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SIXTY-FOUR

I drive aimlessly for a while after leaving Nina’s, but eventually I end up at Jessie’s place in Hastings.

I thought I’d never see her again, but I don’t know where else to go.

She buzzes me in and greets me at the elevator door, then ushers me into her apartment, which is ablaze with winter sun pouring through the plate-glass windows overlooking the sea.

“Jessie,” I say, allowing my eyes to mist over with tears.

“Something terrible has happened. My mother…” I allow a note of strangulation into my voice.

“I’ve been taking care of her. Living with her.

But she’s deteriorated to the point that she’s had to go into a care home and I’ve had to rent out her house to pay for her care, and basically, Jessie, I’m homeless.

I’ve got nowhere to live. And it would only be a few nights.

A week, tops. I have a friend in London who’s said I can use their flat when they go back to the States next month.

I’d be in your spare bedroom, and I would be quiet and respectful, and I won’t use your kitchen, I’ll eat out.

But I really, really just need a soft bed.

And a friend…?” I make a question out of this last statement because of course Jessie and I are not friends.

I am a male escort, and she is my client.

We have talked a lot over the years. We’ve been friendly, but we have not been friends.

By framing it as a question, however, her natural instinct will be to want to reassure me that of course we are friends, and once she has done that, then how can she possibly deny me somewhere to stay?

I see many emotions pass over her face. She looks stricken, almost, as though I have asked her to donate an organ.

But then I see her nod, and with a taut smile, she says, “Yes. Of course. But please, you’ll need to be discreet.

Very discreet. I’ve told my neighbors you’re a masseuse.

They’ll be wondering why you’re staying here.

So just keep a low profile. Stay indoors as much as possible. Are you OK with that?”

I nod and take her hands and kiss their backs. “Thank you, Jessie. Thank you so much. I promise you, I will be gone before you know it.”

I rest my rucksack and my bag on the ornate quilted cover on the bed in Jessie’s spare room.

There is a small pile of plush animals on the bed that I remove and place in the corner.

I take off my shoes and I lie back on the bed and stare at the whipped-cream peaks in the ceiling plaster, the tacky art on the walls, the view through the window of the side of the apartment block next door, and I let out a sigh of repressed rage.

How? How had Martha found me? How did she know where I was?

I think back to the dog tracker I’d found in the car a few weeks ago.

Something to do with Baxter, I’d thought at first, but then I’d had a second thought—was it possible, I’d pondered, that Martha had put it in the car deliberately, to see where I was?

I’d decided to be on the safe side and parked myself outside the restaurant I told her I was working at for three hours.

The next time I left the house, I smashed it to a pulp with a hammer and dropped it in a bin in a car park off an A road.

But how long had it been in my car? And had Martha in fact been using it to follow me?

Had she seen it? Nina’s house? Had she suspected an affair?

I hit myself hard around my temples with the heels of my hands; I am livid with myself.

But also livid with Martha. What more does she want from me?

I’m doing all of this for her . To give her what she wants.

The dream she craves. Her Martha’s Garden empire.

And in she blunders like an idiot, ringing on doorbells, ruining everything, and now what?

I have nothing. Not one thing. I have a twenty-pound note in my wallet.

I have two changes of clothing and some toiletries.

I don’t know what to do, and I’m furious. I’m absolutely fucking furious.

I get off the bed to throw the curtains closed against the dazzling winter sun, and then flop onto the bed again.

I’m nearly fifty-six, a married man, and I’m here on a single bed in a pensioner’s spare room in Hastings with no money and no idea what the fuck to do next.

How could I have been so stupid? It’s like Tara and Amanda all over again, this grotesque collision of two parts of my perfectly choreographed existence.

I can’t handle it. Everything needs to be separate.

All of it. I’m like one of those fussy kids who doesn’t like their food to touch on the plate.

I feel itchy, I feel anxious, stressed, enraged.

I want to scream and kick things, hurt people, cry.

I really, really want to cry. And then I do.

I cry hard and ugly. I cry so hard that a moment later there is a gentle rap at the door, and I hear Jessie’s voice.

“Are you OK, André?”

“Yes,” I snuffle. “I’m fine. Just a bit… you know…”

“Do you want a hug?”

I nod, but then realize I need to say it out loud. “Yes. Please.”

The door opens slowly and Jessie walks in.

She perches on the edge of the bed and opens up her arms and I fit myself into them and let her stroke my heaving shoulders and pat my back and I listen to the soft patter-patter of her kind heart through her cardigan and for a short while I feel calm again.

“Everything will be OK, André,” she says. “You’ll fight back. You’ll get back on your feet. This is just a small blip. You’re a brilliant man. You’ll find your way. I know you will.”

I bury my head deeper into her and I hold on tighter to her body, like I’m never going to let go.

Jessie makes us a lasagna. It’s not a very good lasagna, but I eat it with gusto.

Crying makes me hungry. She talks about her adult children.

They’ve broken her heart. She had them young and sacrificed a lot for them and now they’ve abandoned her.

One lives in Australia. The other lives in Manchester.

They are both workaholics and appear to find her annoying.

I am empathetic and soothing and tell her that I’m sure they’ll come back to her, but inside I’m thinking, Fuck them, just fuck them.

They don’t deserve you and they don’t deserve your money, so give it to me, for God’s sake, just give it all to me.

With Jessie’s money, I could walk away from both of them, from fucking Martha and fucking Nina, and just start again.

All I want is to start again. And all I need is money.

And why are there so many stupid fucking bitches in this world?

I swallow down the last stodgy mouthful of lasagna with a slurp of white wine and I smile at Jessie. “You’re such a good person,” I say. “One of the finest I’ve ever known. You deserve the world. Shall I clear?”

I clear the table for her and I wipe down surfaces and load the dishwasher and top up Jessie’s wineglass, and then I tell her I’m going for a walk.

It’s been dark for hours and the bright morning has faded into a frozen black night.

My breath turns to clouds so heavy and dense they linger in the air as I walk the streets around the back of Jessie’s apartment block, past all-you-can-eat sushi buffets, microbreweries and pubs, boarded-up shops and clubs.

What was Martha doing at Nina’s? I ask myself again.

What was she planning to do or say if someone had answered the door?

And where is she now? What is she doing?

What is she thinking? Why hasn’t she called me?

Or messaged me? All the unknowns make me want to pull my brains out of my head with my hands.

I growl gently under my breath, and then I see a young girl across the street, looking at me strangely, her reaction to me triggered no doubt by my inwardly roiling demeanor.

I stop and glance at her, and then I start to follow in her wake.

I see her turn a fraction to look at who’s behind her and pick up her pace a little, see her breath trapped in the small of her back.

She’s wearing a camel coat, tied tightly at the waist to show the world how tiny it is, with fitted black trousers and shiny pumps.

She’s come from an office, and I see her adjust her little handbag in that way women do when they’re feeling unsafe, like it’s somehow going to protect them.

I’m about six feet away from her and I maintain this space.

It’s optimum. The length of a man. The Covid safe space.

Just enough to make her feel nervous, but not enough for anyone else to notice.

She turns left and I follow her. I take my phone out of my pocket, and I pretend to look at it as I walk.

I put my spare hand into my trouser pocket and let my fingertips graze the head of my penis, just slightly, and only once.

I look at the back of her neck where the turned-up collar of her camel coat brushes the baby hairs escaping from her ponytail, then I close the gap between us by a foot and I make a small noise, halfway between a sigh and a groan.

She stops and I continue until I am a foot away from her, when I swoop into her personal space, let my nose drop close to the collar of her coat, breathe in hard, instantly dizzy with the scent of her, of fear mixed with flowers.

I straighten up and walk right past her, turning briefly to catch her staring at me with her mouth hanging open, not sure what to say, not sure what just happened, caught halfway between fear and uncertainty.

Did she imagine it, the tall man walking too close to her?

And surely, she’s thinking, surely not him?

He looks too smart, too respectable, far too fucking handsome.

Meanwhile, I saunter onward, my engines oiled again, my head clearer, my resolve restored.

I find a pub and I buy myself a cold pint of lager and I drink it slowly and methodically until I feel ready to return to Jessie’s spare bedroom, to the pile of stuffed toys and the cloying expanse of thick, thick carpets.