Our Stop(46)

Nadia looked at him. His eyes were kind. This was a kind man, bearing witness to her humiliation. ‘Do you have anything mineraly? Like a—’

‘Albari?o? That’s what your friend had.’

Nadia nodded. Her ‘friend’. Huh. ‘That would be great, thank you.’

The barman pulled down a glass and got the bottle from the fridge. As he poured it, he said, ‘You can finish off the bottle,’ and slid over the half-full glass and the dribble leftover. Then he slinked off to serve somebody else, leaving her to lick her wounds.

Nadia didn’t know what to think. It occurred to her that Train Guy knew her name, because he’d told the barman to ask for a Nadia. How? She wondered if he’d ever had any intention to meet her – did he plan to string her along? That made no sense, though. There would be no reason why a stranger would do that. Unless it wasn’t a stranger – what if it was somebody who knew her, and that’s why they knew her name and which train she got on and about the investor? She wondered if it was Awful Ben. God, she thought, surely not. Surely not Awful Ben? That would be too cruel, even for him – plus, he had that new girlfriend now. Nadia locked eyes with herself in the mirror again and watched herself drink. She finished the glass of wine in two big gulps. Her ego was bruised and her heart dented. She felt so stupid for hoping. She’d really thought this was it.

As the alcohol coursed through her veins she let herself feel it. She was devastated.

She poured the last of the bottle into the glass.

Will I ever be loved? she wondered. I didn’t know it would ever be this hard.





27


Daniel


‘Henry’s gone,’ she said, opening the door to him, tears streaming down her face, leaving dark tracks of mascara that faded as they reached her chin.

‘Mum,’ said Daniel, ‘who is Henry? What’s happened? Come on. I’m here now.’

Daniel wiped his shoes on the mat and slipped them off. With his hand on the small of his mother’s back he steered her through the hallway, with its flowered wallpaper and everything with either a polka dot or a love heart on it. He’d never understood how his father could bear it. It was like Dunelm had had sickness and diarrhoea, and his parents’ semi was the result. He sat beside her on the sofa that sagged a little in ‘her’ part, worn from a nightly place in front of the TV, next to the armchair that had been, until recently, his dad’s. Maybe it always will be dad’s, he thought, realizing how he hadn’t wanted to sit there because it ‘belonged’ to somebody else.

He put his hand on his mum’s arm. ‘Who is Henry?’

‘Henry! The hoover!’ his mum said, shaking her head as if he was stupid for not understanding right away. How could he have not immediately understood that his mother was crying over the vacuum cleaner? Is that why he’d left his date – the thing that he had wanted more than almost anything else in the world? For a missing hoover? ‘He’s gone!’

Daniel searched her eyes as a way to try and understand what she was getting at. She’d been doing really well: hadn’t endlessly cried to him weeks now. She’d been a pillar of strength, which was good, because whilst Daniel knew his mother’s emotions weren’t his responsibility (his therapist told him that at every session), it was a lot easier to keep his own head above water when she was doing well. Maybe now, though, it was his turn to be strong for her.

His mother sighed, frustrated.

‘Henry. The hoover. We’ve had him almost as long as you’ve been alive. And he’s been good – you know – he’s lasted a long time. Things did last a long time back then. It’s not like now, where they build stuff to automatically break down in two years so you have to replace it. You know. What do they call it? When they make things break after two years?’

‘Planned obsolescence.’

‘Yes. Planned adolescence.’

‘Planned obsolescence. Or built-in obsolescence – the policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful—’

‘Oh shut up,’ she snapped lightheartedly, through tears. ‘You sound just like your father. Knowing everything.’ She sounded as if she wasn’t sorry that her son sounded like his dad at all. Daniel noticed that her mascara had run to the inner corner of her eyes, so each one had a little black dot in the corner.

‘Well. That. Your father wouldn’t let me replace Henry because even though he’s started to smell a bit, and isn’t sucking up as well as he used to, he’s still in good shape. And you know, it can be hundreds of pounds for a new one! That’s a holiday!’

Daniel really didn’t understand where this was going.

‘And you’re upset about …?’ he said, while thinking to himself, I’ll bet she’s there, now. I’ll bet she waited and I never came and she thinks I don’t care. That I’m an asshole.

‘He’s gone!’ She was talking quite calmly, now. ‘I put him outside, under the car port, thinking how I must clean the car out. It’s a mess, and I took Tracey from darts home the other night and was suddenly so embarrassed by the state of it. I bet she thought I was a right pig – there were wrappers and it was dusty, and I suppose after your father … well. I spring-cleaned the house today too, because I realized I’d not really been looking after the place.’