If I Can't Have You

by Charlotte Levin

  CHARLOTTE LEVIN

  If I Can’t Have You

  Contents

  They all stared …

  My darling Samuel …

  I often think …

  We never talked …

  The next morning …

  For the remainder …

  My weekend consisted …

  I made it …

  You buzzed me …

  For the next …

  I was still …

  London. A city …

  It’s impossible to …

  It had been …

  It wasn’t the …

  I watched a …

  From that point …

  Edward’s flat was …

  It was the …

  By the time …

  Everything changed after …

  ‘Is that Constance …

  No longer the …

  Knowing Fiona had …

  The next day …

  For the next …

  The whole weekend …

  ‘On the day …

  You were on …

  I found myself …

  I rocked back …

  The sweating, the …

  The small hipster …

  According to Dale …

  The pollen was …

  Which brings us …

  He opened the …

  Exiting High Street …

  Then there was …

  I can’t recall …

  So there it …

  My beautiful Constance …

  Acknowledgements

  For Mum and Dad

  The snow

  ‘Unexpressed emotions will never die.

  They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways’

  SIGMUND FREUD

  They all stared.

  The group of girls cooing over the fruits of their Christmas shopping trip stopped and slapped each other’s arms. The Marrieds ceased to argue and held hands. The Reading Man lost his page.

  I stood in the Tube carriage among them.

  A young suity-booty City Prick and a Sloane Ranger with a leg-kicking infant on her lap parted ways to expose a seat for me. I don’t believe out of politeness. Most likely out of fear, confusion. The fact my light-headed sways made it probable I’d fall their way.

  Regardless of the reason, I was grateful, and squeezed my white taffeta-engulfed body between them, while attempting to keep the material under control, which proved impossible as the voluminous skirt overlapped onto them both.

  The child, who I could now see was a girl, stroked my dress with her saliva-ridden fingers.

  ‘Look at the princess, Mummy.’

  The mother buried her spawn’s head into her blazer, clearly wishing to God she’d just got a black cab as usual. However, her utter Englishness forced her to smile at me. I returned a semi-version, but was conscious of my front tooth, hanging by a minute thread of gum. It hurt. I closed my mouth and looked down at the blood covering my chest. It was odd how it had taken more to the embroidery than the taffeta.

  Raising my head, I could see in the window’s distorted reflection Sloaney and City Prick looking at each other behind me in wide-eyed horror. Though they appeared to be strangers, I’d bonded them. Beyond their ghostly images was the huge High Street Kensington sign. It was telling me goodbye. I remember thinking I’d write a book about it one day. The Fucked Girl on the Train.

  As we pulled away from the station, eyes screwed and faces twisted with calculations as they tried to decipher what had happened. Was I the jilter or the jiltee? But as you know more than anyone, Dr Franco, people are rarely what they appear to be on the surface. The Marrieds may have in fact been illicit lovers, the shopping girls been out on the steal.

  Sloaney pressed her Chanel silk scarf against her nose. It was my vomit-laced veil she could smell. I was tempted to turn and tell her everything. Ask for her help. But I couldn’t, because I didn’t know her. I didn’t know anyone anymore.

  She wouldn’t have given a shit, anyway. Her only concern being I didn’t scare Mini Sloane. I smiled at the kid. It cried.

  I was already old news. People stopped gawking, or were doing so more subtly at least. They returned to their arguing, laughing, avoiding. Heads magnetically drawn down to phones. But then came the flashes. There was no doubt I’d feature heavily in conversations that day. Photo evidence was needed. I’d be trending on Twitter.

  Reading Man glanced up from his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Perhaps he was wondering which one my habit was. But then that’s what I love about London. Rather than staring, why didn’t they ask if I was OK? I was not fucking OK, people. In Manchester, I’d have been in someone’s house by then, being handed a cup of tea with six sugars and a Blue Riband.

  The Tube slowed to a halt. Earls Court. I could see them on the platform waiting for me.

  My tooth dropped onto my lap.

  My darling Samuel,

  I’ve never written a letter before. Love or otherwise.

  As much as I’ve been desperate to tell you how much I miss you, think about you until my head spins, my stomach constricts, it was Dr Franco’s suggestion that I write.

  You must know I intended to join you. I promise I did. But when it came to it, I couldn’t. Not now I have something to stay here for. I’m sorry.

  It’ll be some time before I see you again and I can’t stop fretting that I never got to explain myself fully. Aside from the brief, clumsy attempt you allowed me that day. That terrible day. I can’t even steady the pen as I write these words.

  Anyway, I’ve decided to take his advice. Tell you everything. From the beginning. My account of it all. My side. Moment by moment. Hurt by hurt. Though Dr Franco insists there are no such things as beginnings. Only the point from which someone is prepared to start telling their story. So I’ll start from our beginning. And I promise it will be the entire truth. Something no one else shall know.

  I often think about the first time I saw you: when they broke the news that Dr Williams had been killed at the weekend.

  Dr Harris and Dr Short had gathered everyone into the surgery waiting room, even menials like myself, and Harris relayed the shocking details. ‘You may as well hear it from me as there’ll only be speculation.’ Mrs Williams. An argument. The car that hit him as he ran across the road after her. How he was still alive when the ambulance arrived. How he was dead before they could get him into it. I heard it all. The terrible events. The intakes of breath. Linda blubbing next to me. I heard. But it was you who held my concentration.

  You were the stranger among us. Kept your head down in respect. Or was it embarrassment? Your hair fell forward, draping your face in that way it does, and when you glanced up, your eyes, pale, unsettled, unsettled me.

  Dr Harris hadn’t been speaking long before Linda felt faint. With difficulty, her being built like a walrus, I eased her round the Country Life-covered coffee table and onto the nearest section of modular seating, before fetching her a glass of water as instructed.

  You stood in the doorway. I could smell you. Lemons. My hand brushed yours as I passed, but I didn’t acknowledge you or smile, merely walked on as if you were a ghost. On my return, you’d moved further into the room, meaning there was no accidental touch.

  As I’m sure you’ll remember, Linda’s reaction was stronger than everyone else’s. Possibly even than that of Mrs Williams. It was always obvious she’d had a thing for him. We – Linda, myself and Alison – were responsible for all the doctors’ admin, as you know. But Linda coveted Dr Williams’s work. I could identify the glint through her cloggy eyelashes each time she had to go to his office. Poor Linda. The ‘speculation’ was that Mrs Williams was running
away because she’d caught him with another woman. Another woman who wasn’t Linda. It wasn’t just his wife whom Dr Williams had betrayed.

  I remember feeling conscious that I didn’t look upset enough. Or shocked. Even the unfriendly agency nurses, or the Ratcheds, as I called them, looked emotional. But I was just as shaken and moved by Dr Williams’s fate as everyone else. Only, I’d lost the ability to express. As you know, with me, it’s all inside. Always inside.

  With Linda now settled into a low-grade wail, Dr Harris brought the meeting to practical matters. As a private practice, there wasn’t the option of telling people there was a three-week wait for an appointment. He wasn’t prepared to lose money, dead partner or not. That was when he introduced you.

  I never liked Dr Harris. Mainly because he was a wanker. But also, the way he’d always point – no, jab – with his party-sausage fingers, onto which he’d somehow managed to stuff a ring. I wondered about the woman who’d screw such a man for a nice house and car. I presumed that was her motive. But I couldn’t imagine a house or car spectacular enough.

  ‘Constance, I’ll draft a letter for you to send out to all of Dr Williams’s patients. You and Alison call anyone due to see him today and give them the choice of rearranging with me or Dr Short for later this week or keeping their appointment and seeing Dr Stevens instead. Please encourage the latter.’ He summoned you further into the room. ‘This is Dr Stevens from our Harley Street surgery.’

  Grateful I could now look at you directly, I contemplated the intricacies of your face. Soaked you in. You were the epitome of posh. Everything I despised. Yet I was conflicted about how attractive I found you.

  I observed as you pushed your fine-cotton white shirtsleeves further up your forearms, which you folded, unfolded, folded again before daring to draw the long breath that enabled you to speak. Before the words sounded, you broke into a smile, which forced me to momentarily lower my burning face.

  ‘Hello . . . I’m so sorry about Dr W-Williams. I know he was very much loved by you all. Although it’s in the saddest of circumstances I’m here, I look forward to working with everyone and getting to know you . . . and the patients.’

  You delivered your stilted lines almost perfectly. Aside from that stutter with his name. Yes, I noticed. But I’m sure no one else did. You’d clearly been practising. I suspect out loud in your full-length bedroom mirror. And I could sense the relief once it had left your lips.

  Your micro-speech triggered Linda’s sobs to start up again and gather momentum. Dr Harris instructed Alison to call her a cab, and for me to pack up Dr Williams’s personal belongings in his office. I didn’t want to. The idea scared me. His stuff. But I nodded subserviently, as I always did.

  I remained in the waiting room, prolonging the task. Dr Harris had already left for his office. The Ratcheds had disappeared too. Alison was helping Linda on with her raincoat. You were shaking hands and talking in a low, respectful voice with Dr Short. I wonder, were you suppressing a smile at the contrast with his name and his practically being a giant at six foot seven? It always amused me. Stood next to him, I looked like a tiny child. He treated me like one as well.

  Throughout all this you hadn’t noticed me once.

  To further delay going to Dr Williams’s office, I headed to reception to pull up his appointments for the day. Alison was shuffling Linda out of the building, passing the responsibility on to a bemused taxi driver. The front door banged shut.

  Minus the crying, all was quiet until Alison made her way to the desk.

  ‘I can’t believe he’s dead.’ She leant over the wooden ledge separating us to deliver her whisper.

  I feel bad saying Alison was boring. It sounds cruel. But is something cruel if it’s also true? Her boringness was a fact. And why do the boring ones talk the most? To be fair, I only listened to around forty per cent of what she had to say, so she may have been riveting for the other sixty. I even preferred the bitterness of Linda and her banging on about getting another thyroid test while tucking into her fourth KitKat Chunky of the day.

  ‘Yes, it’s terrible.’ I stared at the computer screen.

  ‘I just can’t believe it. Dr Williams. Dead.’

  ‘Yes. It’s horrible. But . . . well, people die.’ I knew it would show itself. My hands trembled over the keyboard, and I was overcome with queasiness.

  ‘So what do you think happened? All sounds a bit fishy to me.’

  ‘I think it was a terrible accident.’

  I hoped she’d interpret my taut words as ‘Shut the fuck up’, yet she continued. ‘Hmm . . . I’m not so sure . . . Isn’t death weird, though? You’re just not here anymore.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d better call his patients? I’m worried you’ll not catch them all in time.’

  As she joined me behind the reception desk, I stood for her to sit in my chair, believing she’d finished, but no.

  ‘That Dr Stevens is lovely, isn’t he? I mean, I love my Kevin and wouldn’t dream of looking at another man, but he’s very handsome, isn’t he?’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’

  ‘So they say it was an accident, but Dr Williams’s wife – Margaret, is it? – wasn’t she—’

  The door buzzed.

  ‘That’s Mrs Akeem. You’d better shush now,’ I said, before escaping into the back in search of a cardboard box.

  On entering Dr Williams’s room, I’d expected you to be there, but it was pitch-dark. When I switched on the light, it wasn’t only the space that was illuminated, it was death. The silence. His things. Just there. How he’d left them on the Friday.

  No doubt you’d be aware of that phenomenon: when someone’s belongings become both hugely profound and utterly useless at the same time.

  The air, hot and clammy, made my nausea worse and I squeezed my stomach for relief. His Manchester United mug, half full with the tea I’d made him, looked lost. A large crumb – I’d guess from the stash of digestives he kept in his drawer – was stuck to the rim. During my interview, he’d picked up on my Mancunian accent. Presumed I was a Man United fan. I was by default, but I don’t care much for football. He told me he went to uni there. Lived in Fallowfield. The opposite end to where I was. He was full of nostalgia, yearnings for my hometown, and I’m certain that’s why he hired me. A link to his youth and happier times. Or maybe he just liked me. All I know is it wasn’t my experience or qualifications. I’d already felt lucky that I’d managed to immediately land a job pulling pints in a dive pub. But I saw the vacancy for the surgery receptionist in a copy of the Evening Standard someone had left on the Tube and applied that night on a drunken whim. When he called to offer me the job, I felt for that moment like I was a real person. Worthy of something good. But I soon remembered that I wasn’t at all.

  I picked up the wooden-framed picture of him and his family, all smiles, and placed it face down in the box. Next, I reached over for the mug, but as I did, the nausea overwhelmed me, and before I’d had a chance to think, I’d run to the sink and thrown up. And again. And again. When it all seemed over, and I gripped the sides of the cold porcelain, breaths heavy, I felt a hand on my back and jumped.

  ‘Oh God . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just . . . Are you OK? It’s a terrible shock all this, I know.’

  I faced you. Aware of how I must have looked, I turned back towards the sink and pulled paper towels from the dispenser to wipe the remnants of vomit from my chin before throwing them in the bin. ‘Yes . . . yes, I’m fine. I . . . I don’t know what happened. I must have eaten something.’

  ‘Are you sick every morning?’

  ‘No . . . God, no. I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  ‘No . . . I . . . Well, yes, I was getting at that, but I’m a doctor. That’s kind of what I do.’

  ‘Honestly, it’s nothing. I’ve probably just got a bug or something. Dr Franco went home with one on Friday.’

  ‘Dr Franco? I thought it was only Dr Harris a
nd Dr Short?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it is. Dr Franco just rents a room here. He’s a psychiatrist or . . . psychologist. I always get confused. He’s not here all the time, though. He also works with inpatients at some hospital in Ealing.’ A strange look I was unable to interpret washed over your eyes. ‘Anyway, Dr Stevens, I’d better . . .’ I returned to the desk and picked up the mug.

  ‘Alison, isn’t it?’

  You have no idea how much that stung. ‘Constance.’

  ‘Constance . . . of course, Constance. I’m sorry. I’m terrible with names.’

  ‘Alison’s in reception.’ I took the mug to the sink and rinsed it along with the residue of my breakfast.

  ‘And the office manager is Linda? Is that right? Is that it, then?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, that’s right. Apart from the R—’ I stopped myself. ‘Carol and Janet, the agency nurses. They’re just part-time, covering maternity leave. For Rayowa, the proper nurse.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Constance. For saving me from embarrassing myself again.’

  I smiled, then turned back towards you, shaking the mug free of water. ‘I’ll leave all Dr Williams’s medical things here, but let me know if you need anything ordering. Stationery or other supplies.’

  ‘Are you feeling better?’

  I dared to look at you properly, but your smile caught me off guard. ‘Yes, Dr Stevens. I feel fine now. Thank you . . . I’m just embarrassed, that’s all. Your first day as well.’

  ‘Yes, I prefer at least a week to go by before the staff vomit in my presence.’

  I would have smiled back had I not been so mortified. Instead, I quickly grabbed the box and said, ‘I’ll let you settle in, Dr Stevens, shall I? Get the rest later?’

  You followed me to the door. Held it open like the gentleman I thought you were. It was then I caught your eyes directly for the first time. They were cold in the paleness of their grey. Unnervingly familiar. I turned my head, focused on a bald patch of carpet until you said, ‘You couldn’t possibly get me a coffee, could you? White, one sugar. Strong but milky.’