Page 34 of Maybe (Mis-shapes #1)

“He’s the image of you, isn’t he?” she said on returning to the kitchen. One of the songs from Beauty and the Beast drifted through from the sitting room. Thanks to Freya’s influence, Jonty loved that film. I hoped he wasn’t putting sticky, biscuity fingers everywhere.

“Look at this.” Janice held out a photo. “It was in a shoebox up in the guest bedroom. I spotted it when I was having a clear out. You were about his age then, weren’t you?”

I stared at the snap, not sure what to think, to be honest. Holding aloft a clarinet and some sheet music, a pleased as punch, ten-year-old version of me gurned at the camera against the front door of this house, when it was painted red.

Yes, I was Jonty’s age or thereabouts, and yes, he was the spit of me.

But jeez, why hadn’t I been mercilessly bullied at school for that criminal haircut?

I remembered the occasion; my mother took the picture. Three years before her life and my bright future were crushed under the wheels of a bus. Grade six with distinction, Ez! The music teacher said it was the highest mark she’s seen. I’m so proud of you, darling.

“I was very skinny,” I managed, even though my throat had turned to dust. But a hovering Janice waited for me to say something, and I’d be damned if I’d tear up in front of her.

“You can keep it if you like.” Then she offhandedly added, “You should show it to Jonty. I might have a couple of your mum somewhere, if you’d like them. Do you want another cuppa?”

I didn’t, but I said yes, so she’d look elsewhere whilst I blinked away my tears.

“Why did you do it?” I addressed her back, once I had my voice under control, “Knowing that he was married to someone else?

A glass of water was over by the kettle, and she took a couple of sips. “Henry could be charming. When he chose to be. You know that.”

“That’s not exactly an answer, Janice. He was your boss and married to someone else. Something must have started it off.”

Gazing out the window at the wet lawn, she took another few sips.

“He’d pay me to work late when his clinics ran over.

Then one time, when he was staying in town and clinic had run on really late, he took me for food afterwards, as a sort of apology.

After that, going for a quick drink after the last patient became a routine.

I got to know him a bit more.” She cast a glance over her shoulder.

“He told me once your mum couldn’t have any more children.

She had a big bleed after you, apparently, and they damaged her uterus trying to stop it. ”

“I didn’t… didn’t know that.”

“No.” She turned back to the window. “It’s not the sort of thing thirteen-year-old boys tend to know, or think about, is it?”

Knowing my father, it might have been a load of bollocks too, a sob story to reel Janice in. Because as well as charming, he could also be manipulative, ruthless, single- minded, and cruel.

“I suppose.”

I dug my nails into my palms, trying to make out which song from Beauty and the Beast was currently playing.

Anything except contemplating the things I would never know about my mum.

Janice could probably tell me a lot, though I’d have to have them drip fed to me like this, seeing as I’d never ask outright, and all the while pretending I didn’t care.

“He told me he wanted heirs to continue the family legacy,” she carried on.

I nearly said that was a bullshitty way to persuade someone to let you fuck them, but seeing as Janice was answering one of my main questions, I kept my trap shut.

“He asked me to go on a four-week speaking tour of America with him, as his PA. He said it would make the tour easier for him.”

“I bet,” I said tartly. “And everything kicked off from there, did it?”

Her expression confirmed the answer to that.

“Remember, I was a secretary from Woking; I’d left school at sixteen with four GCSEs. I didn’t expect to ever travel first class to New York and eat in fancy restaurants. He made me feel special, Ezra. He made everyone feel special.”

Yeah, except me. I didn’t need to hear the rest. In the words of Mrs Potts, currently exercising her vocal cords on the telly in the room next door, the hard-up young secretary hooking up with the boss was a tale as old as time.

If Janice wanted understanding and forgiveness, she’d have to look elsewhere.

“I’d like those photos sometime,” I bit out, “if you can lay a hand on them. Jonty would be interested.”

After that, we didn’t have a lot of chat.

Janice sipped her drink and made a couple of phone calls whilst I flicked through my phone and the shitty Daily Fail .

Her offer to make Jonty a tuna and cucumber sandwich got the thumbs up.

He was like a pig in muck being waited on like this.

When the film came to an end, I wasn’t sure how I’d shoehorn him off the sofa.

Sandwich preparation went well until Janice swayed coming out of the pantry and nearly brained herself on the fridge freezer.

“For fuck's sake.” Just in time, I caught the plate and her, depositing Janice on the nearest breakfast stool and the plate on the worktop. “Water, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever.” You say potato, I say vodka. This close, I could smell the stale, fermented booze on her breath. “Christ, Janice. There are places you can go to get this sorted, you know.”

“It’s not a problem.”

“It’s three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon,” I countered. “And you were in the house on your own. I would suggest that it is.”

“Yes but Ezra, you don’t know how hard it is,” she whined. “Do you imagine I wasn’t affected by your mum dying? Having to look people in the eye when everything came out? Everyone knowing I’d been his bit on the side all those years?”

Sighing, I passed her a tissue as the tears started to flow. “Funnily enough, Janice, this heart ain’t bleeding.”

The stupid thing was, I thought, as she mopped at her puffy face, I did understand.

I was no alcoholic, but until Carly put me straight, I used to reach for weed, booze, and sex with randoms like they were the only things that understood me.

It took me far too long to realise—and Carly to keep hammering it into me—that all that crap stole away my…

my clarity. My energy. All the moments of joy, like Jonty’s first smile and his first word.

If I wanted to have a happy Isaac in my life, then I was going to have to get over my dislike of Janice and try and support her.

Remind myself that she was as much a victim as me and Isaac, in some ways.

Begging my stepmother to be a better person had not been on my bingo card today, but here we were.

“Listen, Janice,” I began. “One day, if the booze hasn’t killed you, you’re probably going to have grandkids of your own.” I thumbed the room next door. “Kids like him. Don’t you want to stick around for that?”

“Of course I do,” she sobbed.

“Not only have you fallen out with Isaac about the booze, but the old man’s dead now. Your life is your own, Janice; you’re still fairly young, loaded, and single. Sort yourself out and the world’s your oyster.”

“I know! But it’s not easy, is it? Giving up?”

“No,” I agreed, “it’s not. But then again, nothing worth having ever is, is it?” I indicated to the vodka, “Booze, drugs, whatever, feels like freedom, like it softens the edges of everything hard in the world. But, trust me, all it does is lead you into even deeper fog.”

I remembered that, when the days blurred together, when everything I’d dreamed of—art college, writing music—became dimmer and less vibrant.

I was living through a haze of bad sex and weed and hating myself.

I nearly lost Jonty. Carly was going to stop me seeing him, her dad had already given me more than a few clips round the ear, and so I… reclaimed the life I was meant to live.

“Try, Janice,” I pleaded. In the room next door, Mrs Potts was winding up, and Jonty would be wondering what had happened to his promised sandwich. “Try for Isaac and Saffy and Ed. And for yourself. Otherwise, the old bastard has won, hasn’t he?”