19.
Jess
Tanzie was nervous, even though she would only admit to ‘thirty-seven per cent nervous, maybe thirty-eight’. She refused supper, and declined to come downstairs even for a break, preferring to curl up on the pink nylon coverlet and plough through her maths papers while nibbling at what remained of the breakfast picnic. Jess was surprised: her daughter rarely suffered from nerves when it came to anything maths related. She did her best to reassure her, but it was hard when she had no idea what she was talking about.
‘We’re nearly there! It’s all good, Tanze. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Do you think I’ll sleep tonight?’
‘Of course you’ll sleep tonight.’
‘But if I don’t I might do really badly.’
‘Even if you don’t sleep you’ll do fine. And I’ve never known you not sleep.’
‘I’m worried that I’ll worry too much to sleep.’
‘I’m not worried that you’ll worry. Just relax. You’ll be fine. It will all be fine.’
When Jess kissed her she saw that she had chewed her nails right down to the quick.
Mr Nicholls was in the garden. He walked up and down where she and Tanzie had been half an hour earlier, talking avidly into his phone. He stopped and stared at it a couple of times, then stepped up onto a white plastic garden chair, presumably to get better reception. He stood there, wobbling, utterly oblivious to the curious glances of those inside as he gesticulated and swore.
Jess gazed through the window, unsure whether to go and interrupt him. There were a few old men in the bar, gathered around the landlady as she chatted from the other side. They looked at her incuriously over their pints.
‘Work, is it?’ The landlady followed her gaze through the window.
‘Oh. Yes. Never stops.’ Jess raised a smile. ‘I’ll take him a drink.’
Mr Nicholls was seated on a low stone wall when she finally walked out. His elbows were on his knees and he was staring at the grass.
Jess held out the pint and he stared at it for a moment, then took it from her. ‘Thanks.’ He looked exhausted.
‘Everything okay?’
‘No.’ He took a long gulp of his beer. ‘Nothing’s okay.’
She sat down a few feet away. ‘Anything I can help with?’
‘No.’
They sat in silence. The pub was shabby but she quite liked it. It was so peaceful there, with nothing around them except the breeze rippling across the moors, the distant cries of birds and the gentle hum of conversation from inside. She was going to say something about the landscape, when a voice broke into the still air.
‘Fuck it,’ Mr Nicholls said vehemently. ‘Just f**k it.’
It was so startling that Jess flinched.
‘I just can’t believe my f**king life has turned into this … mess.’ His voice cracked. ‘I can’t believe that I can work and work for years and the whole thing can fall apart like this. For what? For f**king what?’
‘It’s only food poisoning. You’ll –’
‘I’m not talking about the f**king kebab.’ He dropped his head into his hands. ‘But I don’t want to talk about it.’ He shot her an angry look.
‘Okay.’
Jess took a sip of her beer. She didn’t really like beer, but it had been on special. Upstairs the bathroom window opened and a little burp of steam emerged.
‘That’s the thing. Legally, I’m not meant to talk to anyone about any of this.’
She didn’t look at him. She had learnt this trick long ago: when Nicky first came to them, the social worker had said he would open up a lot more if Jess didn’t make eye contact with him. They were like animals, men. They found too much direct contact threatening.
‘I can’t tell a soul. I mean legally.’
She stretched out a leg and gazed at the sunset. ‘Well, I don’t count, do I? I’m a cleaning wench.’
He let out a breath. ‘Fuck it,’ he said again.
And then he told her, his head down, his hands raking his short dark hair. He told her about a girlfriend whom he couldn’t think how to let down nicely, and an ex-wife who never quite left him alone, and how his whole life had come crashing down. He told her about his company and how he should have been there now, celebrating the launch of his last six years’ obsessive work. And how instead he had to stay away from everything and everyone he knew all the while facing the prospect of prosecution. He told her about his dad who was sick, and who was going to be even sicker when he heard what had happened. And he told her about the lawyer who had just rung to inform him that shortly after he returned from this trip his presence would be required at a police station in London where he would be charged with insider trading, a charge that could win him up to twenty years in prison. By the time he’d finished she felt winded.
‘Everything I’ve ever worked for. Everything I cared about. I’m not allowed to go into my own office. I can’t even go back to my flat in case the press hear of it and I do another stupid thing and let slip what’s happened. I can’t go and see my own dad because then he’ll die knowing what a bloody idiot his son is.’
Jess digested this for a few minutes. He smiled bleakly at the sky. ‘And you know the best bit? It’s my birthday.’
‘What?’
‘Today. It’s my birthday.’
‘Today? Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because I’m thirty-four years old, and a thirty-four-year-old man sounds like a dick talking about birthdays.’ He took a swig of his beer. ‘And what with the whole food-poisoning thing, I didn’t feel I had much to celebrate.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘Plus you might have started singing “Happy Birthday” in the car.’
‘I’ll sing it out here.’
‘Please don’t. Things are bad enough.’
Jess’s head was reeling. She couldn’t believe all the stuff Mr Nicholls was carrying around. If it had been anyone else she might have put her arm around them, attempted to say something comforting. But Mr Nicholls was prickly. And who could blame him? It felt like offering an Elastoplast to someone who had just had an arm amputated.
‘Things will get better, you know,’ she said, when she couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘Karma will get that girl who stitched you up.’
He pulled a face. ‘Karma?’
‘It’s like I tell the kids. Good things happen to good people. You just have to keep faith …’