It's Not You It's Me

by Allison Rushby

  I make a face at this. ‘So you’re not going to see him?’

  ‘Cross the road not to see him.’

  I wait expectantly for further explanation about his trip, but I don’t think it’s coming. ‘Well…?’ I try, wondering if he’s being deliberately evasive.

  ‘Right. Sorry. Nothing exciting. Just a break, I guess you’d call it. Holiday.’

  I nod. Fair enough. Everyone takes holidays, don’t they? Even fallen angels.

  We both rest our heads back on our seats at the same time.

  ‘What about you?’ Jas says then. ‘How’s your mum going now? All better?’

  Silence.

  ‘She’s dead, Jas.’

  His head lifts up slowly as I turn mine. The horror is already in full force. ‘Shit. Charlie, I’m sorry. Should’ve…’

  ‘It’s OK.’ I’ve known about it for some time, after all. I just didn’t need to be reminded. Like Kath had said at the airport, ‘Don’t think about…things.’ And this was one of them. One of the doozies.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Ages ago. The January after we left the apartment.’

  ‘But that was only a few months. Thought she was just sick?’

  ‘It took us a long time to convince her to see a doctor. By then it was only a matter of weeks.’

  ‘Cancer?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, not at all. It was a blood thing. A clotting thing. Technical. Things might have been a lot better if she’d just seen someone earlier. You know what she was like. She thought waving around a few sticks of incense would do the trick.’

  Jas pauses. ‘Remember that week we spent at Byron with her?’

  I nod.

  ‘Remember how she made me try that old pottery wheel? Always thought that looked so easy, but when I tried it, it felt like my hands were being ripped over gravel. She was one tough lady. And her sculpture. That courtyard. Blew me away first time I saw it.’

  I nod again.

  Jas lifts his head up. ‘Gave you a call about that time— January. A few times before and after that too. Why didn’t you call back?’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It was bad of me. I was busy with Mum and then, I don’t know…’ I look away.

  ‘Don’t worry. Doesn’t matter.’

  It does matter, but I don’t know how to explain it.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing since then,’ Jas says.

  I think about it. ‘It’s not very exciting compared to you.’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Everyone thinks my job’s ultra-glamorous. Isn’t at all, really.’

  I shoot him a look. Oh, sure. After all, what could be more glamorous than the life of a rock star?

  ‘Seriously,’ Jas protests. ‘Spend most of my time travelling just like this.’ He runs his hand over his jacket. ‘Dressed in 1998 couture. Very good year in my opinion. So tell all. I’m waiting.’

  I pick up the last few biscuit crumbs on my finger and pop them in my mouth before I begin. I explain how I was kept quite busy after Mum died, settling her affairs, selling her house and buying myself a tiny cottage in Byron Bay.

  ‘And your mum’s sculpture?’ Jas asks.

  ‘I, um, only kept a few pieces.’ I flinch when I say this, thinking of her work in someone else’s house, but the fact was I’d needed the money to pay for medical treatment. I hadn’t had much choice.

  ‘The table and chairs? You kept them, didn’t you?’ Jas says quickly.

  I shake my head. ‘I sold them. To a gallery.’

  ‘Oh.’ I can see the disappointment lying behind Jas’s eyes. ‘And your own exhibition? How’d that go? Was one of the reasons I called. Wanted to come.’

  I busy myself drinking the last bit of apple juice. ‘That, um, sort of fell through.’

  ‘Fell through?’ Jas frowns. I pretend not to notice.

  ‘It just wasn’t the right time.’

  ‘But you’re working?’

  ‘Working, working? Or sculpting, working?’ What is this, an interrogation?

  ‘Either.’

  ‘I haven’t been able to. Not since after…’ I don’t finish the sentence, not wanting to go there. ‘I’ve been sketching a bit. Now and then.’ More then than now, truth be told.

  ‘Sketching?’ Jas knows this is what I do before I actually start a piece and that I obviously haven’t been sculpting much lately. Which is true. I haven’t.

  ‘At least you’ve got your degree now. That must be a bonus.’

  Silence again.

  Jas looks at me as if I’m joking. ‘You do have your degree now? You must have finally passed that subject. It’s been two years, Charlie.’

  More silence. Telling silence.

  But I have to say something. Explain it somehow. ‘It was just that it was all a bit much…’

  Jas butts in then. ‘Jesus. Sorry. I’m doing it again. Course it was hard after your mum died.’

  And, as this is partly the truth, I leave it at that.

  Chapter Seven

  We talk and talk and talk. Through lunch, through dinner, through supper. The food, of course, is très magnifique—see, I’m even talking like a first classer now! We talk non-stop through the hour wait in Singapore, which we spend at a café. We even talk through ‘lights out’, when we’re back on the plane again. Eventually everyone gets sick of us and Jessica has to give us the official Quieten down, please. Her lipstick, I note, is still in place. Tattooed?

  We talk—well, whisper, all the way to London.

  And by the time we get off the plane and are waiting for our bags at Carousel 9, our voices are starting to go. I can’t help but notice that, even with the luxuries of first class—the little hot towels, the comfy cotton in-flight socks, the slices of lemon in our tea—we still look pretty much like everyone else jostling around for the best place to wait for their bags. Like the living dead. But at least after an icepack or two, fetched grudgingly by Jessica, the lump on my head’s almost gone. That’s something.

  Jas’s luggage comes out quickly, and as he picks it up I see it’s got an orange ‘priority’ tag on it. The beat-up black bag isn’t what I’m expecting him to have.

  ‘No Louis Vuitton travelling case?’ I say as he wheels his bag over. ‘Or is that still coming?’

  He drops it down beside me. ‘You have some very warped ideas of what my life is like.’

  I glance at him, still keeping one eye on the carousel. ‘I’m not the one who gets around in limos wearing six-inch thick make-up and thigh-high leather boots, remember?’

  ‘Make-up? That’s different. Louis Vuitton beauty case should be coming out any minute.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’

  ‘What’s your bag like?’ Jas asks.

  ‘It’s a blue wheelie one. The same as every second person will have because they just bought it on sale at the same place I did.’

  ‘Should be easy to find.’

  I turn away from the carousel for a moment. ‘It shouldn’t come out for a while yet. It’s packed away in the seventh layer of hell. That’s just below the sixth layer of hell, where I was sitting before the divine videotape clunked me on the head and I landed in heaven.’

  Jas sighs. ‘Come on. Economy’s not that bad.’

  I give him a look. ‘Do you even remember it?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Close your eyes for a moment,’ I say.

  He gives me the look back.

  ‘No, I mean it.’ I reach up and cover his eyes with one of my hands. ‘Now, try and remember what economy’s like.’

  ‘I’ve only been on domestic flights in economy.’

  ‘What a problem. OK, then. Imagine that. Imagine being on a flight between Sydney and Melbourne or something.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Got it.’

  ‘Great. Now, seat a big, fat, smelly man beside you on one side, who constantly hogs the armrest, and a reluctant female flyer with chronic airsickness on the other. Add a movie you’ve already seen and hated and a touch of cramp and sleeplessness
and multiply it all by approximately twenty-two hours.’ Then I take my hand away.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Now tell me it’s not that bad, considering you’re supposed to be on holiday.’

  ‘Get your point.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I do a mock curtsey. ‘I do what I can for the rich and famous.’

  I turn my attention back to the carousel, which has started spewing out the economy bags, most of which are something like mine. I’m suddenly thankful for the fluorescent pink ribbon Mark, a seasoned traveller, tied to the handle late last night, as I can now see it attached to my bag, trundling down the carousel.

  ‘There it is,’ I say to Jas, and take a step forward to jostle my way to the front of the crowd in order to retrieve it. At least it’s here, I think to myself as I see it. I’ve heard stories about bags going on holiday to Bermuda without their owners.

  Jas stops me then. ‘It’s OK. I’ll get it.’

  ‘My hero,’ I say, pointing out the pink ribbon.

  I watch as he grabs the handle and goes to pull it off the carousel. But as he does there’s a confused look and a harder pull before he’s able to set it down on the ground and lug it towards me.

  ‘What’ve you got in there?’

  ‘Clothes. Half of which I won’t wear because I’m a terrible packer. It’s something I’ve come to live with. Doesn’t seem to matter where I go or for how long.’

  ‘Better you than me.’

  I smile, glancing at his jacket. Something tells me he’s not going to be doing much shopping in London. As for me…

  I can’t make any such promises, budget or no budget.

  Bags in hand, we stand around a bit now, knowing that this is the end of the road, but neither of us wanting to make the first move to go. I think about asking Jas if he wants to meet up again for dinner tonight, but then decide against it. He’ll have other things to do. Famous people things. He’s probably staying at the Savoy, or the Ritz or something, and the closest I’ll get to those hotels is if the kleptomaniac in me feels the urge to steal a pack of matches.

  ‘I guess…’

  ‘Well…’

  Jas puts his bag down and gives me a hug. ‘Have a great time,’ he says. ‘With your sausages and sauerkraut.’

  I make a face. ‘I’m planning on keeping my stomach a sausage and sauerkraut-free zone. You have a wonderful holiday. It sounds like you need it.’

  Jas makes a face as well. ‘Yeah. I’ll try.’ He hands me something then. A business card. ‘So you can call me. Mobile works here.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. But somehow I don’t think I will. I’d just look…desperate. As if I was only interested in him now that he’s famous. After all, I didn’t return his calls for the last two years, why else would I start now? ‘So, um—bye, then.’ I go to turn, but Jas lunges forward and bends down to my height. He puts one hand on each of my shoulders and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘It was great seeing you again, Charlie.’

  I swallow.

  He steps back now and smiles quickly. ‘Call this time, yeah?’

  I nod. ‘Um, OK. Thanks.’ I hold the card up. Then I turn for real, waving with my free hand. I head off in the direction of some nearby phones, remembering my promise to give Kath and Mark a call as soon as I got to the airport.

  They really worry about me.

  Kath picks up the phone on the second ring. ‘Charlie?’ she sounds frantic.

  OK, so maybe they worry a bit too much.

  ‘Yep, it’s me. I got here just fine. On first class, I might add.’

  ‘First class?’

  I explain the videotape scenario to Kath and then my chance meeting with Jas, aka Zamiel.

  ‘And how was that?’

  ‘Strange. He seems exactly the same. I thought he’d be really different now, but it was just like old times.’

  ‘Did he eat any live animals?’

  I laugh. ‘Yep, they had them in a cage so he could just go up and pick them out when he felt like it. And there was a spittoon on the floor he could spit the bones and fur into as well.’

  There’s a pause on the other end of the line.

  I laugh. ‘Come on, Kath, you know that’s not true,’ I say, but feel a bit guilty remembering that I sort of, kind of, just a little bit might have believed it myself not so long ago. Media brainwashing, of course.

  I ask about the twins and Kath tells me all the news. Who ate the most—Daisy—who tried to speak—yes, at four weeks; she is obviously very intelligent—Annie—who pooed the most—Daisy. Then she asks what I’m going to do next.

  ‘I’m going to catch the Tube to the hotel, and then I might have a bit of a walk around,’ I say.

  ‘Charlie, you should have a rest. You must be exhausted.’

  ‘I’m fine. Stop worrying!’ But I smile as I say it. Really, it’s nice to have someone who frets about you.

  She makes me promise twice that I’ll call her in the next few days before we both hang up. As I replace the receiver, I take a look around to get my bearings. I’d seen a sign for the Tube before—past the carousels, I think. Ah, there it is. I make my way over towards it, reading the signs all around as I wheel my bag. It’s only when I finally look down that I see him…

  Jas. Sitting on his bag. Right where I left him fifteen minutes ago.

  He doesn’t notice me until I’m standing right in front of him. When he still doesn’t look up, I start tapping one toe to get his attention.

  ‘Ah,’ he says, spotting me.

  ‘What are you still doing here?’

  He freezes and looks decidedly as if he wishes he was small enough to hide behind his bag.

  No chance.

  ‘I…er. Deciding where to go.’

  I stop tapping now. ‘What do you mean? Don’t you have any plans?’

  Jas shakes his head.

  ‘Are you out of cash or something?’

  Jas stands up and pulls out his wallet. ‘Don’t know, actually.’ He opens it up. There are two US dollars, but no useful money. ‘I’ve got a few cards…’

  This I’ve already noted, wide-eyed. ‘Few’ isn’t quite the word. Jas has the whole set in there—as if he’s collecting them. Amex, VISA, MasterCard, Diners. And no cash. Who does he think he is? The Queen?

  He puts his wallet away then, and looks at me like the last puppy at the pound. ‘What I mean is, I don’t have anything to do.’

  I stand in silence, surprised. Very surprised. I guess I’d been half expecting him to ditch me before we disembarked the plane and I’d be left to watch him push the paparazzi aside as he made his way through Heathrow, dived into some waiting limo purring at a designated pick-up point and sped off to a sixties rock-star-style night of debauchery at some exclusive hotel, where all the big names had been sitting around for hours waiting for him to arrive and do the first line of the night on his specially requested black granite coffee table.

  Phew.

  I give him the once-over now. Old denim jacket. Beat-up bag. Black hair stuck to his white T-shirt. Puppy eyes. The guy’s a mess.

  ‘What?’ Jas eventually protests.

  ‘Well, what do you want to do? You can’t hang around here for ever.’

  He glances around a bit before he shrugs. I can tell he’s decidedly unimpressed with his surroundings. Here I am, chomping at the bit to get out and rediscover London, and Jas is coldly inspecting Heathrow as if it’s just somewhere to be when he’s not somewhere else. ‘You really don’t have anything to do?’ I ask again.

  He shakes his head one more time.

  I tip my head to one side and size him up. ‘Fine. Why don’t you come with me, then?’

  He starts at this. ‘What? On your trip?’

  I nod. ‘If they’ve got a spare place, I don’t see why you couldn’t.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘But what?’

  He sags back down to sit on his bag. ‘Couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’r
e just being polite.’

  I laugh then. ‘When have I ever been polite to you, sad sack?’

  Jas sighs. ‘That’s true.’ He looks up and smiles. ‘You really don’t mind?’

  ‘As long as Zamiel’s not coming, why should I mind?’

  There’s a short silence while Jas sizes me up. Then he smiles again. ‘Left Zamiel at home. He’s a complete arse-hole. Takes all the packing space.’

  ‘I guess we’d better ring the tour company and find out if it’s even possible or not. No point thinking about it if it isn’t, is there?’ I find the number on my itinerary and check to see if I’ve got change for the phone. I don’t. ‘I’ll have to get some coins.’

  Jas shakes his head. ‘Hang on. Got my mobile here somewhere.’ He sticks his hand in his back pocket and comes out with something about the size of one of his many credit cards.

  I can’t believe my eyes. ‘That’s a phone?’ I’ve never seen one so small. It must have cost an absolute fortune.

  ‘Yep.’ He hands it to me after turning it on. ‘Don’t look like that. It’s just a phone. Works exactly the same way.’

  Just as I take it, it starts beeping. ‘I didn’t break it.’ I freeze, cradling it in my palm. ‘It wasn’t me.’ But then I see why it’s beeping. Jas has messages. Fifteen messages. ‘Mr Popularity.’ I hand the phone back. I watch as he scrolls through the numbers, deleting each one. ‘Aren’t you going to listen to them?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’ Delete, delete, delete.

  ‘OK,’ I say slowly. When he’s done, Jas goes to pass the phone back to me, but I tell him he can call. Somehow I don’t think my insurance would cover me dropping a phone so small. I read out the tour company’s number while Jas dials.

  We’re lucky. There are three spare seats left on the tour. And, after reading all the numbers off his VISA card, one of them is Jas’s. He keeps talking after that, discussing details, and after a while starts to frown. He raises his index finger. ‘Ah, there’s a problem,’ he says. ‘No single rooms left. There’s people sharing, though, so it should be OK.’