A sudden noise cuts through his thoughts. ‘Kate?’ He jumps up from his spinny chair and hurries out to the hallway. But it’s not Kate. It’s just Jarvis, standing motionless with something clamped in his mouth.
It takes Vince a moment to register that it’s his dressing gown. Jarvis must have tugged it down from its hook on the bedroom door and is now gnawing away at it. ‘Drop it! Drop it!’ he yells. He’s never chewed things before. Kate has been gone for less than twenty-four hours and the dog has turned against him.
He manages to tug the gown from Jarvis’s jaws, ripping it in the process. Jarvis barks sharply, baring his teeth. ‘Hey! Stop that!’ Vince glares at him, wondering – not for the first time – what possessed his daughter to take on a dog and then hotfoot it to Maine, three thousand miles away. He’d been prepared to stand firm on the matter. But Kate had said, ‘We should take him, Vince. It’ll probably only be for a few months, and we know he’ll be looked after properly.’
He examines his gown in dismay. It’s the softest, cosiest one he’s ever owned; the last Christmas present from his mum, before she died a few weeks later. Vince wonders now if this was a protest move because he hasn’t let Jarvis out yet. It certainly seems personal, and tinged with malice.
With a jolt, he realises it’s 12.30p.m. Where did all the time go? He stomps through to the kitchen and, despite not having had breakfast, he grabs a beer from the fridge. Didn’t all the great writers drink, to fuel their creativity? He’s thinking of Hemingway again as he returns to his desk to find that Zoe has emailed him.
Hey Vince,
Just checking in. Hope all’s good. We did say you’d have the book over to me by EOP? Hope you’re still okay with that?
Love, Zoe x
EOP? What does that mean? Some kind of newfangled delivery method? He was just planning to email it. Or rather, Kate was. A wave of self-pity crashes over him. Couldn’t she have planned her hormonal breakdown for tomorrow, when the book was done?
EOP means ‘end of play’, Google informs him. Whenisthat? Comedians aren’t generally nine-to-five kind of guys. If Vince had wanted that sort of life he’d have become an accountant.
Hey Zoe,
It’s coming along great, just a few final touches, be with you really soon.
Love, V x
Vince presses send and inhales to the very top of his lungs.
Hemustfinish this book, and not just to please Zoe. He must prove to himself that he can hold things together and do it perfectly well without Kate’s help. But an hour later he’s no further on, and Jarvis is nudging at him with his nose, keen to go out. ‘Soon, mate. Soon,’ he mutters. He stares bleakly out of his study window. A heavy cloud the precise shade of a loo roll tube is hanging overheard.
Vince is overcome by an urge to call Kate. He won’t, though. He’s not going to keep nagging and bothering her. She’s probably back at Tash’s, chatting happily over endless coffees. Or maybe she’s at Julian and Shawn’s, their old upstairs neighbours who were always showing up with treats from the bakery for her.
She probably just needs a bit of time with her old mates, Vince decides. He knows what women are like with their besties. Vince has friends too, of course – mainly other comedians like Harry Bonomo who’d started out on the circuit at the same time as him. But they haven’t really kept in contact since they left London, and at fifty-one Harry has become a father for the first time, and it’s all milk teeth and the funny things his baby daughter’s done, and although Vince feels guilty about it, he can’t relate to him anymore.
Staring at his laptop now, he realises that the sum total of his morning’s work amounts to just two words:
Chapter Thirteen.
It’s a start,he tells himself. He toys with making it bold –Chapter Thirteen– to add more weight to it.
It’s still just two words, though. He tries upping the type size like a child who’s been asked to write a whole page describing his holiday, and thinks he can trick his teacher by doing it inmassivewriting:
Chapter Thirteen
...But he knows that won’t fool Zoe. She’s a whip-smart woman who’s currently waiting in her London office a hundred miles up in the sky, and drumming her nails on her desk.
The appearance of Jarvis in the doorway gives him a start. He looks at the dog, reminding himself thathedoesn’t understand that Vince is stressed and hungover and desperately wants his wife to come home. He’s only a dog, and he needs a good, proper walk, like Kate would give him—
‘No!’ Vince yells, jumping up from his seat. But he can’t stop him now. All he can do is watch as Jarvis cocks a leg and pees, in a seemingly never-ending arc, against the study door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kate
‘—Andthe peach floral wallpaper in what used to be his mother’s sewing room?’
I nod. ‘’Fraid so. He won’t let me change it.’
‘So what about this water feature,’ Alice continues, frowning, ‘in the garden? I’m not a fan of throwing stuff into landfill, but—’
