The Trouble with Henry and Zoe Page 24

  Henry

  A Fight You Can’t Win

  There are boxers and there are brawlers, they say. Brawlers bite down on their gum shield and go toe to toe, throwing knuckles like savages. Boxers feint, draw, parry, move; they fight tactically, wearing you down and picking you off. Dad was a boxer – the sweet science, he calls it – but as his skills and mobility waned, he began to rely more on grit and his right hand, arguably taking more damage in his last half dozen fights than in all the rest leading up to that point. But even now, it seems Big Boots has retained a little of the old ring craft.

  The first we know of his return, a little after nine, is Keith the Karaoke placing a microphone on our table and nodding towards the small, makeshift stage. The opening bars of Sonny and Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’ jangle out of the boxy speakers, and Dad raises his microphone towards his wife. Dad may have once resembled a certain Memphis crooner, but whatever shabby similarity remains, it stops short of the vocal cords. Not that Dad can’t sing; more that he doesn’t, not exactly. He delivers the lyrics – They say we’re young and we don’t know – with just enough melody and black pepper to elevate it above the spoken word. It’s a narrow range, but the voice matches the man – rugged and sincere and a little battered. Mum’s timing is perfect, standing on cue and returning the lyrics normally delivered by Sonny. And she can sing. Mum arrives at Dad’s side – and baby I got you – and takes his hand. She shakes her head with a combination of love, resignation and admonition. Dad shrugs it off, and with no sign of communication between them, they switch seamlessly into their gender assigned lines: Mum worrying about the rent, him buying her flowers in the spring. The only thing that stops me crying – because lord knows, I come close – is Brian’s infectious concern for April, who is sobbing to the brink of hyperventilation and with surely enough force to induce labour. We each hold one of her hands through to the final Babe, at which point my mother slaps Big Boots hard around the sideburns, in response to which, the old man takes her face gently in his big hands and kisses her like I imagine he did forty years ago today. April’s hand slides out of mine, and I make a point of not looking at her or Brian until my mother returns to the table with Dad in tow.

  ‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ says April.

  ‘Who you calling a cat?’ Dad says, glancing at Mum. She smiles thinly, but still has the tense air of a thing undetonated. Dad puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘Son.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, taking in the table, ‘this is . . . you know . . .’

  ‘Weird?’ says Brian.

  ‘That it is. So . . . Just us, is it?’

  ‘She dumped him,’ says April, not without some pleasure.

  ‘This true?’

  ‘Looks that way,’ I say. ‘So, happy anniversary, I suppose?’

  Dad looks at Mum who still hasn’t said a word since returning to the table.

  Brian goes to stand. ‘Maybe we should . . .’

  Mum puts a hand on his knee. ‘You’re family now,’ she says.

  Brian looks at me: Is this true?

  I shrug: Suppose so.

  ‘So?’ says my mother, swivelling her eyes onto my father.

  Dad places a small oblong box on the table. ‘Happy anniversary, beautiful.’

  Mum looks at the box, at my dad, back to the box. She opens it, closes it, begins to cr y.

  ‘What is it?’ asks April.

  Mum slides the box to the girl I increasingly think of as her daughter, and April pops it open.

  ‘Not sodding earrings,’ says Dad with a wink.

  ‘Nice bracelet,’ says Brian.

  Mum puts her arms around Dad’s shoulders and kisses him. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Rightly so,’ says the old man.

  One piece of jewellery stirs thoughts of another.

  ‘April?’ I say, turning to my ex-fiancée.

  ‘You know the fields at the back of Mum and Dad’s house?’ she says, apparently anticipating my line of enquiry.

  ‘Yeees.’

  ‘Well, if they’re not sprouting diamonds by next spring, I don’t know what to tell you.’

  It’s past two before Big Boots sees the last of the guests off the premises; roughly half an hour after we have steered Mum up the stairs and into bed. Me removing her shoes, Dad carefully removing her ruby bracelet and returning it to the black velvet box. After my mother unloaded on him this afternoon, he drove to Manchester and after ‘a few hiccups’, managed to exchange the earrings for something less incendiary. They have danced, kissed, argued a little, and dueted again with ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, ‘It Takes Two’ and, somewhat bewilderingly, ‘Ebony and Ivory’. Brian and April did a passable impression of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John and I drank too much pink prosecco. In the empty bar my ears are ringing with chatter, laughter and bad song. Dad let the bar staff go an hour ago, and the tables are strewn with glasses, the floor sticky with spilt drink and trodden-in buffet.

  ‘Same again next year?’ I say to Dad.

  ‘We should do it more often,’ he says, laughing.

  ‘Maybe you could turn up next time.’

  Dad throws a playful jab at my chin.

  ‘And what about you? Keep letting these women slip through your hands?’

  ‘Want me to do the glasses?’

  ‘You’d probably drop ’em. Anyway, got a couple of girls coming in the morning.’ Dad takes a seat at the bar. ‘Buy your old man a drink?’ he says, slapping the wood.

  I pour two whiskies, sit next to my father and proceed to tell him everything there is to know about Zoe. About Alex, Thailand, Cornwall, the Duck and Cover, the white streak in her hair, the way she snorts when she laughs too hard. I tell him that I wish I’d met her two years earlier.

  ‘Aye,’ says Dad, laughing. ‘Would have saved us all some trouble. So . . . what you going to do about it?’

  ‘I don’t know that there’s anything I can do. And even if I could . . . she’s still leaving next month. Maybe it’s easier this way.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s a tough one.’

  Dad places his splayed hands flat on the bar, staring at his prominent, calloused knuckles. The scars from where he had a frame holding his wrist together are still visible on his right hand.

  ‘Couldn’t remember where I got ’em,’ he says.

  ‘Got what, Dad?’

  When he looks up at me, his eyes are tired and sad. ‘Earrings,’ he says. ‘I left with a light under me, didn’t take the bag or receipt. Just the earrings in a black box; no label. Was only there a week ago and I couldn’t remember where I’d got ’em.’

  ‘That what took you so long?’

  ‘Must have gone in practically every jeweller’s in Manchester.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t get arrested. Why didn’t you call me?’

  Dad shrugs. ‘Keys, names, what I’m doing in the cellar. Head like a sieve, son.’

  ‘We all do that.’

  Dad taps the back of his left hand and I notice a small number ‘3’ written in black ink. ‘Car park,’ he says.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  Dad turns his hands over and clenches them into fists. ‘Fighting’s as much about heart as hands. You know that?’

  I nod that I do.

  Dad taps his chest. ‘Bite down and dig deep,’ he says. ‘But . . . sooner or later, you find yourself in a fight you can’t win. Bust up, can’t see the punches coming, can’t get your shots off. Just getting hit and hurt and damaged. And every fighter’s thought it, though most won’t say, you just want a way out.’ Dad relaxes his hands and looks me dead in the eye. ‘All you have to do is lower your lead hand a little, hang out your chin . . . and it’s over.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘My problem, son, is I’m a stubborn bastard. Scars to prove it too.’ Dad licks his finger and rubs away the number written on the back of his hand. ‘I’m glad you stopped boxing,’ he says. ‘I’m proud of you. You know that, don�
��t you?’

  ‘I do now.’

  Dad goes to cuff my ear, but instead puts his hand around my head and kisses me.

  ‘Have you told Mum?’ I say, putting a finger to my temple. ‘About . . . you know.’

  ‘Not yet, although she can probably guess. Thought we’d get this out of the way first. Not a bad night, eh?’

  ‘No, turned out alright in the end.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dad says, ‘it does that sometimes.’

  Zoe

  Au Revoir, ’enry

  The wind is a cold hand pushing against my chest, pressing against my leaning body with enough force to support me at a frightening forwards angle. If the wind were to suddenly drop, I could pitch teeth first into the railings or, worse, over the top and into the English Channel. Rachel and Vicky are flanking me, both leaning towards France.

  ‘You’ve lost too much weight,’ says Vicky.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about too much weight,’ says Rachel, still checking her watch. ‘And . . . and . . . beep. Exactly twenty-four hours left as a single woman.’

  She is visibly pregnant now, and no amount of white silk is going to disguise the fact. But she at least seems to have made her peace with the fact.

  Vicky takes a sip from the hip flask and passes it to me. ‘It’s cute,’ she says. ‘Your baby being at your wedding.’

  ‘Be cuter if it was carrying flowers instead of ruining my waistline. Pass me that,’ she says, holding out her hand for the hip flask.

  ‘You’re not drinking?’ I say, twisting sideways to the wind, and righting my balance.

  ‘Of course not, but I can have a sniff, can’t I?’

  ‘So,’ says Vicky. ‘Where were we?’

  ‘Must we?’

  ‘It’s therapy, Zo. So, what have we got? Broken nose,’ she says marking her thumb with item number one on the list of bad things about Henry Smith.

  ‘Shaved head,’ says Rachel.

  ‘I like his nose,’ I say.

  ‘Not helpful, Zoe. Right, dentist; definite black mark.’

  ‘He does jigsaws,’ I say, smiling at the mental image.

  ‘Weird,’ says Vicky.

  ‘Definitely,’ says Rachel. ‘And he’s not exactly trendy.’

  ‘Good one,’ agrees Vicky. ‘Shapeless jeans. Although . . . quite a nice bum.’

  ‘True,’ agrees Rachel. ‘He is quite tight.’

  ‘Left his fiancée at the altar,’ I say, taking the hip flask. ‘End of list.’

  ‘I would fucking kill him,’ says Rachel. ‘I swear to God, I’d cut his whatsit off.’

  ‘Such a shame,’ says Vicky. ‘I mean, I know he’s a shitbag, but . . . I liked him.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say.

  ‘And, you know . . .’ Vicky takes the flask, ‘. . . better that than go through the motions then get divorced a year later, isn’t it?’

  ‘Seriously?’ says Rachel. ‘Leave me at the altar? I would cut his little Henry off.’

  ‘Actually . . .’ I say, raising my eyebrows.

  ‘Zoe!’ Vicky swats at my arm. ‘What are we talking here?’ She holds her hands apart, her eyes widening as she increases the distance between her palms.

  ‘Well, he’s no Manaconda,’ I say, and Vicky buries her face in her hands. ‘But . . . I’m not complaining.’

  Rachel snips a pair of invisible shears at the air, grabs the severed member and throws it overboard. ‘Au revoir, ’enry.’

  ‘Au revoir.’

  ‘So,’ says Rachel, snatching the woollen cap from my head, ‘what’s all this ab . . . oh my fuck, Zoe!’

  Vicky takes a full step backwards, as if my hacked hair might be contagious. ‘What did you do? What – did – you – do!?’

  And all I can do is shrug. ‘Fancied a change?’

  ‘Good Christ, Zoe. Dye it red, put a bow in it, don’t . . . oh my God, what about the bloody pictures?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll hold flowers, I’ll stand at the back.’

  ‘Too right you will,’ she says, taking a deep lungful of whisky vapour. ‘Too fucking right.’

  ‘Is there anything we can . . .’ Vicky is inspecting my head as if it were something half dead at the side of the road.

  ‘I swear to God,’ says Rachel, opening and closing her shears. ‘If I ever see that man again.’

  Henry

  The Element Of Surprise Is Vital

  The element of surprise is vital.

  I know this from The Graduate. Had Ben called Elaine, sent a letter, arrived at her door with flowers, he would have been sent on his way without a happy ending. We see it, too, in An Affair to Remember, and again in When Harry Met Sally. This is how the guy gets the gal.

  If, that is, the gal can be got.

  Dad talked about knowing when to quit, and knowing when to dig deep. I’m not ready to quit. What Zoe and I have is constrained and fated, but it ain’t over until she climbs on a plane. Or until she laughs in my face approximately three hours from now. But, hey, it’s not like I’ve anything better to do.

  London is still blinking the sleep from its eyes, the airport staff are tired and indifferent to my perky good humour, but I’ve been drinking strong coffee since four o’clock and I am indifferent to their indifference – I am on a mission. As the engines rumble and vibrate, the horizon shades from black to purple to amber outside my window. Final checks have been implemented and the flight crew have taken their seats. Accounting for the time difference, we will touch down in Paris at 7.50 a.m. From there I can catch a métro, two trains and a cab to the vineyard in Bois de Saint-Benoît, arriving around midday local time. Or, I can spend in the region of one hundred and fifty euros on a taxi direct from the airport that should get me to the hotel before Zoe gets out of bed. I’ll buy a pain au chocolat at the airport.

  Zoe

  I Have To Find Someone

  Christophe stirs in his sleep, his thick black hair still pulled into tufts. My hands sticky with his hair gel. And all I feel is disconnected.

  I blame Vicky and her hip flask. God, please don’t let her find out; I’ve made enough mess with my DIY haircut. ‘Like a lutin, a . . .’ Christophe snapping his fingers, ‘. . . fairy, you know, the pixie. Very Parisienne.’

  Flattering, considering what I really look like is a recovering chemotherapy patient. But, yes, très flattering from this handsome Frenchman. Better looking than Henry? Peut-être; peut- être pas.But not nearly as good a lover. Nothing wrong with his . . . technique, shall we say, and he certainly wasn’t short on stamina, but . . . something to do with fit, perhaps. With rhythm and synchronicity.

  For some reason I’m crying.

  Nothing dramatic; pre-tears, really, a weight behind the flesh of my cheeks, and a sensation of rising moisture behind my eyelids. Quite refreshing, in this tired dehydrated doze. It’s funny in a dark shade, but this infidelity – if that’s what it is – it reminds me of Alex. It’s something I try not to dwell on, but the thought presents itself sometimes without invitation. Alex wasn’t himself in the weeks before he died . . . he was . . . off is how it felt, although the memory is fading now, just like the image of his face without a visual prompt. I remember worrying that he was cheating on me, but looking back the idea seems . . . not implausible, but paranoid, maybe. Or unkind. More an expression of my insecurity or unhappiness than Alex’s behaviour. But I’ll never know, and what does it matter or change?

  Like fucking this Frenchman.

  What does that matter?

  Last night I told myself it didn’t matter at all, but sober Zoe (albeit très hungover Zoe) doesn’t find it so trivial. Cheap is how it feels. I have no problem with casual sex, although I do think you can have too much of a good thing. But this, this sweaty collision with a stranger, it’s not casual; it’s soulless and joyless and maybe even a little bit vindictive. But, I’m beyond beating myself up about it. It’s not like I’m cheating on anyone.

  I slip out of bed and go to the bathroom to wash Christophe’s hair gel from my
hands, brush my teeth, clean my face, scrub my body and wash what’s left of my hair. I’m disappointed with myself, but at the same time I feel calm – as if all the conflict is over now. Deciding to travel is the first good decision I can remember making in a very long time, and in under a month I’ll put that plan into effect.

  It’s close to nine when I step out of the shower, but I’m not required to be anywhere for another two hours. Beyond the hotel grounds lie acres of forests and vines, and more than food, water or aspirin, I need a big dose of solitude.

  First, however, I need to remove a certain Monsieur from my room, preferably unobserved. He’s sitting up in bed, smoking an e-cigarette, which is both disappointing and ridiculous and pretty much sums up the whole fiasco. He holds the plastic fag towards me, and I laugh out loud.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Nothing, sorry, still a bit . . .’ I wobble my head, ‘. . . woozy.’

  ‘Woozy?’

  ‘Boozy. Tipsy, turvy, sorry . . .’ and I’m laughing like a lush. Laughing until I snort, in fact.

  Christophe, it is clear, does not find my laughter endearing. But he’s not going to let it get in the way of one more roll in the hotel sheets.

  ‘You ’ave an osser hour,’ he says, folding back a corner of the blanket.

  I shake my head. Sorry.

  ‘Sirty minutes?’

  Nope. ‘I have to find someone.’

  Who?

  ‘She’s called Zoe.’

  Christophe raises one eyebrow. Very Bond. ‘Zoe?’ he says. ‘Like you?’

  ‘A little,’ I say.

  Christophe does that shrug that little French boys must be taught in primary school. ‘A bientôt.’

  I do my best to return his nonchalant shrug, but I ruin it by laughing all over again.

  Henry

  A Time Traveller

  The woman at Passport Control in Paris makes the sleepy airport staff back in London look like cheerleaders. She has been through every page of my passport and is now scrutinizing my picture for the second time, squinting at me as if trying to reconcile the flesh version with the one-inch square photograph.