25 December 2004
I’m in Love Actually overdrive, counting the hours till Kerry’s overnight shift finishes.
My backpack is ready: a bottle of alcohol-free champagne, luxury crackers and cheese, plus festive lingonberry garlands my mum got in return for hosting an interiors photoshoot at Curlews in the summer. At the time, Dad and I were united in our mockery. Not anymore.
In the movie-version of today, I’m going to present them to an earmuffed, rosy-cheeked Kerry as the snow falls photogenically on the seafront.
In reality, as I wait outside the ambulance control room, there’s no snow, just mizzle, and the morning’s still dank. But I get one bit right. At just after seven, Kerry steps out of the building with a colleague. She looks up and when she sees me, her eyes widen and her cheeks turn the deepest pink.
She says something to the woman she’s with, but her eyes don’t leave mine and she runs towards me. We kiss as though it’s been weeks, not less than twenty-four hours, since we last saw each other. In the nine days since I took her to the Coasters party, we’ve been meeting in secret whenever we can, making plans. It took me saying I might leave Brighton for her to realize she wanted to be with me.
‘Hey, you two, get a room!’ her colleague calls out, laughing. ‘Merry Christmas, Kerry. See you tonight if you can drag yourself away . . .’
Kerry ignores her colleague and kisses me. I don’t know if it’s for two minutes or ten or . . .
She draws away and my heart seems to stop. Fucking hell, she’s beautiful.
‘I don’t want to go home,’ she says.
‘Good, because you don’t have to.’
OK, she will have to, later. Tim is planning a ‘surprise’ festive lunch: she saw the bottle of Co-op Buck’s Fizz and microwavable turkey dinners he’d hidden in the garage. Even though she’s decided to leave Tim, she didn’t want to do it before Christmas. Too cruel.
To me, it doesn’t seem any less cruel to tell him on Boxing Day, but Kerry won’t be swayed. The kiss in my car after I took her to the Coasters Christmas party broke through our pretence that we can live without each other. No more denial, no more lies.
Old lies don’t count. I’ve considered telling Kerry about Zoë but it’s all in the past. I want to believe what happened was for the best, though sometimes I wonder. A baby was the last thing Zoë needed. Wasn’t it?
‘Why have you stopped?’ she asks. ‘Can you kiss me again, please?’
‘You’ve got to catch me first.’
I start to run, and Kerry runs with me, grabbing hold of the ridiculous garland I’ve wrapped around my waist. We head for the seafront, as Brighton kids always do. On the beach, a group of swimmers gather at the shoreline, ready for the annual Christmas dip.
‘Fancy it?’ I ask her.
Kerry shakes her head. ‘No way. But . . .’ She looks towards Palace Pier and nods.
‘It’s closed on Christmas Day.’
‘Even better.’ She runs past the shuttered hot dog stands and candy floss kiosks, towards the barricades. As I watch, she darts to the right-hand side. And now she’s gone.
I walk towards the gates.
‘Come on, you can sneak in through here . . .’ She puts out her hand and helps me clamber over the roof of a stall. I’ve never seen the pier completely empty before and she starts to dance up and down the boards. I chase her, lasso her with Mum’s berry garland, and throw my arms around her. I kiss her with the sea smooth and green-grey between the planks under our feet. In the distance, the capped heads of the mad swimmers bob like balls.
I pour champagne into plastic flutes. We drink it looking out towards Shoreham, and beyond that to the edge of the world. We are young, we can do anything, go anywhere. We’ve made mistakes. No, I’ve made mistakes, but I don’t have to be punished for those forever.
‘Kiss me again, please,’ she asks.
I turn her face towards me and this time it’s a Hollywood kiss, tender and slow, one that justifies the changes it’s going to set in motion.
‘I should go,’ she says.
‘Tomorrow, we start again.’
She flinches, as though she’s already playing out the scene in her mind. ‘It’ll be messy to pull apart, after all this time. I’ve been with Tim for . . . three quarters of my life, if you count how long we’ve been friends . . .’
‘It’ll be messier the longer you leave it.’
‘You’re right.’ She takes my hand and we walk back to the pier turnstiles. She clambers back over the roof of the stall, and holds out her hand to help me through the gap. We’re going back to real life, but only for another twenty-four hours.
We kiss one last time, leaning against the turquoise railings, then I watch her walk away.
Our happy ever after is in sight.
My phone rings as Mum is trying to force-feed me a second helping of brandy-free Christmas pudding. It’s revolting.
I expect the display to read KERRY CALLING but it says UNKNOWN NUMBER and the ringtone goes right through me, like a mini shock.
My mother frowns.
‘Probably Ant,’ I say. ‘Sorry, I won’t be a minute.’
I go into the hall. It’s dark outside but lights twinkle on the ten-foot tree.
‘Hello, is that Mr Joel Greenaway?’ A woman’s voice: stiff, officious.
‘Yes.’
‘This is the hospital here.’
Blood rushes to my head. My heart thumps. My parents are safe, so it has to be Kerry. ‘What’s the matter? Tell me!’
In the background, I hear gulls and waves. It doesn’t sound like a hospital.
‘Ha, Joel, had you going there!’ The laugh that follows is familiar and frightening.
‘Zoë? Are you ill? Is this a wind-up?’
‘No, I’m not ill. I’m happy, happy, happy.’
‘You’re on something.’
‘I’m on . . . love. And I’ve got some amazing Christmas news for you. Guess what? You’re a daddy!’
The fairy lights are dazzlingly bright on the tree and for a moment I can’t breathe. ‘Look, Zoë, I know this time of year must be hard for you, but please don’t make sick jokes like that.’
She laughs again. ‘Not a joke. Who’s the daddy? You’re the daddy! He’s a month early and he’s got your eyes. But hopefully my heart, it’s beating like a good ’un. Not that you ever had a heart anyway . . .’
I try to speak, but nothing comes out.
‘Don’t you want to say congratulations?’
‘You’re serious?’ My voice comes out as a whisper.
‘Yes. Your son was born on December twenty-third. Mother and baby doing well. Or at least, we’re both alive.’
‘So you didn’t . . .’
‘Get rid of it? No. Went into the clinic, but had second thoughts when they gave me the consent form.’
My brain can’t process it. I am a father. ‘He’s . . . OK? Genuinely?’ Not that it means anything. I was OK for seventeen years before the night my whole life ploughed off course.
‘Cries a lot. That’s babies for you.’
‘Are you in hospital? You sound high.’
‘Celebrating.’ But her voice cracks a little.
‘Are you with him? Four weeks early; that’s bad, isn’t it?’
‘You don’t get to pin this on me, you arsehole. Yeah, so I was using, but can you blame me, after what you said?’
I sit down on the marble tread staircase, close my eyes. ‘The baby was born addicted.’ It’s not a question.
The squawking of the gulls is joined by a soft whimpering. I recognize the pitiful sound Zoë makes when she is crying.
‘Zoë, are you in Brighton?’
‘No.’
‘Where are you, then? I can come and get you.’
‘No. Too late. You won’t ever get to see him. He’s in the special care baby unit because he’s a bit poorly on account of being early. They’re gonna help me be a mum, right? And I’m gonna try, really try. But if something goes wrong, they won’t ever give him to a pig like you. They’ve got loads of nice families who’d adopt.’ Her voice breaks. I know all she was trying to do was create a family of her own.
‘Zoë, wait, we can sort this—’
But she’s cut me off.
The sharp edge of the step presses against the back of my legs. The smell of fig and pomegranate room fragrance nauseates me. I am a father. It changes everything.
Unless Zoë is right and it changes nothing. For the first time in years, I have a future, with Kerry. The chance of training for work I enjoy. Even my parents seem happy, now I’m clean.
And I believe Zoë when she says she will do everything she can to keep her child away from me. If she’d listened to me, he wouldn’t even exist. And she has the ability to slip away, like a ghost, as she has many times before.