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JJ Part 9 – attention-seeking

They look up.

“Hello Lucy,” says P.

“Hey Luce,” says J, slightly weakly.

“And Kids!” says P. “Kiiiiiids! Wassaaaap!“

Stanton fixes P with his gimlet-blue eyes. “I am four, you know,” he says severely.

And so far more mature than he was two weeks ago when he still loved the game intensely, greeting it with squeals and an attempt to grate the sound out himself in his wee voice.

Someone else wriggles hopefully.

J inclines her head gravely. “Lydia Henson,” she says portentously.

“Jennifer Jones,” comes the reply, followed by a lot of giggling. Lydia is a little over three, her mother being, as she put it, “a dismayingly fast mover.”

“How’s it going, babe?” asks P.

“Ach,” says Lucy, settling and dragging Kids to heel, “just – scuse me – back from the clinic.”

“You okay?”

“Well, yeah… Sorry, would you mind just…? Cheers. Yeah, I’m fine, everyone’s fine, but I’m knackered now. Anticlimaxes are draining, know what I mean?”

She notices J’s raised eyebrow. “You get yourself worked up for the implications of bad news, so when it’s good news it’s kinda…” she gestures.

“It’s like you get far more stressed when the crisis is over,” says J.

She nods. “Exactly.” She sighs. “I should get us drinks.”

“Yes,” say J, firmly. She moves over to the counter to order. J smiles abstractedly at the children and turns to P.

“Fundamentally bad timing, right?” says P.

“I concur. May I be so bold as to suggest a recapitulation and further exposition at a more convenient time?”

“So…” slowly “your request was to be in the affirmative?”

“Indeed.” Deep breath. “And I feel a further necessity for pejorative language for venting of my faecal emotional situation.

“Catharsis? Why certainly, dearest compadre. And may I just say how much I am admiring the restraint you are placing on your desire to express yourself utilising scatological and fornicatory terms of reference.”

“My most heartfelt appreciation.” J places her hands over her chest.

“Why are you talking funny?” demands Stanton, who has been flicking his head back and forth like a tennis umpire during this exchange.

“Well, darling,” says P, “J and I don’t want you to understand what we’re saying and children absorb far more than we realise because we’ve forgotten…”

“… and we don’t have any other languages in common apart from English that we can speak particularly fluently…” says J.

“I speak German, Hebrew, Sign Language, a little Ancient Greek and even less Welsh.”

“I speak French and Italian, a little Spanish and even less Welsh than P.”

“You see our dilemma?”

“Deeyemma!” exults Lydia, who, unlike her brother, has mostly been focussed on, variously, getting her seat buckles undone, ther whereabouts of her mum, the sound kicking her seat vigorously makes, attempting to reach the cup and saucer near her, which P had absently and reflexively moved well out of her reach as a result, and then making aaah aah aah noises while kicking and flicking at the belts. It’s amazing the difference ten months makes.

“She’ll be out of that on her own soon,” remarks J. “She already knows the key is in pressing those bits of the buckle – she’s just not quite dextrous enough yet.”

“Must be frustrating,” agrees P.

“I did it,” smugs Stanton.

“Yeah, but your auntie Katherine got stoned one night and decided to spend three hours teaching you, didn’t she?”

“To be fair,” says J, “I think he learned in spite rather than because of her efforts…”

“Mmmmh,” says P.

Lucy is back. “Are you impugning my twin?” she smiles, distributing drinks, including ones for P and J, they are slightly embarrassed to note.

“She’s been saving us the bother.”

“Oh really?” She raises her eyebrows. “I haven’t seen her for a while – although we were both due to go to the Gretchen Thing yesterday evening, but…”

“… Gretchen timetabled you away from each other, right?” says P.

She nods, lips pursed in a wry smile.

“Martin, Jane and I ignored her and came together.” There is an element of crow in P’s tone of voice.

“How could you, P?!” Laura’s mock-distress is delightful.

“Weeell,” a deprecating hand-wave. “Are you telling me you never rebel against Madam’s orders?”

“As if!” scoffs Lucy. “Although I don’t think Gretchen agrees with me about the educational merits of her exhibition for pre-school children.”

“Oh, congratulations!” P’s happier outburst turns more heads of nearby patrons than the earlier one. “A family coup indeed!”

“Heh, okay, so what did Kath do, then?”

P coughs, suddenly overcome.

“What?“ says Lucy with meaning. There’s a quick flurry of BSL between them. J ruefully determines anew to at least learn the alphabet sometime. Stanton leans towards her.

“They’re talking about a lady in a loo,” he whispers. “Why?”

“I don’t know, mate,” she confides, “But if I find out I’ll let you know in twelve years’ time, how about it?”

He fixes her with that Little Old Man look he’s been determined to adopt as part of his new, more mature persona befitting one of his great age. Then says “Okay, then.”

“Okay,” says J, and they shake on it. She hopes profoundly that he forgets, as she has an annoying habit of fulfilling her promises.

“Did they break anything?” asks P out loud.

“No,” says Lucy fondly, “but they were very loud about that nudey lady and Lyd thought the hors d’oeuvres tasted like poo.”

Stanton sniggers before he can stop himself. P looks over. “And what did you make of it?”

“I thought it was…” he screws his face up… “scared.”

“Scary, was that?”

“No,” he shakes his head firmly. “scared like a little kid.”

“Jings,” says J, and they’re all quiet for a while.

JJ Part 6 – heading home

I slipped the phone into one of the inside pockets of the jacket and made my now-unimpeded way through the door. It, like the one above, was clearly built with heft in mind, the difference being that this was close to a hundred years old and not designed specifically for fire exclusion. Out of deference to some honourable vestige of myself, I made the effort to close it quietly, then turned to face the night.

I paused under the porch. A cool, damp breeze touched my face uncertainly. Scents of wet concrete, old fag-ends and drying weeds insinuated themselves. The night smelt shifty, dirty, conspiratorial. Great and marvellous. My paranoia was spreading its unwashed grip across an entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as an entire city.

Next I’d be eyeing lampposts for looking at me funny.

I sniffed and crunched my shoulders briefly, feeling about fifteen. The night snickered at me, cars distantly shushing on the sticky-wet tarmac and street-lamps mocking through a faint aureole of post-precipitation. It was clear that the world outside had been subject to that peculiarly Welsh rain that defies all umbrellas, not through intense, driving horizontalness, but by being too light to fall down properly, a distinctive kind of too-heavy-to-be-called-mist drizzle that actually floats upwards. Just enough damp to irritate, not enough to slicken or soothe. Squeaky windscreen wipers, frizzy hair, constant blinking weather. The night seemed particularly orange somehow, the roads still reflecting and the air lens-like with moisture. I ached for my bed suddenly, and the miles between here and it seemed long.

(Okay, they were about two miles, but you know what I mean.)

My feet stuttered down the couple of steps and on through and over the aforementioned sources of scents. I was looking all round me and unconsciously turned right, towards home. Didn’t even think about it.

*

“So?”

“What?” J drags her gaze back to the present.

“Where the fuck where you?”

“Richmond Road.”

“Ah, right. I get it – one of those big, old…”

“… adapted student houses, yes.”

“Hence the fire escape.”

“And the students.”

“And the fridge. Look…”

“Don’t even think about it!”

“’kay.” P’s tone is flat and a little bitten.

*

I hunched, then, into the slowly-clearing night, wondering if things could get any worse and gloomily prepared for them to become so very shortly. This is the kind of night when blokes randomly follow you home, or you slip in something no longer nameable on the pavement that probably has at least one component ancient cardboard and possibly ancient takeaway to boot. The kind of walk home that seems interminable, in other words, and packed with small, grim incident. Need it be added that people would be driving like nutters? I could hear the car tires sneering sibilantly on the damp tarmac.

I walked stodgily at first, then picked up more of a swing. There are few things that can’t be improved (or at least, be retreated from slightly) when walking is involved. Some people would argue it’s something to do with adrenaline. Some people would doubtless go on in some kind of feng shui vein about realigning energies. Doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s true…

After a while I realised I was somewhat lunging with my walk. As you know, there are several ways to walk at night, but the best two are either “invisibly” or “don’t fuck with me.” I was mostly giving off “angry wounded animal.” The sort that attracts nutters for miles, in other words, keen to engage you in conversation, often starting with the line “Cheer up!” With no heart for dissembling or subtlety, I decided that quick was probably the way to go. This was never going to be a walk I was going to enjoy. However, in view of this being nutter-weather, I also decided to stick with the main streets rather than stitching that usual short route I dart across town through the small streets and yes, drag everyone down with me late at night, don’t roll your eyes.

Somewhere between half- and three-quarters of the way home the air subtly cleared. It was no longer damp, but a kind of recently-rinsed clear. Almost a pleasure to walk in. The raising of the sky, however, made the night much darker, larger, less fathomable.

I was starting down Wellfield when I stopped in my tracks.

“Jesus holy fuck.”

*

J rolls her eyes and head sideways at P.

P gestures. “What?”

“I’d worked it out.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Bloody Gretchen.”

“Oh, her.”

*

I’d missed her friggerty-damn exhibition thingy wotsit bastard thing, hadn’t I? Fuck, no wonder she’d been… ah, crap…

I hunched again and stabbed my forehead into the night. Tock, tock, tock, went my stride. Buggerybollocks and damn.

I tripped on the edge of something. Fine, fucking wicked, just dandy. Of course no-one was watching or hell, even there, but still. Surprisingly, I stopped, did some breathing, tilted my head back, felt the night cascade off me. What-the-fuck-ever.

Equilibrium somewhat restored I pushed off into the last few hundred metres, feeling sure that nothing could really freak me out any more tonight.

Hah.

Round the corner and into trees and parked cars. Adhering to one…

*

“What?”

Shudders. “Huh, grim even by your standards.”

Grimly patient: “Go on.”