Can't Let Go

by Jane Hill

  Not brilliantly funny, not earth-shatteringly funny, but very funny; the kind of funny it was a relief to find on a Friday evening that had been a bit of a damp squib until then. I was sitting at a table in a sweltering hot smoky room above a pub in North London with a bunch of people, only two of whom I knew even slightly. Lesley was there with her husband Mick, of course, a lovely salt-of-the-earth bloke, a painter-decorator by trade; I'd met him before. Then there was a thirty-something couple who lived a few doors down from them, Gemma and Phil. They seemed nice enough. There were a couple of Mick's mates, and an old school friend of Lesley's, Jackie, who she seemed not to have seen in years. And then there was Andy, the available man who had been assigned to me for the night. I hated it when people did that. I had told people so often that I wasn't interested in being set up. But there I was again, making small talk to a well-meaning but dull bloke who worked in IT and had the vaguely creepy air of a man who still lived with his mother. I should have felt happy that I was out for once on a Friday night, like a normal person. Left to my own devices, I would have been at home in front of the television with a glass of red wine and a bar of chocolate. But in fact I felt as if I was being coerced into having a good time.

  I didn't know whose idea it was to go to a comedy night. Up till then, until Zoey arrived on stage, it hadn't been a huge success. We had sat through nearly an hour's worth of knob gags and limp jokes about George Bush and Tony Blair, we'd sweated buckets and poor old Andy had been picked on by one young comedian who'd asked him what he did for a living. Andy had made the mistake of giving an honest answer – cue a host of unfunny jokes about I T stereotypes: anoraks and nerds and Star Trek conventions. So by the time Zoey Spiegelman bounded on stage we were ready for something at least halfway decent. And we were in luck. There was something special about her. You could almost hear the audience fizzing.

  She had stage presence, that was what it was. You felt confident watching her: confident that she was going to be funny; ready to laugh. She talked about marrying a British guy, coming to live in London, the marriage breaking up. She did jokes about being an American in England and knowing the art of when to say 'sorry'. ('Pretty much at any point in any social encounter,' she said. 'You can never go wrong with "sorry".') You wouldn't have wanted to be her ex-husband, that was for sure. She told us that the marriage broke up because of his stiff upper lip, 'which made cunnilingus a painful experience for me.' Her facial expression cracked me up. I let loose a huge explosive laugh, a few seconds too late, that nearly made me choke on my drink. Beer spurted out of my nose and dripped onto my already stained T-shirt. I struggled for breath and Andy thumped me on the back. As I got my breath back I noticed that everyone – including Zoey Spiegelman – was staring at me. I felt myself blush and I wanted to sink into my seat and disappear. I hated drawing attention to myself like that.

  After the show Lesley nabbed a table downstairs in the pub and got a round of drinks in. I fought my way to the back of the pub again to go to the loo, in the squalid graffiti-covered hole of a bathroom where I had earlier attempted to clean my T-shirt, and I found myself once again standing behind Zoey Spiegelman. She turned to me and did a double take. Then she smiled. I opened my mouth to say something limp, like 'I enjoyed your act,' but at that moment a cubicle became free. Zoey said dramatically, 'Stay here! I mean, don't go. If you get out before me, wait for me. I want to talk to you.'

  I didn't dare disobey an order like that. I emerged from my cubicle expecting to see her waiting, but there was no sign of her. I washed my hands and then discovered the hand-dryer was no longer working, and that the pile of paper towels that had been there earlier had now gone. Instead, I rubbed my hands dry on my jeans. I looked at myself in the mirror and frowned at my reflection: tidy brown shoulder-length hair, greyish eyes; a face that once upon a time, seventeen years earlier and five thousand miles away, had been described as 'elfin' and 'piquant' and even 'pretty'. It now looked tired and ordinary and shiny with heat, and seemed to bear the mark of every single day of its thirty-five years.

  There was still no sign of Zoey. I started to feel stupid about waiting. She probably only wanted to apologise again for spilling her Coke all over me. But just as I was thinking that I should head back to my friends in the pub she burst out of her toilet cubicle. She pointed at me and said, 'Yay! You waited!'

  She headed for the basin to wash her hands and then she shook them dry. She peered in the mirror and plumped up her wild hair. Then she came over to me, put her hands on my shoulders and said, in what seemed like one breath, 'Listen, thank you for laughing so loudly. I really appreciate it. I feel so bad about nearly ruining your night with the drink-spilling thing. I was nervous. I was a klutz. Stupid of me. What can I say to make it better? Can I buy you a drink?'

  Stunned, I looked at her for a few seconds, trying to work out how to frame a reply. 'Jesus, have I been too American again?' she said. 'What should I have said?

  "I'm awfully sorry, but might I purchase you a cold beverage?"'

  Her English accent was so bad that it made me laugh again.

  'You're ignoring your boyfriend,' Zoey said with an evil grin on her face as she settled into the seat next to me.

  I looked at Andy and then back at her. I lowered my voice. 'He's not my boyfriend. He's the guy they're trying to set me up with.'

  'OK. And let me guess – you don't like being set up?'

  She had green eyes and a very intense gaze, and the body language of someone who was genuinely interested in hearing the answers to her questions. She was sitting very close to me, her shoulder touching mine.

  I fidgeted with my beer mat. 'I've kind of opted out of the whole relationship thing, to be honest. But no one ever gets the message.'

  Zoey raised her eyebrows and gave me a twisted smile. She played with one of her corkscrew curls: winding it around her finger, stretching the lock of hair so that it was straight and then letting it spring back. 'You know, a couple of years ago, in another life, I would have said, "Why? My God, do you know what you're missing? What are you scared of?" But now I say, "Honey? Join the club.'"

  'Because of your marriage?'

  'Tell you what, let's not talk about it. Don't ask me about my marriage and I won't ask you about whatever it is that put you off dating. Your secret heartbreak. Whatever it is. A pact, yeah? Let's shake on it.' She put her hand out to shake and I took it. She grinned at me, and all at once I felt safe. I felt like I'd known her for years. She felt like a friend. It was an unusual feeling for me.

  I don't do relationships and I don't do close female friendships. That was what I would have told her if she had asked me any more questions. 'I've kind of opted out of the whole relationship thing': that was just one of the phrases I used. Others included: I'm very single. Hike being single. I enjoy living alone. I like my independence. I don't need anyone else in my life.

  So what on earth was I doing sitting there chatting to an American female comedian who I had only just met? People talked about falling in love but there was no equivalent phrase for falling in friendship. That was what it felt like. It was so unlike me. I recognised something familiar in Zoey. Her mind seemed to run along the same track as mine did. I was enjoying talking to her. I wanted to talk more to her and to tell her things, and to hear her tell me stuff too. I told her about being a teacher, what it was like, how much I enjoyed working with the teenage girls, what I found frustrating about the job. She told me how she was studying for a PhD in Victorian architecture and was working part-time as a barmaid – lunchtimes only, so she could do comedy gigs in the evening – and how exhausting it was, 'having, like, three jobs,' but fun too. I liked the way she pulled at her springy hair and watched it zing back into shape. I liked the way she took up lots of room at the table, the easy way she rested her elbows on the table and fitted right in. She made me laugh. For a little while on a hot Friday night she made me enjoy myself and she made me forget myself and everything that was wrong in a life.

&n
bsp; And there was something else. She reminded me a bit of Lizzie, the girl I used to be. The buzz I had got from watching her on stage: maybe part of that was imagining myself – or at least my other self, my old self – up there in her place. If I had still been Lizzie, maybe that's what I would have been doing: standing on a stage, showing off, having fun, making people laugh, not giving a shit.

  And then, out of nowhere, I ruined the atmosphere. I asked Zoey this: 'Where are you from?' It sounded abrupt, almost rude, but I had a sudden need to know.

  She seemed surprised at my question, and I braced myself for her answer. I was suddenly convinced that she would say San Francisco, the answer I was dreading. But she didn't. 'Boston,' she said. 'What about you?'

  'Oh, here,' I said vaguely. 'Well, sort of. Not far from here. What's Boston like?'

  'It's okay. Very historic. British people seem to like it. You've never been?'

  I shook my head.

  'Ever been to America?' Zoey looked at me directly with those green eyes that were striking against her tanned skin. There was a thin film of sweat on her upper lip. I was very aware that I was sweating like a pig, a broad band of dampness making its way from the small of my back up towards my shoulder blades. Did she mean something particular by her question? Despite the heat, I shivered and I could feel the coldness of my sweat against my skin. She was staring at me. Did she mean anything by that stare? The conversation was taking a direction that I didn't like; a direction that made me nervous.

  'No.' I lied badly, and I could only hope that she mistook my inevitable blush for the flush of a hot face. Rudely, I turned to the person on the other side of me, which happened to be Andy, and I quickly absorbed myself in another conversation. It was a variant on walking away. I pretended I hardly noticed when Zoey touched my shoulder and said goodbye a few minutes later. But I watched her as she left, and there was a puzzled look on her face.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, I said under my breath as I let myself into my flat later and flung all the windows open.

  Of course she didn't know anything. That conversation had not been heading anywhere dangerous. She was just a random woman who happened to come from America. And I had spoiled a lovely evening. For just a moment there I had felt like I was tiptoeing out of my black and white half-world into a Technicolor movie.

  Six

  I gave her my mobile phone number. That was big.

  That was huge. I never gave anyone my mobile phone number unless I had to. But before I'd had second thoughts, I had given Zoey my mobile phone number. I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night panicking about it. It was another sticky night, and I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep until I'd dealt with it. I dragged myself out of bed and fumbled around the living room in the dark until I found my courier-style bag with my phone in it. I switched the ringer off. That way, at least I could screen calls. If Zoey rang then I wouldn't have to answer. I put the phone under a cushion on the settee to muffle any vibrations if a call came. Then I got back into bed, feeling stupid and uneasy. I hated the feeling that someone could intrude on my privacy just by ringing a number, especially someone I didn't know very well. I didn't know what had come over me, how I had managed to drop my guard. I'd had too much to drink, I was too relaxed. I had been enjoying myself too much. I was usually so careful with personal information.

  I hadn't meant to give her my number. She'd been showing me her phone, because it was one of those BlackBerry-style devices. Except it wasn't a BlackBerry; it was something else like it. And she'd been showing me how she could access the internet and send emails from it, and how it made reading and writing texts much easier, and she'd said, 'Send me a text and I'll show you.'

  So I had. I'd sent her a text, just a stupid message which said, 'Hi. Nice 2 meet u.' And of course that had put my number in her phone. And towards the end of the evening, before I'd started ignoring her, before she had given me that intense look when she'd asked me if I'd ever been to America, when we were still chatting, she'd said, 'We should hang out some time. I'll give you a call this weekend, okay?'

  And I had nodded, as if it was totally okay. A strange American woman who could have been related to Rivers Carillo knew my name and my mobile phone number. She was probably going to give me a call. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  I spent the day avoiding Zoey's call. I left my phone where it was, under a cushion on my settee, and I went out for the day. I was avoiding Danny as well. I had managed not to see him all week, not since he'd asked me out, but I was afraid that if I stayed at home he might catch me, and talk me into it; and I still wasn't sure if I was ready.

  The weather was hot again and I had no particular destination in mind. I walked south, smelling the tarry, slightly rancid scent of London on a hot day. I walked past the Brunswick Centre and Coram's Fields, past Great Ormond Street Hospital, and then I lost myself in the Dickensian maze of little streets and yards in Holborn.

  Sir John Soane's house was my favourite place in London, and the basement was probably the coolest place in the city at that moment. It was dank and dark, and full of white stone and marble plundered from classical buildings in Greece and Rome. It was a fantastic Gothic riot of a place. There was a memorial to Soane's dog, and a memorial to his wife, and a huge stone sarcophagus, like a giant bathtub, dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Nut. It was a basement full of columns and hidden corners, and unexpected shafts of daylight; and because I knew it well I had always felt safe there, half-buried underground. No one could find me there; nothing could reach me. Sometimes I wished I could stay there for ever.

  I couldn't, of course. After a while the museum guide started looking at me suspiciously. I left and walked out into Lincoln's Inn Fields, blinking in the sunshine. I crossed Kingsway, walked past the Freemasons' Hall in Great Queen Street, and tried to lose myself in the summer crowds in Covent Garden. I perched for a while on a concrete bollard, eating an ice cream and watching the buskers: there was a unicyclist, and a man who made balloon animals. It was just my usual Saturday afternoon time-killing. I often did it. But that day I had to admit that I felt more than usually tense. Trying to relax – trying not to be scared, trying to lead a normal life – was making me tense. I felt as if I had dropped too many barriers too quickly and by doing so had put myself at risk. I felt naked. I kept hearing American accents around me. I was convinced that I would turn around and suddenly Zoey would be standing there, arm-in-arm with Rivers Carillo, pointing at me.

  Enough. This was ridiculous. I had decided to stop all this nonsense. Friends were a good thing. Everybody knew that. I'd been happy last night. Zoey was good fun. There was no reason to be scared. There was no reason to be suspicious of her. America was a huge country. There was virtually no chance that she knew Rivers Carillo, or knew of my connection with him. And she had already promised that she wouldn't ask me about my past, about what she assumed was my 'secret heartbreak'. We had a pact. We'd shaken hands on it. What harm could it do, making friends with Zoey Spiegelman?

  I wandered home, hot and footsore. I had a long shower, washed my hair and got changed into some fresh, cool clothes. I went down to the newsagent's on the corner and bought a paper and an ice-cold can of Diet Coke. I lay around in the flat with all the windows open and I read the paper from cover to cover. I was putting off the moment when I'd have to check my phone for missed calls. I sorted out some marking that I needed to do before Monday, and I put it in a neat pile on my desk. I planned what I was going to wear for the next week at school and I ironed a couple of blouses. Then I ran out of things to fill my time. Finally, I walked over to the sofa. I dug out my mobile phone and I nervously checked it for messages. Sure enough, Zoey had called.

  I was expecting a friendly, breathless, full-on kind of message, the way she had sounded last night. Instead, when I listened back to my voicemail, what I got was this: 'Beth, call me. We need to talk.'

  She sounded brisk, offish, abrupt, peremptory. Rude, maybe. I thought about those words: 'We need t
o talk.' They sounded ominous to me. What about? I barely knew the woman. What did she need to talk to me about? What could she possibly want to say to me? I wanted to know. I didn't want to know.

  I sat there for a while, rubbing the palms of my hands up and down my thighs, paralysed by the pros and cons of a simple phone call. Eventually the part of me that was intrigued overpowered the part that wanted to run away. I picked up my mobile phone, checked the list of received calls and dialled her number with trembling hands. She was there. She seemed pleased to hear from me. She sounded friendly. We agreed to meet the next day, for coffee and shopping and maybe some lunch. Sunday in Camden with a friend: what could have been more normal? It all seemed perfectly pleasant. Maybe I had misread her tone of voice on the voicemail. Maybe she wasn't good at leaving messages. But still I had a nagging fear: why did she want to see me again? Why did she want to spend time with me? Did she have a secret agenda?

  Seven

  Most people – most casual, unobservant acquaintances – would probably have described me as 'nice' or 'pleasant'. I was always neat and tidy and inoffensive to look at, and the same was true of my conversation. I was good at polite, conventional responses. I was known as a good listener. Of course I was, because usually that was pretty much all I did – listen. 'Goodness.' 'Really.' 'How interesting.' 'Tell me more.' 'I don't know. What do you think?' Those were the kinds of remarks I made to punctuate conversations, carefully steering away from any chance of being asked questions. Acquaintances who were a little more observant, or who spent more time with me, sometimes seemed puzzled at my persistent refusal to talk about myself, the way I deflected questions about anything from relationships to reminiscences. My polite but consistent rejection of most social invitations was also cause for comment. But only those who tried to get really close – Danny with his kiss and his dance moves; Zoey with her shoulder-touching – got to experience the full Beth Stephens brush-off. I hadn't mastered the polite way to do that. There probably was no polite way to do that. And, as it turned out, that was what Zoey wanted to talk to me about.