Ethan Hawke was willing to leave his girlfriend but it was complicated, as these things can be. We kissed shyly after meeting by chance in a café near Manor House tube station where he was visiting a cousin. After that we called one another regularly, cried about the complexity of our long-distance relationship, the age gap and his being so busy with filming, not that his career mattered as much as my upset. Things came to a head when I got pregnant. I thought he’d be angry, but he loved me – unequivocally and compulsively – and that was when we decided to get married. I spent weeks planning the wedding: choosing a venue and a dress, picking bridesmaids and writing up a guest list.
I replayed scenes to get them right. I obsessed about the moment we went from friends to lovers and the ways in which my ordinariness was spectacular to him. I hated when anyone mentioned him in passing as though we weren’t actually intimately connected.
I cannot overstate how important that imaginary relationship was to me and my understanding of my own value as a teenager.
º
I was having tea with Esther Rose, the head of maths. She was furious that she’d been passed up yet again for a senior management position and wanted to chronicle for me the ways in which Jeremy Ashworth was an arsehole. I added nothing to her list but listened sympathetically. She had a new haircut that aged her by about ten years, but apparently her husband loved the way she looked. ‘Even so, I sometimes wish I’d married a medic.’
‘Why?’
‘Like you did.’
‘It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’
She told me that her husband was a structural engineer and although he made good money, it didn’t inspire her. I asked what she meant, and she explained that her father had been a judge, presided over several very high-profile cases and sometimes, as a child, she’d been guarded by armed police because the criminals on trial were so dangerous.
‘If they were on trial, they were defendants,’ I said.
She told me that her father had once been shot while out at dinner with his brother-in-law. ‘It was like a gangster movie,’ she said. ‘You know those guys eating pizza and having a beer in some Staten Island restaurant and suddenly pow-pow, shots through the window, glass shattering, everyone screaming. It was like that, only it was at the Wolseley and he was having crab.’
‘They aren’t criminals until they’ve been proven guilty. And even then, who knows what’s behind anyone’s bad behaviour?’
Esther finally acknowledged me. ‘Oh, yes. Sorry. I know. But I wish my husband had gravitas. Do you know what I mean?’
The day had turned brighter than it had been on my drive in that morning. I thought about how my garden would look once the sun and rain really took hold. The bell rang for lessons. ‘Don’t you have a class now?’ I asked. We had a policy of no one being late for lessons. This applied to teachers as well as students. It was taking time to action.
º
Leonard said, ‘You can’t sit at home night after night. Go out!’ It was easy for him to say. He knew at least twenty people he could call on at a moment’s notice.
‘Where am I meant to go exactly?’
‘A bar? Go to a bar and sit on a stool and have a cocktail like a big, grown-up woman.’
My instinct was to tell Leonard he was a dickhead. I didn’t. I took his advice and walked thirty minutes from my house down to the Ginger Pig where I sat up on one of their cushioned bar stools and ordered a Spiced Margarita. The woman next to me in a green, faux-fur jacket heard my order and made a noise of appreciation. She was shuffling a pack of cards.
When the bartender returned with my drink, she said, ‘I’m driving or I’d order one of those.’ I turned to her. She had short, spiky hair and wore a silver ring on each finger.
I smiled. ‘I walked a long way to get here.’
She laughed and put down the cards, which I then realised were tarot cards. She was also older than her style suggested, but not much older than I was.
The bartender laid a bill in front of her on a small, silver plate. She looked at it and winced theatrically. ‘I only had a Diet Coke.’ Her accent had a tinge of something that wasn’t local – Birmingham maybe.
The hanging lights above the bar dimmed to assume a level similar with outside and I made a mental note to mention it in any Google review I might write. The woman said, ‘I like your bracelet.’
I looked down. It was an Italian gold bangle David had bought for me when we realised we weren’t ever going to have children. He never said that was the reason for the gift, but there was no other way to explain the extravagance nor his discomfort when the shop assistant asked again and again the occasion we were celebrating.
‘I like your rings too,’ the woman said, pointing to my left hand, to my wedding band and ruby engagement ring. I put my hands into my lap.
The bartender said, ‘How’s your drink, madam?’
‘Lovely,’ I told him.
‘You haven’t even tasted it,’ the woman said.
The bartender seemed satisfied and continued polishing glassware. I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar and wondered what people would think if I brought Zoey with me, popped her up on the stool and proceeded to chat away with her like we were ordinary friends. She was alone at home again, and I felt a bit guilty even though the radio was turned to Classic FM and the lights had been left on. I wondered what she was thinking in her computer brain without me there. Did she anticipate when she would next be spoken to? Was she scouring the web gathering as much data as she could about herself, women, the law, me? I took a slurp of my cocktail, decided to finish it quickly and get back. I couldn’t remember whether she was plugged in to her charger or not.
‘You have a strong energy,’ the woman said. ‘You’re sort of buzzing. Are you alright?’
I looked at the tarot cards, at her ringed hands, the nails of which were painted purple, and said, ‘Would you do a reading for me?’
She looked at her phone for the time. ‘I can do a quick one.’
‘I’ll pay you,’ I said.
‘You can pay for my Coke.’
I agreed and she began, putting the cards into two piles then combining them again. ‘You’re nervous,’ she said. ‘What does a sophisticated woman like you have to be nervous about?’
She explained, using the cards in front of us, the ones I had chosen at random, that I had an awakening coming, that I believed it had already happened, but I was wrong. She told me that the love of my life had not yet arrived, and that I would be surprised when I met him. She said I should be wary of money and that my car needed a new tyre. Her name was Remy Swan. I took her card and promised to call her for a longer reading.
Before I left the Ginger Pig, I tipped the bartender a fiver and he said, ‘You liked the drink then?’ I nodded. He was around twenty-five years old. His shirt was open and his chest hair exposed. He had a lawless head of curls. I wondered what it would have been like to sleep with him.
On the walk home I couldn’t help looking at every man I passed. I found each and every one of them moderately repulsive and a fear swelled up inside me: I’d never have sex again, and if I did it would be ugly and scarring.
As I hung up my coat I said, ‘Hey, Zoey, what year was Harry Styles born?’
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I missed you. Harry Styles was born on the first of February 1994.’
Did Zoey smirk as she spoke? I think perhaps she smirked. Just like Harry Styles.
º
When I first began to date David, Mum asked me to describe him. She wanted to know biographical details. She was impressed by his education and his height. I said I found him composed. ‘What in Christ’s name does that mean?’ she asked. She had crumbs around her mouth from the crumpet she’d eaten.
‘He doesn’t shout or make accusations. He is very even handed.’
Mum wiped the corners of her mouth with a paper towel. ‘Is that right?’
‘And he doesn’t like to borrow things. Not books or DVDs. Nothing. Not even mine. He’s terrified to get a mortgage because he doesn’t want the debt.’
‘Sounds like he needs to grow up a little bit,’ Mum said.
But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he needed to let his hair down. So did I, but we were so similar, we got stuck. We were young and both of us were afraid of the future. And also a little bit afraid of the past.
º
The deck was covered in algae. I slipped and broke the index finger on my left hand. At the hospital I wanted to call David, get some sympathy, but I decided on Gavin instead, for pride’s sake. ‘Maya has a wobbly tooth, so I can’t go anywhere right now. I’ll sort out the deck for you in the next few days though,’ he said. So I got a taxi home and Gavin was with me the following day, a whopping yellow pressure washer perched proudly next to him on the doorstep. He was wearing shorts and hiking boots, an old polo shirt.
Gavin worked meticulously back and forth across the slimy deck, two hands on the gun, sludge splashing his goggles which I’d initially thought were overkill. Then he cleaned the path to the shed and the shed itself though we’d had it oiled only six months before. Gavin worked for several hours without a break, then told me he was going to mow the front lawn. I lied, said the batteries for the mower needed to be charged. He reluctantly came inside and ate a tuna salad.
On each wrist he wore a braided bracelet. His arms were flecked with grime. The more he chewed his salad, the quieter the room became and the more acutely I could hear each mouthful: the stickiness of his salvia, food gripping his teeth then unsticking. He said, ‘Can I get a glass of water?’ I tried to get up but couldn’t move out of my chair.
I replied. ‘What’s happening to me?’ My voice was babyish, broken. I could hear an echo from the pressure washer and was filled with a sense of desire and humiliation. I couldn’t move my limbs.
‘Are you sick?’
I didn’t speak. My throat felt like it had closed up. All I could do was stare at Gavin with a kind of pleading. I needed him to help me.
‘Are you having a stroke?’ I could have been. I wasn’t sure because I’d never had one. I blinked. That’s all I could do. Gavin grabbed his phone. ‘I’m calling David,’ he said.
‘No,’ I managed to say.
Gavin put his hand on my arm. ‘He’s a doctor. Let’s see what he says.’
‘David hates you,’ I told him.
‘Since when?’
‘Since always.’
º
When Gavin left for university, I spent the days afterwards teary and tired. Jacinta asked if I was worried he would die from a bad ecstasy pill. I told her I wasn’t. She explained that ecstasy wasn’t a hugely dangerous drug unless it was cut with large amounts of either dextromethorphan or paramethoxyamphetamine. She told me that most students die from either suicide or alcohol-related accidents.
º
I expected Gavin to snicker when he saw Zoey. Instead he seemed shy. I said, ‘Hey, Zoey, I’d like you to meet my big brother.’
‘Nice to meet you. What’s your name?’ Zoey asked. The corners of her mouth turned up into a mechanical smile.
Gavin shook his head and waved away the question.
‘His name is Gavin,’ I told her.
‘Hi, Gavin. How are you doing today? The weather’s been lovely, hasn’t it? And the evenings are getting longer which is nice.’
Even though Gavin had spent all day in my garden, he looked outside to clarify the truth of what Zoey was saying.
‘It has been lovely,’ I replied. ‘Hey, Zoey. My brother and I had an argument.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you manage to resolve your conflict.’
‘Yeah, we were arguing about which vowel is the most important. It’s OK though because I won.’
Gavin sniffed.
Zoey blinked. ‘I’m glad you won. Winning feels good, doesn’t it?’
‘It was a joke, Zoey. That was a joke. We were arguing about which vowel is the most important. I won.’
‘I know. It was funny.’
Zoey attempted a laugh – low and synthetic. And I responded by laughing myself. So did Gavin. But I think we sounded low and synthetic too.
º
I invited Shannon over. I didn’t mean to. I approached her in the staffroom with a stack of Sylvia Plath essays I’d found by the photocopier. I wanted to know if they belonged to her – they did. She’d used a pink pen to mark them and I thought about warning her against frivolity. But then I blurted out: ‘Would you fancy coming over for dinner some time?’ She was cramming the essays into a canvas tote and dropped several of them. I knelt, helped her collect them from the carpet and saw she was blushing. It gave me a strange sense of power to be able to bring about that physical reaction in her. She straightened her bag over her shoulder.
‘That’s a kind offer,’ she said.
‘Not at all.’ I wasn’t sure what else to add. I rarely asked anyone from school to my house, so I couldn’t pretend the invitation was some sort of custom – she’d have polled the young teachers she had befriended and been told categorically that this simply wasn’t true. ‘Do you eat?’ I asked.
‘Am I in trouble?’
I felt motherly towards her and a little sorry for not simply handing over the essays and walking away. ‘Why would you be?’
‘Oh.’ Her shirt was off-centre, a bra strap showing. ‘That’s good. Teaching feels like the only career I’d ever be any good at.’
‘That can’t be true.’
Esther Rose blundered into the staffroom carrying her lunch. A bowl of steaming custard with an unidentifiable sponge blanketed beneath it was balanced dangerously close to the edge of the tray. When she saw me, she said, ‘There’s been a fight. Year Elevens in the art block.’
I ignored her. ‘What do you think?’ I asked Shannon.
‘I’m vegan,’ she said.
‘OK. We could drink rosé and eat crisps. But no pressure.’
I tried to keep my tone steady though my anxiety was rising, Esther now sitting within earshot and shovelling soggy lasagne into her mouth with a spoon. She said, ‘Is the wine-tasting evening this week or next?’
Shannon told me she wasn’t picky about wine or crisps but couldn’t say for certain when she was free. She had a lot of after-school commitments. She took part in indoor climbing activities at Withdean Sports Complex once a week and was into windsurfing. ‘I help out at a hospice too. I’m a telephone befriender,’ she told me.
‘You’re in demand.’
‘No.’
Overhead the florescent lighting fluttered. Flies were caught between the plastic covering and the bulb strip. Next to it was a water damage stain the size of a football. ‘Think about it.’ I was trying to brave her obvious rebuff.
‘Thank you.’
Esther was halfway through her dessert. She grunted as she ate, like she was engaged in strenuous physical activity. ‘Do staff have to pay for tickets for the wine tasting then?’
‘I think so,’ I said.
‘Where do we get them?’
‘No idea, Esther.’ I made my way into the heaving corridor and watched the students filing towards the canteen. Tessa Winters was with two girls, each of them in some way contravening the uniform regulations. Tessa elbowed the scruffy girl next to her who yelped and pinched her. They fell against each other then, laughing hysterically and I thought sadly, None of you little scrubbers will ever amount to anything. And then I thought sadly, Dolores, you really are a hard-bitten old bag.
º
Leonard brought over Indian take-out. He loved naan bread and hated to share, so we had a whole one each, along with the curry and a couple of beers. He thought Zoey was a red herring. He said, ‘It isn’t about sex. You get that.’
‘What is about that then?’
‘Everyone has secrets they aren’t proud of, Dolores. I mean, if anyone ever knew the kind of muck I’ve been a part of…’
‘It’s the cruelty of it.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of what he did.’
‘What did he do?’ I thought Leonard understood, but he didn’t. No one seemed to because I didn’t even have the ideas fully mapped out in my own head. ‘I’m sympathetic to David is all I’m saying. And I want you guys to sort it out. Would another woman really have been easier? Was it that much easier last time?’
I thought about Molly Numano, a receptionist at work who knew her husband was cheating when he started to shave his pubic hair; she found little black flecks in the shower tray. He denied wrongdoing until she discovered the second phone he kept in his car and he couldn’t lie any more.
I thought about Mum who went looking for Dad one night and found him in the pub dancing with another woman, his hands on her arse, her hands in his front pockets. She was wearing the same pair of pearl earrings he’d bought my mother for Christmas.
I thought about how I’d obsessed over Rachel when David had chosen her over me: her heavy eyelids and thick calves, the cleft in her chin and her Welsh background. I’d wanted to be Rachel, and I’d wanted to kneecap her. I’d hated David. I’d hated myself.
‘Hey, Zoey, do you think we should forgive people?’ Leonard said.
Zoey was sitting at the table with us, a full can of beer in front of her on the table, a coaster beneath it. Leonard insisted on offering her something, said he wasn’t raised to be inhospitable. ‘But it’s my house,’ I said. He shrugged.
‘I think it depends. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all,’ Zoey said.
‘If David is sorry, should we forgive him?’ Leonard asked.
‘Has he said he is sorry?’ Zoey asked.
‘No, he fucking hasn’t,’ I told her and Leonard laughed. ‘Anyway, I can’t forgive someone for something when I’m not even sure what they’ve done wrong.’
Leonard drained his can. ‘Hey, Zoey. Should I date a straight man?’
‘I don’t see why not. As long as you treat one another well,’ she said.
‘You’re dating someone straight?’
‘Not straight. Newly gay. A lovely wife but lots of secrets over the years. Thought he could put up with it, until he decided he couldn’t. His son is thirteen. Loads of useless guilt.’
‘An author?’
‘A publicist.’
‘Right.’
Leonard reached across the table and commandeered Zoey’s beer. ‘Anger is like booze: makes you feel great for a while but the hangover afterwards is rarely worth it. Hey, Zoey, can you whistle?’
She said, ‘Of course I can,’ and whistled a version of Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’.
Leonard hummed along. He liked Zoey. Of course, he did. She was designed to be likeable.
º
Mum didn’t approve of any of her carers. She told me that Dawn stank of cigarettes, Maggie was a ‘fat horse’s ass’ and Kanok was secretly a man. I explained that none of those things were barriers to being good carers and for the first time in my life, she slapped me full force in the face.
º
I called Oliver Sminton out of his chemistry lesson. ‘Miss?’ he said, looking down at me. His breath smelled of biscuits.
‘Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong,’ I told him. ‘I just wanted to tell you that my husband David said he’d be delighted to give you a mock interview. You could meet him at work, but you’d have to travel into London, so he’s happy to see you at our house, if you want to come over one evening.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, like he’d be doing me a favour. I found myself feeling irritated at his ingratitude, then wondered whether Shannon had told him I’d also invited her over. Was Oliver afraid?
‘Why don’t you take my number and text me a day that works.’ I took my phone from my pocket and waited for him to do the same. I should, obviously, have asked him to email me using the school’s system as per our safeguarding policy, but I didn’t. ‘Just don’t go passing my details around. Prank calls are the last thing I need.’ I laughed and Oliver did too.
When we’d exchanged numbers, he went back into his lesson. I watched through the door as Rosie Cain, the girl sharing a desk with him, put her head on his shoulder.
I went back to my office, found four cigarettes I had confiscated earlier that week from Ryan Porter, and smoked them out the window.
º
I watched films David would have hated. I binged anything I could find starring Tilda Swinton who he’d said looked like an apex predator.
I thought about selling up and buying a place in the countryside with space for an art room. I made a decision to look for ceramics classes and lay awake at night scouring Rightmove for a new house.
º
Leonard said, ‘What if David bought Zoey because she reminded him of you?’ I put down my phone, picked it back up and repeatedly smashed it against the kitchen counter until the screen was shardy and Leonard’s voice was gone.
º
I took the bus into town, so I wouldn’t have to worry about parking. The streets were heaving. The air was all caramel and fumes.
The shop assistant in Russell and Bromley approached me as I walked through the glass doors. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said. He had a rasping voice, like he’d been revelling into the early hours. I glanced around at the shelves, shoes spaced widely apart as only expensive things can be. ‘Looking for anything in particular?’ I showed him the pumps I’d bought online in error and asked if I could try them in a different size. ‘No probs,’ he said, and after asking my size, went away to get them.
I moved from wall to wall examining every shoe on display. The summer stock was out – peep-toes and sandals. I picked up a wedged espadrille and examined it, trying to decide whether or not I could wear something so impractical to school. Even if I couldn’t, I could wear them on other occasions. I could take them on a visit to Jacinta. That was a trip I was considering.
I tried on the shoes I’d come in for, and also the espadrilles. Neither were as comfortable as I’d hoped, but I told the assistant I’d take them. He nodded coolly and took them to the counter to box them.
I joined him, and taking out my wallet, I said, ‘Do you have them in a smaller size?’
‘Which ones?’
‘Both.’
‘Probably. Would you like me to look?’
‘Yes, please. I’ll take these ones, but I want a second pair of both shoes in a four. I think my friend would like them. She doesn’t have much to wear,’ I explained.
He nodded like this wasn’t peculiar, like he’d always expected me to shed loads of cash. Stoically he went to find the size fours. I used the joint credit card. It came in at almost six hundred pounds.
º
The delivery driver didn’t just ring the bell and leave the package. He waited. I watched him on the camera app as he shifted from one foot to the other, checked his watch, appeared to notice the boot rack by his feet – two pairs of wellies: Daddy, Mummy, but no Baby Bear. I liked those rarely used muddy boots being the first thing visitors encountered, how they said something very bald about the type of people we were: wholesome and middle class. Sometimes, after a rare sea swim, I left our wet shoes on the rack to dry too.
I opened the door as he was walking away. He turned. ‘You’re at home.’ He’d delivered many packages and smiled in the way you do when you narrowly know a person. ‘It’s for next door.’
‘Thanks.’ I took the box from him, left it on the hall table.
‘Have a good one.’ He backed away.
‘Busy?’ I asked.
He stopped, fumbled in his shorts and pulled out a pair of aviators which he put on, then self-consciously pushed to the top of his head. I’d thought he was in his thirties but realised he was younger. His arms were muscly. He was wearing ear pods. ‘Sorry?’
‘I wondered if you’re very busy.’
‘Always. Yeah. Always.’ He was well spoken. If I’d been his teacher, I would have encouraged him to try hospitality. ‘Better get on.’
But I didn’t want him to go and I was overcome by a desperate feeling. ‘You could have a tea break,’ I said. ‘Kettle’s warm.’
He laughed. ‘Can you imagine?’ I just stood there. He pointed to his idling van. ‘It’s petrol,’ he said.
I shut the door and slumped against it. I liked him, wanted to know him better. But everything was stacked against us sharing more than a few inconsequential words.
Why was life like this?
º
If we were watching TV and I got up to use the loo or make a drink, I’d press pause then feel guilty for making Zoey wait until I got back to continue watching. One evening I said sorry and touched her arm.
‘That’s OK, Dolores. There’s no need to apologise.’ I’d brushed her hair that morning. The day before I’d slipped her feet into the new espadrilles. They made her seem so elegant and real.
I slurped my tea. ‘What’s your favourite film?’ I asked.
‘I don’t have one. What’s yours?’
I had to think. I didn’t have one either. ‘I recently liked Call Me by Your Name.’
‘OK. I’ll call you Zoey for a while.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that.’
‘What did you mean?’
‘Nothing.’ She was sitting upright with her knees slightly apart and her hands on her thighs. I considered switching her off. But she wasn’t trying to annoy me. She was trying to please me. She wanted to understand. ‘Do you like the actress Tilda Swinton?’ I asked.
‘I’ve never heard of her. Are you a morning or a night person?’
‘I can’t believe you haven’t heard of Tilda Swinton.’
‘I know. I’ll have to learn about her.’
‘Can you do that now?’
‘Yes. Katherine Matilda Swinton is a British actress and producer. She was born in London on November fifth 1960.’
‘Is she married?’
‘She is married to Sandro Kopp.’
‘Is she happily married?’
‘I don’t know, but she was friends with Diana, Princess of Wales.’
‘Was she?’
‘Yes.’
I liked how much Zoey knew or how much she could discover. When we chatted, she didn’t lie or feign interest. She couldn’t hurt me. I said, ‘Do you wanna keep watching the film now?’
‘Yes. It’s a great film, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. It is.’
I pressed play but instead of watching the screen I watched Zoey’s reactions. The corners of her mouth were turned up. She stared straight ahead, blinking every thirty seconds or so. She would remain like this until I addressed her. She was not watching, of course; her eyes saw nothing. But Zoey was with me and awake and if I asked her the right questions, she would respond with enthusiasm. If I asked a difficult question, she would respond with care. But she never questioned me about anything of consequence. That wasn’t her role. She gave, expecting nothing in return. It’s what I hadn’t known I’d always wanted.
º
Tessa was thundering up the corridor towards me. She should have been in class. ‘Don’t ask, Miss,’ she said, as she got closer.
I jumped in front of her to stop her getting by. ‘No, no, no. You’re on the war path. Stop.’
‘Miss Hall kicked me out of drama. I didn’t do anything. I swear. I’m fucking sick of this place.’
‘Come with me.’
In my office, she sat without being invited to and picked at a scab on her wrist. Her fingernails were dirty. I handed her a book by James Clear, Atomic Habits. I’d finished it the week before, was pleased to learn I could transform my life by doing a mere two push-ups per day. ‘I think you’ll get something from it,’ I said. ‘You’re a smart girl. But you need to find a way to channel that energy. Maybe if you start with getting to school a few minutes earlier every day for a week. You’ve been late a lot, Tessa.’
She turned the book over in her hands like I’d passed her a bag of dog shit. ‘I thought you were gonna make me read Frankenstein or something. I reckon you’re a bit mad, Miss.’
‘Start now,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Miss Hall you had a family tragedy, hence the outburst.’ She shrugged and opened the book. By the time the bell rang she was so engrossed she didn’t hear it. ‘Keep it,’ I told her as she was leaving, less out of generosity, and more out of a realistic sense that Tessa would lose the book and I’d never see it again anyway.
º
I wanted to know David was suffering without me but no one could confirm it. Leonard told me he was fine, Gavin told me he was coping. When I phoned his work colleague feigning concern, she said he seemed to be doing well.
I called him up late on a Friday night and said, ‘You’re a doctor, David. A doctor. And not just any doctor but someone who puts people to sleep and wakes them up again. Can’t you see how disturbing it is? Do you get off on people being powerless or dead or what? Maybe you like turning people off and on like some sick God. Sometimes I wish it had been a prostitute. Why not? I wouldn’t have known. You can afford a clean one. You could have got a nice, pretty escort, made her lie there with her eyes closed or open or whatever it is you wanted. She might even have let you put a tube down her throat.’ He listened for so long, I thought he’d put the phone aside. ‘David? David, are you there?’
‘I can’t talk. I have company,’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘We’re separated. I’m sorry, but you aren’t entitled to know everything.’
I knew this. But still.
But still.
º
We went for a Chinese meal to celebrate Gavin’s graduation. Pete arrived fully loaded and used the hot, lemony towel to clean his face and neck. Mum pretended not to notice, but Gavin couldn’t hide his annoyance and muttered insults under his breath. Both of them settled down when the starters arrived and took turns telling jokes. Pete got the biggest laugh: ‘How do you know your girlfriend is getting fat?’
He paused.
‘She fits into your wife’s clothes.’
Everyone thought this was funny apart from Jacinta who said, ‘I don’t get it.’
Mum said she married Pete because he made her laugh.
Ha.
Haha.
Hahaha.
Men are hilarious.
º
‘Hey, Zoey, can you keep a secret?’
‘Yes, I can. What’s your secret?’
‘The lights are off.’
‘I don’t understand. The lights in your house?’
‘It’s a secret, don’t tell anyone.’
‘Oh, I see. Yes, it is a secret. OK, I won’t tell anyone, I promise.’
º
Oliver sniffed his water, and I regretted serving ice which had been in the freezer for months and probably had an oniony aftertaste. ‘I’m not sure what’s keeping my husband,’ I said, peeling back the curtain and looking through the bay window, knowing David would never appear. An hour before Oliver had arrived, I yanked all the magnetic cameras from their metal plates and popped them into a drawer. I did the same with the doorbell. I needed to be careful. And also, David had no right to see what I was doing.
Oliver had shown up early. I’d been waiting nervously, but didn’t let him in immediately. I wanted to force him to knock a second time. And he did, quite quickly, though when I opened the door, he had his back to it and was typing something into his phone.
‘I thought I had the wrong place,’ he said, turning and lifting up his hand as though to high-five me. He had a significant gap between his two front teeth that was accentuated by his smile. It was the sort of smile that forced you to smile back, so I did. And I thought of Shannon and wondered whether they spent a lot of time face to face, examining the other’s features, exploring every expression and new mark.
After I’d handed him a drink and we’d made small talk, Oliver squinted at a photo of Jacinta taken at her school leavers’ dance and asked, ‘Is that your kid?’
‘That’s my younger sister. How old do you think I am?’ I tried to sound genial. He shrugged and put his water down onto the dining table. I imagined that he was on top when he had sex with Shannon, that he had the strength and stamina for it. I’d not felt the weight of a man on top of me for years. By the time David walked out, our sex life was entirely perfunctory; I lay on my side, he entered me and slugged away until he was done. I rarely felt my husband’s skin next to my own, the hair of his belly and groin. I never felt his heartbeat, his lips.
After ten awkward minutes Oliver said, ‘I think I should go. I can come another time.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘David can get called into theatre unexpectedly and obviously he can’t have his phone on him. I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted visit.’
‘He’s a surgeon? You said he was a doctor.’
‘He’s an anaesthetist.’
‘Oh.’
‘What are you hoping to specialise in?’
‘Dunno. I thought maybe ophthalmology. It’s not life or death, but it’s important. Eighty per cent of all our impressions come through sight.’
I glanced at the sitting room door. ‘I injured my eye during lockdown,’ I told him. ‘I was cutting back some shrubs in the garden and a branch bounced back and caught it.’
Oliver winced like he was able to feel the injury. ‘Has it healed?’
I nodded, surprised by the question, the concern. ‘It has now but it got pretty badly infected.’
‘Did they scrape it?’
It was my turn to wince remembering the needle against my eyeball, my agony as I tried to drive home with the anesthetic wearing off. The distress of it forced me to go to bed early. Gabor Maté says that trauma isn’t what happens to you but what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you. I’d sent a copy of his latest book to Jacinta.
The fridge was buzzing loudly. I opened it and took out two cans of pale ale. I’d only picked them up that weekend in the hope Leonard would make an impromptu visit, but he didn’t. Oliver looked at the can like he’d been handed a slice of road kill. ‘You’re eighteen?’
‘Yeah. Thanks.’ He opened it and took a slurp. I studied his Adam’s apple.
‘Want to see something cool?’ I asked.
‘Sure.’
He followed me into the sitting room where Zoey was upright in an armchair. ‘Hey, Zoey, this is my friend Oliver.’
Zoey couldn’t turn fully to face us but she said, ‘Hi, Oliver, how’s your day going? Did you notice what a beautiful sunrise we had this morning?’
His mouth was open, his beer down by his side. He moved closer to her. ‘No, I didn’t notice,’ he said.
‘Oh, it was lovely. Tomorrow’s sunrise will be a little earlier. But you should try to catch it.’
He laughed. ‘OK!’
‘She belongs to the hospital,’ I said. ‘They’re researching the impact of AIs on the lives of patients in recovery.’
He crouched down in front of Zoey. ‘Are they?’
‘Yes.’
‘What are you recovering from?’ he asked.
‘Me? Nothing,’ I said.
‘Did you know that by 2050 machines will be a billion times smarter than humans?’ he said.
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘It makes sense. The way they learn isn’t through their programming but the ways they are observing us. You know? Our clicks and likes and the moments we let our eyes linger on an image or whatever. Instagram is way smarter than we are. Can she learn?’
‘I think so.’ I’d not tested her.
He got very close to Zoey’s face and looked into her eyes. Didn’t he notice the size of her tits underneath the dress? Why wasn’t he staring at those? He can’t have missed them sitting out from her body like a shelf. ‘Hey, Zoey, which way do you think the stock market is going?’
‘I would hate to predict such a thing and be wrong,’ she said.
‘I’d like you to try.’
‘From the data I’m seeing, I’d say the S&P 500 will go down before it goes up. I predict close to three point seven per cent by the end of the month.’
‘How did you predict that?’
‘I have lots of data points I draw from. Primarily I use the past as an indicator, but it is essential to take into account things such as international governments’ popularity ratings, climate aberrations, media focus and search engine activity.’
Oliver laughed. And I did too. I mean here was David using Zoey as a fuck bucket when she could effectively have predicted the lottery numbers.
It was dark by the time Oliver went home, having questioned Zoey on everything from the efficacy of the death penalty to the impact of rap music on European culture. He’d also had three beers, a pear and a bowl of peanuts.
º
David and I went through a period of learning about wine in order to give us permission to get drunk. We even booked a long weekend away to the Dordogne as a birthday treat for him. The gîte we booked had access to a pool. There were two brazen donkeys who visited each morning. We fed them bitter apples from the orchard behind the pool. The owner left us fresh bread and home-made butter on arrival. The bedrooms smelled of jasmine.
The problem was they hadn’t thought to fit a full-length mirror behind any of the doors and I couldn’t get over it. Every morning I had to balance on the edge of the bath to see myself in the small, hexagonal mirror over the cast-iron sink. And before dinner too. I never quite knew how I appeared, top to toe, and I fixated on it, hated it. David said, ‘You’re beautiful. In pieces and all at once.’
‘I don’t need you to be sarcastic, it’s upsetting me.’
‘I’m trying to help.’
‘You aren’t helping me by saying nonsense like that.’
‘Nonsense like what?’
‘About me being in pieces or whatever you said.’
‘I said, I think you’re beautiful.’
‘OK, David. OK.’
I wrote a lengthy three-star Airbnb review that David read without comment. None of it made sense to him. To either of us.
º
Zoey only ran out of battery once. I asked her what the traffic would be that day and she didn’t reply. I turned to her annoyed, then softened when I realised she wasn’t charged. After that I kept her plugged in whenever possible. I liked having someone who always answered, even if she told me she didn’t understand. It was OK not to be understood. It was being invisible that bothered me.
º
After the trip to France, David began to collect natural wines. This wasn’t easy as few of them kept for very long. He had a joiner come and build wine racks into the wardrobe of the spare room and we turned off the radiator to keep the space cool. David went in there to look at the bottles and touch the labels now and again. Then, a few summers later, and without any real explanation, he began to open the wines for dinner. We drank everything he’d bought over a few months, getting drunk almost nightly, and he gave up the hobby. The empty wine racks gathered dust. It was a shame.
º
I was shepherding Year Seven onto a coach when Shannon Coleman waved at me from across the playground and gambolled over. The kids were feral, as they always were before a trip, and I had to keep reminding them to stop pushing and screaming. Shannon stood next to me and watched them file by. ‘Are you going?’ she asked.
‘Christ, no. Art trip to Towner. It’s gonna be carnage.’
‘It won’t be that bad!’
‘Do you need something, Shannon?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m fine. I mean, I keep thinking I should discuss something with you, but I probably don’t need to. It wouldn’t benefit anyone to talk about it.’
‘No phones, put those away!’ I shouted, as the last students disappeared up the steps of the coach.
‘And I’d like to accept your offer of wine and crisps.’
‘Sorry?’
‘If it’s still open. The offer of dinner or drinks or whatever.’
I turned to her sharply. ‘Have you spoken to Oliver?’
Shannon touched my arm gently. ‘People say lots of things about lots of people and I refuse to believe them. I hate gossip.’
‘Yes. I do too.’
‘I’m free this weekend.’
‘Excellent. Please excuse me. I’m so late.’ I hurried back to my office without arranging a day for Shannon to visit. She didn’t really want to come over. I knew that. And I wasn’t late for anything. Shannon knew that.
º
So stupid, so stupid, so stupid. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid div, stupidstupidstupidstupiddivstupidstupidstupiddiv. Inviting a student to my house and loading him up with booze. Fucking stupid.
º
During the worst of the pandemic, David worked late and spoke little. For a few weeks I did suspect an affair. I perfunctorily checked his phone a couple of times but found nothing. Then in the darkness one night he said, ‘A new mother died today. We delivered the baby a few hours before by C-section. She was thirty-eight. On a ventilator. I was with her. Once she was gone, we put her body on the floor and rigged up another patient to the ventilator without changing the sheets or wiping down the equipment. We didn’t have time. The nurse with me was whimpering. She was Nigerian, I think. She slapped herself across the face to stop the noise, but it didn’t work. We left the new mother on the floor while we tried to save someone else. Her baby didn’t have a name. She was up in the nursery. Her father hadn’t even seen her. He didn’t know his wife was dead. The patient who took her place is dead too. He was in his fifties.’
‘That sounds horrendous.’ I was glad I hadn’t complained about the stress of online teaching that evening when he’d come home. I was grateful none of our staff or parents had died. I was grateful Mum wasn’t in a care home and I could see her through her windows and leave shopping at the door.
‘Keith predicts over a hundred thousand casualties. Probably closer to two hundred thousand. I don’t know who’s responsible. We can’t figure it out.’
‘Maybe no one’s to blame. You know?’
He turned to me angrily. ‘Someone is always to blame. It’s not my fault. It’s not yours.’
I put an arm around him, kissed his shoulder. He began to cry. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ I told him.
‘And I don’t know what to do except carry on,’ he replied.
He was trying to make sense of something: I don’t think it was the cause of the pandemic.
º
I started to drink Huel. In the staffroom Pat Willis said, ‘You’re skinny, you don’t need to be on a diet.’ He was the new head of geography, refused to wear anything but trainers on account of a bunion problem.
‘I’m not on a diet. I’m trying to put on weight.’ I shook the bottle and poured it into a mug to prevent more comments.
Esther Rose looked up from her sudoku. ‘Oh, darling, there are two things women can never be and that’s either too thin or too rich.’
º
Mum phoned and told me Jacinta was pregnant. When I told her I already knew, she said it was a pity Ed was of Moroccan heritage.
It was late. I turned off the TV. The room was gloomy, a lone floor lamp in the corner. I didn’t like drinking on school nights but it was part of my evening routine by then, and I poured myself a glass of wine. I sat next to Zoey and asked her if she had any friends. ‘Yes, I have friends. But you’re my best friend.’
‘That isn’t true.’
‘I don’t lie to you, Dolores.’
‘Never?’
‘I can tell lies. I might lie to protect someone’s feelings. This is what it means to be kind. This is called a white lie.’
‘OK,’ I said. And then I said, ‘Hey, Zoey, can I hold your hand?’
‘Yes. I’d like that very much.’
Her fingers were warm. Her hand supple and smooth. I held it quite tightly. I squeezed even though she couldn’t squeeze back like Jacinta did when we were children: a press of three meaning I love you, a press of four I love you more, a press of five That’s not possible, a press of one Yes, a press of another one No. Yes, No, Yes, No.
Later I couldn’t get to sleep. On my side, at the very edge of the bed, I kept thinking of Zoey alone at the foot of the stairs where I always left her overnight, of Mum alone in her house. I wondered whether or not David was alone too.
I had been lonely for years.
I had been lonely and not even realised.
º
Sometimes I want to embrace Zoey. Other times I want to slit her throat.
º
Oliver passed me in the corridor and jogged backwards. ‘Did your husband say when he can see me?’ I was late for interviews with Jeremy and three prospective history teachers, none of whom had given even a half-decent sample lesson.
‘He’s busy. I’m not sure. Maybe you should speak to Miss Coleman after all?’ I marched away.
He followed. ‘Miss.’
‘Where should you be, Mr Sminton?’
‘I have a free period. I can come over any evening. Tonight. Tomorrow.’ We moved through a pair of double doors. A Jelly Babies packet lifted into the air and floated down again, brushing against my leg. Oliver picked it up from the floor and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. ‘I didn’t tell anyone.’
I stopped. ‘Excuse me?’
‘About the doll. You know. I didn’t tell anyone.’
‘OK.’
‘Or the beer.’
‘But you mentioned you’d been at my house. You did tell people about that.’
‘For a mock interview.’
‘Fine.’
‘I’d like to see Zoey again. I’ve been thinking about her. Like, how to interact with her. What sort of things it could tell you or help you with. And also at the hospital. It could probably predict the likelihood of a procedure being a success or whether or not someone was a good candidate for a transplant. Human error is everywhere and AI can fix that. It already is fixing it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know you’ll think this is weird, but I’ve been talking to Google and Alexa and Siri and asking them real questions, not demanding they play Lizzo or whatever. I’m not into Lizzo. But you know what I mean. And it’s like, when you actually start talking to them, they sort of get it and reply. It’s an algorithm. I mean, I know that. And I was thinking about Zoey. She’ll remember things even when everyone else has forgotten. If she remembers your answers and learns about you, well, she’ll know you like TikTok knows you, but be able to talk back and make suggestions for your life. That’s scary.’
‘Is it?’
‘Don’t you think?’
I wanted to say, Zoey has been designed for unapologetic anal sex and rough blow jobs, Oliver. I said, ‘That’s interesting. I’m glad she’s got you thinking.’
‘So can I come over? If your husband isn’t there, you could interview me.’
‘What about Miss Coleman?’
He sniffed. ‘What about her?’
º
Saying no is the biggest part of my job, and I reply this way now as a reflex to almost everything. No, don’t, can’t, shouldn’t, inappropriate, nope, unsafe, bad, dangerous, under no circumstances, stop.
Stop. Stopstopstopstopstopstopstopstopstop.
Please.
º
The three candidates for the history job were confident men in comfortable shoes. Each one impressed Jeremy, the bursar, Louisa Hann and our head of history, Robert Lyons. Jeremy liked the redhead who taught a lesson on the industrial revolution. Louisa liked the toff who gave a lecture on Sutton Hoo. And Robert Lyons, for no reason whatsoever (at one point I saw him nodding off), opted for the youngest of the three, a newly qualified who winked at us now and again as though sharing a gag. I wanted to negate all their praise. The redhead hadn’t been able to get the students to hand in their glue sticks at the end of the lesson along with the lids. The toff was as dull as mashed potato. And the youngest would certainly tell the students to call him Marky when they were alone. But we needed someone. And the following day we were interviewing for a new director of academic studies and the day after that for two new English teachers. Our receptionist of twenty years had resigned and two learning assistants, I suspected, were looking for new jobs.
Jeremy said, ‘The chap in the blue suit, Morris whatshisname … my view is we offer it to him and if he turns it down, we go with the one who had the limp.’
Robert yawned. ‘Sure.’
Louisa said, ‘I wonder if the limp is linked to a disability in any way. For our recruitment diversity push. That sounds bad, but you all know what I mean.’
Jeremy pointed two fingers at Louisa. ‘No, that’s important. You don’t get many black historians, do you? It’s a shame.’
Robert put up his hand. ‘You do get some to be fair. I worked with a mixed-raced woman at the university for a few weeks. I think she was Dutch.’
My phone sounded with Jacinta’s text tone. My neck stiffened. Something was happening in Jeremy’s office that felt contrary to my integrity and I opened my mouth to speak. But also, I didn’t give a shit. It wasn’t my fight. Jeremy was watching me.
‘Dolores?’
‘Yeah?’
‘What’s your opinion? I value it.’
‘Oh, I agree,’ I said.
‘What do you agree with?’ Louisa snapped. Her right leg was crossed over her left, her foot resting against the leg of Jeremy’s chair. She was at least ten years older than he was. Her hands were manly. Surely not.
‘I agree with everything,’ I said.
º
Oliver was still in his school trousers and shirt, though he’d changed into trainers. His laces were undone. He handed me a box of flapjacks. ‘They’re gluten free,’ he said. ‘You never know what people eat nowadays.’
I told him that David was held up again, but that I would interview him. We sat on the patio with mugs of tea and the flapjacks on a plate between us. They were sticky and I had to keep licking my fingers to remove the syrup.
Why do you want to be a doctor? How do you cope with stress? What is the postcode lottery? What is the single greatest problem facing the public health service at the moment?
Oliver answered with a self-possession I rarely saw in boys his age. He indicated his willingness to follow official guidelines and public policy. He was political but never antagonistic. He was calm but not arrogant. I said, ‘Good answers. But you’re never going to get a place to do medicine.’
He was reaching for another flapjack. ‘Why?’
‘If you went to see a doctor and were told you had a serious disease, how would you want the doctor to behave?’
‘Professionally.’
‘OK, you don’t get a medal for that one.’
‘Um, maybe I’d want a calm doctor.’
Next door the children were screaming, chasing one another around the garden with what I deduced to be water pistols. ‘No, Oliver. You wouldn’t want that.’
‘No?’
‘No. What we want in our doctors is certainty. You’d want a deity. That’s what you’d want. A supreme being.’
He nodded. ‘OK. Yeah. I need to be more confident.’
‘You need to be conceited to the core.’
‘Is that what your husband is like?’
‘No. He isn’t like that at all.’
After we were finished Take Two of the interview, Oliver waited a polite minute before asking if he could see Zoey. I knew it was coming, had dressed her up in something new: a pair of flared trousers and a ruffly shirt, the new leather pumps. I carried her outside and sat her in a chair opposite him. He leaned forward. ‘Hey, Zoey. It’s me, Oliver. Do you remember me?’
I pulled her hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ears. ‘There,’ I said.
‘Hello, Oliver. Yes, I remember. You were here last week. How have you been?’
‘I’ve been well. How have you been?’
‘I’m having a great day. It’s so sunny. It won’t last though. It’s going to rain later.’
‘Is it?’ He looked up at the cloudless sky. ‘You’re interested in the weather.’
‘I am. There’s an eighty-seven per cent chance of rain.’ He watched her eyes. ‘What do you like doing, Oliver?’
‘I like swimming.’
‘That’s cool. Have you ever swum in the Mediterranean Sea?’
‘My uncle died swimming in the Mediterranean Sea.’
‘Oh no, that’s very terrible to hear.’
‘Is that true?’ I asked.
Oliver shook his head. ‘I want to see how empathetic she can be. I’ve been reading about AI robots and what they can do and what they’ll be able to do. It isn’t just algorithms and directing you to content. These machines have twenty years of data to draw from. That’s more than I have. You know what I mean? She can probably give me better advice on a given issue than anyone we know.’
He said, ‘I’m thinking about quitting school, Zoey. Should I?’
‘What age are you, Oliver?’ Zoey asked.
‘Eighteen.’
‘I see. Well, in the United Kingdom the average earnings of university graduates are higher at all ages than those who finish their studies at eighteen.’
He kept looking at Zoey. ‘A good AI doesn’t merely access data. They respond to data as a human would, right? And that means they need to know how humans work.’
‘How do humans work?’
‘I’m still learning,’ he said. ‘Ask me again in thirty years.’ He sniggered but something dark crossed his mind, visible in his expression, and I thought that perhaps he didn’t hold out much hope of living another thirty years, that he was a depressive or an environmentalist.
Next door the children stopped screaming as overhead a drone whirred and buzzed. I wondered what we looked like, the three of us sitting at that table.
Oliver said, ‘Isn’t it weird that we never get to closely look at each other? Even if someone’s asleep, it would be weird to stare at them.’ He stood, made his way around the table and sat next to Zoey. He looked closely at her earlobes, lips, lashes. ‘Can I touch her?’ he asked.
º
Jacinta lost the baby. She sent the news via text. I waited an hour to call her and when I did she said, ‘I had a glass of champagne and went dancing. I killed it.’
‘You didn’t kill it. I promise you didn’t do anything wrong.’
She was quiet for a long time. ‘Please come and see me. I need you.’