London, Spring 1999
BY THE TIME JAY ARRIVED AT SPY’S IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK AND THE party was well under way. Another of Kerry’s literary launches, he thought ruefully. Bored journalists and cheap champagne and eager young things dancing attendance on blasé older things like himself. Kerry never tired of these occasions, dropping names like confetti – Germaine and Will and Ewan – flitting from one prestigious guest to the other with the zeal of a high priestess. Jay had only just realized how much he hated it.
Stopping at the house only long enough to pick up a few things, he saw the red light on the answerphone blinking furiously, but did not play the message. The bottles in his duffel bag were absolutely still. Now he was the one in ferment, jittering and rocking, exhilarated one moment, close to tears the next, rummaging through his possessions like a thief, afraid that if he stopped still for even a second he would lose his momentum and collapse listlessly back into his old life again. He turned on the radio and it was the oldies station again, playing Rod Stewart and ‘Sailing’, one of Joe’s favourites – allus reminds me of them times I were on me travels, lad - and he listened as he stuffed clothes into the bag on top of the silent bottles. Amazing how little he could not bear to leave behind. His typewriter. The unfinished manuscript of Stout Cortez. Some favourite books. The radio itself. And, of course, Joe’s Specials. Another impulse, he told himself. The wine was valueless, almost undrinkable. And yet he could not shake the feeling that there was something in those bottles he needed. Something he could not do without.
Spy’s was like so many other London clubs. The names change, the décor changes, but the places stay the same: sleek and loud and soulless. By midnight most of the guests would have abandoned any pretentions to intellectualism that they might have had, instead settling down to the serious business of getting drunk, making advances to each other, or insulting their rivals. Getting out of the taxi with his duffel bag slung across his shoulder and his single case in his hand, Jay realized that he had forgotten his invitation. After some altercation with the doorman, however, he managed to get a message to Kerry, who emerged a few minutes later wearing her Ghost dress and steeliest smile.
‘It’s all right,’ she flung at the doorman. ‘He’s just useless, that’s all.’ Her green eyes flicked at Jay, taking in the jeans, the raincoat, the duffel bag.
‘I see you didn’t wear the Armani,’ she said.
The euphoria was finally gone, leaving only a kind of dim hangover in its wake, but Jay was surprised to find his resolve unchanged. Touching the duffel bag seemed to help somehow, and he did so, as if to test its reality. Under the canvas the bottles clinked quietly together.
‘I’ve bought a house,’ said Jay, holding out the crumpled brochure. ‘Look. It’s Joe’s château, Kerry. I bought it this morning. I recognized it.’ Beneath that flat green stare he felt absurdly childish. Why had he expected her to understand? He barely understood his impulse himself. ‘It’s called Château Foudouin,’ he said. She looked at him.
‘You bought a house.’
He nodded.
‘Just like that, you bought it?’ she asked in disbelief. ‘You bought it today?’
He nodded again. There were so many things he wanted to say. It was destiny, he would have told her, it was the magic he had searched for twenty years to recapture. He wanted to explain about the brochure and the square of sunlight and how the picture had leaped out at him from the page. He wanted to explain about the sudden certainty of it, the feeling that it was the house which chose him, and not the other way around.
‘You can’t have bought a house.’ Kerry was still struggling with the idea. ‘God, Jay, you dither for hours over buying a shirt.’
‘This was different. It was like…’ He struggled to articulate what it had been like. It was an uncanny sensation, that overriding feeling of must-have. He hadn’t felt this way since his teens. The knowledge that life could not be complete without this one infinitely desirable, magical, totemic object – a pair of X-ray spectacles, a set of Hell’s Angels transfers, a cinema ticket, the latest band’s latest single – the certainty that possession of it would change everything, its presence in the pocket to be checked, tested, retested. It wasn’t an adult feeling. It was more primitive, more visceral than that. With a jolt of surprise, he realized he had not really wanted anything for twenty years.
‘It was like… being back at Pog Hill again,’ he said, knowing she wouldn’t understand. ‘It was as if the last twenty years hadn’t happened.’
Kerry looked blank.
‘I can’t believe you impulse-bought a house,’ she said. ‘A car, yes. A motorbike, OK. It’s the kind of thing you would do, come to think of it. Big toys to play with. But a house?’ She shook her head, mystified. ‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘Live in it,’ said Jay simply. ‘Work in it.’
‘But it’s in France somewhere.’ Irritation sharpened her voice. ‘Jay, I can’t afford to spend weeks in France. I’m due to start the new series next month. I’ve got too many commitments. I mean, is it even close to an airport?’ She broke off, her eyes moving again to the duffel bag, taking in, as if for the first time, the suitcase, the travelling clothes. There was a crease between her arched brows.
‘Look, Kerry-’
Kerry lifted a hand imperiously.
‘Go home,’ she said. ‘We can’t discuss this here. Go home, Jay, relax, and we’ll talk it all through when I get back. OK?’ She sounded cautious now, as if she were addressing an excitable maniac.
Jay shook his head. ‘I’m not going back,’ he said. ‘I need to get away for a while. I wanted to say goodbye.’
Even now Kerry showed no surprise. Irritation, yes. Almost anger. But she remained untroubled, secure in her convictions.
‘You’re pissed again, Jay,’ she said. ‘You haven’t thought any of this through. You come to me with this crazy idea about a second home, and when I’m not instantly taken by it-’
‘It isn’t going to be a second home.’
The tone of his voice surprised both of them. For a moment he sounded almost harsh.
‘And what the fuck is that supposed to mean?’ Her voice was low and dangerous.
‘It means you’re not listening to me. I don’t think you’ve ever actually listened to me.’ He paused. ‘You’re always telling me to grow up, to think for myself, to let go. But you’re happy to keep me a permanent lodger in your house, to keep me dependent on you for everything. I don’t have anything of my own. Contacts, friends – they’re all yours, not mine. You even choose my clothes. I’ve got money, Kerry, I’ve got my books, I’m not exactly starving in a garret any more.’
Kerry sounded amused, almost indulgent.
‘So this is what it’s all about? A little declaration of independence?’ She fluttered a kiss against his cheek. ‘O?. I understand you don’t want to go to the party, and I’m sorry I didn’t realize that this morning, OK?’ She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled. The patented Kerry O’Neill smile.
‘Please. Listen. Just this once.’
Was this what Joe had felt, he wondered. So much easier to leave without a word, to escape the recriminations, the tears, the disbelief. To escape the guilt. But somehow he just couldn’t do that to Kerry. She didn’t love him any more, he knew that. If she ever had. All the same, he couldn’t do it. Perhaps because he knew how it felt.
‘Try to understand. This place -’ His gesture included the club, the neon-lit street, the low sky, the whole of London, heaving, dark and menacing below it. ‘I don’t belong here any more. I can’t think straight when I’m here. I spend all my time waiting for something to happen, some kind of sign-’