The First Time I Saw Your Face (42 page)

‘Parcel for you, Doug,’ Pat called into the kitchen. She started as she saw Mack come forward to collect it. ‘Ah, heard you were holed up here,’ she said. ‘Why did you come back? Not do enough damage first time?’

Mack gave her his explanation, careful not to sound glib or rehearsed and watched how she took it. There was something of Bryony’s brand of clear-skinned heartiness about her.

‘Don’t know what to think about that,’ she said when he’d finished, ‘but if Doug’s given you house room, well, must be something in it. Good judge of people, Doug.’

‘I’ve … left something … a thing … somewhere,’ Doug gasped before barging out of the room.

When Mack tracked Doug down he was sitting on his bed, staring at the carpet.

‘I’m not sure what kind of sign you’re waiting for from
Pat, but from where I was standing she was giving out a fair few. Paid you a compliment. Smiled at you. Looked disappointed when you left.’ He tentatively placed his hand on Doug’s shoulder. ‘She’s lovely, Doug. Ask her out.’

‘Perhaps you ought to sort your own love life before you start on mine?’ Doug said irritably, casting Mack’s hand away. ‘She’s oot of my league. I blew it again. Bugger off to Tyneforth and see if Jen’s at the library, or get yourself lynched. One or the other.’

By lunchtime Mack had discovered that Jen was not in the library and that not only did a lot of people hate him, most of them seemed to have come into Tyneforth on market day to tell him. In quick succession he saw Angus, who gave him the finger and crossed over the road; Neale, who crossed over the road specifically to give him the finger; and Gerry, who turned around and walked back the way he had just come. Lydia cornered him near the abbey and gave him a tongue-lashing that he was certain raised welts on his skin. Wendy did likewise, just by the cheese stall. All he could do with both of them was wait for them to finish and go slowly, honestly, through his explanation. They both made a point of showing him they didn’t believe any of it.

He bumped into Lisa down by the old swimming pool, and she immediately put away the phone jammed to her ear and gave him two hearty slaps round the face. ‘One for Jen and one for me,’ she said, all traces of her previous warmth towards him gone. That second slap told him that
she’d worked out her date with the footballer was a setup and it hadn’t gone well.

‘Boring, self-centred, spent most of the time looking in the mirror. Tightwad too, and when I did make it into the VIP room, the other women were all cows, trying to nick him and sneering at my clothes and shoes. He went off with one of them and then pitched back up at the hotel as if nothing had happened. Took me on another couple of dates, but I’ve told him to sling his hook.’ Her smile was grim. ‘Did get some accountancy work from it, mind. His brother, one of his friends. More money than sense, the lot of them.’

He began his explanation, but she walked away before he’d finished.

He had to go and sit in his car for a long time after that, but then thought of Joe’s mantra and drove up to Brindley, careful not to choose the route past the farm. Sonia and Gregor were both in the shop and Mack stood and listened to himself described as the lowest form of human life in English and Czech. Sonia presented him with a bill that he knew bore no relation to what he had actually bought, not unless he’d been scarfing down sides of beef and champagne in his sleep. He paid it without protest. He had barely started on his explanation before they chucked him out of the shop, Gregor actually taking hold of the back of his collar and placing his boot on his backside and pushing. It would have hurt less if the door had been opened first.

Mack knew that Sonia’s anger at him was particularly
fierce because he had ruined her reputation for always knowing what was going on.

When he limped up Mr Armstrong’s path, hoping it was not Brenda’s day for delivering meals, he could not imagine how the old guy would react. Mr Armstrong was still under the illusion that Mack was from the immigration service and when Mack tried to explain that he was a journalist and the whole thing had been a lie, Mr Armstrong just looked crafty. ‘I’ll give you this,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘you’re good.’

For old times sake he went and sat on Peter Clarke and looked at the view. The best one in the world if only it had Jennifer in it, walking towards him, smiling. He counted up the people he hadn’t apologised to yet and knew there was one he was particularly dreading seeing. Best get it over with.

Sitting in the reception area at the high school, the jouncing, jittery feeling in his bowels reminded him of how he used to feel before getting a detention.

He distracted himself by looking at the trophies in the glass cabinet: the pictures of boys and girls in cricket whites; the netball team, the rugby fifteen. He remembered Graham standing on touchlines watching him play, showing him how to clean his boots properly afterwards. Graham would always be his dad, alive in a whole slew of childhood memories. O’Dowd was the one who was dead to him, only existing in that newspaper office.

A reflection of Finlay bounded towards him and he turned and saw the real one.

‘Oh Mack, Mack,’ Finlay said sadly. ‘There was I thinking Viola was the one in disguise and it was you all along. I’m very, very disappointed in you.’

Mack mumbled that he was very disappointed in himself.

‘I should think you were. It was a monstrous act … monstrous and I see someone has been pointing that out to you. I should think there’s a lot more of that to come.’ Finlay did one of his little detours across the floor and back. ‘I trust you’re as beaten up inside.’

‘I hate everything about myself, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Well, that’s a start.’ Another detour. ‘So, as I’m one of those people who like to talk rather than hit, start at the beginning. Tell me everything … I mean, I’ve heard it via the bush telegraph … how you love Jennifer, etc., etc.’ There was a Finlay-esque flourish of the fingers. ‘But do you want to give it to me first hand?’

With the schoolkids streaming past him to go home, Mack told Finlay everything and, as he spoke, haltingly and having to go back over certain bits to get the order right, he heard the echoes of that day when he had done his terrible audition. When he had finished, Finlay screwed up his eyes for a few seconds, and then Mack was being wrapped in a hug. It was incomprehensible, and he was struggling not to cry.

‘How can you be so nice to me, Finlay? I don’t bloody deserve it.’

‘Ah well now, Matt, Mack, whatever you call yourself, I don’t really go in for all that “deserving/undeserving” stuff
… not sure I have the qualifications to judge. What I do know is you pulled that up from your heart, not a bit of acting in sight. You’ve done something terrible, truly dreadful, and I’m not certain you can put it right, but all in all I am very, very glad to see you.’

‘You’re one of the few people in the whole of Northumberland who thinks that,’ Mack said, sniffing.

‘Rubbish.’ Finlay stepped back. ‘It won’t be easy, but keep being sincere and more will follow. Now, tickets for
The Pirates of Penzance
, a hundred and twenty children, a piano and half the costumes still being made. Can I interest you in tickets?’

Mack bought a couple and then wended his way to the supermarket, hoping that he could just get in, buy what was on Doug’s list and escape without being seen. He did well for the first two aisles and then stopped walking or thinking. Probably even breathing. She was there. His lovely Jen.

He had imagined that first meeting with her would be somewhere beautiful; perhaps beside a wide, clear stream, green hills mounded behind them.

She was looking at the label on some frozen cod.

It didn’t matter though, she still looked wonderful to him; a little thinner, and the sweatshirt and jeans she was wearing had seen better days, but he stood and watched her, waiting for that moment when she would notice him. He wanted it badly and dreaded it at the same time.

He saw her reading falter and the shock as she registered that he was there. She was clenching the packet of
fish so tightly that he imagined it must be burning her hands and her expression suggested she wanted to run, but did not know how to do it. The fish fell back into the freezer and he so much wanted to go and kiss her hands warm again.

‘Jen, Jen,’ he said taking a few steps forward, ‘please don’t run away. I know what a terrible thing I did to you, it was unforgivable.’

‘Leave me alone,’ she said, and hearing her distress for the first time was terrible. He’d done this to her.

‘Jen—’

‘Go away; there’s nothing that comes out of your mouth that I want to listen to. How could you do this to me? And how could you come back?’

‘I had to come back. I love you. Whatever else was a lie, that wasn’t.’

Her laugh was sardonic before she said, almost to herself, ‘You’ve got a leather jacket on. I just knew your clothes were all wrong.’

‘Jen—’

‘Stop it. Stop it,’ she said more loudly, and he saw people turn to look. ‘Stop telling everyone in Northumberland that rubbish about loving me. You’re just trying to make yourself look better. You must think I’m an idiot as well as being needy.’

She was breathing so fast he was worried about her. He took another couple of small steps forward, but she moved away from the freezer and he could see she was poised to go.

He held up his hands as a man does to show he is not armed. ‘I’m not going to come any closer, Jen. I just need to talk to you. To tell you how desperately sorry I am that I hurt you. Just let me do that, and explain how much I didn’t want to do what I did, how much I’ve missed you. How much I want you.’

‘Shut up,’ she screamed, ‘shut up, shut up, shut up!’ More people were stopping and looking. ‘Is this your idea of fun, coming back, seeing what else you can prise out of me—’

‘Jen, sweetheart, I love you, and you loved me … we know that, the night we had—’

‘I loved Matt Harper, I don’t know you,’ she said, with a cry.

‘I’m him, Jen, all the main bits, I’m him.’

‘Liar,’ she screamed. ‘You made him up out of bits and pieces of lies and acting. Cobbled him together into the kind of person you knew I’d fall for.’

He expected her to run at him, scream and shout, pummel him with her fists, but the way she was standing, legs locked, suggested she was still holding back from letting her feelings rip out. She was still reining in her emotions as she always did. He looked around – more people and only a matter of time before security was called. He walked over to the shelf containing the pillows of pasta and picked one up.

‘Remember how I said you had a right to show if you were angry or upset because of the way someone had looked at you or treated you? Well, no one has ever hurt
you more than me, or made you more wretched, so show me, Jen. I understand that there’s no way you want to get any closer to me than you are, and I don’t blame you. But …’ He dropped the pasta on the floor and kicked it towards her.

Please, please pick it up and throw it at me.

He felt tears prick his eyes when the packet of pasta landed in his chest and had to blink them back as he saw her rush to the display and grab two packets of rice. They were heavier, but he didn’t mind. They split when they bounced off him and landed on the floor, making those watching take a few steps back. It was couscous next, thrown with greater accuracy and hitting him on the cheek. He placed a protective hand over the cut on his head, but did nothing else, and soon she was screaming at him as she threw, random words, swear words, and then the litany of all the ways he’d lied and deceived her.

He could see the extent of her hatred for him and knew that if at that moment someone had handed her a rock she would have thrown that too.

Something heavy and sharp did hit him in the back and he stumbled forward, not sure how Jen had managed to loop something round behind him.

He turned to see Brenda. She was holding a tin of ratatouille in one hand and another tin was rolling among the spilt rice and packets of pasta. Her face was stern, immobile, her eyes gleaming under the strip lighting. ‘They do a family size,’ she said dropping the tin in her hand on to his foot. ‘Get away from my daughter.’ She gave him
a hearty shove against the shelves. ‘Leave her alone. You’re a cruel liar. A manipulator of people’s feelings. She doesn’t want to see you. Nobody wants to see you. Go home.’

Mack had expected to be terrified at his first meeting with Brenda, but he was too busy watching Jennifer. She was staring at the packet of mung beans in her hand. She put them neatly back on the shelf and looked disorientated. His heart was racing just looking at her, his breath coming as fast as hers had.

‘Sorry, Brenda,’ he said, ‘but I’m staying. I love Jen and I regret every single thing I did except loving her and getting her on that stage.’

Brenda looked as if she’d like to club him with something heavier than tinned ratatouille. ‘You’re twisted. There’s not one part of you thinking about how much pain this is putting her through, is there? It’s all about what you want. When are you going to stop hurting her?’

She walked past him, took hold of Jennifer’s hand and started leading her away.

‘I’m sorry for making a scene,’ he called after them, and then, ‘Did you get my letters, Jen?’ He saw hesitation in Jennifer’s progress before she disappeared round the end of the aisle to be replaced by a large man in a blazer bearing the supermarket’s logo.

‘Come with me, please,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to pay for all this and then I’m afraid I’ll have to escort you from the store.’

‘Fine,’ Mack said, high on the adrenalin of what had just happened, his heart still hammering, ‘but if I’m paying
for all of it, I’m taking it home.’ He got down on his knees and started to gather up the individual grains of rice, thinking that even if he was here all night, he
had
made contact with Jen, and revelling in how beautiful she’d looked, her hair swinging back from her face as she lobbed things at him in anger.

Jennifer got up in the early hours of the morning, put on her clothes and let herself out of the house. She wasn’t going to look at the moon, hadn’t really been too keen on looking at it since
that
night. She set off down to the river, sheep skittering away from her, a fox away in the woods, barking. Sitting by the water, she did up her jacket.