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Edie and Joe
Hush. That was the word in Edie’s head as she waited for her statement to hit home. And it was a lovely one, hush, something a mother would say to a baby, soft and gentle. Perhaps a sound but not a sound, so peaceful. A tranquil moment to remember.
The clock on the wall drew her attention and she imagined the sound of the ticks as the second hand moved around the face while she savoured the power she held over them, like a superhero fizzing with energy that trickled from her fingers after blowing a building to smithereens.
Yet she was still alone, on the other side of the table, or the shore, facing out to sea waiting for the storm, clutching her book like a shield. And through the cover she could feel the boom, boom, boom of her heart, transmitting via the words of her mum, along the paperclips that held together worn scraps that once meant something important. Ramblings, poems, bus tickets, all kinds of random bits and bobs that made a life real, opened a window on a troubled soul.
And because of this, amidst a scene of such drama, she was calm. Such a strange sensation after the past few weeks, a year since Ace came into her life, or even longer. From the day she discovered the truth or even before, from that moment aged nine when her gran explained in more detail what had happened to Mummy. Had she ever been truly at peace with it all, with who she was? In this very surreal moment, Edie realised she had not.
No way was she going to speak first. She wanted Joe to ask the question she’d imagined so many times. And when it came, it would be the start of something new, more than likely the beginning of the end, a tangled train wreckage that would take days, or even weeks, months, years to drag to the side and sort through. A step into the unknown for sure.
Here it was, literally seconds had passed, forty-nine, according to the clock on the wall. Joe stood tall, straightening his back as though preparing for a punch in the gut. She saw the heave of his chest as his lungs filled with air then deflated before he spoke. He’d got it together, and the irony was she’d guessed right, his exact words.
‘What do you mean, you’re my granddaughter?’
Edie couldn’t wait to tell him. ‘My grandmother is Roberta Carter. You knew her as Bobbie but nowadays everyone calls her Ro.’
Joe fell forward and placed his palms on the table, like he needed to steady himself, then spoke in a whisper; he really did look like he’d been punched, winded by the blow. ‘Bobbie, Bobbie Carter?’
‘Yes, Bobbie Carter, who you abandoned all those years ago, and never came back like you said you would, well, she was pregnant, with my mum. She waited and waited for you after you went off to London, then you totally forgot about her and the summer you spent together. You said she was your muse, the love of your life, that the songs on your first album you wrote for her, and that you’d be together forever. You broke her heart and left her alone with a baby. My mum.’
Again, a hush. Even big mouth Lance was silenced and simply knowing him for such a short space of time, Edie guessed he was mentally dividing his inheritance by three and the thought of it almost made her smile. Not the money, his greed. And if that’s what he thought she was after, it was only his own peevish grasping nature to blame because he was so wrong.
It was when she saw Jenny raise her hand and place it on Ace’s shoulder that Edie forced herself to look at him and to her relief, he didn’t look away, he didn’t look angry either, more like he was working things out in his head. Or was he wondering who the hell the stranger on the other side of the table was? That she had caused him to feel this way made her sick inside.
When Joe spoke, she had to look away and listen, at the same time as wanting to go to Ace and reassure him. Joe sounded vehement; his voice raised a notch in defence.
‘But I did go back… to Leeds, to where Bobbie lived. It had all been such a rush, since the day I rang my mum to say hi, and she told me some bloke had been ringing the house wanting to speak to me – said he was a record producer and he’d heard our demo tape. My hands shook so bad when I rang the number and listened to him tell me he loved my music and that we had to get to London, ASAP. That was the start.
‘Bobbie was so excited and helped me pack, and I promised I’d ring, be back soon. Then when I got there, there was so much going on and yes, I admit that I kept letting her down and changing arrangements, messing her about I suppose, but that was because we were on the brink of something big. Or the record company didn’t pass messages on, or I missed her when she rang our digs. And then she stopped calling.
‘I knew I’d been a shit, and I decided to go up there, beg for forgiveness, ask for another chance. It was just before Christmas, about three months after I left… I remember that day so clearly, saying goodbye to Bobbie was the hardest thing.’ For a second he was miles away, shaking his head, looking down at the table, were his thoughts heading north and back in time? Then he returned to a kitchen in France to state his case.
‘I knew it was her birthday and we had a few days off, so I got the train and went to surprise her. I was going to ask her to come back to London with me, we’d get a flat. I had it all planned out, money in the bank at last. I was so cocksure of myself, convinced she’d forgive me. I couldn’t wait for her to open the door, to see her face.’
Edie realised her mouth was open wide so closed it quickly. Reeling from his words she squeezed hard on her book, crushing it against her breastbone because this wasn’t how it went. He couldn’t change the narrative, not after all this time. She’d been angry for too long which was why her words, when she managed to get her lips to work, were barely audible and laced with disbelief.
‘You went back, for Gran?’
‘Yes, I swear I did. I got off the train and bought a whole bucket of flowers from the stall at the station doors. The bloke behind the counter was well pleased. I took a cab and when I reached Bobbie’s street my heart was beating out of my chest by the time I reached the gate. I was just about to go up the path when the door opened, and a family trooped out.
‘I thought for a minute I’d got the wrong house, but it was definitely the right place because I recognised the door that Bobbie painted that summer, it was red and I hate red, and we laughed because I said I was going to paint it blue once it dried. The family looked to be Nigerian, sounded it when the dad asked if he could help. I said I was looking for Bobbie, who lived there, and he said she’d left a few weeks before, got married and moved south. I thought I was going to die, right there on the path from shock.’
No, no, no! This couldn’t be right. Gran had missed the love of her life by a few weeks and if she’d only waited, not panicked, believed, kept the faith then everything would have been so different. All of it. And after blaming Joe for so long Edie had this sudden immense swell of anger towards her gran for being so… she couldn’t think of the right word so went with disloyal, and stupid because she really had messed up, not once, but twice.
Edie needed to know the rest. ‘So, what did you do then? Why didn’t you try and find her, make her change her mind?’
Placing his hands over his face, Joe rubbed his eyes as if trying to clear his mind, think back almost forty years and answer for his mistakes. ‘I was shattered by the news, angry and if blokes cried then I’d have sat down on that step and bawled my eyes out but instead, I gave the lady the flowers, said I was just the delivery guy and she could have them, then I turned round and went back to London. I was twenty-four, broken-hearted and pissed off, immature and naïve so I did what most guys do, drowned my sorrows and took my mind off it all the best way I knew.’
Edie didn’t need to join the dots. Everyone knew how Joe had behaved back then.
Then Joe asked a question. ‘Was she okay, though, Bobbie. Was the guy she married decent, did he make her happy and, the baby…?’
The bitter irony of his question made Edie laugh out loud and she heard the sarcasm in its tone and so did Joe who recoiled, as though guessing the answer.
‘No, Joe, he didn’t make her or the baby happy because he was a pig and Gran had made a huge mistake. One that she paid for over and over again.’
‘Why, what did he do?’
