The One Before the One (11 page)

‘Oh, great. Well if you’re not anti boats, then …’

He smiles encouragingly but I am aware I am pulling a face. Maybe I was anti people who lived on boats and just didn’t know it? Sometimes it worried me how much I had morphed into Martin, to what extent his own prejudices might have rubbed off on me.

‘Do you fancy coming over? Beautiful sunset on a night like this. If you want, you could go and Lex and I will meet you later, so you don’t have to wait for all the boring packing up bit.’

I think of the alternative. Another night in, itching to text Toby, torturing myself with images of them cooking together, snuggled up on the sofa. Plus my sister is nodding her head excitedly. ‘Why not?’ I say. ‘That’d be lovely.’

It’s only when I actually get there that evening that I realize that when Lexi said Wayne lived on a boat, I was imagining a posh yacht not this huge cargo carrier. A rusty, barnacle-covered eyesore dredged up on the side of the Thames like an ancient, ailing walrus. I’m trying to keep an open mind though – eradicate any thoughts of dread-locked, mangy-dog-owning types. Wayne may think he can comment on my
lifestyle, draw the conclusion that I am a control freak, but I’m bigger than that. I can do ‘bohemian’.

I didn’t imagine we’d have to risk our lives just getting onto the thing, though.

‘Whoa! Lexi, bloody hell! Will you watch where you’re going?’ I’m standing on the banks of the Thames watching Wayne guide her across a rotting plank of wood.

‘She’s cool, I’ve got her. Now, it’s your turn,’ smiles Wayne, reaching out his hand.

It’s big and covered in what looks like charcoal or oil, as is the jumper he’s now changed into. Not exactly dressed up for the occasion.

‘But it’s rotting. That plank of wood is
rotting
!’ I protest.

‘Come on, get yer bum over here and stop being a gaylord!’ shouts Lexi, from the deck.

Wayne holds his arm out further.

‘You’re okay, I promise. I’ve got dry clothes if you fall in. Dave might even have a skirt you can borrow somewhere.’

‘Not funny!’

‘Sorry.’ Wayne smiles, winking at me.

I take his hand. It’s rough and warm and I finally make it across, not without almost crushing his hand in the process.

The sun is just setting and he was right, the view from the deck is amazing, everything reduced to charcoal smudges against a watermelon sky. To our right, past Battersea Bridge and a stretch of wide, inky river, the lights of Albert Bridge glitter, and the steeples of Battersea Power Station seem to rise from the banks like pearly turrets of some mystical castle.

‘Isn’t it awesome?’ I can just see Lexi’s knickers from where she’s leaning over the side of the boat, her skirt billowing in the breeze.

‘You don’t look so sure,’ says Wayne, peering at me, amused.

‘Oh no, it’s gorgeous. I’m just recovering from my near-death experience, that’s all.’

Wayne rolls his eyes and leads us below deck.

The inside of the boat is far more homely than the outside would suggest. A cavernous space, an extension of the market stall, really, with countless lamps, a big shaggy rug and empty bottles of wine stuffed with half-melted candles all around the edge. A mustard, Seventies sofa takes up much of the living space, and dotted around it, all manner of curiosities, from old baths, to coal scuttles, to the same style 1950’s sideboard that I saw at the stall. There’s a wood-burning stove in the far corner, giving off a smell, like bonfires, like the smell I smelt on Wayne in the Duke of Cambridge.

‘So, what do you think?’ Lexi looks at me with bright, excited eyes.

‘Well, it’s certainly not your Barratt home.’

Wayne gets us a drink and introduces us to his boat-mate, Dave. Dave’s an artist, as well as owning the Camden Market stall, the sort to have his finger in lots of pies. He and Wayne met in a bar in Battersea Square three years ago, hit it off, then decided to rent a boat rather than a flat because it was cheaper. He has a Loyd Grossman accent, a thick ginger beard and is wearing a beanie hat, white vest, sunglasses and several gold bangles. Dave thinks Wayne is one of the most ‘awesome human beings in this godforsaken city’.

Dave likes to say things like ‘godforsaken city’ a lot. Along with ‘crap-hole’ and ‘crock of shit’, and, with each Americanism, I can see Lexi’s face light up, as if she’s thinking: ‘Man … [She picks up ‘man’ within a nanosecond of meeting him] could this get any cooler? I’m on a boat, in London with some American artist dude – this is more
like
it.’

Wayne takes a bottle of wine from the kitchen – an old sink and a two-ring hob, behind a beaded curtain.

‘I take it big sister doesn’t mind little sister having a tipple of a weekend?’ says Wayne, holding the bottle out towards
me, and I feel the first shiver of annoyance. Was I really that uptight? What had she been telling him? ‘I’m eighteen in ten weeks,’ says Lexi.

‘She’s eighteen in ten weeks,’ I repeat, the joke being that she sounds about twelve when she says that.

‘Well, that’s sorted then. I think you’ve earned yourself a glass of wine this week. Just go easy on it, yeah?’ says Wayne, handing her a glass. ‘We don’t want anyone overboard.’

I scan the room.

‘I love this,’ I say, nodding towards an ornate writing bureau. ‘Do you sell these on your stall?’

‘Yeah, very expensive though. Edwardian antique mahogany, set you back nearly eight hundred quid, wouldn’t it, Lex?’ says Wayne.

‘Eight hundred quid? Jesus. And you live
here?
Sorry. Not that I’m saying …’

‘No offence,’ says Wayne, laughing. ‘It’s not to everyone’s taste, that’s for sure. Anyway, I’m sure Lexi could get you one at a discounted price once she’s proved her selling worth.’ He looks at Lexi who’s still grinning like I’ve never seen her grin before.

Wayne claps his hands.

‘Well, shall I give you the official tour then?’

‘Yes please!’ says Lexi.

‘Yes please!’ I agree, as genuinely as possible, and everyone laughs.

‘It’s okay, you can just make the right noises,’ says Wayne. ‘Just “umm” and “aah", nobody will ever know.’

I start to relax.

Ginger-bearded Dave makes Lexi laugh, a lot. After a tour of the boat, and his room – a cabin that consisted of a mound of clothes and a hammock up high, pretty much like Wayne’s – he offers to do a portrait of her, and Wayne and I go up
on deck. It could feel awkward considering our earlier frisson, a bit like we’ve spent the afternoon tipsy and now we’ve sobered up, but it doesn’t. I feel comfortable with him. I feel like I could tell him anything.

‘He’s quite a character, is Dave, isn’t he?’ I say, as Wayne hands me another beer. ‘Got quite a look going on.’

‘Sort of covered himself in glue and ran into Accessorize?’

I crack up laughing.

‘Exactly, although I rather like a man in a bangle.’

The red sky has turned to violet now, and, save for the odd cry and creak from Chelsea Pier shipyard, the night is perfectly quiet. How nice it would be if Toby was here, I think. How ironic that I should find myself in such an almost clichéd romantic situation with someone – a good-looking man, I’ll give him that – that I’m not romantically involved with. Typical of my life, I think. It’s at times like this that I feel sort of
cheated.

‘So, what do you do again?’ says Wayne, breaking my train of thought. ‘Lexi tells me you work way too hard, by the way.’

I lean against the boat, next to him.

‘I’m in sales, for my sins. I sell mouthwash and breath freshener to the supermarkets. So, hardly changing the world.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ says Wayne. ‘Some would say that ridding the nation of halitosis was a very noble cause. I would bet that, in a roundabout way, you’ve played a part in getting many budding romances off the ground. Beats pushing buttons for a living, anyway.’

‘Why, is that what you do? I mean apart from the stall?’

‘I used to – I used to live in Leeds and work as a website designer for such fascinating clients as timber merchants and freezer manufacturers.’ He laughs. ‘It nearly killed me! Now I just run the stall and write in whatever time I have left.’

‘Oh, you write?’

‘Yes, I’m writing a novel, which is partly why I live on the boat. It’s cheaper, you see, which means I can afford to have a low-paid job selling second-hand stuff, have time to scribble and still survive.’

‘Seriously? Wow!’ I say this with all the enthusiasm I can muster, thinking, isn’t half of London writing a novel? Doesn’t ‘I’m writing a novel and living on a boat’, equal ‘I’m bumming around’? ‘How much have you written?’

‘Thirty thousand words.’

‘How far is that? Sorry, means nothing to me.’

‘What, you mean to say
you’re
not writing a novel?’ he says, his green eyes widening playfully.

‘Ahem, no. People may say everyone’s got a novel inside them. I doubt I’ve got a paragraph in me,’ I say, and he laughs. ‘So what sort of book is it?’

‘Oh, some rom-com rubbish.
Brian Jones’s Diary
.’

‘Shut up!’ I laugh, nudging him in the side.

‘It is!’ he protests ‘Well, let’s just say, it’s no Martin Amis or William Boyd.’

‘I
love
William Boyd.’

‘Are you serious? I’ve never met anyone who loves William Boyd. Well, not a girl anyway.’

‘Oh yeah,
Brazzaville Beach, An Ice-Cream War –
definitely in my top ten.’

‘You’re quite the reader then?’

‘Believe me, with parents like mine you wouldn’t have survived without the escapism that books provide.’ Wayne laughs again, and fills up my glass.

I’m tipsy now. I know I’m tipsy because I’m beginning to find Wayne, despite his oily jumper, and his bad name and his chipped tooth, rather attractive.

We sit down together on deck, leaning against the hull and Wayne rolls up his sleeves. He’s got nice forearms: sculpted, covered in fine dark hair. Forearms belonging to someone
not shy of physical work. He lifts his glass to his lips and, as he does, I notice he has a tattoo, the full length of his left forearm. It looks like a name. I can just make out a Jin the dwindling light but not much else.

‘She’s a cool girl, your sister.’ He sighs contentedly as he pours beer into his glass and then into mine.

‘Yes, she is.’

‘Do you get on well?’

‘We have our ups and downs. It’s complicated, you know, half-siblings. Lexi’s also having a few issues at the moment …’

‘I know,’ says Wayne. ‘But she looks up to you, you know?’

‘She looks up to you, too,’ I say. ‘I tell you, you have guru status in our house.’

‘Give over!’

‘You do! “Oh Wayne says people who make lists are masking greater unhappiness”,’ I say in my mock-therapist voice. Wayne groans.

‘Oh my God, that’s taken so out of context!’ he says. ‘I’ll wring her neck later.’

We drink more, we chat, we laugh easily as the light fades and I begin to feel there’s something about Wayne, something that makes me want to confide in him. The drunker I get, the more I’m thinking of Toby and our situation. He’s a man, I think, he’ll have some insight.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I say, when there’s a break in the conversation. It’s pretty much dark now and I can only make out a silhouette of his face. ‘I know I’m probably going to say too much, but I don’t have anyone I can really talk to about this and I sense something wise about you, Wayne, I really do.’

I realize what I just said and we both start laughing.

‘Yeah, such a wise old owl, me!’ says Wayne, self-deprecatingly. ‘Such a fountain of all knowledge.’

I take a deep breath, look up at the sky that’s punctured now with a rash of stars.

‘In your opinion – you know, just as a bloke, not one who philanders – do men who have affairs ever actually leave their wives?’

He laughs, but in a different way now. A way that tells me I’ve shared too much, that I’ve possibly embarrassed or unpleasantly surprised him.

‘Well, I-I-don’t know,’ he stutters. ‘I guess that depends on whether he loves his wife; or he doesn’t but he didn’t have the balls to tell her before he jumped into bed with someone else. Either way, I’d say it’s pretty lame to be having an affair in the first place.’

‘
Really
?’

‘Definitely,’ he says, flatly.

‘Even if your wife is overbearing, does nothing but work and makes you feel like crap?’

‘More so. I mean, if she’s that bad, surely any half-wit would be able to do the decent thing and end it? Who’d respect someone who let someone treat them like that?’

I think about this. It’s not an angle I’ve considered before.

There’s a long pause that would be far more awkward if I weren’t so drunk.

‘So, I take it the guy you’re seeing, he’s married, right?’ says Wayne.

‘Yes. I’m a Mistress. A
Mistress!
Jesus,’ I say, ‘I’ve never said that out loud before. That’s how much it pains me.’

Then it all comes out. Poor Wayne. Too much wine and fresh air, I imagine. I tell him all about Toby and the book club that’s really a fuck club; about how I’m playing the part of enigmatic temptress but really, inside, I’m more Glenn Close in
Fatal Attraction
and worried Toby’s going to see the real me one of these days, the one that knows she’s falling for him. I tell him about Martin and the wedding we never had – because of me – and the fact I still love him, just not like that – and can’t bear the thought
of him loving someone else. Then I stop to draw breath and it’s only then that I realize Wayne has done nothing but nod and ‘mmm’ and stare into his drink for at least half an hour.

‘Sorry I …’ I stop. It’s a good job it’s dark because I feel my face blush.

‘It’s cool,’ Wayne says and shrugs. ‘Honestly, it’s fine.’

‘I don’t usually …’

‘Look, don’t worry about it,’ he cuts in and gives me a curt smile.

‘Okay.’ I regret ever opening my mouth.

‘Where are you …?’ ‘going’, I was going to say as he suddenly stands up.

‘Just below deck,’ he says. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

I watch him disappear below deck; cursing myself for my emotional vomiting. This is how it feels to be me these days. I hold it together. Just. I exist in an airtight funnel. And then sometimes, just sometimes, the pressure gets to much and – bam! – I’m in my wedding dress, getting drunk alone and listening to Pat Benitar or emotionally splurging over some poor innocent bystander with no warning at all.