Jamie vacuumed the carpets and cleaned the bathroom. He thought briefly about washing the cushion covers but, frankly, Tony wouldn’t notice if they were covered in mud.
The following afternoon he cut short the visit to the Creighton Avenue flats, rang the office to say he could be contacted on his mobile, then went home via Tesco’s.
Salmon, then strawberries. Enough to show he’d made an effort but not enough to make him feel too fat for sex. He put a bottle of Pouilly-Fume in the fridge and a vase of tulips on the dining table.
He felt stupid. He was getting worked up about losing Katie, and doing nothing to hang on to the most important person in his life.
He and Tony should be living together. He should be coming home to lit windows and the sound of unfamiliar music. He should be lying in bed on Saturday mornings, smelling bacon and hearing the clink of crockery through the wall.
He was going to take Tony to the wedding. All that bollocks about provincial bigotry. It was himself he was scared of. Getting old. Making choices. Being committed.
It would be ghastly. Of course it would be ghastly. But it didn’t matter what the neighbors thought. It didn’t matter if Mum fussed over Tony like a lost son. It didn’t matter if his father tied himself in knots over bedroom arrangements. It didn’t matter if Tony insisted on a slow snog to Lionel Richie’s “Three Times a Lady.”
He wanted to share his life with Tony. The good stuff and the crap stuff.
He took a deep breath and felt, for several seconds, as if he was standing not on the pine floor of his kitchen but on some deserted Scottish headland, the surf thundering and the wind in his hair. Noble. Taller.
He went upstairs and showered and felt the remains of something dirty being rinsed away and sent spinning down the plughole.
He was having a shirt-selection crisis when the doorbell rang. He plumped for the faded orange denim and went downstairs.
When he opened the door his first thought was that Tony had received some bad news. About his father, perhaps.
“What’s the matter?”
Tony took a deep breath.
“Hey. Come inside,” said Jamie.
Tony didn’t move. “We need to talk.”
“Come inside and talk.”
Tony didn’t want to come inside. He suggested they walk to the park at the end of the road. Jamie grabbed his keys.
It happened next to the little red bin for dog shit.
Tony said, “It’s over.”
“What?”
“Us. It’s over.”
“But-”
“You don’t really want to be with me,” said Tony.
“I do,” said Jamie.
“OK. Maybe you want to be with me. But you don’t want to be with me enough. This stupid wedding. It’s made me realize…Jesus, Jamie. Am I just not good enough for your parents? Or am I not good enough for you?”
“I love you.” Why was this happening now? It was so unfair, so idiotic.
Tony looked at him. “You don’t know what love is.”
“I do.” He sounded like Jacob.
Tony’s expression didn’t change. “Loving someone means taking the risk that they might fuck up your nicely ordered little life. And you don’t want to fuck up your nicely ordered little life, do you?”
“Have you met someone else?”
“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying.”
He should have explained. The salmon. The vacuuming. The words were there in his head. He just couldn’t get them out. He hurt too much. And there was something sickly and comforting about the thought of going back to the house alone, smashing the tulips from the table, then retiring to the sofa to drink the bottle of wine on his own.
“I’m sorry, Jamie. I really am. You’re a nice guy.” Tony put his hands into his pockets to show that there would be no final embrace. “I hope you find someone who makes you feel that way.”
He turned and walked off.
Jamie stood in the park for several minutes, then went back to the flat, smashed the tulips from the table, uncorked the wine, took it to the sofa and wept.
29
Ray turned to Katie in bed and said, “Are you sure you want to marry me?”
“Of course I want to marry you.”
“You’d tell me if you changed your mind, yeh?”
“Jeez, Ray,” said Katie. “What’s all this about?”
“You wouldn’t go through with it just because we’d told everyone?”
“Ray-”
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“Why are you talking like this all of a sudden?”
“Do you love me like you loved Graham?”
“No, actually, I don’t,” said Katie.
For a second she could see real pain on his face. “I was infatuated with Graham. I thought he was God’s gift. I couldn’t see straight. And when I found out what he was really like…” She put her hand on the side of Ray’s face. “I know you. I know all the things that are wonderful about you. I know all your faults. And I still want to marry you.”
“So, what are my faults?”
This wasn’t her job. He was the one who was meant to do the consoling. “Come here.” She pulled his head onto her chest.
“I love you so much.” He sounded tiny.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ditch you at the altar.”
“I’m sorry. I’m being stupid.”
“It’s wedding nerves.” She ran her hand over the little hairs on his upper arm. “You remember Emily?”
“Yeh?”
“Threw up in the vestry.”
“Shit.”
“They had to send her up the aisle with this massive bouquet to hide the stain. Barry’s dad assumed the smell was Roddy. You know, after their stag night.”
They fell asleep and were woken at four by Jacob crying, “Mummy, Mummy, Mummy…”
Ray started to get out of bed but she insisted on going.
When she got to his room Jacob was still half asleep, trying to curl away from a big orange diarrhea stain in the center of the bed.
“Come here, little squirrel.” She lifted him to his feet and his sleepy head flopped against her shoulder.
“It’s all…all sort of…It’s wet.”
“I know. I know.” She carefully peeled off his pajama trousers, rolling them up so that the mess was on the inside then throwing them into the hallway. “Let’s clean you up, Baby Biscuits.” She grabbed a nappy bag and a fresh nappy and pack of wet wipes from the drawer and gently cleaned his bottom.
She put the fresh nappy on, extracted a fresh pair of pajama trousers from the basket and guided his clumsy feet into the legs. “There. That feels better, doesn’t it.”
