I’M NEARLY LATE for work the next day. I get up at the right time, get ready in the right amount of time, get my shoes on and reach for the car keys on the hook by the door . . . But they’re not there.
They’re always, always, on their hook. That’s why there’s a hook there. Dad put it up at Mum’s suggestion, so that I wouldn’t make myself late for stupid work looking for the stupid car keys. I hang them up, every day, the very second I come in through the door.
I spend several minutes flinging things around and slamming doors, but it doesn’t help. Eventually, after some calming screaming and head pounding, I locate the keys in my tooth mug, looking a bit minty. I have a few seconds to wonder – and dread – where the hell my toothbrush is, before charging out of the door.
It’s gone five past nine when I arrive and everyone is already working. There’s no sudden rush of movement this time, so obviously no one was gossiping about me. Well, they wouldn’t be, would they, not after nine.
There’s a steaming mug of hot chocolate on my desk, and I give Val a grateful smile as I sit down. She’s had her hair done – looks like a perm and some colour. It really suits her – she looks younger. On the other side of the partition, Chrissie is already engrossed in a call, head down, flicking those pages, saying ‘OK, OK.’ Jean and Graham do not seem to have spotted that I’m late so after a brief hunt for my pen, which I eventually find in yesterday’s coffee cup, I switch to ‘F’ and take my first call.
The only interesting thing this morning is a visit to Telesales from Vivien Attwood, the head of Planning. She announces that there will be a staff meeting on Friday, 26 January, in the canteen at five thirty. And as it’s after hours there will be a full buffet laid on by Mr de Witter. Everyone has got to attend. I want to know if we’re all going to be paid overtime for the extra hours. Vivien says no, that’s why they’re feeding us instead. What we save on food that evening is our overtime.
‘Wonder what that’s all about?’ Val says, after Vivien has gone back up to the sixth floor. ‘It must be really important if they’re feeding us.’
‘They’re probably going to make us all redundant,’ Marion says. We all stare at her. Could that be it? With free food as a sweetener. Better fill a few carrier bags while we’re there.
‘I wonder what the line is about not going,’ I say. ‘If we’re not being paid, surely they can’t make us go?’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Val says.
‘But you’ve got to go, Rachel,’ Chrissie says, grinning. ‘You’ll hear it from the horse himself what colour the new tiles in the Ladies are going to be.’
‘Hey, Chrissie!’ It’s Creepy Steve, from station eighteen. ‘Can you get back to your desk, please? I’ve got a call for you.’
Our impromptu break is over and we all go back to our desks.
A few minutes later, I’m suddenly aware that there’s no noise coming from Chrissie’s desk. I stand up to look over the partition that separates us and find her holding her head in her hands, elbows on the desk, her turret switched to ‘B’.
I’m in the middle of a call and can’t speak to her, so I tap the partition with my hand to attract her attention. She looks up and I am shocked to see that her eyes are swollen and tearful.
‘Have you thought about Fuengirola?’ I say, raising my hands in a ‘What’s up?’ gesture. She shakes her head. ‘Well, are you dead set on Europe?’ I say, gesticulating at her, but she waves me away, frowning, and switches to ‘F’ to get rid of me, it seems.
A few minutes later and it’s this side of the room’s turn to go for lunch. You can see on my face that I’ve made up my mind about something, and I’m looking around me for Chrissie, determined to speak to her during our break.
Wow, did you see that? I didn’t even know Chrissie could move that fast, especially in a skirt that tight. She’s out the door to the lifts before you could say split stitches.
Which leaves me going down to the canteen with Val again. I’m nodding politely and smiling while she’s telling me about the gym she’s just joined, and Finn, her twenty-eight-year-old, blond personal trainer, who was on the New Zealand Commonwealth Games swim team four years ago, but I barely hear her, I’m so focused on what’s happened to Chrissie. She was obviously upset about something, but what could . . .
‘. . . huge arms, the size of a small child . . .’
Once or twice, the odd word breaks through.
When I get back to my station, Chrissie is again already engrossed in a call so I don’t have a chance to speak to her. I’m standing up watching her as I switch to ‘F’, just in case she gets off the call and has a chance to speak.
Some of our clients have no intention of booking anything, they just ring up for a chat. There’s a few regulars – a Mrs Holley from somewhere in Scotland calls about once a week to deliberate over the Isle of Man; there’s a Miss Hatton, with a daughter in Australia that she’s never been to visit; Mrs Harkness who wants to do a watercolour painting activity break in Crete, and Mr Silverside who just shouts. Their names and addresses are on the walls all round the office – Horizon Holidays’ Least Wanted – to help us identify them quickly so that we don’t waste any time on them. I’ve had Mr Silverside once and he was so unpleasant I just cut him off straight away. Right now, I suspect I’ve got one of the others because she’s been wittering on about her daughter in Australia for so long but has made no mention of when she wants to go.
‘What part of Australia are you thinking about visiting?’ I ask half-heartedly, to remind her why she called. I’ll give her two more minutes.
Siân at station nine shouts over to me suddenly that she’s got a call for me, which makes up my mind. ‘Well, what we could offer is a pack—’ See that? I cut her off in the middle of a word. It’s less suspicious if you do that. ‘Stick it through, Siân!’ I call back. My phone beeps to let me know the call has arrived.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Rachel. Hector.’
There’s that plunging sensation again. Suddenly the day has become special and exciting; the other noises in the sales room fade away and there’s only me on this end and him on the other end. I press the headset close to my face. ‘Hi, Hector. How are you today?’
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘Fine thanks.’
‘Good. I just rang to tell you that I spoke to my brother yesterday.’
‘Yesterday? Bloody hell, that was quick. What did he say?’
‘Well, he denied it.’
‘Oh.’ Quick flashback to Sainsbury’s car park last year, me standing by the car watching someone in a red vest embracing a woman. Oh my God, was it definitely Glenn? I didn’t see him close up, not really. Is it possible I made a mistake? Is Glenn innocent?
‘And then he caved and reverted to being a snivelling little shit.’
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘What?’
‘No, right, what I mean is, you know, thank God he owned up. Because then you told him to end it. Right?’
‘Oh, I see. Well, yes, I did my best.’
‘Do you think he will? End it, I mean.’
He sighs. ‘I don’t know. And if he doesn’t, there’s really nothing else I can do. I threatened him a bit, you know, to get him to promise . . .’
‘Threatened him? Blimey.’
‘Well, there’s no need to sound so . . . impressed about that. It wasn’t easy. I had to watch all three Godfather films before I went round there.’
‘Well, I got in the car after One and Two, but then I had to go back indoors and watch the last one. For closure, you know.’
We laugh together, the headset still pressed so close to my ear I can hear him breathing. After a moment, abruptly he stops chuckling, as if he’s suddenly remembered that what he rang me up for was a serious matter.
‘Look, Rachel, if Sarah says anything to you, or you get the idea that she might . . . you know, know, or if you’re worried about her,’ there’s an almost imperceptible pause, ‘or about anything, anything at all, you will call me, won’t you?’
He’s gearing up for the end of the call but I don’t want it to end.
‘I’m wearing the earrings.’
There’s a surprised silence. Then he says, ‘You are? I bet they look fantastic on you.’
‘They do. They’re so gorgeous. Actually, I haven’t taken them off since Christmas. I love them. Thank you so much.’
‘I’m really glad you like them. I spent ages . . . Anyway, I’m sorry if it seemed a bit inappropriate, but I’d sent them before I knew about . . .’
‘About what?’
‘Well, about you and Nick, you know, at the office party.’ He sounds uncomfortable, disgruntled.
‘The office party? I don’t understand – what on earth does that have to do with you getting me a present?’
‘No, you’re right, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It shouldn’t matter but I’m afraid I find that it does. Just me I suppose – old-fashioned.’
I’m frowning now. He’s not making any sense. ‘What are you—’
‘See, the thing is, Rachel, I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy. Some people in my position might decide that they’d be happy with friendship, if it’s all they could get. But for me that’s like torture. Seeing someone, talking, spending time . . . knowing that it’ll never be more . . . Well, it’s too hard. I prefer to . . . cut myself off, lie low, wait it out on my own until the agony stops. And it will stop, in the end. It always does.’
Is he trying to tell me something about Miranda and the pain she caused him? The idea that he’s talking about me is out there, but I don’t grasp it. Not quite.
‘Hector, what—’
‘No, please, don’t ask me, Rachel. I want so much to tell you, but I can’t. You said last time that it’s not me, and you were right, it’s not. It seems I am destined always to want people who don’t want me. Well then, if that’s my fate, I’ll face up to it, welcome it, embrace it, because I, as you said, am a good guy.’
‘Yes, you are, but you’re not—’
‘It’s been a pleasure, Rachel. Take really good care of yourself. Bye.’ And he’s gone. Again.
The rest of the day at Horizon is really dull, just boring holidays, holidays, holidays. Chrissie races off at five, faster, if it’s possible, than when she sped off at lunch, so I’ve decided to leave it until tomorrow. If she wanted to talk to me about something, she would have. So let’s go to me, at home later, lying on the bed with a bag of salt-and-vinegar chipsticks at my elbow. Don’t look too closely at the floor – you might spot three or four more empty chipstick bags down there.
I’m trying to remember what Hector had almost said today, but all that comes into my mind is him mentioning me and Nick at the office party. Why would me stumbling in on Nick and Paris have any effect on him? No matter how many times and in how many different ways I think about it, it always makes no sense.
And another thing. How did he even know that I had bumped into Nick at the party? I told Chrissie about it – no doubt Chrissie has told others, including Sarah most likely, and she will have told Glenn, of course; but will he have passed it back to Hector? I try to picture Glenn breaking this devastating news: ‘Hec, I’m sorry to have to tell you but a random girl you don’t know walked in on her ex and his new girlfriend having sex at some Christmas party or other. You’re going to have to be brave, big guy.’
No, it’s ridiculous. No one knows that Hector and I even know each other, so nothing I did would be gossiped back to him. I can’t fathom it out.
Mum always says if looks were brains, I’d be a genius. Which I guess is a polite way of saying that I’m not one.
Just as I’m opening another bag of crisps the phone rings. Plum’s fast asleep, but when I roll over to get up, he stretches and pushes in four different directions at once, one of which goes straight into my bladder. God.
‘Rachel, it’s Sarah.’
‘My God, Sarah, what’s happened?’ Sarah’s voice is thick and heavy, full of tears and distress. ‘God, is it Jake?’
There’s a series of sniffs, then, ‘No, no, Jakey’s fine. It’s Glenn.’
‘Oh no.’
‘You remember what I was telling you, about how some times when he comes in, it seems like he’s . . . been . . .’
‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ Cold dread is coagulating in the pit of my belly. I know what she’s going to say and I don’t want her to say it, but I hurry her anyway.
‘Well, I’ve found out . . . I know for sure now. He’s definitely havinganaffair.’ She runs all the words together as if she wants them to be in her mouth for as short a time as possible.
‘Oh my God, Sarah. I’m so, so sorry. What are you going to do?’
‘I’m leaving him. Me and Jakey, we’re leaving him. Actually, we have already. We need somewhere to stay for a few days and I was wondering whether . . .?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, come straight round. I’ll fit you both in somewhere.’
She sighs with relief. ‘Thanks, Rach. I knew you’d say yes – I’m on the mobile outside your front door.’
She’s a mess, isn’t she? Glenn’s got a lot to answer for, I know that. And look at little Jake, following his mum everywhere, making sure he’s in physical contact with some part of her all the time. He’s never seemed as small and pale as this before, and I wonder what he witnessed between his parents before Sarah and he left the house.
Sarah’s brought a carrier bag with clothes screwed up inside and another bag with toys in it. I’m fearfully eyeing the large yellow plastic microphone that’s tumbling out, but Jake pays it no attention. The Gameboy that he got for his birthday last year, his absolute favourite toy, is in there too, but he does not even look at the bag. His wide eyes are focused on his mum, who is slumped on the sofa, red-eyed and sniffly.
‘I heard Glenn talking to Hector,’ Sarah is saying quietly. ‘Hector was telling him off about it, how selfish and irresponsible it was of him. And he says he’s going to get some money back off Glenn if he doesn’t end it, so it seems my husband has been borrowing money from his brother to lavish attention on this woman.’ Her voice breaks and she sobs into her hand for a few moments.
‘Don’t cry, Mummy,’ Jake says, gazing up at her from his position by her side on the sofa, snuggled into her. ‘Please don’t cry.’
But she either doesn’t hear him or ignores him. ‘Look at me, Rach,’ she says, looking down at her sweatshirt and jeans, which look like they might have come from Tesco’s. A long time ago. ‘Don’t you think I could do with having something lavished on me? And Jakey, what about him? Doesn’t he deserve the odd treat or two?’
I glance at Jake, who is vigorously wiping his nose with his hand, which is then smeared on to my carpet.
I look away quickly and focus on Sarah, who is still sobbing and shaking her head, saying ‘Why? Why?’ over and over, more to herself than to me. I’m not even going to think about answering, even if she’s expecting me to.
Jake is trying to be the adult, rubbing her back the way she must have done for him countless times over scraped knees and bumped heads. He takes her face between his own tiny hands and says, ‘Try to be brave, Mummy,’ and it’s clear that he’s got no understanding of what’s happening. Sarah smiles at him weakly and bundles him tightly into her arms, rocking him as she would have done when he was much smaller. I’m not sure if this action is to comfort him or herself.
Later on, she tries to settle him on my bed but he won’t let her leave the room. As I’m trying to clear their things up a bit in the living room, I hear from along the hallway the low murmurs of Sarah’s voice, soothing, reassuring, followed by the high-pitched staccato of Jake’s anxious tones. Their words are indistinct but I feel sure she is telling him that no, they can’t go home yet, and yes, Mickey the hamster will be fine without him. She doesn’t reappear from the room and eventually I settle myself down on the sofa for the night, my legs bent double so my distended belly is compressed uncomfortably into my ribs. Plum objects immediately, pushing hard against the new smaller environment, but he’s the lucky one – when I push against the arm of the sofa to try to get comfortable, it doesn’t budge an inch.
Evidently the refugees manage to get some sleep. Can you hear that noise? That’s one or both of them still snoring softly when I leave the next morning. I’m peeking in to make sure they’re all right: Sarah has rolled away from her son and into the foetal position, the curve of her back facing towards him. Jake is making an exact small replica of his mum, a diminutive curled lump under the covers, knees drawn up tightly, mouth slightly open. I close the door and tiptoe out.
So now I have the dilemma of should I tell Chrissie and Hector or not? I’m going to leave thinking about Hector until I have enough time to do it justice.
So, Chrissie. I conjure up her face in the car and look at the expression on it as I’m telling her. What do you think? Is that a sympathetic look? To me she looks scandalized – but in a hungry way. I am swaying towards thinking that, although she will be shocked, horrified, sympathetic and attentive, there will be some very small, possibly even subconscious – and possibly not all that small – part of her that will get a kick out of it. Maybe I’m feeling this way about her because if I’m really, completely honest with myself and with you, I did get a little kick out of it when I saw Glenn in the car park.
God, it’s good to get that off my chest. You know, I only felt it for a short time and since then I’ve tried really hard to make it up to her. I’ve phoned her and visited her loads more often than usual and now I’m sleeping on my own two-seater and I’m six months’ pregnant. What more can I do?
Not tell Chrissie. That’s what I could do.
But then we’re a foursome, we’re close friends. If one of us was in need or unhappy about something, and I was the only one that didn’t know because the others didn’t tell me, I’d be really fed up, and rightly so, I think. Plus, of course, it’s probably very hypocritical of me not to tell her because I suspect her reaction will be the same as mine.
There is no dilemma about telling Hector. Glenn is his brother – he needs to know. I will call him as soon as I get to the office.
Oh God, more guilt. I am such a bad person. Can you believe I am actually grateful to have this reason, this excuse, to call him again?
In the office, I head quickly for my station. It’s six minutes to nine, so I can ring Hector now, before the calls start coming in, and discuss what we can do together to help our good friends get through this crisis. We can take a bit of time over it, have a really long talk. As I’m heading eagerly to my station, I spot Chrissie at her desk, hunched over, apparently already on a call. She looks up as she spots me approaching, and I am shaken by her appearance. She has no make-up on, which immediately makes her look like she’s dying of TB. She has dark shadows beneath her eyes, which are red-rimmed and puffy, her hair is flat and lifeless – it looks in need of a wash, actually – and she’s wearing a dirty pink hoodie and big white jogging trousers.
She ends the call she’s on and greets me listlessly.
‘Hi, Rach. All right?’
I pause on my way to my turret, the call to Hector momentarily forgotten. ‘Chrissie, are you all right? You don’t look very well.’
‘I’m letting my skin have a rest, that’s all. God, if one more person . . .’
‘But you . . . I mean, you look as if . . . Have you been crying?’
Chrissie pulls her handbag up from the floor and rummages around inside for a tissue. ‘Yes, all right, I’ve been crying. I’ve had some bad news, that’s all.’ She puts up a hand as I start to walk towards her. ‘Oh, nothing as devastating as your news, naturally, but it upset me. OK?’
I go over there anyway and stand by her desk. ‘I thought so. You were upset yesterday but you rushed off before I had a chance to speak to you.’ She’s certainly got quick-exit clothes on today – much better for running than yesterday’s ensemble. I perch my behind on the edge of the desk. ‘What is it?’
She blows her nose loudly on the tissue and Jim from station fourteen looks up briefly. ‘Nothing. Just a disappointment, that’s all. I’ll get over it – I always do.’
So it was a man. For I think the first time in all the twenty years of our friendship, I can actually understand. I had never experienced it before Nick and have always been a teensy bit, well, impatient with Chrissie or Susan or anyone else who routinely goes through these soggy dramatics at the end of a relationship. Why didn’t they just accept that it’s a fact of life that can only be avoided by avoiding the cause? And that would be far worse than dealing with the consequences. Like getting old – no point crying about it, unless you want to avoid it all together and die young. Mum says I might change my thinking when I’m thirty-nine. Anyway, at least Chrissie hasn’t been left pregnant by her disappointer.
‘Well—’ I start to say, but she cuts me off.
‘Yes, I know, at least I’m not pregnant. Turn the conversation back to yourself.’
‘That’s not—’
‘Fair? Maybe not, but just because you’re in worse circumstances, doesn’t make mine hurt less. We don’t all feel what we feel in relation to you, you know.’ She meets my eyes for a second, then turns away hurriedly.
I think the only other time you have seen this expression on my face was the moment when Dr Kant was giving me the wonderful slash dreadful news back in August. It’s a combination of shock, hurt, anxiety, disappointment and, if I’m totally honest with you, and myself, deep down in there is realization of my own stupidity. The second time in six months. What a year.
I kind of stumble round the end of the desks, past Val and along to my own, my throat aching as I’m desperately trying not to cry. The rational part of me is telling me calmly not to be silly, Chrissie is just upset and lashing out at anyone because she’s hurt, but the rational part of me is very small these days. All the other parts of me are shouting in unison, ‘CRY! Go on, CRY!’
I keep my head low over my turret until the tears dry up. Luckily, there’s an old, partially stuck-together but dry tissue at the bottom of my bag, so I wipe my eyes and blow my nose, in that order, on it. When I look up, there’s a steaming cup of hot chocolate on my desk and Val smiles at me when I look over gratefully.
And now I don’t have time to call Hector. I acknowledge to myself that if my intention is pure and centred only on Sarah and informing Hector about her well-being, I should call him immediately, even if I can only talk for ninety seconds, in between calls. That is what I should do. What I want to do is talk to him for ten, twenty, forty years. Minutes. I mean minutes. I decide I’ll stop on the way home and call him on the mobile, in the car. That way, Sarah won’t overhear, and I won’t be interrupted by work calls.
As I’m shutting down my turret at five o’clock, I turn to find Chrissie standing there. She looks dreadful.
‘I’m sorry, Rach,’ she says immediately. ‘I didn’t mean it. I’m just fucked up at the moment.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I knew that. Look, why don’t you come to my place for tea? We can open a bottle of wine, and I can watch you drink it.’
Chrissie smiles gratefully. She’s got nothing else on tonight.
It’s not until I’m driving home that I remember two things: one – Sarah and Jake are there, so now I’m cooking for four – well, five, technically, if you include Plum; and two – I can’t really stop the car and pull over for a twenty-to forty-minute phone conversation with Hector, while Chrissie is following along behind in her car. Arses.
When we get in, we’re greeted by the sound of a man explaining how to make a handy pen and note holder in the shape of a headless corpse. I’m hoping it’s the television.
In the living room, Jake is not watching Art Attack but is hunched over a pile of Lego, talking to himself. He’s still in his pyjamas and the bottoms have slipped down a little bit at the back revealing a miniature and untypically beautiful builder’s bum. It is that more than anything, more than the small bumps of his spinal bones visible in a curve through his top, more than the quiet sound of his nonsense chatter, more than the velvet valley of the back of his neck, his messy hair or his reluctance to look up when I greet him, that wrenches into me just how tiny and vulnerable, how fragile, this little person is.
‘Hiya, Jake. What you doing?’
He doesn’t answer. Well, he barely knows me, even though I am his godmother, and that is my fault. In that moment, suddenly I wish that he was running up to me and flinging his arms around my knees, crying out, ‘Auntie Rachel!’, delighted to see me, feeling better for me being there. Indifference is excruciating. I’m determined to get to know him.
Chrissie’s gone awfully quiet and still, hasn’t she? She looks a bit appalled by what she’s seeing – Jake here in my living room in his pyjamas, the mess of Lego and other toys, the carrier bag spilling out Postman Pat T-shirts and Spiderman shorts, the blanket on the sofa. The look of horror on her face is pissing me right off.
‘Is Sarah . . .?’
‘Sarah and Jake stayed here last night. Sarah’s left Glenn.’
The blood drains from her face. ‘Oh Christ. Why?’
Her eyes have taken on a hunted look, wide and frightened. I’m looking at her quizzically. This is a strange reaction. What’s it all about? I bet you’ve guessed, haven’t you? But it’s easier to see things when you’re observing them and not in the middle of it all.
‘She found out he’s been having an affair.’
She starts to shake her head. ‘Oh no, no. No. She shouldn’t have left him . . .’
‘I think it was the only thing she could do, Chrissie. He’s treated her and Jake like dirt and Sarah does have some self respect.’
‘But – but—’
‘But nothing. He’s a total shit and the slut he was with can have him. She must have known he was married, maybe even knew about Jake, but it just didn’t bother her. She’s obviously one of these people who go through life just thinking about themselves, taking absolutely no notice of how their actions are affecting other people.’ For some reason, Hector’s words pop into my head – about people who do and say things to suit no one but themselves, and I remember that he was talking about Glenn at the time. ‘They’re perfect for each other.’
‘But it wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean . . .’
I turn slowly to look at her and she’s gazing pleadingly at me and in that instant realization hits me like a plane crash. Stills of things I’ve seen and heard flash across my mind: the woman hugging Glenn in the car park, with a floaty lemon-coloured top on; the indistinct profile of the woman in the car he drove away in; Chrissie avoiding conversations about Glenn and his overtime every time they’ve come up; Chrissie’s new hair, new clothes, new car. Revulsion floods through every particle of me at once and I narrow my eyes, struggling to keep composed in front of Jake.
‘Get out,’ I say quietly. ‘I can’t believe that you would do something like this. It’s despicable.’
‘I’m so . . . so—’
‘Save it. No one wants you here. I don’t think we’ll ever have anything to say to each other.’
‘Will you tell—’
‘I should do. But I think that Sarah’s suffering enough knowing that her husband betrayed her. I can’t see any point in letting her know that she was betrayed by her best friend as well.’
‘She already knows.’ Sarah’s appeared in the kitchen and has obviously heard enough through the open partition.
Chrissie turns to her, her eyes full of tears. ‘Sarah . . .’ It seems the enormous guilt is preventing her from speaking.
‘Just go away, Christine,’ Sarah says, refusing to make eye contact with Chrissie. ‘Go away.’
As Chrissie stifles a sob – poor thing – Sarah walks over to where Jake is hunched on the floor. She sits down there with him and places her hand on his curved back. He looks up at last, drops what he’s making and climbs on to his mum’s lap. He looks into her face and seeing tears there, wipes them away with his own small fingers.
Chrissie can’t watch this, apparently. She’s at the door, so I go over there. ‘Stay away, Chrissie. She doesn’t want you here begging for forgiveness. Just try and live with yourself.’ I shut the door behind her without saying anything else.
When I go back into the living room, Sarah and Jake are still cuddling on the floor. Jake is singing a song for his mum, his slightly nasal voice muffled by Sarah’s shoulder, while she rocks backwards and forwards, tears falling into his hair. I leave quickly and head for the bedroom but I can’t escape the sound of Jake’s trembling rendition of ‘Funky Town’.