funny,” I whisper. But his reaction has made me smile for the first time in days.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help it. I know you play a proper badass on-screen, but anyone who knows you in real life knows that you could never hurt anyone.”
I guess I must be a better actress than I give myself credit for.
“I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding, he’ll turn up tomorrow. I frequently didn’t come home without telling my wife where I was; perhaps that’s why I’m no longer married. Besides, he’s a journalist isn’t he, your chap? He’s probably pissed in a bar somewhere, isn’t that what they do?”
“Yes, maybe you’re right,” I say, knowing he’s wrong.
“Bien sûr, je suis très intelligent!”
“What’s with all the random French?”
“I’m trying to impress a certain little lady I know. Do you think I’m getting any better?” I shake my head. “Merde.”
Jack excuses himself and disappears to the men’s room, leaving me sitting alone with my thoughts and fears. It’s clear to me now that Ben has set me up, to punish me for something I didn’t even do. That’s what this is: revenge. Ben is just smarter than I am. He’s read more and seen more. He understands the world in a way I never will, but I’m a better judge of character. That’s something he always struggled with. I understand people and why they do the things they do. And I understand him. He’s trying to hurt me by damaging the career he says destroyed our marriage.
I’m not going to let that happen.
Jack returns and promptly pours two more glasses of red wine. I notice that he fills mine considerably more than his own.
I take a sip. “Thank you for this. I’m sure you’re right, everything will be okay.”
“Course I’m right,” he says. “You wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Twenty-two
Essex, 1988
I swat the fly on the TV screen with the rolled-up newspaper, just like Maggie taught me, pleased with myself that I got it first time.
I’ve got used to the little back room where I sit when the betting shop is open. I know all the cracks in the walls, and the marks on the desk, and I know to remember to wear a coat every morning, even though I sit inside all day, because the radiator is broken and it is cold. It’s someone else’s coat that I wear; it has her name sewn inside in case I forget. But it’s mine now. My name, my coat.
I spend my time reading, watching TV, or listening to the Story Teller tapes on my Fisher-Price cassette player. When I run out of other people’s stories to read, watch, or listen to, I make up my own about a little girl who lived in Ireland. I tell myself the story of me so that I don’t forget. I whisper it so that nobody else can hear, and enjoy seeing little puffs of my own breath when the words sneak out of my mouth. Sometimes I pretend that I am a baby dragon, and that one day I’ll learn how to fly away home and burn down anyone who was ever mean to me.
The shop is noisy and loud. I hear the sound of the horse races all day long, and the men who watch them shout things like, “Go on!” really loudly at the TV screens out there, as though the horses can hear them, which is silly because they can’t. Sometimes I look through the stripy plastic curtain that hangs between the shop counter and the phone room, and I see them, the customers. They all look sort of the same to me, wearing blue jeans and mean faces, from what I can see through the fog of their cigarette smoke.
I know when the shop has closed because the noise stops and everything is quiet again, except for the sound of John’s adding machine going clickety-click. I think he must like maths because he uses it a lot. He comes into the little back room, pretends to like a picture I have drawn, then opens the back door.
“See you later, alligator,” he says, his gold tooth shining at me.
“In a while, crocodile,” I reply, because he likes it when I say that. I’ve seen pictures of alligators and crocodiles and they look awfully alike. I don’t understand why people are always pretending that things are different when they are the same. A name doesn’t change what a thing is, it’s just a name.