After the Party (39 page)

She spooned the last of her butternut squash soup into her mouth and wondered what Lucas was doing.

•  •  •

Lucas had mentioned a festival in Brockwell Park. She hadn't really thought much of it at the time. She was not the festival type. But they'd had flyers on the bar in the Prince Regent and she'd slipped one into her pocket. It was this weekend, today and tomorrow. It meant something.

She called Lulu that afternoon. “What are you doing tomorrow?” she said.

“Going to the festival at Brockwell Park,” Lulu said. “Why don't you come with us?”

It meant something.

Ralph didn't come. Jem hadn't expected him to. He was not the festival type either.

It was not hot the next day, it was pale and cool, and Jem chose her clothes carefully, cropped skinny jeans, a fuchsia cotton camisole and fitted leopard-print cardigan, with silver pumps. She wore large hoop earrings and prayed that she didn't look like a middle-aged fortune-teller.

She felt a little shiver of nervous anticipation as she set off from the house at lunchtime with the children, and the sense
of anticipation increased as they approached the perimeter of the park. She didn't expect to bump into Lucas today; the fair was sprawling, the chances were slim. But if she did, well, it was potentially seismic. What if she discovered that she had feelings for him? A week before her wedding?

She found Lulu, Walter and all five kids spread out in a patch of unconvincing sunshine over the surface area of four large blankets. Jem added her blanket to the patchwork and unloaded her children and her picnic and hoped that Scarlett would fail to spot the fairground in the distance. Fairgrounds tended to make Scarlett somewhat emotional, and not in a good way.

She greeted Walt and Lulu with kisses and hugs and then she set about, very quickly, opening a bottle of rosé she'd brought chilling in a frozen thermal sleeve and decanting it into plastic tumblers.

“You fantastic person!” said Lulu, taking a glass from Jem's hand. “I hadn't thought to bring anything to drink.”

Jem downed the icy rosé, feeling it hit the pit of her stomach. A moment later the day blurred and happiness settled upon her. She handed Marmite sandwiches and small boxes of raisins to her children, and she chatted with Lulu and Walt. Lulu offered her a tub of hummus and a packet of carrot sticks. Jem took a handful of carrot sticks and passed on the hummus.

She had another glass of rosé and she thought about going for a wander, possibly in the opposite direction to the funfair. There was a small animals' enclosure, apparently. Small animals seemed a nice way to pass the time and less likely to end in a bloodbath of tears and hysteria than a psychedelic swirl of bright lights, loud pop music and rides that Scarlett would want desperately to go on until two seconds after they started moving, at which point she would want desperately to be taken off again.

She was considering her options when she looked up and saw him.

Lucas.

He was gurning at Blake, who was giggling at him, and before he'd even said a word to Jem, he leaned down to pluck him from the blanket and was holding him aloft.

“Hello, little dude,” he said. “How've you been doing? I missed you!”

Blake beamed at him and then Lucas leaned down and looked at Jem.

“Hardly recognized you with your clothes on,” he started.

Walter and Lulu threw Jem wide eyes. Jem laughed.

“Very funny,” she said. “Lulu—do you remember Lucas?”

“Vaguely,” laughed Lulu. “But we definitely all had our clothes on.” She turned back to Jem. “Didn't we?”

Jem laughed again and so did Lucas. “We were hanging out at the pool,” he explained, “last week. When it was hot. So I've seen rather a lot of your sister in a bikini.”

Lulu threw Jem a look of alarm and Jem grimaced. Her brief harmless little four-day flirtation seemed suddenly tawdry laid out like this in front of her sister and Walter. She wished that Lucas would leave.

But instead he did what he always seemed to do and made himself right at home. He sat down next to Jem, with Blake on his lap. “How've you been?”

“I'm good,” said Jem. “How about you?”

“Yeah, not bad. I'm here with some mates, just on my way to the beer shop to pick up some more wine. Spotted a familiar face, thought I'd come and say hello.” He jiggled Blake up and down on his lap and tickled him under the arms.

Jem could tell he was feeling slightly awkward; he wasn't as natural as he had been when they'd chatted at the pool.

“This is Walter, by the way,” said Jem. “Walter is Lulu's husband.” They shook hands and Lucas looked around from side to side. “And your husband?” he said.

“Not here. Working,” she replied cursorily. She didn't want to talk about Ralph. Not now. “So, did your dad make his deadline?” she asked, feeling that although she didn't want to talk to him, now that he'd made himself comfortable it would be rude not to.

“Yeah, as far as I know. He's taken Jessie away for a few days.”

“Oh, yes? Somewhere nice?”

He shrugged. “Don't know,” he said. “He wouldn't tell me where they were going. He's, er . . . well, he's trying to lie low while the ex is sniffing around with all her taking Jessica talk, you know.”

“Oh, God,” Jem cried, “is she still talking about getting custody?”

“Seems that way, yeah. So my dad's gone off the radar. And I don't blame him. That woman is a nutter. And what about you? What've you been up to since Wednesday?”

“Nothing much,” said Jem, “just, you know, being a mum. Being a housewife. The usual boring old stuff.”

“Oh, now,” he exclaimed, “don't say that! How can that be boring! Best job in the world, isn't it?”

Lulu and Jem looked at each other and laughed.

“Well, yes, maybe compared to stuffing chickens, cleaning toilets, painting bridges, you know.”

He laughed. “But you've got your PR job, your little business going?” he asked Jem. “It's not all just nappies and stuff. And besides,” he said, “I reckon you could make anything interesting, anything you did. You've just got that sparkle about you, you know.”

Jem turned to look at him, to see what his face had looked like when he said these words, but he didn't look embarrassed or self-conscious. He looked cool and circumspect. She said nothing, unsure how to respond.

Lucas handed Blake back to Jem. “Anyway,” he said, “I'd better shoot off. But I'll be here all day, yeah? I'll look out for you. We could have a little drink together. Or maybe even a little dance. Are you a good dancer?” He eyed her up and down and smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah. I bet you are a good dancer. Come and find me. Or I'll find you. But come and find me before you go. Okay?”

Jem nodded mutely.

“Hey, look,” he said, “are you on Facebook?”

Jem blinked. Then she nodded.

“What's your surname?”

“Catterick,” she said, “Jemima Catterick.”

“I'll friend you,” he said, “when I get home. Don't go without saying good-bye. Whatever you do.”

He got to his feet and he waved at Blake and he waved at Scarlett. He said nice to meet you to Walt, he said see you again soon to Lulu and then he left.

Lulu stared at his receding back and she turned to stare at her sister. “What,” she said, “was that all that about?”

“What?” said Jem, disingenuously.

“God, that man. He was all over you!”

“What!” she said, a little less disingenuously this time.

“Totally,” said Lulu. “I can't believe you didn't tell me you'd been hanging out with that boy at the pool!”

“Well, I haven't seen you. It was only a couple of days, nothing major.”

“Yes, but, God, he's got a crush on you!”

“No, he has
not
.”

“Yes. He has.
Are you on Facebook
? Ha!”

“You're being ridiculous,” said Jem.

“Er, Walt,” she turned to consult her husband, “does that young man or does that young man
not
have a crush on my sister?”

Walter shrugged his huge shoulders and smiled apologetically.

“No,” said Jem defensively, “you're wrong. Honestly. He's just a naturally flirtatious person. I bet he's like that with everyone. I mean, come on! He's twenty-four years old. And he's seen me in a bikini. I could maybe get to grips with the notion of him fancying me if he'd only seen me in my clothes. But he has seen my wrinkly, droopy thirty-eight-year-old body, in a bikini, without a tan. There is no way he fancies me. And anyway I'm getting married in two weeks and I'm not interested. Thank you!”

She turned and hid the flush in her cheeks from her sister, from her nephews, from her children.

It was entirely inappropriate.

•  •  •

She did see Lucas again that day.

She saw the back of his head bobbing through the crowd. She saw his arm around a girl with short blond hair. She saw him smiling and laughing with a friend. His friends were young. He was young. He reminded her so painfully of Ralph, when he was young, when he was in love with her.

She didn't catch him up to say good-bye. She turned the other way and moved in the opposite direction as quickly as she possibly could.

O
n Monday the last of Ralph's Californian paintings was loaded into the back of a van, the back door was unceremoniously banged shut and the van disappeared up the road toward Notting Hill. Ralph himself would head for Notting Hill tomorrow morning to help hang the paintings, but for now he had a whole day to himself and he knew exactly what he was going to do with it.

The day was blowy and the light was poor, but Ralph enjoyed the walk through the back streets toward Gil's estate.

He kept his head turned to the side as he passed by Walt and Lulu's massive house on the corner of Maygrove Road, just in case Lulu was looking from one of the front windows, just in case she came tearing across the road to greet him and then would talk far too much and make him feel embarrassed (Lulu always made him feel a bit embarrassed, there was something very rude about her, she always seemed to be thinking about sex), and then she would want to know where he was going and he would have to say, oh, just off to an old man's shed to do painting. Not that there was anything intrinsically wrong with painting in an old man's shed, just that he couldn't be bothered to have to explain it, as he would have to because Lulu would definitely want to know.

Gil's house was neat and compact, one of a row of ten or so identical houses. The door was council blue and Ralph banged the letter box because the doorbell appeared to have been disconnected.

Gil greeted him at the door in blue checked shorts and a billowing blue T-shirt, his sunglasses as ever around his neck, his mottled kneecaps swollen with age, a cup of tea in one hand.

“Come in, Ralph,” he intoned, “come in. I'll be offering you something to drink in a minute, but you'll have to wait. Nadal is
slaughtering
our boy Murray.” He followed Gil into the small living room, twelve by twelve, an antique Knowle sofa in tartan, a recliner seat, and a small television housed in an alcove. All other space was given over to books and paintings. It was cozy, clean and snug. On the table in front of Gil was a bowl of grapes and an unwrapped peppermint Aero. “Sit down, sit down.”

Ralph took a seat on the Knowle sofa and, uninterested as he was in the men's quarterfinals at Wimbledon, glanced around instead at Gil's paintings. As he'd suspected, they were simplistic, raw and unfashionable. Scrapings on boards and canvases in earthy tonal shades, of landscapes and seascapes and rocky outcrops. Nothing original but all of them possessed some kind of energy, the mark of the painter rather than his skill.

They sat in silence for a further twenty minutes while Gil winced and oohed and aahed and cursed at the television until finally it was all over and Murray was out of the tournament, and Gil took Ralph through to his kitchen, a small galley behind the staircase.

He brewed him a cup of thick, sturdy tea and handed it to him and then he took him across a small patch of ragged grass and into a gray-painted garden house in the corner.

The shed took up almost three-quarters of the available space
in his garden. Inside the air was hot and woody, full of spores of dust.

“It's a wee bit squashed in, as you can see, but it's a fortunate spot, this. Gets the light all day long. And a wee bit of something else too, if you see what I mean.” He winked at Ralph. “Here, let me get you an easel.”

He pulled some paintings away from the wall to release another easel and set it up next to his. Ralph rested his canvas against it and then unclipped the locks on his paint box. He felt exposed. He had not painted in front of another human being since he was at the Royal College.

“We'll start with a prayer then, shall we?” said Gil, a statement, not a suggestion.

“Yes,” said Ralph, “yes. Sure.”

“I think, though, a private prayer.”

Ralph nodded and let his head fall to his chest. He closed his eyes and he let the prayers come to him as they did more and more easily these days. He prayed for his exhibition, that it be a success, that he sell a lot of paintings, that he make a lot of money, and he prayed for Jem, that she would find whatever it was she was looking for and that when she did it would not be too far away from him. And then he prayed, as he always prayed, for his children, his angels—he prayed that he would keep them safe and that the four of them would live in harmony and joy forevermore.

He could feel Gil's aura as he prayed, the purity of him and the strength of him, and he prayed that one day he too would know the spiritual peace that this towering gnarled oak of a man had found in his life, here in this dusty room in the cramped corner of a tiny garden in the back end of an estate in a dead-end Brixton road. If he could find peace here then surely Ralph
could find peace in his pretty Edwardian row house with his beautiful wife and his beautiful children and his large studio attic room with its view of the streets.