He threw the duvet off and got to his feet and took a string of deep breaths to steady himself before heading downstairs.
Assuming Jean was busy elsewhere, he planned to grab a bottle of wine and head straight out to the studio. If the codeine did not work he would get drunk. He no longer cared what Jean thought.
But Jean was not busy elsewhere. He was halfway down the stairs when she appeared round the banisters brandishing the phone receiver saying, exasperatedly, “There you are. I’ve been calling you. Ray would like a chat.”
George froze, like an animal spotted by a bird of prey, hoping that if he remained motionless he might blend into the background.
“Are you going to take it or not?” said Jean, waggling the phone at him.
He watched his hand rise up to take hold of the phone as he walked down the last few steps. Jean was wearing a rubber glove and holding a tea towel. She handed the phone over, shook her head and vanished back into the kitchen.
George put the phone to his ear.
The pictures in his head toggled giddily from one grotesque image to another. The tramp’s face on the station platform. Jean’s naked thighs. His own sick skin.
Ray said, “George. It’s Ray. Katie tells me you wanted a chat.”
It was like those phone calls that woke you up at night. It was hard remembering what you were meant to do.
He had absolutely no idea what he had wanted to chat to Ray about.
Was this really happening, or had he tipped over into some kind of delusional state? Was he still lying on the bed upstairs?
“George?” said Ray. “Are you there?”
He tried to say something. A small mewing noise came out of his mouth. He moved the receiver away from his head and looked at it. Ray’s voice was still emerging from the little holes. George did not want this to carry on any longer.
Carefully, he put the phone back onto the receiver. He turned and walked into the kitchen. Jean was filling the washing machine and he did not have the energy for the argument that would ensue if he walked out of the door with a bottle of wine.
“That was quick,” said Jean.
“Wrong number,” said George.
He was halfway down the garden in his socks before he realized why Jean might not have fallen for this brilliant piece of subterfuge.
92
Jamie sat down with a mug of tea and his best pen and some writing paper he’d found in the bottom of the desk drawer. Proper paper, like the stuff he was made to use for thank-you letters when he was a kid.
He began writing.
Dear Tony,
I love you and I want you to come to the wedding.
I went up to Peterborough last week. Dad was having a nervous breakdown and ended up in hospital after chopping bits off himself with a pair of scissors (I’ll explain later). When I was at the hospital I bumped into the man Mum is having an affair with (I’ll explain that, too). Katie and Mum had a blazing row about the wedding. It was off. But now it’s on again (I’ll explain…
He tore off the sheet of paper, crumpled it up and began again. Tony had expended a lot of energy getting away from his own family. This wasn’t the moment for Jamie to brag about the shortcomings of his own.
Dear Tony,
I love you and I want you to come to the wedding.
I went up to Peterborough last week and realized that you were my family…
Too mawkish.
Dear Tony,
I love you.
The wedding was off. Now it’s on again.
God knows what’s going to happen on the day, but I want you to be there with me
Christ. Now he was selling it as a spectator event.
Why was this so bloody difficult?
He took his tea outside and sat on the bench and lit a cigarette. There were children playing in a nearby garden. Seven, eight years old. It reminded him of being young again. Paddling pools and Olympic hurdles over bamboo canes. Bike races and jumping out of trees. A couple more years and they’d be smoking cigarettes or looking for a can of petrol. But for now it was a good noise. Like the buzz of a mower, or people playing tennis.
It was so bloody difficult because he couldn’t say it to Tony’s face. You said something to someone’s face, saw how they reacted and adjusted the steering wheel a bit. Like selling a house (“It’s a very cosmopolitan area.” “We noticed that.” “Sorry. Estate-agent speak. Hardwired, I’m afraid”).
And Tony had changed in his absence. After everything Becky had said. When he pictured Tony now he saw someone less sorted, more vulnerable, someone more like himself.
Jamie had changed, too.
Christ, it was like chess.
No. He was being stupid.
He was trying to get Tony back. It would be good if he came to the wedding but if he missed it, so what? Sooner or later he’d come back from Greece.
Come to think of it, if the wedding was a disaster, Tony missing it might be a godsend.
Solved.
He stubbed out his cigarette and went inside.
Dear Tony,
Please come to the wedding. Talk to Becky. She knows everything.
I love you.
Jamie
xxx
He put it into the envelope, added one of the photocopied road maps, sealed it, addressed it care of Becky, stamped it and took it to the postbox before he could change his mind.
