Chances (16 page)

‘Ouch,’ she said. How come he didn’t go hopping mad in the garden?

‘I’m still not cutting down your pear tree,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she shrugged. Hand him his tea, Vita, he’s earned it. ‘Here you go.’ She would have liked to dab the sting on his arm. Don’t look at his arm.

They stood; him with his back to the kitchen door, her with her back to the stove, blowing into the mugs, sipping.

‘Well, I’d better push off,’ he said.

‘Would you like a biscuit?’

‘Thank you very much.’

They ate biscuits, two each. They kept glancing out of the window as if the pear tree was trying to say something.

‘I hope that helps,’ he said.

‘Me too.’

‘Right. Right – I’d better be off, then.’

‘OK,’ said Vita, wondering about the wine, the wife.

‘Good luck,’ he said.

‘Hope your sting is OK,’ said Vita.

‘Occupational hazard,’ he said and they both laughed a bit too much.

‘Thanks very much,’ said Vita, opening the front door.

‘Goodnight, Miss W.’

And, when it came, Vita’s voice was both shy yet playful. ‘Goodnight, Mr B.’

But, when he’d gone, she felt contemplative and a little melancholy.

Will his wife use vinegar on his sting?

All those
Unhelpful Thoughts
Post-its had a new purpose now.

Oliver woke in the soft silent hours, jolted out of dreamless nothingness by a single word.

Wasps.

He lay there, sensing how his heartbeat had quickened.

It wasn’t his voice that had said it. It had sounded like DeeDee.

The sting on his arm throbbed, so he put on the light and inspected it. Just a regular wasp sting, really. Christ, the little fuckers could be spiteful. Was it purely the discomfort that had woken him? He sat up for a while, read a few pages of some book about vampires that Jonty had told him was wicked. It was relatively raunchy in places. He started wondering whether this was entirely suitable reading for his boy. And then he remembered back being fourteen, fifteen. It wasn’t books he’d read to get off on, it was top-shelf magazines smuggled into school and hired out at 50p for two nights.

Wasps.

That word had been so emphatic, so out loud.

He went for a pee, rifled around the medicine cabinet and dobbed on antiseptic cream he knew wouldn’t really help. Poor Girl With The Pear Tree, he thought. She’d been stung all over. He went back to bed. It was stupid o’clock and he’d be knackered tomorrow. He switched off the light and waited and waited for sleep.

It was hopeless.

‘What did you mean –
wasps
?’ he said into the lonely darkness of the room.

The answer swept over him suddenly, like a chill. He sat up again, flicked on the light.

No?

     Really?

          Those?

Oliver sat a while longer, thinking he’d think about it in the morning. But it was useless. He’d have to go and check, otherwise he’d never get to sleep. He pulled on a sweatshirt, tucked his pyjama bottoms into socks and padded out of his bedroom. Down the stairs he went, to the back door, taking a torch from the kitchen drawer on the way. He eased his feet into boots, slipped on a jacket, flicked the torch on and went out into the garden.

It was a large garden and he really hadn’t been out there for a long time. This was the second summer. It had always been DeeDee’s domain and since she’d been gone, he simply hadn’t known what to do with it. When she was alive, he’d come out and everything would be just so – the borders rolling with health all year round. The lawn, sweeping in gentle curves around the beds. Garden furniture in which they’d while away long, chatty evenings and entire weekends. Bonfires in the autumn. Fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Pots on the patio fragrant with herbs throughout the seasons, troughs hosting a fanfare of spring bulbs and later, a tumble of summer colour, a festive display of white and red at Christmas. Show Oliver any leaf, a slither of bark and he will name that tree in Latin in an instant. Plants and flowers, though, were a foreign language, one in which DeeDee had been fluent. How she’d teased him for his clumsy descriptions – Small pink one, he’d say. The blueish stuff over there. The red droopy whatsit. The one that smells like chocolate. That tall thing with purple spiky bits. That’ll be lavender, DeeDee would say, as if to an imbecile. They both knew he did it on purpose, year in year out. But it had been part of their dance, their harmony, over the seasons.

And here he is, in the garden for the first time in a long, long while. It’s very late. Or very early. He feels like a bit of an idiot. Surely it could have waited until morning? But here he is, all the same.

Even through boots, the lawn feels terrible, all divots and dinks, the grass unkempt and thatchy. He’s grateful it’s so dark – no doubt the state of the herbaceous borders would be utterly depressing. He walks to the back of the garden where, between two larch trees, it opens out again. It was this area that had sold the house to DeeDee. It’s a secret garden, she’d said to Oliver. It’s a mangy old orchard, he’d said to her. But he’d tended it and the trees had fruited well. Apples and plums and damsons. But my God, the wasps! And that’s why Oliver is out there now, because in the middle of the night he’d remembered his own wasps, and what his wife had done about them.

He walks to the trees, there are only eight of them. The torch spins a ghostly hue over the trunks and boughs. He ricks his ankle as his foot slides over a fallen apple. The torchlight picks out the scatter of windfall fruit on the ground. He directs the beam up into the branches. There they are. He’s found what he’d forgotten about. There they are, glinting in the light. He reaches up high and takes one down, inspects it with the torch. It is absolutely disgusting. Really vile. The clean-up, though, can wait until the morning. For now, he’ll just collect them up – six, seven, eight of them – and leave them by the back door.

Suzie was beside herself. She was literally pulling her hair out; twisting frond after frond around and between her fingers, tugging anxiously until strands broke free, some with the follicles intact, littering her lap. Where was Tim? Where in holy God’s name was he? He wasn’t at home, he wasn’t answering his mobile. Why hadn’t he called? Why wasn’t he here? Why was his phone off? Where was he? It had been on, late afternoon – it had rung and rung and then gone through to voicemail, but at least it had been
on
. She’d left a larky message or two, she’d sent a couple of funny texts, but she’d heard nothing. Now she’d left an arsey message – and followed that with a conciliatory one saying, Tim, supper’s ready, I’m the dessert and you can provide the creamy topping.

He was meant to be here. He was meant to be coming over. He’d said he’d be here when she’d reminded him this morning, when she’d left his place. They’d spoken at lunch-time when he said his meeting in London was wrapping up. And since then – nothing. Her housemate was out – Suzie had cajoled her into staying elsewhere tonight. The meal was cooked – proper posh steak and lots of trimmings. She’d preened herself really nicely, had her nails done in her lunch hour, bought a new top, changed her bed linen, put flowers on the table. Recently, she’d been working on developing the domestic side to their relationship; suggesting nights in and trips to the cinema to balance out the dehydration of all those evenings in the pub drinking too much and talking shite. But now he was over an hour late. Where the hell was he? And why was his phone
off
? He wouldn’t be with Vita, would he?

By eleven o’clock, Suzie wasn’t so much angry as utterly deflated. There’d been no word from Tim and she’d given up trying to reach him.

And then she thought, What if I phone Vita? Just to put my mind at rest?

She’d made a note of Vita’s number – at the time, she hadn’t known why it felt so important to do so. But tonight, it seemed to make sense. She withheld her number and dialled.

‘Hullo?’ Vita’s voice was sleepy and sober and as Suzie pressed her ear hard against the handset, she was able to detect that Vita really did sound alone. There was no background noise. There was no need for this phone call. Suzie felt humiliated to have had to make it. Vita had long since hung up. Suzie listened for a while to the tone on the dead line and thought back to those nights when Tim had been out with her before Vita had left him; when he didn’t phone home, when he’d choose to stay with her. Suzie had experienced some skewed ego boost back then – interpreting the way he acted as a sign of him being
so
into her that his home life didn’t cross his mind. This evening, she hadn’t thought to worry whether he was all right, whether he’d had an accident, whether something was wrong. Deep down, her dominant vibe was that Tim was up to something. Just then, Suzie wondered whether this was her comeuppance, whether this was payback. For an even more ephemeral split second, she wondered whether it was sympathy she now felt for Vita. But she cancelled all such thoughts, tried Tim one final time and then went to bed in full make-up, desperately upset.

Suzie slept fitfully, jolting awake to check her phone, to listen to every car she heard driving up the street, wondering if it was a cab with Tim in it. She felt very cold when it was time to rise, though outside the sky was already cloudless. She took the bus to work, hopping off two or three stops early, compelled to make a specific detour, to walk a route she’d normally avoid. She scanned all the cars she passed – moving or parked in the side streets – in case Tim’s should be one of them. Where the shops started, she slowed right down. She crossed the road though her eyes were fixed over to the other side. But it wasn’t Tim’s car parked outside That Shop, just a small delivery van with hazards flashing, a couple of scooters in the designated bay. Suzie walked on. Then she crossed the road, retraced the route and walked right past the shop, glancing in. She was in such a dither she couldn’t actually see what or who was in there. She kept walking, turned and walked back past again. This time she stopped right outside and stared hard into That Shop.

Vita was reading. She was about to finish the Waugh and start another. She could sense someone was looking at the window display but until they came into the shop, it wasn’t worth her while interrupting the flow of the chapter. But gosh, they were standing there a long time. She put her finger over her place and looked up and knew, in that split second of eye contact, that it was Suzie staring straight at her. This was the closest they’d ever been. They held each other’s gaze for a moment, a slew of thoughts racketing through each of their minds. Then Suzie walked away, her head down and her shoulders hunched, and Vita wondered what on earth had just happened. But then she thought, I know that deportment. And she thought, That was me – Tim’s girlfriend distraught. And for a little while her emotions conflicted between Serves you right, to You poor old thing, what’s he been up to? She remembered the soliloquies she’d rehearsed when she’d first found out about Suzie – some had been diatribes against Tim as if to enlighten Suzie just what she was taking on. Others were lyrical declarations, somewhat exaggerated, of all the loveliness Tim had ever bestowed upon her. Both were intended to see Suzie off. Neither type had been thought about, let alone practised, for a long while. She wasn’t going to start now. There was a very different Waugh to hand and Vita was going to absorb herself in those vile bodies instead.

‘Oh my God – Dad, that is
beyond
gross.’ Jonty made an extravagant display of fake vomiting the next morning.

‘Not a pretty sight, I’ll grant you,’ Oliver said.

He and Jonty were looking at the eight wasp catchers. They were made of glass, transparent but with a greenish tinge, with metal loops from which they’d hang. A cork in the neck. They resembled old-fashioned honey pots. But, currently, the bodies of the traps were filled with two summers’ worth of dead wasps and some kind of noxious slime.

‘What are you going to do with them?’ Jonty asked, still retching theatrically but helpless not to be fascinated and thus inspecting them closely. ‘I don’t think you can put them in the recycling like that!’

‘No,’ said Oliver, ‘no. But I’ll clean them out – it’s not a pleasant task, but it’s easy enough. And then I thought I would indeed recycle them.’

‘I’d just chuck them, if I were you.’

Oliver smiled. ‘No. I am going to recycle them.’ He paused, wanting to be able to judge his son’s expression when he said what he was to say next. ‘I thought I’d give them to – that lady.’ That’s how Jonty had referred to her, wasn’t it.
Dad, there’s a lady here who has a huge problem.

Jonty looked at his father and then back at the wasp traps. Then he nodded. ‘I think that would be – most chivalrous.’

And then they went to work and spoke of it no more.

‘It’s chemical, V; fancying him is purely chemical,’ Michelle said on the phone. ‘It’s intoxicating – the frisson, the attraction – it’s intoxicating because it’s purely chemical. But you’ll just have to remember that wedding ring – divorcees don’t wear wedding rings. This Oliver guy has his own Vita at home. You’re his potential Suzie. Is that who you want to be? Do you want the next man in your life to have Tim’s principles?’

‘You’re right. I know,’ said Vita, deflated. ‘And no – I don’t.’

‘On the plus side – whatever Tim did do to you, he didn’t damage you because you haven’t become a bitter and twisted man-hater. You know right from wrong. So, while I know you’re disappointed – and those chemicals are surging – you’ll just have to let them abate.’

‘I am a terrible judge of character,’ said Vita. ‘Useless.’

‘I don’t think so. You just need to take note of
facts
from the outset, not feelings.’

I must put that on a Post-it.
Facts, not feelings
.

‘So any man I now meet, I have to say, Are you married and what’s your position on infidelity?’

‘Er, no – you’ll have them running for the hills,’ Michelle laughed. ‘You’ll learn to look for the signs, V, you’ll listen to your intuition.’

Vita went quiet. ‘But my intuition told me Oliver is a genuinely good guy. See – I
can’t
trust my intuition and I
am
a poor judge of character.’

‘You need to train yourself to be a good judge of poor characters.’

Vita would be writing that one on a Post-it too.

Oliver found it odd. He found it very, very strange. He didn’t wonder if it was a good sign or not, he didn’t read into possible reasons, he just decided it was odd, full stop. There had been two or three emails in the secret account for Pete Yorke, with offers of unbridled shagging and the fantastic contradiction of ‘no-strings bondage’. Jonty was out with his mates all day and it would certainly be easy for Oliver. But no, he chose to forgo the option of mind-numbing sex for the revolting job of removing the dead wasps from the traps. He took the jars onto the driveway, uncorked them, rigged up the hose, set the nozzle to the high-pressured jet and blasted the detritus out. What a way to while away a Saturday, he thought as he balanced them on the grass to dry out. They looked as good as new, though. They’d make a great gift.

He decided to take them to That Shop. He even parked and bought a pay-and-display ticket for an hour. But he didn’t leave the car park. He sat in the car for a while, giving himself a hundred reasons why not to go in, finally choosing the fact that it was Saturday and the shop would be very busy and she might not be there anyway. He returned home. He felt stupid, deluded and low. Then he pulled himself together, sat down at the computer, went to the Hotmail inbox and emailed saucysam69 to say if it’s not too short notice, how about tonight.

On Sunday afternoon, Oliver went out. He drove to Vita’s house and walked up the path with the wasp catchers in a cardboard box. She’s probably not in, he thought to himself, but I may as well ring the bell.

Vita had seen him pull up and had been flattening herself against the wall since then, as if hiding from a gun-toting madman. The doorbell went. And, after an interval, went again. And Vita thought to herself, I won’t let him in but I do need to tell him what’s what because he oughtn’t to come here again. As she went to the door, she did wonder why he wasn’t at home having Sunday lunch with his family. Then she thought about her own mum and felt very bad indeed. But she qualified this – if she wasn’t being a very good daughter, he was being a dreadful husband and father.

She opened the door. He was walking away.

‘Sorry,’ she said, wondering at her choice of word.

He turned and smiled and came towards her. She was in shorts and a Ramones T-shirt and Oliver thought how nice her knees were. She noted that he was in normal clothes: soft khaki trousers and a white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up. She told herself to stare either between his eyebrows or at the small button on one of the collar tips.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t sure if you were in.’

It was obvious she was in so there was nothing either of them could add to that.

‘I brought these for you,’ he said, and they both looked into the cardboard box. ‘They’re wasp catchers. They work really well. You just fill them with a mixture of sweet stuff – I recommend jam and beer – and the wasps are lured to a sticky end.’

Vita looked at the eight glass jars. What on earth was she meant to say now?

‘It’s very kind,’ she said, ‘but I think you ought to keep them.’

‘No – really – they’re for you.’

‘I don’t want them, though.’ Vita sounded suddenly strident and they both looked up from the box and straight at each other.

‘No?’ Oliver looked a little hurt. And lovely at the same time.

‘No. Thank you,’ said Vita, looking away. She wasn’t happy, but reluctantly, she summonsed images of Michelle and Candy, imagining them standing behind her, arms crossed like bodyguards.

‘They work,’ Oliver said, not having expected this response, ‘honestly.’

Vita stared hard at the little button on his collar tip. He shifted the box a little and the sun caught on his wedding band, shooting a glint straight to Vita. ‘Thank you for coming and for the trap things but I don’t think you should come to my house again and don’t worry I’ll find someone else to do the tree when it’s time but I ask you not to come here again thanks.’ She hadn’t paused for breath and she then stood there, regretting everything she’d just said but knowing reluctantly that it all had to be said.

He just stood there, with his box of tricks.

She backed into her house. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Anyway – bye.’

Vita shut the door and sloped into the kitchen, sat at the table with her head in her hands and thought, Oh for God’s sake, can’t I just have a bloody break.

How can doing the right thing feel so soul destroying?

Don’t I deserve a knight in shining armour by now?

This had not been a good weekend for Oliver. He returned home embarrassed and pissed off with the world at large. He thought he’d been ready – ready to give wasp traps to a girl he liked. He thought, subsequently, that he was an idiot. He thought of how he’d girded his widower’s courage – of what had been wholesome intent, but also of the battle of wills he’d fought to do the right thing, at a time that finally seemed right for him, for DeeDee, for Vita. And he thought, now, how wrong he’d been. He also thought he’d have the house to himself when he returned. He wasn’t expecting Jonty back until supper-time but his son was home already, watching his dad come up the drive carrying a cardboard box.

‘Jont?’

‘I twisted my ankle playing cricket.’

‘Crikey – you want some frozen peas on that.’ Thank God for something else to think about. ‘Sit yourself down, keep your leg up. Flick on the telly – I’ll bring them in to you.’

‘You OK, Dad?’

‘Yes?’

‘You seem—’

‘I’m fine. I’m fine. Let’s watch – something.’

‘What’s in the box?’

‘What box?’

‘The one you were carrying in from the car.’

‘Oh. That box. Just those – wasp traps.’

‘Did you take them, then? To that lady?’

Oliver thought, I could lie to my son to save my own face. And then he thought, What’s the point of that?

‘I did.’

‘She wasn’t in?’

They was no way out of this conversation. ‘She didn’t want them. I don’t know why. Women are strange.’

‘That’s what Mum used to say to you – when she wanted something or had done something or didn’t want to do something.’

‘She did, didn’t she?’ Oliver laughed gently at the memory.

Jonty watched his father fiddling absent-mindedly with his wedding ring. ‘Anyway, it was a wasted journey. She told me to buzz off.’

Jonty rearranged the pack of peas pensively on his ankle. ‘Dad – did you tell her? That the wasp catchers are ours?’

‘No. They look good as new, now.’

‘I don’t mean that. You didn’t tell her they were Mum’s?’

‘No, Jonty, I certainly did not.’

‘But Dad – I think. Can’t you see? I can.’

‘Jonty, you’re not making sense. Can we just drop it now? Oh look, a
Mr Bean
is on.’

‘But Dad – it’s sort of down to me. It’s sort of my fault.’

‘
Sort of
is lazy language.’

‘She knows you have a son, right? She met me at the yard, right?’

Oliver looked at his boy blankly.

‘So – if I was her, I’d assume I have a mum, then. If you see what I mean. What I’m saying is – she probably assumes you have a wife as well as a son.’

Oliver stopped looking at the television and cast his gaze outside to the garden he never went out in.

Jonty, you’ll always always have that mum of yours. As long as you live.

‘You wear your wedding ring, Dad, when you’re not at work. She probably thinks you’re some weird perv,’ Jonty said.

Oliver thought about it. He looked at his left hand, the band of gold with no beginning, no end. And then he thought, How on earth could his teenage son be so astute, so right?

‘Weird perv,’ Oliver said quietly. ‘Charming.’

‘I could have said weird
old
perv, Dad,’ said Jonty, ‘so there.’

‘Can we watch
Mr Bean
now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘
Yes
.’

‘Yes. But you should take them again, the wasp catchers – and just tell her.’