The Closer I Get

by Paul Burston

  ‘I’ll have a tequila shot. But only if you join me.’

  Tom shakes his head. ‘I’m not good with tequila.’

  ‘Who said anything about being good?’

  ‘No, I know, but…’

  ‘It’s just a drink! It won’t kill you!’ Luke smiles. ‘This is your chance to make it up to me, so stop being so difficult.’

  ‘Right,’ says Tom, and heads to the bar.

  By the time he returns, Luke has his feet firmly under the table and is leaning back in his chair, legs spread, crotch thrust provocatively forwards, cutlass hanging at his side. He adjusts himself as Tom approaches and sits bolt upright with both elbows on the table, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms.

  ‘So what are you writing?’ he asks after they’ve knocked back the shots.

  Tom’s throat burns from the tequila. ‘A novel,’ he croaks.

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘I’d rather not say too much about it.’

  ‘Why so cagey?’

  ‘I’m not cagey. I’m just not ready to talk about it yet, that’s all.’

  ‘Fine,’ says Luke. ‘So what’ll we talk about?’

  ‘We could talk about why you called me FILTH just now.’

  ‘It’s just a thing people say down here. There’s been a big influx of people from London, buying up property. Not everyone welcomes it.’

  ‘I haven’t “failed in London”,’ Tom says. ‘I’m just here to—’

  ‘Write,’ Luke interrupts. ‘You said. Message received, Mister Big-Shot Novelist.’

  Tom frowns. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m just messing with you. Lighten up.’ Luke flashes a grin. ‘You know what you need? Another tequila.’

  Ignoring Tom’s protests, he leaps to his feet and joins the throng of people waiting to be served at the bar, drawing admiring looks from most of the women and one or two of the men. For the first time since he arrived at The St Leonard, Tom is actually enjoying himself. He feels like the cat that got the cream.

  ‘Listen,’ he says as Luke returns and places the shot glasses on the table. ‘I’m sorry about the other night. I’d had a bit too much to drink.’

  ‘I remember. How are things with your lady friend?’

  ‘Emma? She’s fine. She knows what I’m like when the mood takes me.’

  Luke gives him a meaningful look. ‘If you say so. What’s the deal with you two, anyway?’

  ‘The deal?’

  ‘Are you just friends? Friends with benefits? You’re not married, are you?’

  ‘Me and Emma?’ Tom laughs. ‘We’re just friends.’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time a married man has come on strong to me at work.’

  Tom smiles knowingly. ‘Is that what I did? Come on strong?’

  ‘You know you did.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you complain.’

  ‘You didn’t hear much of anything.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Luke replies. ‘Just a joke. Forget I said anything.’

  But he doesn’t look as if he’s joking. Maybe it’s the combination of wine, vodka and tequila sloshing around in his stomach, but Tom suddenly has the gut feeling that something isn’t right. Did he mention to Luke that he was coming to Hastings? He can’t remember. But him turning up like this seems like too much of a coincidence. And all those comments about failing in London. It’s almost as if Luke knows more about Tom’s personal circumstances than he’s letting on.

  ‘So where are your friends?’ Tom asks.

  ‘They went to buy cigarettes.’

  ‘And left you here all alone?’

  ‘I’m a big boy. I can look after myself.’

  ‘But they live here?’

  Luke frowns. ‘Why all the questions?’

  ‘Why are you being so evasive?’

  There’s a pause, then Luke says, ‘You didn’t reply to my text.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’

  ‘You know damn well you didn’t.’

  ‘Sorry. I had a lot going on. But we’re here now.’

  ‘So we just pick up where we left off?’

  Tom grins. ‘That sounds like a plan!’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Luke stares at him for a moment. ‘You don’t remember, do you? The way you behaved that night. The way you spoke to me afterwards. You couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. You made me feel like a piece of meat.’

  Tom blushes. ‘I’m sorry, I was—’

  ‘Drunk? Yes, you said. That’s still no excuse for the way you behaved.’

  ‘Then why text me?’

  Luke shrugs. ‘I believe in second chances. I thought once you sobered up you’d realise what a dickhead you’d been. I was wrong.’

  Tom’s hackles rise. ‘So what’s all this about? If I’m such a dickhead? Buying me drinks. Flirting. Is this some kind of payback?’

  Luke looks as if he’s about to say something, then thinks better of it. ‘Never mind. Enjoy the rest of your night.’ He rises quickly from the table and disappears into the crowd.

  As he watches the other man walk away, Tom is filled with regret – not only because he’s no longer onto a sure thing, but also because he knows deep down that Luke is right. He did behave like a dickhead. He could have shown the man a little more respect, and would have done had he not been so drunk. Not for the first time, Tom asks himself whether his drinking is getting out of hand. And not for the first time, the nagging voice in his head tells him that it is.

  Suddenly conscious of how drunk he is at this very moment, he takes a deep breath and is attempting to pull himself to his feet when a woman appears from nowhere and plonks herself heavily on his lap. Waving her glass at him, she sloshes white wine over his shirt. She emits a high-pitched giggle and pats the wet patch with one hand. ‘Sorry, handsome!’

  She places her wine glass on the table and turns in the direction of the bar. ‘Chuck us a tissue,’ she shouts to a group of men and women in pirate shirts and T-shirts. ‘Lover boy has peaked too soon!’

  Her friends cheer and laugh, egging her on like the chorus in a particularly bad musical.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Tom snaps.

  The woman adjusts her frilly white shirt, revealing a black lace bustier. ‘What’s it look like? I’m saying hello.’ The lascivious look on her face suggests that she has more on her mind than a simple greeting. Her eyes are glassy with alcohol, her lips wet and puckered as if she’s expecting a kiss.

  ‘Get off me,’ Tom says. ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘But you can’t leave now, darling,’ the woman protests. ‘We’re just getting to know each other.’

  She giggles again and drapes an arm around his neck.

  ‘Do you mind?’ Tom shrugs her arm away. ‘I’m not your darling. And I’m not interested. I’m gay.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all, babes. I thought you were just, y’know, gay friendly.’

  ‘Well, I’m not.’

  ‘I can see that now, can’t I? More of the gay, less of the friendly.’ She roars with laughter at her own joke, displaying lipstick-smeared teeth.

  ‘Would you please get off?’

  The woman leers. ‘Now you’re talking!’

  Tom looks around for some support, but all he sees are drunken faces delighting in his humiliation. The feel of the woman’s backside on his lap makes him squirm with embarrassment, their intimate body parts separated by a few thin layers of fabric. A knot of anxiety tightens in his chest, pressing against his diaphragm and shortening his breath.

  ‘Relax, mate!’ a man calls out. ‘Jenny’s just being friendly!’

  Pirate Jenny, Tom thinks. How bloody perfect.

  ‘I’m not your mate,’ he says and struggles to his feet, sending the woman sprawling. As she falls, her arm knocks over her wine glass, which rolls off the table and smashes next to her on the pub floor.

  ‘That’s not very nice,
is it?’ the man says, stepping forwards. He’s bigger than Tom and wears an expression that says he’s in no mood to be messed with. A bullet head sits on a thick neck with part of a tattoo creeping above his shirt collar.

  ‘Sorry,’ Tom says and reaches to help the woman.

  She shrugs his hand away with a scowl. ‘Fuck off!’

  Her friends gather round. Two women help her to her feet while the man continues to stare hard at Tom. ‘I think you owe the lady a drink.’

  ‘What?’ Tom gapes in disbelief. ‘I didn’t ask her to sit on me.’

  Bullet Head glowers menacingly. ‘Replace her drink, or I’ll do a lot worse than sit on you.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Leave it,’ the woman snaps. ‘He’s not worth the trouble!’

  It’s clear from Bullet Head’s face that he had no intention of leaving it. Tom feels a sharp pain in his chest. Is it heartburn from the tequila or is this what a panic attack feels like? He tries to speak but can barely catch his breath.

  ‘It’s okay,’ a familiar voice calls out. ‘I’ve got this.’

  Tom is relieved to see Luke walking toward him, a glass of wine in one hand.

  ‘White wine, wasn’t it?’ Luke says, and presents it to the woman with a smile and a courtly bow. ‘Sorry about my friend,’ he adds, shooting a warning look in Tom’s direction. ‘He’s down from London.’

  Tom smiles tightly.

  Bullet Head hesitates, then rolled his eyes. ‘That explains it. Your mate needs to learn some manners.’ Still frowning, he ushers the women away, leaving Tom and his rescuer alone.

  ‘You’re back,’ Tom says. ‘My hero!’

  ‘Just in time, by the look of things.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve been so glad to see someone since, well, since I spotted you earlier.’

  Luke doesn’t react.

  ‘What do I owe you for the wine?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s on me.’

  ‘Some of it’s on me.’ Tom grins, indicating the wet patch on his shirt.

  ‘But you’re okay?’

  ‘I am now. At least let me buy you a drink. Or come back to mine for a nightcap. I’m staying on the seafront, close to the pier.’

  ‘Thanks, but no,’ Luke says. ‘Will you be alright getting home? Maybe you should call a cab.’

  Tom tries to hide his disappointment with a playful smile. ‘You can escort me, if you like. Make sure I’m tucked up safe and sound.’

  Luke stares back at him for a moment. ‘Can I give you a piece of advice?’

  ‘It sounds like you’re about to.’

  ‘Try to treat people a little better. Trust me. These things have a habit of catching up with you.’

  They already have, Tom thinks, but says nothing.

  Outside, the air is surprisingly cool. Tom takes a few moments to get his bearings, his head cloudy from all the alcohol. Somewhere in the distance he hears raised voices and the screech of a car braking, but he sets his sights on the seafront and half walks, half lurches down the hill.

  The need to urinate grows stronger as he walks, but he tries not to think about the pressure on his bladder, focussing instead on the road ahead. There’s hardly a soul around. The seafront, where people made merry earlier, is deserted. The tide is high and a cool night wind is blowing off the black sea.

  Crossing the road at Warrior Square, Tom spots a corner shop with the lights still on. Remembering that he needs milk, he pops inside and buys a pint, together with a packet of peanuts and a chocolate bar to satisfy his sudden sugar craving. The temptation to ask for a pack of cigarettes is strong, but he manages to resist. He pockets the peanuts for later and devours the chocolate as he walks, savouring the combination of fat and sugar, the satisfying, cheap sweetness. He’ll make up for it in the morning with a good long run.

  Something sparkles on the pavement up ahead – a piece of mirror, glinting in the moonlight. Immediately Tom’s eyes are drawn to a parked car, its wing mirror smashed, the rubber casing hanging off. That must have been quite a clip, he thinks.

  A little further on he sees another car in a similar state – and then a third, and a fourth. Clearly this was no accident. He pictures a drunken youth – or more likely a gang – cycling or skateboarding along the pavement at high speed with baseball bats, smashing car mirrors as they go. He imagines the damage a baseball bat can do – a broken mirror here, a fractured skull there. Suddenly the area doesn’t feel so safe after all.

  Tom plunges his hand deep into his pocket and bunches his house keys firmly in his fist. If someone jumps him, at least he’ll be in with a fighting chance. Picking up his pace, he’s back inside the flat within minutes.

  15

  DAYS 11 (719 DAYS REMAINING)

  So it transpires that last week’s journal entries aren’t quite what my therapist had in mind. I know this because she told me so. I didn’t hand it in for her to mark, of course. It’s not homework! But we talked about it at today’s session.

  I arrived early to show willing. It’s only a short bus ride from my house to the ugly redbrick building where she practises, but I allowed plenty of time and was sitting patiently in the waiting room by 10.40 a.m. At 11.00 a.m. on the dot the door to one of the consulting rooms opened and there she was in her sandals and strange, mismatched outfit, cradling her mug of herbal tea. I hadn’t seen anyone go in or come out of the room, so I can only assume she’d kept me waiting on purpose. I read somewhere that therapists like to impose structure, though if you ask me there’s a fine line between imposing structure and being a control freak.

  ‘How are you feeling today, Evie?’ Maria asked as I sat down. ‘You seem calmer.’

  I wasn’t feeling particularly calm but I played along anyway. ‘Yes, I do feel calmer,’ I said. ‘Writing the journal has really helped.’

  She looked pleased with herself, but as I reported back on last week’s entries I saw her smile fade. ‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘The whole point of you keeping a journal is for you to have someone else to direct your thoughts to. Someone other than him.’

  By ‘him’ she meant you – or as I’m now obliged to write, You Know Who, or He Who Shall Remain Nameless. Then she started talking about transference.

  I told her I thought that was when a patient developed a crush on their therapist, but she soon corrected me, explaining that transference has many meanings, including ‘the redirection of feelings and desires unconsciously retained from childhood towards a new object’.

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘So what you’re saying is that my feelings for, er, him are really about my father.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Good. Because my dad is nothing like that.’

  ‘Maybe that’s something we can explore later,’ Maria said, dunking her teabag. ‘For now I’d like us to focus on your journal and why you feel the need to write as if you were writing to Mr Hunter. It’s not as if he’s ever going to read it, is it?’

  ‘That depends,’ I said.

  ‘Does it?’ Suddenly I had her undivided intention. ‘On what?’

  ‘On whether it becomes a bestseller or not.’

  It took her a moment to realise that I was joking.

  ‘I’m not a total idiot,’ I assured her. ‘I know I’m not supposed to have any contact with the gentleman in question.’ I stressed the word ‘gentleman’ with a hint of irony, the subtlety of which seemed to escape her.

  ‘Even so,’ she said. ‘I think it would be helpful if you were to address your thoughts to someone else. An imaginary friend, perhaps. Or your younger self.’

  And there was I, thinking therapy was supposed to help straighten me out! ‘Imaginary friend?’ I replied. ‘Talking to myself? I’m not a complete basket case!’

  ‘I’m not suggesting that you are,’ Maria said. ‘How about “dear diary”?’

  I laughed. ‘I’m not an Edwardian lady either!’

  But I kne
w what she meant. She doesn’t want me writing to the architect of my destruction. She doesn’t want me repeating the patterns of behaviour that got me into this mess in the first place. No more writing to He Who Must Not Be Named – even if I have no intention of sending my scribblings his way. No more thoughts directed at You Know Who. Fine. I get it. And I’ll do as she says. I’ll address my thoughts to my imaginary reader. But don’t expect me to write like a neurotic teenager or some sad singleton. This isn’t Bridget Jones’s Diary. I won’t be counting calories or units of alcohol. I won’t be keeping a record of how many fags – sorry, cigarettes! – I’ve had. I may count the days since my sentence was passed, or the hours I spend thinking about He Who Did Me Wrong. I may list the more pertinent details of my daily existence. Dangerous thoughts – seven. Crimes committed – zero. Who knows? I may even share a secret or two.

  But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. If I’m to confide in these pages, the way my therapist would like me to, then first we need to be properly introduced, my journal and I. Before I fill these pages with descriptions of how I’m feeling now, it’s important to establish who I was then. All stories have a beginning, and this is mine. Me before You Know Who. Me before there even was a me.

  My mother always felt that she married beneath her. Her father had spoiled her rotten, and she expected my father to do the same. She was an academic when they met – a lecturer in women’s studies, no less. She’d even had a few papers published. As for my dad, he was the humble IT guy responsible for the computer systems in the college where she worked. I imagine she saw him as a bit of rough, like Lady Chatterley and her gamekeeper. But there was nothing ladylike about my mother. She was a game-player and a grasper. I think of her as the love object in Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ – a woman without mercy, whose main purpose in life is to entrap and enslave the noble knight who comes courting. And never was there a more devoted, lovesick knight than my dad. As soon as she realised that he was unable to provide her with everything her greedy heart desired, she left him. Then she discovered she was pregnant.