Chapter 13
The conversation with Gemma troubled him all the way down to Lyme Regis that weekend. It almost affected his concentration at one point, as he swerved in and out of the traffic on his bike down the motorway. Maybe, he thought, as he parked outside Mermaid’s Nook and took off his helmet, casting a glance at the mirror to see his tousled hair and flushed face, he was getting a touch too old to ride a Harley.
‘Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe!’
Fraser and Charlie fell on him as soon as he clicked the bike stand into place and looked around. Mike and Lynette lived in one of those lovely stone three-up, three-down, wisteria-clad fishermen’s cottages that sat slightly precariously on the hills leading down to the sea. When they had first bought their seaside home, they had made it clear that he and Ed were to see it as a retreat whenever they needed time off from their crazy city life. And they had. Now it was just him.
‘Can we have a ride? Can we have a ride?’
‘Boys!’ Lynette appeared at the doorway, looking gorgeous in skinny jeans and a white T-shirt. ‘It’s “may”, not “can”. I’ve told you before. Anyone can ride a bike – well, most people. But you are only allowed to if someone says so. And I say you may not, because you’re not old enough.’
Ed laughed. Lynette was an English teacher and a stickler for grammar, but somehow the boys always took her on-the-spot lessons in good heart, and also stuck to her time limits on social media. He liked to think he might have been that sort of parent.
‘Now come on in.’ Lynette draped an arm round him briefly and took him into the kitchen. ‘Mike will be back soon after his staff meeting. You look as though you could do with a drink. OK, boys. Uncle Joe will be outside in a few minutes and then we can all go down to the beach.’
The seaside was definitely the place to bring up kids, thought Joe, as he walked along the shingle with his godsons and their hyperactive red setter. It wasn’t just that they learned so much about rock formations and tides and moons; they were healthy and enthusiastic and not world-weary or phone-crazy, like so many of ‘his’ London kids had been.
He and Mike had played football with them in the surf and then Lynette had hung back with him and, in her usual quiet way, asked him about what was going on in his life. Somehow he’d found himself telling her that perhaps he’d been a bit sharp with Gemma, the acting head of the playgroup, and that some of the kids in his class were really pretty dim. Then he told her about the bright South American boy who had revolutionised his lesson the other day. ‘Sounds like you taught on your feet,’ commented Lynette, tossing her hair back in the wind. ‘Mike always said you’d be a good teacher.’
Joe felt a lump in his throat. ‘Actually, I’m not sure that I am. My predecessor seems to have been such a hero in everyone’s eyes that I don’t think I stand a chance of matching up to him.’
Lynette’s eyes softened. ‘I can see that. But unless I’m mistaken, there’s something else wrong as well, isn’t there?’
His friends knew him so well: at times it comforted him, and at others, it made him feel vulnerable. ‘You’re right.’ He kicked a pebble in front of him. ‘Much as I hate to admit it, I feel knackered all the time. It’s not just the teaching, which, as you two have always pointed out, is much more exhausting than many people realise. It’s the commuting too. My journey’s a real killer.’
So then Lynette made two suggestions. The first – renting a flat nearer school during the week – seemed to make quite good sense. As for the second, he’d just have to think about it.
Later that night, after a delicious supper of spaghetti bolognese around the kitchen table, Joe flopped down on the ancient, oh-so-cosy duck-egg blue Laura Ashley sofa with its slightly worn arms which somehow seemed comforting rather than shabby, while Mike and Lynette put the boys to bed. His eyes fell on one of the last pictures of him and Ed, still sitting on the pine dresser next to the photos of them all at different stages of their lives, from uni onwards.
‘Are you two still in touch?’ Mike’s voice cut in suddenly as he came down the stairs.
Quickly Joe looked away from the photo. ‘Only about practicalities. What about you?’
Mike shrugged. ‘We’ve had a couple of phone calls.’
Joe wanted to ask what about, but pride prevented him.
‘Does this new life of yours,’ asked Mike, leaning forward confidentially, ‘help to ease the pain now? Does it make you feel stronger about whatever lies ahead?’
The last thing he wished to talk about was the dreaded F word. F for Future. But Mike’s question, which brought a lump to his throat, forced him to recall everything he had lost; so precious that it could never be recovered.
Then, for no reason at all, he suddenly recalled the girl with the designer pencil case who had finally ‘got it’, and the South American boy who had experienced so many difficulties in his short life. ‘Sometimes,’ he said quietly. ‘Sometimes.’
There was a shout from upstairs. ‘Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe. Are you going to come up now and read a bedtime story?’
Both men grinned at each other. ‘See you later,’ said Joe.
Mike nodded, and Joe was glad that he and Lynette were the only ones who knew his secret. The last thing he wanted was pity from people who didn’t know him properly.
‘I’ll have a large glass of red waiting.’
Joe shot his friend a grateful look. ‘That would be great.’ Goodness. He’d nearly forgotten. Leaping up, he headed for his overnight backpack, which contained Fraser’s birthday present. ‘Think he’ll like this?’
Anxiously, he watched Mike examine the computer game and the pencil case with its Kool Calculator.
‘Wow. These are all the rage at school.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘But I thought you said that children needed to add up for themselves instead of relying on gadgets.’
Joe shrugged. ‘Let’s just say that I’m having to be a bit more flexible than I used to be.’ Ed flashed into his head and he attempted unsuccessfully to blank the image. ‘I’m trying, Mike. I really am. But it’s hard to get rid of old habits. Really hard.’