by Lindsey Kelk
‘That was my publisher,’ he went on. ‘He’s here to talk about my book but now all he’s going to be thinking about is the time he was attacked by a mad woman in a tiger mask. Is that the kind of thing you’d want people to think about when they thought of you?’
‘I thought it would be funny,’ I said quietly as he paced up and down the garden. ‘I see now that it was not.’
‘I don’t know what has got into you,’ Patrick yelled. He was very much not done. ‘Ever since we got back together, you’ve been acting strangely. I know you were gone for two years but you weren’t like this before. You didn’t behave like this last time.’
‘Three years,’ I said, cradling the tiger’s head in my lap.
Patrick’s pale face was beetroot red with rage.
‘What?’
‘I was gone for three years,’ I explained. ‘Not two.’
‘Three years, whatever,’ he huffed. ‘What the fuck were you thinking, hanging around outside my house in that ridiculous mask?’
‘It’s for the podcast,’ I began to explain but it hardly seemed relevant now. ‘You said you’d come to the recording this afternoon.’
‘That’s today?’ he asked. I nodded but said nothing. ‘Fuck. I forgot.’
‘You forgot?’ I repeated. Maybe I had hit my head.
‘This book is killing me,’ Patrick shrugged as though it was enough of a response. ‘Julian came over to see if we could work through a tough chapter. Sorry. I’ll come to the next one.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ I forced myself up to my feet so we were at least somewhere near face to face. ‘You’re going to let me down again? You know this is important to me.’
‘So your work is more important than mine, is that it?’ he asked, his words hot. ‘I’ve got to say, I don’t remember you being this needy. You used to be a lot more easygoing and, I have to say, a lot more respectful of my writing.’
‘I am respectful of your writing!’ I exclaimed, wincing as I strained the six-inch scratch that now ran along my midriff. ‘I’m incredibly respectful of your writing. But you said you would come to this, you asked me to pick you up and now you’re just not coming? How would you feel if it was me constantly letting you down? This is really important to me.’
Patrick turned and slammed the neighbour’s gate closed with an almighty bang.
‘Everything is really important to you,’ he snapped. ‘It was important to you I be at Lucy’s baby shower, it’s important to you I be at your mum and dad’s ridiculous second wedding and it was important to you that I be at Sumi’s bloody birthday, even though my being there was so important to your friends that they’d already fucked off home when I got there.’
‘You were three hours late!’ I shouted back. Inside, I saw the net curtains flinch as Julian backed away from the windows. ‘You were three hours late but you said you were working, so I understood. And please don’t shit on my parents because that’s incredibly rude. I haven’t asked you to do anything out of the ordinary, I haven’t asked you to do anything I wouldn’t do for you.’
‘And there’s the difference, I wouldn’t ask you to do any of this,’ he replied, head held high as we fought for the moral high ground. ‘Did I make you come to my dad’s birthday last Sunday? No.’
I shook my own head in disbelief. ‘I would have loved to have gone with you to your dad’s birthday! You told me you had to work Sunday night.’
‘Can you lower your voice?’ he hissed, looking over his shoulder at the completely empty street. ‘You’re being hysterical.’
‘No, I’m not hysterical, don’t be that man,’ I replied, my senses white hot. I felt focused, I felt clear. ‘This is what angry looks like, get used to it. I don’t think it’s going to be the last time you ever see it.’
He rolled his eyes and glanced back at the house to make sure his precious publisher wasn’t listening. He absolutely was. ‘All this because I’m not coming to your work thing? You should see yourself.’
I was, in fairness, very glad I could not see myself. I could feel myself and smell myself and that was bad enough.
‘All this because you don’t respect me enough to follow through on things you’ve committed to,’ I corrected, all the receipts adding up to a total I could no longer ignore. ‘This is not on me, well, the tiger mask is, but the rest of it is not. It’s on you. You’re not a nice man, Patrick Parker.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ he cried, suddenly incredulous. ‘You dump me to move to America, come swanning back into London with your desperate text messages and expect me to drop everything for you? Is that it?’
I felt the blood rushing around my body, skinned palms and bruised knees throbbing, the scratches on my stomach burning and my eyes ready to shoot laser beams. In that moment, I was invincible.
‘Stop trying to rewrite the past,’ I yelled, jabbing my finger in his direction. ‘I did not dump you, you dumped me and you were glad to do it. I was in love with you, Patrick. Madly, hopelessly, head over heels in love with you and you lapped it up. As soon as I told you I’d been offered the job abroad, you didn’t even blink before finishing with me.’
‘That’s not how I remember it,’ he said with a shrug. I looked down and noticed two buttons of his fly were undone. The indignity. ‘But I’m sure your version of events works better for you.’
I stood up as straight as my shredded knees would allow, mascara all over my face, jeans stuck to me with sweat and T-shirt stained with blood.
‘I thought about you every day,’ I said. ‘And I see now it was such a waste of time.’
‘Ros,’ Patrick loaded my name with meaning, as though the simple act of saying it out loud was exhausting. ‘I’m trying to prepare for an important meeting and I find you trying to break into my neighbour’s garden, wearing a ridiculous animal head, shouting incoherently, but somehow I’m the bad guy? What are you going on about, what do you want from me?’
You are not going to cry, a voice whispered in my head. You’re not going to cry in the street when you’re already sweating, bleeding and carrying a tiger’s head.
‘I want you to want me,’ I said. There was no point holding back now. ‘That’s all I ever wanted from you. I wanted you to want me the way I wanted you.’
And it was true. I wanted him to want me so badly, it burned me up inside. It was something so simple but it always felt like much too much to ask for. I stood there, raw and real and vulnerable, waiting for him to respond.
But he didn’t say anything.
John was right. People didn’t change, their expectations did. Patrick was the same charming, selfish, sexy, intellectual, inconsiderate person he had always been and I was still the adoring, lovesick doormat I had always been. My expectations of him were so low, a worm could have cleared them without catching his belly. Now I understood what I’d really wanted from him, I realized I was never going to get it. I couldn’t change Patrick but I could change my expectations. My expectation of what I deserved.
‘You’ve lost the plot,’ Patrick grunted as I picked up the tiger mask, more backstreet moggy than regal feline at this point. ‘Go to your work thing and call me later when you’ve calmed down.’
‘No,’ I said, balancing the mask in my arms. ‘I’m not going to call you later.’
We stared at each other, each waiting for the other to speak, not knowing what we wanted them to say.
‘Then just go.’ Patrick’s body stiffened as he became a stranger. I looked at his rumpled blond hair, his light blue eyes, the lines of his face that I’d memorized while he slept. He was someone else now. ‘But don’t start sending me “group texts” six months from now when you change your mind.’
‘Bye, Patrick,’ I said, pinching myself together at the seams. ‘I hope your meeting goes well.’
‘This is usually the bit where I say it’s not you,’ Patrick yelled as I walked away, carrying my bloodstained tiger mask, quiet tears cutting a sharp path through my smeared ma
keup. ‘But this is definitely you!’
‘Oh, I know,’ I called back without turning around. ‘Isn’t it brilliant?’
CHAPTER THIRTY
The World E-Sports Championships was the last place on earth I wanted to be. After a very uncomfortable taxi ride, I finally arrived at the convention centre, less than an hour before the podcast was supposed to start, still in my filthy jeans and torn T-shirt, carrying the poor, mauled tiger head. After finally convincing a wary security guard to let me and my access-all-areas pass inside, I began to wish he hadn’t. It was like walking into a parallel universe – all around me were people speaking the same language as me but I only understood every third word.
The main foyer swarmed with kids in cosplay, screaming and shouting and, thankfully, paying me not a single sniff of attention. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many hours they had spent putting together their elaborate costumes, although if that’s what they’d been doing while I was breaking my heart over Patrick Parker, they were one up on me. I made a mental note to buy a games console on the way home, it would be a better use of my time and energy.
‘Ros, where have you been?’ Ted barked as I climbed up the stairs to the backstage area. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what the hell happened to you?’
‘Pack of wild dogs,’ I said flatly, handing over the tiger mask. ‘I made it out alive but just barely. Is everyone here?’
In one corner of the room, I saw Snazz, wearing a shiny metal robot head, with his millionaire coworkers, Beezer Go-Go and PsychoBang, sitting beside him. All three of them were staring at me with wide and terrified eyes. Well, I assumed Snazz was staring at me, his mask was pointed in my direction at least.
‘So, everyone mic’d up? Everyone know exactly what they’re doing?’ I clapped my hands and pointed at the three chairs and the giant screens on the stage to the left of us. ‘Travis, they appear to have been struck mute. Have you tested their mics?’
Travis, the production assistant, coughed. ‘Mics are fine,’ he whispered.
‘I know I look a bit mad,’ I said, examining my bloodstained shirt as I spoke. ‘Would you believe me if I said it was cosplay?’
‘I’d believe you if you said you’d killed a man,’ replied Ted. ‘Are you OK, Ros? You do know you’re shaking?’
‘I don’t think anyone died,’ I said. ‘I tripped and fell, that’s all. I’m very clumsy, I fall over all the time. I’m amazed I haven’t broken my neck at work yet.’
‘You’ve never seemed especially clumsy to me,’ Ted replied, glancing over at Travis and the rest of the PodPad team who were loitering in the wings. They all looked at each other, muttering to confirm my elegance and grace.
‘Well,’ I said in a high-pitched voice, a giant grin stretching across my face. ‘Either you accept I tripped and fell, and we get on with the podcast, or I can tell you all the story about how I got stuck trying to climb over a gate while wearing the tiger mask then broke up with my boyfriend. Which would you prefer?’
‘Must have been a steep fall.’ Veronica emerged from the darkness of the arena and answered on everyone’s behalf. ‘I hope the stairs took a beating as well.’
‘Stairs weren’t as bothered as I would like,’ I admitted, walking over to the sound desk and making sure everything had been set up as per my instructions. ‘But I can’t think about the stairs right now or I might lose my mind. Are you excited, Snazz? All ready to go?’
The robot mask moved a fraction but he didn’t say anything.
‘He’s fine,’ Veronica said, cuffing him around the back of the head in the way only a family member could. ‘Bit of stage fright, that’s all.’
‘Stage fright?’ I squatted down in front of the boy, gasped at the pain in my knees and immediately stood up again. ‘You’re online in front of fifty thousand people every single day.’
‘That’s not in real life though,’ he replied. Inside the mask was a voice modulator and, when he spoke, he sounded like a robot. A sulky, teenage robot. ‘That’s just gaming.’
‘That’s still live,’ I argued, pointing at Beezer Go-Go and PsychoBang, or Dustin and Greg, as they were known to their mothers. ‘I was watching a stream of you calling both of these a pair of butt nuggets last night, that was live.’
‘It’s “fuck nuggets”,’ the ginger-moustachioed PsychoBang called out to correct me. ‘He called us fuck nuggets and butt monkeys.’
‘Thanks, Greg,’ I replied before turning my attention back to my charge. ‘You’ll be absolutely fine. Everyone loves you and they’re so excited to watch you play the game that you’ve chosen to play which I can’t remember right now.’
‘Street Fighter 2,’ Greg piped up again.
‘Street Fighter 2,’ I confirmed. ‘Thanks again, Greg.’
‘I’m not doing it,’ the robot said again. ‘Don’t want to.’
‘Do you know what, I think there’s a few too many people in here,’ I said, turning around to look at the rest of the room. Greg and Dustin and Veronica and Tyler and Ted and everyone from PodPad apart from Kelvin looked back. ‘Could me and Snazz get a minute on our own?’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Veronica said as everyone else began to pile out.
‘Fine by me,’ I replied. ‘Pull up a pew.’
I grabbed a bottle of Snazzlechuff-Says-branded water and a Snazzlechuff-Says-branded flannel, sat down in the chair opposite my favourite gamer and began cleaning my war wounds.
‘So, here’s the thing,’ I said, sucking in the air as I picked tiny splinters out of my palms. ‘I understand that you’re nervous—’
‘Not nervous, just don’t want to do it,’ he interrupted. Veronica snapped her fingers and made a zipping motion in front of her mouth. The robot fell silent.
‘Well, I would understand if you were nervous,’ I shrugged. ‘Even though you’re very obviously not nervous. But the thing is, if you don’t do this, I’ll lose my job. And between you and me, things aren’t going that well for me at the moment. Ted really loved that tiger mask and I have fucked it right up. Almost certain that will be coming out of my salary.’
‘I’ll pay for it,’ he beeped.
‘While that is the nicest thing a human male has ever offered to do for me, I really would rather you did the podcast,’ I said. Once my palms were clean, I turned my attention to the scratches on my belly. I looked like I’d lost a fight with all the cats from Cats, even Taylor Swift. ‘It might not seem like it today but years from now, when you’re not gaming any more, you’ll be really glad you did this. You’ll be able to play it for your kids. Won’t that be cool?’
‘In what, fifty years?’ he scoffed.
I looked up at Veronica, somewhat alarmed.
‘How young is he?’ I asked.
‘Snazz, you signed the contract, you’re doing the podcast,’ she said without taking her eyes off her phone as she tapped away. ‘Ros is trying to be nice, I’m not. Get your arse in gear and get it done.’
‘Does his mum not mind the swearing?’ I asked casually, hoping she didn’t decide to go full Naomi Campbell and beat me to death with her phone.
‘His mum doesn’t mind the money,’ she replied, glaring at me with such force, any comeback I might have had dried up in my throat.
‘What did you mean, when I’m not gaming any more?’ Snazz asked, his voice so low the voice modulator could barely pick it up. I leaned forward and nudged his knee, putting on a smile.
‘You might want to do something else when you’re older,’ I replied, eyes flitting over towards his agent, ready to duck any flying missiles. ‘You might want to work with charities or travel the world or get a job at KFC like other teenagers. Who knows?’
‘What if I wanted to do something else now?’ he asked, even more quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘We should probably talk about that after the podcast,’ I answered, just as quietly.
‘What if I do it wrong?’ Snazzlechuff asked, his robot voice growing a little bit
stronger. ‘I’ve never done a podcast before.’
‘You can’t get it wrong,’ I promised. ‘It’s your podcast. It’s literally impossible for you to make any kind of mistake.’
He looked down at his empty hands.
‘And you’ll help me?’
Holding my breath, I crouched down in front of him again, biting my lip against the sting of my injuries. ‘Snazz, I’ll do everything I can. I’ve had a very hard day and actually a really rough couple of months. I really don’t want to lose this job. Will you do it for me?’
Slowly, he reached up and flipped a clasp behind his shiny, silver ear. The mask popped open and, all of a sudden, I was face to face with a teenage boy. He had blue eyes and blond hair and a scattering of acne on his left cheek. Above his top lip was the slightest hint of a wisp of a moustache and it took all my self-control not to lick my thumb and rub it right off his face.
‘You can call me Max, if you want to,’ he said with a shy smile.
‘This is all very sweet but can we get this show on the road?’ Veronica called as Max snapped the mask back shut. ‘They won’t let me smoke in here and I haven’t had a cigarette in twenty-three minutes. If I don’t get one soon, everyone’s going to look as rough as you.’
I looked into the robot’s face, hoping I was making eye contact with Max. I’d done the best I could but he was either going to do it or he wasn’t, it was like trying to explain a logical decision to a cat.
‘OK. So that’s that. Now, I’m going to make sure everything is where it needs to be on stage,’ I told Veronica while Max pulled a tiny gaming device out from behind his back and started zapping things, seemingly happy for the moment. ‘It’s all fine.’
Stepping through the curtains into the empty arena, I gazed out at the rows and rows of empty chairs. It was such a lot to put on a child, I couldn’t imagine how he must be feeling.
‘He’ll be fine,’ I muttered to the empty room, trying to convince myself. ‘He’ll be absolutely fine.’
On the third row from the front, I saw four white pieces of paper with my name on them. The seats I’d reserved from Adrian, Lucy, Sumi and Patrick.