If I Can't Have You

by Charlotte Levin

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It was played at her funeral.’

  ‘Oh . . . I’m . . . I’m sorry.’ He returned his glasses to his face. Embarrassed. At least, I thought he was. But he carried on. ‘And what was she like?’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Yes . . . Tell me about her. How would you describe her?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . She . . . she looked a bit like me, I guess. A tad taller, though.’ He waited for more. ‘And she was funny, without knowing it . . . always getting her words mixed up or saying daft things. She was much prettier than me. Not that she thought so . . . not since . . . not for some time. But you know . . . she was fun. We laughed a lot. When she wasn’t sad. Or drunk.’

  It was strange how soothed I was. It dawned on me that I never talked about her. Only repetitive thoughts. No one even knew her. Or cared. I’d tried to avoid it all so much she was almost a figment. A ghost I’d become afraid of. But she was my mum. My mum.

  ‘She sounds like someone I’d have liked to have met.’

  As I smiled, I caught sight of the clock. I’d only been in there fifteen minutes. My leg pulsed again. Up, down, up, down. It concerned me that if I stayed any longer, my guard might drop too much.

  He returned to making notes in his pad. I felt more comfortable with it this time. Almost curious. Until he said, ‘Why was she sad?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said she was fun when she wasn’t drunk or sad. What do you think made her sad?’

  I shrugged. ‘I suppose some people just are, aren’t they?’

  He paused and looked up at me with his hooded eyes. Again waited without a flicker.

  ‘I don’t know . . . She just was. That’s all . . . since Dad. Even when she wasn’t, it was only a window. I’d lose her again at any moment.’

  ‘Since Dad?’

  ‘Sorry, Dr Franco. I . . . I realize I didn’t bring any lunch . . . Sorry. I need to get a sandwich or I’ll have to go all day without eating.’

  ‘Oh . . . that’s a shame. But just stay a couple more minutes if you can. Tell me, why was your mum sad about your dad? Did they divorce?’

  I dropped my head and clenched my teeth. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh no . . . Did he pass away too? Did something happen to him?’

  I was wrong. It wasn’t comforting at all. I didn’t like it. Loathed the way he rummaged inside me, regardless of how good it felt to bring her back. My hands pushed down into the plush hide of the chair to help me stand.

  ‘I don’t know what happened to him, all right. We never did.’

  London. A city with a population of nearly nine million and there was I, weaving souls, avoiding bodies, a stranger to them all. The story goes that when I was born, my parents called me Eleanor, after ‘Eleanor Rigby’. A couple of days later they changed their minds, concerned I may fulfil her prophecy. Instead, they named me Constance after my grandma, who was decapitated in a car accident when my dad was only five years old. For some reason, they didn’t mind me fulfilling that prophecy. Not that it mattered. I was already Eleanor. No one can escape their destiny.

  After joining my troops for the Friday-night commuting battle, we stormed the Tube station as our opponents attempted to leave. I found myself behind a particularly annoying man, shuffling along, typing into his phone, oblivious to other people. Instead of politely, patiently following his snail pace, as I ordinarily would, I pressed my undamaged fist into the hollow of his back, while thinking of you, him, her, Dr Franco when I shouted, ‘I don’t want to do this. It’s pointless,’ and his annoyingly calm reply: ‘I understand, Constance. Shall we say a week on Monday?’

  The man turned around. Brow furrowed. I probably would have felt bad at that point, had he not also had a ridiculous handlebar moustache. ‘I’m so sorry – someone was pushing into me,’ I said.

  Surviving the scrum, holding on to the yellow pole inside the carriage, I wondered how many of us squashed in there felt as isolated as I did. Loneliness isn’t reserved for the elderly at Christmas, like John Lewis would lead us to believe. It had nothing to do with the nine million people at my fingertips. It was about not being truly seen, connected to another. The day I met you, I ceased to be lonely. And I didn’t want to go back to being so again.

  Costcutter was far too bright. Armed with a little extra money after having bought a cheaper morning-after pill, I made a dash towards the booze aisle but was distracted by a buy-one, get-one-free Jaffa Cakes stand displayed under a hypnotic flickering fluorescent tube. I threw four packs into the rusty basket.

  Aside from me, Mum’s best friend was Martini. Or Martin, as it became known between us. She needed him. Just like she needed Dad. On good days she’d say, ‘I haven’t spoken to Martin today.’

  ‘Well done,’ I’d say, followed by a misguided moment of optimism. Until something occurred. Be it a small thing: a bill, forgetting to buy milk when she went to the shops or seeing a happy couple on TV. Then it would change to ‘Martin and I have things to discuss.’ And I’d lose her to her bedroom.

  I didn’t buy Martin. Because I despised him for what he did to her. I opted for a litre of Vladimir instead.

  The tired-of-life woman on the till packed my Jaffa Cakes, forty fags and Vladimir into the plastic bag I’d begrudgingly purchased. She glanced up at me for a second, her eye carrying a glimpse of disgust. Or perhaps she was wondering if there were any Jaffa Cakes left for her. Either way, I somehow felt the need to justify myself.

  ‘I’m having a party.’ She said nothing, forcing me to add, ‘It’s my birthday, so I’m having a party.’

  ‘Thirty-six pounds ten,’ she said.

  Back home, the silence from Dale’s room reminded me that he was visiting his parents and I was relieved to be alone and free to finally surrender to my anguish.

  I changed into your T-shirt and lay on the bed with Jaffa Cakes to my left, Vlad to my right and Blusha on my chest, unleashing tears to our song, ‘At Last’, on loop. Imagining you were listening to it too, regretful, thinking of me. Only swapping it occasionally for Martha Wainwright’s ‘Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole’.

  In a short space of time I’d consumed nine fags, half a pint of vodka, emergency contraception and a full pack of Jaffas. I felt damaged and relished the comfort in that. The room spun. I turned onto my side to steady the world, regurgitating liquidized orange jelly into my mouth, which I swallowed back down before circling in and out of sleep, until woken fully by my phone pinging next to my head. The noise brought with it an injection of hope. My drunk-and-disorderly fingers inputted the wrong PIN three times. When I finally unlocked it, there it was. Domino’s, any size pizza for £9.99 weekend special.

  I couldn’t return to my sleep. Felt sick. But had to hold it in for three hours or the pill wouldn’t work. I was unable to settle. Didn’t know what to do with myself. The feeling was so overwhelming that I needed to replace it with something else. Something worse.

  I knelt beside the bed. Dipped underneath into the filthy darkness, reaching to feel the handle of the suitcase, my drunken brain pounding against my skull, and pulled. Click left, unlock. Click right, unlock. Opened the lid. I sneezed in response to the inhaled dust.

  Although the picture of you, us, was the first thing I noticed, that wasn’t my weapon of torture. The diaries were all there. As always. The last one on the top. The one I feared the most. The one I needed to read yet couldn’t even bring myself to touch.

  Various colours, differing sizes. Some had the dates on. Others labels. I picked one up. Journal of Angie Jones. It was backed in pastel floral wallpaper. Jones was her maiden name, so it was an old one.

  I closed my eyes and chose a page at random. Went to see Flashdance with Michelle tonight and now I want to get my hair permed . . . I shut it. Couldn’t do it. The loops and swirls of her writing. Her voice. Her ghost. It went back in the case. Click left, lock. Click right, lock. And I pushed it even further back under the bed than before.

  As I re-emerged, a knoc
k at the door startled me, causing me to bang my head against the frame. When I looked up, rubbing my crown, Dale was standing in the room.

  He walked over towards me, dropping his bag on the floor halfway. ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing . . . I . . . I was just sorting some stuff out. You’re back early?’ I remained on my haunches, unsure of how much of a state I looked.

  He flopped onto the bed. ‘Yeah, well, you know the drill. Mum’s a control freak, Dad’s a bigot, and I’m a huge disappointment . . . Is that vodka?’ When I managed to stand, he was holding the bottle in his hand like a disapproving parent. ‘You’re trashed again, aren’t you? Why are you trashed on your own at home?’

  I snatched the bottle from him and placed it under the bedside table. ‘I’m not trashed. I’ve just had a bad day, that’s all.’

  He dropped back onto the duvet. ‘Yeah, well, we all have, but there’s no need to be an alchy about it.’

  It’s funny that after all the things that had occurred, it was those words that finally broke the dam. ‘I’m not a fucking alchy . . . Don’t say that . . . You shouldn’t say that.’

  Forty-per-cent-proof tears stung my face. Strings of snot and saliva quickly formed. I watched Dale’s horrified expression as he stood, grasped that I was crying.

  ‘No . . . no, I was only joking, Constance. I’m sorry . . . What’s wrong? Talk to me.’ He engulfed me in his arms, rocked me back and forth, kissing my hair.

  My instinct was to shrug him off, but I soon gave in to the sensation. It was warm, comforting.

  ‘Hey . . . come on . . . Tell me what’s wrong.’

  I had two choices. The truth or a lie. So I did the right thing.

  ‘It was the funeral . . . It’s brought everything back. I miss her so badly, Dale.’

  Not a lie. Just not the entire truth. But you know all about that, don’t you?

  I unglued my wet face from his shoulder. ‘They all leave me. Everyone I love.’

  He drew back, took hold of my arms and jolted me to look at him. ‘Hey . . . not me. I’m not going to leave you.’

  ‘You say that, but—’

  ‘But nothing.’ He entwined his little finger around mine. ‘Promise.’ He smiled.

  When he left to get changed, I noticed the empty pill box that thankfully he hadn’t and folded it up, small enough to hide inside an empty cigarette packet on the side. I then contemplated moving over to the couch, but I didn’t want to leave the small comfort of my bed, so I switched on the TV and lit a fag, coughing as the smoke entered my fragile body. Dangling over the side, I retrieved the bottle for one last swig before his return, which left me feeling sick again. Checked my phone. Nothing. My mind returned to searching for you in the Castle, and a new torturous idea that you were instead at your flat having sex with a better-suited posh girl. I dragged my hands, harsh, over my face to erase the image. Took another gulp.

  When Dale returned, in his ‘comfy garb’, he threw himself on the bed between me and the wall and said, ‘For fuck’s sake, we’re not watching Murder, She Wrote.’ So we put on Blade Runner. He had to watch it a few times a year and hadn’t since June apparently. I didn’t care what was on: I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts were only of you. Agonizing. Yet forbidden to be expressed. Like the last scene in Brief Encounter. Where she’s sat in the armchair and her husband is so happy to have her back. She cries in his arms. But he is unaware that the tears are not for him.

  Dale moved Blusha out of the way and gestured for me to rest my head on his chest. Tentatively, I complied. Surprised at the comfort it induced. Exhausted, drunk, I finally relaxed. My eyelids dropped further with each exhalation.

  Then he said, ‘You know . . . I thought you were seeing someone. And that perhaps it was over.’

  I didn’t move. Didn’t lift my head. ‘What do you mean?’

  He too remained still. ‘The past few weeks . . . I just . . . I just got it in my head you were seeing someone.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . You were . . . different, I guess. You didn’t come home—’

  ‘I was with a friend from school—’

  ‘Yeah . . . yeah . . . I know. You said. So, are you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Seeing someone?’

  I pushed myself up, turned to him. You would have been so proud of me because I looked directly in his eyes and said, ‘No . . . no, of course not. You’re my best friend. If I was seeing someone, don’t you think you’d be the first to know?’

  He covered his face with his hands. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. That’s what upset me – the thought that you hadn’t. I know I’ve been a bit funny lately . . . That was why. I’m sorry . . . and there you were having a really shit time and I was up my own arse.’

  I lit a cigarette. ‘I promise you I’m not seeing anyone.’ Rephrasing it eradicated some of the guilt. Another truth-lie. Except it wasn’t, really. It was now just the truth.

  Tears crept up on me again.

  ‘Hey . . . I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine. I’m just drunk.’

  But it wasn’t that. It was because I was a terrible person, and I never used to be.

  He grabbed a roll of toilet paper off the side, wound some around his hand and passed it to me. ‘You know, I’m not being truthful.’

  I took the paper, confused, and blew my nose.

  ‘I’ve made out that I’m upset because I thought you hadn’t told me you were seeing someone . . . and I was. I mean, that would be upsetting, but—’ He stopped.

  I was meant to coax it out of him but didn’t. I remained mute, head down, wrapping the tissue around my finger. Because I sensed what he wanted to say, and I didn’t want him to say it.

  ‘OK . . . fuck it. The truth is, it . . . it felt horrendous. The thought of you being with someone.’ His eyes searched for approval, but I just blew my nose again and withdrew my gaze from his, my eyelids descending slowly, focusing on my hands tearing at the screwed-up tissue.

  It was so very long, the silence. Loud. After some moments within its deafening boom, he stood. ‘Right . . . well, don’t I feel the dick . . .? Erm . . . yeah, I’m not really in the mood for Blade Runner tonight, if that’s OK?’

  It was then I’d intended to say something. At the very least tell him he wasn’t a dick. But by the time my lips had emerged from their coma, he was halfway out of the room. ‘Dale . . . I—’ The door slammed.

  I followed him. Knocked on his door. Knocked again. Nothing. Tried the handle, but it was locked.

  ‘Dale . . . come on . . . Please let me in.’

  Then there was the sound of explosions, firing of machine guns, the death throes of shot zombies, but no response.

  I was back to being alone.

  Being Eleanor Rigby.

  It’s impossible to know what course we’d take in life if we hadn’t met certain individuals. I was unaware, but you’d altered me. You, a catalyst who had, by definition, remained unchanged.

  Dale had disappeared. I heard him leave on the Saturday morning, and he never returned. Even arguing with his parents was preferable to facing me. I shan’t pretend I wasn’t glad. I needed the space to drink and smoke, alternate between hope and despair.

  On the Monday morning I’d woken in the despair mode. Leaving me no choice but to call in with feigned food poisoning. But by ten o’clock, after an hour, pacing, unsettled, I’d returned to hope. Desperate to see you. And by eleven I was standing in reception, a puffy-faced wreck.

  ‘I’m feeling much better now,’ I declared to the bewildered faces of Linda and Alison.

  It was midday and I still hadn’t seen you. Each of your patients arrived early, a conveyer belt of illness, leaving no gap I could take advantage of. When Linda and her prying eyes went to the toilet, I checked the system for the rest of your appointments. Mrs Hall, Mr Pinner, then, thank God, a break.

  Mr Pinner was in with you longer than the alloca
ted slot. He didn’t even look that ill.

  Despite being unable to concentrate, I inputted patient details in order to appear busy to Alison, who was killing me with stories about her new NutriBullet.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking – it’s the same as any other blender.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m thinking, Alison.’

  Finally Mr Pinner emerged. I took his debit card and smiled dutifully as he gave Alison a run for her money with his chat about the orchid. It was a Miltonia. Did you know that?

  Once he’d left, I was collecting up the paperwork to complete at my desk when I clocked you. I stayed put. Despite my somersaulting stomach, I continued with the notes on the reception desk, my back to you, seemingly unaware of your existence, waiting for what was to surely follow: a request for a coffee or a file. The corners of my mouth flickered upwards as my prediction came true.

  ‘You couldn’t make a copy of these and bring them in to me, could you, Alison?’

  My mouth dropped. The somersault ended with a crash.

  Still I continued writing. Pressing so hard I ruptured the paper, tattooing the wood beneath.

  On hearing the buzz of the printer powering up, I turned to see Alison standing next to it, pages edging out, inch by inch.

  ‘I like to add melon to the kale one. As a sweetener.’ She removed each sheet from the machine. Ordered them in her hands. When the last one spat out, she placed it at the bottom of the pile. ‘I’m going to try a smoothie tomorrow, banana and strawberry.’

  ‘I hate strawberries. They make my face swell and could kill me.’ I grabbed the pages from her. ‘I’ll take these, Alison . . . don’t worry.’

  I did knock but didn’t wait for the invite before entering.

  You were on your computer, engrossed in someone’s notes. ‘Thanks, Alison. Pop it on my desk, will you.’

  As I gently placed it down, the familiarity of your scent both comforted and upset me. However, I mustn’t have carried much of an aroma myself, because you continued to gaze at the screen, oblivious. I didn’t leave. I stood there. Patiently.