When We Were Young

by Richard Roper

  As the front door slammed, it was finally the jolt to the brain I needed. Jesus Christ, what the hell was I doing? The words Babs had left unsaid were quite clearly “do this anymore” or “be with you” or any other terrible combination that meant she was thinking of leaving me. Well, that wasn’t an option. I wasn’t going to let the only good thing in my life go. What I needed was a plan. Something that made it clear how committed I was to her. A big gesture.

  A week later, I was standing outside her office just off Great Portland Street, holding a box of chalk. As I began to draw on the road, a few passersby—tourists, mainly—stopped to see what I was doing. Perhaps they thought I was one of those people on the Millennium Bridge who painted over chewing gum to turn it into art; maybe that I was some sort of Banksy type creating a searing satirical artwork—Thatcher but with the face of a duck or something. Nope, I wanted to tell them, I’m just a big idiot in love.

  As the letters I’d drawn became more visible each time I went over them, a small crowd began to gather. I saw two Japanese tourists gasp and put their hands up to their faces. I smiled and shrugged. “She might say no,” I said.

  Once I’d finished my handiwork, I stood back, looked up at the fourth-floor window and called Babs’s work phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s Theo.”

  “Oh, hiya. You all right? I’m glad you called, actually. I was going to ask you to get toilet paper from the Co-op if you’re planning on . . . leaving the house.”

  “Sure,” I said, the slight barely registering. “But I’ve got a question for you first.”

  I could hear Babs typing. “Yeah, what’s that?” she said, sounding distracted.

  “Actually, why don’t you come to the window. You can see it from there.”

  “Window? What are you . . . Hang on.”

  I squinted up at the fourth floor. Sunlight was bouncing off the window, so I couldn’t quite see if anyone was up there. I looked back at the road. Would Babs be able to see the words? They were pretty big. BABS, WILL YOU MARRY ME? P.S. IT’S THEO. I was so proud of myself, especially with the jaunty postscript. What a brilliant proposal story this was going to be. And if a few people took photos and they found their way onto Twitter or BuzzFeed or the local news, then that would just be a nice bonus, wouldn’t it?

  I was still on the phone. I could hear excited voices in the background. Some whooping. Some laughter. I heard Babs pick the receiver back up, and I held my breath.

  “Wash it off, Theo,” she said. Then she put the phone down.

  There can’t be many more humiliating tasks than clearing your proposal off a busy side road while trying to keep up the pretense to those around you that she said yes. When I’d finally got rid of it, I found the nearest pub I could and set about getting staggeringly, award-winningly drunk.

  Somehow, I made it back to our Highbury flat, only to find a force field had mysteriously developed which made it impossible to get my key into the lock. When I looked at how delicate the panel of glass above the handle was, it seemed obvious that I should put my elbow through it. I didn’t even wrap my jacket around my arm. The crunch of the glass seemed so quiet—I’d been expecting the sort of crash of the sound effects you got on the radio—so it was with surprise that I registered the blood blossoming so quickly that it had coated my arm in seconds, and the whole thing seemed so preposterous that I found myself laughing, and stumbling backward onto the ground.

  That was how Babs found me: flat on my back, making a one-winged blood angel on the concrete.

  I needed twenty-eight stitches.

  Babs waited for six weeks before she kicked me out.

  I didn’t deserve two minutes.

  * * *

  The barman shook me gently awake. As I made my way uncertainly upstairs, I realized, with a clarity that had eluded me since the breakup, just how laughable it was to think I ever had a shot of winning Babs back after the way I’d treated her. I’d got my priorities so appallingly wrong, and now I was having to live with the consequences. I thought about what Joel had said when he summarized his life in the showbiz spotlight: “It’s . . . fine.” Was that what I’d thrown everything away for? How had it taken me so long to see that? I suppose I’d much preferred to live in ignorant bliss. All the regrets and terrible choices I’d made were angling to be noticed like attention-starved children. Look at me! No, look at me!

  I paused outside the room, thinking about Joel and what he’d been hiding from me. The ice-cream escapade had been a distraction—I realized that now. I’d fallen for it far too easily. I wasn’t buying his bucket list excuse anymore. There had to be more to it. What if this really was another example of him shutting me down when I tried to find out if he was okay . . . and I’d just let him? There was a real possibility that I would look back at this moment in years gone by, lying awake at night because I’d failed to do the right thing.

  I looked up at the light above me in the corridor, the bulb fizzing as the light wavered. No, I thought. Not this time. From this moment on, things were going to change. And tomorrow that was going to start with me getting the truth out of Joel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Joel

  I woke shortly after dawn. Theo was snoring softly, each out-breath briefly levitating a clump of hair from his face. Unable to get back to sleep, I decided to slip outside. I threw the stolen coat around my shoulders and pinched Theo’s slippers before padding outside.

  The bridge had little enclaves for people to stand to avoid traffic, and I stood in the one closest to the center, leaning out over the river and surveying my domain. The sun was yet to break through the clouds, and a faint layer of fog hung above the river, which seemed to be motionless, as if waiting for the day to begin before it flowed again. There was a narrow boat moored up on the north bank, sleek and royal blue. Two years ago, when Tooth’s popularity began to grow and the paparazzi had started following Amber around, we’d seriously considered the idea of getting a boat like this, keeping on the move.

  “Even if they find us,” I remember her saying, spearing a strawberry on a fork (then pretending to feed it to me before eating it herself), “they can pursue us like Diana and Dodi, but the worst that’ll happen is that we’ll steer into a swan or something.”

  I smiled at the memory. As if on cue, my phone vibrated with a message from her.

  Hey. So I’m on my way back.

  Shit.

  The message continued:

  Charlotte’s buggered off somewhere with some terrible creep who’s got a yacht, and I don’t really want to be here on my own. I’m in a cab to the airport. You back in London yet? If not, I’ll come to Kemble. Been ages since I’ve seen your ma. I know she’s never exactly warmed to me, but it would be good to see her. X

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Without thinking through what I was going to say, I called her.

  “Hey, love, you get my message?”

  “Hey, yeah—I was just going to say, are you sure you don’t want to stay out until the end of the week? Why don’t you just try and relax there for a few more days?”

  I could hear the desperation in my voice already. I should have waited before I called her—planned it properly.

  “I’m not staying out here on my own, Joel. It actually gets quite creepy at night—it’s so quiet. Last night I could have sworn I heard voices outside the cottage.”

  “The thing is, though,” I said, casting around wildly for something to say, “it . . . is all paid for.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Amber said, “I didn’t realize that was your concern. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you back your half.”

  “No, no, sorry, that’s not what I . . . Of course you should leave if you’re not safe there, if you’re not happy.”

  In the background, there was a volley of car horns and Italian insults—so elegant and lyrical, even if they we
re clearly just telling someone to get fucked.

  “So where shall I come to, then? I’ve not actually booked my flights yet. Bristol or London?”

  “London,” I said quickly. “I’ll try to be back in a few days. Depends on Mum.”

  “Oh, the poor thing. And poor you, having to deal with all that. Are you sure I can’t come to you, try to take some of the weight off your shoulders? Maybe it’ll give me a chance to impress your mum for once.”

  “No, honestly, it’s fine, you don’t need to do that.”

  “But—”

  “Amber, it’s okay! Just head home to Hampstead and I’ll see you there when I can.”

  I gripped the wall tightly with my free hand. I felt a horrible urge to hurl my phone down into the water. Using Mum as an excuse was about the worst possible thing I could have done. I just wish I’d thought of something better at the time.

  “Joel,” Amber said, her voice steady, though I could tell she was worried. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, okay? So please don’t get cross. You made a promise to me that you’d tell me if you started drinking again. That was the deal we made. So please just . . . Are you telling me the truth?”

  I looked out over the river just as a heron swooped overhead, its wings disturbing the fog. One of my legs had started to itch. It was more like a deep throbbing this morning, the same way my knuckles used to feel the morning after. How long was I going to be able to keep up this pretense? How many more days could I really last? But then I imagined the alternative, feeling Amber’s hot tears mingling with mine as I held her and told her the life we’d built together was crumbling.

  “I promise I’m not drinking. I haven’t wavered even for a moment.” My voice was a monotone, like a recorded message, but I could hear Amber letting out the breath she’d been holding, and I latched on to it—like a diver who’d run out of air taking oxygen from another.

  “I’m sorry I had to ask again,” Amber said. “I’m so proud of you for staying strong. And I love you, okay?”

  “I love you, too,” I said.

  The heron had circled around and now swooped down to the riverbank, where it found a patch of grass and stood up tall and statuesque, as if it were posing for a portrait, the final addition to the scene. For a moment, everything was perfectly still. But then a disturbance in the bushes nearby had the heron lifting off, wings beating furiously as it flew over my head, letting out a single strangled cry as it passed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Theo

  Newbridge to Oxford, 13.5 miles

  (144.6 miles to Thames Barrier, London)

  What a fucking mess,” Joel said as we looked into the box that was now an ice-cream graveyard.

  “I suppose we should have predicted that it was going to melt,” I said. “Because of how temperature works and everything.”

  We ended up having to chuck the whole lot away, but the resulting cleanup operation took a good chunk of time out of the morning.

  “We could just stay here today,” I said. “Find a café somewhere and have a solid writing day. Stay overnight at the pub again.” I hoped Joel would believe my keenness to stay here was because I wanted to get on with the writing. In fact, I reckoned that if we spent a day sitting across from each other—rather than being constantly on the move—it would be easier for me to unlock the door and get him to tell me what was really going on. But Joel wasn’t interested. Worse still, any trace of the bonhomie from yesterday seemed to have gone.

  When we cycled off, it felt like he was just going through the motions—unable to actually put any effort into pedaling—and when I tried to make conversation just to get things going, his responses were monosyllabic. We went for a stretch of more than an hour without speaking, and the silence was only broken when Joel asked, in a pained voice, “How far to Oxford?”

  “Just a mile or so, I think,” I replied. It was double that at least, but I thought it best to bend the truth a little.

  We stopped for a breather at Bablock Hythe, an ancient crossing point of the river the Romans had once used, according to Joel’s guidebook. As I watched Joel flicking through the pages, I tried to reach for the best way into the conversation. But it felt impossible. It was all very well making a plan when you were six pints and a Scotch down, but not in the cold light of day.

  “I need to ask you something,” I said.

  Joel didn’t look up from the guidebook.

  “Yeah? What’s that?” He put his thumb to his mouth and bit his nail.

  I could feel my pulse start to quicken. I was looking down at the water now, letting gravity do the work, the diving board bending under my weight . . .

  But just as I went to speak again, a bike bell trilled and a voice said, “Good morrow! Fine set of wheels you’ve got there.”

  A man with a thin, angular face, sporting a shaving rash so severe it might as well have been a beard, had hopped off his bike and was wheeling it toward us. As he got closer, I saw he was wearing eye-wateringly tight Lycra.

  “Lovely day for it, gents,” he said, hands on hips, crotch thrust skywards like a houseplant leaning toward the sun. “Fellow Thames Pathers, by any chance?”

  “Yeah,” we mumbled in unison.

  “Top banana! Mind if I join you gents on this leg? Turn this duo into a trio?”

  Joel and I looked at each other. The pause stretched out uncomfortably long.

  “Well . . . ,” I said, but didn’t go any further.

  “If you want,” Joel added. It was a deliberately rude reply, but the man—who introduced himself as Colin—seemed entirely oblivious.

  And so off we went, Colin cycling just behind us. If I thought he was going to be a silent accomplice, I was sorely mistaken. He launched into an exhaustive account of the history of the local area, followed by a lecture on the visible flora and fauna.

  “If this guy doesn’t shut up soon, I’m going to drown myself in the river,” Joel muttered.

  “You’d have to make it past that willow herb and mimulus first,” I replied.

  Colin’s chatter was relentless, battering us into submission. For the rest of the day, he followed us, unshakable, like a barnacle stuck to the bottom of a boat. All the while I grew increasingly concerned about Joel. When we stopped for a rest, he slumped down on the grass like a puppet that had just had its strings cut. The next minute he was scratching so vigorously at his arms and legs, it was like a dog with fleas. I decided enough was enough. I had to find out what was going on, and that meant ditching Colin.

  “Oi,” I whispered to Joel as he clambered onto the front seat. “You up to trying to lose this guy?”

  “Yes, obviously. I’ve been wanting to all day, but I just wasn’t sure if you were up to it yourself.”

  Fine, I thought. Have it your way.

  We began to increase our speed, slowly at first, but before long we were properly motoring.

  “Oi, gents!” Colin shouted after us, the anger palpable in his voice. “Slow down for goodness’ sake. Ah, bugger.”

  I looked behind and saw he’d fallen sideways off his bike into some tall grass, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to give a single shit. By now we were flying along at a pace bordering on reckless given the uneven path and tree roots sticking out.

  “We can probably slow down now,” I gasped. But Joel seemed determined to keep going, his legs pumping wildly. I leaned to the side at the same time as Joel glanced across to the river, and I saw his face was stuck in a grimace, snot trickling from his nose, his eyes streaming.

  “Joel, come on, let’s just—”

  “No!”

  “Mate, you’re clearly in pain.”

  “I’m fine!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Joel was in control of the brakes, so the only option I had left was to brace my feet on the ground. My left foot b
uckled painfully, and I yelled out in pain, but Joel didn’t stop. Eventually I was left with no option but to lean to the side, my weight tipping the bike sideways, and we veered right into the long grass, coming to a juddering halt.

  Joel climbed off the bike, gasping for air, and collapsed onto his knees. He braced his hands on the ground and retched. I limped around and tried to help him up, but he shook me off, wiping vomit from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Come on,” he said after a moment, staggering to his feet. “On to Oxford.” He had a wild look in his eye, daring me to challenge him.

  I just stood there watching him. I could feel tears forming in my eyes.

  “Joel,” I said. “Please . . . please can you just tell me what’s wrong?”

  Joel kept his head down.

  “Mate,” I said quietly. “I know I said at the start that we couldn’t talk about serious stuff, but . . . this is so fucking stupid. Please. Please just talk to me. I know you’re not okay.”

  Defeated, Joel looked up at me. He looked fearful now, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. As I looked into his eyes, I felt the present giving way to the past, because I realized I’d seen Joel looking this scared just once before, on the night that changed everything.

  * * *

  Chrissy Price’s party was invite only, but Joel seemed suspiciously clued up and confident that we’d get in.

  “Who invited you?” I asked him.

  “Oh, no one in particular,” he replied.

  “But that’s not how invites work, is it?” I said. “What if we don’t get in? Have you got an official invite printed out?”

  I could almost hear Joel counting to ten.

  “Theo. Listen to me. Just be cool, okay?”

  “Cool? I’m me! Have you met me?”

  Joel sighed. “Listen, it’s a house party in a cul-de-sac around the corner from the village hall. It’s not the BAFTAs. We’ll get in, okay?”