Errors of Judgment(33)

They sat perched on high stools next to a counter by the wall, Felicity with a can of Fanta and a chicken salad roll, Henry with a coffee and a cream cheese and smoked salmon bagel.

‘So, what did Vince’s mum want?’ asked Henry.

‘She wants to throw a party for Vince when he gets out of prison next week. And she wants me to help organise it.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Henry, privately thinking there was something a bit iffy about throwing a party for your son who’d just done a stretch for manslaughter, but not liking to say.

Felicity shot him a look. ‘No, Henry, it’s not nice.’

‘No.’

‘It’s going to be hard enough seeing him again, without having to put up bunting and let off party poppers.’ Felicity took a moody swig of Fanta.

‘Maybe—’ began Henry, then thought better of it.

‘Maybe what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on – out with it.’

‘Maybe it would have been better if … well, at the beginning, when he was convicted, if you’d, you know, if you’d—’

‘Dumped him?’

Henry stirred his coffee. ‘Sounds hard, but yes. Maybe finishing then would have been for the best.’ He waited for Felicity to bite his head off, tell him he was a heartless sod. But she didn’t.

‘I thought of it at the time. Let him down gently.’ She swirled her can of Fanta. ‘But it didn’t seem fair. He was so … so crushed by everything. I mean, that whole thing, hitting that bloke, and him dying. It was all an accident. I couldn’t just turn my back on him.’

‘But you wanted to?’

Felicity was silent, remembering the way things had been between her and Vince before he’d gone to prison. He’d been out of work as usual, and she’d been carrying him, paying for everything, including his booze and dope. Admittedly he’d been trying to haul himself out of the waster culture he’d inhabited for so long, hoping to get his black cab licence somewhere down the line, but that prospect was shot now. What was he going to do when he got out of prison? On recent visits he seemed elated at the prospect of release, but the last Felicity had asked him about his plans, all he’d said was, ‘My main plan is just to be with you, babes. That’ll do for the moment. Then I’ll see.’ She remembered, too, her short-lived pregnancy, and the guilt and miserable relief she’d felt after the miscarriage. A baby would have trapped her, tied her to Vince for ever.

When she said nothing, Henry persisted. ‘Is he going to be living with you?’

Felicity raised sad, brown eyes. ‘It hasn’t come up. But I reckon he thinks everything will go back to being the way it was.’

‘Is that what you want?’ Henry hated to see her so troubled. He wanted to be able to put out a hand, comfort her. In truth, he wanted to do more than that. He wanted to enfold her in his arms, kiss away her anxieties, tell her he was here now and that Vince was an irrelevance, a nowhere man. In indulging this wish, he didn’t think of himself as being in any way disloyal to Cheryl. The fantasies bred by his unrequited love for Felicity had been going on for so long that they occurred in a parallel universe, a place apart from reality. He was in that place right now, wishing Vince out of her life, putting himself at its centre, in a kind of happy daydream. His adoration of Felicity was so habitual, so devoid of possibility, that it didn’t even depress him any more.

Felicity shook her head. ‘I dunno. It’s like it’s not up to me. Everyone’s making assumptions. Vince, his family. They kind of include me in everything to do with Vince’s future without even thinking. Like this party. And here’s me, too weak to say anything different. I’ve put my life on hold for the past few years, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t want to make things harder for Vince than they already were. I didn’t want to upset his mum, with everything she’s been going through. And now I’m stuck. Am I mad, or what?’

‘You’re kind, is what you are. Too kind. You think too much about other people and what they might want. So you end up doing what might not be best for you. Let me ask – if Vince hadn’t gone inside, do you think you and he would still be together?’

Felicity shook her head. ‘I can’t say. If I’d had the baby – well, I don’t much want to think about that. How it would have been. The thing is, with Vince being in prison, I’ve put off asking myself questions about him and me, what’s going to happen. Now they’re staring me in the face.’

‘I think the truth is, too.’