by Laura Tait
OK, where did this ‘babe’ crap come from? I’ve never heard him call anyone babe in his life – he sounds weird saying it. Am I that generic?
It’s me! Holly! I want to remind him. But I can’t. I can’t say any of the things I really want to say, because this isn’t how this was supposed to go.
Instead, I swallow the lump in my throat and give him a resigned smile. ‘I just came to say goodbye. I’ll be tied up with packing over the next few days, and then Dad’s going to drive me down to London. Then who knows when we’ll see each other next?’
I study his face, waiting for a reaction, but it’s expressionless. Still, when he opens his mouth to say something I allow myself a moment’s hope that it’s to ask me what I’m talking about – that of course he’ll see me in the next couple of days, even if it means he has to come and help me pack. And obviously we’ll visit each other loads. And then he’ll pull me towards him for a hug and . . .
‘Who knows?’ He shrugs. ‘Maybe Mothston Grammar will have a ten-year reunion. You’ll be back from your travels by then, married to some Australian hunk and with a load of kids.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’ I laugh softly. ‘Although you’ll be headmaster someplace else and too busy with your own school to come back to ours.’
‘Maybe.’
I take his hand in mine and we stare at each other for about seven seconds, before he pulls away and pushes his wet hair back off his face. Then he starts tugging at a stray thread on his towel, looking as awkward as I feel, so I mumble one last goodbye and leave, shutting the door behind me.
It’s not until I’m walking down the stairs and out of the front door that the tears start falling. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever see Alex Tyler again, but one thing I do know is that I can’t wait to get as far away from Mothston as possible.
Chapter Two
ALEX
January 2010
ONOMATOPOEIA.
I turn and ask my year sevens what the word on the board means. Eight hands shoot up. The usual suspects.
‘Yes, Isabella?’
‘Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the thing it describes,’ she volunteers, as if reading from a textbook. ‘Like bang or slap.’
‘Good,’ I say dutifully. ‘Now, can anyone think of any other examples of onomatopoeic words?’
This time I avoid eager stares and instead seek eye contact with the less forthcoming kids.
‘Jack?’ I say hopefully.
Jack Couchman is the nearest we’ve got to a tearaway at Mothston Grammar, though refusing to tuck in his shirt and the odd bit of backchat is as bad as he gets. Over the last few years I’ve often found myself wishing the kids here had more zeal for rebellion. I long to catch one of my year nines smoking pot along the dead-end path behind the technology block, or to discover some minor vandalism in one of the IT suites. Not that I did any of those things when I was a pupil here, stationed at the desk now occupied by Isabella Smart.
‘How about vulva, sir?’ says Jack, see-sawing a Biro between two fingers. The minority who rarely put up their hands snort their approval, and I let Jack bask. He’s no trouble if you cut him a bit of slack occasionally. Plus, my heart isn’t really in rudimentary linguistics this afternoon. I’m nervous about tonight.
‘Why are we doing this, sir?’ queries Jack, when the snorting subsides. ‘Like, why do we have to know about onomatowhateveritis?’
I peer out of the window for inspiration, but it’s one of those days that even the weatherman would struggle to describe: neither wet nor sunny, cold nor particularly pleasant for the time of year. I’ve lost count of the times over the last six years I’ve been asked why we’re doing something, and yet I still cannot summon a more satisfactory answer than ‘To pass your exam’. Which, granted, is all most of the pupils at Mothston Grammar ever have to worry about, but still.
When I used to dream about being a teacher I’d picture myself as one of those inspirational types you get in movies – Coach Carter meets John Keating from Dead Poets Society. But somehow I can’t imagine Samuel L. Jackson or Robin Williams getting embroiled in a discussion about onomatopoeia. Or vulvas, for that matter.
Five hours after the final bell of the week I amble into Mothston railway station, where the shutters are down at a greasy spoon once owned by my mum’s friend, Sue. Sue had a nervous disposition, which made carrying a cup and saucer a noisy affair, and she eventually sold the cafe following a breakdown. She took up hairdressing, and Mum would invite her into our kitchen to practise on yours truly, as if I needed any assistance repelling women.
I pass the cafe, inspect the electronic screen to see when the next York train is due and settle by the ticket dispenser. That’s where we arranged to meet. I catch myself nervously patting my hips with my fingers, and so I pocket my hands while I glance up at the glass ceiling and see that it’s plastered with pigeon droppings. Constellations appear before my eyes, and I wonder how I’ve never noticed this faecal universe before. I’m just thinking that it’s kind of like gazing at the stars when a shadow darkens my view.
It’s her. Fiona. My first internet date. Dressed in tight jeans, a belted overcoat and a spirit-level fringe that makes her look like the kind of woman who has something interesting to say.
I know how it sounds: online dating. The only reason I signed up last month was because I began to wonder how I’d ever find a girlfriend in a town where every eligible woman knows my life story, including how as a teenager I once got an erection during RE. I didn’t get an erection during RE – my new cords had scrunched up at the crotch. But as soon as Dean Jones shouted ‘Alex Tyler’s got a boner’ I’d had it.
So here I am, holding the door for Fiona as we enter The White Horse.
‘You look really nice,’ I tell her, but she doesn’t acknowledge the compliment.
I chose The White Horse because it’s one of those quaint little pubs with trinkets hanging from beams and, importantly, lots of quiet corners where you can get to know someone without being gawped at by the locals.
‘Alex!’ heckles a middle-aged voice when we approach the bar, a voice I immediately attribute to my dad’s pal Rod. He places his tankard on the bar, examines Fiona, and offers me an approving wink that’s about as subtle as David Bowie’s trousers in Labyrinth.
Mortified, I pay for a bottle of red wine and apologize to Fiona as we settle at a table in the empty back room.
There are two types of town in this part of the north: towns that are famous for something (cakes, a TV show or a strong support for the BNP) and towns that aren’t. Mothston is the latter, and the only reason people live here is because they’ve always lived here. Like me and Rod.
I wasn’t one of those who couldn’t wait to get away while growing up, but I never intended to stay so long either. Mum died just before sixth form and, when it came to choosing universities, I didn’t feel I could abandon Dad.
‘You’ll be reading about me in here soon,’ he told me when I mentioned I was considering Exeter. He was scouring the obituary section of the local paper at the time. When I queried whether you could get the Herald in Exeter he retired to his room with a bottle of Diazepam, and I ended up commuting to York instead.
Four years later I graduated and although Dad was off the pills, I knew he couldn’t cope on his own. My dad who still refers to the internet as the Information Super Highway, my dad who adds an ‘s’ to the end of the word ‘cashback’. And so I applied for a job at Mothston Grammar.
I used to resent him, to blame him for the things I never did, but the older I got, the more I found myself able to imagine how it must have been for him, losing the person he loved most in the world. I’m not surprised he lost the plot.
I decide against sharing my life story with Fiona at this stage, and instead we sit and allow the first sips of wine to insulate our throats while four blokes wearing football jerseys jostle through the door. I recognize them as Leeds United colours; Dad used to own a season ticket.
&n
bsp; ‘You’re not into football, are you?’ tuts Fiona, the word ‘football’ infused with contempt, as if she was talking about Hitler or paedophilia or Piers Morgan.
‘Not really,’ I answer with a placatory smile. My Saturday afternoons were spent on the sofa reading Penguin classics and drinking hot chocolate with Mum.
‘Is it asking too much that you’re not?’
‘Nope.’
‘Why are men so obsessed with it?’
‘I’m not.’
‘My ex never shut up about Arsenal this and Arsenal that. In the end I said to him, “It’s me or bloody Arsene Wenger.”’
‘Which did he choose?’
‘Arsene Wenger.’
Fiona sits back, rubbing the length of her arms as if she is cold and, before we know it, we’re in the midst of our first awkward silence. It’s like a black hole – the further we go into it, the harder it is to escape.
‘So you enjoy teaching, do you?’ she offers, and I take a sip of wine before answering.
Some teachers enter the classroom because they graduate and can’t think of anything else to do. And that’s fine. Some of the best teachers I know did that. But I’m one of the others, one of the naïve sods who believed he could make a difference.
Fiona directs two fingers towards her tonsils when I explain this, and I’m aware of how clichéd it sounds, but that’s how you think at twenty-two.
‘All right,’ I say, to catapult us from another cosmological vacuum. ‘You mention on your profile that you love reading. What book would you take to a desert island?’
‘How to Make Friends and Influence People,’ she blurts without pausing for thought, and I try not to appear taken aback.
‘Why would you need that on a—’
‘You should definitely read that if you want to make a difference at school.’ Fiona swallows the remainder of her wine. ‘Or do what I did: set up a printing business. A hundred and twenty grand – that was my turnover last year.’
I was hopeful about tonight. The website said we were compatible and our messages were frequent and long. But so far our date has felt like a nesting bird, desperately flapping its wings as it tries to take off for the first time.
Each of us dispatches a mute smile across the table and I suggest going for food, to help us relax. First she wants a cigarette, which she smokes as if recalling some hardship from her past: exhaling sideways through thin lips, eyes defiant as they stare blankly through the windows of the vacant shop that used to be Woolworths. I fill the hush by asking if she has a ‘type’, and discover that her ideal man is six feet two (I’m six feet one), has short dark hair (dark but hanging over my ears), toned (nope), successful (still live with my dad) and gets on with her friends (not sure I’m ever going to meet them).
I listen patiently as she relays her list of boxes to be ticked. Personally I just want someone I find attractive, someone who wants to do something with her life, and someone who gets my sense of humour. Is that asking too much?
Fiona extinguishes her cigarette with a twist of her foot while the metallic sound of smashing glass signals trouble nearby.
‘The working classes, eh?’ I joke.
‘I’m working class,’ says Fiona, misinterpreting my tone completely and glugging any remaining hope I had that this could be the start of something.
I allow a mischievous notion to expand in my mind, a notion where I quicken my stride before accelerating into a sprint. I run without looking back, the cool air of late January countered by the warmth of the exhilaration I feel at having made my escape.
I’ve almost reached home when a waiter hands me a laminated menu. And that’s when Fiona and I cross the event horizon of our final black hole – the point from which there is no return.
‘When are you going to learn that no one goes on dates any more?’ mocks Kev, as I approach the end of my story.
‘There’s more,’ I say, with a jaded smile. I recall how, once we arrived at the restaurant, Fiona declared that she was a vegetarian.
Kev places his pint on the tatty maple surface and coughs into the palm of his right hand. ‘So?’
‘So, when I ordered steak she told me I had to get something else.’
‘Er, she told you?’
‘Yep, and she suggested the spinach lasagne.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I changed my order.’ I wait for his mouth to open in contempt. ‘I got a mixed grill instead.’
I don’t accept his high-five, and not because I object to high-fiving (though I swear he once punished me with a dead arm for attempting one at school). It’s the germs he’s just deposited into his palm. And the fact I don’t much feel like celebrating.
‘Who paid for the meal?’ he asks.
‘I did.’
‘And that came to what? Fifty quid?’
‘Just over.’
‘That’s you personified, that is. Always a mug where women are concerned.’
‘How can a person be per . . .’ I give up. An ex-girlfriend taught me that you need to be at least fifty to get away with correcting people’s English outside of the classroom. It’s almost enough to make me excited about middle age.
‘Anyway, what do you mean people don’t go on dates any more? How else do you find a girlfriend?’
‘Er, you fuck, Alex. You fuck and then you fuck again. And if it’s still fun after the fifth time, she’s your girlfriend.’
‘Sounds like a fuck buddy to me.’
‘Have you ever had a fuck buddy, Alex?’
‘Nope, and neither have—’
‘Well then, shut the fuck up about fuck buddies.’
Why do I still humour Kev? Why do I still come to The Lion every Saturday afternoon? Probably because there’s bugger all else to do in Mothston. There were three of us once, but Rothers entered social retirement when he got engaged.
The outlook was brighter for Kev a few years ago, when his skinhead was voluntary and his belly wasn’t something you could rest a pint on. As for me? I still sleep in the same bedroom where I used to hang posters of the periodic table. I guess I’ve been waiting for someone to share a mortgage with, and now, in the dregs of my twenties, I’m stuck in a catch-22: no girlfriend, no chance of affording a house; no house, less chance of finding a girlfriend.
Kev clenches his empty glass and shakes it near my face, and when I return with drinks my dad has appeared from somewhere, positioned next to Kev, restlessness disturbing his posture. He asks how my date went, even though I never mentioned it to him. Kev shrugs as if to say, Don’t look at me.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask, but instead of answering he scratches his palm, eyes alternating between me and his hand. Eventually he takes a lungful of musty air, holds it for a second and in the act of exhalation announces that he is selling the house.
‘What do you mean, you’re selling the house?’ I chortle.
‘I’ve bought a boat.’
‘You’ve bought a boat?’ Now I’m laughing. This is obviously some kind of ruse orchestrated by the two of them. I expect a TV crew will reveal themselves in a second.
‘A canal boat.’
‘I can’t live on a canal boat.’
Kev reclines and crosses his arms, relishing the drama that’s unfolding.
‘It’ll take me a few months to sell the house so it’s not as if you’re going to be on the streets.’
I stare at him, incredulous.
‘What on earth are you talking about? Since when have you wanted to live on a canal boat?’
‘Me and your mother used to talk about it a lot. I’ve been waiting for you to leave home but, well . . .’
‘You’ve been waiting for me to leave home?’
Dad offers a smile that I interpret as forgiving, as if he holds no malice towards me for stalling his dream for all these years.
A thousand words of indignation bottleneck in my throat. Nobody says a word for a minute or two until Kev slaps both hands on the table.
Chapter Three
HOLLY
‘Hello, you massive, sad, old cat lady.’
As far as ‘Happy birthdays’ go, it’s not THE friendliest I’ve ever had. It’s Jemma saying it, though, and if I took offence at every offensive thing she said I’d constantly look like the dude on the bridge in The Scream painting.
‘Just one more year until the big three-o, eh? I’d hate to be you,’ she continues in her broad Glaswegian tones, shrugging out of her denim jacket. ‘What are you doing here anyway? We don’t start work for another forty-five minutes.’
‘I’m always here at this time. You’re just never here to see it. More to the point, what are you doing here? As in, EARLY.’
‘I came in to decorate your desk with balloons, and those little Happy Birthday things that you’ll still be finding in every orifice for weeks to come.’
‘Bless you,’ I say, though I’m cringing on the inside.
‘Don’t bless me – I left the decorations on the tube by accident.’
‘Never mind – it’s the thought that counts.’
As much as I love her, thank God Jemma doesn’t get here this time every day. I love the first hour before everyone else arrives – I can power through my work with no distractions. Melissa is usually here early too but she’s not one for idle chit-chat.
‘Can’t believe my boss is in a breakfast meeting the one morning I’m in early.’ Jemma pouts in the direction of Martin Cooper’s door. ‘I could have done with the Brownie points – I swear he thinks I’m a crap PA.’
She is a crap PA, but I let it slide.
‘I’ll just email him instead so he knows I was here.’ She starts tapping at her keyboard. ‘What about your guy – is he in yet?’