She’s flummoxed. It was Sue Wilke’s lad that came round and told me all about it. I wondered at the time though, how they knew Jack was ill.
The vultures, the fucking vultures. They sense death and they’re in to pick over the remains.
Ach, he says. If you know the lad I am sure it’s nothing to worry about. Probably some kind of error.
He can well imagine that the salesmen were out in force, sensing a downturn on its way, locking them into negative repayments, plus the eventual repossession of the houses. Guaranteed profit on the upside and the downside. Savvy. Smart cunts to a man. The bricks and mortar you have put your trust in have become liquid, volatile; no one and nothing can escape risk these days.
Well, they’re coming to see me tomorrow they said. I’ve been on the phone to them all week but they never answer. Finally they picked up the phone, said they would come down to explain the arrangement to me this weekend.
Do you need someone to have a look at a few things for you?
Sort out this bank stuff, see where we are with that and so on?
Oh love I couldn’t ask you to do that.
Well, that’s fine he says. I can spare another day. There’s probably no getting anywhere anyhow and I feel, he says, and the words come easily to him, that I owe it to you.
Oh no, love she says. No, no you don’t owe us anything.
Aye well, he says. I was friends with your lad. Maybe I could have been a better friend to him than I was. Whatever you may think about it. I want to do something. I feel I owe it to you.
Oh well, she says. She looks relieved. Well that would give me a bit of peace of mind.
Aye, Rob says. Peace of mind. Aye. It might give me a bit of that too.
When Karen got the message she was down on the street and heading to
Mordiscos: Vinyl and Tapas
, to get a mixed box of skinny Basque pinchos for lunch. She was going low fat, hoping it would mean she was under less pressure to work out, something she hated doing, even with Mark, the very bright and charming, super-positive personal trainer in her local Gymbox.
Heading to Margate. Got a lead and have to get down there quick before it disappears. Back late. Love you.
Well. She would have appreciated a phone call. She messaged back, no problem, have fun, drive safely. Love you.
After work she went and shared that bottle of wine with Antonia that she had been putting off for weeks; she resolved to be more sociable, make more effort to meet up with people. Antonia talked about her kids and how she had just completely gone off the idea of sex now she had babies, but that she felt she had to stay in good shape and try to keep Jed interested with outfits and toys and lap dances. When were Karen and Alex thinking of starting a family?
Alex has just started a big new project, she said.
Well, Antonia told her, if I had waited for Jed to be ready I’d have waited forever.
Back in Clapham she found the wine had killed her appetite, but even so she made a point of calling in first at the charcuterie to get some
serrano
, the health food shop for sugar-free raw chocolate, and then the rather run down fruit and veg shop that was still clinging on to the corner of Hickham Road, just to balance things out a bit. She got drawn into a conversation, actually longer than she would ideally have liked, with the woman in
Prize Fruit N Veg
, who lived in a local authority block on the same road as Karen and liked to moan about the price of flats in the area, how she’d had her son, his wife and two kids all crammed into her flat for the best part of a year, how they had wanted to stay local but couldn’t afford it and so had moved down to one of the Medway towns.
There was nothing pressing to do around the house once she got back so she drank the best part of a bottle of Rioja flicking through feeds and chatting and commenting on Facebook, Twitter, Chattanooga, Sprool, Instagram, instead of doing the work she had planned for. Then, more than a little tipsy and suddenly drained, she got into bed early to try to read an inspirational book on life-management called
Youtime/Yourtime
by Jacob Kooliman, but was asleep with the light on by ten.
The next day Alex made arrabiata and entertained her with Margate anecdotes over dinner. He was inspired, enthused, up, in a way she hadn’t seen since he’d finished
Gilligan’s Century
. He cooked, he tidied, he ran errands, he made jokes, talked non-stop, seemed to relish life again, up early and energised, tapping away at the computer when she set off for work, music on, a sense of mission shining in his eyes.
Then, suddenly he was off to Castleford. Then it was Aberdeen.
Aberdeen? Her first impulse was to tell him to come home but she held herself in check. Instead she asked how long he thought he would be away.
A day or two I should think, he answered. I mean I’m halfway there already, I might as well head on up.
Sure, she said. I mean we don’t have anything planned for this weekend. But remember, next week everyone’s coming round for dinner.
Another attempt to be more sociable, to see people more, to make more of an effort with Alex’s friends. She’s too much of a homebody, not that she doesn’t like people, whatever that means, but she just doesn’t seem to feel the same need, have the same drive to socialise that others do. Maybe that’s because in her job she spends all her time talking to other people, managing them, addressing their needs. Then again, these days, who doesn’t?
Babe, babe, I’m going to be back long before even this weekend, he said.
Well, look, she said. I’m fine. Busy as I’ve ever been. You take all the time you need.
OK. I miss you.
I miss you too, baby.
OK love you.
Love you! OK. Bye.
So he’s really found a project, something to pursue after a few months of despondency. That’s good in lots of ways; he’s better when he’s working on something, more fun to be around certainly, but sometimes, often, a little too much, too active, too vociferous, too intent on making contacts and connections and prying into everything. Then at other times he’s just not around; meetings, researching, taking trips off everywhere, sending endless messages to her, requests, reminders, insights. Too present when he’s absent, too absent when he’s present. She wonders if he’s faithful to her on these trips away, he seems so irrepressible sometimes, so intense she imagines many women must fall under his spell. When he commits himself to something it’s as though he’s magnetised, his power level turned up to ten. Of course other people don’t see the lows when he can’t get out of bed, barely make himself a cup of tea, hardly speak. That’s how he is, he says, how he has always been, either fast or slow, only has two speeds, though it seems, over the years they’ve been together that she’s seen a gradual acceleration in one and a deceleration of the other, though in which direction she is not sure; overlap and crosscurrent, accelerating slowness, decelerating speed.
She still has work to do; perhaps she can finish it off at home, with a glass of wine. She puts her work things in her bag, heads back, finds herself pathetically, as usual, slowing down by the kid’s play area, smiling at some of the local mums she sees round and about. They smile back but she thinks there is a hint of pity in it at best, a certain condescension maybe, maybe hauteur. Yes, an almost steely, victorious glint in some eyes, the sheep-ishness of the fathers, stooped, protective arms out, shuffling along behind wobbly toddlers, pushing swings, being dads in a way hers never was.
On the tube home she has this sense that he’s avoiding her. They have hardly talked about it since it happened, since he, she can hardly formulate the word herself, proposed, back in November, when he was down in the dumps, as down as she has ever seen him. He got tearful almost, lying in bed and cuddling into her, at least he’s more affectionate when he’s depressed, though he can be too needy too: will you marry me? Really? Really, I mean it. Let’s get married, have kids, Let’s do it. We are always going to be together, aren’t we? Let’s make it official. Marry me. And she said, Oh my god, felt a rush of relief that came reflected back at her across the dim space between the pillows. Of course, of course. So we’re engaged? Yes he said and smiled. We are, we are engaged. And for a week or so, everything was better.
It was only a few months ago and the memory sears her a little. She flinches in mingled anger, frustration, hope, despair. Should she announce it, she asked? Not yet, not yet he said. In the New Year when I feel a bit better. A New Year, new beginnings, all that. And since then, nothing. She arranged a meal a couple of months ago thinking it would cheer Alex up, be a good time to tell people, close friends, and she has been half planning things out in her mind, idle fantasies about the wedding day, flicking through websites and speculating on the cost. She has never been invited to so many weddings herself, it’s hard to commit to all of them, the time, the expense and with the income from Alex’s writing so sporadic, so low. People are that age, aren’t they, now, her peer group, her cohort, 30. That’s the next stage, marriage, then children in a year or two. Time is ticking on and they are already behind schedule, and now he seems to have got tied up in all this. Is it real, she wonders, or just some strategy?
She wants to raise the subject but keeps shying away from it, yet senses, as Antonia said, that if she waits for him she will wait forever. More interested in his book, in strangers, in other people’s lives than he is in mine, in ours, that’s how it seems to her, yes she is a little jealous, and a voice creeps in and says, you shouldn’t have got involved with a writer, at least not an unsuccessful one. At least not with one who won’t give up and do something more regular, a voice that she senses frustration might strengthen, harden, until it’s saying: he’s useless,
useless
, my
useless boyfriend
, and she’ll find herself moaning about him to friends the way other friends do to her about their partners, putting him down or exposing his fallibilities in front of guests and fellow invitees at parties, meals, nights out.
Then she feels immediately guilty for harbouring such thoughts. The next book will do better, she should be supportive, wait, give him breathing space, time. But how much? She feels, she can’t help it, that he has said it now, that those grave words have been spoken, this arrangement entered into and that he, yes there is even that element to it, that even if he is unhappy, even if she is, even if they make each others’ lives a misery, that once such an offer is made, the love and intent declared, the offer accepted, then one must go through with it, in the name of seriousness, as a core tenet of adulthood.
She finds something violent within herself: she will make him do this or she will leave him. Even if it’s hell, she says. Then her thoughts roll back over this momentarily exposed impulse: it will be fine, it will be fine, she repeats to herself, but something pointed stays nestled against her heart.
Again she has decided to go home early, to work from home, but knows, really, that it makes no difference, it’s a only a minimal escape, fruitless, and so she is melancholy as she walks back from the station. It’s not just work but the fucking phone and her masochistic attachment to it. She wishes she could just get rid of it; all it does, really, is make her feel bad, not just because she is always contactable, it’s not just having to endlessly field emails from clients but, almost worse, actually worse, navigate a whole range of invitations and social engagements that she has to make elaborate excuses to avoid. Then she feels bad for not going to, or anxious that she has missed out when the pictures appear the next day showing everyone having an amazing time. Then there’s the endless proliferation of articles she hasn’t read and photos she hasn’t looked at or liked or retweets she hasn’t proffered, the CV she hasn’t updated, or friend requests and network nodes she has yet to hook up to.
She has wandered into the park almost involuntarily and her phone’s in her hand again, she can’t help it, tap, tap, scroll, telling herself simultaneously, stop looking, and marshalling herself to be more resolute in her networking, more committed to her personal brand, her career.
On her Facebook feed there are streams of girls she went to school with posting pictures of their baking and gardening, countryside romps with adorable, super smart, beautifully turned out, rosy cheeked, tousled haired, milky toothed, beaming toddlers, everyone glowing with health. Of course their husbands make money and now they have moved out of London into some country piles on the outskirts of Ashford so hubby can HS1 it into town every day and mummy can stay at home, selflessly devoting herself to her children’s education and welfare, slightly disapproving of women who continue to work postpartum, YABU, occasionally coming up to London to minimally do up and furnish another buy-to-let. She tries to say something positive on every post but just doesn’t have the time or energy and wishes there was some automatic Like feature, save all that clicking, some sock-puppet or bot that generated and posted affirmatory, Karen-like things without her having to get involved herself. Probably there is. Reflexively she begins to search for one.
She gets a message from her brother that he can’t make it to supper on Saturday, it was up in the air anyway and she texts back, sure, no problem, let’s meet up soon and then gets a quick reply, any chance of babysitting Nelly and Frank next Saturday/Sunday? Big ask I know but both away on business.
She replies immediately, 90% sure its ok. Let me check with Alex.
Nelly, so sweet, so adorable with her masses of curls, her missing front tooth, that colouring, so russety and creamily pale, that fine-china bone structure, just like her gorgeous mother. Frank, so well mannered and winningly precocious all togged out in his Duke of Earl posh-toddler’s cords, brogues and little cufflinks. Last time they came over and dropped off the kids for the weekend she took them to the local playground and Frank got out his tiny wallet to pay the entrance fee, stepping in front of Karen, saying, let me get this, and all the other mums cooed and chuckled: well he’s quite the little gentleman, and Karen wished she could say yes he’s mine, mine, I am the Mum, instead of that sad, damp, half-empty word, Aunty.