The Authenticity Project

by Clare Pooley

  “Hi,” said Hazard, then felt stupid. He probably didn’t know this guy at all.

  “Hi,” replied the man, shuffling along the bench so Hazard could sit down. “You OK?”

  Hazard sighed. “Not really,” he said. “Girl trouble. You know.” What was he doing? All this sharing. First Fin, and now some random bloke on a bench.

  “Tell me about it,” replied the guy. “I’m avoiding going home. You married?”

  “No,” said Hazard. “Right now I’m single.”

  “Well, take my advice, mate, and stay that way. Once you get married, they rewrite all the rules. One minute you’ve got it made—sex on tap, the stunning wife who keeps your house looking beautiful and your friends entertained, then they change. Before you know it, they’ve got stretch marks, their boobs leak, the house is filled with garishly colored plastic toys, and all their attention goes on the baby. And you’re just the mug who’s expected to pay for the whole shebang.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” said Hazard, who’d decided that he didn’t like his new confidant very much, “and I’m sure marriage isn’t easy, but the problem with me is when someone tells me what to do, I have a habit of doing the opposite.”

  Hazard said an awkward good-bye. He felt rather sorry for the man’s wife. Was he so perfect himself? What happened to “for better for worse, in sickness and in health”? What an arse, frankly.

  Then he remembered where he knew the guy from. He’d seen him not that long ago, in that terrible restaurant he’d gone to with Blanche. He’d been having dinner with Alice.

  SEVENTY

  Riley

  Riley had assumed that his life would go back to normal: simple, uncomplicated, and easy. But it hadn’t been like that. He’d been unable to forget about Monica. He felt like a tornado had whisked him off for a few months to a Technicolor land, where everything was a little strange and intense, where he had no idea what lay around the next bend in the yellow brick road, and now he was back in Kansas feeling strangely . . . deflated.

  Why had he given up so easily? Why hadn’t he tried harder to convince Monica to come with him? Why had he not offered to stay here? He could travel around Europe, as planned, but then come back to London and pick up where he’d left off. Suddenly, it all seemed so obvious.

  Riley shook off the lethargy that had plagued him for the last few days, and with a surge of energy, purpose, and passion, left his apartment and walked toward the Fulham Road. It was late, so the cemetery was locked up, but he barely noticed the extra distance he had to travel, he was so fired up with determination. Riley felt like he had joined the ranks of romantic heroes who would do anything to win their fair princess. He was Mr. Darcy, he was Rhett Butler, he was Shrek. Maybe not Shrek.

  As Riley neared Monica’s apartment, he could tell she was still awake. Her curtains were open, and the light from her sitting room shone out like a homing beacon. Riley crossed the road and craned his neck to see if he could see her.

  He couldn’t. But he could see Hazard. What was Hazard doing in Monica’s apartment so late at night?

  Suddenly he felt very stupid. All those excuses about her responsibilities and her business, when the truth was that Monica was seeing someone else. All the times he and Hazard, his friend, had been gardening and Hazard kept bringing the conversation round to Monica. Now it made sense.

  Was that why Hazard had invited Monica to the wedding? He’d thought it was a bit strange, but Riley had trusted him. Trusted them both. He shouldn’t be surprised. Hazard with his rugged, dangerous good looks, his quick wit, and his brilliant business acumen was the obvious choice.

  How could he have been so naive? No wonder Monica couldn’t love him.

  Riley felt a wave of exhaustion engulf him. Since he’d first turned up here, at this café, he’d found a perfect Riley-sized space, in this wonderful city, among these extraordinary people. But now that space had closed up and he’d been spat out. An unwanted intruder, a foreign body. It was time to move on.

  Riley turned back toward Earl’s Court, a different man entirely from the one who’d left there barely half an hour ago. People thought that because Riley was so cheerful and sunny he didn’t feel. But they were wrong. They were very wrong.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Monica

  Monica looked at the long queue outside the café on Thursday night. Lizzie had done a brilliant job finding many of tonight’s guests. She’d told Monica that the advantage of knowing the business of all her neighbors was she knew exactly who lived alone and didn’t get visitors, so she’d knocked on their doors and invited them along. Then, she’d gone to her GP and given her some fliers to hand out, then done the same with the librarian at Fulham Library and her friend Sue, who was a local social worker.

  Monica opened the doors and welcomed everyone in. The café tables were arranged into a large square, with seats for around forty people. Mrs. Wu and Benji were doing the cooking, Monica and Lizzie were waitressing, and Julian was playing host with Keith, the only dog who was now officially allowed in the café. Keith was sitting at his feet under the table, farting noxiously. Or maybe that was Julian.

  Before long, the café was buzzing with conversation and laughter. The average age of the guests was around sixty, and, encouraged by Julian, everyone was sharing stories about the neighborhood over the years.

  “Who remembers the Fulham public baths and washhouse?” asked Julian.

  “Oh, I do, like it was yesterday!” said Mrs. Brooks, who was possibly even older than Julian. Lizzie was giving Monica a running commentary on who was who. Mrs. Brooks, apparently, lived just down the road from Lizzie, at number 67. Her husband had left her after “that unfortunate incident with the gas man,” and she’d been on her own ever since. “We used to fill our prams and pushchairs with sheets, towels, and bedspreads, and wheel them all down to the North End Road. It was a great excuse for gossip, was wash day. We’d chat for hours, scrubbing away until our hands looked like prunes. I missed it when we finally got our own twin tub. It’s a dance studio now, you know. I go there every week to practice my pliés.”

  “Really?” asked Monica.

  “No, of course not really!” said Mrs. Brooks, with a cackle. “I can barely walk. If I did a plié, I’d never get back up!”

  “Who saw Johnny Haynes play at Craven Cottage?” asked Bert from number 43, somewhat predictably. Bert was a regular at the café, and every conversation Monica had had with him over the years was about the Fulham Football Club. “Did you know Pelé described him as the best passer of the ball he’d ever seen? Our Johnny Haynes.” He looked almost tearful, then took a large glug of Special Brew and seemed to rally.

  “I used to drink with George Best, you know,” said Julian.

  “That hardly makes you special. George drank with everyone!” replied Bert.

  Mrs. Wu beamed as her food was exclaimed over and ordered Benji around like a benevolent dictator. Monica wondered if he rued the day he’d been pulled into the bosom of the Wu family.

  Monica recognized one of the men, tucking enthusiastically into the sweet and sour chicken, as a local rough sleeper. Whenever they had leftovers at the café, she’d take them down to the towpath, under Putney Bridge, where she’d usually find him. She’d tucked Julian’s leaflet into his last delivery.

  “This is the best meal I’ve eaten in years,” he said to Julian.

  “Me too,” said Julian. “What’s your name?”

  “Jim,” he replied. “Pleased to meet you. And thank you for my dinner. I wish I could pay you.”

  “No need, dear chap,” said Julian, waving a hand dismissively. “One day, when you’re feeling wealthy, you can pay for your dinner and someone else’s, too. Now, you look like a man who appreciates good clothes. I don’t usually let anyone near my collection, but if you pop by my cottage tomorrow, you can choose a new outfit. So long as it’s not a W
estwood. My generosity only goes so far.”

  Monica sat down next to Julian and clapped her hands to quiet the room. No one paid her any attention.

  “Everyone shut up!” barked Mrs. Wu, creating an instant, shocked silence.

  “Thank you all for coming,” said Monica. “And a huge thank-you to Betty and Benji for this delicious food, and, of course, to our wonderful host, the creator of this supper club, Julian.”

  Monica looked at Julian, tipped back in his seat, smiling broadly and enjoying the applause, cheers, and whistles. Once everyone had resumed their own conversations, he turned to Monica.

  “Where’s Hazard?” he asked her.

  “I have no idea,” she replied, although she did. She couldn’t help herself checking her watch. Seven forty-five P.M. Maybe he was still waiting in the cemetery.

  “Monica, Mary told me her theory. I’m such a fool, not seeing it. I’m always too wrapped up in myself. Riley is the most lovely boy, but that’s what he is: just a boy, for whom life is easy. He’s never had to deal with adversity. Hazard is more complicated. He’s stood on the edge of the precipice and looked into the void. I know, because I’ve been there too. But he survived, and he came back stronger. He’d be good for you. You’d be good together.” He took her hand in his. She stared at his skin, lined by age and experience.

  “But we’re so very different, Hazard and I,” said Monica.

  “And that’s a good thing. You’ll learn from each other. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life just looking into a mirror. Believe me, I’ve tried it!” said Julian.

  Monica absentmindedly shredded the fortune cookie sitting in front of her into small crumbs then, noticing what she’d done, swept them neatly onto a side plate.

  “Julian,” she said, “do you mind if I leave you to it? I have something I need to do.”

  “Sure,” he said. “We can manage. Can’t we, Mrs. Wu?”

  “Yes! You go!” said Mrs. Wu, waving both hands in front of her as if she were shooing a chicken off its nest.

  * * *

  • • •

  MONICA RAN OUT onto the street, just as a number 14 bus was pulling away from the bus stop. She chased after it, banging on the door, and mouthing please at the driver, despite knowing that that never worked.

  It worked. The bus driver stopped and opened the doors to let her on.

  “Thank you!” she said and sank into the nearest seat. She checked her watch. Eight p.m. Surely Hazard wouldn’t have waited a whole hour? And didn’t the cemetery close at eight p.m. anyhow? This was going to be a wasted journey.

  Why hadn’t Hazard just given her his mobile number and told her to call him? It would be easy enough to find his number, or his address, but now it felt as if destiny were somehow involved. If she missed this meeting, then, quite simply, it wasn’t meant to be. Monica knew this was entirely illogical and totally unlike her, but she seemed to have changed a lot over the past few months. The old Monica would never have considered getting romantically entangled with a drug addict, for a start. Where did that fit on her list of criteria?

  Monica could see, as soon as she jumped off at the cemetery, that the wrought-iron gates were locked with a giant chain and padlock. She ought to be just a little bit relieved that she was too late. But she wasn’t.

  There were crowds of Chelsea football fans on the streets after a recent game, eating burgers from the temporary vans that had set up on the side streets. One very large, rather drunk, man, dressed in head-to-toe Chelsea memorabilia, stopped and stared at Monica. This was all she needed.

  “Smile, love!” he said, predictably. “It might never happen, you know!”

  “It won’t ever happen if I can’t get into that cemetery,” snapped Monica.

  “What’s in there? Apart from the obvious! I bet it’s love. Is it love, love?” he asked her, guffawing at himself, and slapping his friend on the back, who spat a mouthful of beer all over the pavement.

  “You know, I think it might be,” said Monica, wondering why on earth she was saying this to strangers when she hadn’t even admitted it to herself.

  “We’ll get you over that wall, won’t we, Kevin?” said her new friend. “Hold on to this.” He passed Monica a half-eaten burger, oozing ketchup and mustard. She tried not to think of the grease on her fingers. In her rush to leave the café, she’d left her antibacterial hand gel behind. He picked Monica up as if she weighed nothing and lifted her on to his shoulders. “Can you reach the top of the wall from there?” he asked her.

  “Yes!” she said, hauling herself on to the wall, so she sat with a leg on either side.

  “Can you get down all right?”

  Monica looked down. There was less of a drop on the cemetery side, and a pile of leaf mulch would soften her fall.

  “Yes, I can! Thank you! Here, this is yours.” She passed him back his burger.

  “If it all comes good, you can name your first child after me,” said the football fan.

  “What’s your name?” asked Monica, purely out of interest.

  “Alan!” he replied.

  Monica wondered how Hazard would feel about a son or daughter called Alan.

  She took a deep breath and jumped.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  Hazard and Monica

  Hazard looked at his watch. Again. It was eight p.m. and getting dark. He could hear the low thrum of an engine, as a car drove slowly down the central aisle. The only cars allowed in the cemetery were the Parks Police. They were closing up and checking for stragglers. His time was up.

  Hazard knew that he had to leave. He had to accept that Monica wasn’t coming. She was never going to come. It was all just a ridiculous fantasy. Why had he thought this was a good idea? He could have just left her his mobile number and said, Call me if you ever change your mind. Why had he blurted out this stupid instruction to meet him, in a graveyard of all places? He’d obviously watched too many Hollywood movies.

  And now, here he was, hiding from the police behind a gravestone, which was a bloody stupid thing to do, because now they’d be locking the gates. Monica wouldn’t be able to get in, anyway, even if she’d wanted to, and he’d be stuck here for the night, freezing his arse off among the ghosts.

  Hazard pulled his overcoat around him and sat on the cold ground, leaning against the Admiral’s tombstone, hidden from view. Yet he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do next. Then he heard something:

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Of course he’s not bloody here. Stupid woman.”

  Hazard peered around the tombstone, and there she was, all cross and beautiful, and absolutely, unmistakably, Monica.

  “Monica!” he said.

  “Oh, you are still here, then,” she said.

  “Yup. I was hoping you’d turn up.” Oh God, Hazard, the breaker of so many hearts over the years, the ultimate womanizer, had no idea at all what to say. “I don’t suppose you’d like a Haribo?” This was possibly the most important moment of his life and he was taking the advice of an eight-year-old. He was a total idiot.

  “Hazard, are you a complete idiot? Do you think I just broke into a locked cemetery, breaking the law for the first time in my entire life, because I was looking for a bloody Haribo?”

  Then she walked over to him and kissed him. Hard. Like she meant business.

  They kissed until it was completely dark, until their lips were swollen, until they couldn’t remember why they’d never done this before, until they couldn’t tell where one of them stopped and the other one started. Hazard had spent nearly two decades chasing the ultimate high, the most efficient way of making his brain fizz and his heart pump harder. And here it was. Monica.

  “Hazard?” Monica said.

  “Monica?” he replied, just for the thrill of saying her name.

  “How are we going to get out of here?”

 
“I guess we’ll have to call the Parks Police and make up some reason why we’re stuck in the cemetery,” he replied.

  “Hazard, it’s only been an hour, and you’ve already got me lying to the police. Where will it end?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” said Hazard, “but I can’t wait to find out.” He kissed her again, until she didn’t care who she had to lie to, just so long as he didn’t stop.

  * * *

  • • •

  MONICA KNEW THAT she wasn’t at home. She could tell, even through her closed eyelids, that this room was brighter than hers, bathed in sunlight. It was quieter too—no noise from traffic on the Fulham Road or her ancient central heating system. And it smelled different—of sandalwood, peppermint, and musk. And sex.

  And that’s when she started to remember scenes from the night before, playing out in her mind. In the back of the police car, Hazard’s hand on her thigh. Hazard fumbling for his keys, which he’d dropped in his urgency to unlock the front door. Their clothes abandoned in a heap on the bedroom floor. Had she remembered to fold them before she went to sleep? She remembered frantic, breathless, urgent sex, followed by slower sex that didn’t stop until the sun started coming up.

  Hazard. She reached her foot across the wide expanse of Hazard’s bed, searching for him. He wasn’t there. Had he gone? Run off without even leaving a note? Surely she couldn’t have gotten it all so terribly wrong?

  She opened her eyes. And there he was, sitting in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, emptying things from a drawer into a pile on the floor next to him.

  “Hazard,” she said. “What are you doing?”