Chapter 5 Jules “Groove Is in the Heart”
Jules
“Groove Is in the Heart”
Fucking birds.
I groan, the light penetrating my hangover, as the seagulls screech like car alarms outside our bedroom window. My head pounds as I roll over, my arm flailing toward Adam, but I hit a smooth, unslept-under duvet and my eyes spring open.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” I say, crossing my arms over my head, as the walk home and the things we said last night come crashing back in vivid Technicolor.
I sit up, noticing that I’m still wearing Adam’s socks. My lovely dress lies crumpled on the floor where I stamped out of it. Even if it hadn’t been ruined by the rosebush, I know I’ll never wear it again. Not now it’s cursed after our awful fight.
What if the kids heard? God, I couldn’t bear it. They’ve both got enough to deal with already without seeing us acting out like that. I’ve always wanted our home to be a safe place, no matter what the outside world might throw at them.
Where is Adam, anyway? Did he go back to the party? I remember slamming the door, not caring where he went, before crying myself to sleep.
I pick up my phone to see if there are any missed calls from him, but there aren’t. My screensaver says it’s half ten. No. I should already be at Rose’s and picking up everything for the venue.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mutter as I hop around, pulling on my baggy linen trousers, a sports tank, and my stained old Agnès B. T-shirt.
Downstairs, Groucho Barx greets me effusively and I let him out the back door. The living room is empty. Adam’s not on the sofa, so where is he? Standing at the kitchen sink, I spot a light on in the shed.
Oh. Right. He’s been out there all night, has he? Making some kind of righteous point rather than coming inside and apologizing. I can’t believe the shit he’s been holding against me all these years. My nose fizzes with the onset of yet more tears.
Fine. Let him stew in his own juice. I’ll deal with him later.
Except that, after ransacking the house, I realize he’s got the bloody car keys.
In the garden, I take a deep breath as I approach the shed. I don’t know how things stand. It feels like something seismic has happened. Maybe Adam is feeling as churned up as I am. Maybe he’s ready to talk. Maybe, just maybe, we can laugh it off, have a hug, blame the cocktails. Though I doubt it.
Another breath and I open the door.
Adam is sitting on his dad’s ripped leather armchair, staring at an old cassette tape in his hand, transfixed. His head jolts up when he sees me, like someone who’s just fallen asleep on a train. He’s still in last night’s clothes and his eyes are red-rimmed, like he hasn’t slept a wink.
There’s a beat as we stare at one another, then he jumps up and lurches toward me. I can smell whiskey on him and spot the empty bottle.
Great. He’s still drunk.
“Car keys,” I spit, realizing that he hasn’t got any intention of apologizing.
“No, listen,” he starts, gingerly tapping me on the shoulder as if checking I’m real. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
Oh God, here we go. Did he head off to some bar with Doodles, which he’s only just got back from? Lose his wallet? Lose the keys?
“About my dream,” he says. “I mean, if it was a dream, or at least it must have been, but there was also a lightning strike…But either way, seriously, Jules, it felt really real, like I was actually th—”
“Stop arsing around, Adam. I’m late for work.”
“But Mum and Dad were there and I was in my body—my young body. And you…you were waitressing in the Peregrine and—”
I sniff the air suspiciously.
“Have you been smoking Doodles’s weed?” I ask, eyes narrowed.
“No, but what happened, it’s—”
“Just give me the bloody keys.” My voice rises.
“But, but…”
I spot them on the arm of his gaming sofa and grab them before hurrying back to the door.
“But nothing,” I tell him, glaring. “Get your shit together and get cleaned up before the kids or anyone else catches you in this state.”
—
I’m still muttering imaginary arguments as I drive our cranky old ?koda, which nearly wouldn’t start yet again, toward the Peregrine Hotel and turn into Regency Square to park, cutting off Radiohead’s “High and Dry” on the radio.
Getting out of the car, I take in a deep breath, the salty breeze mingling with the familiar waft of fish and chips from the Regency Restaurant on the corner, and watch as the tourists troop past carrying inflatable paddleboards, cool boxes, and lilos to the pebbly beach, like we used to when the kids were younger.
I can’t actually remember the last time we went to the beach just for fun.
In the distance, the Palace Pier stands out against the glittering sea like a cardboard cutout, with its red-white-and-blue-striped helter-skelter, waterslide, and roller coaster, no doubt already packed with screaming teens.
Nearer, the i360 observation tower reaches for the sky, while behind it, the older, burned-down West Pier looms like a familiar skeleton, a ghost of Brighton’s past, but none of these sights can brighten my mood today.
Turning toward the flaky pillars of the Peregrine’s portico, I head inside.
I’ve known Rose, the owner, since I was seventeen and started waitressing here on Saturdays.
It’s where I first met Adam, who used to help his dad with building work and handyman jobs, but whatever temporary improvements they made back then have long since faded.
Nowadays, it’s positively shabby, and with dwindling bookings to match, what with Brighton’s more discerning visitors now choosing to spend their tourist bucks in the swanky Artist Residence Hotel across the square or the Grand down on the front.
Once, though, the Peregrine had a dining room, with swagged red curtains framing its still magnificent sea view, and velvet-relief wallpaper.
The resident chef served kippers and full Englishes for breakfast and later fish suppers and coq au vin on gold-rimmed, monogrammed plates.
But these days Rose can’t afford the staff and can’t be arsed with the faff of a restaurant, despite my protests that she’s missing a trick.
Over the years, its little kitchen has become a kind of home away from home for me, because Rose very kindly lets me use it to prep for my catering jobs.
It hasn’t changed in decades, with its scuffed, glitter-effect lino floor, large metal units, and two marvelously capacious fridges, one of which is all mine.
I open it now to retrieve the metal trays filled with the food for today’s event.
I still can’t believe that some pillock at the council scheduled this team-building day for a Sunday.
But even that would have been fine if that same pillock hadn’t then messed up the booking at the Racecourse, where it was supposed to be held.
So now the poor fuckers, who were promised a morning whirring around in electric cars, have to schlep into the office to do pointless role-playing exercises all day.
Earlier in the week, I was looking forward to this job—although I’m barely making a profit on it—knowing that the egg sandwiches and salmon quiches they ordered were at least going to be the highlight of everyone’s day, but now the last thing I feel like doing is being civil. Let alone friendly.
Rose walks into the kitchen in a lovely, if tired-looking, Indian-print dressing gown, with her waist-length gray plait over her shoulder, and smiles when she sees me.
She’s nearly seventy and, with my own mum having retired to North Wales and poor Dad having died of a heart attack when I was little, she’s become like a surrogate parent to me, as well as a good mate.
She’s holding a mug of tea and I realize that my empty, hungover body desperately needs caffeine.
“How was the party?” she asks.
“We left early.”
She frowns at my tone, studying my face, and I sigh. I can never hide anything from her.
“Adam and I had a row.”
She says, “Hmmm,” and twists her lips in an “it’s been coming” kind of a way.
She knows the last few months have been difficult since Nelly moved back home.
I thought she should have stuck out her London marketing job in the sustainability company she’d worked for, despite the pitiful salary.
Adam, though, unable to bear his little princess being unhappy, encouraged her to look for another job, and before I knew it, she was back home, complaining about the Wi-Fi speed and treating me like her personal slave.
As far as I can make out, her new job involves being a lackey to her arsehole of a boss, who regularly bullies her and makes her cry.
Even though he’s on the other side of the Atlantic, he seems to know if she’s so much as taken a loo break.
But Adam thinks her work ethic is “cool.” Something he deliberately said in front of Liam last week, needlessly adding that it was great to see someone her age being “so ambitious.”
Rose got the brunt of that one.
“It wasn’t about the kids. It was other stuff. About us. And now I really don’t know where we stand.”
“Aw, get on with you,” Rose says, as if I’m being crazy. “You two are destined for each other. It’s written in the stars.”
I’m dubious of Rose’s astrological predictions—particularly as her “dead cert” horses have each come in last in the Grand National three years running. She clocks my skeptical face.
“What happened?” she asks.
“It all started because Adam asked if I was happy, and I said I thought we were in a rut. Because it’s true. Lately it feels like we’re living in some kind of Groundhog Day, but without the romance.”
Rose smiles gently, walks over, and holds my shoulders. “There’s always bumps in the road but look what you’ve achieved. You and Adam. A whole life together. No mean feat.”
I sniff, tears feeling perilously close. “I guess.”
“You be careful what you wish for, missy,” she says, looking into my eyes. “Happiness is learning to love what you already have.”
That’s one of her favorites. She has that on a T-shirt, I swear.