Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  ‘Do you say that because you think I’m handsome?’ he teased.

  ‘Again, you are the one who keeps using the word handsome. I think you have a crush on yourself.’

  ‘That makes two of us then.’ He sent me a wink before he stopped teasing me and sat back in his chair. ‘What about you? I’m sure guys are forever beating down your door.’

  ‘Ha!’ I chortled, ungracefully. ‘Yeah, I’ve had to install a portcullis to keep them out.’

  ‘No, seriously.’

  ‘I thought you were listening to my date the other night? I mean, I’ve never been very successful in the dating world, but that last date was me literally scraping the bottom of the barrel.’

  ‘That guy was a complete tool with bad taste in clothes and even worse taste in women. You’re far too good for him.’

  I smiled a little at that and tried to ignore the sensation in my stomach that felt suspiciously like butterflies.

  ‘I think you wildly overestimate me, Theo.’ I could feel his eyes on my skin, boring into me.

  ‘I think it’s you who underestimates yourself.’ I looked up to meet his eyes and it felt like someone had just punched me in the chest. Silence lingered in the air for what seemed like centuries before he spoke again. ‘So, you work at a bookshop. That’s one thing I know about you.’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Do you read them or only sell them?’

  I opened my mouth and almost blurted out that I did both and more, that I wrote them too, but I stopped myself. To write was to bare part of your soul and I was happy to keep that particular part of my soul hidden from everyone, for now. ‘Both,’ I said, taking another sip and then regretting it.

  ‘What’s your favourite book then?’

  I spent a quiet moment deliberating the question as if my life depended on my answer. ‘I’d probably say Jane Eyre.’

  ‘I’ve never read that one. What is it that you like about it?’ he asked.

  I frowned a little at his interest. I couldn’t remember the last time someone asked me a question about me. Not even Arthur had ever asked me my favourite book.

  ‘She says this one line: “I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you”. This was being written in the time when women were meant to shut up and get married and sit by the fire and crank out children. Jane isn’t beautiful or rich and she doesn’t want to define herself by marriage or by what a woman is “meant” to be, which was a radical thing to be writing about at the time. The whole story is gothic and romantic and surprising. I just really love it.’

  When I finished, he just stared at me, a strange look in his eyes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You change when you talk about books. You’re clearly passionate about them.’ He was looking at me as if he knew me and something about that made me panic.

  I straightened in my seat and pulled my bag up over my shoulder. ‘I should probably go; they’ll be expecting me at home.’

  He frowned and leaned forward, his hands resting in the centre of the table as if they were inviting mine to join them. ‘Is it the beetroot? I can get you another drink. I hear the Cucumber-colonic’s very good.’

  ‘That can’t be a real drink.’

  ‘No, it’s not. I just didn’t want you to leave yet.’

  ‘Thanks for the terrible drink, Theo.’ I ungracefully dismounted the too-tall chair and made for the exit. It was beginning to rain lightly when I found myself standing alone on the dark pavement and I cursed myself for forgetting to shove an umbrella into my already overstuffed bag this morning.

  I heard the door open behind me as I paused to pull up my hood and Theo appeared beside me. ‘I’ll walk you home,’ he said, handing me an umbrella and shoving his hands into his pockets.

  I opened it up and noticed the juice bar logo emblazoned on the side. ‘Dare I ask if you stole this?’

  ‘I lifted it from inside the door, but I promised I’d return it.’

  ‘You don’t have to walk me home. I’ve done it a thousand times.’

  ‘I insist,’ he replied. ‘So, which way is it?’

  I sighed and pointed in the direction of home.

  ‘At least let me share this with you,’ I said, nudging the brolly his way.

  ‘Don’t worry about me – I’m far too manly for an umbrella. I’ve got some street cred to maintain.’ He winked and set off. I stifled a chuckle and tried to keep up with him.

  We didn’t speak for a while. I was nervous that I’d already given too much away and so I just waited for him to speak. The closer we got to home the more terrified I became about what would happen when we reached my house. What was he expecting? What was I expecting?

  Wasn’t this the part in all the films where I’d invite him in and we’d have that conversation that made everything shift and by the end of the night we’d be irrevocably in love? Maybe that was how it worked in Hollywood, but not so much in Birmingham.

  ‘You gonna let me in on this conversation or is this one that you need to keep between you and yourself?’ he asked, waking me from my thoughts.

  ‘Sorry. I tend to get lost in my own brain at times.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed.’

  Silence again and this time it felt strained. The rain was almost gone by now, leaving a sheen on the ground that reflected the street lamps like the pavement from the ‘Billie Jean’ video.

  ‘You … erm … you never told me your favourite book,’ I said, putting down the umbrella and looping its cord around my wrist.

  ‘Oh, it’s The Count of Monte Cristo,’ he replied without pause.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the ultimate tale of revenge and redemption. It’s a classic.’

  ‘Agreed, it is a great book.’

  ‘So, here we reach a predicament. You have read my favourite book but I haven’t read yours.’

  ‘You should give Jane Eyre a go.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’

  The bright beams of a car appeared over the slight hill of the road, the lights shining through the haze of rain and illuminating Theo’s face. His skin sparkled with the water that speckled his cheeks like a thousand tiny diamonds and I couldn’t help but suddenly be taken back to my days of reading Twilight. As the car approached us, Theo took a side step towards me to avoid being sprayed by the puddles that were forming at the kerb. The back of his hand brushed against mine and we both looked down in unison. I snatched my hand back to my side so quickly that I ended up slapping myself on the thigh with a resounding clap!

  I bit my lip awkwardly and tried to brush it off as some kind of nervous twitch or a muscle spasm or something, but thankfully home was in view.

  ‘This is me,’ I said, pointing up at the house I’d lived in my whole life.

  ‘Nice,’ he said with a nod and I knew that he was waiting for me to say something, to invite him inside or give him my number or do anything that would imply that I wanted to see him again.

  ‘Well, thanks again for the drink.’ I held out my hand and waited for him to shake it.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ His fingers closed around mine and I felt a tingling all the way down to the soles of my feet. I shook his hand twice and then made to pull away, but his fingers tightened around mine. ‘Yesterday, when I brought your purse back to the shop and we went to the park, you said something and it’s been bugging me ever since I heard it.’

  ‘What?’ I asked, my voice struggling to stay steady with the electricity pulsing through me.

  ‘You said to me that you weren’t a nice person and you weren’t much to look at and I just wanted to tell you that what you said was complete and utter bollocks.’ His face was completely straight. There was no playful twist of his lips, no jokey retort waiting in his throat, but the gleam of disappointment lingered in his eyes. I looked down at the ground, unable to endure the fluttering feeling inside my chest.

  ‘Erm, thank you,’ I replied as his thumb brushed over the backs of my fingers before his hand fell aw
ay.

  ‘Goodbye, Effie.’ He cast me one last smile and turned away. I reached for the umbrella and was about to call after him when I noticed the twenty-pound price sticker on the bottom of the handle.

  ‘Hey, Theo?’ He stopped abruptly and spun around. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Did you buy this?’

  He grimaced at being caught and anxiously rubbed his palms together. ‘Yeah.’

  I suppressed a smile and held it out to him.

  ‘No, you keep it. Something to remember me by.’ He made to leave again and took another step.

  ‘Theo?’

  ‘Yeah?’ He spun around again, the hopefulness still in his eyes.

  ‘I’m cooking myself dinner tomorrow night. If you want to join me, you can. But it’s not a date!’ I tried to hide the smile from my voice but I knew I’d failed. ‘Seven thirty?’

  He looked down at his shoes and I think I might have even seen him blush a little. ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Tomorrow then.’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  Chapter Five

  The sodium lights of Bobby’s corner shop flickered aggressively above me as I picked out which wine I’d be drinking tonight. I looked at the top shelf and panned across, trying to find one that I hadn’t tried before. I got to the third from the end before I found one and I took the neck in my hand.

  ‘Here again, Matilda?’ I squirmed at the use of my first name, but Bobby always gave me a discount and so I let it slide with him.

  ‘Yeah, Mum’s had a tough week,’ I replied.

  Okay, I know that this one small fact would easily put me in the running for shittiest daughter award, but letting Bobby believe that my mother was the one with the drinking problem, and not me, was one of the small ways I stopped myself from feeling like shit. Mum never came in here anyway and so there was really no harm done.

  ‘Send her my best.’ Bobby said that every time. I never did though.

  I pushed the bottle into my handbag and began walking home. The sky was starting to darken as I turned onto my road, the bottle banging against my ribs with every step. I’d spent the entire day stressing over tonight and I’d been almost useless at work because every spare moment was used trying to talk myself out of it. I kept telling myself that I could always text him and tell him that I was ill or that I’d changed my mind. But every time I took my phone out and went to text him, I would think about the way he held on to my hand and what he’d said as he held it and every time, I’d put the phone back in my pocket and begin the stress all over again.

  I continued down my road and walked past the pub, The Flustered Duck. It was one of those pubs that was always open and never empty. It always had at least one grey-haired, bulbous-nosed man sat at the bar, nursing a pint of bitter and despondently staring into the foam of his drink, while his wife sat on the stool beside him, sipping at a half of whatever he’d had. I looked in through the window at the early evening crowd gathered on the beer-stained floorboards. Inside there were darts being thrown, relationships being made, beer being spilled, shifts being worked and lives being lived.

  I turned away and walked home.

  I didn’t know people who went to pubs and even if I did, they wouldn’t invite me.

  I’d never been a social drinker anyway. I was more of a lying in bed whilst crying kind of drinker. You know, the healthy kind.

  Breathe in … and breathe out. In … and out.

  I sat on my bed with my legs crossed and my hands resting on my knees, copying the pose of every meditator I’d ever seen on TV. I opened one eye and squinted down at the mindfulness book that Arthur had thrown my way and read the next step: Observe the moment.

  What the hell did that mean?

  Was I supposed to look around and breathe in my surroundings? Because there is only so much one can take from a cold, untidy room.

  I looked down at the next step: Let your judgements fall away.

  Judgements on what?

  Urg, this was a waste of time.

  Be kind to your mind as it wanders.

  Okay, that’s it. I’ve had it with this crap. I shut the book and flung it to the floor, shutting my eyes and just trying to block everything out.

  The sound of the odd car drifting past or the noise of our cat, Elliot, as he yowled to be let in, floated into my ears; I ignored them.

  I tried not to think about how Theo would be here in an hour and a half. I tried not to think of the way he flexed his sharply angled jaw or the strong column of his neck and what might lie further down, below that neck.

  My mind began to wander, drifting to places that made my ears turn red and my heartbeat quicken.

  The door flew open, smacking against the wall and making the bed quiver. I opened my eyes and frowned at the destroyer of my calm. Surprise, surprise it was my mother. She’d had a haircut. Her usually shoulder-length umber hair now sat in a trendy asymmetric bob around her square-jawed face. I knew she was waiting for me to mention it. I would make a point of not doing so.

  ‘Something wrong with your hands?’ I asked sharply.

  ‘No, dear. Why?’ she replied as she allowed Elliot to saunter past her. He climbed on top of a pile of clothes, causing it to topple over and cascade across the floor.

  ‘Oh, so you can knock then. I could have been changing.’

  ‘Oh, Effie, I’ve seen it all before.’ She chuckled.

  ‘Not recently!’

  Joy rolled her eyes and began tidying, picking things up and putting them in places where I’d never find them. ‘It doesn’t matter if I see your nunny – I did make it after all.’

  ‘This is how serial killers are made, you know.’ I groaned, the last of the calm seeping from me as if it had never been there in the first place.

  ‘Me and your father are out tonight at Julie and Jeff’s.’

  ‘I know, you’ve told me a bazillion times.’ I lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling and the criss-crossing strings of fairy lights that wobbled like a spider’s web thick with prey.

  ‘Will you be drinking tonight?’ she asked, a hint of disapproval in her voice.

  Of course I was drinking tonight; I drank every night.

  ‘Maybe.’ She looked at me from under her lashes. She knew that maybe always meant yes. ‘I’ve got someone coming round for dinner, by the way.’

  ‘Kate?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘No, not Kate,’ I spat, the memory of her heinously happy face making my neck tense.

  ‘That’s very sad. She’s such a lovely girl and you two barely see each other anymore.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a crying shame.’ My voice was monotone.

  She turned to me with wide eyes. ‘Go on then, who’s coming? Is it a boy?’

  She shuffled over and perched on the mattress, sitting on my foot as she did. I tutted and yanked it from under her. I had ummed and ahhed about telling her about Theo, because I knew the fallout that would come from giving her false hope. But I’d never been able to keep anything from her. We talked about everything and fought about everything, constantly smashing our heads together like two rams at the top of a mountain.

  ‘What’s he like?’ she asked, her lips pulled wide in a Cheshire cat grin.

  ‘Strange.’ It was the first word that came to mind when I thought of him and his overfamiliarity.

  ‘No different from the rest you’ve brought home then. What does he look like?’

  ‘Blond, pretty, about six foot tall with cheekbones that should come with a hazard warning,’ I replied as I sat up and let myself slump into a comfortable position, shoulders hunched forward, back arched. ‘I think he’s older than me, maybe thirty, and he’s got these big wide shoulders.’ I held out my hands to simulate the breadth of them.

  ‘He sounds dishy.’ I squirmed at her choice of words. ‘He’s just a friend then?’

  I turned to her with a frown settling on my brow. ‘Why? Don’t you think I could pull a pretty boy with wide shoulders?’

  �
�Well, it’s just that the lads you’ve brought here haven’t exactly been catwalk ready, have they?’ She quirked an eyebrow and laughed through her nose.

  ‘Well, for your information, he asked me out.’ I stood, the anger in my stomach making it impossible to stay seated.

  ‘He did? That’s wonderful. It’s about time you settled down. I was married at your age and your Grandma Prudy was married when she was fifteen.’

  ‘I told him no.’ I enjoyed the look of anger that defused her smile. ‘He’s coming for dinner, yes. But it’s not a date.’

  She slapped me hard across the knee and stood. ‘Effie, when a handsome chap asks you on a date, you say yes. You’ll never walk down the aisle at this rate.’

  ‘Oh yeah, ’cause that’s my only aim in life. And why does everyone keep telling me to grab this date as if I’m never going to be asked on one ever again? I’m not desperate!’ I scoffed and picked up an orange jumper from my floordrobe, pulling off my shirt and tugging on the creased knitwear.

  Joy sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you think you should wear something a little, you know, a little more alluring?’

  ‘What like a negligee and stockings? I’ll have a quick look for my ball gag – that’ll make a nice necklace.’ I watched her in the reflection of the mirror as I replenished my eyes with lines of smudged black kohl, her lips pinching as she turned and walked towards the door.

  ‘I don’t know how your father and I made you sometimes,’ she said as she shut the door, the cat leaving with her.

  It’s not a date.

  I stood in the kitchen beside the oblong table where I’d laid out two placemats and a candle that flickered inside a turquoise crackle glaze bowl. My eyes moved over to the stove where two pans bubbled angrily.

  It was almost half seven; he’d be here any minute.

  Dinner doesn’t mean that it’s a date. I told him that it’s not a date. So, it’s not a date.

  I bobbed anxiously on the balls of my feet as I looked at the candle with a feeling of impending doom surrounding me.