by Lucy Dawson
She snorts. “No—he’s got the smallest knob in the world.”
“Okay,” I say hastily. “Well, there you go. Just pity this new girl—doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a whole lot of fun for her.”
“She’s a dick anyway,” she says. “She gave this bloke a blow job in a club—not even in the toilets—in a booth under a table. And she drinks pints. I just would have rather I met someone first before him, but…enter Adam in Barcelona. Hola!”
It takes another three minutes of listening to her overexcited plans before I can get her off the phone without arousing any more suspicion on her part as to why I’m not at work. Finally I’m hurrying back on to the station concourse toward the ticket barriers. Once I’m actually on the train, however, the journey goes so slowly I feel like I’m being dragged backward or dream running and, perversely, I almost want to phone Clare back to help kill the horribly slow journey. By quarter to six I’m practically galloping up our garden path.
I find Pete in the kitchen, as if he’s been there all day, boiling the kettle. When I walk in, he smiles and then yawns. Keeping his arms up in the air he says, “Hello, sick note. Come and give me a hug.”
I don’t need to be asked twice.
Later, we’re eating our tea on our laps in silence, staring at the TV, Gloria at our feet.
Although he’s been perfectly pleasant, asking me if I’m okay and making tea, Pete is being a little vague, as if there is something on his mind. I don’t push it, I don’t ask what is wrong.
We watch more TV, and then the phone goes.
“Darling? It’s me.”
“Mum!” In contrast to Clare earlier, I am immediately happy to hear her and yet my throat goes tight with tears. For God’s sake—I’ve got to get a grip! “Where are you?” My voice wobbles.
“We’ve been to St. Lucia today. Honestly, it’s so beautiful. I swam with turtles. How are you? Have you…over the weekend…Clare…” The line starts to break up.
“Mum? Can you hear me? Mum?” I say desperately.
“Hello? Oooh. I’m back again. Anyway—yes. It’s all lovely here. I can’t tell you how relaxed I feel. It’s amazing, isn’t it? You just don’t realize until you get away how much you needed some time off. I just tried Clare but it’s on answer phone. Will you tell her I rang? And you’re okay?”
Pete’s sitting right there, looking at the TV and scratching his foot. I can’t say anything even if I wanted to—and I wouldn’t anyway, she’d worry herself sick. She needs this break so much.
“I’m fine.” I close my eyes briefly. “Fine.”
“Are you sure? You don’t sound like you.”
I do a strange barklike laugh and Pete glances at me in surprise. “I don’t feel like me.” I smile sadly and tears well up. “Just ignore me.” I reach for a tissue from my sleeve and wipe my eyes. “I haven’t been very well. That’s all.”
“Poor little bunny,” she says kindly. “Try to get a good night’s sleep and drink plenty of water. Get Pete to give you a big hug from me. I’d better go, darling, this’ll be costing a fortune. Love you billions.”
“Love you too,” I say, and then she’s gone.
“You all right?” Pete looks at me curiously.
“Just miss her.” I blow my nose noisily. “I would have liked to have told her about the breakin…but I don’t want to worry her.” He reaches out and pats my arm.
“She’s only gone for three weeks! She’ll be back before you know it, and I’m sure she’s having a rare old time. Knowing your mum, it won’t be long before she’s in charge of the ship. Come on, you’re just tired and ill. Time for bed for you, I think.”
I nod wordlessly, still clutching my tissue like a bloody five-year-old.
“Go on. Shoo,” he says gently. “I’ll be right up.”
I brush my teeth, clamber into bed, pick up my book and wait for him.
Ten minutes later he pads into our room, pulls his jumper off over his head and lets it drop to the floor.
“Did you put the dog out?” I look like I’ve been reading for hours, but in fact I have been on page eight the whole time. I don’t think I’ve taken in a single word.
“Yeah, I put her out and locked the door, which wasn’t unlocked earlier—nutter.” He leans over as he gets under the duvet and ruffles my hair affectionately. “Seriously, Mi, you’ve got to chill. I know the robbery was horrible, but there’s nothing to worry about. It’s not like you to be so stressed out and teary just because your mum rang. Don’t give it any more thought, okay?”
I nod, and satisfied, he turns over, having given my leg a friendly squeeze.
Half an hour later, when his breathing has slowed down and he’s started to snore, I roll away from him and slip out of bed and nip downstairs.
His phone is in his jacket pocket, which is hanging on the banister post. It’s still on and is showing one new message: Liz.
Is he getting sloppy, or do I now just know to look?
I open it and read:
If u didn’t want to cum 2day u should just say so. Pls don’t ever lie to me. The back door was unlocked?…Wot do u take me 4?
This makes me thrill all over—like I’ve got four lottery numbers and just need one more. And as I know that she will be out there waiting for him to text her back with an apology once he reads what I’ve just read, I delete the text, so he can’t.
Then I click on his inbox. There is one message from her, sent at 5:15 p.m.:
WHY wld I trash ur house? Am so upset u cld THINK that never mind ask…and if u think it WAS me, why did u need to go home and lock door? Am not stupid.
He tackled her about it! He actually did it! She’s out there all upset and he’s up in our bed asleep…
I carefully place the phone back where I found it, then I go back upstairs to bed and fall asleep surprisingly quickly.
SEVENTEEN
I can’t come out,” I say carefully into the phone, aware that Pete might be able to hear me. “I’ve been off work ill for the last two days and I just don’t feel like it.” Sure enough, Pete wanders into the room seconds later and sits down heavily on the sofa. He’s been in an inexplicably vile mood all day.
“Well, your boss isn’t likely to be in a bar in our local high street having a drink, is he?” Patrick says reasonably.
“No,” I sigh. “He isn’t.”
“Who is it?” Pete mouths to me, and when I mouth “Patrick” back, he rolls his eyes and disappears behind a glossy magazine called Best Barns.
“Look, you’re not trailing a limb or anything. It’s Friday night, you’ve already said you and Pete have no plans, I haven’t seen you in ages and I’m talking about one drink. I’ll come and get you in an hour—no,” his voice becomes insistent as I try and protest, “decision made. No further discussion required.”
And then he hangs up.
I genuinely am tired, it’s been a knackering couple of days. As far as Pete is concerned I’ve had a relapse of illness—so I can be at home and be around him. He’s got a really big quote coming up and so although he’s been in his office a lot of the time, I do know he hasn’t been to see her. Which is good. I think. I am, however, very stressed about next week. Although Pete thinks I was at work on Tuesday and Wednesday, I now haven’t been in for a full week. Lottie texted me again today to ask when I’m coming back—I can’t just keep delaying things.
I feel suspended in mid-air, permanently twisting. One minute I’m fixated with his phone and unable to think about anything else but getting rid of her, then the next I’m appalled and horrified that I was in her flat and thinking that there has to be some other way for this to turn out right. When I’m at home with him, it doesn’t feel like it’s real anyway, that he can have another woman out there. But then I stand in our bedroom holding her earrings in my hand—proof that I haven’t imagined the whole thing—and I know I can’t pretend she doesn’t exist. Last night I sat in the bath until it went cold and just cried, not knowing which
way to turn or what to do.
I even thought about purposefully stopping taking the pill, but the very idea scared me rigid. I love Pete very much and I don’t want to lose him, but I want more than anything for that to happen with him the right way, through love, not desperation. How could I ever look my child in the eye otherwise?
“Mia. Woo-hoo!” I look up and Pete is smiling at me. “You’re a million miles away.”
“Sorry. What’s up?”
“What did Patrick want?” he says with the slight edge to his voice that he always has when he says Patrick’s name, but it gives me a cheap idea as I sit there on the sofa. It’s the equivalent of a carton of long-life milk or a tiny white loaf that has all the nutritional value of cardboard and couldn’t satisfy anyone—but I bite in anyway. After all, it’s not deliberately not taking the pill or ramming my car into the back of another one, forcing Pete to realize how much he loves me as he hangs over my bedside where I’m rigged up to tubes and beeping machines.
Because I’ve been there too over the last few days. When I’m calmer and sitting on my sofa, I know it’s an utterly sick thing to think. I can’t defend it and it’s very far from all right and normal, but when I heard the answer-phone message in her flat announcing smugly that she was meeting him and I heard her say it again in my head when I was stuck in traffic this morning coming back from Sainsbury’s, I stared dully at the back of the car in front through the windscreen and wondered what would happen if I slammed into it…I thought about him dashing to my bedside, clasping my hand in anguish, saying, “She’s going to be all right, isn’t she, Doctor? Promise me?”
And so somehow, what I decide to do next doesn’t, in the grand scheme of things, seem so bad. In comparison with where my mind has been, it feels positively rational.
“I’m going out for a drink. You don’t mind, do you?” I say decisively and stand up, stretching.
Pete looks up in surprise. “But you’re ill!”
I shrug. “I feel a bit better tonight. I managed a food shop earlier. I’ll be back by nine-ish.”
I know there is every possibility that the second I’m out of the door he’ll be on the phone to her. And…making your boyfriend jealous? Am I really resorting to the tactics of a fifteen-year-old? But he doesn’t look thrilled at the prospect, and that’s better than nothing.
He looks even less thrilled when I come back downstairs three-quarters of an hour later in a short shift dress showing a lot of leg.
“Shouldn’t you wrap up warm?” he says, and in spite of myself I laugh a little at his prudish tone.
“Would you rather I wore dungarees?” I tease.
“Seriously, Mia. You know why I want you to change.” He shifts irritably. “I don’t want him perving over you all night then going home for a wank.”
His gaze drops back to his magazine and I’m slightly stunned at such an unnecessarily graphic remark. The doorbell rings again. “That’ll be him. I don’t have time to change.”
He says nothing.
“I’ll be home later,” I say softly.
He nods without looking up and I let myself out.
EIGHTEEN
So, my new flat has an added extra I didn’t bargain on,” Patrick says as we sit down with our drinks.
I do my best to look interested.
“Mice!” he says dryly, and then laughs at my wrinkled nose.
“Oh come on, what’s not to love? Mouse shit everywhere, chewed bread packets, not knowing if girls I bring home are screaming at me naked or a small rodent scuttling past the end of the bed.” He takes a swig of his beer. “It’s awesome.”
“Have you put traps down?”
“Yeah. Caught two this morning. Although I’ve had some interesting suggestions for alternatives. One of the girls at work said, ‘What you need to do, right…’” he mimics a chav accent, although not unkindly, “‘is put daan a little bowl of water and a little bowl of cement powder mixed with sugar. Then, right, the little mouse walks up and first he smells the sugar so he eats the powder and then, right, he’s really firsty so he goes to the water bowl, has a little drink and then it all goes off in its belly and…he turns into a brick!’”
For the first time in a week, I manage a genuine laugh.
“I know!” he grins. “Brilliant, isn’t it?”
“But mice notwithstanding, you like it?”
He shrugs. “It’s okay. I can be at the station in under ten minutes, I’ve got the TV working now and the shower’s not a dribble. Don’t need much more than that.”
Patrick has always been easy-going to a fault. At school, he was the one who used to make everyone laugh in class. Just sporty enough not to be a geek, but not good enough (to his huge frustration) to be on school teams, he was a jack-of-all-groups, which was what drew a lot of girls—including Katie—to him. She relentlessly pursued him at several parties, until at one, to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” he caved in and they snogged passionately in a dark corner of the living room. Later, in the bathroom, she breathlessly told me that he was the best snog she’d ever had, which was why it surprised me and Patrick when the following week she was discovered snogging Adam Stebbings in his mum and dad’s bedroom at his party.
“Sorry.” I shrugged helplessly to Patrick. “She did say she really liked you, but…”
“She just likes Adam more,” Patrick said ruefully.
“I think he’s a dick. If it helps,” I said.
“Not really, but I’ll survive. Do you want a drink…Mia, isn’t it?” he said.
And so began a friendship that lasted through Katie’s resulting strop. She’d snogged him and dumped him—it was inconvenient to have him still hanging around getting in the way, as she grumpily put it. Why couldn’t I be friends with some other boy instead? But I liked Patrick. He made me laugh.
In the end, he and Katie not getting on was simply never an issue. They were coolly polite if they were ever forced to speak at school, she’d melt away if he came over to talk to me; and when Katie and I finally fell out at university, he was fantastic. I leaned on him a lot.
The brief time when I did have feelings for Patrick only lasted for about three months, just before I met Pete, and I didn’t let on to Patrick. It was after we’d been out on a Friday night and I went back to his afterward, like I’d done a hundred times, to call a cab. We were both pretty pissed, and while we were waiting for the taxi we collapsed on the sofa and put late-night TV on.
I don’t know what made that night different to any of the others, but I was all cosied up to him and suddenly realized that it felt nice. Patrick is really tall, but works out loads and has this fab upper body—not too big, just blokey.
His arm was resting lightly round me and I could smell his aftershave. I remember looking up at him and for the first time ever wondering what it would be like to kiss him, which was a really disturbing thought. He must have felt me looking at him, because he looked down at me and there was this God-awful pause where it suddenly felt like we were about to kiss. He moved slightly closer and I felt my eyes close, but then there was a knock at the door and the cab was there. I’ve never sobered up so fast in my whole life. We just sort of looked at each other and then both jumped up and it was all awkward “Ooooh, where are my shoes?” and “God, I feel wrecked!” and “Shit, I can’t believe what time it is!”
I got to the front door and turned back to say good-bye, but for the first time ever didn’t know what to do next. Everything that had nearly happened a second ago was drifting in the air round us. Normally I’d have kissed him on the cheek to say good-bye or punched him on the arm or something, but suddenly I felt shy of touching him, which was ridiculous.
We just sort of stood there for what felt like forever. Finally the cab driver said impatiently from his window, “Where is it you’re off to, love?” and his voice broke the tension. The atmosphere changed; we both snuck another look at each other and laughed in a sort of relieved “Phew, that was close!” sort of
way. Patrick said, “Come here, you!” and gave me a friendly bear hug, and I lightly pretended to punch him in the stomach. Then I legged it into the taxi feeling totally confused.
We didn’t talk the next morning and about three days passed before I saw him again, by which point I wasn’t sure if I’d been more drunk than I thought and imagined it all. I certainly didn’t want to ask him if he’d been more sober than me and have to have that horrible “Er, about the other night…” conversation.
So we didn’t discuss it and things went back to normal, which is to say I started to think about him in this new and very confusing way for a few weeks. I wrestled with myself and couldn’t work out if I fancied him or not, or was just mixing up friendship and feelings that weren’t real. Just as I finally decided yes, I did fancy him, he got himself a really gorgeous girlfriend.
Once my heart had plummeted down a well when he walked into the pub on the Friday night holding her hand and smiling happily (I had thought I might tell him how I felt that night), I got my breath back, smiled a beaming, welcoming smile and thanked God I hadn’t said anything. I stumbled through the evening okay, had a little cry that night at home and got on with it, as you do.
It all worked out for the best anyway, because I met Pete not long after that. I started seeing him, and was blissfully happy, just about the same time as Patrick and Mel, I think her name was, split up.
“So what’s new with you then?” Patrick glances up as a girl brushes past him and then turns his attention back to me.
I manage not to laugh hysterically and for a brief moment I picture myself sitting there saying, “Not much. Found out Pete’s cheating on me, staged a burglary, went looking for this girl to tell her to fuck off, ended up in her flat and saw Pete’s picture by her bed. Same old same old.”
“Well, I’ve been ill pretty much all week, so everything’s been quiet. You?”
“Rubbish really,” he says dismissively. “Work’s pretty pedestrian and I’m here with you on a Friday night which tells you everything you need to know about the current state of my love life. Bumped into a blast from the past recently, though…”