But the reminders are everywhere, and not just on the cover of an album that I used to hear being played through the paper-thin walls between our rooms. There was always music and coffee, and mountains of biscuits that I would eat whilst trying to make sense of all those books we were expected to read. There is something so transcendent about music and its ability to transport you back to a single moment in time, to flood your brain with images of a day or person you really don’t want to think about.
I miss him. I miss Duncan and his love of all things British. I miss his kindness and even the smell of weed that seemed to permeate all the walls of our little hideaway at the very top of an ivory tower. Most of all I miss who I was when I was with him, with both of them, and I hate myself for never being able to stop caring.
Choice made, I crouch down and ease the disc from its cardboard cocoon, turning it over to inspect for both dust and scratches, although the likelihood of either is pretty slim. Hector is meticulous about two things in his life: his records and the very best coffee money can buy. Lifting the stylus from its perch, I sit back on my heels, close my eyes and wait for the sound of Ella Fitzgerald singing about summertime to fill the gaps in my heart.
For the next hour, I immerse myself in the laborious process of hanging wallpaper, balancing on top of a ladder and stretching a brush up to the ceiling. If I remember not to look down, I should be fine. The music is turned up loud, the windows are open to the night and for a moment I can simply be a girl relishing in the sweetness of domesticity and pretending that this is precisely where I’m supposed to have ended up.
‘Erika?’
I scream at the sound of my name, one leg sticking out behind me as I place both palms flat against the wall and try not to topple to the floor.
‘Shit, sorry,’ Hector says as he rushes across to hold the ladder steady.
I look down at him, all ruffled hair and tanned skin. He’s wearing overalls and has paint spatters on his bare arms. I watch as he looks the full length of me, from my feet, all the way up and under the hem of the shirt I’ve borrowed, and back again.
‘Are you coming down?’ he asks.
I shake my head as I sit on the small metal square at the top of the ladder. ‘Where were you?’
‘I had to go out and get something,’ he replies, stepping away from the ladder to peer at my handiwork.
‘What?’
‘Just something.’ He runs his fingers back and forth across the wall. He’s searching for the join, which I know won’t be easy to find, and this little slice of victory makes me smile.
‘How was work?’ he says, stepping into the middle of the room and looking from corner to corner at the same time as reaching into the pocket of his overalls.
‘Tatiana was late, again,’ I say, but he’s not really listening to me. I can tell by the slow nod of his head, the way he’s chewing the inside of his cheek and the absent look in his eye. Normally I would put this down to him being lost in his imagination, something he’s either seen or heard that’s suddenly filled in a piece of the puzzle he’s trying to pull together into a book. But if that were the case, he would have looked about in search of a pen, or blurted out a random piece of information and asked me to remind him about it later.
The music stops; only the soft crackle of needle over plastic is now whispering from the speakers. Hector spins around and goes into the kitchen where I can hear him banging pots together and opening and closing the fridge.
‘Hector?’ I call out to him as I descend the ladder, pausing at the player to stop the record from spinning.
He’s at the sink, rinsing the mussels over and over, even though I’m sure they were clean enough already. Next to him is a bunch of cabbage roses wrapped in brown paper, their fat, perfumed heads looking across at me in accusation, although I don’t quite know what it is I’ve done. If he went out to buy them, then I don’t understand this sudden change of mood. He’s annoyed at me about something; I can tell by the way he shuts off the tap in one angry motion, then turns to face me, arms folded and water dripping from his fingertips on to the floor.
‘Michelle’s pregnant,’ he says, reaching forward into the fruit bowl for an apple. He turns it over in his hand before taking a large bite, wiping away a dribble of juice from his chin. ‘I spoke to her just now. She’s due at Christmas.’
‘Wow, that’s . . .’ I don’t know what it is. Incredible? Amazing? More like a very risky move given that Hector’s sister already has twin boys to contend with.
‘Rather wonderful, I know.’
He’s looking at me in that way of his that both terrifies and excites. It’s the very same way he first looked at me across a firepit all those years ago. For a moment, I think he’s going to say something, then he thinks better of it and reaches back into the fruit bowl, hunting underneath the apples for a clementine that he rolls across the work-surface to me.
‘Penny for them?’ he says as I pierce the skin with my thumbnail. A fine spray of citrus mist shoots into the air and lands on my wrist.
The problem is, there are too many thoughts to share and I have no idea where I would even begin. Of course, that’s assuming I’ve got any intention of actually telling him the real reason why I am not clamouring to be impregnated, unlike so many of my friends.
Take Michelle. Once upon a time she was the very definition of a party animal. She even married a DJ with his own residency in Ibiza. OK, so the fact he is a Viking god may have had something to do with it, but my point is, the second she fell pregnant (which was rather close to the wedding, but let’s not dwell on specifics; they are so clearly soulmates), she changed. Even Layla commented on it and she is the most domesticated, maternal person I have ever met.
Gone were the nights spent downing shots and being the last person to leave the dance floor, replaced by conversations about whether it was best to let a baby cry it out or allow them to sleep in the bed next to you. Not to mention baby-led weaning, cracked nipples and the omnipresent topic of education.
Don’t get me wrong, I adore her two boys, even with the temper tantrums and smears of dirt and god knows what else all over both their faces. Not to mention the previously pristine Ibizan villa that sits on a hillside within walking distance of the beach and which, back in the day, was host to the wildest of parties. But children change everything, and there’s no returns policy attached to a baby.
If only Hector thought the same way.
Jesus, my heart is racing and I have to scrunch my hands into fists, hoping that Hector can’t sense just how close I am to crying. If ever I was going to tell him, now would be that time. But what if it makes him look at me differently, once he finds out what I did? What if by telling Hector the truth about Leo, I end up losing him all over again?
‘Erika?’ he says, resting his forehead on mine and I breathe in the scent of turpentine and garlic, with a layer that is unique to him hidden within. It would be so easy to kiss him, to drag him to bed and lose myself in his embrace. But I keep running away from the question that I know he is always so very close to asking.
‘Are you hungry?’ I ask, stepping away and searching in a cupboard for some clean plates.
‘Always,’ he says with a sigh and I try not to hear the sadness in his voice.
‘I saw one of those dogs on my way home tonight,’ I say, watching as he goes across to the fridge and opens the door, staring at something inside – or perhaps he’s only pretending. He doesn’t reply, instead taking out a bottle of beer and popping the lid before downing half the contents in one.
‘You know,’ I prattle on regardless, ‘the ones that the Buddhist monks used to guard their monasteries. What are they called again?’
The casserole is starting to catch but he makes no move to turn it off, despite the acrid scent of burnt meat that’s swimming in the space between us.
‘Shar Pei,’ he says, taking another long sip, his eyes never leaving my own.
‘Yes, all wrinkly and adorable. This o
ne was grey and made me think of a baby hippo. It was trotting alongside a cyclist who had a cello strapped to his back.’ I’d stopped to watch them cycle past, allowing myself to wonder where he was headed. Then, just before I was about to cross the road, I caught sight of a woman with light-brown hair and wearing a long gypsy skirt walking across from the other side. She smiled at me with painted lips, then disappeared around the corner, leaving me with nothing more than the image of a girl I used to know.
The memory of Niamh, along with all her otherness, follows me like an unwanted ghost of Christmas past who appears at the most unexpected of moments. Always standing out from the crowd, a bright dot of colour in an otherwise grey and mundane world.
‘Would you stop going on about a dog, Erika,’ Hector says as he drains his beer and looks at me. ‘I’m trying to ask you something.’
And then he’s in front of me, down on one knee and producing a small black box from the pocket of his overalls, saying words that are going into my ears but for some reason I don’t seem able to hear.
It’s so not the way I imagined he might propose, which I’m guessing is precisely why he’s done it this way. Although looking around the flat I now realise that perhaps the clues were there all along. The flowers, the bottle of vintage champagne chilling in the fridge, as well as a makeshift table out on the balcony, covered with a bedsheet and an unlit candle stuck inside an empty wine bottle.
I should say something. Something poetic or romantic, or just anything at all would be better than standing here open-mouthed, staring down at a pear-drop diamond ring. It’s a little much, if I’m honest, but he chose it for me. He went into a shop, no doubt spent an absolute age trying to decide between all the array of sparkles on offer, and he did it because he loves me.
‘Erika?’ he says, and I can almost taste the fear behind his words.
‘Ask me,’ I say as I kneel down in front of him, wiping away a rogue tear and trying not to think about another boy from so long ago. ‘Ask me again.’
‘Erika Lindberg,’ he says and I notice there are tears collecting at the corners of those beautiful eyes. One blue, one green, but both of them trained on me. ‘Will you marry me?’
My response is lost inside his kiss as he picks me up and spins me around in a move that I’m sure would look like so much of a cliché if we had somehow managed to capture it on film.
There’s a word for this, for this overwhelming sense that I’m about to embark on a different kind of future, but I can’t remember what it is. You always think it’s the big moments that change your life. In fact, it’s the little ones, the ones that sneak up on you, hidden beneath dirty overalls and burnt casserole, that really matter.
If only I could bottle this, trap it inside a box so that I might open it up over and over in order to remember how much I am feeling right now. I wish more than anything that I won’t forget. I also wish that I don’t somehow fuck it up all over again, because he deserves better than that, this incredible, wonderful man who is asking me to be his.
NIAMH
Sillage (n.) – the scent left behind when someone leaves
Oxford, 1995
‘So what, he followed you out of the bar to apologise for his friend being a kuk?’ Erika shook salt on to her chicken pasta salad, then reached across the table for a bottle of mayonnaise, which she proceeded to squirt all over the mixture of leaves and meat.
‘Apparently so.’ Niamh inspected her own meal, removing every slice of red onion from her bowl and passing it across to her friend.
They were sitting at a table in the corner, as tradition dictated, in their preferred café within the Covered Market. It was a small, cluttered space but the food was good and the prices not too high.
The market itself was comprised of a series of indoor streets, either side of which stood brightly painted shops that sold everything from cards to cookies and even vinyl LPs. Niamh had been to the music shop earlier, flicking through the endless rows of records and chatting with the owner before deciding on her purchase. The bag containing her choice was tucked between her feet, along with a couple of oranges from the grocer’s stall.
‘What else did he say?’ Erika was attacking her salad with the same vigour she did everything else in life. Huge forkfuls of food were shovelled into her mouth and her glossy lips smacked in appreciation with every bite.
‘Not much.’ Niamh pushed her own food around the bowl, her appetite lost amongst all the thoughts and feelings that were swimming through her mind.
‘Are you going to see him again?’ Erika nodded her head at Niamh’s food, waiting for permission before pulling it towards her and upending the contents into her own bowl.
‘Why would I?’
‘Because you told me about him.’
‘And?’
‘And’ – Erika waved her fork at her friend – ‘you never tell me about any of the boys you like.’
‘As if.’ There was a reason why she so rarely talked to Erika about boys. Namely how insecure her friend, with all her beauty, made Niamh feel.
Niamh rubbed at the corner of one eye, inspecting the residual black of eyeliner that came away along with a particle of sleep. She had been awake long after the Queen’s College clock struck twelve last night, trying to make sense of all the periodicals and essays her tutor wanted her to read. She had heard her friends stumbling back to their rooms, ignoring them when they knocked on her door and turned the handle, only to find they were locked out.
But it wasn’t just the historical arguments about politics and prejudice that had kept her awake. Nor was it the endless stream of sirens and drunken students outside her thin, leaded windows on the High Street below. No, it was that boy, Leo, with his awkwardness and unsettling smile, who had kept interfering with her thoughts and worming his way into her dreams.
‘Seriously?’ Erika gave Niamh a gentle kick under the table, pulling her attention back to the café. ‘I was there last night with my boobs fully on display. Ready and willing to lie on my back for someone’s entertainment. Yet it’s you he flocked to, like a bird to the honeypot.’
‘Bee.’
‘Birds like honey too,’ Erika said with a shrug. ‘And you love all my little indiscretions.’
‘Idiosyncrasies.’ Niamh finished her mug of tea but thought better of ordering another as her nerves were already fizzing and she hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day.
‘Whatever,’ Erika said as she slurped her double espresso, then added another cube of sugar to her cup. ‘You are avoiding the subject.’
‘Because there’s nothing to tell.’
‘And yet you still told me.’
‘Told you what?’ Duncan slipped into the empty seat and reached over to steal a slice of chicken from Erika’s bowl. She stabbed the back of his hand with her fork and he responded by going in for another piece.
‘Someone followed Niamh out of the bar last night.’
‘You jammy bitch,’ he said, darting a look at Niamh. ‘Was he any good?’
‘Jesus.’ Niamh rolled her eyes, but accepted the cigarette Duncan was offering and leant forward for a light. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘So why did he follow you?’
‘Because she is some kind of elfin gudinna.’ Erika waved the cloud of smoke away then rummaged in her bag to pull out a credit card. She shook her head as Niamh went to place a crumpled fiver on the table.
‘What did you buy?’ Duncan asked, bending down to rifle through her purchases. He took the cardboard square out and turned it over to reveal the portrait of a woman slumped over a bar, cigarette in hand and a look of either boredom or despair on her painted face.
‘Joni Mitchell?’ he said as he exhaled a long line of smoke. ‘I thought we’d agreed you were going to be moving forward with your musical education, not burying yourself deeper in the past?’
Niamh held out her hand, waiting for him to return the record. ‘Why, so I can join in the debate as to whether Blur or Oasis are the
reigning kings of Britpop?’
‘God no, but at the very least would you consider listening to Suede?’
‘I do,’ Niamh said as she put the record inside her crumpled black leather bag, which was covered with pin badges and had a leopard-print scarf tied around the handle. ‘Every night, because you insist on playing “Animal Nitrate” on repeat.’
When she sat back up, she caught sight of someone walking through the market in the direction of the café. Before he could notice her, she turned her back to the window and inadvertently scraped her chair on the orange and yellow tiled floor.
It had only taken a second or two, but her movements were rigid and false, making Duncan crane his neck to see.
‘Is that him?’ He leapt up, sending his own chair clattering to the floor as he left the café to stand in the middle of the street watching Leo walk away.
Niamh came outside, holding her bag by the strap and using her free hand to tug at Duncan’s arm.
‘Look at that arse,’ he said with a low whistle. ‘If you don’t follow him, I will. Although’ – he took one last drag of his cigarette and dropped it to the floor – ‘he looks more like Erika’s type than mine.’
‘Isn’t everyone her type?’
‘Oh no,’ Duncan said, glancing at Niamh and then over his shoulder to where Erika was still sitting inside the café. ‘She’s always been rather partial to a bit of posh.’
Niamh followed Leo with her eyes, watching him turn right at the butcher’s and tried not to think about what the chances were of him walking past the café at the exact same moment she was sitting inside by the window in full view.
But then perhaps he had done so before on any one of the other Saturdays the three of them had sat in that café having brunch. Perhaps they had passed one another but never noticed, never really paid attention to who had been there all along.
‘He could be useful.’ Duncan was still standing in the middle of the street, not bothering to move as people tutted and muttered about him being in the way. He looked down at Niamh, who had to look up, despite her platform soles. ‘You know, finally be the one to rid you of your innocence.’
The Love We Left Behind Page 4