Page 24 of Hard Tail
Jay threw a pillow at me. It was heading right for my nose, but I blocked instinctively, a perfectage-ukethat sent it veering wildly off course—straight into Mum’s carefully arranged hairdo. Jay cracked up. “Oh, nice shot, Tim! Well done, my son!” Dad and I burst out laughing, and Mum tutted, looking daggers at me as she smoothed down her hair. Although I swear the pillow had just bounced off the lacquer, not shifting a hair out of place.
I wondered why I’d ever moved all the way up to London. It was so bloody good to be with my family again.
***
By the time I got home, the funny smell in the house had matured into a foul stench that threatened to sear my eyebrows off. A quick search revealed a festering puddle of mostly dried-in cat sick behind the sofa and prompted an even quicker search for a bucket and a gallon of disinfectant. At least the mystery of Wolverine’s earlier bad breath was now solved. I’d been planning to get a takeaway, but strangely my appetite seemed to have disappeared. I opened every downstairs window to try to clear the lingering reek and had a couple of slices of toast instead. Then I checked my phone, where I found seven messages from Kate, all saying “Call me!” with increasing degrees of urgency.
I rang her up at once, thoroughly alarmed. Was she ill? Had the house burned down? Had Alex revealed himself as a secret someone-else’s-wife-beater and all-round bastard? “Kate, what is it?” I asked as soon as she picked up.
“Tim? Where the hell have you been? I’ve been leaving messages at the house, at your mum’s—”
“I’m at Jay’s,” I said, frowning. “So what’s the problem?”
“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit deflated. “How is he?”
“Well, you know—well as can be expected.” I was still confused.
“Why? What’s happened?” The worried tone was back, and I realised in a flash she didn’t know about the accident—after all, why would she? We’d already been history when I’d heard—not, admittedly, by all that long, but still, history.
“He broke his leg,” I explained. “That was what Mum’s call was about.” Naturally, Mum wouldn’t have spoken to Kate. I’d never been quite sure why, but they’d never got along all that well. Hence, I presumed, the un-forwarded messages. “So what were you so worried about?”
“Oh—it was just me being silly,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you weren’t at the house any of the times we went back, and you’d obviously notbeenthere, and I just thought—but it was just silly of me.” She finished up the sentence at top speed, obviously wanting to change the subject.
I was grimly amused. “What, you thought I might have driven off a cliff or something? Don’t worry, Kate, I’m fine.” Saying it, I realised I was, pretty much. Yes, I’d had my moments of missing her—but speaking to her now, I was stunned to realise I didn’t want her back. We should never have been more than friends. “How are you and Alex?”
“Oh, we’re fine,” she gushed a little too enthusiastically for my liking. “Alex has just been promoted to partner!” Great. Not content with stealing my wife, he had to show me up in the career department too. “How’s your job hunt going?”
“It’s not. I’m looking after Jay’s shop until he’s back on his feet.”
“Jay’sbikeshop? But doesn’t he have staff? Can’t they do it?”
“No.” It felt weird, and somehow wrong, to talk to Kate about Matt, so I changed the subject quickly. “Anyway, while you’re on—what are we going to do about the house?”
“Oh—well, we’re planning to stay at Alex’s. It’s a lot more convenient, really, for work. I suppose I just assumed you’d buy my half—when you get another job, of course. When do you think you’ll be getting another job?”
I bit back my initial, impatient reaction. Upsetting Kate wouldn’t get us anywhere. “I don’t know. I think we should put the house on the market. Who knows,” I added, inspiration striking, “I might get a job down here. It’d be nice to be nearer my family.”
“Are you sure?” Kate sounded dubious. “I thought you loved London.” There was a pause. “This isn’t some kind of midlife crisis, is it, darling?”
There was a moment of awful silence, which I rushed in to fill before she could apologise for the accidental endearment, which would have been even more painful than the original slip. “I’m only twenty-eight! I’m not having any kind of crisis. I’m just taking the opportunity to…re-evaluate a few things, that’s all.”
“Well,” Kate said brightly, “good for you. Um. I think I’d better go now—would you like me to sort out the house, then? Contact an estate agent, that sort of thing?”
“Yes, I think that’d be best.” Now I’d said it, it felt like my old life was disappearing at breakneck speed. It was an odd sensation—thrilling but more than a little unnerving. “I’ll be up during the week to pick up some more stuff—Tuesday night, probably.” I was hoping she still went to Pilates on a Tuesday.
“Good,” she said a little vaguely. I wondered if this was as unsettling for her as it was for me. Still, I was sure Alex would help her through it. Bastard.
“Good-bye, then, Kate. Take care.”
“You too,” she said. Just as I was about to hang up, she spoke again. “Tim?”
“Yes?”
“I really am sorry about all this.”
What do you say to something like that?That’s all rightwould be letting her off the hook a bit too easily,Me toowould sound like an admission of shared guilt, andSo you bloody well should bewas way too confrontational.
“Me too,” I said in the end and hung up.
