May lay awake waiting for Jansen to get back. Chère Francine, she
went through the letter in her head, J’ai bien reçu ta lettre qui m’a
fait très plaisir. She was running out of days. If she had wanted to
send the letter, she should have sent it that morning, on her way
to work, or yesterday; last week, if she’d wanted Francine to get
it on time. How are you? And how was the conference in Canada? I
am well, and still of course planning on doing the PhD . . . Having
wasted another day of her life, going over ‘exam techniques’ with
nine-year-olds, May listened to the guitar-player upstairs practising
his endless scales. She could always have put in her earplugs, but
Jansen would be home in less than an hour, and that meant May
couldn’t get to sleep anyway. She was aware that at any moment
there might be the clickety-clack of the door key, and then Jansen
would appear, as she finally did, in her navy-blue uniform, a large
leather bag in one hand, a quiet . . .
‘Booboo?’
May pretended to be asleep. Jansen went towards the bathroom
with a newspaper. She’d be ages.
‘I’m awake.’
‘Can I turn on the light?’
‘No, I’m sleeping.’
‘May, I’m sorry, but I need to iron my shirt for tomorrow.’
‘Can’t you wear that one again?’
Jansen clicked on the bedside lamp.
‘Why can’t you do it tomorrow?’ May pulled herself up in bed.
‘I could, but why don’t we have a hot drink together. I really
need to unwind.’ Jansen set up the ironing board next to the
kitchenette, and got the iron out from under the sink. ‘People
are in such a rush out there! I was at the lights on my way to a
pickup this morning, and there was this woman and I could see
her. She was looking at me, and she was waving her arms around,
she was going, “Come on! Come on!” I just glided slowly past
her, and I thought, poor woman, if she’s getting so upset about
five seconds! The other day I was pulling out from a park, and
I’d looked both ways. I pulled out, and then suddenly BEEEEEEEEP!
I had a passenger in the car at the time. I said to him, “Boy! I
didn’t even see that coming,” and he said, “He must’ve been
booting it round the corner!”’ She held the iron under the tap,
and filled the steam-chamber with water.
‘I didn’t send it, by the way,’ May told her.
‘Mm-hmm.’ Jansen plugged in the iron.
‘Does that mean you don’t want to talk about it?’ May said.
Jansen started ironing the collar. The iron wouldn’t be hot yet.
There was no point. She rearranged the shirt, and started on the
sleeves.
‘That iron’s not hot enough yet, is it?’
‘May, would you just leave me to iron my shirt? I can do it
without your help.’
‘It’s not doing anything, is it though? You may as well be doing
something else . . . while it heats up.’
Jansen began ironing the other sleeve.
‘You could be getting me a hot drink,’ May suggested.
‘Would you like a hot drink, May?’
‘Yes, please.’ May didn’t really want a hot drink, but Jansen liked
to have one in the evening.
‘I’ll make you half a cup. You never finish it anyway. Shall we
share one?’ Jansen got a cup out of the cupboard.
‘I’m just wondering whether I should send it to her at all.’
‘May, I’m really exhausted. I don’t feel like talking about
Francine.’
‘My PhD,’ May corrected her.
‘Or the PhD.’
‘I’ve just got to decide whether I’m going to send it or not.’
‘You don’t have to decide tonight.’
May’s throat hurt. ‘Could I just tell you what I’ve put again?’
‘I know what you’ve put.’
‘I’ve changed it slightly.’
‘I don’t want to hear it, May.’ (That was a definite ‘no’. May
waited in silence for her coffee.) ‘They sent four of us out to the
airport,’ Jansen laughed as she crouched down to get the milk
out of the fridge, ‘but it turned out they only needed one car. So
three of us had to go back to the bin to wait for another job.’ She
put the coffee on the bedside table, and went back to ironing again,
a smile lingering.
‘That’s not funny. That’s irritating, isn’t it?’ It was irritating the
way Jansen laughed off annoying situations.
‘It’s what happens, May.’ ( Jansen would be wearing a jersey over
that shirt. There was no point in ironing it. Or she could just iron
the collar.) ‘Then I got three lawyers,’ Jansen went on, ‘in a row:
no tips, no tips, no tips. And that was my day.’ She unplugged the
iron, and stood it on the bench.
‘How come four of you were sent out? Shouldn’t it be more
organized?’
‘Yes.’
Jansen got into her pyjamas and came to bed. Then, as always,
they had a long talk: one of Jansen’s passengers had left her a
pamphlet on Trees for London, she said, and she was wondering
about giving people birch trees for Easter; you didn’t actually get
a tree, but you got a little card saying a tree had been planted for
you. What did May think? May said she liked the idea and could
she please just tell Jansen what she had added to the letter – only
the addition – and Jansen said no, because that would get May
thinking about it, and then she wouldn’t sleep; and then May said
she was thinking about it anyway, and Jansen said go on then, and
May did. She was so lucky really; who else had a wonderful Jansen
in her life? Even if Jansen just crept into bed, she and May would
often end up talking and talking late into the night, until perhaps
Jansen would start drifting off, and May would say, as she did this
evening: ‘Are you going to sleep now? I hate going to sleep. It means
it’ll be morning when I wake up.’ She was a realist; she liked to
be prepared for all disasters, even if it meant she was grinding her
teeth down to little stumps in the process. No wonder she needed
so much sleep.
‘You’re so unromantic! How could I have got together with
someone so unromantic?’
May wasn’t a performer, that was for sure, but she did love
Jansen.