Chapter Thirty-Seven
STUART, NINE YEARS EARLIER
By the end of that first January, I am totally desperate to get out of Thornwood.
I have pruned the front garden, cooked a dozen nutritious meals, nursed Jessamine through a bad cold, walked Daisy to and from school numerous times, walked Hugo twice a day, and cleared up some outdoor areas that were frankly a health and safety hazard.
I have kept Jessamine out of the pub and sober for almost a fortnight and I have kept on top of laundry, vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning.
The house looks a lot more savory than when I first arrived but it still freaks me out in some way I find hard to articulate, and I feel claustrophobic and ready to make my break.
I get a text message from Drew at the squat in South End Green letting me know that his boy is finally heading back to uni on Saturday and that the room is all mine again.
My heart sings when the message comes through.
I punch the air and silently mouth the word “yes.” For some reason though I find it hard to approach Jessamine with this news.
I’m not sure why, but I can tell it won’t go down well, that she has grown used to having me around, having me in her bed—having, as she puts it, a man around the place, so I put it off and I put it off and soon it is Friday morning, and I still haven’t told her that I’m going home tomorrow.
Instead, I find more and more jobs to do.
I poke my head around the door to Annie’s study, where she is usually tap-tapping away at an ancient laptop or listening to the radio on an old DAB set.
I have grown into the rhythm of bringing her coffee (before midday) and tea (after midday), always in a cup and on a saucer with a thin biscuit on the side, always on a tray, and pretty much on the hour, every hour.
If I am five minutes late, she will appear at the kitchen entrance and say wearily, “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cup of tea, is there?
” as if nobody had ever brought her a hot drink before.
“Sun’s out,” I say to her now. “I was thinking—the old jeep. Out front. What’s the deal with that? Does it still run?”
She looks at me disdainfully. “I have absolutely no idea,” she says sniffily. “It was my husband’s.”
“Well,” I say, “I know my way around a car’s engine. I could take a look if you like, take it for a spin. If it’s still in working order you could maybe even think about selling it. I reckon it’s worth a bob or two.”
“Feel free,” she says with a dismissive twitch of her head. And then she tips her head slightly and says, “Any chance of a cup of tea?”
“Coming right up, Your Majesty,” I say, and go back to the kitchen.
I google the jeep and find out that it is a 1967 Kaiser Jeep, a light American military truck, and what the hell it is doing in the front driveway of a cottage on Hampstead Heath is a total mystery to me.
Apparently, it’s worth about ten K in good nick and I think surely that would be a positive note to go out on, freeing them up with some space in front of their home and a cash injection into their impecunious situation.
I head into the garage, which is loaded up with boxes and crap: old ironing boards, headboards, children’s bikes, metal shelving, three broken vacuum cleaners.
And there, on the far wall, the old man’s tools.
I love tools. I really, really do, and I feel a brief surge of happiness as I pull open metal boxes, feel their ancient hinges give way, open up their insides to me, their piles of screws and nails and neat bundles of copper wire and bolts and wrenches and screwdrivers.
Beautiful. There’s also some more heavy-duty stuff in there: a jackhammer, a chain saw, bags of cement—the old man was clearly handy as hell.
I find what I need and spend a joyful three hours under the bonnet of the jeep, before my stomach starts to rumble and I head indoors to wash my hands and make myself a sandwich.
Jessamine walks in a few minutes later and I take a deep breath. Now’s my moment, I decide. This is it.
“Listen,” I say. “I got a message from my place. My room’s come free again, and I can move back.” I don’t breathe for a moment, waiting for her to react.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says blankly.
“My room. At the squat. The kid’s gone back to uni. It’s mine again.”
“Well, I don’t suppose you actually want a room in a squat anymore, do you? Not when you’ve got this?” She passes her arm in an arc around the kitchen.
“That’s kind of not the point, Jess. This is your house. Your place. I have my own place, all my stuff is there—my life is there.”
She folds her arms across her chest and blinks slowly at me. “Your life is here,” she says bluntly.
I sit back into the chair and fold my own arms, matching her body language. “That’s sweet of you,” I say, “but this was only meant to be temporary, like you said.”
“No, not temporary. I didn’t say that. I said it would be an experiment.”
I bristle, knowing full well that she did not say that at all. “Well,” I say gently, “whatever we agreed, the fact of the matter is that I have to go back to the squat. If I don’t go back, they’ll give my space to somebody else and then I’ll have nowhere to go.”
“You’ve got a million pounds, Stuart,” she says. “Of course you’ll have somewhere to go.”
I sigh. Why can’t I ever keep something back for myself? Why do I have to tell people everything? “I explained that,” I say. “It’s for my kids. Not for blowing on rent.”
“You don’t need to pay rent staying here.”
I sigh again. “Jessamine,” I say, “I like you. I like it here. I like helping out. I like being a part of your life, a part of Daisy’s life. But that’s all I can offer you. I can be a part of your life, but not the whole thing. I need my space. You know that.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to us. After everything we’ve done for you.” Her face is set hard, showing those cruel edges to her expression that I have grown so used to.
“Oh, sorry,” I say facetiously. “I was under the impression that I had been doing things for you? Am I wrong?”
“You know that’s not what I meant, Stuart. I meant, letting you stay.”
“Well,” I say, “yes. And I am very grateful to you for that. But genuinely, I need to go back now. That doesn’t mean I won’t still be here a lot.
I mean, I need to get that jeep fixed and on the road, for a start.
And I can help out with Daisy if you need me to.
And the dog. I can still be your guy, you know.
Just not your live-in guy.” I give her a goofy smile, hoping to warm up the chilly atmosphere.
“But we need you. We need a man around the place. Mum is so much easier to manage. Daisy is so much easier to manage. And I haven’t had a drink since you moved in!”
“I know,” I say, reaching for her hands and holding them inside my own.
“I know, and I’m so, so proud of you, I really am.
You’ve been amazing. Ten days, Jessamine, ten days without a drink!
Which just shows how strong you are. And now you need to prove to yourself how strong you are by doing it alone. ”
She snatches her hands away from me. “I can’t,” she says, pressing her fists against her mouth and staring at me beseechingly through wide eyes. “I can’t.”
“Yes,” I say softly. “Yes. You can.”
She shakes her head, a tiny twitching movement. “No,” she says. “I can’t.”
I sigh. “Jessamine, listen, I am here for you, OK? Any time you feel yourself slipping, call me—I’ll catch you. I can be like your AA sponsor? How about that? But I can’t live here. I need to go. OK?”
She shakes her head again but doesn’t say anything.
I take her hands in mine once more and squeeze them. “So, since it’s my last night tonight, how about I make us something really special to eat, and then we can put a film on. I’ll get some popcorn, make a really nice night of it. OK?”
Again, she shakes her head and doesn’t say anything.
I pick up the remains of my sandwich and finish them quickly, put the plate in the dishwasher, and flick on the kettle to make Annie a cup of tea. When I turn round, Jessamine has left the room.
It takes two days after I move back to the squat for everything to come off its wheels, completely, horribly, sickeningly.
It’s three forty-five on Monday afternoon when I get the call from Annie.
“Stuart. It’s Jessamine. She needs you. You have to come right now.”
I was in the middle of a haircut. The lady next door has male-pattern balding and likes to have hair cut by a man because they know how to deal with it.
She’s a sweet woman; she gives me twenty-five pounds and something she’s baked.
This time it’s a pair of vanilla cupcakes with rainbow-striped toppings.
“Annie,” I say, “I’m really sorry, I can’t come now. I’m busy.”
“She’s been arrested, Stuart.”
“What!” I walk away from the lady and toward the window.
“Arrested. Drunk and disorderly. She was causing a public nuisance, down the back of Heath Street.” Annie tuts and sighs. “I knew this would happen.”
“But where is she? Which station? Can you get her out?”
“I’m with Daisy. I had to collect her from school. I was hoping you could go and get her. They’ve taken her to Kentish Town.”
I sigh heavily. My heart feels like a rock in my chest, weighty and disproportionate. “Fine,” I say. “Give me some time to finish with my client and then I’ll head over.”
“Thank you, Stuart. She’ll be very glad to see you. As will I.”
Her skin is gray, there is vomit in her hair, her eyes are wild, and she has wet herself. “Jesus Christ, Jessamine,” I say as she walks into the front-desk area. “Jesus actual Christ.”
“Fuck off,” she says. “Don’t say anything. This is all your fucking fault anyway.”
“That,” I say, “is entirely untrue.”
“Just take me home. For fuck’s sake.”
I order an Uber, and we sit on a bench outside the station while we wait for it.
“What were you drinking?”
“What do you think I was drinking?”
“But how much? And where?”
“Too much. And everywhere.”