The Authenticity Project

by Clare Pooley

  “Yellow car,” Hazard heard Monica say from the front of the bus.

  “What?” asked Riley.

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  Hazard would have smiled, but his cheek was stuck to the plastic of the seat he was lying on.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Monica

  Before Monica even opened her eyes, she knew something was different. Her apartment, which usually smelled of coffee, Jo Malone, Cif Lemon Fresh, and, occasionally, Riley, reeked of dank, stale booze. And Hazard.

  She got out of bed, threw on a baggy sweatshirt over her pajamas—she was not going to make an effort—and tied her hair up in a messy bun. She went into the bathroom, splashed her face with water, then doubled back and added a lick of mascara and some lip gloss. She wasn’t trying to impress, obviously, just making sure that Hazard didn’t have any excuse to sneer at her again.

  Monica opened the door into her living room rather cautiously. She tiptoed in, trying not to wake him. He wasn’t there. The sofa she’d left him on was empty, her spare duvet folded up neatly. The washing-up bowl she’d left on the floor, in case he needed to vomit (again), had been put back in her kitchenette. The curtains had been drawn and the windows opened to air the room. There was no note.

  Monica had no desire to see Hazard, particularly not at this time of the morning and after yesterday’s events, but—even so—it was a little rude of him to do a runner like that. How could she have expected any different?

  The front door opened behind her, making her jump. A huge bunch of pale-yellow roses walked in, followed by Hazard. “I hope you don’t mind, I borrowed your keys,” he said, placing them on the table with a hand that was shaking.

  Monica had seen Hazard in many guises—the brash bully who’d called her a bitch, the Christmas Day returning hero who wasn’t, the hardworking and determined gardener and businessman, and the irresponsible, rude bore of yesterday—but in all those guises, Hazard had been so sure of himself. He’d always occupied far more space in any room than even his six-foot-three frame required.

  This Hazard was different. He looked awful, for a start, tired and saggy and gray, still dressed in a crumpled morning suit, but, more disconcertingly, he looked uncertain. All the bombast and self-confidence of the night before had ebbed away, leaving him diminished. Sad. The light behind his eyes had dimmed.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the roses and filling the kitchen sink with water to keep them fresh. These things needed to be done instantly. Hazard sat down heavily on the sofa.

  “Monica, I don’t know what to say,” he said. “I was inexcusably horrible to you yesterday. I’m so, so sorry. That man was not me. At least, I guess he is a part of me, but one I’ve tried to keep locked away. I hate the man I become when I’m drunk, and I really liked the man I’ve been turning into these last few months. And now I’ve ruined it all.” He sat with his head in his hands, his hair, matted and sweaty, falling forward.

  “You were awful,” said Monica. “Indescribably awful.” But she realized that, for the first time, she was seeing the authentic Hazard. The imperfect, insecure, and vulnerable boy who must have been there all along, hidden beneath the bluster. And it didn’t seem fair to stay angry with him. He was obviously doing that job pretty well himself. She sighed and shelved the speech she’d rehearsed in her head during the journey home last night.

  “Let’s just start again from today, hey? You wait here. I’ll go downstairs, get us some coffees, and arrange for Benji to mind the café.”

  * * *

  • • •

  MONICA AND HAZARD sat at either end of the sofa, sharing a large duvet and a bucket of popcorn, and watching back-to-back Netflix. As Hazard reached over for the popcorn, Monica spotted his fingernails, bitten right down to the quick, the skin around them red and sore. It reminded her vividly of her own hands after her mother died, inflamed, cracked, and bleeding from the endless washing. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to help Hazard, or heal herself, but she had to tell the story.

  “You know, I do understand about compulsions, about that overwhelming need to do something, even when you know you shouldn’t,” she said, looking straight ahead rather than directly at Hazard. He said nothing, but she could sense him listening, so she carried on.

  “My mother died when I was sixteen, just before Christmas, in my GCSE year. She wanted to die at home, so we had the sitting room converted into a hospital room. Because her immune system had been completely shot by the chemo, the Macmillan nurse told me to keep her room disinfected at all times. It was the one thing I could control. I couldn’t stop my mother dying, but I could kill all the bugs. So I cleaned and cleaned, and I washed my hands every hour, several times. And even when she died, I didn’t stop. Even when all the skin started peeling off my hands, I didn’t stop. Even when the kids at school started whispering about me behind my back, then calling me a nutter to my face, I couldn’t stop. So, I do know.”

  “Monica, I’m so sorry. That’s a terrible age to lose your mother,” said Hazard.

  “I didn’t lose her, Hazard. I bloody hate that expression. It makes it sound as if we went to the shops and I just left her behind. And she didn’t pass over or slip away. It was nothing as gentle or peaceful as that. It was raw and ugly and smelly and fucking unfair.” The words scratched at her throat.

  Hazard took her hand, unclenched it, and held it in his. “What about your dad? Couldn’t he help you?”

  “He was struggling too. He’s an author. Did you ever read those children’s books, set in a fantasy world called Dragonlia?” She saw Hazard nod, out of the corner of her eye. “Well, he wrote those. So he would disappear into his office and bury himself in a fairer world where good always triumphed and evil was defeated. That first Christmas, we were like two shipwrecked sailors, both trying to stay afloat, but clutching on to separate pieces of wreckage.”

  “How did you get better, Monica?” Hazard asked, gently.

  “I got worse before I got better. I dropped out of school for a while and stopped even leaving the house. I just buried myself in my books. And I cleaned, obviously. Dad used a huge chunk of his royalties to pay for lots of therapy, and, by the time I’d finished my A levels, I was much better. I’m still a little bit overzealous on the hygiene front, but other than that, totally normal!” she said, with a trace of irony.

  “And I thought you were the most sane person I knew. Just goes to show, doesn’t it?” said Hazard.

  “Well, I thought you were the most sober person I knew, until yesterday,” Monica replied, grinning at him.

  They turned to watch the screen as a new episode loaded automatically.

  Hazard took a handful of popcorn and flicked a kernel across the room. Monica had no idea where it had landed. Then he did it again. Three times.

  “Hazard!” Monica said sharply. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Call it aversion therapy,” said Hazard, flicking another kernel across the room. “Just try and watch a whole episode without worrying about the popcorn.”

  Monica could do that. Of course she could do that. How long were these bloody episodes, anyhow? She sat for fifteen minutes, which felt like hours, trying not to think about the rogue kernels, nestled into cracks and crevices and lurking under her furniture.

  Enough was enough. She went to get the Dustbuster.

  “You did really great, Monica,” said Hazard, once they’d tracked down and sucked up every last kernel and sat down again.

  “You have no idea how hard that is for me, Hazard,” she said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he replied. “I know exactly how hard it is. It’s the same way I feel every time I walk past a pub. You know, we all try to escape life somehow—me with drugs, Julian by becoming a hermit, Alice with social media. But you don’t. You’re much braver than any of us. You meet life head on and try and fi
ght it and control it. Just a little too much, sometimes.”

  “We all need to be a bit more like Riley, don’t we?” said Monica. “That’s why he’s so good for me.”

  “Mmmm,” replied Hazard.

  They sat in silence for a while. They’d started off at opposite sides of the sofa, but now they met in the middle, head to head, legs dangling over the arms at either end.

  “You know, that’s the story you should have written in the book, Monica,” said Hazard. “Dealing with your mother’s death and coming out the other side, that’s your truth, not all that marriage and baby stuff.”

  She knew he was right.

  “Just out of interest,” said Hazard, “do all the tins in your cupboards face outwards?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “How on earth could you read the labels otherwise?”

  He reached over and carefully disentangled a kernel of popcorn from her hair and put it down on the coffee table. Just for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. But of course, he wasn’t.

  “Hazard?” she said. He turned and looked at her intently.

  “Could you put that piece of popcorn in the bin?”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Riley

  The English, Riley decided, were much like their weather. They were changeable and unpredictable. Complicated. It would look like it was going to be fine, then a squall would appear from nowhere and hailstones could rain from the sky, bouncing off the pavement and car bonnets. However diligently you checked the cloud formations and the forecast, you could never be quite sure what was coming next.

  Hazard had not been himself since the disastrous wedding. Riley was sure he wasn’t still drinking, or doing drugs. He was incredibly contrite and seemed to have learned a hard lesson, but he’d drooped.

  Monica, meanwhile, had bloomed a little. Riley and Monica were spending lots of time together and had shared rather steamy sessions on her sofa, but she was like a prickly rose—beautiful, fragrant, lots of promise, but if you got too close, there were thorns.

  Although he’d stayed the night a couple of times, they’d still not had sex. This confused Riley. Sex, for him, was one of life’s simple pleasures—like surfing, freshly baked pastries, and a good hike at sunrise. He didn’t see the point in holding back, now there were no secrets lurking between them. And yet Monica seemed to load it with so much significance and approach it with such caution. Like it was an unexploded bomb.

  And she still hadn’t told him if she was coming with him on his travels. Not that it affected his plans. He didn’t need plans. He’d just pack his rucksack, make his way to the station, and see what happened next. But he would like to know, just so when he imagined himself on the steps of the Coliseum, he’d know whether to imagine Monica sitting next to him. Or not.

  Riley pulled a small weed from the herbaceous border that had been pretty immaculate before he’d even started work. Mrs. Ponsonby was the sort of lady who liked everything to be perfect. No stray weeds, pubic hairs, or husbands for her. And no fun either, he suspected. She’d made him and Brett a cup of tea—the type that had pretensions and tasted slightly of flowers. He preferred regular tea. The sort that knew what it was.

  As Mrs. Ponsonby had passed Riley his mug, she’d brushed up against his arm, and held his gaze for rather too long.

  “Do let me know if you need anything else, Riley,” she’d said, “anything at all,” like the script from a bad 1970s porn movie. What was it with these Chelsea housewives? Was it boredom? Were they just looking for a workout that would be more fun than their regular Pilates, or was it the thrill of the risk they’d be taking that attracted them? Perhaps he was just imagining it, and all Mrs. Ponsonby was offering was an organic chocolate-chip cookie.

  As soon as Riley was finished here, he was going over to Mummy’s Little Helper, where he’d been growing pots of daffodils for Monica’s Café. The idea was to fill the place with flowers for the art class on the fourth of March, for Mary’s fifteen-year anniversary. Monica was baking a cake. Lizzie, Alice’s new friend from the nursery, had lived in the area back in Mary’s day, so she’d offered to try to find some photos of her from the internet that they could mount on cardstock.

  Alice had changed a bit since Lizzie got involved in her life. She seemed a lot less tired and frazzled, as Bunty was sleeping properly since Lizzie had “got her into a proper routine.” Riley didn’t know what this really meant, but Alice had announced it as if Lizzie had split the genome. Riley didn’t really know what a genome was, either, but that was beside the point. Since Lizzie was doing lots of babysitting for her, Alice no longer had Bunty permanently welded to her hip. She’d also stopped staring at her phone so much. Apparently, “Lizzie said” she needed to cut down on the whole social media thing. The way Alice kept starting every sentence with “Lizzie said” was a bit annoying, to be honest.

  Julian still had no idea that the party was happening. He probably wasn’t even aware that Monica had made a mental note of the date he’d mentioned so casually, a while ago. Even Alice had managed to keep it secret. It was going to be a great surprise. He did hope it wouldn’t give Julian a heart attack.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Lizzie

  Lizzie had, so far, resisted the urge to poke through Alice’s drawers. It seemed a little disloyal. She had no such loyalty toward Max, however, so she had a good rummage through his. She hadn’t come across any indication that Max was playing around—no dubious receipts in pockets, lipstick on collars, or hidden mementos. Lizzie was an expert at sniffing out infidelity—like a pig rooting for truffles. She was relieved. Alice, despite being a flibbertigibbet, had a good heart and did not deserve to be messed around. Lizzie wasn’t letting Max off the hook entirely, however. If it wasn’t a woman keeping him away from home so much, it was neglect and disinterest in his exhausted wife and young baby.

  Lizzie had also been keeping an eye on the recycling. Alice and Max were getting through a rather large number of wine bottles, and she suspected that Alice was drinking the lion’s share. But, on the upside, she was rather pleased to note the number of bottles decreasing since she’d managed to get Bunty settled into a more predictable and manageable routine.

  Finally, she’d had a quick poke in the bathroom bin. Always interesting. And this one did not disappoint. She found an empty pack of sleeping pills (no wonder Max was no use with the nighttime feeds) and one used pregnancy test. It was negative, thank the Lord. That might have just tipped Alice over the edge. And at least she and Max were still having sex.

  Now she was having a great deal of fun doing Google searches on Alice’s laptop, looking for photos of Julian’s dead wife. She loved rummaging around the internet. It was like one giant knicker drawer, just waiting to spill all its secrets. She’d had a quick check on the browsing history. Max had, predictably, been looking at some porn, but nothing too distasteful or illegal.

  She’d searched under Mary and Julian Jessop and had found a wonderful photo of them on their wedding day, standing on the steps of Chelsea Town Hall. She was wearing a white minidress and white high-heeled boots, and he was dressed in an extremely dapper white suit, with flared trousers and a purple silk shirt. They were both laughing uproariously. She sent the picture off to Alice’s printer. Under the wedding photo she found a mention of Mary’s maiden name: Sandilands. She opened the Google search engine again, and this time typed in Mary Sandilands. Now, that was even more interesting.

  Lizzie heard the key in the lock and quickly closed down the page she was on.

  “Hi, Lizzie! Is everything OK?” asked Alice.

  “All fine and dandy. I gave Bunty some baby rice and apple puree and she went out like a light, bang on time. I doubt you’ll hear a peep from her until six a.m.”

  “You are an angel,” Alice said, as she took off her cashmere coat and hung it on the hook by the door, shook off her vertiginous heels, and sat down a
t the kitchen table next to Lizzie. Max had gone straight upstairs. She heard the door of his study closing.

  “How was date night?” Lizzie asked her.

  “Fine, thank you,” replied Alice, not entirely enthusiastically, Lizzie thought. “Fabulous new restaurant, just down the road. Supertrendy. Hazard was there, too, with a girl. Stunning one. How did you do with the photos?”

  “Great. I’ve got some lovely ones. Mary was a knockout. Reminds me a bit of Audrey Hepburn. All wide-eyed and innocent-looking, like Bambi. Have a look.”

  * * *

  • • •

  SHE WAS SITTING in bed listening to Jack snore. Sometimes, the noise would stop for what seemed like ages, and she’d wonder if he’d died, and if so, how much she’d care. Then, like a car engine firing violently into life, he’d start up again.

  She scratched her head. Damn. She was pretty sure that one of those little buggers at the nursery had given her head lice again. Should she sleep in the spare room until she’d napalmed them? She looked at Jack’s nearly bald head. The likelihood of a stray louse finding anywhere to hide there was remote. She didn’t want to have another parasite discussion with him. It had taken him weeks to get over the threadworm incident.

  She reached into her own knicker drawer—chuckling to herself at the irony—and pulled out the notebook she’d picked up at the nursery. It was her turn to write in it now, and she knew exactly what to say.

  SIXTY

  Hazard

  It was six days after the wedding, and Hazard felt, finally, that things were back on track. He’d recovered physically from his bender, and he felt more resolved than ever. Throwing himself off the wagon so spectacularly had reminded him why life was so much better on it. He’d also learned that “just the one” was a mirage he was never going to be able to touch.