Afterwards Read online

  – You hungry, Joey? You had some lunch?

  Eve had started on the surfaces, emptying her handful of crumbs into the bin as she was passing, the crusts of her sandwich she didn’t have time to be finishing.

  – Haven’t managed breakfast yet. Do you want a cup?

  – Can’t. Meant to be there for half one. The minister couldn’t make it any later.

  Eve was doing the flowers for a wedding, a bigger job than her usual ones. Normally she managed to fit things around Ben, just about, because Arthur drove a cab and his shifts were flexible, only there were two drivers sick today, so he was covering and she had to meet the people up at the church. Joseph made tea for himself while his sister swept the floor around him, patting his legs to move him out of the way.

  – Eve, come on, leave it. I’ll do it after you’ve gone.

  She sat down and watched him rubbing his face.

  – Haven’t seen much of you lately, brother.

  – No. There’s been a lot of work going. Got a job up in Hackney starting next week, but it’ll slack off a bit after that, I reckon.

  Eve looked at him a couple of seconds longer than usual. She wasn’t smiling, not exactly, but there was something in her face. Never asked him where he was this morning when she’d phoned. Joseph couldn’t tell if she was winding him up. She grabbed a gulp of his tea on her way out of the kitchen.

  – I’ll go and get the little one up.

  Joseph carried Ben out to the van to say goodbye to his mum, sat him up on his shoulders, so he could see her through the glass. Eve rolled down the window and blew a kiss at them, asked Joseph to make sure he locked the back door before he took Ben up the road.

  – Don’t worry.

  – Make yourself something to eat, skinny malink.

  – I will.

  She started winding the window up again, with that same look on her face from back in the kitchen. Hard not to smile. Joseph said:

  – Her name’s Alice.

  Eve laughed.

  – About time, Joey.

  She stuck her hand out of the window and waved at him and Ben as she drove away.

  The Saturday traffic moved fast, dispersed, the South Circular was clear and Alice arrived sooner than she expected. Earlier than arranged with her grandfather and he wasn’t at home. She rang the bell a second time, just to be sure, before she let herself in.

  Three letters lay unopened on the side table in the porch, one for her gran. The house was cool, dim, although the day outside was bright spring. The tiled hall was swept, the carpet runner clean, but surprisingly threadbare: there all her life and Alice had never noticed it before, that the red-green pattern had worn brown in places, marking the path of feet over years and decades. Two weeks since she was last here, and not quite four months since the funeral. When the house had been full of quiet guests holding plates of uneaten sandwiches, and her grandfather paced between them, shaking hands and saying thanks for coming, as if he wanted them all gone as soon as possible.

  Alice didn’t like to go further inside the empty house, stepped out again through the porch, past the roses along the short gravel path to the gate. She looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of him, just pillar-box and lamp-post, bay windows. Parked cars and bedding plants. He didn’t say he had anything planned, but then why should he tell her his business? More empty hours to fill each day, more chores to do now he’s on his own. Alice went inside and put the kettle on. In the kitchen, she noticed it too: everything clean and in its place, but somehow sparse and worn. Colours faded, numbers rubbed off the cooker dials over the years. The cupboards mostly empty, a few tins and jars, and though they were all spotless, they still smelled of crumbs.

  The kettle roared and Alice pulled out mugs, teapot, a spoon from the drawer. Didn’t hear the key in the door.

  – Hello hello. You’re early, dear. Or is it me? Late I mean?

  Her grandfather called from the hallway and Alice stepped out to meet him. A quiet smile, smart in his blue blazer and tie. Pressed and trimmed and groomed. That familiar smell, as though he were freshly shaven, which he carried with him through the day.

  – Hello, Grandad. Traffic was better than I thought.

  – You came by car?

  – I borrowed Martha’s. Easier than getting the train.

  – Yes. We suburbanites are not well served these days.

  Alice smiled at him: the usual pragmatics, the usual opening gambits. Her grandfather squeezed her shoulder in silent greeting. He looked well, she thought. A bit tired maybe.

  – I put the kettle on.

  – Yes, you’re a good girl.

  He walked ahead of her back to the kitchen and Alice saw he was carrying her grandmother’s shopping bag. Carton of milk, tealeaves, newspaper, visible through the string weave. He lifted it onto the worktop and started unpacking. Shopping seemed such an unlikely activity for him: he’d been doing it for a while, at least since Gran got ill, but Alice still wasn’t used to the idea.

  – Shall I put these away?

  – No, no, I’ll take care of things in here. You go and get some china for us to drink from.

  He pushed her gently back out into the corridor. Alice could hear him working while she collected cups and saucers, the good spoons from the sideboard. There were a few cards on the shelf above, lilies and remembrance: most Alice had seen already and all from people she knew, family friends and neighbours, a modest circle of familiar names. Above them, at eye level, were the photos of her grandparents’ life together, their small family. Alice’s primary school photo, gappy teeth and bunches, her eighteenth birthday and her mum’s graduation. Mum and Alan walking in the Dales: Alice remembered taking that one, on holiday with them while she was still studying, not long after they got married. Her grandfather had been rearranging the pictures since the last time she saw them, and it made her pause. Touched her when she realised his wedding photo was now in the middle: he and Gran holding hands outside the old registry office in Lewisham. On either side were the portraits they gave each other while they were courting. Those pictures used to be in an album, Alice could remember which one, so he must have been out and bought frames for them: Gran in a silk blouse and Grandad in uniform, both taken in a studio, somewhere in Nairobi. The most recent photo had been moved: it stood on top of her grandmother’s piano now, opposite the chair her grandfather sat in when reading. It was of the five of them, all together on their anniversary, their forty-fourth, and it was taken here, out on the patio. Alice, her mum and Alan, flanking the still-happy couple, holding their champagne glasses up to the camera. That was before Gran got ill and was still plump, her hair still curly, done every other Monday in the salon on the Sydenham Road, opposite the post office. Only four years ago, but it seemed a different time, a different woman. Alice wondered how long it would be before the image in the photo took over in her memory again. Her grandad called from the kitchen:

  – It’s brewed, Alice. I’ll pour when you’re ready.

  They took their teacups out into the garden and did the crossword together, sitting on the plastic chairs on the patio. They couldn’t finish it and fell silent over the last two clues. Five across and eight down. Alice followed her grandfather’s eyeline over the trim borders of the garden, couldn’t see what he was looking at, something in the middle distance. The cakes he bought this morning sat untouched on the table between them, iced fingers sweating in the sun.

  – Did we have a reason for you coming?

  Alice blinked.

  – No, I just wanted to see how you were. Keep you company for a bit.

  – Yes. Only this morning I couldn’t remember. Thought there might have been something to sign, but then I was sure I’d done all that.

  The sun was strong on the back of her neck and her hair had grown hot. Alice sat up. She could see the kitchen clock through the open door: nearly five, and she’d been here longer than planned. She was seeing Joseph later, and had promised Martha the car
would be back before dinner. Her grandad looked tired, eyes elsewhere, squinting against the sun. Alice started clearing the table, told him she’d wash up and then get going. Watched his face, but she got no response. Afterwards, in the car on the way home, she thought he couldn’t have heard her, because when she stood to take their plates inside he’d looked surprised, had pushed himself up out of his chair.

  – Oh. You’re off. But you’ll come again soon, won’t you, Alice dear?

  Been a while. It had been a while since there was anyone interested, anyone interesting. Alice hadn’t been looking. She hadn’t felt the need, so Joseph was unexpected. Came at a time when she was still caught up in her grandmother’s illness and passing.

  Nineteen months, Alice counted them, from diagnosis. Plus the weeks before, made it almost two years. She’d always been regular about seeing her grandparents, and spent a lot more time with them after the treatment started. Helping her grandad with the chores, driving Gran to the hairdresser’s once a fortnight, while she could still manage the time under the dryers, before the chemo robbed her of her hair. Her grandmother kept up her music as long as she could, and Alice would sit next to her at the piano on free afternoons, following the notes and turning the pages. Gran started repeating and then missing phrases, more so as the months went on, and she was aware of it too, but she still wanted to play. Missed it when she went into the hospice. That was during her last weeks, over the winter. It was only two stops on the train from work, and Alice visited her daily. Brought her sheet music, read the interesting bits of the newspaper out loud to her: she always wanted the letters to the editor and the leader column first, the gardening articles at weekends. Alice carried on, even after Gran stopped asking. Talked to her quietly about work and the weather and what was happening on the ward around them. Visitors coming and going and snow that wouldn’t settle. Anything really. Watching her grandmother’s half-closed eyes, her thin fingers dance and tug along the edges of the sheet.

  Alice had been seeing Joseph a month or two when she told him about her gran. They were both up early: it was a midweek morning and she had to go to work, Joseph was meeting Stan. He left the flat with her, carried her bike down the stairs while she locked up, and then they walked together as far as his bus stop. Long morning shadows and the streets were peaceful, they turned the corner by the station in sleepy silence. Alice hadn’t seen Joseph over the weekend. He’d been away, on a job in Brighton for a friend of his dad’s: Clive was renovating a house down there for his retirement, weekends usually, whenever he had time, and Joseph went every few months to plaster the rooms as they got done. He’d phoned Saturday lunchtime to see if she wanted to come down, said his dad’s friend had a tent they could borrow. He had Sunday off, and did she want to spend the day together, at the coast maybe. Alice had already arranged to see her grandad and Joseph didn’t make anything of it when she said she couldn’t come: she saw her grandfather every couple of weeks, he knew that by now. But he did sound disappointed and, after she’d hung up, Alice didn’t think she’d given him enough of an explanation: saying her gran had died recently just didn’t seem to cover it. So she tried again, while they were walking to work.

  – I always used to go and see them together. I’ve been every other Sunday, just about, since I left college.

  Alice wheeled her bike while she talked to him, tried to describe why the visits were important, for her as well as her grandad.

  – For months there was always something to do, you know? While Gran was ill. It’s not been easy to get used to, since she died. Like I’m out of practice.

  Days off came with nowhere to drive, nothing to fetch, no one to sit with or bathe. Or sheets to change, or nails to cut, or cream to rub into old hands to keep them soft. Alice had known her grandmother was dying, so it was hard, but she’d loved it too.

  – All of that to be missing now, as well as the person.

  Joseph didn’t know what to say, Alice could see that, and she felt uneasy, hadn’t wanted to make him uncomfortable. But then he slowed down as they got nearer his stop, as though he wanted to give her more time, and he kissed her goodbye when his bus came. They hadn’t done that before and, in the minutes after he’d gone, it was tempting to see it as some kind of affirmation. The idea brought a strange, lurching feeling with it, and Alice wasn’t sure if this was pleasure or pressure. She had to smile at herself again, cycling to work: she looked for the significance in every gesture these days, and she’d forgotten that about these early stages. When you don’t know yet, whether you are in love. If you want to be, if he does. Perhaps she’d told him a bit too much, but it had felt like a good moment, and she didn’t want to question that now. You can pick things to pieces if you’re not careful.

  Joseph hadn’t said a great deal about his family yet. When he did, a few evenings later, Alice felt as though he were returning a compliment. He’d been at his sister’s, and she lived not far from Alice, so he came round on his way home. Alice was in the bath when she heard the buzzer go under the noise of the taps. Martha was on her way out, and called down the hall that she would get it. Alice turned the water off and listened to the exchange in the hallway.

  – Is she busy?

  That was Joseph. Another first: an unannounced visit.

  – I’ll be out in a second.

  Alice’s voice was loud against the tiles. The talking continued in the hallway, and she looked around her for a towel, but didn’t move to get it yet. She’d been out late two nights in a row, catching up with friends she’d not seen while gran was ill. Both were good nights, and they’d filled her up with wine and smoke and conversation. It wasn’t long after nine, but bath and bed had been her only evening plans. She listened again, still lying in the warm water. Could hear Martha in and out of the living room, her bedroom, looking for her keys or her bag. Alice couldn’t hear Joseph, thought he must be in the kitchen or on the sofa, and she thought how much she’d like to spend the rest of the evening lying down there with him, but then he put his head round the door.

  – Just here on the off-chance. I can get lost again.

  Alice hadn’t realised it was ajar. She looked up at him: half in, half out of the room.

  – Don’t be silly.

  – Don’t get out then.

  Alice heard Martha call goodbye and the front door closing, and then Joseph sat down. On the floor, his back against the radiator, forearms resting on his knees. Left alone, they smiled at each other across the rim of the bath.

  Alice had opened the window earlier; it was the first warm evening of the year, and a few doors down someone had done the same, pushed their speakers round to face the street. Joseph had spent the afternoon with his family, she’d heard him telling Martha, and Alice was curious about them, so she asked him who’d been there.

  – Mum and Dad, Eve and Arthur, my sister and brother-in-law. Well, they’re not married, but you know.

  – They’ve got a little boy, haven’t they?

  – Ben, yeah. He just turned three. We blew out some candles for him today.

  He was pulling tobacco and papers out of his jacket, and Alice thought about standing up, the towel, getting out, but then Joseph said:

  – Any room in there for me?

  The water was loud as Alice sat up. Cooled on her back in the silence while Joseph undressed. Made her aware of the damp hair at the back of her neck and her temples. Her pale breasts, hidden now by her knees, and the sweat on the skin beneath them. It was strange to feel so shy, and Alice tried to remember the last thing Joseph had said, a thread to pick up. Felt the warm bath rise around her thighs as he climbed in to sit behind her, legs on either side of hers. The overflow slopped, and outside there were summer noises: thudding bass and people talking. It was her turn in the conversation, Alice was certain. Seconds passed and then she felt a palmful of water, poured between her shoulder blades, sliding down to her hips, joined by another, then another, and then his fingertips. It was gentle, and she stayed where s
he was, not wanting it to stop, until Joseph’s fingers came to rest, and he rubbed his unshaven chin against her neck.

  – What do you want to know then?

  He was smiling. About her curiosity, maybe: how obvious it was. Or about how shy she was being.

  – I don’t know.

  Alice leant back a little, against his chest.

  – You could tell me a bit about your mum and dad. Are they still working?

  Joseph folded his arms around her.

  – My mum’s a hairdresser. My dad’s retired, he took redundancy a few years back.

  He let her settle between his legs, told her that his parents still lived in the house he grew up in, bought it from the council with his dad’s severance pay. Joseph carried a photo in his wallet. Alice had caught sight of it before, when he was paying for drinks or cabs, and she’d wondered about it, who it was of. His jeans were on the mat, in easy reach, and he folded his wallet open with wet hands to show her: a family of four, out in front of a red-brick box.

  – That was thirty years ago or something. Will be soon.

  Alice shook her fingers free of drops before she took it from him. The grass on the picture was yellow, dusty, and they were all wearing summer clothes, pink cheeks and squinting. Joseph’s chest was bare and skinny, and you could see where the tan line stopped at his neck, his upper arms, where his T-shirt would normally have been.

  – It was that hot summer.

  – I remember. My Gran used to make me have a sleep after lunch. Because she wanted one, probably. Seventy-seven, wasn’t it?

  – Seventy-six. Southampton won the Cup.

  – You remember that? How old were you, four?