Lots and lots of love
Jane
She adds her phone number to the end of the message and a photo of her dogs, then presses send, her pulse racing with a sense of finally making progress.
chapter nineteen
STUART, NINE YEARS EARLIER
Her name runs through my head at all hours of the day and the night.
Jessamine Jessamine Jessamine.
The tragic, pretty woman with the strange lace-up shoes, the undyed gray hairs running through her mousy bob, the shimmer of mauve lipstick that makes her look as if she just got out of a cold swimming pool. Under those odd clothes, beneath the deathly lipstick, there is a woman beyond anyone’s uninformed imaginings.
I knew it!I had wanted to yell when she first dropped her clothes onto the floor in front of me that late-December afternoon. I knew you’d have that body. And I knew that you’d be wild, your hands all over me, your eyes burning. And I knew that whatever it was that was happening, in that moment—warm champagne still burning at the back of my throat, the bass of the movie on the TV downstairs still echoing through the walls, the distant sound of coughs and muted voices, the click of Hugo’s claws against the floorboards outside Jessamine’s bedroom door—I knew it was wrong. I knew she was wrong; I knew we, the two of us, were wrong; the union we made of ourselves and our addictions and our brokenness was wrong. But it felt so incredibly good.
“Mum?”
A voice had sounded outside the door, soft and uncertain.
Jessamine had grabbed her dress and thrown it over her head.
“What?”
“What are you doing in there?”
“Nothing. I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Hugo’s out here. He looks like he wants something.”
“Well, then, take him downstairs and give him something.”
“Like what?”
“Some cold turkey maybe. Or let him out. I don’t know.”
We had both stopped breathing, then exhaled again as we heard the child’s footsteps going down the stairs, the dog following behind.
As I’d meandered homeward through Hampstead that night I checked the time: 10:08. Still time for a pint or two before bed.
I enjoyed those pints, post-conjugal, post-whatever-the-hell-it-was-that-had-just-happened. They tasted extra sweet. I walked back to my squat an hour later, the paving stones rolling pleasantly beneath my feet, the Christmas lights on the high street spangling into fireworks, with a sense that maybe I was in love, a sense that life had shifted, moved.
A young guy was in my room when I walked in. I didn’t know who he was; he was curled up on my futon in a gray T-shirt and jeans, dark hair spread out around his head, one sock on, one sock off. I slept in my armchair that night. I slept well.
New Year’s Day is a Sunday. The sky is dark blue, the sun is strobing white through the bare branches of the tree outside the window, and the boy isstillon my futon and, pleasant as he is, I am sick of sharing my space with him. I’m nearly forty, I’m too old for this shit. He’s the son of Drew, the guy who runs the squat. Not that there’s meant to be any kind of hierarchy here, but Drew was the first person to live here with his wife and kids whenthey were small. Then the wife left, then the kids left, then the rest of us arrived, and now his youngest son is back and I’m pretty sure he’s promised my room to him. I cross paths with Drew coming out of the bathroom that morning. He’s been avoiding me for four days but now he can’t.
“What’s the deal?” I say. “With your boy? I mean, I don’t mind sharing the space but I’m pretty sure it’s not his dream come true, having some old fart snoring in an armchair in his room every night.”
“Yeah.” Drew rubs at the stubble on his chin. “It’s not ideal. I don’t know, I mean, it’s only going to be a couple of weeks. He’s having some kind of crisis and I’m trying to persuade him to go back to uni. Is there anywhere else you could…?”
I don’t want to rock the boat. This is the nicest place I’ve ever lived. Well, apart from my childhood home that is. So I nod, feigning nonchalance. “Yeah,” I say. “No problem.” Inside I’m thinking: Fuck, fuck, fuck. I only just got back from my brother’s and frankly I’m not that keen to return. We did all the goodbyes, farewells, see-you-soons, let’s-not-leave-it-so-long-next-times. They’ve only just put away my sofa bed, folded away my bedding, felt the pleasantness that accompanies the departure of a houseguest. I have friends all over the city, but not friends I can stay with for two weeks.
“Give me a couple of days,” I say. “And I’ll be out of your hair.”
The minute she opens the door to me, I think I might have made a mistake. Her eyes flash with relief. But also, fury. Disgust.
I wave a bottle of wine at her, and I see the fury dissipate, the thirst obliterate the disgust. “What do you want?” she says.
