I went back to the living room and Mark was putting his jacket on. “Listen, I’m still starving. Do you want to come and fetch fish and chips with me? We can have them here with the wine you brought.” That smile of his held an infectious enthusiasm. It was like when he put me to bed on New Year’s Eve and, in so many words, unbuttoning my tartan shirt, he came out to me and made the loveliest pass that anyone ever has. He made it all into a wonderful joke with that grin.
I said, all right. But I only had, like, one pound fifty on me. “My treat,” he said. “Like I said, I should have cooked properly for you. These are guilty fish and chips.”
We walked out in the snow. It was dark again and I thought about Liz lying in the play park all night. You can’t help thinking about it. Her blood is still frozen there. You can see it. The kids were playing with it the other night. Dirty little monsters, playing with Liz’s frozen blood. I watched out the window and it made me want to run out and tell them, “Don’t play with her blood!” I saw a dog lick it, too.
We walked out to the Redhouses. I always thought that the fish shop there was dirty and I wouldn’t have gone there if it had been my choice.
I said to Mark, “Was the other baby there on New Year’s Day?” I meant his ex-wife’s new baby, the one he had been roped in to deliver. He sighed and said yes.
“I’m getting attached to the little thing. Another little girl.”
“Was her father there?”
“Bob the policeman?” He scowled. “We tried to make more of an effort to include him in the conversation. My ex-wife gets cross when we leave him out.” He shrugged. “He’s so boring.”
“But your wife loves him.”
“Well.” For the first time he looked perplexed. I had probably overstepped the mark.
I said, “It’s amazing you’re all still so much a part of each other’s lives.”
“It’s the bairns,” he said. “All the bairns keeping us together. Making us eat family meals and watch the big film on the bank-holiday afternoon, while Peggy fusses round, making us tea as well as dinner.”
I said, “It’s got to be more than the bairns. There are lots of divorced and split-up families and they don’t carry on like you lot. I think you lot are quite unusual.” We were at the fish shop by then. There was a queue inside and it was steamy. I leaned against the far end of the counter and ran my fingers on the dimpled metal. A sign said not to burn myself on the glass.
“Unusual?” He smirked, but not as if he was really listening to me. “Compared with my lot, Andy, you don’t know what unusual is.”
Now I smirked. “You reckon?”
And we were smirking at each other until it was our turn.
Back at his flat he put the telly on while we ate. I picked at the fish, teasing off its yellow cardigan of batter and eating it in strips. The wine was rough and it seemed to cut through the claggy grease that lined my throat. We watched a bit of the film that was on that night, Big. I bloody hate that film, Tom Hanks acting daft. I said to Mark, whenever I really want to see a smart film and I’m depending on there being something good on the telly, it always turns out to be Big with bloody Tom Hanks. Or Three Men and a Little Lady.
Mark asked me what my favourite film was.
I said, Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
He went, “Oh.” He hadn’t seen it.
I must have kept making bored noises all the way through the film. He picked up on them and realised I wasn’t enjoying it. He drew the curtains and took away the plates, which had been resting at our feet, smeared in grease and tomato sauce. I could hear him washing up. I went to stand behind him at the sink. I was being bold, I thought, standing right behind him.
“So there’s been no word from Liz’s boyfriend, has there? That Cliff?” he asked. I watched his blue hands moving about in the suds. The air was scented with vinegar from the chips and the red wine.
“No, there’s been nothing,” I said. “We don’t know where he is. He should be here, though. Taking some responsibility.” I kissed the back of his neck clumsily and he flinched at the contact.
“He used to live in the flat above this one,” Mark said. “Until he ran away with Liz last year.”
“Did he?”
“He’s a good-looking bloke.” I watched him finish the few dishes, dry his hands and screw the tea towel up. He stood still, facing away from me, and I started to feel a little silly, leaning in close like this.
“Will you let me stay tonight?” I asked and was wondering as I said it why I asked like that. I sounded so subservient. What did I think I was doing?
“Andy,” he said, turning, ‘I…”
I stepped back. “Right.”
He could see the look on my face. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I think you’re a great bloke.”
“Right,” I said stupidly, again.
“You know I fancy you,” he said. “Obviously you know that.”
“Yeah,” I said. I couldn’t remember where I’d put down my coat when we came in with the chips. I wanted to go back to number sixteen. I’d rather put up with Penny being miserable than this.
“It shouldn’t really have happened on New Year’s Eve,” he said, and sighed. “It was like I took advantage. Andy, how old are you?”
I turned to go. “Fuck you.”
I wanted to scream at him that his finer feelings weren’t the issue here. Whether he felt he had taken advantage or not, I never cared. I wanted to tell him we were bonded in more than just one mistaken night.
