David Nobbs - It Had to Be You

It was a rebuke.

‘You know I don’t work Thursday mornings.’

Helen and her friend Fiona ran a smart little dress shop in Chelsea. It was quiet enough for them to take it in turns to attend, except on Saturdays. James thought they were playing at it, and had been unwise enough to say so once. It was not a thing you would say twice.

‘Sorry, darling, but I needed to speak to you.’ He amended the sentence hurriedly. ‘I wanted to speak to you.’

‘That’s nice.’

She was mollified. He breathed a sigh of relief. He began to be glad that he had taken his pants off. Things would have been tight.

‘Are you naked?’ he asked.

‘Of course. Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, James. Oh, James, my darling. Are you…?’

‘Very. Oh, Helen.’

Her pouty mouth. Her pert breasts. Her slim arms. Her disturbingly neat bottom. Her pale soft skin. Her wide green eyes.

‘Oh, Helen. Oh, my God.’

It was so quick. Absurdly quick. Fierce, painful, glorious, uncontrollable yet perfectly synchronised.

‘God, that was good. Oh, Helen darling, you are so unbelievably lovely, my darling. Um …’ The gear change was going to be difficult, very difficult. ‘Um … well, I’d better get dressed, I suppose. My brother Philip’s coming round to help. There’s such a lot to do.’

‘Poor you. I wish I could be with you.’

‘I know. So do I. Um … the … um … the thing is, Helen … oh, God, I wish you could be with me, but the thing is …’ Oh, Lord, this was difficult. ‘The thing is … I thought maybe you might phone me today, but Philip’s going to be here and … um … it could be awkward … a bit.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Is that why you rang?’

‘No. Well, I mean … no, I really wanted to … you know … what we did … but yes, I knew I had to talk to you about this. Obviously Philip doesn’t know anything about us, and it would be very hard to explain.’

‘I understand.’

‘But you’re not happy. I can tell you’re not happy.’

‘Well … I do understand, James. I can see the difficulties. It’s just … nothing’s changed.’

‘It’s early days. I want these next days to be dignified in memory of Deborah. She deserves that.’

‘I know. I agree. I never wanted to hurt her, James. You know that. That’s why I accepted … everything. But now … well, it’s a bit galling to find that nothing has changed.’

‘Everything’s changed. I want to marry you and live the rest of my life with you and soon I’ll be able to. We just have to be patient.’

‘I know. I know you’re right. I know how dreadfully difficult this is for you. I really do, darling. It’s just that I’ve been patient for so long. And now …’

‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow, over tea.’

‘Yes. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

From her repetition of his words he sensed how vulnerable she felt.

‘Bye, James.’

From the abrupt way she rang off he knew that she had been about to cry.

He couldn’t cry. He just felt … flat. Flat, in his situation? He shook his head in disbelief at himself.

His first phone call, and already he was exhausted.

He opened the window of the spare bedroom, for fear that Philip would detect a faint odour of semen. In came the smell of heat, grass and petrol.

He took another shower, then went back into the master bedroom, tried not to look at the smiling photo of Deborah on the dressing table, kissed the photo of a fourteen-year-old Charlotte, and dressed.

He made himself his usual breakfast: two slices of toast which he cut into halves and covered with spreadable butter on its own, or marmalade, or honey, in a different order every day, lest he should feel that he was becoming a creature of habit. The order this morning was marmalade (Seville orange), butter, honey, and marmalade again (three-fruit).

At ten past nine – give her time in case she was a few minutes late and punctuality wasn’t one of her virtues, but come to think of it, what were her virtues? – he phoned Marcia.

‘It’s me. Marcia, I’m not coming in today.’

‘Crikey. Are you ill?’

‘No. Marcia, you remember that police message.’

‘I remember. The one I almost forgot and then remembered.’

A feeling of dread shuddered through his body, dread of all the sympathy he was going to get, from Marcia, from everyone at Globpack UK, from his friends, from his fitness trainer, from his acupuncturist. Sympathy and pity.

‘It was to tell me … Deborah’s been killed.’

‘What??? Oh no!! James! Oh, James!! Oh, that’s … awful!! That’s … terrible!!!’

There were a lot of exclamation marks in Marcia’s young life.

‘How?’

‘Car crash. Head on.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose … Oh, God, though.’

‘Yes.’

Through it all he went. How many times was he going to have to go through all this today?

‘Oh, James, I am so very, very sorry. Is there anything I can do?’

‘Well, tell everybody who needs to know.’

‘I sort of meant … is there anything personal? I mean … this evening, for instance. I don’t like to think of you all alone.’

‘That’s very sweet of you, Marcia.’ Oh, give me strength. ‘But my brother’s going to be here.’ Philip would have long gone, no doubt, but there was no need to add that.

‘The concert pianist?’

‘The other one.’

‘Well, that’s all right, then. I … p’r’aps I shouldn’t say this but I … you’re more than a boss to me, Mr Hollinghurst, and I …’

Oh, no. Oh, suffering serpents and suppurating sores, this was terrible. Interrupt, quickly. No time to lose.

‘Thank you, Marcia. That’s very sweet of you.’

Thank God, the doorbell. His sweet sweet friend the doorbell.

‘Philip’s here. I’ve got to go.’

A gust of brotherly love disturbed the still, windless morning. ‘The other one.’ Poor Philip, clever scientist, esteemed statistician, conducting vital research into climate change, a nobody in celebrity Britain.

They hugged. James always hugged Charles, you had to, Charles was a hugger, but he didn’t remember Philip ever hugging him before.

James and Charles had broad, almost round faces from their mother. Philip had his father’s long, narrow, slightly beaky face. It was a face that suggested that he might also have his father’s caustic tongue. It was not a relaxing face. But Philip was kind and much more easy-going than he looked. James felt so very pleased that he was there. Philip met his eyes, shook his head as if to rid himself of the bad news, and looked away.

‘The accident’s made the nationals,’ he said, and he handed James a paper. ‘Page seven.’

‘Tragic death of joy-ride war hero,’ read James. What?

‘Craig Wilson came back to England from Afghanistan just three days ago, delighted to be alive after seeing two of his friends killed in Helmand Province.’ Oh, no. ‘Now he too is dead, killed in a head-on car crash in a borrowed Porsche on the A143 near Diss.

‘The driver of the other car, a 46-year-old woman, also died.

‘“I feel so guilty,” said Craig’s best friend, local skip magnate Ben Postgate (30) yesterday. “There hasn’t been much joy in his life recently, and I lent him my Porsche for a joy ride. He was all properly insured and stuff, and he was a very good driver, but I think the fun of it, after what he’d been through, must have gone to his head. I keep saying to myself, “Oh, if only I hadn’t.”

‘“Craig was a brave committed soldier and a thoroughly nice lad who had a great life in front of him,” commented his commanding officer, Colonel Brian McIntyre. “We’re all devastated.”’