‘Yeah? And what does that make you?’ Jack asked belligerently, though he had absolutely nothing to be belligerent about because …
‘Yes? So, I nag you a bit and sometimes I can be a bitch, but if that was really bothering you, you could have ended it,’ Hope said thickly. ‘You had options that didn’t involve fucking my best friend behind my back.’
‘I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you going through my phone, even when I asked you not to …’
Hope knew what Jack was doing. Attack was the best form of defence, after all. And he was right, up to a point. ‘That’s bullshit and you know it. Stop trying to dodge the issue – this is not about your bloody phone.’
‘And then you come to my office and show me up in front of the people I work with,’ Jack continued, hands tensed as they clutched the draining board behind him. He was whipping up his anger bit by bit, but it couldn’t hold a candle to Hope’s fury. She didn’t know how she’d managed to restrain herself from smacking him again.
‘I don’t care about the people you work with,’ Hope burst out. ‘I don’t care what they think of me. And I really, really don’t care that they might realise you’re not the loveable cheeky chappy that you pretend to be.’
‘Look, I’m not going to talk about any of this with you until you can start acting like a calm, rational human being,’ Jack insisted once he realised that his attempts to deflect her attention away from his crimes weren’t working.
‘I don’t give a fuck about being calm and rational!’ Hope screamed, but her voice broke on the last defiant syllable.
‘You want to know why I’ve been seeing Susie?’ Jack asked her. ‘You really want to know?’
They were flinging words at each other now, not even bothering to check their tempers or remember that hateful things said in the heat of battle couldn’t be unsaid.
‘Go on, enlighten me,’ Hope choked around the sobs that were welling up. ‘Tell me why you decided to break my heart.’
‘Because she’s not on my case 24/7, that’s why,’ Jack said brutally. ‘She doesn’t moan at me about going to IKEA and throwing stupid pretentious dinner parties, or nag and nag about everything from getting up on time to changing lightbulbs …’
‘I have vertigo …’
‘Whatever. You’ve become so boring, Hopey. Like you’re a middle-aged woman trapped in a twenty-something body. In fact, you’re pretty much turning into your mother.’
Hope could only stare at Jack in horror. Her temper was fizzling away because there wasn’t room for anything other than the icy-cold realisation that the reason Jack had been fucking Susie, mad, impulsive, couldn’t-give-a-damn Susie, was simple. Susie wasn’t her and he was sick to death of her.
But Jack wasn’t done yet. ‘And since you really want to know, I’ll tell you something else about Susie – she’s actually fun to be around, in and out of bed. At least she doesn’t try to schedule when we have sex and then lie back like a sack of potatoes and think about lesson plans. And she doesn’t go on and on and on about wanting to get bloody married!’
Jack had finally finished hammering the last nail in the coffin that contained the bloated corpse that was their relationship, if his triumphant self-satisfied smile was any indication. ‘So there!’ it seemed to say. ‘How do you like that?’
The longer Hope stood there, arms still wrapped around her torso, silent and pinch-faced, the more his smile began to fade. ‘Right,’ she managed to say. ‘Right. Well. I guess that’s that, then.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ Jack said, but now his bravado sounded false. ‘And don’t expect me to turn up a few days from now and beg your forgiveness. It’s not going to happen.’
‘OK, yeah. That’s probably for the best because I never want to see you again,’ Hope told him, and God, she wished that she meant it, but it wasn’t true. She wasn’t Jack. And she couldn’t just stop loving him, even now. She’d always loved him and she wasn’t capable of not loving him.
THIRTEEN HOURS LATER, Hope was woken by the impatient beep of her phone. She groaned, groped for the offending piece of machinery and knocked over a glass, a couple of books and a tub of hand cream.
Sitting up was an ordeal in itself. It felt as if the world was pitching forward and about to fling her off the edge. This wasn’t just a hangover courtesy of several pitchers of Margaritas and the tequila shots that the guys on the next table had kept buying Hope in a vain attempt to cheer her up. It was a hangover made worse by the fact that she’d cried for five hours straight and had leeched every last drop of moisture out of her body via her tearducts, before the alcohol could even start to dehydrate her.
After leaving Jack’s office, Hope had walked up Oxford Street, bawling her eyes out with every step, but had still managed to be on time to meet Lauren and Allison outside the Salsa Bar on Charing Cross Road.
She’d crumpled into their arms and their big girls’ night out had descended into every break-up cliché in the book. Lauren had gone to the Ladies and brought back a huge, industrial-sized roll of toilet tissue for Hope to mop her eyes with as she’d spluttered and choked her way through the saga of the iPhone and her ignominious role in it.
Somewhere around the end of the second jug of Margaritas, Hope had moved on to a snotty, tear-soaked account of her final showdown with Jack in Skirt’s malodorous kitchen, and by the time they were making major inroads into the fourth jug and the first round of tequila shots had been sent over, Hope was verging on hysterical as she tried to come to terms with her new single status.
‘That’s it. I’ll never find another boyfriend because I’m boring and fat and ginger and I’m shit in bed,’ she’d sobbed, tearing off another wad of loo roll so she could blow her nose. ‘I’m unloveable.’
Lauren and Allison had been the stuff of legends. Hope had seen the pair of them through countless boyfriend-related traumas and even though she’d completely ruined their night out, they’d hugged her and wiped her face and said supportive things like, ‘He’s a fucking bastard and you’re well shot of him. He’s probably riddled with disgusting STIs by now.’
And, ‘Of course you’re not a bad person for taking his iPhone and going through his stuff. Wanker left you no choice. Honestly, Hopey, any girl with half a braincell would have done the exact same thing.’
They’d even travelled to Holloway with her, held her hair back while she puked into a bin outside Argos and seen her safely home, before catching a ruinously expensive minicab back to South London. ‘It’s no trouble,’ they’d kept saying each time Hope apologised. ‘It’s what friends are for. And remember to prop your pillows up so you don’t choke on your own vomit and die in the night.’
Hope wished that she had died in the night and then she wouldn’t have had to wake up with a splitting headache, sore ribs and a sandpaper throat from all the throwing-up and crying. And those ailments barely registered compared to the sucking chest wound where her heart used to be. She burrowed under the duvet to warm up her cold and clammy skin as she stuck one hand out to hunt for her phone.
It was probably either Lauren or Allison phoning to check up on her and remind her to put all of Jack’s stuff into bin bags and throw them into the nearest skip. Then she was meant to call a locksmith to make sure he could never come home again. They’d both been very clear about that.
But just when Hope thought that life couldn’t get any worse, she saw that it wasn’t a missed call from Lauren or Allison but a text from her mother: Just put Jeremy on the London train. Arrives at Euston at 10.10 a.m. Must be there to pick him up. Dread to think what trouble he’ll get into if you’re late. Love Mum (and Dad)
It was all the motivation Hope needed to sit upright, although she wished she hadn’t. ‘Oh, shit, shit, shit!’ she exclaimed, as she flung back the duvet, placed two very shaky feet on the floor and staggered to the bathroom, clinging on to the wall and pieces of furniture as she went.
A stinging-hot shower and hairwash didn’t make her feel rem
otely better. Neither did a mug of tea and three ibuprofen. In fact swallowing anything made Hope feel as if she was about to die, and then she remembered what had happened yesterday and decided that something in her was already dead anyway.
Instead of getting dressed, she got back into bed and curled herself into a small miserable ball at the thought of all the days that would make up the rest of her life, and how she’d spend them without Jack. Then she wondered how she could still love him after everything he’d done. Maybe loving him, despite all his many faults and shortcomings, was preferable to being alone. The most time she’d ever spent on her own was maybe forty-eight hours, and usually it was just the journey to and from school and the two hours before Jack came home.
How did single people manage without anyone to talk to or share the washing-up with? They couldn’t all live in flat-shares, so some of them must have to spend serious time on their own. Not Hope’s brand of alone-time when she took lots of hot baths and ate chocolate, but days upon days of alone-time because they had no other choice. How was she going to get through the next week without even the distraction of teaching?
Another text message from her mother was a salient reminder that she wasn’t going to be alone. Why haven’t you replied to my last text message? Have you left for the station? Best to get there early, just in case. Love Mum (and Dad)
It was nine thirty. Hope had only forty minutes. She got dressed in what she could find on the floor, which were jeans, a green T-shirt, which was speckled with poster paint, and her red cardigan – and yes, the whole ensemble clashed and she wasn’t wearing a bra and she’d gone back to bed with damp hair so it was sticking up in all directions, but it would have to do.
The lack of bra meant that Hope couldn’t run to the tube but she arrived at Euston only five minutes after Jeremy’s train, which surely wasn’t late enough for him to have already been spirited away by white-slave traders.
He hadn’t been. He was sitting on a huge rucksack in the middle of the concourse, looking utterly miserable. Welcome to my world, Hope thought as she plastered a smile on her face and hurried towards him.
Jeremy had gone emo since she’d seen him briefly last Easter, except he was too ruddy-faced for the guyliner and his thighs were far too beefy for skinny jeans, which might have been why the crotch was somewhere around his knees as he stood up. He’d also grown at least six inches in as many months and towered over Hope.
‘You’re late,’ he grumbled, shying away as Hope tried to hug him.
‘Only five minutes,’ she said, as she settled for squeezing his arm instead. ‘Did you have a good journey? It’s so good to see you! We’re going to have so much fun!’
Jeremy pulled a face. ‘I didn’t want to come. Mum made me. I could have stayed home and been responsible and not wrecked the house. ‘Sides, my best mate is having a party and everyone’s going, except me.’
Hope wasn’t sure how she was going to get through seven days of Jeremy’s adolescent, high-school melodrama. ‘You think you’ve got problems?’ she wanted to scream at him. ‘I’ll give you problems!’
But then again, Mrs Delafield had obviously woken him up at the merest sliver of dawn to catch the seven o’clock train and emo teenagers needed a lot of sleep, so he couldn’t really be blamed.
‘Yeah, but you get to spend the week in London,’ she reasoned, gesturing at him to pick up his backpack because there was no way in hell that she was carrying it. ‘That’s pretty cool, and we’ll take loads of photos for you to post on Facebook and they’ll all be dead jealous.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’ Jeremy sniffed. ‘So, can we go to the skate shop in Covent Garden and then get some sushi?’
At the mention of sushi, Hope gagged, though she tried to pretend it was a cough. ‘Why don’t we go home and dump your stuff first?’ she suggested brightly. ‘I haven’t been shopping because I don’t know what you like to eat, so we should probably hit up Morrisons at some stage.’
Jeremy’s scowl kicked up a notch. ‘I can go to Morrisons in Rochdale!’
‘OK, we’ll go to Waitrose then,’ Hope said and by now her smile and her temper were wearing pretty thin.
Thankfully, a brief trip on the tube was a welcome distraction. Jeremy refused to sit down or indicate in any way that he and Hope were together, even though it was too soon for him to have mastered the art of standing up and not holding on to anything.
At least when they got to Holloway the eclectic mix of bookies, greasy spoons, dodgy pubs and shops selling discount toiletries, household items and tacky clothing met with Jeremy’s approval. When you lived in a small village outside Rochdale and the most thrilling event in the local calendar was the monthly Youth Club disco, the Holloway Road was positively exotic.
Jeremy’s happiness didn’t last long. As soon as he walked through the door of the flat, his face screwed up. ‘It’s really small. I didn’t think it would be this small,’ he complained, because he had no freaking idea about London property prices and how the cost of this ‘really small’ flat would have bought Hope and Jack a three-bedroomed house back North. And talk of the devil. ‘Where’s Jack?’
Hope stared at him, her mind racing. ‘Well, he’s not here. Um, he’s working this weekend and we decided it’d be best if he stayed at a friend’s while you were down. I mean, you’re right. The flat is really small.’
It was obvious she was lying. Obvious unless you were a self-obsessed teenager who hero-worshipped your sister’s cool boyfriend who had a cool job on a cool magazine and hooked you up with cool bands that your friends had never heard of, and you didn’t want to believe that the object of your affections didn’t want to spend time with you. ‘But I thought I’d get to hang out with him.’ Jeremy threw down his backpack in a fit of ruddy-cheeked pique. ‘It’s the only reason I agreed to stay with you.’
‘I think Mum would see it differently,’ Hope snapped, because God, she did not need this. ‘You know, Jerry, you might actually enjoy yourself if you stopped making such a concerted effort to pick holes in everything.’
‘Jez.’
‘Jez what?’
‘Jez, that’s my name. No one calls me Jerry. Old men are called Jerry.’
Their mother had called Jeremy – sorry, Jez – ‘Jerry’ repeatedly during her phone call the previous Sunday, but Hope decided not to share that. ‘Jez?’ She tested out the word. It didn’t suit him at all. ‘OK, Jez. You’re here for a week. Might as well make the best of it.’
‘So, when’s Jack coming back then?’
‘Not sure,’ Hope said. ‘You get settled in and I’ll ring him.’
Once Jeremy was settled with a cup of tea and a mound of toast and jam, Hope cloistered herself in the bedroom to ring Jack. Except, it was hard to ring someone whose phone had been smashed to pieces less than twenty-four hours ago.
She had to settle for ringing round Jack’s friends, who claimed to have no knowledge of his whereabouts, but the sheer hostility and disapproval in their voices made it painfully obvious that they knew exactly where he was and were Team Jack all the way. Only Otto was a little more forthcoming.
‘But you smashed his iPhone, Hopey,’ he explained tremulously. ‘I mean, was there really any need to do that?’
‘It was a heat-of-the-moment thing,’ Hope said through gritted teeth, because as far as she knew iPhones were replaceable, hearts weren’t. ‘Compared to what Jack’s done to me, I think he got off pretty lightly, don’t you? I mean, I’m in bloody pieces over wh—’
‘Yes, well, don’t want to get into that. Conflict of interest, you know?’
Hope ground her teeth harder. ‘Where is he?’ she asked baldly. ‘If you know that I smashed his iPhone then you must have spoken to him recently, and you also know what I’m capable of doing to you, if you insist on withholding information.’
‘I think he’s staying with a friend.’
‘Which friend?’
‘You know which friend,’ Otto muttered unwillingly. ‘And don
’t say you heard it from me.’
Of course Jack was staying with Susie. Why sleep on a friend’s sofa, when he could sleep with Susie and have wild, experimental sex on tap?
Even though she’d deleted Susie’s number from her phone, Hope’s fingers tapped over the right keys in the right order without her even having to think about it. If she had stopped to think about it, then the very last thing she’d want to do was to call Susie. So far, all her rage had been focused on Jack, but Hope was sure that she still had vast, untapped pools of rage ready to unleash in Susie’s direction once she got her second wind.
Susie obviously hadn’t deleted Hope from her phone because she answered warily, as if Hope’s name had flashed up and given her a nasty fright.
‘Is he there?’ Hope demanded, ignoring Susie’s ‘Hello?’ because she wasn’t ringing for a chat. ‘I need to talk to him.’
She heard Susie’s sharp intake of breath. ‘Hang on.’ Hope strained her ears to catch the muffled conversation, but she couldn’t make out even a single word, unless the word was fllggpmhwrt. ‘I’m sorry, he can’t come to the phone right now,’ Susie eventually said, like she was a secretary refusing to put an irate caller through to her boss. ‘Is there a message?’
‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Hope snapped. ‘Put him on the line.’
There was another indecipherable exchange of words. ‘He says he doesn’t want to speak to you,’ Susie relayed. Hope felt a momentary flash of embarrassment that Susie had been put in the untenable position of piggy-in-the-middle. Then again, it was the very least that Susie deserved.
‘Tell him that Jeremy’s down for the week and that he promised he’d take him out on Monday and Tuesday,’ Hope said tightly. ‘I need to know if he’s going to turn up or if he’s going to break that promise as well and let down my baby brother who actually seems to be looking forward to spending time with him.’