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The knee is back again. He rolls up through his foot, moving his knee against hers. Jen’s stomach is set on fire immediately, like a match struck with only the merest touch to the box.
As the evening air gets blacker and blacker outside, the rain heavier, the café steamier, they talk about everything. The media. They briefly touch on Kelly’s childhood – ‘only child, both parents dead, just me and my paintbrush’ – and where Jen lives. They talk about their favourite animals – his are otters – and if they believe in marriage.
They talk about politics and religion and cats and dogs and that he is a morning person and she a night owl. ‘The best things happen at night,’ she says.
‘The best thing is a 6 a.m. cup of coffee. I will not be taking any arguments.’
‘Six o’clock is the middle of the night.’
‘So stay up then. With me.’
They get closer and closer, as close as the table will allow them. She tells him she wants a fat cat called Henry VIII, Kelly having no idea that they do get one, and he laughs so much he shakes the table. ‘And then what’s his heir called? Henry IX?’
They talk about their favourite holidays – Cornwall for him, hates flying – and their death-row meals – they both want a Chinese takeaway.
‘Oh, well,’ he says, around ten o’clock. ‘Just a rough upbringing, I guess. I want to give my kids better.’
‘Kids, hey?’ And there it is. A layer of Kelly that Jen knows to be true.
‘I mean – yeah?’ he says. ‘I don’t know – just something about raising the next generation, isn’t there? Teach them the stuff our parents didn’t teach us …’
‘Well, I’m glad we’ve skipped the small talk.’
‘I like big talk.’
‘Did you come in yesterday just – on the off chance? Of work?’ she asks, wanting to understand, fully, their origin story. He’d gone in to check with her dad, then come out only five minutes later.
‘No. You know,’ he says, seeming to be wanting something from her, his expression expectant, ‘your dad and I have a mutual acquaintance. Joseph Jones? You might’ve met him.’
A bomb explodes somewhere, or that’s how it feels, at least. Dad knew Joseph fucking Jones? The world seems to stop, for Jen, for just a blink.
‘No, I haven’t,’ she says, almost a whisper. ‘Dad deals with everyone.’
It’s as though she’s popped a balloon. Kelly’s shoulders drop, perhaps in relief. He reaches for her hand. She lets him take it automatically. But her mind is whirring. Her father knew Joseph Jones? So – what? Her father is … Is what? If Jen were a cartoon, a burst of question marks would appear above her head.
Kelly’s fingers are playing piano on her wrist. ‘Shall we get out of here?’ he asks.
They leave the café and stand outside in the March rain. The streets are washed with it, the spotlights of the high street reflected, the pavement a wet gold. He draws her to him, right outside the café, a hand on the small of her back, his lips right next to hers.
This time, she doesn’t kiss Kelly. She doesn’t ask him back to hers, where they would talk all night on her bed.
Instead, she makes her excuses. His brows lower in disappointment.
He walks off down the street, a backwards wave behind his head, because he knows she will still be looking.
Jen stands on the street, alone, as she has a thousand times since this all began. She draws her arms across her body, thinking of how to save her son and thinking, too, about how nobody will save her, nobody can, not even her father, and especially not her husband.
Ryan
He’s in too deep.
Ryan is standing in Jen’s bedroom. It’s the very early morning. She’s sleeping, hair splayed across the pillow like a mermaid’s. It’s the second night in a row that he’s spent with her, hasn’t been back to his bedsit since he met her at the café, the day before yesterday.
And he doesn’t ever want to leave.
That is the problem.
Joseph has texted him today, asking how he got on. The fact that he went home with Jen will get back to Joseph. Ryan’s mind spins, trying to work out what to do. Damage control. That’s what he is focused on.
