The Confusion of Karen Carpenter

by Jonathan Harvey

  ‘Yes, I was,’ I say. ‘Kevin and I were at school together.’

  ‘Really?’ she says, not believing me for one second.

  We both nod at her and she shifts on the couch, straightening out her shell suit bottoms.

  ‘Oh. I didn’t realize.’

  I smile, like I’m so scatty I forgot to tell her I knew one of the parents outside of school.

  ‘Yeah, I lived in Liverpool for a while when I was a kid,’ says Kevin, running with this, not realizing Meredith has seen right through it. ‘After all, it’s the capital of Ireland.’

  ‘Karen, could I have a quick word with you in the kitchen, please?’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ I say. It’s a genuine mistake. I quickly correct myself. ‘Meredith.’

  I look to Kevin and tell him to take a seat, then follow Bossy Pants into the kitchen, where she shuts the door.

  ‘That’s Connor O’Keefe’s dad,’ she whispers.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What are you doing with him?’

  ‘We just went for a bike ride in the countryside.’

  ‘You picked him up at his wife’s funeral?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Meredith. It wasn’t like that.’

  Don’t get jealous, I want to add, but don’t.

  ‘Well, what was it like?’

  ‘I dunno. We’re just . . . two lonely people trying to . . . find our way through this mad, mad world, I guess.’

  Yes, I really did say that. Please don’t ask me why.

  ‘And when did you start sounding like a crap 1970s ballad by Leo Sayer?’

  ‘Meredith, this is none of your business. There’s no law against it. Anyway, I haven’t got time for this. I need to pack an overnight bag.’

  ‘You’re going to sleep with him?’

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but actually . . . we’re going to spoon.’

  She looks like she is going to be sick.

  ‘It’s all very innocent,’ I add.

  She is catatonic with shock. I really don’t get what the biggie is.

  ‘Oh, get over yourself, Meredith. It’s not like he’s a kid.’

  ‘What if Ethleen finds out?’

  ‘It’s none of the head’s business, and even if she did, we’re both grown-ups.’

  ‘I think it’s disgusting,’ she says defensively.

  ‘I’m tired of being on my own. He’s tired of being on his own. We’re just going to . . . spend the evening together. He’s nice.’

  ‘Karen, I don’t think you’re in your right mind. I’ve been worried about you for a while and now you’re just going to pounce on the first guy who crosses your path?’

  OK. That stings. I could quite happily slap her now.

  ‘Well, putting aside my obvious mental health issues – thank you for your concern, by the way – what am I meant to do? Wait? For what? For bloke number two? Three? Four hundred? Or sit here pining and waiting for Michael to come back? Hmm?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘This is exactly why I’m worried. You keep going on as if—’

  I butt in, ‘Meredith, I really don’t have time for this. Maybe I am making a huge mistake, but it’s my mistake and not yours, and you really don’t need to worry. OK?’

  She nods. Eventually. I smile, open the door and head out.

  It’s all terribly teenage when we get to Kevin’s. A lot of eggshells are trodden on as we over compensate for our nerves with uber-politeness. We sit and watch a bit of telly, but choose to sit on adjoining settees rather than risk the embarrassment of being in close proximity, even though we are intending on sharing a bed. The house is spotless and I wonder if Kevin had planned all along to invite me back, or whether he just has cleaning-related OCD. Either way I don’t really mind. I’d half expected a woman-free bloke to live in a pigsty, but I was almost tempted to ask if I should take my shoes off when I walked in. It’s of course different being here today, just me and him, instead of the last time I was here, when the place was packed to the Ikea rafters with mourners.

  I can’t concentrate on the television programme, as I’m taking in everything in the room. The mock-Georgian mantelpiece houses an artificial fire not dissimilar to Mungo and Fionnula’s. Above it is a simple mirror, which I wonder if I’ll be checking my make-up in in the morning. The large flat-screen telly sits in the corner on top of a cabinet of piled-up DVDs and Xbox games. I can see the controls for a Wii too. Underfoot are some kind of wooden floorboards that look too old to be original to the house and are stained an almost cherry colour. All the furniture is white – the sofas and the meringue of an armchair. The only bits of colour are the Union Jack cushions, which strike me as odd for an Irish guy. Maybe they were Toni’s choice. A long, thin window looks out over the street of similar Toy Town houses, and nestled on the windowsill are a handful of framed photos: Connor in his primary-school uniform, Toni and Kevin on their wedding day – he has a Nineties curtains hairdo, and she’s got massive hair. I think he looks much better now, like he’s grown into his looks, but my eyes keep returning to Toni. She was undeniably pretty, but I can’t help wondering if she was having her affair when the picture was taken. Kevin’s not mentioned any of that today, and it has felt impolite to enquire, even though I’m desperate to know what really happened, and how he really felt, and if he really forgave her, and how he took her back, or even if he kicked her out in the first place. I’m also intrigued to know if he . . . I dunno . . . punched this Jamie one in the face in the local pub, the way they would in EastEnders. I know I shan’t ask him any of this tonight. Tonight we can pretend that neither of us has baggage and just enjoy the presence of another human being.

  He offered me wine, but I didn’t really want it, so we’re sat here sipping from massive mugs of tea. The clock’s ticking by and I wonder what is a sensible time for two grown-up lonelies, struggling to find their way through this mad, mad world – I have grown to like this phrase and may put it on my passport as my occupation – to go to bed. Eleven? Twelve? I don’t want to be drinking tea into the early hours when I’ve got to be up for work.

  Fortunately Kevin starts doing some rather loud yawning, and a bit of stretching of arms and feet, then just looks at me and says, ‘Shall we?’ and I nod.

  I head into the bathroom to clean my teeth and wash my face. I look around the room. It’s also clean, so again I wonder whether he was expecting my visit or if he’s impressively domestic. The products are all masculine, the telltale signs of a man and boy living together: razors, face wash, a bottle of Matey. Above the bath there is a poster for a movie from years back with Helen Mirren hugging some bloke. Maybe that was Toni’s taste. Mind you, everyone loves Helen Mirren, I think, as I slip into my nightie. Yes, I’ve brought a nightie. That makes me sound a bit like my mother – or does it? Maybe she wears a baby-doll these days with Jorgen Borgen clawing away at her – but actually, it’s one I bought myself over Christmas. It’s from Marks’s and it’s from their posh trendy range and looks more like a stripy summer dress than a nightie. Oh. On second thoughts, maybe he’ll just think I’ve put a new frock on for bed. I plan to say, ‘This is a nightie, by the way,’ when I enter the bedroom, but as I do, I find that the lights are on so low I can hardly see a thing.

  ‘Have you got a torch?’ I whisper, and he giggles. He turns the lights up a bit – they must be on a dimmer switch – and I see he is wearing pyjamas. Phew. I was a bit worried he’d be stood there starkers with his Mull of Kintyre hanging out for all the world to see.

  He slips away to the bathroom. I hear him lock the door, as I did, but then I hear him having a really noisy wee. Gosh, that’s so not romantic. I look at the double bed and wonder which side Kevin likes to sleep on. As I always used to sleep on the left with Michael, I decide to ring the changes and hop in on the right. Then I worry that, God knows why, Kevin might think that makes me right wing, so I shufty over to the left. Then I decide that’s ridiculous and shufty back over to the right. I lie there waiting, hearing everythi
ng that Kevin is doing through the wall: cleaning his teeth, gargling with what I assume is mouthwash. Then I hear the click of the lock. I close my eyes, feigning sleepiness, and then feel the bed shift and the temperature rise as he climbs in next to me. We both lie stock still for a while, and then I feel him moving closer. He slips an arm round my waist and I turn my back to him to spoon. I push myself against him. He tucks his arm further round my waist. I worry that soon I’ll feel an erection pressing into the small of my back, but I don’t. Hmm, what’s that all about? Doesn’t he fancy me? With his other hand he gently strokes the top of my head. I’ve always found this incredibly relaxing and the next thing I know . . .

  I wake up. Sunlight is streaming through the white blinds on the bedroom window. I am alone in the bed and I sit up, disorientated at first, as I’ve not seen this room in daylight. I can hear Kevin pottering downstairs, a kettle boiling. I look to the bedside cabinet. The digital alarm clock says it’s twenty-five past seven. I suddenly remember it’s Valentine’s Day next week and wonder if I’ll be spending it with Kevin.

  Getting ahead of myself there.

  Can’t even remember the last time Michael bought me a card.

  There are some books on the floor by the bed and I pick one up to see what Kevin is reading. It’s one of those American self-help books. It’s called Moving On: Saying Goodbye to the One You Love. I open it and a bookmark falls out. Then I discover it’s not a bookmark. It’s a driver’s licence. I see Kevin’s face and nosily read the name on it.

  Except it’s not his name.

  It’s his face, but this driver’s licence says it belongs to Steven McIntyre.

  What?

  Behind it is another, slightly bigger card. Again the name Steven McIntyre. No picture this time. And the words on this card make me tremble. It’s a membership card for the IRA. That’s bad. Is it still bad? They kill people, right? Or did they? Or are they now members of Parliament? Or is that Sinn Fein? Oh God. Something’s not right here. Steven McIntyre. I look again at the picture on the driving licence. It’s definitely Kevin.

  Then the words from the wake, from the Deirdre Barlow-glasses woman come back to haunt me. They ring in my ears like tinnitus: ‘Watch that one. He’s not all that he appears.’

  I put the cards back in the book, snap the pages shut and return it to the floor.

  TWENTY

  Ten minutes later I am doing the walk of shame, hurrying along a pavement in last night’s clothes, although really, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I didn’t cop off in some seedy nightclub after a vodka-fuelled session; this was planned. We didn’t even ‘sleep’ sleep together. And yet . . . and yet . . . shame seems to be gripping me by the throat and choking me.

  Steven McIntyre, IRA. Steven McIntyre, IRA, I think to myself as I rat-a-tat along in my a-bit-too-racy-for-school high heels. I stop. Was I rude back then? When I hurried out with startling urgency, he looked so shocked. Like he’d done something wrong.

  Oh yes, you’ve done something wrong. You’ve murdered innocent children . . . I think.

  Maybe he hasn’t. But the IRA . . . yes! They used to set off bombs and kill people, and weren’t allowed to go on the news without their faces being pixelated and someone dubbing their voices. For ages I thought all terrorists must’ve become terrorists because they had such weird faces and clumped themselves together with other equally weird-looking people. I also thought they all spoke cleverly, adopting a trick of moving their lips but having the words come out in a slightly delayed way. Till one day my dad explained it was a television trick and the voices were done by actors. In fact, Mum liked to guess which actors they used for the dubbing. Unfortunately her knowledge of Northern Irish performers was hardly extensive, so she’d either say, ‘That’s Jim McDonald from Corrie! ’ or, ‘That’s Liam Neeson!’ or, ‘That’s thingy from Emmerdale, putting one on!’ (I’m assuming she meant the accent.) But still. The IRA! They were really bad years ago, although I know they’d always say it was because the British had gone over there and invaded their country and hung out on street corners shooting people and stuff like that.

  I really should learn more about Irish history.

  Had there been any clues? Of course! That poster in his bathroom of Helen Mirren hugging someone. Some Mother’s Son. It was a film about the IRA. I’m pretty sure it was about the hunger strikers. Blimey, no wonder he had a poster up of it on his toilet wall. It was probably seeing that that inspired him to join the Irish Revolutionary Army. Or is it Republican? Oh, it’s one of those political thingamajigs.

  And to think he had me fooled! To think I had him down as . . . well . . . as . . .

  Where did I think his politics lay? Has he ever really discussed what he thought of politicians or the history of Ireland? If I was to be really honest with myself, politics hadn’t crossed my mind while I’d been with him, which feels pretty at odds with the discovery that actually he is . . . well . . .

  What is he?

  An IRA member/soldier living in mainland Britain with a false name.

  A trained killer with a new identity who has spooned me, and who I might just have hacked off with my blustering ‘God, Kevin, I’m really sorry. I’ve just remembered an early staff meeting I’ve got to go to . . . No, don’t bother to see me out. You carry on making bacon sandwiches . . . No, I don’t need a lift. I really have to leg it. Bye!’

  Oh my God. What if he’s ordering my execution right now?!

  A car drives past me, pretty fast actually, and I scream and duck behind a parked car, convinced the passenger window is going to whoosh down and a machine gun zoom out and perforate me. As the car zooms past, though, and no assassination takes place, I see that the car is actually a dayglo-pink mini-van with the words ‘Hair by Sonia’ written on the side. OK, so maybe an assassin might not be driving around in something that screams for attention like that. I stay hunched down because I see a dark car approaching, slowly, like it’s looking for something, like it’s locating its target. It’s a posh sports car. It looks as incongruous as a bejewelled elephant on this ordinary street. It suddenly stops. I try to lower myself nearer to the pavement in an attempt not to be seen and then shot. Why was I so rude to Kevin? He’s done me no harm. OK, so he didn’t tell me he had Mafia links. Ish. And now look how he is repaying my slight. There’s going to be blood on the paving stones and it’s going to be mine. Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned horse’s head on the bed?

  The passenger window lowers and I feel an ice-like grip tightening around my heart. I go light-headed. The grit of the pavement digs into my knees. I want to close my eyes, but for some reason I can’t stop cricking my neck in the most awkward manoeuvre possible to try and get a glance at the car. Once the window is down, I hold my breath. Here comes the gun. Here it comes. It’ll be here in a minute. But . . . well . . . no gun comes.

  Instead I see a familiar face poking out of the window.

  Meredith.

  Meredith???

  Is Meredith in the IRA too? Oh God, it doesn’t bear thinking about. She must be a member of the New Zealand branch.

  But hang on, that doesn’t sound very . . . plausible. Does it?

  The car stops outside Kevin’s house and then zooms off again. Passing me. Not killing me. No guns. Nothing. I continue kneeling, confused, which is when I realize I have seen that sports car before. Every day at work. It stands proudly in the car park at school, saying, ‘I have more money in the bank than is absolutely necessary.’ I know it well, and the sticker in the back window that says, ‘If you can read this, thank a teacher.’ I always want to add another: ‘If you can’t read this, blame a teacher.’

  That car is Ethleen’s.

  Meredith is in Ethleen the head’s car, kerb-crawling outside Kevin’s house.

  This can only mean one thing. And I don’t like or understand it.

  Meredith has been on the phone to our boss and told her all about the fact that her housemate/landlady has spent the night spooning with th
e father of a student, and Ethleen is so panic-stricken or fascinated by it that she has jumped in her car, driven to my house, picked up Meredith, then wazzed over here and paused outside the House of Spoon to see if they can witness first-hand our debauched cutlery-imitating behaviour.

  The car drives off. I duck again so as not to be seen by my traitor.

  I am incensed. How dare she? How dare she get straight on the phone and tell her what I’m up to in my personal life? I don’t text Ethleen every time Meredith’s out with Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mitch and whatever they’re called. And why?

  Because it’s none of her bloody business!!!!!

  I hear footsteps. I’m so incensed I’ve forgotten they could belong to my killer. I look round, still kneeling on the ground, to see a girl from year seven hurrying past with two pints of milk. It’s too early for her to be going to school. She must just be running an errand for her mum. Oddly, she doesn’t look that perturbed to see me crouching beside a car.

  ‘All right, Miss?’

  ‘Hi, Shenille!’

  She scurries away and I stand, then hurry on towards the school. I get my phone out and compose a text to Meredith.

  WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? I write in big, shouty capital letters. IT’S NOT LIKE I’M BONKING A SIXTH-FORMER. Then I angrily press send.

  Thirty or so seconds later I get one back as I practically trip down the road in my anger: Where R U?

  I turn a corner to see the front of the school. And get another shock.

  Standing beside Ethleen’s car in the car park are not only Ethleen and Meredith (Meredith is looking at her phone, clearly waiting for me to reply), but also my mum and . . .

  Oh. My. God.

  My dad is there too!

  My dad!

  I panic. Something is wrong. They must have invented a new law that says you can’t hang out with kids’ parents when you’re a teacher. They’re going to make out I’m inappropriate and I’ll be all over the tabloids for having groomed Kevin into making him take me on a countryside bike ride and then share a bed – no kissing. It is ridiculous, but why else would they be stood there having what looks like an urgent conversation? I don’t take a step further. I edge back to observe them from round the corner. I glue my body to the brickwork of the Who’d’ve Thought It? and wonder what on earth they’re up to. Should I go over? What could they want? Why is the sight of seeing my own mum and dad, along with my housemate and my boss, making me feel so anxious? Why has my dad come all the way from Liverpool to be standing in a school car park before eight o’clock in the morning? Just then my image of them is distorted as another car pulls up outside the school gates. A man jumps out and heads towards them. Meredith’s introducing him to everyone. He turns. I flinch.