Page 41 of Jenny James Is Not a Disaster
“Wow. Nice image. Maybe you should have been the writer...”
“Nope, I’m numbers, not words. That’s your bag. Is that why you were worried about how much this was costing earlier?”
“Probably. Although I might have been anyway—these places aren’t cheap. It’s one of the reasons we’ve never been before. That and my terror.”
“Your former terror, now vanquished.”
“Maybe.”
He rolls over onto one side and props himself up on his elbow, looking down at me. The sun is behind him and he looks dark and mysterious. His hair is slightly longer than when we first met, and I realize he keeps it so brutally short because it is the kind of hair that curls if you don’t. I’d quite like to reach out and touch it, but that would be, you know, weird.
“You do remember what I told you last night, don’t you, about my working life?” he asks.
“Yeah. Of course. I remember everything you told me last night.”
Her bedroom. Her sheets. Her cuddly toys. Forever burned into my mind, that terrible image.
“Well, believe me when I say I’m not worried about money, or about a day at a theme park. I live cheaply most of the time—the odd ale, fuel, camp fees, food, not much else. It’s simple, and I don’t spend much, and I have plenty. In fact, it’s actually really nice to be able to do this—to use some of it on fun, on somethingfrivolous, something that brings someone else pleasure as well as me. So, please, don’t be a selfish moo and deprive me of that!”
“A selfish moo?” I repeat, laughing. “What kind of a phrase is that?”
“One of my gran’s. She called everyone a moo when she was annoyed with them. Selfish moo, silly moo, greedy moo, cheeky moo, naughty moo... I was called pretty much every kind of moo by the time I was ten!”
“You talk about her a lot. Were you close?” I ask, more than happy to stop talking about money. Nothing is guaranteed to put me on the misery train faster than talking about money. That insurance letter has been one heck of a downer.
He flops back down and says: “Yeah. We were. My parents were busy people, and my brother and I spent a lot of time there when we were kids. She was the first person I ever lost, and I still miss her. When Katie was born, one of my first thoughts was that I was so sad she didn’t get to meet her. We gave her my gran’s middle name—it was Marjorie, so you can see why we didn’t make it our first choice...”
“Yeah. That’s never quite made a comeback, has it? So, are your parents still around?”
I realize I sound slightly nervous as I ask that, because Luke is in his forties, and I am in my thirties, and this is the age when parents still being around isn’t always guaranteed. I feel a sharp tug in my chest as I even think this and take a deep breath to try to shoo it away.
“They’re still alive. No need to sound so worried! They’re still busy people, and they live in New Zealand now. They were both GPs, and now they’re retired and spend their time climbing hills and visiting lakes and generally having a good time.”
“Wow. That sounds awesome. What about your brother?”
“He’s younger than me and lives in London and has three kids. Anything else you need to know, Officer?”
“I’m being really nosy, aren’t I? I’m sorry. It’s just the way I’m made.”
He sits up and grabs a bottle of water from the backpack next to him. He passes it to me first, because he is a gentleman, it seems.
“I don’t mind,” he replies, looking off across the lake. “It just takes a bit of getting used to. I think I’ve talked more about myself over the last week than I have in the last four years. It makes me feel both better and also more... exposed, if that makes sense?”
“It does,” I say, nodding. “And I get it, I really do. I might not have gone off grid and lived in a motorhome or anything, but I’ve led a pretty quiet life. Me and Charlie against the world kind of vibe. I’ve never had really close friends. I’ve just been too busy... and maybe too much of a wuss.”
“Well, as we saw today on Nemesis, you are a wuss no more! But what about your family? You didn’t talk much about them last night, but obviously there’s some kind of rift. What happened?”
I close my eyes and wonder how to encapsulate it all into a few sentences. How to distill decades of mistakes, regret, and hurt into a few words. It feels impossible, really—and it also feels dangerous. Like something I shouldn’t do, because if I start letting it all unravel, before I know it, I’ll have a giant ball of yarn at my feet and will be totally naked.
I feel a gentle touch against my hand, feel Luke’s fingers briefly make contact with mine. I want to grab on, to hold tight, to console myself the way I did on that rollercoaster. But I don’t, as that might only make it harder.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says quietly.
“We say that to each other a lot, have you noticed?”
“We do. Like we’re both so aware of how easy it might be to take a wrong step. That doesn’t make it a bad thing—maybe it just means we’re, I don’t know, respectful of each other’s boundaries? Oh God, I sounded like a self-help book there, didn’t I?”
“A bit, to be honest—but hey, I’m writing a blog about finding my joy, so I’m in no position to judge!”
