The streets were glossed with rain as I called Jack on my way home that night. I wanted to hear a friendly voice.
I told him that I’d watched his YouTube video and he laughed.
‘I liked the “How to Be a Hero” comment,’ I said, shouting above the roar of the traffic. ‘It’s a great title.’ An ambulance sped by, sirens on.
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
I stuck my finger in my off-side ear to drown out the noise. ‘On my way home from the London Literary Society. I tutor there now. Tonight was my first night.’
‘Well done! Do you have to get home or have you got time for a drink?’
The answer to my prayers. ‘Definitely a drink,’ I said. ‘Edinboro Castle?’
‘What time can you get there?’
‘Ooh – twenty minutes?’
‘See you there.’
In contrast with the damp night, the Edinboro Castle was warm, yeasty with the smell of craft beer, and sparkling with white fairy lights. Jack was at the bar when I arrived, looking out for me, and he grinned when he saw me.
‘Got you a sauvignon blanc,’ he said, ‘and a bowl of fries.’
Wine and fries and good company in a warm pub on a cold night … I cheered up instantly.
‘Thanks, Jack.’
I followed him to a corner table which the twinkling lights warmed with their silver glow. Jack took his overcoat and scarf off. He was wearing a red T-shirt. Next to my red suit we looked like two extras from a Virgin advert.
‘So, you liked the video,’ he said.
‘I did. It made me laugh. That’s quite a big deal for me these days,’ I said.
‘Job done. So I’m now officially your new fictional hero?’ he asked.
‘Totally. How to Be a Hero,’ I said, but what I was thinking of was the way he said ‘fictional’, giving it a little more emphasis than it needed. Of course, fictional.
‘Let me guess. Love, and it goes wrong, but they get back together, happy ending,’ he said, grinning.
‘You got it. Jack, why do you want to be a fictional hero?’
‘I get to date you without the admin,’ he said, gazing at me with that lovely, open untroubled expression.
‘Admin?’
‘You know, without all the whole emotional mess of it,’ he said. ‘The crazy bit.’
‘Ah.’ I nodded. We were back to that again.
‘Do you know that the dopamine you get when you’re in love is as addictive as cocaine? And that getting over a broken heart has the same physical reaction as cocaine withdrawal?’
‘I did not know that,’ I said, ‘but I’m not the slightest bit surprised.’
‘And did you know that a heart can literally break when a relationship ends, due to stress cardiomyopathy? It’s known as broken heart syndrome. That’s what my mother had.’
He spoke with authority, as if he knew what he was talking about. He probably did.
I thought about my own mother going to live in Italy because my father’s girlfriend was pregnant. That wasn’t a broken heart but it was definitely an extreme reaction, a major flounce.
I thought about the unpublishable book I’d written under the influence of a broken heart. Jack was right. Love was a serious chemical imbalance.
Bloody admin.
This way we got friendship, date nights without any expectations and hopefully I’d get a book out of it. ‘Broken heart syndrome, cocaine withdrawal … that’s enough to put anyone off.’
‘It’s a pleasure to share.’ We chinked glasses in mutual understanding. Considering the subject matter, the conversation gave us both a lift.
We looked up as a girl brought the fries to the table.
Dipping one in mayo, I asked, ‘How’s Nancy?’
‘She’s got a social worker, now. Caroline Carter. She’s nice, actually. Late forties, plenty of experience. She’s putting in a care package. And CCTV in the hall.’ He sprinkled salt on his fries. ‘Nancy has agreed to it, so she’s compliant, and social services have addressed the problem and they can tick her off their list. It’s all good. Compliance. That’s the answer.’
I twirled the stem of my glass. ‘Any idea what she’s writing?’
‘Nah. Not a clue. She writes phrases on scraps of paper and kind of bundles them together.’
‘Really? And then what?’
‘She’ll look at them all and rearrange them to make a story.’
I wondered if it would work for me. ‘What kind of phrases, for instance?’
‘I don’t know – they sound quite good, though. The one I remember is: “He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”’
‘And who’s that? Her hero?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
I chuckled to myself. To me, that would have been like finding a jewel in a cornfield. How beautiful, how poignant. I wanted to keep the phrase for myself. Steal it.
I almost asked him if the phrase referred to his father but then I would have to explain that I knew about him through looking at Wikipedia. From my journalist days I knew that it was better to pretend to be completely ignorant about a story. That way people want to talk about it. Everyone had a defining story in their lives, I’d found, and if we hung out long enough Jack would tell me it in his own way, in his own time.
‘Has she always written like that?’
‘Possibly; I don’t know. She always used to work in her study but now she’s living alone she’s got the whole place to herself. Writing keeps her focused.’
‘Even though she’s got dementia?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Look at Terry Pratchett. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2007 and he carried on writing until he died in 2015.’
‘The Shepherd’s Crown,’ I said. ‘I loved that book.’
Some writers plot and plan, some, like Stephen King, excavate it from their subconscious, some make it up as they go along. Me, I’d been ruined by journalism. I had to write from life. Which is fine when life is interesting but not so helpful when it’s going badly. But even in Love Crazy I’d never come up with a line as good as ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’. It takes the mind of a poet to come up with something like that.
‘So,’ Jack said, finishing his drink, ‘for our next date I’ve got the loan of a two-seater kayak from a mate. Are you interested?’
‘I might be. Go on.’
‘You and me on the Thames, going past the Tower of London at dawn. Is that heroic enough for your book?’
‘It sounds like fun and very adventurous.’
‘Good. I’ll check the tide tables.’
‘Tide tables is just the phrase a hero would use.’
Jack grinned. ‘I hoped you’d say that.’ He put his coat on and wrapped his scarf around his neck. ‘Are you catching the C2 back?’
‘I am.’ The bus stop was a ten-minute walk away.
Jack walked with me, for the fresh air, he said.
While I was waiting for the bus I told him the story about Louis and the pink curtain and the bed in the alcove, for comedy effect.
He was giving the story a lot more attention than it had a right to, and he grinned at my description. ‘Why do you want to move house?’
‘The rent’s a bit steep where I am now,’ I said, realising that I had well and truly demolished the image he’d first had of me. But I was going to get found out sooner or later so I tried to be philosophical about it.
The bus pulled up. ‘I’ll give you a call about the kayaking,’ he said.
‘Okay!’ I said brightly. I sat by the window to wave, but he didn’t look back.
He tucked his hands into his pockets, like a guy who didn’t believe in love, and walked off into the night.