The Second Life of Nathan Jones. David Atkinson

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СКАЧАТЬ hour later she came into his study and sat on the only other chair in the room beside his desk. Nathan noticed she’d dressed impeccably in a new Paul Smith black V-necked dress with black Kurt Geiger Chelsea boots that she’d proudly shown him the previous evening. He’d commented that she worked in Fulham so she’d better be careful wearing Chelsea boots. It had made her laugh and his heart had ached when she’d smiled at him.

      He noticed her make-up had been perfectly applied and her hair, which had been straightened and tumbled down over her shoulders, no longer had any traces of grey in it. Even that pained him as she’d not bothered to do that when she’d been living with him. It felt as if every action she took had been carefully designed to hurt him. She’d also changed her perfume to a subtler product that reminded him of apple blossom.

      *

      Laura noted his pained expression; she’d expected it. She knew her coming back to the flat to stay would be hard on him. It felt uncomfortable for her too. She found it difficult to stay angry when she didn’t see him every day. Maybe the old saying about familiarity breeding contempt had more than a ring of truth to it. She missed her daughters much more than she’d expected, but she’d come to realise that she could never come home. Nathan would drive her bonkers, especially now when she had other distractions in her life. She forced a smile. ‘Right, then, that’s me off. I’ll drop Daisy at nursery; don’t forget to get her at three o’clock.’

      ‘I haven’t forgotten any day when you’ve not been here so I’m not going to start now.’

      ‘Yeah, sorry.’

      He sighed. ‘Laura, can we not try again? All this coming and going is silly. We could sell up, buy a new bigger place and start afresh.’

      ‘We’ve been over this – all we would do is take our problems with us. It’s not like we can pack them in a box and leave them in a cupboard somewhere. Anyway, we couldn’t afford to move; you hardly make enough to cover the mortgage as it is with your fannying about on the internet.’

      ‘I don’t fanny about. I run a top-end advertising consultancy.’

      ‘Any time I’ve ever come in here, you’re on some football website.’

      ‘I only do that whilst waiting for inspiration and sometimes it’s just research.’

      ‘You must do an awful lot of waiting for inspiration, then. Also, how many football accounts are you working on?’ she asked with a laugh.

      *

      Nathan sighed. He found it hard to be mad at Laura when she knew him so well. He wondered if he would ever have that again with someone, that intimate ‘knowing’ that took so long to establish.

      ‘What are you working on just now?’

      He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a small plastic photo frame and handed it to Laura. On the bottom of the frame a tiny fan whirled around.

      ‘Is it a photo frame that keeps you cool?’

      ‘That would probably be easier to sell.’

      ‘What is it, then?’

      ‘It’s a fish comforter.’

      ‘A what?’

      ‘Yeah, that’s what I said when they sent it to me. Basically, there’s a small battery inside that powers the fan, which is actually a propeller.’

      ‘I’m still none the wiser.’

      ‘The idea is that people who own pet fish, aquariums and the like, stick a photo of themselves in the frame, then drop it in the water and it kind of buzzes around the tank reminding the fish of what their owner looks like when they’re not there; thus, comforting the fish that they’ve not been forgotten about.’

      Laura cocked her head to one side and gave her husband a strange look. ‘I don’t know much about fish, but I don’t think they’re that bright. In fact, I would think that being chased around a fish tank by the disembodied head of an absentee owner is likely to add more to their stress levels than anything else. Who’s going to be stupid enough to buy something like this?’

      ‘Good question. One in ten UK households now have pet fish, probably because they’re relatively easy to look after and make no mess.’

      ‘And they all worry about their pets suffering separation anxiety when they’re out?’

      ‘Not yet, they don’t.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘The idea is to create anxiety and then sell this to them to satisfy that anxiety.’

      ‘Don’t you ever feel, Nathan, that what you do is completely pointless?’

      Nathan laughed. ‘Most of the time.’

      Laura stood up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Right, I’m off. I’ll phone later to speak to everyone. Look after my girls.’

      Nathan longed to grab her, pull her onto his knee and lock his mouth onto hers as they’d done years ago, but instead, with a whoosh of black hair and Paul Smith, she vanished, leaving behind a faint delicate scent of apple blossom, which would haunt his office for the rest of the day.

      *

      Later that evening, whilst Daisy and Chloe were playing in the living room, Nathan glanced up from washing the last of the dinner plates and noticed Millie fiddling with her empty plastic glass.

      ‘Do you want some more orange juice, sweetie?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Have you had enough to eat?’

      ‘Yes.’

      It felt as if his eldest daughter was growing up fast, and although he considered her to be wise beyond her years, which he deduced happened to older siblings, she hadn’t yet become a teenager. Her monosyllabic answers were out of character, signifying something was worrying her.

      Given their current disastrous domestic arrangements, this didn’t come as a huge surprise. When Chloe and Daisy were upset they manifested this in displays of bad behaviour and petulance and had been testing his patience a lot lately. However, Millie had grown beyond that stage and now had fewer options left open to express any distress. Nathan wiped his hands, closed the kitchen door and sat down opposite her at the table.

      ‘What’s wrong, Millie?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      Nathan started with the easy option. ‘Is school all right?’

      ‘Fine.’

      ‘Something’s bothering you.’

      ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘You’re not fine. I know all this with Mum being away is hard, but I can’t change it, not just now anyway; it’s complicated.’

      ‘You and Mum haven’t been getting on for ages, Dad, I get that.’

      He СКАЧАТЬ