to Sainsbury's instead. They had just refitted it and it had reopened last week with a bit of a fanfare, so it almost but not quite constituted a treat. She smiled as she walked. The sun was low in the sky, lighting the tops of the shops and the buildings she passed like a thick layer of golden icing. Where it fell on the road between the parades it sparkled off hubcaps and windscreens and rippled across this morning's puddles. The
sudden cessation in the rain seemed to have cheered everyone she passed, and she and Blake were the recipients of at least eight separate smiles as they walked down the road.

Jem had not felt this happy in a long time. In fact, feeling this happy now had made her suddenly and startlingly aware of how not happy she had been feeling before. She could not quite pinpoint the precise source of this happiness. She knew she'd come upon it yesterday at Joel's flat and she knew it had something to do with him, and with the way the light had fallen in the room and the way her head had softened with wine and the way Joel had smiled at her, his mouth half-covered with his hand, and the way she'd felt when she looked at his feet.

His feet.

She tried not to think about his feet.

But there it had been, something gentle and magical, something almost, but not entirely, unexpected.

The girls had played among them after tea and the conversation had not quite returned to the earlier more intimate subjects. They talked about the area, about which schools they were hoping for for their girls and about Jem's job. It was neutral, it was safe, but it was also the nicest time Jem could remember having in over a year. This, she'd thought, this is what it should be like in my house. A family, sitting together, talking kindly, in sweet harmony. When had she and Ralph stopped talking nicely to each other? she'd wondered. She was as much to blame as Ralph for the poor levels of general communication in their home. More so, perhaps, as she often felt the need to express her frustration with the status quo obliquely, in the way she assembled her responses and in her tone of voice, wanting Ralph to feel constantly aware of his shortcomings. She also felt, subconsciously, that if she spared the time to talk to him nicely
she might mistakenly give him the impression that she had the luxury of time. She did not want Ralph to think that she had time. If he thought she had time to be nice to him, he might think that her life was not overburdened with mind-numbing domesticity and that he was not doing anything wrong in allowing the situation to continue unchecked. This realization had strengthened her suspicion that yes, at its roots, everything really was Ralph's fault, even her own bad behavior. He had created her. He had made her this way.

She'd had one more small glass of wine and then at nearly seven o'clock they'd finally pulled on their coats and headed toward the front door. And it was while she was standing there that Jem noticed a photo, pinned to a corkboard. It was a black-and-white shot of Joel and a very thin, very pretty woman, both gazing into the eyes of a tiny newborn baby.

“Is that . . . ?”

“Yes,” said Joel, “that's Paulette, and that's Jessica, when she was, oooh, about ten days old. My son took it.”

“It's lovely,” she said.

“Yes.” He looked at it for a moment and his face took on an unsettling hardness, as if he was holding something back; sadness, anger, it was impossible to tell.

Jem gazed at the photo a moment longer than was strictly polite. She was trying, subconsciously, to get a handle on this woman, to work out how she had gone from this clearly besotted young mother to someone who had so many problems that she could no longer be a part of her daughter's life. “Does she live locally?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Joel, “not far.”

“But you don't see her much?”

“No, not really. It's, well, it's complicated.” He smiled
apologetically, as if he wished he could tell her all about it, but not here, not now.

Their parting had been rushed, neither of them clearly having given any thought as to how they were going to conclude their shared afternoon. Jem had said something vague about the possibility of returning the favor sometime, and then they'd left. Jem had walked her two children home through the dark wet night, thinking that motherhood plus slight inebriety was always a perfect mix.

•  •  •

Sainsbury's was all aflutter with orange balloons, and a small jazz band fronted by a black woman in an evening dress played outside. Blake's feet twitched against her abdomen in excitement at the sound of the music and she stood for a while with him, letting him watch. And it was while she was watching that she had an idea. Tomorrow night was her last night alone. On Saturday Ralph would be back, and once Ralph was back, she needed to start finding answers to her dilemma. Did she want Ralph to change? Did she need to change? And even if both of them changed, would they ever be able to get back to the place they'd once been? And if it turned out that they couldn't, that they were stranded forever in this uncomfortable, uncompanionable place, then would she maybe find happiness with another man? Or was that just a silly, immature fantasy? She was fairly certain that she didn't want to have an affair with this man but needed one more chance to be sure of that.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and began a text message.

“Hello! Thanks so much for yesterday. Scarlett had the best time EVER and won't stop talking about Jessica! It's my last night of single motherhood tomorrow, wondered if you wanted
to help me celebrate with a curry and some beers at our place. Maybe 6ish, keep the girls up late? Let me know and I'll give you the details. J.”

She was about to press the send button when she drew in her breath and paused. Now, she thought to herself, this is no longer a story of fatal attraction. There is no longer some inexplicable force beyond my control dictating the rhythm of this thing. If I press send then I am being utterly proactive, if I press send then anything that happens after this point will be something I created and something that I will have to take full responsibility for.

She breathed in again and then saved the message in her drafts folder. She wanted to think through the possible implications of her actions for a while longer, be sure she was doing the right thing.

Sainsbury's had been turned upside down, at right angles to its former self. It was most disconcerting and as much as Jem did not want to be the sort of crotchety middle-aged woman who complained when the layout of her local supermarket was tampered with, she did think turning an entire shop upside down was a bit uncalled for. But as she wandered the aisles she began to see the benefits. Cookware. Onesies. T-shirt bras. Quality toys. Books. A whole aisle for stationery.

In the food aisles she noticed new lines, more choice and there, the sign she always felt, for some unknown reason, of an impeccably stocked supermarket—a Thai Curry Kit.

She picked it up and gazed at it in wonder. It was all there, neatly compartmentalized. Two sticks of lemongrass, already truncated into stumps and starting to brown slightly at the ends, but lemongrass nonetheless. And a fan of glossy lime leaves. A small bunch of coriander. Bald, peeled shallots, pink and
translucent as newborn mice. And five shiny chilies in red and green.

There had been a time in her life, before Ralph, before babies, when Jem had spent an inordinate amount of time in Asian supermarkets. Her agency's offices were in Soho and her lunch hours were more often than not spent in Chinatown exploring the aisles and the counters for weird and delicious things with which to concoct weird and delicious meals. Back then she'd have spat on this sterile, film-wrapped parody of authenticity. Back then she'd have felt nothing but pity for people picking this up and paying for it and thinking that they were doing something somehow exotic and daring in doing so. Back then she'd sooner have had a plain cheese sandwich than have cooked a meal with one of these. But now, her horizons were smaller, her life was confined to her London village. The thought of strollers and nappy changes and buses and children and tubes and the hustle and bustle of Chinatown, well, it was not an appealing prospect. On the rare occasion that Jem ventured into town these days it was either on business or to meet friends, never just to idle away the time, never just to absorb the city. Jem was a very different sort of Londoner these days.

She sighed, silently, and placed the pack in her basket. She and Ralph had bonded over food. To be more precise, she and Ralph had bonded over the making of a curry. Jem had taken pity on the high-salt, low-flavor, extremely expensive ready-meal diet of her flatmate and one night had shown him how to cook a simple chicken curry. There had then followed a slightly drunken, slightly stoned encounter with a packet of raw chilies, which had ended with Ralph's head in the freezer and both of them high on the adrenaline of burning mouths.