The World Made Yonder Pt. 02

It was late afternoon when a small package addressed to J&J Animation Ltd arrived. A delivery boy brought it through the great double doors of the Regency building and left it with the smartly-dressed woman at reception. She in turn buzzed the J&J offices on the first floor and a minute later their current intern—a teenager called Gareth—came loping down the creaking oaken staircase to collect it. He took it upstairs and went through a door which at one time had led to a ballroom where the lady of the house held lavish costume parties. The ornate plaster reliefs were still visible on the high ceiling of the offices, but the chandeliers had long been replaced by hanging LED lights which hovered over a huge room divided up into workspaces for people at computers. Twelve of the company's sixteen employees were presently busy on various assignments and the buzz of talk filled the room.

Gareth stood near the entrance and looked at the package. It was a white padded envelope which contained something about the size and weight of a box of medicinal cough sweets. The name on the envelope was Jeremy Mantle, one of the Js in J&J Animation. Gareth knew that Jeremy was in conference with the other J -- Joey Gardner -- and was unsure of what to do.

'Hey, Gareth,' said a woman with a working-class accent. 'What you got there?'

Gareth looked up, then back down again, his ears turning red. Lorna Jones, the woman walking up to him tablet in hand, was one of the company's two account managers. Despite her heels, she was shorter than the teenager and he hunched his shoulders as though afraid this might offend her.

'Um ... it's a package for Jeremy,' he said. 'But he's in a meeting right now, so...'

Gareth tailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished. Lorna sighed and held out her hand.

'I'll take it,' she said. 'And, for the record, the only time you should avoid that office is if the Do Not Disturb sign is on the door.'

The boy gave a nervous nod, handed over the package and hurried off to do something else. Not once had he stopped staring at his feet. Lorna wondered whether to say something, then decided against it and walked towards her bosses' office. She already knew the reason and it would only embarrass the young man.

Lorna Jones had large breasts.

They weren't grotesquely large and she carried them well, but her short stature and narrow waist made them perhaps seem bigger than they were. Lorna's feelings about them ping-ponged between gratitude and exasperation. In a wine bar or night club, they certainly attracted attention, albeit with a tendency for the quantity of men to outstrip the quality. But in a job which required being taken seriously by clients and co-workers alike, big breasts were a considerable drawback. Lorna experimented with outfits to find ones which downplayed her bosom and settled on cut jackets and silk scarves as her usual combination. Unfortunately, when combined with her unflattering coiffed hairstyle and working-class accent, she gave the impression of a former hooker trying for a job at the bank. This was a shame, because Lorna was smart and good at what she did.

She knocked twice on the office door and went in without waiting for an answer. Her two employers were sat before three huge monitors at Jeremy's workspace; the two monitors at Joey's desk had long been on stand-by. Lorna liked it that Joey's desk was entirely free of action figures and models of cartoon characters—practically every male desk in the place was populated with them. She was less keen on the Perspex block with the photograph of Joey's frustratingly blond wife and six-year-old son.

Joey was studying a line of small characters on Jeremy's monitor, giving his partner his assessment of them. Both men ignored Lorna as she walked up to them.

'I still think that one looks a little too much like one of the Mario Brothers,' said Joey.

'The client liked it,' said Jeremy. 'And he said his kids picked that one out as their favourite.'

'Yeah, probably because it looks like one of the Mario Brothers!'

Lorna stood behind them facing the monitors, but actually looking at Joey. He had one of those faces where you could see the man's intelligence in the features—clear brown eyes, expressive dark eyebrows, with a long nose and jaw whose straight lines were a pleasing contrast to the brown curls of his hair. He was tall but not too tall, and his hands had long sensitive fingers which—

'Lorna, what is it?'

Jeremy had turned in his swivel chair and was looking at her. Unlike Joey, he had lank hair the colour of potato peel and his skin was pallid as though he lived in the dark. Jeremy was actually an okay boss, but right now he looked peeved. Lorna held out the package.

'This came for you,' she said. 'Thought it might be important.'

Jeremy took the package and frowned at it. Joey was still studying the figures on the monitor. He was the one man who seemed immune to Lorna's breasts. She followed his gaze to the screen.

'You know, it's the moustache which does it,' she said. 'If you turn it into a goatee, I think you'd be okay.'

Jeremy turned his chair to look at the small figure. Joey stared as though staring through the screen itself. He looked tired. There was no indication he had heard Lorna speak. Lorna suppressed a sigh, gave Jeremy's chair a pat and walked out of the room.

'Do you think she's right?' said Jeremy.

'Yeah, a goatee could make the difference,' said Joey, rubbing his eyes. 'I'm not criticising the design quality, by the way.'

'I know, I know.'

Jeremy looked again at the package in his hands. He tore open the padded envelope and peered inside.

'Well, fuck me!' he said. 'That was quick!'

'What?' said Joey.

'I ordered this yesterday after our little chat, and it's already here. I'm impressed!'

'What is it?'

Jeremy slid a flat rectangular box from the envelope. It looked like something you'd buy at a chemist's, like tampons or bandages. But this carried the words Paternity Test -- home DNA kit. The picture showed a man and a boy smiling at each other.

Joey stared at it. Then he got up and walked to the centre of the room. The blinds were drawn, but Joey stood as though staring through them with X-ray vision, his arms tightly folded, his hands clenched into fists. Jeremy felt a knot in his stomach.

'Look, Joey ... er ...' Jeremy swallowed. 'Look, I know this is personal. But yesterday, you seemed like you wanted to find out, once and for all—'

'I did find out,' interrupted Joey. 'I confronted Celia last night and she admitted to cheating on me. She fucked her ex-boyfriend Bjorn at Jackie Warren's birthday party, just as I suspected. Nine months before Stephen was born.'

Jeremy felt the floor drop out from under him. Even though he half expected this, it was still a shock. He looked at the floor, trying to think of something to say.

'Fuck.'

Joey let out a snort. His folded arms seemed to tighten. Jeremy looked at the box in his hand and put it on the desk next to him. Through the closed door, they could both hear the buzz of voices, the muted sounds of the office. It felt like it was coming from an alternate universe.

'What are you going to do?' said Jeremy.

Joey's frown deepened. After a pause, he went over to the door, opened it and hung the Do Not Disturb sign over the outer doorknob. He closed the door and went back to Jeremy's workspace, sitting down in his chair and turning to face his business partner.

'Listen, I...'

Joey stopped. He leaned on his legs and hung his head.

'Christ, I'm afraid to tell you,' he said.

'Look, mate, I'll be honest with you,' said Jeremy. 'If you've killed her, I'm not going to help you hide the body.'

Joey laughed in spite of himself.

'No, nothing like that.'

'Then spit it out! Joey, I can't imagine you doing anything worse than what she's already done to you.'

Joey pulled a 'You'd be surprised' face. He took a deep breath and, without looking Jeremy in the eye, he began.

'Well, basically ... I blackmailed her. I told her that if she didn't come off birth control and give me my own kid, I'd divorce her. And I'd make it the ugliest divorce I could. I'd make sure everyone knew about her and Bjorn.'

Joey put his hand to his forehead, pressing his fingers into his temples like a man with a severe headache. Jeremy stared at him, his expression somewhere between confusion and disbelief. He said:

'Wait ... so you're staying with her?'

'Yes,' said Joey, surprised.

He looked up and saw his friend's expression. Both men seemed to realise that the other was not reacting as expected. Joey blinked, trying to collect his thoughts. Jeremy pushed his swivel chair backwards, the wheels taking him across the floor. As a rule, Joey could tell how upset Jeremy was by how much distance he put between them—and judging by his present position, he was pretty damn upset.

'What's wrong?' said Joey.

'Look, your marriage is your business, Joey, and I don't want to interfere. But ... fucking hell!'

Joey stared at his friend. He began to scoot his own swivel chair towards him, but Jeremy gestured for him to stop. Jeremy turned on his own chair, facing the centre of the room. He sat back and held his hands together on his lap.

'Look, I need to be honest about something,' said Jeremy. 'I'm not actually a big fan of your wife. She seems okay when I talk to her on her own. She's smart, she can be really funny, and I get the feeling that deep down she's basically a good person. But whenever I see the two of you together, she's different. She becomes kind of snobbish. And the way she talks to you is the way I imagine movie stars talk to hotel staff. Don't get me wrong, Joey—I'm genuinely shocked by what she's done. But when I think about how she treats you, I'm not all that surprised.'

He looked over at Joey, partly to see if he still had a friend. Joey smiled weakly and looked at his hands.

'Can I ask you a personal question?' said Jeremy.

'Sure.'

'After Celia told you about Bjorn, did you go for a walk?'

'What?' said Joey, frowning at him.

'Look, whenever we have a business situation where we get stuck, you always say, "Let me go for a walk." You even do it in the middle of a fucking meeting! But the reason I put up with it is because it works. You always come back with something we missed or a new insight or something which gets us unstuck. It's one of the reasons we have a business. So my question to you is: When Celia told you about Bjorn, did you go for a walk afterwards, to clear your head and see the situation clearly ... or did you have sex with her?'

Joey swallowed and looked back at his hands. Jeremy slumped backwards, the chair creaking in protest. He shook his head in admiration.

'She's clever, your wife, I'll give her that,' said Jeremy. 'She knows your Achilles Heel and she knows how to use it.'

'Just because I had sex with my wife, doesn't mean I'm not thinking clearly!'

'But of course it does!'

Jeremy scooted his chair back to Joey, scuttling his feet like a giant crab.

'Joey, you can't threaten your wife with an ugly divorce because you'd never go through with it.'

'Why wouldn't I?'

'Because it would hurt Stephen! You can't drag his mother through the mud without dragging him too. When the moment comes to pull the trigger, you won't be able to do it. You love that boy! Even now, knowing what you know, you still love that boy! And Celia knows it. In fact, I bet she's counting on it.'

Joey's eyes were shedding tears. He tried to control his breathing to stop himself bursting into tears. Jeremy took his friend's shoulders.

'Joey, you told me that you and Celia were trying for a child when the whole Bjorn thing happened. Is there any chance Stephen might still be your biological son?'

'It's...' Joey was gasping. 'It's ... possible.'

'Then you have to know. You have to know.'

'But what if he's not?'

'Then you will do what's right for the boy. Joey, regardless of what you and Celia want, doesn't Stephen himself have the right to know who his father is?'

Joey stared at his friend. He was hit with a sudden wave of despair and he lost his fight for control. To Jeremy's consternation, Joey began to weep.

***************************

Celia drove her silver Nissan along the main road, slowed as she approached the school gates and made the turn. Because the distance between the main road and the closed metal gates was barely three metres, there was not enough space to manoeuvre a car next to the security keypad. Celia got out of the car, tapped in the code, then got back in as the gates slowly opened. The silver Nissan glided into a totally inadequate car park.

As usual, every parking space was occupied, but if Celia timed it right, the first-year children would be let out just before she arrived. Stephen was in the second year, so she would have a five-to-ten-minute window when a few parking spaces might open up before she was due to collect him. Sure enough, coming around the side of the school building was a large woman wearing flowing black clothes leading a chubby five-year-old boy by the hand. They went across the tarmac towards a dark green Range Rover parked against the left-hand kerb. Celia manoeuvred her Nissan behind it and switched on her indicator light to stake her claim.

The large woman unlocked her car and held the boy's school backpack as he climbed into the back seat. Then she spent an age deciding where to put his backpack and spent another age fiddling around with his seat belt. In the time she was taking, another woman took her kid to the row of parked cars on the other side, backed out and drove off, to be replaced by the blue Renault which had followed Celia into the car park. Meanwhile, the large woman stood by the open rear door, unwrapping a biscuit or snack or something while the boy kicked the seat in front.

'For fuck's sake...' muttered Celia.

She found herself thinking of her own mother with envy. When Celia was a girl, her mother would park in the road outside the school and wait. At home time, little Celia would leave the school grounds and find her mother's car all by herself. But times had changed and that was now considered irresponsible, perhaps even criminal negligence. Every parent or guardian had to be physically in the playground for visual confirmation by the teacher before the child would be let out of the building. And it had to be the correct parent or guardian too. If Celia couldn't make the pick-up for whatever reason, it wasn't enough to get Joey to do it. She would have to phone the school to confirm that Stephen's father would be picking the boy up instead of her.

'Why do you have this rule?' Celia once asked Stephen's present teacher, Ms Olsen.

'Because we want to prevent a divorced parent taking a child without the real parent's permission,' came the reply.

'Isn't a divorced parent still a "real" parent?' asked Celia.

'You know what I mean,' said Ms Olsen.

And Celia did know what she meant. A mother was a real parent whereas a father was considered a parent depending on his performance. And if a man's performance as father or husband was lousy, wasn't it just common sense to replace him with someone better? Celia thought about her own situation: Bjorn, the man whose genes were literally part of Stephen's body; Joey, the man who had brought the boy up, changed his nappies, set the example of manhood. Which of them was Stephen's 'real' father? But Celia was indisputably his mother.

The large woman had got into the Range Rover. Its indicator light snapped on and the car prepared to move out.

'Finally!' said Celia.

The Range Rover left and Celia parked her car in its place. She got out, locked it and walked across the tarmac, her heeled boots making a satisfyingly sexy sound. She wore a long fawn trench coat over her business outfit and dark brown ladies' gloves which matched her boots. As she walked around the school building, Celia glimpsed her reflection on the huge glass pane of a school window and sent up a silent 'Thank You' to God for making her a good-looking woman. As if receiving the answer, 'You're welcome; glad you appreciate it', Celia entered a school playground crowded with waiting parents and she saw what other women had to live with.

It was like a mini-version of the United Nations—white and black and brown people, all waiting together, yet not actually talking to one another. Celia thought it ironic. The school had a strict diversity policy, yet in the playground black mothers chatted with other black mothers, middle-class whites with other middle-class whites, the few men with other men. There was one universal, however—a paucity of attractiveness. There was plenty of obesity and plain faces and bad style choices. As Celia walked through the playground, she felt like a fashion model at a homeless shelter. Her ego loved it, but her heart felt desperately alone. The only women who would talk to her were mothers whose children were friends with Stephen.

'Mummy!'

And there he was, her darling boy, running towards her with his bag and a drawing he had done. The teacher must have seen Celia from a distance. Stephen was blond like his mother—and biological father—with slender limbs and big feet. She crouched down to embrace him, breathing in his milky sweat as though he smelled of fresh baked bread.

'Hello, my darling!' she said. 'How are you doing?'

'Fine. Hey, look what I did!'

Celia spent a moment admiring Stephen's drawing, then held both drawing and bag as they walked back across the playground. Celia noticed that, with Stephen, the looks she got were a lot less hostile, especially as he would interrupt his chatter with shouts of 'Bye, Ranjit!' 'Bye, Kabiru!' when he saw someone from his class. There would always be an enthusiastic 'Bye, Stevie!' back and, for a moment, Celia would catch the other mother's eye. There would be a slight nod of acknowledgement, perhaps even a slight smile ... and then back to their own worlds.

Stephen kept up his chatter all the way to the car. Celia strapped him into the back seat and nodded at a red Toyota waiting to take her parking space. She made a point of leaving as quickly as possible, mentally patting herself on the back for being a good person. The metal gates which led out of the school car park opened automatically and soon Celia was driving her son home.

***************************

Joey arrived home at seven o'clock in the evening.

He closed the front door and stood in the hallway, shrugging off his coat. The coatrack on the wall was organised to separate cold-weather coats, raincoats and mild-weather jackets. All Celia's idea, of course. As Joey hung his grey wool coat on its usual hook, he reflected on how Celia liked their life to be tidy and organised—and not just with the coats. He fingered the strap of the computer bag on his shoulder, a bag which contained the paternity test. The box was almost weightless, yet it was heavy enough to blow Celia's tidy little world apart. Joey realised he was actually looking forward to this.

As he went down the hall, Joey heard his son's voice from the kitchen-dining room. Correction—he heard Stephen's voice. He opened the door and went in.

Celia was making pasta something at the stainless-steel stove and Stephen was sat at the long dining room table, drawing a picture. Celia had changed into jeans and one of Joey's shirts, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. She wore an apron and her hair was loose and clipped back. She looked sexy. Joey tried not to look at her, coming up to the table and putting the computer bag onto the chair furthest from Stephen. The free local newspaper was also on the dining table and Joey welcomed the distraction.