It Could Have Been Her(14)

“Oh,” says the woman, “that’s… sad.”

“Yeah. It is. It’s very sad.”

I can sense that the woman is beginning to feel comfortable with me and I make a move toward the stool on the other side of her table. “Do you mind if I…?”

She shrugs and gives her head a small firm nod.

I sit down. “So, how old is she, your girl?”

“She turned ten in October. She’s a bit of a handful.”

“And is it just you?”

“Yes,” she says, picking up her glass and taking a measured sip from it. “Just us. I mean, Daisy—that’s my daughter—her father is in the picture, but it’s complicated. He, er… well, he has another, er…” She bangs the glass back down on the table and I see a tremor in her hands, her wrists. “He’s married to somebody else. Someone who doesn’t know about us. It’s, um…” She clears her throat. “It’s not ideal.”

I say, “No. No that sounds tough. Really tough. Messy…”

“Yes.” She nods. “Messy. He’s been saying, for years and years and years, that he’ll leave them, that he’ll come to us. But now his other children, they’re virtually grown up, and if anything, he and his wife seem closer than ever. It’s like they’ve fallen back in love with each other. They keep going off on romantic holidays, mini-breaks. Nights out at the theater. And he treats me more and more like I’m the mistake, when he used to make me feel like she was the mistake—the mistake that he got lumbered with, and I was the precious thing he could never have because of the mistake he made with her. And frankly, I think he just wants us to disappear. I actually do. Just disappear. Poof.” She makes a small explosion with her hands that nearly knocks her drink over and she catches it awkwardly in the nick of time. “Urgh,” she says. “Sorry. I have no idea why I’m telling you all this. I don’t even know you.”

“No,” I say measuredly. “But I know you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean—I see you.”

I narrow my eyes at her, trying to judge if I’ve pushed her away or drawn her closer. She veers away from me slightly and eyes me the same way I’m eyeing her.

“What are you talking about?”

“You are on the precipice,” I say, glancing pointedly at her vodka and tonic, “of blowing your whole life apart.”

Her eyes flash suddenly, and I notice, for the first time, that they are green, just like mine.

“It’s not too late. I can help.”

She frowns at me. The line between her brows is deep and hard.

“For a start,” I say, “I can walk your dog for you.”

I glance down at the Westie, who is lying with his chin resting on his front paws, eyeing me warily from beneath patrician eyebrows.

“No,” she says. “Thank you. I can walk my own dog.”

“Ah, but you don’t, do you?”

“Yes,” she says crisply. “I do. I walk him here. I walk him to school. I walk him back. I take him on the Heath twice a day. Plus he has a big garden at home to run around in, so thank you, but he’s fine.”

I nod unconvincedly. “OK,” I say. “Cool.”

The conversation flags for a moment while she gets over her annoyance at me for calling her out on her poor dog parenting.

Then she says, “What about you? Do you live with anyone?”

“Nope,” I say. “Definitely not.” I say this with a hint of regret, which is more than I actually feel. I don’t get lonely. I like my existence, my days divided up into pints of lager, wanders across the Heath, nights on a futon on the attic floor of a very nice squat near the Royal Free Hospital. I can still get sex, if I want it; there are some girls, some women, I’ve known them for years, they’re fine, I don’t have to go searching for it. Thank God. I meditate. I read books about birds. I go to gigs, don’t care who it is, as long as I can afford the ticket. I cut people’s hair for free, or for a little cash in hand. I have friends I see from time to time; I have a brother who has a wife and kids and all the accoutrements. We get on fine. I’m welcome round there for Christmas. So yeah, all in all, I don’t need anyone. I don’t want anyone. I’m doing good.

She raises her brow. “Sounds like there’s a backstory.”

I blow out my cheeks. “Have you got all day?”

She glances at the time on her phone. Half past one. “I’ve got ninety minutes,” she says. “Shall I get us another round?”



* * *



By the time her phone pings at 3 p.m. to remind her to collect her child from school, her eyes are glazed, her speech is slurred. I feel bad for her kid. Who the hell wants a lush of a mother collecting them from school in that state in front of all their mates? I help her into her coat, and make sure she doesn’t forget her mittens. She smiles as she leaves and then she says, “Oh God, I don’t even know your name. I’m Jessamine, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Jessamine. My name is Stuart.”

She waves her mittens at me to show me that she hasn’t forgotten them and sets out unsteadily into the cold December afternoon.