Chapter 19
19
DAY FOUR
Now
Minnie stepped off the escalator onto the platform of St Pancras station and rubbed an eye with the back of her knuckle. In front of her hung a wake-up call.
I WANT MY TIME WITH YOU, read the neon-pink scrawl under the decadent white and gold railway station clock. The sun hadn’t risen yet through the vast arching windows framed by industrial grey-blue wrought iron, so Tracey Emin’s words glowed that bit brighter, an illumination lifting Minnie’s mood, lighting her path.
She stopped going over the lines in her head, stopped walking, mesmerised by the artwork.
I want my time with you.
One sentence, six words, which were more beautiful and potent than anything Minnie had seen on the script in her hand.
She sipped her coffee and tugged on a wayward lash. It was not yet 5a.m. and the station felt asleep, apart from the bleary early risers, the reluctant shop workers opening up, or the people getting the 06.01 first train to Paris.
Minnie started moving again, towards her carriage at the back. She wondered if Jesse was nearby. Without phones, without being able to call or message him, she craved to know whether he might join her. She wondered why he had left Alpine NW1 so abruptly and so glumly when, really, she had wanted to party with him and for the night never to end; for him to come back to her flat. Instead he had left in a hurry and she had gone home and done something else she regretted. Tony wouldn’t approve – she hadn’t told him that either.
As she reached the carriage matching the number on her ticket, Minnie took a slug of coffee and looked along the platform in both directions, at the other passengers getting on board. She looked backwards at the people beyond Perspex screens, still going through passport control and security. She looked over to the enormous bronze statue of a couple in a clinch under the clock. She looked to the figure of Sir John Betjeman clutching his hat in an imagined breeze. Figures in human shapes but none of them took on Jesse’s reliable form.
Too vague. I was too vague.
Why would a guy she hardly knew go to Paris with her based on an offhand drunken comment she had made while she was grinding to UK garage with another man?
Fucking idiot.
She knew she shouldn’t have brought up Ida that night too. It was clearly upsetting for Jesse, on a level she couldn’t understand. Minnie had chastised herself a hundred times about how the Saturday before last had ended.
Minnie sighed as she felt for her passport in her skirt pocket and stepped onto the train. She felt a slight chill on her legs from the air conditioning and questioned her audition outfit. After feeling hot and confined in her waitress uniform at Queen’s, she’d opted for a short flippy polka dot skirt worn over a ballerina bodysuit with a low back and a small cotton ruche between her small breasts. She’d chosen DMs over ballet flats, and oxblood red nails to give Veronica Valla more of an edge; her fitted Levi’s denim jacket with a frilled collar softened her look. Minnie’s legs were like her mother’s – pale and elegant, yet strong – it was the confidence with which Minnie wore skirts and shorts that made them good legs .
Minnie walked down the carriage, found seat forty-three (by the window, facing forwards at a table) and slid in, grateful that no one else was in the carriage yet; that no one else was sitting around her. She put her phone and script on the table in front of her – she had two hours and seventeen minutes to plug in and really hone her lines.
As passengers boarded, Minnie felt a strange mixture of nervousness, excitement and disappointment, all in one knotted ball in the pit of her stomach, and she couldn’t quite assign which emotion to which direction.
Sleep. Try to sleep.
As the half-empty train pulled out of the station, Minnie was relieved to have the table all to herself. She closed her eyes and thought about the cocktail class over a week and a half ago. How thoughtful it was of Jesse to arrange it. How much fun she’d had. How she’d wished she could ask more about what sort of a man Jesse’s dad was. What had happened with his wife. What his daughter was like. What they had done for Father’s Day. All questions she wouldn’t usually hesitate to ask a person with candour and no holding back. Characters. Minnie loved characters. She loved playing them and she loved learning about them. But she often talked too much to hear as much as she wanted to.
She inhaled a deep sigh that turned into a yawn and the knot in her stomach churned as she remembered her audition – how she should be thinking about that instead of Jesse – but figured sleep would be the best preparation. The train, with its soporific rhythm and thrum, and the space around her, was conspiring to help Minnie doze off.
She closed her eyes and rested her head against a thin scarf she’d packed, in the gap between the chair and the window, knowing it would be too hot to wear later. The forecast in Paris was twenty-four degrees and sunshine. Minnie stretched her legs out in front of her and felt the train snake out of the station.
She was half asleep and halfway to Kent when she was woken by a polite voice.
‘Is this seat taken?’ asked a man.
Minnie opened her eyes.
‘Get out!’ she said in delight.
‘Nice to meet you, I’m Jesse,’ he said, extending a hand. Minnie resisted the urge to jump out of her seat and hug him. Instead, she laughed and shook his hand.
‘Nice to meet you Jesse, I’m Minnie.’
Jesse was standing in a cream T-shirt and jeans, an apple green sweatshirt tied around his waist. He smiled and put his daypack on the shelf above them, then slid into the seat opposite Minnie. She pulled her legs back quickly then extended them out again, until they nestled between his. Comfortable. He made her feel comfortable.
‘You made it!’ She tried not to smile too hard.
‘I nearly didn’t. My tube stopped just outside of Euston, we were waiting for ages. They were just closing the gate when I shouted and they let me through.’
‘That’s cutting it fine.’
‘I walked up and down the train and didn’t see you!’ Jesse blushed at how keen this made him sound, so tried to downplay it. ‘Assumed I misheard you, or you weren’t going any more.’
‘Oh I’m going!’
He laughed. ‘I can see that.’
Jesse nodded at the script in front of her, sitting next to her passport.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Sick.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Hmmm…’ She pondered the question.
Jesse looked out of the window at the sun rising over green fields, shooting through his eyes like a prism, refracting light into the space between them. Then he looked back at Minnie intently.
She tucked her hair behind her ear.
‘I never know at this stage whether to go over it again or just put it to bed. There’s a sweet spot, you know?’
He didn’t know but nodded.
‘Which I seemingly can’t grasp given my last few auditions.’
Jesse picked up the script.
‘You’re Veronica Valla, highlighted?’
‘Yup.’
‘So I’ll be… Johnson Stone – cool name – he’s mafia, right?’
‘Right, he’s the muscle, but they’re both about to double-cross their boss.’
‘OK, shall I just start from the top?’
Minnie thought it might be useful to run the scene out loud with a male counterpart, but she was so happy and relieved to see Jesse she didn’t want to do it just yet. She wanted to know what he’d been up to, how he was, whether he had broached the topic of custody with his ex.
‘I wanted to message you,’ Minnie said frankly.
Jesse studied the page. That wasn’t in the script.
‘Huh?’
He looked up at her again.
‘It felt weird not being able to contact you.’
Jesse thought of Keenan’s hands wrapped around Minnie’s waist, the way he’d smiled when he looked down at her as they moved together.
‘Oh.’
Minnie felt sick when she remembered the last time she saw Jesse. How the night had ended. Keenan had come back to her flat; they had kissed rampantly, secretively, in the kitchen while Hilde went to change into joggers and a T-shirt. Keenan had pressed himself against Minnie and lifted her onto the kitchen worktop. She had run her fingers through his hair, until she’d pulled back and said, ‘No!’
‘What?’ Keenan had said laughing.
‘Sorry, I’m just not… feeling it.’
Keenan studied Minnie’s face to check whether she was joking or not, then realised she wasn’t. Minnie looked so desperately disappointed, although she didn’t tell Keenan why. He laughed to make light of it all.
‘OK, make me a cuppa tea then at least?’ he said. ‘I’ll skin up.’
‘Fair dos…’ Minnie said, relieved he was laughing it off. Relieved that Keenan and Hilde would have a smoke and dissect the night’s service, while she could slink off to bed.
‘I’m sure you could have looked me up if you really wanted to,’ Jesse said, meeting Minnie’s eye.
They both knew that Minnie did actually know his name.
Jesse Lightning. Typographer. Runs his own design agency. Lightning Designs.
Minnie felt wretched. After she had left Keenan and Hilde smoking and talking in the living room, she had gone to bed and searched him up on Google. She had seen his Instagram and a company called Lightning Designs came up, although she hadn’t clicked any of the links or actually dived any deeper, so it didn’t count. She hadn’t scrolled any further than the top lines.
‘I thought you’d come if you wanted to,’ she said breezily, belying how much she cared.
They held each other’s gaze for just a second too long. They both felt it: a longing it was best not to acknowledge.
‘How’s your week been?’ Minnie asked, cutting the cord. ‘Shit, it’s almost been two. What did you do for Father’s Day? I thought about you… you know…’ She didn’t have to say.
Jesse looked out of the window and put on his sunglasses, relieved for the shield.
‘Oh, it was OK… I got a bonus four hours with Ida. We met my friend Will and his dog Bingley – Ida loves dogs, so we had brunch with them.’
‘Sounds sweet.’
‘Yeah, we just looked like a pair of gay dads.’
Not many of Jesse’s friends had kids yet, and those who did had younger toddlers or babies. Everyone in their baby group – Andrew and Elena included – were older than Jesse and Hannah had been when they’d become parents. Jesse’s only other single-dad friend, Johnny, had moved to Harrogate to follow his ex up there, so he could see his son.
Minnie smiled, thinking about Jesse and Will and imagining how sexy they must have looked. In her head Will was as good looking as Jesse and they made a cute couple. Another character. Who would play Will?
‘How was it… for you though?’ she asked.
Jesse let out a big sigh and looked back out to the countryside; the train was slowing down, ready to go into the tunnel.
‘Shit. I miss him every day, not just Father’s Day.’
He swallowed hard as a mother and her son walked swiftly down the carriage to find a toilet.
‘But thanks. How about you? Did you see your dad?’
Minnie smiled. She told Jesse how her siblings and assorted partners had all convened for a big Byrne blowout at the family home in Hampstead, without actually telling him too much. She didn’t want to tell him how hungover she was after the cocktail class date, and she didn’t want to boast that she still had her dad. Plus it was best not to give away who her family was, in case they did manage to get through today without giving up the game.
She vaguely said, without mentioning names, that her mum had cooked her signature roast chicken with chorizo and chickpeas; her oldest sister had made their dad his favourite summer pudding, and their dad loved the bread maker Minnie had bought him. He’d got into baking bread in the past few years.
‘Who didn’t?’ said Jesse, although his sourdough had turned out rock hard.
‘So how did it go, with the custody thing? Did you suggest it?’
Jesse shook his head. ‘Terribly.’
Minnie winced.
‘But she might have mulled things over in the week since. We’ll see…’
That sounded too cryptic and Minnie felt her throat tightening again. Jesse changed the subject and looked at her passport, sitting on the table between them like a grenade. He double tapped the cover with his forefinger. They could balance things out.
‘I’ll put that in a safe place, shall I?’ Minnie joked, pulling it away. ‘Plus my photo is hideous.’
Jesse couldn’t imagine that.
The train plunged into a darkness beyond the windows and Jesse took his sunglasses off and rubbed his eyes. He had been so thrown by Hannah’s phone call, so excited by what it could mean, that he couldn’t sleep until 2a.m., and then the alarm had gone off at 4.30a.m. He looked at Minnie and wanted to switch sides, to sit next to her. To sleep leaning on her shoulder.
‘So where are you meeting the mighty Wim Fischer?’
As Jesse asked the question he remembered being on a film set. It was during the trip to LA when his parents had taken him to Disneyland. The lot at Burbank. The observatory at Griffith Park. Quite the adventure for an eleven-year-old boy.
‘At a hotel called Le Lapin Bleu – my French is terrible…’
Jesse was impressed; he had read about the hotel.
‘I’m meeting him and Viola Rubin, the casting director. She’s phenomenal. Did you see Medusa’s Mane ? She casts all his films.’
‘I’m a little out of the loop to be honest. It’s all been Encanto , Coco and The Little Mermaid for the past six years. Although I did see Joker at a baby friendly screening at the Odeon when Ida was really tiny… I’m pretty sure there was nothing baby friendly about it.’
Minnie laughed.
‘That film is darrrrk.’
‘Hopefully it didn’t traumatise her. She slept through most of it!’
‘That’s so funny.’
‘So what’s Medusa’s Mane ?’ he asked.
‘That’s the film before the one he’s promoting now – Swindler ,’ she said, tapping the script. ‘Oh my God it was so cool. Real kickass. He loves strong women…’ Although she tailed off when she remembered something her parents had said.
Jesse looked at Minnie and nodded in appreciation.
‘Well then, you’ve got this,’ he said, picking up the script. ‘Come on, from the top…’