Now, as Joel sits here at his desk, he’s not sure that worse thingscanhappen. His laptop has gone and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it. If he called the police, then it would all come out about him leaving the kids alone overnight and then Shelley would be bound to find out. No, that’s far too messy to contemplate. Instead, he must switch his brain into practical mode because hiding up here, twitching and panicking is doing no good whatsoever. After all, Shelley will be home in two days’ time, full of the joys after her little holiday with her best friends. So the whole house will have to be put back to normal by then.
One small glimmer of positivity is that Joel has managed to contact a glazier who’s promised to come round tomorrow at a colossal cost. ‘Sorry, mate. It’s the week before Christmas!’ As if Joel didn’t know. In fact, he’d have festooned the man with gold bars if that’s what it had taken to entice him round.
Now he checks his phone, trying to build himself up to sending a cheery message to Shelley.Hope you’re having fun! We’re all having a great time here with our smashed fuckingwindow in our stinking house!But before he’s even typed a word, a message appears from Martha. His heart quickens and he snatches his Citalopram from his desk drawer – mercifully, the laptop thief didn’t steal them too – and pops one into his mouth, even though he’s already had today’s dose. With the lack of anything else to wash it down with, he grabs an open can and gulps down flat tepid lager, choking as something solid lands in his throat. He coughs and splutters, spitting the vile thing onto the floor. It’s a soggy cigarette butt.
Martha
Are you upstairs?
Joel’s heart thuds like a drum.
Joel
Yes
As he hits send, his phone rings and he yelps, as if electrocuted. It’s Shelley. Christ. ‘Hey! How are you?’ he shouts.
He senses his wife frowning all the way up there in the frozen north. ‘Hi, Joel,’ she says levelly. ‘Everything all right there?’
‘Er, yeah! Hi, babe. All good. How are you?’
‘Great.’ Shelley still sounds hesitant. ‘Yeah, we’re all having fun here… So, the kids are okay, are they?’
‘Yeah, they’re fine. They’ve been great.’
‘That’s… great!’ The pause hangs. Joel tries desperately to dredge up some news to tell her. But as his ‘news’ lately has concerned only Carmel and the kids’ house party, he’s stuck for words.
‘So you’ll remember to pick up the turkey tomorrow morning, won’t you?’ Shelley starts, and for once Joel is grateful for practical matters to focus on.
‘’Course I will,’ he says.
‘It’s just, the butcher has his slots, y’know? And he gets a bit funny if we don’t pick up the order on the day we said?—’
‘No, I remember that,’ he fibs. It occurs to Joel that lying comes instinctively to him now, like breathing.
‘There should also be chipolatas and bacon and sausage meat in the order,’ she goes on, ‘and the ham for Boxing Day. D’you mind checking it’s all there? He forgot the sausages last year and I had to use those cheap ones from the freezer, remember? Not the butcher ones your mum likes? She was in a bit of a sulk…’
‘Yeah, haha. How can I forget?’ The quality of their Christmas Day chipolatas is the least of his concerns right now. He touches his neck, aware of the tenderness lingering there. What was Carmel thinking? She knows his situation here and, much as Joel still thinks of himself as a teenage raver, aren’t they a bitoldfor love bites? He gives her a £275 gold bracelet. She gives him a prominent bruise. He hates to be petty but it hardly feels like a fair exchange. It also occurs to him that he hasn’t bought Shelley anything, apart from a Superdrug voucher he picked up when he was buying shaving foam. Will the kids have any ideas? That’ll mean conversing with them, which he’d rather avoid. Perhaps he’ll be able to casually quiz the glazier on acceptable presents for wives?
‘Anyway, love,’ Shelley adds, as if catching herself, ‘I didn’t call you to fire off a load of instructions…’
‘I’m relieved about that,’ he says jovially.
Another pause. ‘So, we’re all having a fun time here,’ she adds, somewhat pointedly. Joel realises he’s supposed to be asking all about her trip so far.
‘Oh, yeah! So what’ve you been up to?’ She tells him then about the owner guy rushing away suddenly, something to do with a flight attendant, and feeding some hens and then guests arriving, and something about an emergency dash to the chipshop? And some writer guy writing something or other and some kid trying to ride Stan like a pony?—
‘Stan’s the kid?’ Joel is struggling to make sense of it all.
‘No, Stan’s the collie!’ She chuckles. ‘Theo’s the child. And he doesn’t want what we’re doing for dinner tonight. He wants a fondue like he has at his Swiss granny’s?—’
‘A fondue? What is this, 1976?’
Shelley laughs, and Joel laughs, amazed that he still has it in him to make a joke. Perhaps he sounds normal after all. Perhaps he can deal with the party devastation here, and by the time Shelley comes home, if he tries his hardest to be super-nice and totally reinvents his personality, everything will be all right.
‘So, it’s Christmas Eve you’re back, isn’t it?’ He knows this. He just wants reassurance that she won’t bowl up tomorrow morning before the darn window’s fixed.
‘That’s right. Flight lands at three-thirty. So, by the time I’ve caught the train into London?—’
