The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

collectively. She knew a surprising amount about each of us, and with a sense of disbelief, I realised that my dad – so quiet, self-contained, and reserved – must have spent years spilling out the details of his home life to someone none of us even knew existed.

“Stress can do such funny things to your brain,” said Brenda. “I’m not surprised he was losing the plot a bit. I won’t be surprised if I end up going a bit doolally myself soon.”

Over the past year, I’d become increasingly concerned about my dad’s mental state. He’d become forgetful and absent-minded, and he’d get frustrated and agitated about the smallest of things. None of it would have been particularly alarming or even that unusual for a man in his mid-sixties, but it just wasn’t my dad, who’d always been extraordinarily calm, organised and sharp-minded. Laura and I had engaged in several hushed conversations about the best way of conning him into seeing a doctor, but it seemed those conversations had been unnecessary.

Now, a month into retirement, he seemed bright, full of energy, and his “senior moments”, as we’d started to refer to them, appeared to have subsided. It was a weight off my shoulders. With him back to his old self I was even starting to think that maybe I could apply for university. Like he kept saying, now he was retired, he had all the time in the world to watch Josh, and as long as I stayed local, why couldn’t I make it work? After all, getting through my A levels had seemed impossible two years ago, but I’d made it. Just.

“That was some wonderful football playing!” grinned Brenda, as my dad walked across the grass towards us, holding his giggling grandson upside down.

“You’re going to be the next star striker for England, aren’t you, Jamie?” my dad joked, turning Josh the right way up and plonking him down. My son stumbled towards me, arms outstretched, laughing.

“Am I?” I asked, scooping Josh up in my arms. “It’s clearly been a while since you’ve seen me play, Dad.”

“You mean Josh,” Brenda corrected him.

“Sorry?” my dad asked, scratching his head.

“Josh,” she repeated. “You said Jamie.”

My dad smiled vacantly. “Oh, yes!” he laughed, realisation catching up with him. “Too many Js!”

They laughed heartily. I quite envied that way the smallest things seemed to evoke a disproportionate degree of hilarity in older people.

I absent-mindedly stroked Josh’s sweaty head and watched my dad enjoying himself with his old friend. It was just a mistake, that’s all. Too many J’s. So easily done. He was fine. Fit, strong, healthy and as sharp as ever. I’d do it. I’d put in my application for uni and look at starting next year.

With the sun warming my back and my happy, tired son resting his head against my shoulder, I really felt like the future was opening up. I couldn’t believe how far I’d come. Everything seemed infinitely more manageable than it had just a few months ago, and for the first time since Josh’s birth I felt genuinely hopeful about our future.

Chapter 9

Reconciliation

“You all right, Jay?” calls Stewart from behind the bar. “You look a bit on edge.”

He finishes arranging bottles on the shelf behind him and runs a hand over his smooth head. It’s like he has to check every so often whether the hair that deserted him in his twenties has come back yet.

“Uh… yeah, I’m fine,” I tell him, picking my coffee up and moving tables for the second time, “I’m just… I’m meeting someone, that’s all.”

Where would Libby want to sit? In the corner? Does that seem too intimate? In the middle of the room? Does that seem too exposed?

“Oh yeah?” Stewart laughs mischievously. “I think I know who that might be.”

“Really?”

Jesus, can’t Michael just keep his mouth shut about my business?

“Yeah, she was in here Friday night asking after you. I won’t repeat some of the language she used. Women get pretty miffed when blokes don’t return their calls, you know?”

Oh God. Rachel. Tall, blonde, Australian Rachel who seems to think – perhaps understandably – that there’s something going on between us. Rachel whose hands were all over me at Michael’s gig the other night, right here in the centre of this room. Squashed in among the crowd of hot, sweaty bodies, the music pulsating through me, I’d been swept along with it. Arms around each other, some suggestive comments (mainly from her), lips against each other’s ears (the only way to make ourselves heard), her hand snaking under my T-shirt as we watched the band play. I hadn’t meant anything by it and had no intention of taking it further. I was trying to get my head sorted right now, not add further complications. But it seemed like I’d inadvertently gone and done that anyway. I’d meant to reply to her texts, but while I was figuring out a way to politely nip things in the bud, I’d forgotten to reply at all.

“Oh yeah, no, it’s not her,” I mutter, glancing at the doorway for the hundredth time.

“Really? ’Cause she seems to really like you. And, mate, that girl, she’s seriously…” he quickly checks around, presumably to make sure his girlfriend, Irena, is nowhere to be seen, “hot,” he mouths.

I nod, distractedly. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked Libby to meet me here. I’d said I would go to her, but when she insisted on coming to Timpton, this was the first place that popped into my head. Perhaps the familiarity of it seemed appealing at the time, but now I wonder if we should have met on more neutral ground. Stu and Irena are a great couple and I’ve known them a long time, but my meeting with an unknown woman is bound to set their gossip radars to high alert. Fortunately, the place has almost emptied following the lunchtime rush, but the chances of getting through the next hour without someone I know walking in are practically