by Wendy Clarke
Strange.
Compared to Corfu, the evening air feels chilly, and I’m glad I have my coat with me and didn’t pack it in my case. The street looks drab: the sodium glare of the street lights picking out the petrol-black puddles on the pavements and the beige pebble-dash on the fronts of the semi-detached houses. More autumn than spring. There are no lights on in the house, but there wouldn’t be. Drew won’t be back for at least another hour. And when he comes home, we can talk properly about things. Sort everything out. I’ll tell him that I didn’t mean what I said… that we’ll have a baby, if that’s what he wants. Anything… as long as he doesn’t leave.
Taking the handle of my case, I start to cross the road. What is it I’m scared of? Why have I been so reluctant to give him the child I know he wants? I wonder if it’s the conscience on my shoulder that holds me back. The whisper in my ear telling me I don’t deserve to bring a new life into the world. That I should be punished for what I did.
Deciding I should let Drew know I’m home and that I want to talk, I pull my phone from my pocket, typing as I cross. When I reach the kerb, I stop and, one-handed, try to bump the case onto the pavement. I don’t see the car that rounds the corner until it’s almost upon me, just hear the skid of its tyres as it brakes hard. The shock makes me stumble, and I lose my footing. As my foot twists and I make contact with the ground, my phone skitters into the middle of the road.
Through a fog of shock, I hear a car door slam and a woman’s voice.
‘Christ Almighty. Are you all right?’
She’s standing in front of me, and I squint up at her, mortified, realising how much worse this could have been for both of us. The woman’s older than me, about the age my mum would have been had she still been alive. She’s visibly shaken, and my guilt grows. Sitting up slowly, I assess the damage, touching my fingers to my ankle, relieved that it’s probably only twisted.
‘I’m fine. Really.’ Taking her offered hand, I try to stand and, as my damaged foot touches the ground, I find that, although it hurts, I can put my weight onto it. Taking my arm, the woman helps me onto the pavement.
She’s near to tears. ‘I didn’t see you. I didn’t expect anyone to be crossing so close to the corner and—’
‘No, it’s my fault. I was distracted. I should have been paying more attention.’
Seeing my phone, the woman goes over to it and picks it up. She hands it back to me without a word, but I can guess what she’s thinking.
‘Thank you. I’m sorry for giving you a scare.’
‘Have you far to go? Can I give you a lift?’
I point to the house. ‘No, I live just here.’
Taking the handle of the case from me, the woman helps me up the front path and waits while I find my keys. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? Is there anyone I can call?’
It’s the second time someone has asked me this question today. The second time the name Joanna has been on the tip of my tongue.
‘No, I’ll be fine now, really. Thank you.’
‘Well, if you’re sure.’
She walks back down the path, and I let myself in, lifting my case into the hall and shutting the door behind me. Turning on the hall light, the first thing I see, half blocking the hallway, is a red plastic box. I take it to school with me every day, or rather I used to, and the sight of it causes a hollow pain in my chest. It’s something else I’ve tried not to think about while I’ve been away.
The box is filled with folders of different colours. One for each subject I’ve taught this term at St Joseph’s. English. Maths. Music. Their names clearly labelled on the spines. But I won’t be using them again. Not since the devastating decision to close the school after pupil numbers fell. It was my unexpected redundancy that had instigated my spur of the moment decision to see my dad. That and the thing with Drew. A picture of my father stealing kisses with his young wife when he thought I wasn’t looking, rubbing sun cream into the plump arms of their baby, comes into my head. I wish now I hadn’t bothered.
Reaching my arms behind me, I press the heels of my hands into the small of my back and stretch. I’m too tired to sort the box out now. It will have to wait until tomorrow. Besides, I’ve too much on my mind to think about school.
I hang up my coat on the hook by the door. Without Drew here, the house feels empty. Lonely. Nothing like it was when we first moved in. In those days, it was full of noise and laughter. Drew was home more and on days he finished work after me, he’d call out, Honey I’m home in a terrible American accent as he let himself in. The bear hug he pulled me into would make me laugh and gasp for breath in equal measures.
I smile at the memory. We were idiots then.
I bend and unlace my trainer, wincing as I pull it from the foot I twisted. Using the wall for support, I take off the other one, then hobble into the kitchen and switch on the kettle. The room faces north and even on sunny days feels cool. Tonight, it’s decidedly chilly. As the kettle boils, I look out at the dark little garden. There’s nothing to see except my reflection, but I’m not missing anything – just a square of crazy paving, grass pushing through the gaps. There’s a cluster of terracotta pots that I’ve never got around to filling and in the middle of the paving is a small green wrought-iron table and chairs. We’d bought them at a car boot sale, imagining sitting there on sunny evenings, me with a glass of wine and Drew with a beer. It hadn’t happened, though. I’d been too busy with my lesson prep and, once it got warm enough to sit out there, it was rare that Drew was home before the sun left the garden.
I feel a stab of sorrow that now it’s something we might never do.
My throat tightens, and I sit down at the little kitchen table, the reality of my life beginning to sink in. My relationship is in tatters, I have no job and, if the woman hadn’t braked when she did, I could have been killed outside my own house. Turning my engagement ring around my finger, I start to shiver. My teeth chattering against each other.
I take out my phone, the message I was writing to Drew still there. Pressing send, I touch my finger to the screensaver before it disappears. The picture is of me and Mum taken on Brighton seafront. Walking along the promenade was something we used to do a lot back then when I was home from university. Ten years after her death, I’m still not over the loss of her. Still expect the phone to ring and to hear her voice. If she was still alive, I’d ask her what to do.
It’s getting on for eight. Drew should be home soon, and I wonder if he’ll be hungry. The kitchen is so small that I only need to reach behind me to open the fridge. There’s not a lot in there, just a few bottles of lager, and I wonder what he’s been eating while I’ve been away.
Deciding I’m not hungry, I close the fridge door again, a little kernel of worry lodging in my stomach. Why isn’t he home? Pushing back my chair, I test my bad foot on the floor, then walk carefully into the living room. It’s at the front of the house, and I part the net curtains, yellowed from the cigarette smoke of the previous owner, to look out onto the street.
The drive is empty. The street is empty. But there’s also an empty feeling in my stomach that has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve eaten little since the very British-looking sandwich I’d picked up at Corfu Airport. The truth is, I don’t like my own company. Without Drew, I’m afraid I’ll become what I used to be: afraid of my own shadow; my belief in myself faltering, then slowly ebbing away.
When my phone pings a message, I have my forehead pressed to the cold glass, my eyes straining to catch the first sight of the car’s headlights when it turns the corner into our road. Snatching my mobile out of my pocket, I stare at the screen, presuming it’s from Drew.
It isn’t. The name that appears on my screen isn’t my fiancé’s. It’s a name that’s been in my head since the stewardess helped me down the aircraft steps and asked me if I was sure I was all right. The number, the one I gave her before changing my mind. It’s as if what happened on the plane has conjured her out of nowhere. That by saying
her name, I’ve cast some kind of magic spell.
Another message pings as I’m trying to get my head around it, and her name fills the screen.
Joanna.
Three
As I stare at her name, a feeling of weightlessness comes over me, and I sink down onto the old settee. Once, the fact that its cover is faded from the sun would have bothered me, but not now. What’s important is that Drew and I chose it together.
I trace my finger over her name thinking of all the other messages she’s sent me in our years of friendship. The note she’d slipped under my pillow in the dorm when she knew I’d been homesick. The excited email she’d sent when she knew we’d both got into the same university.
My hand rises to my mouth to cover my smile. What can Joanna want? As always, when my friend has messaged me, it’s as if all my senses are on high alert. I try to analyse my emotions and realise what I’m feeling is a combination of anticipation and excitement. Not for the first time, a sixth sense tells me that if I look at what she has to say, nothing will ever be the same again.
The part of me desperate to find out what Joanna wants vies with the one that tells me it’s better not to know. My head wins over my heart. Throwing the phone onto the table, I sit on my hands and look at it, until eventually the screen goes black again. My foot has started to throb, and I’m overcome with a sudden tiredness. There’s a throw on the back of the settee. Dragging it off, I wrap it around me, then squash one of the cushions under my head. It’s then I hear the door.
‘Drew?’
He comes into the room, and I notice how pale he looks. Dark circles under his eyes.
‘I thought you’d be home earlier than this.’
‘You know what it’s like. We’re up to our bloody necks.’ He rubs his jaw with the flat of his hand. ‘I could murder a beer.’
No kiss. No how was your trip?
He hesitates, then walks into the kitchen. Soon I hear the fridge opening and the sound of a bottle being placed on the worktop. ‘Want one?’
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘I said no, didn’t I?’ I don’t mean to snap, but the sight of Joanna’s name on my phone has unsettled me.
There’s a clink as the bottle top flicks onto the laminate worktop, and then he comes back in. Rather than sit next to me, he sits opposite, his work boots leaving marks on the cream carpet we’d thought a good idea when we chose it. He raises the bottle to his lips, tipping his head back as he swallows down a few mouthfuls before catching sight of my puffy ankle.
‘What have you done?’
‘It’s nothing. Just a twist.’ I move it experimentally and am relieved when it does what I want it to do.
‘How did you do it?’
I think about making something up, then decide it’s pointless. ‘I was crossing the road and almost got knocked down by a car. I’m fine, though. It was my fault. I should have been looking.’
‘Shit.’ His brows pull together, and he puts his beer bottle on the coffee table between us. ‘That looks painful.’
‘I’m okay.’
We sit in silence for a while, the air thickening with tension. We both know we need to clear the air, but it’s as if neither of us wants to be the one to start the conversation.
Eventually, Drew speaks. ‘I take it you didn’t make it up with your dad then?’
I fold my arms around my body. ‘The two of them made it clear I wasn’t wanted. I was like a spare part.’ I screw up my eyes, remembering how awful it was. How awkward. ‘It was a terrible idea, Drew. I should never have let you persuade me to go.’
Once, he would have come over to me and wrapped me in his arms. Now, he stays where he is, picks up the TV controller and flicks through the channels.
‘I’ve only got an hour, then I need to be at the club. There’s a problem with the door staff or something. I told Sean I’d sort it out.’
Four nights a week Drew’s out at his second job as a music promoter, checking the sound levels and visuals. Making sure everything’s ready for the DJs and that the venue manager’s happy. When we were first together, I used to go with him, but I soon got fed up with sitting at the bar while he chatted to the DJ or checked the speakers. They’re four nights I spend on my own, but if Drew didn’t do this second job, we wouldn’t be able to afford this house.
A sick feeling worms its way into my stomach. I’ve no job now. No means of paying the mortgage if he leaves. Panic overcomes my reluctance to broach the subject. ‘Tonight? Do you have to? We need to talk, Drew.’
There. I’ve said it.
His eyes slip away from me. ‘There’s nothing to talk about, Alice. We said it all before you went away.’
‘But…’
On the coffee table my phone pings, lighting the screen with Joanna’s name, and I stop what I was saying. She’s sent another message. Drew points to it, looking relieved the conversation has been interrupted. ‘Read it if you like?’
I shake my head, though I want to. ‘I can read it later.’
‘That’s not like you. You’re usually all over your phone.’
He gives a half smile, the tension in the room easing a little. I want to go over and kiss him, but of course I can’t.
‘It’s not important,’ I say, instead.
Reaching out a hand, Drew turns the phone towards him and looks at it. ‘Joanna? Really?’
‘Yes. Give it to me.’ I snatch the phone back.
‘Okay. Okay.’ He frowns. ‘What do you think she wants?’
‘What do friends usually want when they message you? She probably just wants to see how I am.’
I’ve an overwhelming desire to know if I’m right, but I don’t want to read what she’s written while Drew is here. I put my phone back down.
Drew gives a shrug. ‘Where’s she living now?’
‘I’ll have it in my address book. Why are you so interested?’
‘No reason.’ Tipping the bottle to his lips, he takes another mouthful of beer, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I’m going to shower and change. I’ll finish this upstairs.’ He sniffs at the armpit of his green sweatshirt. ‘Christ, I stink.’
‘But, Drew…’ It’s too late, he’s already gone. I sigh heavily, realising we’re no closer to sorting things out.
There’s the slam of the bathroom door, and soon I hear the shower. Usually, Drew sings as he washes his hair, but tonight he doesn’t. Leaning forward, I pick my phone up from the table and click onto my messages. The two from Joanna are at the top. Heart racing, I open the first one and start to read.
It’s short.
Alice, are you there?
But it’s not this message that makes me sit up straighter, it’s the next. It’s not what I had been expecting at all.
Hi Alice. I just had to tell you! I’ve met the most amazing man and, guess what? Drum roll… We’re getting married! Yes really. I know I’ve only known him a month, but you’d love him. I know you would. And you just have to come up and meet him. No one gets married without their best friend’s approval. Please say you will. Please. Please.
Four
Even though it’s only a message, I can hear Joanna’s voice. The breathy excitement and the lack of pauses that, if we were face to face, would give little space for reply. Without realising it, I’m touching a finger to her words – feeling how they’re drawing me in. Warmth spreads through my body and my skin begins to prickle. My fingers itch to reply straight away, but I supress the urge. With me and Drew so up in the air, I can’t think straight.
Drew’s out of the bathroom. I listen to him as he gets dressed in the bedroom, hear the wardrobe door slam shut and imagine him slipping his arms into one of the patterned shirts he likes to wear on club nights. It isn’t long before his footsteps are on the stairs. I put my phone back in my pocket.
When he comes into the room, I see his hair is gelled, and he’s wearing an aftershave that I don’t recognise. It’s spicy, with a hint of s
andalwood.
‘You smell nice.’
‘Do I?’ He sounds pleased, his eyes slipping to the clock on the wall.
Soon he’ll be gone and, before he goes, I need to tell him. Make him understand.
Grabbing his arm as he walks by to get his jacket, I pull Drew onto the settee next to me. ‘There’s something I need to say to you, Drew. Something important. I know things have been difficult between us these last couple of months, and I know what you said, but while I was in Corfu, I did a lot of thinking… about us.’
Drew sighs. ‘There is no us, Alice. Not any more. I told you that before you went. I can’t stay when we both want different things.’
I take his hand. ‘No, you don’t understand, Drew. I was wrong… I know that now. Maybe being made redundant was a blessing. Maybe it’s what we need for a fresh start.’
He puffs out his cheeks, then exhales. ‘How did you come to that conclusion?’
It’s now or never.
‘You said you wanted a baby. You said our relationship would never work if we weren’t on the same page. But I’ve changed my mind. It was selfish of me to think we could carry on as we were when you were thinking this way.’
Drew’s eyes won’t meet mine. ‘It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t just you who was selfish, but it doesn’t change anything.’
‘It does, Drew. We could have a baby… just like you wanted. In fact, it’s the perfect time. I could get a part-time job while I’m pregnant, and then, once the baby’s born, I could stay at home and look after it. It would be a fresh start. Things happen for a reason, and I think this is it.’
I’m gabbling. Scared at the way he’s looking at me, the colour drained from his face. I thought he would be pleased, that it was what he wanted to hear, but now I’m not sure what he’s thinking. What he’s feeling.