Love, Almost

by Hayley Doyle

  I’m expecting some sort of response, but I get zilch. The thick silence sits in the triangle between us all. I realise I just talked at John and Trish using Jack in the present tense. I hadn’t meant to do that, but they naturally picked up on it, loud and clear. I hug the paperback plays tight; feel them squash against my braless chest.

  Trish stretches out her arm and taps the breakfast bar three times. This must be some sort of code for them to leave, because John stands up, puts his hand to the small of Trish’s back and picks up her orange Michael Kors handbag, carrying it for her. They float past me like ghosts and disappear into the hallway.

  ‘Look, I’m so sorry for your loss,’ I call after them.

  They pause by the bookshelf, a particularly creaky floorboard beneath their feet. John looks over his shoulder and gives me a pained, but kind, smile. Trish is frozen, the back of her head facing me.

  ‘Take all the time you need, Chloe,’ she says. ‘We won’t be coming back here today.’

  And she opens the door and leads the way outside, John following, his head bent low. He closes the door behind him gently, but the flat seems to shudder, just as it does every time a double decker bus trundles past the road. Oh God. I want to run after them, ask them seriously, what the fuck happened? Who is to blame? There’s always somebody to blame, isn’t there? And how … how did he actually—

  SLAM!

  I run into the kitchen. Jack?!

  5

  I spin a full circle, expecting him to spring up from behind the breakfast bar and shout ‘BOO!’ – I know there’s a good chance I’m losing the plot.

  It’s just the back door shutting, from the draught when Trish and John left.

  ‘You never told them about me,’ I say.

  The silence pinches me, hard.

  I go to the fridge and take out the plastic tray of grapes. I think I’m hungry. Or thirsty.

  Neither.

  Jack will never be hungry or thirsty again.

  I have to get ready and go to school, but the sofa beckons and I flop down. I place the tray of grapes onto the carpet beside my feet and rock forward, my head falling into my hands. This has all happened so fast – too fast. I can’t label how I’m feeling. Hollow? Sick? Grieving? Does grief happen straight away, or will it hit me tomorrow? Or the next day?

  Is this grief? This?

  ‘Jack?’

  I stare beyond the windowsill, cluttered with burnt-out tealights. Some are in beaded holders, some not, and there’s a ukulele that neither Jack nor I have ever played. My gaze burns past the frame, the window, the stone steps leading down from street level towards our front door. The remote is in my peripheral vision. I think about reaching for it. An ambulance siren sounds, gets louder, fades away. Footsteps from the ground-floor flat above pace about; a suitcase being wheeled. I’ve never met the fella who lives there. He travels a lot, according to Jack. A bird is chirping outside in the garden. I’m still pondering whether to reach for the remote.

  I shake myself out, make a noise that resembles something like ‘Wuoghhh.’

  How long was I spaced out for? A minute? Five?

  Fuck me, thirty-five?

  I put the grapes back in the fridge, pausing as I close the door. The magnet of the Leaning Tower of Pisa draws me to the photo of Jack on his dad’s shoulders in Majorca. A little lad, his whole life ahead of him …

  No magnets on this fridge belong to me. I gave the one we bought in Thailand of a tuk-tuk to my nan. What does belong to me is confirmation for a ski lesson, printed off and Sellotaped up there by Jack on the chance I might ‘accidentally’ delete the email …

  The flyer for Jack’s mate’s comedy gig is held up by a magnet I personally find very cute: a mini bowl of noodles. There are even teeny, tiny prawns inside the bowl. Jack got that in Vietnam, a place he was eager to revisit with me …

  A flip-flop that doubles up as a bottle opener has a business card for Antonella tucked beneath it, the restaurant I’ve reserved a table at for Jack’s birthday …

  There’s another business card popping out behind: some estate agent that Jack had been chatting to, keen for us to move out of this bunker flat to somewhere with a better view …

  Beside that hangs the invite to my brother’s wedding …

  And tickets to Mamma Mia! Jack won at a raffle in work last month …

  Oh my. This is our life. Right here, on the fridge.

  Even the gas bill is there.

  ‘I’m jealous you’re off work tomoz,’ I’d said, my head resting on Jack’s chest as we lay in bed the other night. ‘What you gonna do?’

  ‘Pay the gas bill,’ Jack said, his voice dry, lazy, already half asleep. ‘And then, fuck all.’

  But he didn’t pay it. I know this because the gas bill wouldn’t still be on the fridge. It would be ripped up and in the recycling; done and dusted. Jack was a total geek about things like that. He’d get angry if he found an out-of-date Sainsbury’s Nectar coupon in his wallet.

  I flatten the bill against the wall, iron out the creases with my fist, tickle the bold letters spelling ‘Jack Carmichael’. This banal, boring piece of paper no longer belongs to the world I exist in. It’s history. Yesterday morning, it had colour: it was presumed continuous. But today …

  Today!

  I have to phone the school. Tell them I won’t be in. I’m sick. Very sick. Vomiting, diarrhoea; it’s come on quickly. I’m sorry. I almost sob. I gather myself. Once again, I’m sorry. I know I’m new to the school. This isn’t normal. It’s odd. Very odd. They understand. I’ll be in on Monday. I promise. I’m sure it’s just a twenty-four-hour thing. It can’t be permanent.

  It can’t be.

  I pay the gas bill online. Then I slip back onto the sofa, my gaze fixed on a crack in the paintwork on the ceiling. Here I remain, all day.

  6

  I spend the weekend pretty low key, in my comfies. I listen to Jack’s latest playlist on Spotify – some Beach Boys, Bowie, a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival – his iPad is still connected to the speaker on the breakfast bar. Breakfast is skipped. Lunch is whatever I can find: toast; crisps; a tin of spaghetti hoops, cold. I order takeaway for my dinner, lots of it; a habit we’d gotten into. I don’t eat a single bite. I just stare at the boxes. It’s incomprehensible that I’ll never do this with Jack again, ever.

  I scroll through my phone’s photos. 3,784 images. 23 images of Jack, 16 with his eyes closed, mid-blink. A grand total of five selfies with him, four of them pretty awful. The decent one, taken in the beer garden of our local pub on the May bank holiday, is my screensaver. So, word of warning to anybody who – like me – has fallen into the habit of taking photos of a rainbow salad; two wine glasses by candlelight; fucking feet on a fucking beach: don’t. Take photos of people. You will never, ever, ever care about your toes painted neon pink on the sand, ever. But you’ll wish you had more photos of the person you loved. Seriously, I’ve got a video of a plane taking off from Gatwick airport and I don’t even know where that plane was heading. But the only video I have of Jack is a boomerang of him buying boxer shorts at Patpong market.

  My phone pings.

  You rang?

  It’s our Kit, my brother. He’s noticed the missed call from me this morning. I start to type a reply along the lines of needing to speak to him, but the words fail me. I try again.

  Kit, I’ve got some bad news … Nope. Delete.

  I can’t get into this on WhatsApp.

  Ring me back when you get a mo

  I’m in Lisbon. You ok sis? X

  Shit. I totally forgot. It’s his stag weekend.

  All good! Just wanted to tell you to HAVE A BALL. Love you.

  Love you more. X

  I down my glass of Shiraz and look at the spring rolls, seeping with grease in their plastic container. I should eat one, line my stomach. Biting it in half, the cold beansprouts and chicken spill into my mouth, making me gag. There’s no taste, just mass. Chewing is a gigantic effort I can d
o without. I toss the uneaten half onto the floor. Then I grab the bag of prawn crackers and hurl it against the wall.

  Agh, so what?

  Nobody’s here to stop me.

  I’m new to London, aren’t I, so unlike Jack or Beth, I don’t have a circle of friends yet. Beth’s in Liverpool for the weekend at a family do. She insisted that I tag along, but I was firm with my, ‘no’. My mum’s gone quiet – thank God, because I can’t face giving her the news yet – and I presume it’s because she’s assigned herself a task for our Kit’s wedding. He isn’t getting married until August, but my mum’s been collecting jam jars for years – you know, just in case. So either Kit’s finally succumbed to her putting them to some decorative use, or my nan’s sick. My mum only ever tells me that my nan’s been sick once she’s well again.

  I open a second bottle of wine and make a start on the Ikea drawers. Jack’s mum’s words rattle around my head: ‘there’s nothing at all that suggests she’s a permanent fixture around here’, and I imagine her sat on a Channel 5 panel, discussing the headlines, daily politics, and me, her disgust at my existence clear to the nation.

  Listen, Patricia. I’ll give you permanent.

  I drag the flat-pack box into the hallway, open it and browse the instruction pamphlet. I instantly feel tired and shiver, my sockless feet ice cold. Reaching up to the coat rack, I pull down Jack’s parka, slip my arms into the heavy fabric and inhale deeply.

  ‘Were you murdered?’ I cry out. An Allen key drops, clattering louder than I expect. ‘Like, were you involved in something – I dunno, like, illegal? I mean, maybe I’ve been naive. Maybe I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. Maybe …’

  I can picture Jack laughing at me, mockingly taking a stance like a tough guy, a drug dealer, a money launderer. But I’m only trying to rationalise the situation. In London, the traffic moves no faster than twenty miles an hour. There’s speed cameras everywhere.

  ‘How the fuck did a van hit you going more than fifty?’ I yell. ‘How? Why? I waited thirty-six years to meet you!’

  Which isn’t completely true. Yeah, I’m thirty-six, but I didn’t grow up dreaming about Mr Right and weddings. No, that was my brother. It was cruel that he’d had to grow up in a world where although he wanted those things, some law told him they weren’t for him. Honestly, I’d much preferred flatmates to boyfriends. Impromptu parties, hangovers with Domino’s and marathons of Friends. Bingeing on 24 after work shat all over an awkward date with some guy I could only have sex with if I got bladdered.

  But when I hit thirty, flatmates became engaged, or property owners, or parents. Some scored the treble. I progressed to my own flat, embracing the true value of space. I loved my framed posters of The Sound of Music and Singin’ in the Rain hanging up in whatever room I desired, and my bulging mess of a wardrobe that no fucker was going to judge me for. Nobody was stealing my Brie. I only had myself to blame if I ran out of loo roll. Loneliness, however, creeps in when you least expect it. Everybody wants somebody, as the song goes. Dating seemed like a necessity, but a labouring chore. Until Jack. And it was easy. Easy like Sunday morning. Ye-ahh, ye-ahh …

  I’m standing with two pieces of Ikea wood in my hands.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  Only a matter of weeks ago, I moved in with my new boyfriend. This fact cannot be suddenly wiped out. Nothing just stops, no matter how hard a van hits it. I found a pair of his dirty undies beneath one of my Converse today, for God’s sake. Do I wash them? What the hell are you supposed to do with the dead’s dirty undies?

  The flat looks a mess.

  The bins are overflowing, uneaten bananas are blackened and smelling, ripped cardboard and loose screws are taking over the hallway. The only corner of serenity is our bed. The pillows are plumped and the sheets are so straight – good enough for a hotel penthouse suite – that I’ve been wondering whether Trish (or John) ran the iron over them before they left. Needless to say, I haven’t been sleeping in our bed, because I haven’t really been sleeping. The sofa has more appeal: the red throw, the Rudolf cushion, the sense of never ending a day or starting a new one.

  Right, where’s that other screw?

  Shit. I spill red wine onto the carpet. I’ll never understand why anyone buys cream carpets, although I can imagine it looked lovely when John and Trish had this one fitted.

  ‘I nearly died once, you know,’ I say – to Jack, to nobody – tightening the screw. ‘I was only little, about three or four. Me dad was making tea and toast before bedtime. He likes it burnt, black, except I have a theory that he can’t make it any other way. God, I wish you’d met him, had the chance to go for a pint with him. Anyway. As me dad was buttering the toast, me grandad came rushing in, panic stricken, and he said, “Chloe’s choking”. Me dad dropped the butter knife and ran upstairs, burst into me room. He found me red-faced, eyes watering and struggling to breathe. He dangled me upside down by me feet and shook me, whacking me back – not the most elegant or correct manoeuvre. Whatever he did, though, it worked. And do you know what it was? A Polly Pocket. I’d taken the toy to bed and God knows why, I’d put one of those teeny, tiny plastic dolls into me mouth. Me grandad’s warning saved me life that night … Except me grandad died before I was born.’

  I said that last part pretty loud – you know, in case the ghost of Jack needed me to speak up a little in order to appear. If my dad saw my grandad, why can’t I see Jack? Come on. Appear. APPEAR!

  The doorbell is ringing.

  Did I order anything from Amazon? Did Jack?

  Stepping over the unscrewed parts of drawers, I grab the toothpaste from the bathroom and squirt a blob into my mouth. Blue stains of red wine sit on my bottom lip.

  The doorbell rings again.

  Please, please, please don’t be Trish and John.

  ‘Hello!’ a couple sing in chorus as I open the door.

  God, they look so freshly scrubbed. Their cheeks are rosy. It’s the couple who live in the second-floor flat. They’ve been out walking, and they’re wearing matching hiking boots and designer raincoats. They must have driven out to Kent this morning at the crack of dawn. They make me feel revolting. I don’t even know what time it is.

  ‘How are you settling in?’ the fella, Giles, asks.

  ‘Good,’ I say. Well, what else can I say? ‘Manic.’

  ‘I bet,’ Ingrid says. She’s Norwegian and her skin is so flawless I can’t imagine she’s ever ingested anything processed. Ever. ‘Is Jack home?’

  They don’t know.

  Okay, I should’ve known they didn’t know by the tone of their arrival, asking how I’m settling in, but it’s only just dawned on me. They don’t know. And it’s going to be up to me to tell them.

  ‘Building a chest of drawers,’ I lie.

  Giles and Ingrid cock their heads to the side and look past me into the hallway, at the obvious chaos of weekend DIY. I point at Ingrid and release some sort of weird grunt.

  ‘Ikea,’ I say.

  ‘That is Swedish,’ Ingrid reminds me.

  Giles waves his hands. ‘No need to bother Jack – we just wanted to let you both know that we’re getting our bathroom refitted next week so it might be a bit noisy. The builders will need to go around the back of the house to check some plumbing so if you see any strangers in the garden, don’t be alarmed.’

  He finds this really amusing. Maybe I would too, on another day, in a previous life. Giles looks so together; so clean; so innocent: I can’t imagine anything could get near him to break him. He’s probably got some sort of sensible insurance policy to protect himself from anything bad ever happening.

  ‘No probs,’ I say.

  ‘Anyway, we must have you both over for a cuppa some time,’ Giles says. ‘Or perhaps something a little stronger?’

  ‘Or pasta?’ Ingrid says.

  ‘Or pasta,’ I repeat.

  ‘We bought a new hanging basket, by the way,’ Giles adds. ‘For the front of the house.’

  ‘
Lovely,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Oh, it’s no trouble. No trouble at all. Shame the weather’s taken a turn for the worse, eh?’

  ‘Has it?’ I look upwards to the thick, white sky.

  ‘Been chilly again, like spring for the past couple of days,’ Giles tuts.

  ‘He is so obsessed with the weather,’ Ingrid says.

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ I say, aware of my massive contradiction.

  And fuck me. I’m still wearing Jack’s giant bloody parka.

  I bid them goodbye, mimicking their pure politeness. When I close the door, I touch the blue stain on my lower lip. Ingrid’s natural blonde locks have also reminded me of my roots, all dark and mousey and threatening.

  Why didn’t I tell them?

  Because it didn’t seem appropriate. Like I’d be interfering.

  I close the curtains to stop the outside glare reflecting on the telly, and I have a long, long flick through everything Netflix has to offer. There’s still two more drawers to build, but I imagine Jack lying beside me. We watch a film about a high school misfit with the ability to move mountains, literally. We drift in and out of some sort of drunken sleep.

  A message alert shakes me awake.

  Dear Chloe, I hope you’re keeping well. I got your number from Jack’s phone. The funeral is taking place next Friday. Regards, Trish Carmichael.

  I wonder if she’s read the exchanges between him and me over the past few months. As perverse as this might sound, I hope so. It’ll prove we weren’t ‘just shagging’, as she so bluntly put it.

  7

  On Monday, I go to see my department head and ask for compassionate leave for the funeral. When she asks me who passed away, I tell her a friend. She says sorry, and I’m granted time off. I suppose you’re wondering why I never told her it was my boyfriend, but come on – she would’ve questioned how, why and when, and I don’t have concrete answers. Unless I’ve missed it, the local news has reported nothing and I can’t bring myself to call Jack’s family. They might call me Clare. Besides, I lied about being sick last week when it happened. I’m new to this school, remember. I don’t want to be thought of as a liability.