Chapter 30

30

‘Must be some kind of rash,’ Joel told his kids. ‘Probably that fragrance I was sent, remember? When I redesigned that product range?’ Of course they didn’t remember. They probably think he doodles with crayons all day. ‘I think it’s reacted with my skin,’ he added.

Martha’s laser gaze drilled into his head. ‘You had a good time, though? At the boring gallery thing?’

‘It was all right,’ he muttered.

‘Did you take a present for them?’

Joel’s stomach lurched. ‘For who? Who’s “them”?’

‘ I don’t know,’ she said with a shrug. ‘For the artist whose exhibition it was?’

‘’Course not,’ he growled defensively. What was she going on about? Had she been delving through his bag? No, surely not. He was just being paranoid. Even so, he had to get away from his kids. He couldn’t take any more interrogation. So he hotfooted it to the sanctuary of his studio at the top of the house.

However, it doesn’t feel like a sanctuary now as he sits gloomily at his desk. For one thing, it’s still disgusting, all sticky and smelly and littered with bottles and cans. But it’s not just the state of it that’s bothering him. Now this room feels like a prison cell, where he’ll be forced to remain until Shelley comes home, in order to minimise any interaction with Martha and Fin. Because how can he operate normally with the new household dynamic at play? It’s as if they are now the superior ones – because they know. They haven’t stated said as such, but since they spotted the mark on his neck there have been no further mentions of clearing up the mess. There’s not a drop of contrition now. They are behaving as if they had nothing to do with what happened here last night.

Martha especially has the measure of him. She came home with a love bite once, a livid bruise on her neck. Although visibly upset, Shelley was determined not to make a big thing of it. ‘It’s awful, Joel, but that’s just part of being young. And I suppose worse things can happen.’

Now, as Joel sits here at his desk, he’s not sure that worse things can happen. His laptop has gone and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it. If he called the police, then it would all come out about him leaving the kids alone overnight and then Shelley would be bound to find out. No, that’s far too messy to contemplate. Instead, he must switch his brain into practical mode because hiding up here, twitching and panicking is doing no good whatsoever. After all, Shelley will be home in two days’ time, full of the joys after her little holiday with her best friends. So the whole house will have to be put back to normal by then.

One small glimmer of positivity is that Joel has managed to contact a glazier who’s promised to come round tomorrow at a colossal cost. ‘Sorry, mate. It’s the week before Christmas!’ As if Joel didn’t know. In fact, he’d have festooned the man with gold bars if that’s what it had taken to entice him round.

Now he checks his phone, trying to build himself up to sending a cheery message to Shelley. Hope you’re having fun! We’re all having a great time here with our smashed fucking window in our stinking house! But before he’s even typed a word, a message appears from Martha. His heart quickens and he snatches his Citalopram from his desk drawer – mercifully, the laptop thief didn’t steal them too – and pops one into his mouth, even though he’s already had today’s dose. With the lack of anything else to wash it down with, he grabs an open can and gulps down flat tepid lager, choking as something solid lands in his throat. He coughs and splutters, spitting the vile thing onto the floor. It’s a soggy cigarette butt.

Martha

Are you upstairs?

Joel’s heart thuds like a drum.

Joel

Yes

As he hits send, his phone rings and he yelps, as if electrocuted. It’s Shelley. Christ. ‘Hey! How are you?’ he shouts.

He senses his wife frowning all the way up there in the frozen north. ‘Hi, Joel,’ she says levelly. ‘Everything all right there?’

‘Er, yeah! Hi, babe. All good. How are you?’

‘Great.’ Shelley still sounds hesitant. ‘Yeah, we’re all having fun here… So, the kids are okay, are they?’

‘Yeah, they’re fine. They’ve been great.’

‘That’s… great!’ The pause hangs. Joel tries desperately to dredge up some news to tell her. But as his ‘news’ lately has concerned only Carmel and the kids’ house party, he’s stuck for words.

‘So you’ll remember to pick up the turkey tomorrow morning, won’t you?’ Shelley starts, and for once Joel is grateful for practical matters to focus on.

‘’Course I will,’ he says.

‘It’s just, the butcher has his slots, y’know? And he gets a bit funny if we don’t pick up the order on the day we said?—’

‘No, I remember that,’ he fibs. It occurs to Joel that lying comes instinctively to him now, like breathing.

‘There should also be chipolatas and bacon and sausage meat in the order,’ she goes on, ‘and the ham for Boxing Day. D’you mind checking it’s all there? He forgot the sausages last year and I had to use those cheap ones from the freezer, remember? Not the butcher ones your mum likes? She was in a bit of a sulk…’

‘Yeah, haha. How can I forget?’ The quality of their Christmas Day chipolatas is the least of his concerns right now. He touches his neck, aware of the tenderness lingering there. What was Carmel thinking? She knows his situation here and, much as Joel still thinks of himself as a teenage raver, aren’t they a bit old for love bites? He gives her a ￡275 gold bracelet. She gives him a prominent bruise. He hates to be petty but it hardly feels like a fair exchange. It also occurs to him that he hasn’t bought Shelley anything, apart from a Superdrug voucher he picked up when he was buying shaving foam. Will the kids have any ideas? That’ll mean conversing with them, which he’d rather avoid. Perhaps he’ll be able to casually quiz the glazier on acceptable presents for wives?

‘Anyway, love,’ Shelley adds, as if catching herself, ‘I didn’t call you to fire off a load of instructions…’

‘I’m relieved about that,’ he says jovially.

Another pause. ‘So, we’re all having a fun time here,’ she adds, somewhat pointedly. Joel realises he’s supposed to be asking all about her trip so far.

‘Oh, yeah! So what’ve you been up to?’ She tells him then about the owner guy rushing away suddenly, something to do with a flight attendant, and feeding some hens and then guests arriving, and something about an emergency dash to the chip shop? And some writer guy writing something or other and some kid trying to ride Stan like a pony?—

‘Stan’s the kid?’ Joel is struggling to make sense of it all.

‘No, Stan’s the collie!’ She chuckles. ‘Theo’s the child. And he doesn’t want what we’re doing for dinner tonight. He wants a fondue like he has at his Swiss granny’s?—’

‘A fondue? What is this, 1976?’

Shelley laughs, and Joel laughs, amazed that he still has it in him to make a joke. Perhaps he sounds normal after all. Perhaps he can deal with the party devastation here, and by the time Shelley comes home, if he tries his hardest to be super-nice and totally reinvents his personality, everything will be all right.

‘So, it’s Christmas Eve you’re back, isn’t it?’ He knows this. He just wants reassurance that she won’t bowl up tomorrow morning before the darn window’s fixed.

‘That’s right. Flight lands at three-thirty. So, by the time I’ve caught the train into London?—’

‘No, I’ll come and get you.’

‘What? At the airport, you mean? You don’t need to do that…’

‘No, I’d like to. I’ll come out to Stansted and bring you all into town. I’ll drop off Pearl and Lena at their places too?—’

‘Really?’ she gasps.

‘Yeah. ’Course I will.’ He feigns hurt at her surprise that he can do something nice for other people. ‘It’s not a big deal,’ he insists, really embracing the role now. Because somehow, it feels that this single act will cancel out all the lying and deceit and awfulness. Somehow, it’ll turn Joel into a decent guy. ‘They’ll want to get home and enjoy Christmas Eve, won’t they?’ he goes on. ‘Lena will want to see Tommy, and Pearl will be keen to see, er, thingie…’ A minor slip-up there – he can never remember Pearl’s kid’s name – but Shelley doesn’t seem to notice.

‘Wow. That’s really sweet of you, honey. I know they’ll appreciate that.’ He senses her smiling. ‘And thanks for manning the fort there. Honestly, it’s amazing here. So beautiful and lovely to have this time with the girls. It’s doing me so much good to be away, you know? After all the worry at work, the job cuts and everything…’ He starts to faze off. He has never managed to be interested in Shelley’s job. ‘…And thanks for the other stuff too,’ Shelley adds.

‘What stuff?’ he croaks.

‘Just those last bits I asked you to do. Dropping off the neighbours’ Christmas cards and wrapping those presents…’

‘That was no trouble.’ His voice is oddly high pitched. ‘No trouble at all.’

She clears her throat. ‘So you managed the wrapping okay?’

‘Yeah, fine!’

‘The Sellotape didn’t try and attack you?—’

‘No, the Sellotape’s been very well behaved.’

But I haven’t, Joel reflects when the call is over. I have been appallingly behaved. And now he sees that Martha has messaged him again, and with a thudding sensation in his gut, he reads it.

Martha

Dad we’re not stupid. We know someone bit your neck last night and you’ve been lying to us. Don’t really want to think about what else you’ve been doing. Don’t want that in my head. So we’re going out tonight – Fin’s staying over at Ajay’s and I’m going to Lizzie’s. We need to get away.

Oh, do they really! Seemingly, the whole sodding world needs to get away! No matter that Christmas is hurtling towards them?—

He catches himself and reads on.

Martha

So the deal is we won’t say anything when Mum gets home and you can cover up the bite with something or do whatever you have to do. Just don’t say anything to Mum about the party and we won’t say anything about your neck. We’re just going to pretend none of it happened. Is that a deal?

Joe senses sweat pulsing from his forehead as he mutters under his breath. Blackmailing him like this! What sort of monsters has he raised? He looks around his trashed studio, and again his fingers go to the tender part on his neck.

Joel

Deal.

And then, for the first time in his life, Joel heads downstairs, pulls on rubber gloves and cleans the entire house.