If I Can't Have You

by Charlotte Levin

  At least I thought I did. I wondered if I’d made a sound at all. Because Dale would have stopped. But he kissed harder. Pushed deeper. Breaking away only slightly to whisper, ‘If you love me, then show me.’

  My underwear was around my boots then, binding my ankles, my skirt gathered around my abdomen. With one hand he undid his zip. I managed to step out of the leg holes to free myself and pressed my arms up between us. Tried to hit his chest. But there wasn’t gap enough to have any impact. His jeans dropped to his trainers, his boxers with them. I could feel him, hard, trying to enter me. My attempts to fight him off lasted seconds, or minutes. Then somehow, from somewhere, I heard a guttural noise escape my throat. The monster inside returned. Reminding me what I am capable of.

  I pressed harder against the cupboard. Created space between us. Found the strength to pull my leg as far back as possible before swinging it forward, punching my knee violently between his legs.

  The suction of his lips broke, allowing me to scream, ‘You. Fucking. Disgust me.’

  And it stopped.

  He stepped away. Bent forward, grimacing, red, gathering himself from the pain. I dared not move when he reached down and pulled up his trousers, softly uttering, ‘I know. I know I do.’

  Silence reigned. Aside from our short breaths. We stood, heads lowered, deactivated. I pulled down my skirt to cover myself, closing my eyes to soak in the relief.

  Then smack. His fist hit my mouth.

  So hard it twisted me into a pirouette. I fell forward onto the kitchen counter. A shattering sensation seared through my face. Blood splattered the dishes. I spat red onto a plate, expecting a tooth to join it, but it remained. Loose and throbbing. I couldn’t move, breathe. Paralyzed by shock. Until I saw the blade of the knife that gleamed near my eyeball and gripped on to it, tight.

  He was sobbing when I turned. Pathetic.

  ‘Oh my God, Constance . . . I’m so sorry . . . Oh shit. It’s because I love you so much. Oh my God . . . I’m so sorry . . .’ The words looped as he paced the kitchen. Alternating between pulling and smoothing his hair.

  He didn’t even notice the weapon that I held out, ready, at a right angle as I watched him, broken, pitiful.

  I let it fall to the floor. Launched myself away from the counter. Pushed past him.

  ‘No . . . Where are you going? Constance . . . I’m so sorry. I’m drunk . . . I love you so much.’

  I turned to him. Dabbed the blood on my lip with my fingers. ‘What just happened here, Dale, isn’t love.’

  Unsteady, knocking myself against the door frame, I left the kitchen. Stumbling through the hall to my room. Stuffing bits into my bag. I wasn’t sure what. Phone, cigarettes. Put on my coat. Terrified, knowing I’d have to return for the rest.

  He didn’t follow me. Something that still surprises me to this day. Though, as I closed the front door to the words ‘You can’t go . . . What am I going to do? What will I tell them?’ I realized his remorse was for him, not me.

  Exiting High Street Kensington Station, I battled the heavy snow.

  Numb-fingered, raw-legged and knickerless, my boots crunched into the inch-deep snow. Everywhere was Christmas-card perfect. Twinkling lights entwined in trees, strung between buildings, glittering window displays, shops open late to accommodate the frantic present-buying, the homeless man freezing outside an estate agent.

  Now penniless, I poured some of the Vladimir that I’d bought before boarding the Tube into the man’s empty paper cup, then stopped for a lengthy swig myself. The harshness stung my gums. Scalded my throat. But after the initial pain subsided, it warmed my organs one by one.

  For my next vodka pause before turning into the side streets, I pulled into the doorway of a closed posh frock shop called Rags (rich people are so hilarious) and phoned Edward to warn him of my impending visit, so as not to give him a heart attack by turning up so late. A drunk vampire with a bloodstained chin.

  It rang out.

  I lit a fag, swigged more booze and called you. If ever there was a legitimate excuse to call you, turn to you, this was it. I’d be calm in your arms. Your bed. After you’d told me I deserved better, that you’d been so jealous but didn’t know how to tell me, and now you could.

  It rang out.

  As I walked, inhaling smoke, the freezing air electrocuted the nerves of my tooth, which wobbled back and forth inside the cushion of swollen lip. I threw away the cigarette, breathed only through my nose and carried on.

  I was on your road. Your car wasn’t there. Snow lay in its place. I looked up to Edward’s. The light was on in the lounge and I was thankful I wouldn’t be waking him.

  The warmth of the foyer hit me as I shook my body free of the transparent flakes. Watching them disappear into the brown, wiry mat, jealous of their invisibility.

  Climbing the stairs, I concocted my story. We split up. I left, upset, and slipped in the snow, falling on my face. I was unsure who I was protecting: Edward, Dale or myself. But for whatever reason, the truth seemed too hard to tell. As it often is.

  At the top, I bent forward out of breath. The rapidity of my pumping blood made my tooth pulse. I touched it. Red smeared my finger. All I needed was rest. That was all. To have more drink and sleep everything off. Wake to a brighter day.

  As soon as my key opened the lock, I announced myself so as not to frighten him.

  There was no response. Not that I expected one: the TV blasted so loudly that even the excellent of hearing would struggle.

  ‘Edward, it’s only me . . . No wonder you’re going bloody deaf.’ I passed his bedroom. The bed was unmade. ‘Edward, it’s me.’

  Then I stopped. Stayed still.

  Because I knew this feeling.

  The hallway distorted. Not due to alcohol.

  I was at the bottom of the stairs at home. The TV playing the This Morning theme tune. The drip, drip, drip.

  I started up again. Continued towards the lounge. Peered in. His chair was empty. The door creaked as I pushed the crack wider. A suited man stood in front of a picture-perfect snow scene that filled the screen. ‘More snow on its way, with low pressure bringing easterly winds . . .’ I focused on him as he pointed to areas on a map. Because I knew he was there, you see. Edward. Slumped on the floor like a rag doll. But I couldn’t look. Couldn’t.

  I steadied myself by holding on to the door, heaved.

  My immediate thought was to run away. Bail. Let someone else deal with it. I’ve never admitted that before. Not even to Dr Franco.

  But we’ll never know if I truly was that much of a despicable person, because before I could make that decision, I noticed from my peripheral vision he was moving.

  I opened the door fully, dared to look. He was breathing, albeit shallow and laboured, and I shut my eyes and thanked God.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ran over, intending to help him up. Presuming he’d fallen and that was the extent of the problem. But as I crouched on Poor Tiger next to him, his face ashen, clammy, a splat of vomit between his legs, I grabbed the phone out of his hand and pressed for a dialling tone that never sounded.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, why isn’t it charged?’ I scrambled in my bag for my phone, my hands uncontrollable. ‘I’ve told you you’ve got to charge it. This is why . . . This is bloody why, Edward . . . Ambulance, please . . . I’m sorry for shouting at you, Edward. I’m so sorry . . . Hello, yes . . . I think my friend’s having a heart attack.’

  It may as well have been the operator who dealt with Mum. She employed the identical phoney serene tones, asked practical questions to which I didn’t know the answers.

  ‘He’s still alive,’ I put forth unprompted.

  ‘Good. You’re doing great, Constance.’ The same lies.

  She asked if he had any aspirin. When I relayed the question to Edward, he lifted his hand and quietly squeezed out the word ‘bed’.

  Reluctant to leave him, I ran to the bedroom, searched through copious shit. Throwing things on the floor, opening drawers
like a desperate burglar, until thank God I found a bottle in his bedside cabinet, then was furious at myself for not looking there first.

  Back in the lounge, I placed a couple on his tongue to chew as instructed. But he could barely move his mouth and white chalk paste dribbled onto his chin.

  I slid down the wall. The smell of urine hit me as I thumped to the floor next to him. A dark blot expanded down his thighs.

  ‘Here, hold on to me,’ I said, taking his damp bent hand. It was colder than the snow floating in front of the window. ‘Hey, listen . . . You’re going to be fine. You’re a strong bugger. You wrestled this tiger, for Christ’s sake.’ I didn’t cry. Wouldn’t cry.

  Inhaling sharply between each phrase, he said, ‘It was . . . from a shop . . . in Holland Park.’

  I held on to him tighter. ‘You see. We’ve got stuff to talk about, you and me . . . You’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘I think . . . this . . . is the big one, Constance.’

  ‘I’m not having you say shit like that. You can’t say shit like that. It’s bullshit. You sound like her. I need you now, I’m afraid. So you can’t go anywhere. You need to be around, being a cantankerous arsehole. And . . . and I’m going to look after you properly from now on . . . stay here with you. Clear all this shit up and do crosswords together . . . because I got that clue, didn’t I? Do you remember? And I wasn’t even trying. I reckon I’ll end up better at them than you. And you can give me more books to read and I’ll read them. And then we can—’

  ‘Constance . . . don’t . . . give me a . . . headache as well.’

  I lowered my voice. ‘All I’m saying is, you can’t leave me, Edward . . . or you’ll be such a bastard.’

  ‘Don’t . . . make . . . me laugh. It hurts.’

  ‘It really does,’ I whispered.

  I stood, useless, superfluous, as one of the paramedics attached oblong sticky pads to his torso, all wired back to a small machine, which in turn beeped erratically.

  ‘Is it a heart attack?’ I asked through my hand-covered mouth, an attempt to conceal my swollen lip that he’d already clocked. But he had more pressing issues.

  ‘We need to get a proper diagnosis at the hospital . . . You’re doing great, Edward.’ Everyone spun the same old shit, it seemed.

  Edward’s oxygen mask clouded with each struggling breath. The other paramedic – Jamie, I think he said his name was – neared him with a weird stretcher-cum-chair. Unable to speak, Edward’s flimsy hand searched for mine.

  ‘I’m right here with you. You’re going to be just fine. Isn’t he, Jamie?’

  ‘Edward, we’re going to get you into this chair and take you to the hospital,’ said the big bear-like one whose name I can’t remember. He then looked at me. ‘Are you coming in the ambulance?’

  I nodded. I’d never ridden in an ambulance before. They don’t offer it up when they’re dead.

  I followed behind as they carried him through the flat, not mentioning the artefacts as people usually would. Oblivious to Cyril the Squirrel. They remained serious and focused as we all headed into the light of the communal stairway. It seemed more brutal than usual. Service-station break on an all-night drive kind of brutal. One minute they were talking to him as they negotiated the stairs, along with the still-attached machine and oxygen, chatting in faux-jolly tones, saying things like, ‘You’re doing great, Edward. We’ll be at the hospital in no time,’ and the next they’d sped up, rushing down the stairs with him, stopping abruptly at the bottom.

  I could see Edward’s eyes had now closed. ‘Don’t sleep . . . Please don’t go to sleep, Edward,’ I said as Bear-Like’s enormous frame blocked my view, projecting words I didn’t understand.

  Jamie lowered the back of the chair and Edward’s upper body was flat, his legs in the air. It would have been funny had it not been so terrifying.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. An irritant. A useless irritant.

  ‘Can you keep back, please,’ Bear-Like said to me.

  They too stepped away from him. Their energy different. Intense.

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s happening?’

  A woman’s robotic voice filled the foyer. ‘Evaluating heart rhythm.’ A loud high-pitched beep pierced my head. ‘Delivering shock.’

  ‘Why are you doing that?’

  He didn’t acknowledge me and was now next to Edward. Pressing down on his chest. Counting. I’d seen enough Casualty in my life to know what was happening. The word ‘cardiac’ echoed through the stairwell.

  Jamie was shouting, ‘Edward . . . come on. No, Edward, don’t leave me . . . please.’ Or perhaps it was me. I can’t be sure of anything. It was probably me. Because I was screaming. I think I was screaming. It was as if I had died. I was outside of my body watching them, slow motion, pressing and pressing and pressing and pressing.

  ‘No pulse for seventy-five seconds.’

  Pressing and pressing and pressing.

  And I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t see him dead. So it was then that I knew for sure that I was that despicable person. It was then that I ran away.

  Then there was one.

  I’d called and called you, but you weren’t picking up.

  I wasn’t angry. Presumed you were sitting at some overpriced reclaimed kitchen table, flush in one hand and beer in the other, oblivious. But when I go over it, as I do daily, how I wish you’d answered.

  I gave it about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, cold in every sense, before I returned to the scene. The ambulance had left. And Edward with it.

  Sipping vodka, I prepared myself for that feeling. When they’re gone. The juxtaposition of the emptiness and screams of their presence. Although, nothing could be as bad as last time. It’s not like in the movies: the police don’t deal with everything when someone violently kills themselves. I had to arrange it all myself. When the people had left, the bathroom was cleaner, brighter than it’d ever been before. Except it wasn’t. It was foul and tainted, and I continued to scrub at it every day, tile by tile. Unaware the contamination was a different kind.

  The door slammed, activating the automatic light, and as I climbed the staircase, I must have looked dead myself. Like one of Dale’s zombies, I stared ahead, unblinking, until I noticed a crumple of colour from the corner of my eye. It was his paisley handkerchief. Creased, dirty. Fallen from his pocket as they manoeuvred the stretcher. I picked it up, immune to the usual repulsion I’d feel at such a thing, and pressed it against my heart.

  Inside, I took another swig, which tipped my alcohol content and caused my vision to double, bringing with it the sound of a man’s voice. Soft and gravelly like his.

  I walked down the hall. ‘Edward?’

  It was all different. As was to be expected. Like Dr Williams’s office. Like home. Devoid of life, incomplete. Cyril lacked humour. The diving helmet was now pointless.

  I reached the lounge. The TV was still on. A man dressed in a chef’s outfit was instructing viewers on how to make game pie. It wasn’t Edward. And I relinquished the hope that perhaps I’d dreamt it all. That he’d be sitting in his chair interrogating me as to whether I’d bought his Bovril.

  I turned it off. The silence boomed.

  After cleaning the sick off the carpet and switching on the heating, I sat in my chair. His, though vacant, was full of him. The concave indentation he’d created over all those years. The layers of dust formed from his skin.

  ‘He’s fucking left us, Ursula,’ I said, dropping back into the seat, gluing the bottle to my lips.

  I know you don’t believe in signs, Samuel, but when coming up for air, I glanced over to your window. And I swear the broken cuckoo, Colin, sprang from his door, causing me to jump and slosh drink from the bottle onto my skirt. Ten times it tweeted.

  ‘Edward?’ I said to it, and it retracted back inside.

  The bottle was near empty, so I necked the dregs before dropping it to the floor. I don’t remember feeling drunk. Though I must have been. Grief and shock internali
zed everything. Feelings multiplied with nowhere to escape. I may have conquered the usual slurring and falling about, but inside I was more pissed than Mum on a Saturday night.

  Requiring more, I scanned the room for the likeliest place Edward would have stored some old whisky or an ancient port. The bottom cupboard in the dresser was a strong possibility.

  Kneeling in front of the huge mahogany piece, I pulled on a warped and reticent door, which opened with a sudden jolt and a waft of musty air. It wasn’t the cocktail bar I’d hoped for, but an abundance of photographs that avalanched onto me. Once the flow stopped, I collected them up and was forced to look. Many were so old they were backed in card, not flimsy photographic paper. Black and white. Sepia. Gnarled corners, white creases. I recognized the eyes. Even more piercing with the contrast of darkened prints. Edward as a toddler, Edward as a teen playing cricket, Edward as a pageboy, Edward as a living, vibrant, youthful being. Edward. A whole life. In a cupboard.

  The images blurred. Not because of alcohol but because I was finally crying. I stood. Dropped the memories to my feet. Looked over at his chair. The ocean was here again, but I didn’t have the will to swim, so I grabbed my bag and left.

  Marinated in vodka, I felt invisible when I entered your flat.

  I’d tried to remain on Edward’s outside steps, but the snow had thickened, like the time Dad took me sledging in Heaton Park. It was so cold even the alcohol ceased to insulate me and I could feel my core temperature dropping. I’d tried to call you again, but you didn’t pick up. I’m not blaming you, but if you’d just picked up . . .

  When I checked my phone, I was confused that it was just turning ten again. Then I remembered that Colin was fast. I had around an hour until your return, but I wasn’t stupid. I’d planned to be in there nowhere near as long as that.

  Inside, I instantly calmed.

  My first stop was the kitchen, in search of top-up anaesthetic. I found the bottle of brandy you’d loosened me with that night. It looked untouched since. Fiona didn’t need it. I unscrewed the top and unleashed the scent of that day. Your breath as we kissed.