‘I thought it was just going to be this Wilson bloke and that Alfie.’ Jeremy turned accusing eyes on his sister. ‘You never said there’d be so many people.’
‘I didn’t know myself.’ Hope looked around the cavernous space and tried to spot Wilson when a tall, lanky youth detached himself from the throng and loped over.
‘Jez, right?’ he grunted. ‘Alfie. We’re about to hang the backdrop. It’s white. Are your hands clean?’
They were spotless because Hope had stood over Jeremy and made him go to town with a bar of soap and a nailbrush, so Jeremy grunted in the affirmative and trotted off with Alfie without even a backward glance at Hope or a goodbye. Now Hope knew what it felt like to be one of those mothers who couldn’t let go on the first day of the school year.
‘Ring and let me know how you’re getting on,’ she called after Jeremy, who finally turned round and gave her a positively demonic glare.
Hope didn’t hear from Jeremy for the rest of the day, so she supposed that he was getting on all right. Or else he wasn’t getting on and had already been fired and was too scared to tell her.
She eventually got a text from him at six: working l8. W wll drv me back 2 urs. Instead of occupying her alone-time by crying or phoning Jack and begging him to come home, Hope did her workshop homework and wrote a short dramatic scene that would make full use of thirty six-year-olds but not tax their tiny brains. Then she did have a little cry when she retrieved a pair of Jack’s socks that had ended up under the bed. But before the little cry could upgrade to a big ugly cry she dutifully called both her grandmas for a catch-up, but mostly listened to them complain about their various ailments and by then it was eight o’clock and Jeremy still wasn’t home and hadn’t replied to the seven text messages she’d sent him.
There was nothing to do but try Jack’s mobile, which insisted ‘this number is temporarily unavailable’. Then she called his work extension to see if he was still at the office, but he wasn’t, and Hope even contemplated calling Susie to see if he was there, though she didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. Didn’t know what she could say to him that would make him change his mind. There wasn’t much else Hope could do except let the pain roll over her, but then Lauren called to see how she was holding up. ‘I’m barely holding up,’ Hope told her but it took another hour to describe in detail all the ways that she was barely holding up and when Lauren finally rang off Hope realised it was half past nine. She was just about to put on her shoes so she could drive down to the studio to retrieve Jeremy and give Wilson a stern lecture on child-labour laws, when there was a ring on the bell.
As she opened the door she heard a car horn beep and saw Wilson drive away but she was more interested in the blissed-out expression on Jeremy’s face. He hadn’t looked that happy since Christmas 1998 when he’d received all four Teletubbies and a blue tricycle with a bell.
‘How did it go?’ she asked, as she shut the door behind him.
‘It was a-maaa-zing,’ came the reply. ‘It was, like, the most awesome day of my whole entire life. God, I’ve got so much to tell you!’
Jeremy talked for over an hour, pausing only to demolish a packet of Penguins and drink two mugs of tea. He’d spent the day fetching and carrying and lugging, had learned all about light meters and Coloramas, and he’d hung out with five bands ‘and they weren’t at all up themselves’. And despite Wilson’s ban on Jeremy having his photo taken in close proximity to any musician, Jeremy showed Hope a fistful of Polaroids of him snuggling up to all five bands, all taken by Wilson as he supposedly tested out the lighting.
It was all ‘Wilson says’ and ‘Alfie thinks’, and there wasn’t a murmur of protest when it got to eleven and Hope told Jeremy to go to bed because he had another six a.m. start the next day. On the contrary, there was a spontaneous hug and an effusive, ‘Thanks for setting this up, Hopey. You’re the best sister ever.’
The next morning when she dropped Jeremy off, minus guyliner and hair products because ‘Alfie says that girls aren’t into all that’, Hope did see Wilson. Or at least she assumed it was Wilson because it looked exactly like him, but the man in question was simultaneously checking something on a MacBook, fiddling with something that Hope thought might be a light meter, and chatting away to three people, and he had a broad smile on his face. It was most disconcerting, but Hope had never seen Wilson in his natural habitat before, only in social situations when he seemed entirely ill at ease. The ear-to-ear grin and relaxed stance suited him a lot better, Hope decided – he looked almost friendly. She wondered whether she should go and say hello but then they were waylaid by the famous Alfie, who spirited Jeremy off to find an extra ladder, and Hope felt like she couldn’t just march over to Wilson when he was obviously busy.
At least it meant that Hope could attend the second day of the drama workshop with a lighter heart and a less distracted head. Though she wouldn’t admit it to Dorothy, when she was inevitably grilled about it the following Monday morning, it had been very useful.
Hope had learned that it didn’t matter what she got the Red Class to do because they’d muck it up anyway but they’d look so cute while they were mucking it up that no one would care. The attendees had also shared tips on how to rope reluctant parents into making costumes and helping out backstage, had had a two-hour pub lunch, which was light on the lunch and heavy on the alcohol, and when they’d got back to the stuffy conference room in Marble Arch, they’d taken turns brainstorming each other’s drama crises.
Hope was a lot happier (or less panic-stricken, in her current emotional state, happier was pushing it) about the Winter Pageant, now she had plans to make Yellow Class tell the story of Chanukah through the medium of song and force nine of them to become a human menorah.
Even better, two of the other workshoppers, Michael and Elise, were from a school in Newham, and they’d made plans to all meet up in a couple of weeks’ time. After all, Hope had a vacancy on the friend front and neither Michael nor Elise, who were a couple, seemed like the type who’d run off with Hope’s boyfriend. Hope couldn’t bear to think about whether she still had a boyfriend but if, no, when Jack came back to her, it would be good if all her friends were so reliable that she’d never have to worry about leaving Jack alone in a room with them.
‘We should get together for a drink. Bring your mob along,’ Michael had said when they all finally piled out of the conference room and stood out on the street, gratefully breathing in huge lungfuls of fresh air. It was starting to get properly cold now, with that crisp, pre-frost nip in the air that always made Hope feel excited because it promised Halloween sweets, fireworks and three-week Christmas holidays. ‘We can swap war stories.’
Hope was planning to go home and make Jeremy a proper tea so he wouldn’t tell Mrs Delafield that he’d been surviving on a diet of toast, pizza, crisps and chocolate, because he so would – their mother would winkle the information out of him in five minutes – when she got a text:
Just fnshing up. Pls com & get me. Can i go 2 gig wiv Alfie on Fri? Pls! Pls!
Hope sighed and set off to catch the C2 from Oxford Circus. When she got to Wilson’s studio, it was still a hive of activity but it was like a rewind of the hustle and bustle of yesterday morning. There was still the same crew of lanky young men in skinny T-shirts and sloppy jeans, but this time they were dismantling the lighting rigs, rolling up the backdrops and hefting huge flight cases down the stairs. The caterers were collecting empty plates and dirty cups from the trestle table and the stylists were packing away outfits in garment bags.
Hope stood uncertainly by the door, not wanting to get in anyone’s way, as she tried to spot Jeremy. Then she saw him standing on the top rung of a ladder doing something with a screwdriver and the room swung wildly around her. She had such bad vertigo that even going down a flight of stairs or looking up at a tall building gave her a headrush and a nauseous feeling, but Jeremy was obviously made of stronger stuff.
She hurried over, all ready to st
art clucking at him to come down RIGHT NOW before he broke his neck, but before she could get there and clutch hold of Jeremy’s leg to save him, she was intercepted by Wilson.
Hope blinked at him unsteadily because he was still smiling and it was slightly unsettling. ‘All right?’ he enquired cheerfully by way of greeting, which was even more unsettling.
‘I’m fine,’ Hope said distractedly, turning her attention back to Jeremy, who’d now seen her and was waving happily, when he should have been concentrating on not falling from a great height. ‘Is it safe up there? Don’t you think he should probably come down? Like, now.’
Wilson glanced over. ‘He’s been up and down ladders all day. Got a head for heights.’
‘I can’t even climb on a chair to change a lightbulb or hang a pair of curtains. I start hyperventilating and crying actual tears,’ Hope admitted. ‘Are you sure he’s OK?’
‘Don’t fuss. He’s fine.’ Wilson nodded. ‘Jerry’s a good kid, and because Alfie wanted to be top dog, he got off his lazy arse and behaved himself. It all worked out really well,’ he added in a tone of mild incredulity, as if he’d doubted that it would work out at all.
Hope took a while to process this. ‘Jerry?’ she queried. ‘He’s back to calling himself Jerry now? Right. I’ll have to remember that.’
Wilson grinned and Hope thought that it was a pity that he kept this sunny, smiley version of himself so carefully hidden. ‘When I really want to piss off Alfie, I call him Alfred in front of everyone. Works every time.’ He touched Hope lightly on the arm. ‘There was money in the shoot budget for another assistant so I slipped Jerry a few quid.’
‘That’s really nice of you, but he’s had such a good time, I think he wouldn’t have minded paying you.’
The grin disappeared and Wilson shifted uncomfortably. ‘I gave him two hundred.’
‘Two hundred! I thought we were in the grip of the worst recession since the 1930s!’ Hope exclaimed. ‘I’m going to charge him rent.’
This time they grinned at each other and it lasted ten companionable seconds before things reverted back to their more usual awkward state.
‘Look …’
‘So …’
‘You go first …’
‘Sorry, you were saying …’
Wilson gestured with his arm to indicate that Hope had the floor. ‘I just wanted to thank you for letting Jeremy spend the last couple of days here. He was having such a rotten time and it’s really cheered him up.’
‘Don’t mention it. Like I said, the kid was a big help.’
Be that as it may, and Hope doubted that Jeremy’s tea-and toast-making abilities had passed muster, reparations needed to be made.
‘Well, I am grateful and it needs mentioning,’ she insisted. ‘And we, Jeremy and I – well, would you and Alfie have tea with us on Friday?’
The frown on Wilson’s face was much more familiar than the grinning and the smiling. ‘Tea as in dinner?’
Hope nodded. She’d lived down South for five years now, but dinner would always be tea, as far as she was concerned.
The frown deepened. ‘Are you having another dinner party?’
‘No! Not ever, ever again.’ Hope winced. ‘I was thinking I could take us all out for a curry on Friday evening if you’re not too busy. Alfie as well.’
‘We can’t,’ said a plaintive voice behind her. ‘There’s a gig. I texted you.’
‘You were very short on details,’ Hope said, relieved that Jeremy was back on solid ground, even if he was being exceedingly whiny. ‘What gig? Where? What time does it end?’
Two of the bands that Wilson had shot were playing Friday night at the Forum, at the other end of Kentish Town. Alfie and Jeremy were on the guest list, there was talk of backstage passes and an unprompted promise that Jeremy would steer clear of the moshpit.
It was a scenario that would have had her mother going into conniptions at the thought of her baby going to a rock concert in the company of a boy with a pierced nose, two tattoos and jeans slung so low that Hope could see his red pants. She was on the verge of refusing to give permission when she thought back to her own teens and how she’d never bothered to ask her parents if she could go into town to see a band. She’d just pretend that she was going to a sleepover and change on the bus into town while getting absolutely hammered on lime-flavoured Bacardi Breezers. Ah, life had been much simpler back then.
And hadn’t her mother also said that she trusted Hope to use her better judgement if Jeremy wanted to do something liable to cause him bodily harm? To use her better judgement and establish clear-cut boundaries? ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Hope mused, mostly because it made Jeremy pull an imploring face that made him look like about five. ‘No after-show, no stage-diving and absolutely no alcohol. I repeat, no alcohol.’
Jeremy’s face drooped down to his shoes, then he gave a double-take. ‘I can go? Really? You mean it? Is there a catch? There has to be a catch.’
‘No alcohol,’ Hope repeated sternly.
‘Cool,’ Alfie said, hands in the pockets of his jeans. ‘We can be, like, straight-edge for one night.’
Jeremy was happy. Alfie appeared to be happy and Wilson had yet to be thanked adequately. She could still invite Wilson to dinner on Friday night while Jeremy was getting up to all sorts of no good at the Forum, but the thought of sitting opposite him in a restaurant, shoved into the bit with all the other couples out for a romantic evening, seemed to shriek ‘date’. And they’d have to talk to each other for at least ninety minutes, maybe even a couple of hours.
‘We’re going out on Friday,’ Hope announced in such a squeaky voice that all three of them looked at her strangely. ‘To the skate shop in Covent Garden, then I said we’d go to the South Bank and walk down to Tate Modern to see that exhibition with the porcelain sunflower seeds. If you two would like to come as well,’ she added, looking first at Alfie and then Wilson so it was clear which two she meant.
Wilson looked at Alfie who shrugged, then Alfie looked at Wilson who shrugged, then turned to Hope. ‘That would be fine.’
It was all settled, and time to get Jeremy home and force him to eat a hot, nutritionally balanced meal. ‘Great. Well, we’ll see you on Friday. Say, eleven at Covent Garden tube?’
There was more shrugging and nodding before Wilson agreed, and just as Hope thought she was free and clear, Wilson smiled. ‘You and I might as well go out for our tea, while Alfie and Jerry are at the gig absolutely not drinking alcohol.’
HOPE HAD WORRIED that the two days when it was just her and Jeremy would be awkward, and he’d revert back to being sulky and grunting a lot, but he actually turned out to be really good company.
On the Wednesday they went into town so Jeremy could spend his wages before their mother made him put the money in his savings account. He wanted a new pair of non-skinny jeans because ‘Alfie says that even his dad has got a pair of skinny jeans,’ he wanted to get his hair cut in the trendy barber’s in Soho where Alfie went, and he wanted to go to Forbidden Planet to load up on Doctor Who collectibles. Hope felt as if she was getting to know the real Jeremy. Not the annoying toddler, or the spoilt younger brother, or even the whiny teenager, but the person he was slowly becoming who was kind and clever and so funny that he made Hope spit beer all over the table when they went for dim sum in Chinatown and he kept doing sly impressions of their surly waiter.
Thursday was bright and sunny, if nippy, and on a sudden impulse that was carefully nurtured by Jeremy over breakfast, Hope decided to drive to Brighton, even though she hated driving and she particularly hated driving on the motorway.
They poked around the North Laines, where Jeremy spent what was left of his wages on a red military jacket with piping and epaulettes, even though Hope begged him not to. And because they’d driven down and she didn’t have to lug stuff back on the train, she could buy more mismatched crockery, a stack of books and two black vintage dresses, one she could fit into and one she’d be able to fit into once
she lost the extra poundage. Which was going to be a long time coming because she and Jeremy shared a bag of hot doughnuts dipped in sugar at the entrance to the Palace Pier, and after they’d been on all the rides twice, they sat on the beach, huddled together for warmth, and ate haddock and chips liberally doused with vinegar.
Then it was back home, stopping en route to pick up chocolate, crisps, red wine for Hope and full-fat coke for Jeremy, so they didn’t have to move from the sofa while they watched a double bill of Superbad and Napoleon Dynamite.
Yes, they’d had a great time and were fast becoming firm friends, but every night when Jeremy was tucked up on the sofa and Hope was alone in her own bed, which still smelt of Jack because she hadn’t had time to do a wash, she felt as if she’d been hurled at great speed into the very pits of despair. She couldn’t even cry because the walls in the flat were gossamer thin. Instead, Hope would spend the night completely submerged under the duvet, fingers sometimes wedged in her mouth if she felt as if she was about to start sobbing. The secret was to lie very, very still and focus only on the sound of her own ragged breaths and nothing else, because if Hope’s attention wavered or she forgot for just one second what she was trying to forget and stretched out her legs or rolled over, she’d have five blissful seconds of feeling all right and feeling normal, then she’d wonder why Jack wasn’t curled up next to her and she’d have to remember why he wasn’t there and have to experience the pain all over again.
The pain never hurt any less. In fact, it seemed to hurt more, and the only way to squash it down was to get out of bed and pad quietly to the kitchen and make herself a huge cheese and crisp sandwich, which she’d wash down with a large glass of wine.
It was no wonder, then, that on Friday morning Hope was suffering from several nights of sleep deprivation and was having something of a wardrobe dilemma. It was freezing cold, the day was going to feature a lot of walking along the Thames with an icy river breeze tangling up her hair, culminating in a dinner non-date with Wilson, and she couldn’t fit into any of her clothes that had a waistband. Hope meditatively contemplated her muffin top, which had now been upgraded to a spare tyre, then surveyed her tired selection of school-holiday clothes. It was all very uninspiring and Jeremy hammering on the bedroom door and bellowing, ‘We’re going to be late!’ at five-minute intervals wasn’t helping much.