Can't Let Go

by Jane Hill

  'Here's what I was afraid of,' she said. 'I was afraid that you thought I was coming on to you, and that's what freaked you. And I thought I should clear the air and make sure you realised that I wasn't. Coming on to you. Because I'm not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay. God knows, it's virtually the default setting amongst female stand-ups. Not that that's a bad thing. Anyway, I get it a lot, the lesbian thing. It's the vibe I give off, I guess. I sit too close to people, apparently. I look too engaged and interested. It's all part of this American-in-London thing. I haven't learned the correct body-space dimensions yet. And you're shaking your head at me, which means I'm wrong. So therefore I'm forced to consider something else entirely, and I'm not too happy about it.'

  'What?'

  'Well, the only other explanation for your boorish behaviour on Friday night is that you are extremely, offensively rude.'

  It was nearly midday and it was already mercilessly hot. We were drinking overpriced bottles of water and we were sitting by the canal at Camden Lock, people watching. The smell of dope and falafels hung in the air. Zoey, bold and bright in a turquoise vest top, was waiting for an answer.

  'Sorry,' I said eventually, limply. 'I'm really sorry. You're right, it was rude of me.'

  'So, was there a reason for your rudeness?' She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and I noticed a faint fuzz of unshaved hair in her armpits. She seemed to be the kind of woman who wore her imperfections with pride. I wouldn't have dreamed of leaving the house with armpits like that.

  I could have told her to piss off. I could have walked away and never seen her again. Or I could say something, and risk it, and possibly make a friend. And that's when Danny's words came back to me: 'Friends are a good thing.'

  'I get scared.' The words came out suddenly, and I wasn't sure that I meant to say them.

  'Scared of what?'

  'I don't know.' I paused, and then retreated into a white lie. 'Maybe that you'll realise that I'm just not that interesting?'

  She took a long slurp from her bottle of water and frowned at me. 'That is not even close to being true.'

  I was about to protest, or to say something else to change the subject, but Zoey held her hand up to stop me. She looked over her shoulder, a sharp frown creasing her forehead. She was looking at something – someone? – in the distance and I followed her gaze, half-expecting to see Rivers Carillo sitting there grinning at me.

  'What is it?' I asked.

  'Oh, nothing. Thought I saw someone I knew, that's all. But I didn't. Hey, let's walk.'

  And she got up briskly, with the assumption that I was going to follow her, and I did. We were browsing through racks of tie-dyed T-shirts and vintage jeans when she resumed the conversation. 'Now, where were we?'

  'You told me I was incredibly rude, and then that I was lying.' I said it flippantly, a smile on my face.

  'Oh yeah! And now I've just been every bit as rude as you were, walking off like that while you were talking. So I guess I'd better forgive you.'

  'Actually, the real reason was that I thought I had a migraine coming on.' Migraines and marking: my favourite excuses. Both of them did occur in my life, just not as frequently as I told people.

  'And my grating, loud American voice suddenly became too much.'

  I laughed. 'Something like that.'

  'Okay, you're still lying to me. But that's okay. It's intriguing.' Zoey stroked her chin theatrically, like a psychiatrist in a comedy sketch. 'Tell me what migraines are like. I've always wondered. Is it just a fancy word for a really bad headache?'

  I was relieved at her sudden change of subject. Here was something I could talk about without any difficulty. 'A migraine is like the absolute worst hangover that you have ever had: the headache, the sickness, the loss of balance, the visual disturbances and the feeling that you really would be happier if you were dead. Except, unlike hangovers, you have none of the fun stuff first.'

  She laughed, suddenly and loudly. 'Oh, that's good,' she said. 'That's good. I could probably use that sometime.

  Would you mind?'

  'Use it? What do you mean?'

  'Material. You know, on stage. Jokes. Comedy. Gags.'

  'Sure.' I was flattered. 'That's me: Beth Stephens, purveyor of fine material to the comedy trade.'

  I looked at her, and she was looking at me and we were both smiling and suddenly everything was okay. We were friends. I could do this. This was easy. It was like riding a bike or falling off a log.

  We found seats in a little cafe for lunch, and I asked Zoey a question I'd wanted to ask the night before. 'How did you get into doing comedy?'

  She put her head on one side, as if she had heard the question a million times before.

  'Sorry,' I said. 'You must get fed up of answering that one.'

  'Well, at least you haven't said what most people say.'

  'Which is what?'

  'You haven't said, "Oh my God, you're so brave. It must be so scary. I could never do it." '

  That appalling English accent again. I laughed.

  'No, really,' she said. 'That's what almost everyone says. Everyone who asks me about comedy. That's the first thing they always say. I'm quite hurt that you haven't told me how brave I was.' She was smiling.

  'Oh my God, you're so brave. It must be so scary. I could never do it.'

  Zoey laughed. 'Too late.'

  'I didn't say it because you didn't seem scared. You were obviously nervous beforehand, sure, you know, with the Coke spillage . . .'

  'Yeah, sorry about that.'

  I waved my hand to show that it didn't matter. 'But being nervous isn't the same thing as being scared, is it? On stage, you looked completely at home. You didn't look scared at all, so I figured you weren't. I guess different things scare different people. I don't think there's anything brave about doing something that doesn't scare you.'

  'That,' she said, 'is almost profound. And it leads me back to the question I asked earlier. What scares you? What scared you off last night?'

  I had walked right into that one. She put her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her hands and turned those intense, searching eyes on me. Immediately I was, of course, scared. I could feel myself physically shrinking away from her. What scares me? Why did people keep asking me that? Zoey had me pinned in place with her stare; she wasn't going to be happy until I answered her with something at least close to the truth. I was supposed to be changing my life. I was supposed to be taking risks, making friends, living like a normal person. I took a risk then. I breathed deeply, leaned forward and twisted my hands between my knees. 'This,' I said, gesturing at her and me. 'This scares me. This whole making-friends business.'

  'Oh my,' she said, clearly believing me. 'That is interesting.'

  Eight

  The velvet jacket was hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I fingered it to feel the soft, luxurious fabric. It was a deep, dark green. The colour was redolent of a pine forest. Zoey had made me buy it. ' Try it on,' she'd said. 'It'll look beautiful on you.'

  All that Sunday afternoon she had tried to get me to buy something that wasn't black, grey or white. She'd dragged me all around the markets at Camden, grabbing armfuls full of brightly coloured blouses and tops and skirts and holding them up against me. I had to be firm several times with her, to avoid being thrust into something flouncy in salmon pink or lime green. Then she steered me into a vintage shop under one of the railway arches, as if she'd just had a brainwave, and that was where she'd found the jacket hanging on one of the rails.

  Now, back home in my flat, I fingered the jacket again. The pile on the velvet was wearing through in places, but it was still thick enough to stroke. The jacket had beautiful silver buttons, embossed with a pattern of flowers. I ran my thumb over the buttons, feeling the pattern with my thumb's fleshy tip. I put it on again, enjoying the way it fitted me perfectly. Not only that, it looked right. The colour did something to me. It lifted my complexion and made my greyish eyes look clear
blue. And yet it was dark enough to be unobtrusive, to blend with my wardrobe full of blacks and greys. It was beautiful and it was theatrical and yet it was totally wearable. It was a luscious jacket, the kind of item I would never usually have allowed myself to buy. I hadn't been able to resist it.

  It was far too hot to be wearing velvet, but nonetheless I left the jacket on for a while, admiring myself in the mirror. I shook my hair and ran my fingers through it, plumping it up so that it looked big and wild. I pulled out a lip-gloss and smeared some on, and then smiled at myself in the mirror. I looked very different. I wondered if this was the me that I would have been, the person I would have grown up to be, if only things had been different. I made up my mind. Still wearing the jacket, I knocked on Danny's front door. When he answered I said, ' D o you still want to take me to that gig?'

  His smile lit up his whole face. 'Yes, please,' he said. 'You look beautiful, by the way. Sort of . . . glowy. Around your eyes. Really . . . nice.'

  A guitar and a drum kit. That was all they had, those two scruffy young American guys in T-shirts and jeans. I couldn't work out how they could make so much noise. It thumped and vibrated and I could feel it in my ribcage and deeper, somewhere deep inside me. They were playing some kind of electric blues. Danny had tried to explain them to me: 'The Black Keys. They're from Ohio. Dirty, scuzzy blues. Kind of like the White Stripes but without all that fancy dress shit.'

  I'd humoured him, pretended that I knew what he meant. I was still asking myself why I'd accepted his ticket, why I had agreed to go out with Danny. Was it because spending the day with Zoey had been such good fun that I didn't want to lose the feeling? Or was it because I didn't want to stay in the flat by myself? It felt colder and whiter and bleaker than it had before. I wanted to be somewhere dark and noisy and safe, and full of people.

  The fiction was that Danny had had a spare ticket, but really he'd bought it especially for me. I knew that, and he probably knew that I knew that. But neither of us said anything, because that would have forced definition on the night out together, and neither of us wanted to do that. And besides, the Scala was just around the corner so it wasn't exactly a date or anything. That's what I kept telling myself, anyway.

  The venue was packed: heaving with people, swaying and pushing and shoving, all in time to the music. There was something primeval and swampy about the beat. Each song began slowly and then built to a climax, but all in a rhythm that somehow seemed to match the beat of my heart or my brain, or maybe the way I was breathing. Danny was on my right-hand side, standing so close to me in the tightly packed mosh pit that I could feel the hairs on his forearm against my bare arm. I was watching the stage through a small gap between two heads in front of me, my nose almost buried in someone's sweaty shoulder. Every so often the momentum in the crowd built into a surge of moshing, or jumping, or pushing; like the wave in a wave pool spreading across the auditorium. Danny looped his arm around my waist so that we couldn't get separated. He hugged me closer to him and it felt nice. Who would have thought that I could have felt so safe and secure in a hot, sweaty cauldron like that?

  The band went off stage. We called for an encore. That was what you did at gigs, apparently. You had to make a noise and keep it going until the band came back on again. That was the rule. We cheered and we clapped, and then I just stood there stamping my feet because it was easier and because my throat was hoarse. The Black Keys came back out and played a few more songs, and there was more moshing and jumping and pushing, and then it was all over. But I could still feel my heart thumping madly against my ribcage.

  It took ages to get out of the theatre. The lights came up, and I could see that the place was swarming with guys in jeans and T-shirts, inching their way towards the exits. I could see just a few women, mostly younger than me, with sweaty faces and smudged black mascara and eyeliner, clinging on to the guy with them, picking gingerly over the beer cans on the floor. Danny took hold of my hand. He didn't say anything, just grabbed my hand in his as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and guided me through the crowds and out of the theatre. His fingers were long and strong, and it felt secure. I clung on to Danny. I could barely stand. I was both exhilarated and exhausted. All my joints hurt. I wondered if I was too old to mosh. My ears were buzzing and I could hardly hear a thing. All I knew was that I felt as if I'd just been in a really tough, satisfying fight that I had won, or as if I had just had really good sex. And that might have explained what happened next.

  As we walked down the side street off Euston Road towards our block of flats I stumbled on a kerb. Danny caught me by the arm, and then wrapped his arm around my waist again. I let him. He pulled me closer to him. I reached my arm around his waist and hugged him to me. As we waited for the lift he looked at me, a look full of meaning and questions. I nodded, to tell him 'yes' to all of them. In the lift he stood facing me and put his hands on my hips. He leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips. I responded, closed-mouth to start with, teasing him a little. I put my hands on top of his hands, and kissed him back harder. The lift arrived at the fifth floor. We ran along the balcony holding hands, and by unspoken agreement we went to his flat.

  You learn interesting things very quickly when you have sex with someone you already know. Danny had very clean teeth and very soft lips. I ran my tongue across his front teeth and enjoyed the smoothness of them. I loved the feeling of rubbing my thumb over the stubble on his head. As I pulled his T-shirt over his head I noticed that he had a tattoo high up on his left shoulder, some kind of Celtic-knot symbol. It was very pretty and delicately drawn, the kind of tattoo I would have chosen myself, if I had chosen to have a tattoo, which was unlikely. He had a line of dark chest hair starting midway down his stomach. He had the merest hint of a beer belly, a tiny soft little paunch that he tried to suck in. He had freckles on the backs of his shoulders. He liked to bite and knew where to make it hurt in a good way: deep into the dip between my neck and my shoulder.

  The sex was nice. It was friendly and comfortable and warm, and soft in the right ways. Afterwards we snuggled together on the sofa and listened to music. Danny gave me one of his shirts to wear, and he pulled on his T-shirt and boxers and played DJ. As he'd done so often before, he played songs that he thought I'd like, or that he thought I ought to like, from CDs and LPs and even some vinyl singles. He made instant coffee in chipped, stained mugs and as usual I pretended to like it. He found some slightly soft chocolate Hobnobs and we finished the packet. We talked about the music he was playing, and then he stood up and beckoned me over. He wanted to dance. I looked at him standing there, tall and dark and much better looking than I usually gave him credit for. Such a lovely man. Such a good friend. The sex had been so nice. I wanted him. I wanted to dance with him. I wanted to be with him. I pulled the shirt around me, shook my head and burst into tears.

  'Hey, what's up?'

  His voice was so gentle that it made me cry even more. I shrugged my shoulders.

  'What did I do?'

  'Nothing. It's just me. I'm a bit emotional at the moment.'

  Danny frowned, deep in thought. I figured he was probably about to ask me if I was premenstrual. I thought that was probably what was going through his mind. But instead, 'Is this because you "don't do relationships"?' He did the inverted commas with his voice. He twisted his face as he asked the question, looking like he was afraid what the answer would be.

  'Oh God, Danny, I don't know. Stop quoting me. I don't know what I'm doing, all right?'

  He stroked my arm.

  'And stop being so bloody nice.'

  He looked at me again as a sudden thought appeared to cross his mind. 'Are you worried this might spoil our friendship?'

  I nodded. It was all I could manage to do. Don't let go. Don't let go. Mustn't let go. Keep these emotions in check. Don't let him see how scared you are.

  'I like you. You like me. We get on really well. This has been fun. It would be nice to do it again some time. This doesn't h
ave to be a big deal.' Danny was talking to me very quietly and simply, all the while stroking my arm. 'Look, we're both a bit shit at relationship stuff. I know there's something about you, Beth. I'm guessing there's something that's made you scared. Maybe you'll tell me about it one day. But I don't really need to know, okay?'

  I was shaking. He was being so sweet that I thought maybe I was on the verge of telling him the whole story. I was very tempted. How easy it would have been. I wondered what he would say. But I knew I couldn't tell him. I couldn't tell him the truth. Why the hell did he have to be so nice? I pressed my lips together tightly to stop any more words coming out. I set my chin firmly, reached out my arms and hugged Danny hard.

  'Stay the night?' he asked, gently, quietly; as if he didn't want me to hear the question in case the answer wasn't what he wanted.

  Half of me thought it was a mistake, a dreadful mistake. There was no way I should drag him into the awful mess that was my life. But the other half of me thought that that had already happened. I had already had sex with him so maybe it was too late. All I could think about was how much I hated my flat, and how white and empty it was, and how much I didn't want to go back there; and how lovely this hug felt, so I nodded. 'Yes,' I whispered. I figured that I could deal with the fallout later.