“I will meet him, of course I’ll meet him, but there’s nothing romantic or heart-wrenching about this,” said Ellen. “We just share the same DNA.”
“But now you know your parents were in love!”
“We thought you’d be thrilled.” Mel gave Ellen a curious, analytical frown, as though she were an accounting discrepancy she needed to solve. “You were always so desperate to meet your father. You were obsessed with him for a while.”
“When I was fifteen,” said Ellen. Now it just seemed like an awkward sort of social obligation.
“Don’t you want to see what he’s like?” asked Phillipa.
“I’m curious, I guess,” continued Ellen, except she wasn’t particularly. She was too focused on her own life at the moment: her baby, her soon-to-be “stepson” and “husband.” Her husband-to-be’s ex-girlfriend. She didn’t have time to devote to building a new relationship.
“Well, there’s no rush,” said Anne. “Whenever you’re ready.” Her hand kept returning to her neck, to caress the stone of her new necklace.
“So the necklace is a gift from him?” asked Ellen. “From, ah … David.” Surely she wasn’t meant to call him Dad?
Anne removed her hand. “Yes. It’s for our one-month anniversary.” She flushed. “I know we’re too old for that sort of thing.”
“Awwww,” said Phillipa.
Ellen’s mother was clearly in love, and she was in love with Ellen’s father, which in most cases was considered appropriate and convenient and the way the world was meant to work. Ellen couldn’t understand why she felt so unhappy about it. Was it just resistance to change? Did she not want her mother to love anyone else except her? She would have to think about this when she got home.
“I’m happy for you, Mum.” She did her utmost to sound sincere.
“I’m not counting my chickens, it’s early days, of course,” said Anne briskly, but then she smiled her bizarre new smile and reached out to touch Ellen’s hand. “Your dad is the loveliest man I’ve ever known.”
I live in a three-bedroom duplex.
I’ve never been fond of duplexes, and yet, here I am.
When Patrick and I broke up, I needed somewhere new to live fast, and I asked a real estate agent I knew to find me the first available rental property in my price range. So he found me this bland, sterile little place, in a street crammed with identical duplexes and three twenty-story apartment blocks. The people who live here are hardworking midlevel professionals. They are the worker bees of society, on their way to something better. This is an area where “convenience” is what counts. The railway station is an easy walk and it’s only a ten-minute trip into the city. There are dozens of perfectly adequate but not that great restaurants and twenty-four-hour dry cleaners and ATMs and cab ranks. People stride along checking their BlackBerrys and gulping down takeaway coffees. It’s not a place for lovers. There are no buskers or bookshops or galleries or cinemas. It’s good. It’s like an extension of the office.
Ever since I moved in, a man named Jeff has lived in the other half of my duplex. He is short and bald with a neat ginger-colored beard, and the most personal fact I know about him is that he doesn’t feel the cold. He wears short-sleeved shirts all year round. When he is inside, I rarely hear a sound from him through our shared walls: no music, no television. Once I did hear him crying out, as if in anguish, “But that’s not the way you do it!” Do what? But I was only mildly intrigued. I didn’t care enough to actually have a proper conversation or make eye contact with him.
If we see each other at the letterbox or walking in and out of our front doors, we both immediately speed up and walk away fast like we have suddenly remembered we are running very late, or we develop an intense interest in one of the letters we have just received, tearing it open as if it’s of the utmost importance. We call out things in a distracted busy tone like, “Hot, isn’t it?” and “Cold, isn’t it?” or if the weather is difficult to label, “How are you?” and we never wait for the other person to answer because we don’t care about the answer. Sometimes in my head I answer: Still obsessively stalking my ex-boyfriend, grieving for my dead mother and suffering unexplained leg pain, thanks, how about you?
So, yes, Jeff is the perfect neighbor for a duplex. We have managed to live next door all these years, and collect each other’s mail when one of us is away, and negotiate shared issues about garbage collection and lawn mowing, while maintaining the most delightfully superficial of relationships.
And then today, when I’d just got home from collecting the car from the mechanic, Jeff suddenly marched up to me and stood far too close. I tried to take a discreet step backward. “Hi, Saskia,” he said. I think this was the first time he’d ever used my name.
“Hi, Jeff,” I said. Likewise.
“I wanted to let you know that I’m moving,” he said. “I’m having a sea change.”
“Sea change,” I repeated.
“Yes, I’m moving to a little town down the south coast. I’m going to run a café. I’m calling it Jeff’s Jetty Café.”
I was stunned. I’m not sure why. I think I just never expected him to be important enough to make any significant changes in his life, but of course, he doesn’t know that he’s only a minor character in my life. He’s the star of his own life and I’m the minor character. And fair enough too.
“It’s not on a jetty, but I’m going to give it a jetty sort of look. Ropes and anchors and … buckets, that sort of stuff.” A flash of uncertainty crossed his face. He has no idea what he’s doing.
“Sounds wonderful,” I said. It will be a spectacular failure.
“Yeah, decided it was time to get out of the police force,” he said.
“You’re a policeman?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen him in uniform. I thought he was an auditor or an IT consultant or even a librarian. Shouldn’t policemen be forced to disclose their careers to their neighbors? What if I’d casually revealed a crime to him at the letterbox? Offered him an illegal substance?
And there is the matter of Patrick. He’s always threatening to call the police. So melodramatic. Why would the police be interested in what is essentially a private matter between two adults? But still. Technically, I do enter his house without his permission.