‘Make yourself at home,’ she said.
With slight trepidation, I peeled off my rucksack and walked cautiously into the room. I was sure Alice would report back to Jamie as soon as I left. Moving a large cream cushion with precision, I sat down on the edge of the sofa. Her kindness felt like a trap. But if her cousin-boyfriend comment wasn’t just a ploy to get me into her home then maybe she wasn’t as clean-cut as she seemed.
‘So, do you want to talk about it?’ Alice came over holding two full mugs of coffee in her hands. Did she want me to talk about it? Maybe Jamie had her wearing a wire. I dreaded to think how much she must hate me. I looked around the room nervously.
‘Not really,’ I told my coffee, praying it wasn’t poisoned. Alice watched me, suspicion or malice seemingly absent. I caught her thick-lashed eye. Maybe she had the right to know she was harbouring a fugitive.
‘I did something terrible, to Jamie – to Jamie and Sam.’ And that was just the start of it.
Alice nodded, not really bothered, taking another sip and saying simply, ‘I know.’
She knew? And she’d invited me back to her place? Even I could taste the disloyalty in the coffee. Unless, maybe it was poison after all.
‘Look, Sam told me what went on. He’s trying to sort it out.’ She said the words with care, before I could cut her off. My stomach turned, my mind oscillating between wanting Sam and Jamie to be okay and wanting to be okay myself.
‘Oh God, he must hate me.’ I placed my coffee down on the table and hung my head in my hands. Out of the corner of my eye I spied Alice lifting my mug and slipping a coaster underneath it. She could dress as edgy as she liked but show homes didn’t stay show homes by themselves.
‘He doesn’t… hate you,’ Alice said tactfully. ‘I think he just needs some time.’
I couldn’t look at her. I felt sick.
‘Stay here for a few days. You can have the spare—’
My look must have cut her off. The so-called spare bedroom. That’s what got me into all this mess in the first place. But had their kindness been genuine? Maybe having me around was the instant ego boost everyone was after; nothing like a ‘someone has it worse’ moment to feel pretty content with your lot, right? I looked at Alice; she didn’t seem like a manipulative mastermind. With a warm smile she reiterated, ‘I’d be okay with you staying for a bit until you work out your next steps.’
‘But why?’ My words sliced through her sentence. I’d ruined everything.
‘It’s a pretty big apartment.’ She shrugged. I’d be pretty sure she was boasting if she didn’t look so sad about it. ‘And because we all make mistakes,’ she continued. ‘And just because you’ve done some bad things, made one or two bad moves, doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.’ Based on the cousin, she was speaking from experience. ‘And when he asked me to look out for you I knew it was the right thing to do.’ She nodded, eyes wide with kindness. Someone was looking out for me.
‘Jesus?’ I asked, eyebrow raised.
‘No, you dickhead.’ Alice’s laugh was open and warm. ‘Joshua.’
Joshua. Joshua? He knew what I’d done, who I’d tried to do. And must, by now, know everything that wasn’t real about me. Even worse, everything that I was. And he’d said he couldn’t talk to me, that now wasn’t a good time. He was right about that.
I tossed and turned in Alice’s spare bed, mortified. It had been hours since we had arrived back at hers. Coffee had turned to wine and sooner or later I had been talked into staying, at least for a couple of days. That’s what you said the last time, I heard Zoe’s voice say in my mind. But still, one thought dominated the rest. He knew what I’d done.
I groaned and turned to look up at the blank white ceiling. But why should I care? He was just some guy I’d been surfing with a few times. The punch to my gut told me that wasn’t true. He was more than that; he was my friend. Maybe he could have been more, not that it mattered now. I had been too caught up in my own maybe one day to even contemplate a future with anyone else. And now both men needed to get as far away from me as possible. The thought rolled round and round my mind but then, another thought, barely audible above the onslaught of self-loathing, said: Joshua knew everything, and though he wouldn’t speak to me, he was still looking out for me. He was still one step ahead of me, trying to make sure I’d be okay. I tried to cling to that one scrap of goodness as my mind replayed the shitstorm of today. Like a horror movie I cut from scene to sorry scene. Hangover. Nakedness. Sam. Homelessness. CreateSpace. Tim. Joblessness. But then Alice and Joshua. Kindness.
Chapter 33
7 September 2020 – Sydney, Australia
All I could see was ceiling. Bright and white. For a moment, I was back in the box room. Sam cooking breakfast outside. Jamie bizarrely there too. She had never been in my daydreams before. But Sam and Jamie were over, I remembered, as a wave of sickness washed over me. I’d broken it. Everything. And more than anything, more than ever, I just wanted things to be fixed. I guess I always wanted what I couldn’t have. The guilt felt unshakable, but the grief of losing him stretched on. I guess I didn’t know what I wanted.
Groaning, I turned onto my side and reached for my phone. No messages. No missed calls. Nothing. I swiped to outbound. Seven messages. Five calls. Three WhatsApps. All to one person. Sam had answered none of them. ‘Just give them space.’ I recalled Alice’s advice from the night before. I looked at my outbox again. At this rate, space wouldn’t be all Sam would be after; he’d be getting a restraining order. I swiped through to one:
I’m so sorry. Please call me. I’m sorry. I love you. Call…
I exited the screen. I couldn’t bear to look at my desperation. Sam no doubt felt the same. But he was my best friend. Or he had been. Before I ruined his life. I needed him to forgive me. I needed things to be fixed.
Forcing myself out of bed, I padded barefoot around the unfamiliar apartment and into the living room. The empty glasses and pile of tissues from the day before had been cleared away, but with a headache now accompanying my heartache, I didn’t need reminding that I had had too much to drink last night. I never knew when to stop.
Walking across the open-plan space and towards the kitchen felt like a marathon. Every inch of me ached. I switched on the coffee maker, desperate for caffeine. Scanning the work surface for the abandoned mugs of yesterday, I noticed an open notebook and picked it up to read:
Gone for a run, be back soon.
Gone to work, be back later
I had no idea what time it was. The fact that Alice had been for a run, showered and gone off to work told me I must have slept for hours. So why did I feel so exhausted? I poured the coffee, black, and went back to the sofa. I hugged my knees in towards my chest and lifted the hot mug to my lips. Damn hangover, stupid Sydney. Screw-up, me.
Desperate for a distraction, I looked around Alice’s pristine apartment for something to do. No TV. No messy stack of Disney DVDs. No corner-torn Cosmopolitans telling me how to supercharge my sex life or bag a ballsy pay rise. This was a grown-up’s apartment. I hugged my legs tighter to my chest, trying not to be patronised by Alice’s perfect place. At least this apartment wasn’t scattered with mirrors like Sam and Jamie’s. Instead a large landscape hung above the ornate mantelpiece. A beachscape of Coogee, perfect and promising. It took all my strength not to throw my coffee at it, making it muddy and stained. It felt two-dimensional and predictable, a literal interpretation of the landscape, failing to be a photo but missing all the potential a painting had to add. It failed to capture anything real. It didn’t need to have people in it to show the depth of what that view must have seen – falling in love, falling out of it, lives moving on, lives staying stuck. I forced my eyes away from its perfection. I didn’t care any more; it wasn’t my picture to paint.
Scattered across the mantelpiece were framed photographs of Alice. Alice and her colleagues. Alice and the church group. Alice with Joshua and Jamie. A hall of friendship reminding me of all the brid
ges I’d burnt in such a short space of time. Finishing the dregs of my coffee but feeling none of the effects, I placed it on the table and pressed myself further into the sofa. Tears rising again, I closed my eyes to stop them falling and let exhaustion engulf me once again.
The creak of the latch and sound of the apartment door opening woke me. Stirring, I glanced down at my pyjama top and scrambled to hide the mess of wet tissues surrounding me on all sides. It was too late. Alice was already strolling across to the kitchen, clicking on the kettle and offering me a drink. She’d woken up, gone for a run, completed an eight-hour shift and returned home; I hadn’t put on a bra.
Alice handed me a mug and sat down beside me. Choosing to ignore the bombsite I’d created around me, she asked me about my day. She was sitting right next to me, but her voice sounded distant. My mind was elsewhere. Sam. The thought of him being with Jamie had made me sick. But now, to think he wasn’t made me feel a thousand times worse. I’d had my best friend back. And I’d ruined everything. Why couldn’t I have just told him the truth? I looked at Alice, trying and failing to hold back tears. Things were going to get better soon. Things had to get better soon, right?
‘Oh, Jess.’ Alice reached her hand over to give me a little stroke. ‘Things will get better soon,’ she said, as though she could read my mind. Maybe it was the scrubs she still had on or maybe it was our conversation last night, but the Alice before me looked a lot more human than the one who had called my name on the beach the day before. I looked into her eyes, empathetic and sincere. She understood.
‘Give them space. They’ll sort themselves out,’ she said. ‘You concentrate on getting yourself back on track.’
‘That’s the problem,’ I said, through fresh sobs, ‘I’m not sure what “on track” looks like without Sam. He was part of my future for such a long time.’ There were few secrets between us now.
‘Jess, believe me. I’ve been there.’ I believed her, she had. ‘For the next few days it will hurt like hell, then one day it will hurt a little less.’
I watched as she looked wistfully towards the painting. I marvelled at her kindness – not to mention her flawless profile – for the thousandth time. More fool the person who let her go.
‘Then one day it will hurt a little less than that.’ She turned to face me again, and though her voice cracked at the memory she smiled. ‘Then maybe one day it might not hurt at all.’ Maybe one day.
‘Is that what happened for you?’
‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘I realised that people screw up, we’re human. People lie. They cheat.’ Her voice caught on the last word; we both knew that was true for her. ‘But my God, we have to have grace for ourselves, or we’d never get out of bed in the morning. For what it’s worth, I also realised I didn’t need a guy for my happy ending.’ She looked at me. ‘I could make my own.’ She laughed. ‘Man, I sound like a greetings card!’ She did. But it was a card I wanted to receive.
I began to cry again. Bloody hell, I needed to stop. ‘You’ll get there,’ Alice said again. Would I? Right now, it felt like I was getting nowhere. ‘I promise, you’ll get there,’ she repeated and though everything in me wanted to argue, to ask her where there was, if it even existed – I searched her words, like the beam from a lighthouse, hoping they’d guide me to wherever was next.
Chapter 34
9 September 2020 – Sydney, Australia
The sun was actually shining for once, though I’d never been a fan of irony. I descended the hill down Coogee Bay Road. But, equally ironically, handing out CVs was proving an uphill struggle. I knew it was time to start again; the only thing worse than staying was going home defeated and proving everyone who had waved me off, sceptical of my fresh start. I had to give it one more go. I had to. But this time, I had to do it properly.
Two girls giggled as they passed me, their red-tinged shoulders telling me they were travelling and had just arrived in Sydney. They were around eighteen, clutching A4 pages of their own, without a care in the world; I was carrying enough for all three of us. I’d set off with ten CVs. Two hours later, I still had nine in my hand and now the shops were starting to shut. I had been told summer jobs didn’t kick in until November more times than I could count. ‘Summer job?’ The words tasted nasty each time I asked them, tacky and temporary. Just like my time here. I paced further up Coogee Bay Road, familiar locals smiling at me but my head somewhere else altogether.
Shit.
I saw Jamie approaching on the other side of the road, jogging in the distance. Without thinking, I turned to walk into the nearest shop I could find.
‘Sorry, mate, we’re just closing up.’ A tall, rosy manager beamed at me, his happiness at going home vastly outweighing his regret at not being able to let me in.
‘I just want a coffee to go,’ I pleaded, like an addict trying to score coke. He shook his head. ‘Can I just use the toilet, please?’ I asked.
He raised his eyebrows at me and I turned away. My stomach turned at the thought of what she might do, what she might say if she saw me. I didn’t want to find out.
Deciding the hill was probably the best place to hide, I began to ascend. I walked slowly, clutching my papers closer to my chest. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Jamie’s svelte figure running straight past me on the other side of the road. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then she crossed the road, still jogging, and turned to loop back on herself. She was running directly towards me, her hair bouncing in the early evening sunlight. There was nowhere to hide. I had a split second to decide whether to smile or stop or duck. Then she shot straight past me, clearly seeing me but choosing not to. Reminding me of what I already felt – inconvenient, insignificant, invisible – and yet, somehow, still managing to get in the way.
9 April 2020 – Essex, England
I reached a hand up to the big brass door knocker before drawing it back again. I looked at the duck-egg blue of my best friend’s new home, clashing against the green of my jealousy. Zoe was a homeowner; she shared a mortgage with Ben. They were building a life together. I should be happy for them, and yet somehow it felt like she’d stolen a moment that was meant to me mine first. This was stupid. I had a job; I lived in the best city in the world. And being single was better than being with the wrong person, I knew that. I reached my hand towards the door again as it swung open.
‘You got me a plant?’ Zoe said as I thrust the peace lily towards her.
‘Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?’ I joked, leaning forward to give her an awkward kiss on the cheek. I felt like we were playing grown-ups, but Zoe had taken to her role well.
‘I’d prefer wine.’ She grinned as she stood back and beckoned me into the front room, walking across the large living space to place the plant on the glass coffee table in the centre. ‘Beer?’ she asked, already pushing the door into the kitchen.
‘Shit, Zo.’ I followed her into the kitchen. ‘This is an adult house.’
I knew we were in our late twenties, that she was on a decent salary, that Ben was on one too, and yet somehow it took me by surprise. Zoe grinned, eyes wide in pride, as Ben came in from the open patio doors to join us, opening his arms wide to embrace me. If I didn’t love Zoe so much I was sure I’d hate him for being so great.
‘Burgers are ready.’ He smiled, nodding to the spacious patio outside, April’s lukewarm temperatures unable to quell his excitement.
‘Awesome.’ I grinned, grabbing my beer from Zoe and following them onto the decking. The large wooden table was set for three and Zoe and I each pulled out a chair.
‘Thanks for having me, guys.’ The words felt strange to say, seeing as for most of the time we’d known each other, Zoe’s house was usually mine. I looked across at her and Ben, both with identical sauce smudges stuck to their smiles. This was a big step, and I was happy for them, I really was. I stole a glance to the empty seat beside me, trying desperately to ignore the niggle of selfishness rising within me – but I wanted to be happy for me too. I just was
n’t sure I could do that here any more, whether I needed to go and find that happiness somewhere else, somewhere new.
10 September 2020 – Sydney, Australia
I heard the door slam shut. Alice had a nightshift; she’d be out until morning. Lifting the covers I had been pretending to sleep under, I stood, already dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. I’d felt heavy all week, but now I felt lighter, less tangible somehow. I felt like I was drifting, like I wasn’t really here. And very soon I wouldn’t be.
It didn’t take me long after my failed attempt to find even the most mediocre of jobs to come to the decision that Sydney wasn’t for me. It didn’t suit me. It never had. I’d tried to fake it until I made it. Now I’d been exposed and there was nothing left to hide. Dragging myself to the mirrored wardrobe, I ignored my reflection as I slid the doors open. Bending down, I picked up my rucksack and began to stuff my clothes into it: the bikini I had hoped to live in here, the blue sundress I had bought to impress Sam, the heels that had made me look the part at CreateSpace. I held them in my hands, turning them over. The red soles were starting to rub off, and with another scratch a large piece of paint flaked off completely; they were fakes. I should have known they weren’t authentic, that even though they looked real for a time, they were just a lie. Like everything else in my life, never quite the real thing.
Maybe some people just weren’t meant to make it? I would almost believe it if I didn’t seem to be the one person royally screwing up their life.
Walking out of the spare room and into Alice’s Homes and Gardens apartment, I bit back the tears. Doctor, gorgeous, entirely in control… I listed her accolades as I slumped down onto her sofa. Nice, hospitable – I added countless gifts to her list. I’d been all misery and still she pretended she was fine having me around. Maybe she was fine with it? Maybe she liked the company? But I couldn’t rely on other people for the rest of my life, could I?
The Spare Bedroom: A totally heartwarming, funny and feel good romantic comedy Page 25