Chapter 39
39
‘ A nd your dad is still in the bungalow?’ Hands in pockets, Martin leaned forward to look out of Kay’s kitchen window.
‘For now. He’s getting married.’ Kay dumped her handbag on the bench and opened her phone.
‘Married? That’s um …’
‘Quick? I know.’ And to avoid any more questions, she went to the fridge and flung the door open. ‘I did a load of batch-cooking last week,’ she said, ‘but Alex is never here so …’ If she didn’t say any more, Martin would get the hint and not ask. Yesterday, her father had rung to tell her that he and Lizzie had set a date. He’d asked if she would like to come with him to visit Lizzie at her retirement home, a home that would soon enough be his home. She’d declined, using the excuse of having to shop for an outfit for Caro’s wedding, which, judging by his response, she wasn’t sure he’d believed. But wasn’t it enough to have given her blessing?
Notice had been given. The process had even been expediated because of the advanced age of both bride and groom, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. But no, she didn’t want to visit Lizzie, and she didn’t want to discuss it with Martin. She couldn’t bring herself to get excited or participate in the planning of something that upset her just to think about. She wasn’t even sure she would attend, although if she didn’t, the only witnesses would be Alex, who had accepted the news with his usual equanimity, and whoever happened to be on duty at the time.
‘Is he happy?’
She turned, her face blank. It wasn’t a question she had expected him to ask. ‘I suppose so,’ she said and paused. What she’d been expecting was, How do you feel about it? Are you comfortable with it?
Martin nodded. ‘I was sorry to hear about your mum.’ His voice was quiet, as if having read her thoughts, he was tip-toeing in.
Her mum. Yes. Who was thinking about her mum in all this! Her ex-husband of all people. ‘And I was sorry to hear about your dad,’ she said. ‘I wish I had come to the funeral.’
‘Me too. I mean, I wish I had come to your mother’s.’
Kay smiled. ‘She always liked you. Well, not so much after, you know.’
‘Of course.’ And now Martin smiled. ‘I didn’t like myself as much after.’
Neither of them spoke. The hum of the fridge behind her was low, the light bright, and now that he was here, exactly where she had invited him to be, she didn’t know what she was feeling. She had, long ago, spent time and mental effort constructing scenarios exactly like this. Scenes in which they were alone again, in which he would apologise, beg her forgiveness, declare his love, and everything would go back to what it once had been. It all seemed so childish now. As far-fetched as a fairy-tale. They could never go back. What it was, was scorched earth. She turned away from him and stood staring at her fridge. ‘It’s sad, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘It was only us that got divorced, but I don’t think I ever saw your dad again.’
Martin nodded. ‘It is sad, yes.’
‘I hope you’re hungry,’ she said, her voice bright as she pulled out a macaroni cheese.
‘I’m hungry.’
Kay nodded. ‘Get some plates then,’ she said, because what else was there to say?
‘So.’ Martin scraped together a last forkful of food. ‘Tell me about this girlfriend then. Emmylou?’
‘It’s either Emmylou or Emmeline. I’m honestly not sure.’ Kay put her knife and fork down. ‘I’ve met her for five minutes and that was by accident. Alex is avoiding introducing her to me. I think he’s embarrassed about the whole girlfriend thing.’
Martin laughed. ‘You think it’s the girlfriend?’
‘You don’t?
‘Well …’ He paused. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way.’
‘But?’
‘But …’ And again, he hesitated. ‘You have always been very protective of him.’
‘Have I?’ Under the table Kay’s hands curled to fists. His words felt like a rebuke. A rebuke from a man who had walked away. ‘Someone,’ she said, tightly, ‘had to stay.’
‘Kay ––’
No. She raised her hand, shook her head. No, no, no. She was thinking about the difficult months before she had made the decision to change Alex’s school; how his face had crumpled, when she had told him. Where was Martin then? If she remembered correctly, he would have been in North London, with woman he had left them for. And if he hadn’t used such a tentative tone of voice, if he hadn’t paused for so long beforehand … But how the hell was she supposed to take it? She stood up, her chair scraping.
Martin stood too. ‘Where are you going?’
Where was she going? She didn’t know. Out the door? Up the street? This was her kitchen, and he’d said he just wanted to talk and already it had come to this. She shouldn’t have invited him back. She should have just finished her drink and left him at the pub. She crossed to the bench by the back door and got no further. It didn’t matter where she went. The sting of truth in his words would follow wherever she went. She had always been protective of Alex. Very protective. Maybe too protective. But no-one had had told her. No-one had sat her down and had a quiet word: he’s twenty-four now, he’s going to be all right, you can let go a little, Kay, breathe again. Martin was right, and she knew it. The boy who wouldn’t go to sleep without calling out a last ‘I love you’, the child who would plead with her to sit with him while he took an hour to eat two fishfingers was embarrassed - but not about having a girlfriend. He was embarrassed about having a mother. A mother like her.
‘Do you want some more,’ she said, one hand on the bench, nodding grimly at Martin’s empty plate.
‘Kay.’
Without speaking, she took his plate and dolloped on another slice of macaroni.
‘You have every right …’
‘Just eat,’ she said and put the plate in front of him.
‘OK.’ And slowly Martin sat down again, picked up his knife and fork, and began eating.
Now Kay sat. She did have every right, of course she did, and she could spend the rest of the evening listing those rights. I stayed; you left. I was true, you cheated. I hung on, you gave up. But what was the point in waving all those angry placards now? They sounded archaic; they belonged to another time and another place. She put her hands together under her chin and turned to look out of the window. The evening was warm and sunny, and as she looked it felt to Kay that she was living a moment she had always been destined to live. Martin, here in her kitchen, saying things that needed to be said, and that perhaps only he could say. Things so very different from all those imagined scenarios of yesterday. ‘I don’t want to keep looking back,’ she said, and her words sounded like the echo of something.
‘In anger?’ Martin’s smile was small.
That’s why the phrase was familiar. Lyrics to a song from their youth. Kay smiled.
‘I don’t want to either,’ he said.
‘Well then.’
‘Well.’ He put his fork down. ‘That was lovely,’ he said and for a long moment Kay sat, looking back at him. They had so much history, they had a son, they had the pulse of a connection still between them and they always would. But beyond that … Upstairs, a door creaked open. Her eyes went wide as plates.
‘I thought you said he was out,’ Martin whispered.
‘That’s what he told me,’ she whispered back.
She sat, not daring to move as she listened to the voices that had started up: the deep tones of her son, followed by lighter female tones.
Opposite, Martin did the same. ‘Emmylou?’
Nodding, Kay pressed her lips together. In her house? With her son? But before she could get any further in processing the situation, heavy footsteps came pounding down the stairs and Alex tumbled into the kitchen.
‘Dad?’ He was dressed only in boxer shorts, his face and hair putting on a united front of shock.
‘Son.’ Martin’s mouth twitched.
‘I thought you said you were out!’ Alex said accusingly as he turned to Kay.
‘And I thought you said you were out!’
‘I came to make toast.’ He went bright red.
She didn’t dare speak. She wanted to help him, every nerve and sinew strained to stand up, throw her arms around him and steer him out of his discomfort. How could she, when she was the cause of it? How could she go anywhere near him, when all he would be wanting was for her to disappear.
Smiling, pushing his chair back and waving his hand, making both noise and movement, Martin chopped the moment into harmless chunks. ‘I think we can do better than toast. Pop some clothes on,’ he said, ‘and I’ll put some of your mum’s macaroni in the microwave. And bring Emmylou down as well. It is Emmylou, isn’t it?’
Frozen in the doorway, Alex nodded.
‘Great!’ Martin rubbed his hands together. ‘There’s plenty to go around isn’t there?’ he said, turning back to Kay.
And frozen at the table she too managed a small, bewildered nod.
With another two places set, another two macaroni banged in the microwave and served, Kay was still only partially defrosted. Alex too. Fully dressed, but still a deep shade of crimson, he had introduced an equally mortified Emmylou and kept his eyes on his plate ever since. So now, there really was nothing anyone could do but wait until the tide of embarrassment in the room had receded to wading level. Thank goodness for macaroni cheese, Kay thought as she watched them both tucking in. And thank goodness for Martin. Looking across at him, she smiled. Would she have dealt with the situation so well? It was doubtful.
‘This is delicious, thank you.’ Emmylou’s voice was tiny.
‘Would you like some more?’ she said.
‘Yes please.’
As she stood to refill plates, her heart swelled. Four of them, in her kitchen. Almost a family again. Keeping her back to the table, watching the seconds tick down on the microwave, she listened to the conversation. Alex was talking now. I could help, dad. You could bring it here. He wouldn’t, she knew, ever question her as to why his father was here. There would be no judgement. He wouldn’t even ask and now the embarrassment was manageable, he was behaving as if finding Martin in the kitchen like this, was an everyday occurrence. She tapped her fingertips on the counter and squeezed her eyes shut. This was her son’s most beautiful quality, the non-judgemental acceptance he brought to every situation. It was also his most dangerous. Anyone could say anything, and he would accept it. As the microwave pinged, she opened her eyes, a silent prayer on her lips. Don’t let this girl break his heart. Please don’t let her hurt him. ‘What could Dad bring here?’ she said, as she came back to the table.
‘He needs somewhere to keep the VW he’s renovating,’ Alex said. ‘And we’ve got loads of room. Remember my motorbike? Shook helped me build it.’
Remember? How could she forget the season Alex had been obsessed with Rags to Riches, buying himself a DIY motorcycle kit, littering her lawn with spark plugs and fuel hoses, for months on end. Eventually it had all come together, all those unfathomable bits. Alex had even taken part in a couple of races, something else she had never imagined him doing. As she handed Emmylou her plate, Kay smiled. If she’d been over-protective towards her son, she’d also been unimaginative.
‘Shook?’ Martin frowned.
‘It’s a long story.’ Kay sat down. ‘His real name is Tomasz, the guy Caro is marrying on Friday?’
‘I see.’ Martin turned to Alex. ‘Your mum doesn’t want ––’
‘Actually,’ Kay interrupted. ‘I think it would be lovely.’ She meant it. Alex had proved himself to be a good mechanic and this was exactly the kind of project he would enjoy. But it was more than that, and as she glanced up at Martin, she saw that he felt it too. I wanted to talk to you again. That’s what he’d said. Well, she did too. She wanted to talk to him too.
And so it was that the next evening Martin drove a battered VW van around to her house and Kay made tea, carried it out to the garden and watched as heads close, her son and her ex-husband inspected the van together. They didn’t have long, twenty minutes or so before Alex’s phone pinged, and he was gone.
‘Emmylou,’ Kay said wryly. ‘I won’t see him now until tomorrow.’
Martin smiled. ‘Let him go.’
‘Of course.’ She nodded. Of course, she would let the most precious thing in the world go, and of course she wouldn’t have to hide how much it hurt, not in front of the only other person in the world, for whom Alex was equally precious.
‘Would you like to see inside?’ Martin said, as together they watched their son walk down the drive and disappear along the street.
It was exactly as she might have imagined it. Cosy and tiny. Wood-panelling and blue plaid, a sink, a two-burner grill and mini-fridge. ‘And you’re really planning to drive this across Europe?’ Kay stood in the doorway.
‘Once it’s finished,’ he said.
‘How long will that take you?’
‘Well, I’m retiring next year, so ...’
‘You too?’ She smiled.
‘Me too.’
‘Where are you going to sleep?’
‘The table folds out. Here I’ll show you.’ He moved across to the table and unfolded it, laying the cushions from the bench as a mattress.
Still in the doorway, Kay stiffened.
‘I just like to lie here sometimes.’ And he stretched himself out on what was now a double sized bed. ‘Come over,’ he said, patting the empty cushion. ‘You can’t see it from there.’
‘See what?’ Her voice was terse. Alex had barely been gone five minutes. And this? This didn’t look like talking .
Martin sat up. ‘I’m not going to try anything, Kay. Just come and lie down and then look up. I think you’ll like it.’
Cautious and tense, she inched over and sat down on the edge of the cushion.
‘Lie down,’ he said. ‘And then look up.’
So, she did, straight through the open sun-roof and up into a heaven of mauve twilight, where pinpricks of starlight shone, millions of years still in the vault. Where planets turned and turned. It made her think of another time, in Vegas, when she had sat and looked at the desert trying to imagine what life for her son would look like without her. Fine. It would look just fine.
‘Kay?’ Martin rolled onto his side.
‘I’m all right,’ she said, but she could feel the cold wetness of tears on her cheek. ‘Come here.’
Kay stiffened. She put a hand on his chest and held him away.
‘It’s just a cuddle,’ he said. ‘If you want one.’
She did. She really did, and because that was all she wanted, and it was all that was offered, she let her hand drop and allowed herself to relax into his arms.