‘Holiday?’ says Jenny, nodding at my enormous backpack. ‘You go with girl?’
‘Zoe,’ I tell her. ‘Yes.’
‘Where you go?’
‘Thailand,’ I say, opting for the simple version.
We fly in four hours, check in in two.
Rachel is back from honeymoon now, and while Zoe spent a final night with the girls, I drove the car north. If I left it in the Black Horse car park, there would be nothing left a year from now, so Dad is going to sell it and send the money on. Now that Mum is a surrogate grandmother, she seems to have finally buried her resentment towards me – instead sharing pictures and talking endlessly about Violet’s eyes, her rosebud lips, her tiny fingers, her chubby cheeks. And I felt a pang of something like paternal affection. Clearly April and Brian’s input was more significant, but if I hadn’t been such a stupid dithering shit, then it’s unlikely Violet would be dribbling on anyone’s shoulder. And she really is a spectacularly beautiful baby. Mum cried when I said goodbye this morning, which is a relief. For a few days there has been an eerie lack of tears, and I thought the Universe had forgotten our contract. But all is well. Mum and Dad look happier than I’ve seen them for a while, and barely argued at all last night. Big Boots still hasn’t told Mum about his memory lapses, but he tells me he probably will – ‘If I don’t forget, son.’
Everything in the house is fixed, cleaned and restored. Everything except Zoe. I remember standing on Albert Bridge four months ago and thinking there was something melancholy behind her smile. It went away for a while, but it’s come back – the heaviness that seems to tug at her eyes. We’re still close, intimate, affectionate; she curls up against me on the sofa, and rests her head on my chest in bed. But there is also a pressing, almost physical silence. We play music or listen to the radio while we’re cleaning the house, but the weight of that silence is still beside us. Since visiting Alex’s mother, an air of calm acceptance seems to have come over Zoe. Occasionally she will retreat into herself, gently drifting out of the moment and into her own inner world. Moving from one room to another, she might stop with her hand on the doorknob, temporarily short-circuited by some thought or remembrance. Two days ago, she cried quietly as she cleaned grimy fingerprints from around the light switches. And I have wondered several times whether it wouldn’t have been better, after all, to nail the engagement ring away beneath the floorboards.
The flight time to Bangkok is eleven hours and twenty-five minutes and I’m hoping the sleep that has eluded me for the past week will find me in the clouds. When Zoe first told me about Alex, we stayed up all night talking. We talked about her travelling; how she wanted – needed – to find herself, to be independent, afraid and challenged and reliant upon no one but Zoe Goldman. I understood, envied and admired her. And although I try to ignore the question, the question is insistent: What has changed?
Call it a whim. Or call it procrastination. But I still have Jenny’s number in my phone, and I called her this morning. She was a little surprised by my offer of a home visit, but at the same time she sounded excited at the prospect of company. I’ve had a guided tour of her small, cluttered home, been shown many artefacts and pictures and albums and souvenirs. And though I could happily hang out for the rest of the day, I have a plane to catch.
‘So, how are your teeth?’
‘Friends again,’ says Jenny, smiling widely. ‘Everybody very happy.’
Her flat is drawn in sepia; nets at the windows, plants and books and shelves absorbing the dusty light. Not ideal conditions for checking her implants, but that’s not why I’m here. Nevertheless, I take a quick look at her teeth and confirm that nothing is obviously wrong.
‘I have a confession,’ I say to Jenny.
‘What you do?’
By way of an answer, I open my backpack and remove a small leather pouch from which I remove my scissors. ‘When’s the last time you had a haircut?’ I ask.
Time is ticking, and it takes longer than I’d planned to convince Jenny, first, that I am not here to murder her, and secondly, that I cut a very good graduated bob.
‘Is expensive?’ says Jenny. ‘Like teeth?’
‘A going away present,’ I tell her. ‘When do you fly?’
‘Three weeks.’
‘Excited?’
‘Scare, really. Long way fly on my own.’
‘What about your children? Don’t they want to go?’
‘Children angry, actually. Want coffin, haha.’
‘Is that him?’ I say, pointing to the urn on the mantle.
‘Like to walk,’ Jenny says. ‘Hour and hour. Space, he say. Not much space in coffin.’
‘Right.’
‘So scatter, innit. Anyway, different with children. Good for just me, I think.’
‘Yes,’ I tell her. ‘I suppose it is. Now, sit still for me.’
Jenny gasps when the first lock of hair drops to the ground.
‘Lot,’ she says.
‘No turning back now,’ I tell her.
While we wait for my taxi, Jenny makes tea and shows me black and white photographs of her and her husband from maybe forty or fifty years ago.
‘Pretty, innit?’ she says, indicating her younger self.
‘Very, Jenny.’
‘Husban’ like, I think?’ she says, touching a hand to her hair. ‘New lady.’
‘The men will be fighting over you,’ I say.
Jenny laughs. ‘Very cheek,’ she says, and she puts her hand to my face.
I check the time on my phone and see that I have just under an hour until check-in. I also have a message from Zoe:
I love you.
It’s the first time either one of us has said this. And I whisper the answer inside my head: I love you too.
‘Happy?’ says Jenny.
‘Yes,’ I tell her.
‘Nice smile,’ says Jenny. ‘Shame ‘bout nose. But nice smile, innit.’
A car pulls up outside; sounds its horn.
‘Time,’ says Jenny.
‘Time.’