The “Dyke” graffiti had been partially scrubbed off her building, leaving traces of red like a smeared lipstick kiss. Nick unlocked the door and we went upstairs. The walls of her flat were light green and lavender. There was a stereo and a crate of CDs, and the floor was lined with books on cinder-block shelves.
We settled on a blue settee with cups of tea and I looked at Nick more closely. Her eyes looked dull, heavy, and haunted like she hadn’t been sleeping well.
“What, for fuck’s sake, is the matter with your hand?” Nick gestured at the bandage.
I looked out the window at the tower blocks. I wasn’t sure how to begin.
“Spit it out, luv.”
“Don’t get upset,” I said, and Nick groaned. “Really. Don’t.”
Nick spread out her arms like she was being crucified, and I thought about my stigmata injury. Her eyes were green-gray against her brick-red jumper, which had zippers on the sleeves and a zipper going diagonally across the front. I could tell she’d sewn that one on herself by the uneven black stitching. “Nick, I got aggro from a bloke hanging round your flat.”
“You what?” Nick looked alarmed.
I told her everything that had happened in the most cheerful tone I could manage without sounding like a vacant-eyed, born-again Christian talking about the Rapture that never comes when it’s supposed to.
“I’ll kill ’im,” Nick murmured. “I am absolutely gutted.”
“I’m not blaming you,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I saw him and just ran. I never dreamt he’d hurt anyone but me. Honestly. Are you alright now? God, I’m just so sorry. I didn’t want you getting in the middle of this. That’s why I scarpered.”
“What were you doing in Manchester, visiting your family?”
“I visited some old mates. You know my family don’t speak to me.”
“What? For real?”
“Aye,” Nick said gruffly. She softened her tone when she saw my confusion. “Kid, you do know me mam chucked me out of the house when she found out I was gay? I was sure Melissa would have told you.”
“She didn’t,” I said.
“She was respecting my privacy.” Nick thoughtfully fingered the punk bracelets around her right wrist, the black one with small bondage rings and the red one with silver conical studs. “Anyway, it done me head in for awhile. But not anymore.” Nick played with the homemade bracelet on her left wrist, neon-pink beads, glittery blue, green, pink, and purple letters that spelled out “Punk” and a diminutive razor blade charm.
“You should have at least told Melissa what was happening. She knows your history with this Atom wanker.”
“I wanted to deal with summat by myself for once. Besides, Jake’s my best mate, not her. I can’t just inflict myself on her now she’s gone.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Has your trolley completely derailed?”
Nick shook her head. “No, luv. You mean, am I off my trolley?”
“Are you off your trolley? Don’t you know that Melissa loves you?”
“Oh, aye, an’ Jesus loves me and all. She doesn’t need me whingeing on about some queer-bashing brother of an ex-lover. I wouldn’t be in this shite in the first place if I weren’t—”
“Oh, come on. You’re not even going to try telling me some bollocky, rubbishy bullshit about Melissa caring what your sexuality is. That’s absolute bollocks and you know it. The three of us are like family.”
“You’re a romantic bugger, ain’t ya?” Nick said. “You hardly even know me.”
“Don’t fucking say that,” I protested. “Of course I bloody know you.”
Nick squinted at me. “All I know is whenever you’re around me, you get hurt. Christ, if I were any kind of a mate at all I’d stay away from you. In fact, after I walk you back to the tube, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said. “Besides, Melissa’s meeting me here.”
“Melissa’s coming here? Fuck me.” Nick looked frantic. “She will fucking kill me for what happened to you.”
“No one’s gonna kill anybody.”
Nick stood up. “It’s getting dark. I’ll walk you back.”
“What about Melissa?”
“I ain’t gonna be here, mate, am I? I can’t face her.”
I crossed my arms and sat immobile on the couch.
“I cannot be arsed with this.” Nick sounded near tears.
“I’m not going anywhere. When Melissa gets here, the two of you can carry me out when I go limp. I wasn’t a member of ACT UP all those years for nothing, you know.”
“You are not committing an act of civil disobedience in my flat.”
“Nonviolent civil disobedience,” I corrected her.
We heard the buzzer go off.
“Well, let her in,” I said. Nick didn’t move. I went downstairs and opened the street-level door.
“What’s going on?” Melissa followed me upstairs.
“Don’t yell at her,” I said.
“Don’t tell me what tone of voice to use.” Melissa looked more hassled than I’d ever seen her, except for the night I’d been injured. She sat on the arm of Nick’s settee without removing her coat. “Have you got any idea what’s been going on around here in your absence? Have you got any explanation? She could have been bloody killed. Why did you not tell us Emilia’s brother had turned up again?”
“I’m sorry,” Nick said, trembling. “I wish it had been me.”
“That’s crap,” Melissa said angrily. “You know I’d be just as upset if it had been you who’d got hurt.”
“I was scared,” Nick said. “I never thought Atom would go after anyone but me. Why would he? If I had thought for one moment—Christ, you’ve got every right to hate me.”
“Hate you? I could never hate you. Jesus, who puts these daft ideas in your head? I am not your mum. You’ll not suddenly lose me, you know. I was really gutted by what happened to Amanda and pissed off you weren’t here.” Melissa draped an arm loosely over Nick’s shoulders, and I thought her hand looked kind and full of grace.
“No, you’re right. I should have warned you.” Nick leaned against Melissa’s damp, charcoal-gray wool coat.
“Listen. I did something you won’t like,” Melissa said. “I found an old address of Emilia’s in Belfast. I couldn’t get her number but I wrote her, telling her what’s been going on.”
“Fucking hell,” Nick looked ill, “you told her? That is summat I cannot deal with. It took me so long to get over her. Seeing her brother brings it all back.”
“She needs to know. She used to be my mate too, remember? It hurt me when she left, too. Not like it hurt you, but I felt betrayed. I should have got in touch with her ages ago, but you made me promise not to. You can slag me off all you want to, but I can’t have this happening to Amanda or to you. I had to do something.”
Melissa took us back to her flat and ordered in a nice curry. Nick was too upset to eat much.
“I know it’s shit ‘orrible,” Melissa said. “But if leaving you is her way of coping with a crisis she doesn’t deserve you. We probably won’t hear from her anyway. And what does that say about her? Please have more than that.”
Nick speared a pea with her fork then put it and her knife down, said, “Sorry,” and went into her room.
“She was absolutely devastated when Emilia fucked off back to Ireland. I think it was her first really serious relationship. Keep eating.” Melissa pushed back her chair and went to check on Nick.
I finished my plate of curry and did the washing up. As I made the tea, I could hear them talking through the open door. “You’re a sensitive person,” Melissa said. “These things hit you hard. But you can stay with me for as long as you like. You don’t have to cope with this on your own.”
“I got so
bloody depressed the last time.” Nick’s voice sounded shaky. “I don’t want to go down there again.”
I could certainly understand that. I brought in a tray with the tea. “Nicky,” I sat on the edge of the bed next to her and Melissa, “I know what it’s like to be too depressed to function.”
“You do?” Nick asked forlornly. “My head goes black. Like a curtain being pulled down.”
“I know it does,” I said softly, touching her foot.
“If it gets to be too much for you to handle there are things we can do,” Melissa said quietly. “Remember we talked about you temporarily going on some medication?”
Nick lowered her head. “You think I’m mental.”
“No, I don’t,” Melissa said. “You’re having a hard time. Everybody needs help sometimes.”
“You don’t,” Nick accused her tremulously. “You’re always so fucking well-adjusted.”
Melissa patted her leg. “Oh no, love, I’m not. I have my problems like everybody else. We all have different ways of coping with them. Believe me, sometimes I need help, too. Some people just have a difficult time showing that side of themselves.”
“I show it too damn much,” Nick said. “I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me if I fall apart.”
“I couldn’t give a monkey’s,” Melissa said firmly.
“A monkey’s what?” I asked.
“It means I don’t care,” Melissa laughed. “For fuck’s sake, Nick. I put up with this half-Yank.” She gestured at me then rumpled Nick’s hair playfully. “You think that I would judge you?”
Telling myself to shut up, I revealed, “Nicky, I’ve taken psychiatric medications before.”
“You have?” Nick asked.
“In the past,” I said, hating myself for only telling the partial truth. But I wasn’t ready to let Melissa know that what was wrong with me was permanent, that I would be on medication for the rest of my life.
We sat in the back room together and watched the Nirvana video Live! Tonight! Sold out! Nick and I cried through most of it because Kurt was dead. I guess Melissa reckoned it would be cathartic for Nick. It was for me too, though I’m not sure she knew that. “He’s dead. Kurt’s dead,” I said. “I cannot believe that he’s dead.”
“He’s been dead since 1994,” Melissa said, not unreasonably.
We watched her uncut copy of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, which was beautiful, and Nirvana at Reading in 1992. I loved the way Kurt started playing the guitar to Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” as the introduction to “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Nick still didn’t think she could sleep, so Melissa put on Quadrophenia, a film based on the Who’s rock opera about the mods and the rockers in Brighton. We watched videos well into the night. I was terrified of the questions Melissa would ask about my psychiatric history once we were alone. Eventually she’s going to catch me taking pills, I thought. Or I’m going to run out of meds completely, and she’ll catch me having a nervous breakdown. My current cache was in my Gibson case. But she never asked a thing. Instead, she tucked Nick and me into the guest bed with a hot-water bottle by our feet and kissed us both goodnight.
TRACK 28 English Rose
Melissa took me on walks to strengthen my ankle. She loved Hampstead Heath and Regent’s Park. The Heath and Queen Mary’s Rose Garden were full of frost. Nick and I had both been staying at Melissa’s until a mate of Nick’s came down to London for a visit and she returned to her own flat. I stayed on, citing the cold weather and the urgent need to continue recording my songs.
We walked in Hyde Park one day, past the empty green-and-white-striped chairs by the water, looking at the ducks, their bums in the air as they dunked their heads to scavenge for food. The city of London was piled high all around us and I felt tranquil. I looked up at the Post Office Tower. Melissa took my hand and smiled at me. Many times she had taken my hand to warm up my fingers or in friendship, but today it felt different. I was getting a different vibe from her. Or I imagined I was. Maybe it was only my own vibe folded over on itself. I concentrated on watching my breath turn white as I exhaled and not tripping over my own feet.
I looked at Melissa in her familiar raincoat, thick-soled, black vegan creepers on her feet, and thought about what a good person she was. I had on a blue Nirvana sweatshirt, the hood pulled over my head. Melissa was a few inches taller than I was, and now she draped her arm casually across my shoulders. I tugged on the belt loop of her faded, black trousers, pulling her closer. Mist hovered over the grass, and I felt romantic. We passed a flower seller, and I stopped. I bought a bouquet with as many roses in it as I could afford and handed it to Melissa.
“This is for me?” she asked, taken aback. I nodded, nervous she might misinterpret the gesture. God forbid she thinks I’m coming on to her. But Melissa wasn’t like that. “Cheers so much, love,” Melissa said. “I can’t even remember the last time anyone’s given me flowers.”
Then what a shit-arse Martin must be to go out with you all this time and not bring you flowers, I thought. “It’s a token of my honest admiration and affection,” I said rather formally, embarrassing myself.
Melissa said, “You’re very sweet.”
“And you’re the coolest straight woman I’ve ever met,” I said to let her know I respected her boundaries.
Melissa’s eyes were gentle. “That’s quite a compliment,” she said finally. We continued walking, bent forward against the wind and the first drops of water. With the hood of her own black Joy Division sweatshirt pulled up, Melissa looked like a dark tulip in the slants of rain.
At the flat, Melissa put the flowers in water. “I know I’m the reincarnation of a rat,” I said, having once explained to her that I was born in the year of the rat, always had rats as pets and felt a strange affinity to them. “But you are the incarnation of a rose.” Or a rain-soaked tulip, I amended in my head.
“Come here, sweetie.” Melissa gave me a hug and I felt her soft cheek against mine. “Watch you don’t cut yourself on my thorns.”
I laughed. “Stigmata of the highest order.”
“No more stigmata for you,” Melissa said firmly. She’d only just removed the sutures from my hand.
Puncture wounds reminded me of the biblical story of Abraham, and how God asked him to sacrifice Isaac, his son. Abraham had lifted the knife and God had stopped him. But Abraham had already killed Isaac in his heart. I wondered what that meant. What was God’s point? Maybe it wasn’t that we should do anything God tells us, but that we should have a loyalty to life, whatever life we’re living, while we’re here.
TRACK 29 Reuters
That night, Melissa took the roses upstairs to her bedroom. As we stood on the landing, she asked, “Why did you say I was the coolest straight woman you’d ever met?”
“Because you are the coolest straight woman I’ve ever met.”
She looked uncomfortable. “Usually you treat me like a person, not a category.”
I looked at my feet. “I didn’t want you to be upset I’d given you roses. I didn’t want you to think I meant anything romantic by it. That I didn’t respect your boundaries.”
“First of all, I can’t imagine ever being upset at a best mate giving me roses. Second, I know you respect me. I don’t have any weird ideas about lesbians being predatory. And if someone, gay or otherwise, made a polite pass at me and I wasn’t interested, I’d simply say so and leave it at that. I can take care of myself.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t.”
Melissa said awkwardly, “Do you still want to sleep in my room?”
She didn’t have to ask. It had become our habit. I felt warm, comfortable and safe with her. I think she knew that and asked because something had shifted between us. I didn’t know what that was, but I felt a subtle change, like one might feel a slight draught. She wouldn’t want to jeopardize my
feelings of safety. “I’d like to sleep with you,” I said.
“It’s dead cold,” she agreed. “I’m being silly anyway. Why wouldn’t you call me straight? It’s how I behave. It’s how I live my life. What else would you call me?” She laughed self-consciously.
“That doesn’t mean I have to label you,” I said.
We sat on her bed. I studied Melissa’s face in the light from a street lamp that glowed faintly through the curtains. The graceful curve of her nose, her smooth skin and deep, lovely eyes. I didn’t often get the chance to stare at her so blatantly because I never wanted her to catch me at it, but she had something on her mind and didn’t notice. Melissa turned and brushed a hand lightly over my cheek. “Alright, love?” She sighed and lay on top of the covers. She looked at the ceiling. “Fucking hell, I feel mortified.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t believe I’m going to ask you this. When you said you didn’t mean anything romantic, was it because you didn’t think it would be appropriate or because you would never think of me in that way?”
My stomach began to ache. I didn’t know how to reply. If I said I didn’t mean anything romantic because it was inappropriate, would she think I was pathetically lusting after the unobtainable straight woman? Would she think less of me or feel sorry for me? If I said I would never think of her that way, would it reassure her or would she be insulted that I didn’t find her attractive? I realized I was treating her like a stereotypical straight woman again, not giving her enough credit. She wouldn’t try to trap me with a question like that. She wasn’t that kind of person. She just wanted to know. But I still didn’t know what to say. “I meant that I would never want to hurt you,” I said. “Not for all the world.”
Melissa touched my cheek again softly. “Ignore me. I don’t know what I’m saying. Fucking ‘ell.”
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