What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours(46)
“Alex, innit.”
“Have you got friends? Who are your friends?”
He rolled his eyes, showed her a few photos on his phone, scrolled past certain other photos at lightning speed. “Mum, it’s almost twelve-thirty so . . . see you later, yeah?”
She didn’t bother listening for the front door this time. She wanted to say something to her husband about their son. She switched on her laptop and drafted an e-mail to Jacob with the subject line Have you seen what we made??? and plugged her headphones in instead of sending it. She played the third conversation they’d filmed. One question and one answer.
What’s the hottest time of day?
The answer, known only to them and hundreds of thousands of disciples of a certain K-pop band, was 2PM.
On-screen, Jacob waited for her question.
“Hey Jacob, what’s the hottest time of day?”
His reply: “The hottest time of day is 2PM.”
That niggled at her. Jill frowned. Actually two things bothered her—his having said, “The hottest time of day is 2PM” when the usual answer was simply “2PM,” and then there was the appearance of Vi’s hand in the shot. It was only there for a moment before it was withdrawn from the space in front of the lens with a barely audible “oops,” but Jill could see now that the waving hand was probably the reason why Jacob laughed a little as he talked his way back toward the answer (could be that he’d momentarily forgotten the question): “The hottest time of day is 2PM.”
Alex returned before she could replay the third conversation again. He was in his early twenties now, and was sporting chin stubble and red chinos. He didn’t grumble as much as she expected when she made her request that they just watch some telly together. He quite happily complied, putting his arm around the back of the sofa and keeping her warm that way. She didn’t have a clue what they were watching, but took the time to absorb every detail of his face so that later, when he was gone again and it was twelve-thirty at night, the man who looked like her and Jacob was superimposed on the darkness.
—
IN THE MORNING Alex came back in his late thirties with photos of his wife Amina and her granddaughter. Jill went down to the corner shop to try and prepare herself for her son’s arrival in her own decade of life. She hadn’t looked into the mirror before going out of the front door—Darren at the corner shop was shocked and asked her if she was OK. She told him she was fine, and asked about the date and time. It was four p.m. in the outside world, and a week and five days had passed since she’d begun testing Presence. Fox rain was falling (still?) and Jill said: “Time flies, time flies.” Darren asked her if she was OK again, and this time she asked him how he was. Darren was fine too, or so he said. Can’t complain . . . She bought some lip balm and went home.
—
SHE’D MISSED Alex’s forties: “I’m in my fifties, now, Mum . . .” He didn’t look it . . . maybe he was lying, maybe your baby’s just always your baby. But she didn’t feel able to stay at home with her son who was now older than her. There was a lot she could’ve learned from him, she knew, but that would’ve meant staying in that flat where the temperature was so far below zero that the numbers were now meaningless. She didn’t feel able to send Alex away either. She washed. Not just her fringe, she washed all over. And she took a different outfit out of her suitcase and put it on. She didn’t say good-bye to Alex, but left him sleeping on a mattress they’d set up in the second bedroom, between the puppet stages, still makeless, though by twelve-thirty his presence would have faded away altogether. Jill locked the front door behind her and made two journeys: first stop work, to ask after her boys, the ones she still had hope for. The front desk warden made a few phone calls in a low voice with her back turned, then told her they were fine, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and wasn’t it tomorrow that she was due back?
“Good, yes, that’s right . . . see you tomorrow.”
—
JILL’S SECOND JOURNEY ended at home in Holland Park. On the train she thought about the likelihood that Vi would be there with Jacob. She’d been there in the camera shot with Jill and Jacob, however momentarily. His answer had still come to her, and when she got home the front door was unlocked and she found the house as dark and as cold as the flat she’d left earlier; it was twelve-thirty and she found Jacob slumped over the kitchen table with his headphones on. She took them off and asked him again: “What’s the hottest time of day?”
The answer, without verbal deadweight this time: “2PM . . .”
His arms around her, and hers around him, knots and tangles they could only undo with eyes closed. “You’re so warm.”
“About Presence,” she said. “Scrap it. Don’t do this to anyone else.”
“Agreed.”
—
JACOB MENTIONED ALEX once, as they were comparing notes. “I wish we had a picture, at least,” he said, and Jill knew what and whom he was referring to. She didn’t agree, but neither did she contradict his wish. It was his own, after all.
a brief history of the homely wench society
From: Willa Reid <[email protected]>
To: Dayang Sharif <[email protected]>
Date: November 12th 2012, 18:25