‘But they kill us! Step on a bus, go for a pizza, drive back from worship, walk down the wrong path in your own city-’
‘And you’ve both got to stop! I know that! But you have the most control in this! You’re the ones coming from a position of strength! It’s always the one with the most power who has to give up the most, who has to exercise the most restraint, who has to take the final few blows before all the blows stop!’
Jude was shaking her tear-stained face at me. ‘You are so full of shit. You’ll never understand. You’ll just never understand. So we’re not perfect. Who is? We’re fighting for our lives. All you do and all you say just gives succour to those who’d drive us into the waves. You’re with the enemy, you’re with the exterminators. We haven’t become the Nazis; you have.’
I buried my face in my hands and when I surfaced, looking at Jude’s angry, reddened face, all I could say was, ‘I never said you had. And there is an Israeli Peace Movement, Jude. There are people, Jews, in Israel who oppose Sharon and what’s been done, what’s being done to the Palestinians. Who want peace. Peace for land if that’s what it takes, but peace. Reservists who’re refusing to fight in the Occupied territories. That’s who I’m with. That’s who I respect these days. I’ve escaped my adolescent crush on Israel but I’ll never stop respecting, loving the Jewish people for all they’ve done… it’s just that I can’t stand to see what’s being perpetrated in their name now by that fat, white-haired, war-criminal bastard.’
‘Fuck you. Sharon was democratically elected. He’s said he will trade land for peace. So fuck you. Fuck you!’
‘Jude-’
‘No! Goodbye, Ken. I won’t bother to say I’ll see you, because I hope I don’t. And don’t bother to call. In fact, don’t ever bother again. Not ever.’
‘Jude-’
‘… I’m ashamed I ever let you so much as touch me.’
And with that, my ex-wife threw her drink over me, turned on her heel and walked off.
Happy New Year.
Bit later. Drunk and maudlin and time to go to bed. I was crashing at Craig’s place, in the second spare bedroom. Some people had been using it as an unofficial cloakroom, dumping their coats and jackets on the bed; I gathered them up and took them next door to the box room, which was the official cloakroom.
‘Oh, hi, Nikki.’
‘Ken,’ Nikki said, taking something from her jacket. She was dressed in a fluffy pink sweater and tight black jeans. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Tired,’ I said, dumping the coats and jackets onto the pile on the bed. Music sounded pumping from downstairs and I could hear people whooping. The box room was devoid of furniture apart from an old desk – also piled with coats and stuff – and the narrow, mounded bed. Lots of shelves with books and assorted junk; a collapsible wallpaper table and a stepladder against one wall. The room’s bulb was bare, unshielded. Nikki stood grinning at me. Even with the short hair she looked great.
She held up the slim silvery thing she’d taken from her jacket. Large orange lozenges. ‘Got a cold,’ she said through her smile, almost smugly. Under the direct light of the room’s single bulb, her hair showed spiky highlights of glossy red and deep ochre.
I narrowed my eyes and looked at her as though over some glasses. ‘What are you on?’
‘Oh. Is it obvious? Uh-oh.’ She giggled. She put her hands behind her back and stood there, staring up at the ceiling and swivelling back and forth. Her jaw was working from side to side, in time.
I shook my head. ‘You young whipper-snapper; you’re loved up, aren’t you?’
‘Fraid so, Uncle Ken.’
‘Well, have fun, but remember Leah Betts; don’t drink too much water.’
‘I love you, Uncle Ken,’ she said, leaning forward and smiling broadly.
I laughed. ‘Yeah, I love you too, Nikki.’
She brandished the throat lozenges in my face like some sort of treat. ‘Would you like a Strepsil?’
‘Thanks. I’m trying to give them up.’
‘Okay.’
I stepped to one side and grasped the handle of the door, which had swung shut. ‘After you, ma’am,’ I said, opening it.
‘Thenk-yuh!’ she said, stepping forward, then bumped into the edge of the door and thudded into my chest. ‘Happy New Year, Ken.’ She raised her face to mine, still grinning.
True enough, I thought, we’d managed to miss each other somehow in the hours since the bells. ‘Happy New Y-’ I said.
She pushed her mouth against mine and gave me a big wet sloppy kiss, then pulled away, smiling happily, then did a little side-to-side thing with her head, made a noise that might have been, mm-hmm, and came forward again and kissed me once more. With a certain amount of openness, it has to be said. Though no tongues.
Oh my God, oh shit, oh fuck, part of me was thinking. I mean, another part was thinking, Well, Yesss!, but most of me was thinking bad things of one sort or another. I put my arms around her and kissed back, tasting and smelling her, sucking in her sweet breath as though desperate for some transfusion of youth. She squirmed in my arms, pressing herself against me and slipping her arms round my sides and back.
Something dropped to the floor; the lozenges.
Then she pushed back, blinking, and I had to let her go. The smile was gone for a moment. Then she shook her head and started laughing gently. She wiped her mouth delicately with the back of one hand.
‘What am I doing?’ she breathed, still shaking her head. I thought of the way her hair would have moved when she did that, if it had still been long.
‘Well,’ I said, swallowing. ‘Making an old man very happy, obviously, but, um, I don’t think…’
‘No, I don’t think either…’ she said softly, then laughed loudly, then started coughing. She shook her head and looked down at the floor. I stooped and handed her the packet of throat lozenges.
Nikki’s hoarse laugh echoed in the room. ‘Oh, Uncle Ken, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.’
I held up one hand. ‘No problem. And please stop apologising. It was fine for me, believe me. But, ah…’
Nikki coughed. The harsh sound echoed in the bare-walled room. She made a visible effort to pull herself together. ‘Yes,’ she said, and cleared her throat noisily. ‘We probably better just pretend…’
‘… that none of this happened, yeah.’ I nodded.
She nodded too. ‘Just until, you know, we die,’ she suggested.
‘Agree completely,’ I said.
She shivered. ‘Sorry, Ken, but this is all just a bit…’
‘Weird?’ I suggested.
‘Yeah, weird.’
I’d opened the door again. ‘Oh. Hi, Emma.’
‘Mum! Hi!’ Nikki waved, her smile broad across her face.
‘What’s weird?’ Emma said, walking into the room and looking gloweringly suspicious. Little black number. Hair in pearled black Alice band like a soft tiara, black pearls round her throat. Already holding a dark coat over her arm.
I waved one hand dismissively and nodded at the pack of throat lozenges in Nikki’s hand. ‘I was trying to proposition your daughter by offering her drugs, but she wasn’t having it.’ I smiled sadly and let my shoulders sag while Emma glared into my eyes. ‘Just trying to get to bed, actually, Em; dog-tired. This you off too?’
Emma wavered, but then clearly decided I’d been just casual enough. Nothing going on. Nothing you’d want to think about, certainly. ‘Yes,’ she said, then looked at her daughter. ‘Nikki; you ready?’
Nikki popped a lozenge, flicked it into the air and stepped forward with her mouth open, teeth clacking shut. She stepped back again with the throat sweet displayed between her teeth. ‘Regy,’ she said. She turned and rummaged in the pile of coats until she found her jacket. ‘Night, Ken,’ she said, pulling on her jacket and kissing me lightly on the cheek.
‘Night, kid.’
‘I’ll be down in one minute,’ Emma told Nikki.