Perhaps he should read the papers in his bag now, he thought, as the microwave announced with a ping that dinner was ready. He collected his meal and, still clad only in a towel, got his papers out of his briefcase and began to read.
He was at the bottom of the first page when the doorbell rang. He cursed loudly – it was the last thing he needed, and who the hell was it anyway at this time? – then stalked across and flung the door open, to find the concierge had let a sodding tramp upstairs. ‘Jesus,’ he said to the sight that greeted him, eyeing the unbrushed, unwashed grey hair, the patchy stubble of silver beard, the untucked, half-open shirt, dirty trousers and only socks where shoes should be. And it wasn’t just his vision getting assaulted – his nostrils were on high alert as well.
Then he looked at the face again, closer. His disdain turned to horror as he found himself staring at a twilight- world version of his esteemed father, Henry Jameson.
Mark would have liked longer to gather himself, as his head was spinning, but after a few seconds’ delay his dad lurched to the door and over the threshold, falling towards him. Mark instinctively put out his arms to help him upright, but instead found himself unexpectedly required to support most of the weight of a sixteen-stone man and, unable to do so, staggered back inside the apartment where they fell in a heavy, painful heap to the floor. Mark felt his wrist jar awkwardly as he hit the ground with it trapped underneath his father’s chest.
They both lay there in silence, until the ting of the now functioning lift alerted Mark to the fact they were in full view of the corridor. As fast as he could he pushed his dad off him and was at the front door, slamming it shut. He looked down and saw he was naked; his towel still half-trapped under his father.
Mark had never been required to reverse roles with Henry before. Surveying the crashed-out heap of parenthood at his feet, he found himself thinking of cases he’d come across where children would come home to find parents passed out from some kind of excess. He suddenly understood as never before the burden of responsibility such children were forced into. Some of them were still babies themselves, and he’d read about them dutifully providing comfort to a needful father or mother. Now here he was, in his thirties, faced with the same predicament, and he had absolutely no idea what to do.
After a few moments, with his father out cold on the hallway floor but quite obviously breathing, Mark stepped over him, threw on some clothes, and then went back to his cooling microwave meal while he tried to figure out what to do next.
16
Four a.m., and Chloe was wide awake.
Alex had got home an hour ago and slipped into bed silently beside her. Neither of them had tried to talk or even to touch one another. Now a soft yellow glow from the streetlight filtered in through the curtains, making his sleeping face just visible to her. She could still remember lying in bed awake like this before, newly married, enthralled by the sleeping person by her side who she could now call ‘husband’. She’d traced the contours of his face with her eyes: his soft skin; the dark stubble that appeared almost immediately after he shaved. It drove him mad, but she loved the tousled look he took on with the shadow of a beard forming. It was the informality of it – the contrast to the men she met at work with fresh red nicks on their faces daily, and ties strangling their bulging Adam’s apples. Alex never did up the top button of a shirt unless he absolutely had to.
Now, as she looked at his face, she had the urge to slap him. It seemed that all the solidity they had built; the foundations of their relationship, their marriage, which they had painstakingly erected and climbed up together, could be brought down in an instant by nothing more than a short, sharp pull from a third party.
Chloe’s mind was hastily replaying scenes from the past, re-evaluating them in the light of the last few days and hating what she saw there afresh.
They’d met on the underground during that strange time during Christmas and New Year when everyone seemed to move in a dream, suspended in the twilight of the year, waiting for the turn of the calendar. She had come back from the Lake District early, thankful for the excuse that she had to go into work to finish some case notes, and had perched on one of the uncomfortable metal seats at Holborn to read while she waited, the platform thronged with red-nosed people, wool scarves wound tightly around necks, everyone desperate to jump on a train and make their way home. Chloe had gone past the point of jostling with other people and standing staring at sweaty foreheads, struggling to find a hand-hold to steady herself. She preferred to wait until there was a comfortable amount of space, and always walked to the ends of platforms, knowing the carriages were emptier there. Then, that day, Alex had come up to her.
‘Excuse me?’
She’d looked up to see an attractive man with wavy brown hair and a slight frown watching her.
He paused for a moment, seeming to release a frosty breath, looking at her curiously, then asked, ‘May I sit down?’
‘Of course.’ She moved slightly, not that it was necessary as there was plenty of space. She wondered where he was from – not London if he felt the need to ask to sit; when you travelled the tube every day such politeness disappeared quickly.
He sat down, and she tried to resume her book, though she was still aware of him next to her. She felt like she should say something, but didn’t know what, then he’d got there before her.
‘Good, isn’t it,’ he’d said to her. ‘I could hardly put it down.’
She’d looked up from her book. She was reading
He’d laughed. ‘Indeed. Well, don’t let me stop you!’ He’d gestured to the open pages.
So Chloe had turned back to the book, but had failed to read another sentence, now acutely aware of him perched next to her. Although she was no longer looking at his face, it had imprinted itself on her mind – his laughing brown eyes, and the kind smile.
Each time a train came they’d both leapt up. Each time they were at the back of a queue of people, who all pushed and fought their way on. Each time the doors closed before they could make it on themselves she had felt relief that they were both still there.
The first few times they didn’t acknowledge one another. But as they sat back down for the fourth time, they finally caught each other’s eyes, and laughed.
‘I hate fighting my way on when it’s packed,’ Alex said. ‘Do you fancy getting a coffee while it thins out a bit?’
He’d asked it in a leisurely manner – too leisurely really; Chloe could hear the nervousness in his voice. The last thing she’d wanted at the time was a man in her life: not only was she always manically busy at work, but she was having a lot of fun with her girlfriends and enjoying the freedom of it all. Yet Alex had a smile that drew you to him, and she found herself saying yes, and not only going to a coffee house but to a restaurant and then a wine bar, before finally heading home as the first wisps of midnight snow floated around her, with a smile on her face and the faint impression of a first kiss still hovering on her lips.
He had phoned her often from that point – not too much or too little, but enough to make sure she knew he was keen. And she responded in kind, loving the laughter that seemed to come easily when they were together; their enjoyment of simple things, such as a walk in the park; feeling that she didn’t need to be something other than herself to make an impression on him – that he saw past suits and makeup and job titles and salary, straight into the core of her.
As Chloe lay awake, she wondered whether she had ever seen into the core of him, or if she had been so wrapped up in being appreciated herself that she had forgotten to look properly at Alex, to see if she could penetrate his own outer shell and glimpse his heart. She thought she had, but now…
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and crept quietly downstairs. In the kitchen the table was covered with newspapers, coins, a Blockbuster card… and Alex’s mobile phone.
She snuck over to it, feeling like a criminal. They had never felt the need to check each other’s texts or emails,
