It's Not Me, It's You

by Mhairi McFarlane

  ‘… You know how the official story goes that Michael was a mess, and I held it together? It wasn’t quite as simple as that. I looked like I was keeping it together, and I was … more or less. Until I got kicked out of school.’

  ‘You got expelled?’

  This was news to Delia. ‘Not suited to academia, didn’t do A-levels, got a bar job’ was the version she had.

  ‘I used to get good grades, then I got in with a bad crowd and used to go drinking at lunch, that sort of thing. I was only a few months from finishing but it put the kibosh on staying there for sixth form, or going to university.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I didn’t tell my uncle and aunt what had happened. I managed to get to the letter before they did. When the head called their house, I got to the phone first and put Michael on, made him pretend to be my uncle. Instead of facing up to trashing my life, I thought I was an absolute Ferris Bueller, cock of the walk. I carried on pretending I was going to school, leaving the house each day and wandering around, getting into mischief.’

  ‘What, you were shagging around at sixteen?’ Delia said.

  ‘No, hah. Teenage Me wishes. Hanging round offys, shoplifting. Then one day I got caught thieving, got arrested and it all came out. My uncle and aunt were gutted. I made them feel they’d let my parents down.’ Paul swallowed and steadied himself. ‘They said the worst of it is, you lied to us. The problem was, I didn’t want people to see me falling apart. I had a lot of pride and I got very clever at hiding my feelings. I’m too good at putting on an act, you know?’

  Delia nodded. This, she did know.

  ‘Anyway,’ Paul rubbed his face, and Delia wondered how it was possible she could have known Paul for so long and not known any of this, ‘I’d been avoiding the shrinks after the accident because, trust me, everyone is asking you how you’re feeling every five minutes and you just want to go kick a ball around. After the arrest, I had to have counselling. They said I’d had a depressive episode.’

  ‘Paul,’ Delia said carefully, ‘I’m not saying this in an uncaring way, but you’re talking about twenty years ago. How did that affect you sleeping with Celine?’

  Paul looked at her directly, bracing his hands on either side of him on the couch.

  ‘No, I’m thirty-five. Nothing can excuse what I did, Dee. But if it helps you understand, I’m trying to explain that at the end of last year, the shutters came down. I felt the same way as when I was skiving school, lying to people who loved me. It’s weird, you wouldn’t think the twenty-year anniversary would mean much and I didn’t think it would either. Given how I’ve behaved, it obviously does matter. This is going to sound strange, but I’ve never got over the fact my parents are not coming back. Even now, some small part of me thinks they’re going to walk in the door and say: “Surprise! There, that made you and Mike stand on your own two feet, didn’t it?”’

  Delia looked at Paul and saw his expression, the way the muscles had tightened, a look she’d never seen before, and knew this was sincere. Every day, you can choose to be happy. How had she never been perceptive enough to see that survival techniques could also mean denial? It was because she too had fallen in love with the persona Paul sold to the world.

  ‘… The counsellor told me I would have these episodes of spinning out again, and I’d need to get help when I saw the clouds gathering. Of course, I didn’t. I thought, I’ve got my girl and the pub and the dog and I’ll style it out, with my usual arrogance. Even though I was having these dark thoughts about ageing and dying, feeling hollow inside. Wondering why the staff seemed so horrifically young to me, these days.’

  He did a mock-shudder.

  Delia was surprised. Very. Bouncy, effervescent, Where’s the Party Paul?

  Paul took a deep breath. ‘What happened with Celine. I can’t imagine the amount of insult and grief I caused you. I mean, you’ve – and I—’

  Delia squirmed and Paul wisely abandoned the Adam analogy.

  ‘… It wasn’t anything to do with sex or not being happy at home, Dee. I have – had – everything I want in you and I’d never give that up willingly. It was a distraction. This ridiculous thing started and when I was doing that, I didn’t have to think about my other problems. I gave myself a different problem to avoid the real one. Uncharacteristic risk-taking behaviour, is what my counsellor called it. Like psychic self-harm.’

  He was seeing a counsellor again?

  ‘Girls coming in and flirting with bar staff happens often enough, as you know. It wasn’t that she was anything special or different compared to you. It’s just that, this time, I wasn’t my right self.’

  Delia looked at her hands in her lap.

  ‘Have there been others apart from Celine?’ Delia said, simply, looking up.

  ‘Other women?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, never. Ever. Why would you think there were?’

  ‘My friend,’ Delia said. ‘He said men like you never cheat once.’

  Delia felt oddly like she was betraying Adam by passing this on, despite the fact there was scant chance she was spoiling a potential friendship between the two of them. Still, Adam said Paul happy-cheated, not sad-cheated. It would seem that was wrong.

  ‘Men like me,’ Paul said, brow furrowing. ‘I’d like to meet this paragon of virtue. Is he on a plinth, holding a bow and arrow? No others. Absolutely not.’

  ‘You’ve lied to me a lot.’

  ‘I have.’

  Delia felt they were at factory settings, stripped bare to the essential components: were they still in working order?

  ‘The lies you told me, after I found out. They hurt me the worst of all.’

  Paul’s eyes were shiny.

  ‘I saw the love of my life about to walk out and I thought complete honesty would mean losing you forever. It’s taken me until now to see that complete honesty was my only hope.’

  Paul wiped his eyes on a sleeve of his jumper.

  ‘Delia. That’s it. That’s the whole story of how I was so stupid as to risk everything that mattered to me, on something so meaningless.’

  Delia believed him. She finally understood it. She had no anger left. Only sadness.

  ‘There’s something else as well,’ Paul said. ‘Given I’m here to beg you for another chance, I’m not doing the best sales pitch here …’

  Delia didn’t know how to feel. She didn’t know what she felt.

  Paul rubbed his palms on his jeans.

  ‘You’ve heard that thing about how counsellors are not there to judge you and it’s about helping you talk through things yourself, and so on? Well, for fuck’s sake, I’d get the one who breaks the rules, wouldn’t I? This one’s really chatty. She’s given me tough feedback and no mistake.’

  Paul grinned and Delia gave him a grudging small smile.

  ‘We talked about my attitude to marriage and kids. You know what she said? She said I’ve been subconsciously resisting them and staying a perpetual man-child, to be the boy my parents left. Like I’m waiting, or something.’

  This made Delia’s throat muscles lock.

  ‘It made me see how unfair I’ve been. Expecting you to fit round me, to wait for me.’

  Paul pushed his hips off the sofa, fumbled in his jeans pocket and took something out, palming it.

  He opened a ring box. Inside, sat the emerald and diamond Art Deco design that Delia had picked out. She had no idea how he’d found it.

  Paul turned towards her.

  ‘This isn’t the place, or possibly the time, to say these words. You deserve something romantic, done properly, the way you did for me. I want you to take this as a kind of pre-proposal, to know that I am ready to do the down-on-one-knee if you are ready to hear it. Delia, I love you. More than words can say. I want to be together for the rest of our lives. I want to marry you. The sooner the better.’

  Delia gazed at the ring in wonder.

  ‘How did you—?’

  Paul flushed with pleasure at her react
ion.

  ‘Is it the one? I know there’s that antique jewellery place you like and I thought you might’ve been in. I described you to the shopkeeper and she remembered you. We went through five or six rings she said you looked at and when I saw this, I was like THAT’S the one. That’s my Delia’s taste. I’ve had it sized against some rings you left at home.’

  Delia was impressed. This was what ten years together could do. Paul knew her better than anyone.

  The ring glinted and sparkled in the light of the room. Delia exhaled.

  ‘Paul, I can’t go back to how we were. I lived my life around you and for you. I’ve found my old self again and I don’t want to lose that.’

  ‘What you’ve done since … since we broke up is incredible, making a life down here. Are you saying you want to stay in London?’

  Delia shook her head. ‘It’s not about geography. It’s about carrying on being in charge of myself. If I come back, I won’t be that person I was again, always waiting for you, following your lead.’

  ‘You want to be a team,’ Paul said. ‘I get that. So do I.’

  ‘Do you want to put this back together because you really love me and want to be with me, or because you don’t know what else to do?’

  ‘I’m surprised you even ask that. Who wouldn’t want to be with you? Yes, of course. Delia, I don’t say this in terms of giving you an ultimatum, as you can always come home. But if there’s no chance, it’s for the best you tell me. The not-knowing is killing me. And you seem settled, here …’

  He trailed off, Adam the elephant in the room again.

  Delia thought of all the Pauls she had known.

  The Paul who always let her mix cocktails behind his bar and let her waste stock as she sloshed spirits around, mopping up her spillages without complaint. The Paul who sat at a dining table with her family and respectfully discussed the chippy with Ralph as if they were both small business owners. The Paul who rubbed her feet when she’d been wearing ridiculous shoes, who fixed her bike, who wolfed down her cooking and told people she’d missed her vocation as a chef. The Paul who called her, in his moments of most private, soppiest affection, Strawberry Shortcake, after a luridly copper-wire haired doll from an ’80s cartoon. I think you’re the same as me … Paul and Delia, Delia and Paul. He’d been a great boyfriend, for the most part.

  Were all those Pauls erased by the Paul who’d had sex with another woman and lied about it? The Paul who had always been trying to impress her in his own way, she saw now, and couldn’t let the swagger drop when he was low. She’d wanted him to play the hero. It was a two-way deal, a pact.

  There was so much more good than bad. Their history spoke for itself – she couldn’t let that go. She still loved Paul.

  She nodded, slowly. ‘OK. Let’s try again. No engagement for now. I want to come back to Newcastle.’

  Paul leaned over and put his arms round her and they sat like that for a moment, buried in each other’s shoulders, Delia wondering if she had Adam’s scent on her. Adam. That had been a wonderful fantasy – strange and new and exciting – but this was her reality.

  ‘By the way, I asked Emma for her blessing in asking you to marry me,’ Paul said, disentangling. ‘I hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t ask your dad in these circumstances and I wanted sign off from someone you love.’

  ‘And she gave you her blessing?’

  ‘Are you kidding? She bollocked me rigid. Then gave me it.’

  Delia burst out laughing. The tension in the room uncoiled as they made practical arrangements and talked about lighter things, planned a dinner out with Emma.

  ‘Also, I have to see my friend and tell him I’m leaving,’ Delia said eventually, forcing her voice to stay confident.

  Paul bit his lip and jerked his head in an ‘OK’ nod.

  ‘Sometimes the phone isn’t showing enough respect,’ she added.

  ‘I’ll keep the ring for now,’ Paul said, slipping the box back into his pocket.

  Delia didn’t know the official terminology for what she was about to do. Could you break up with someone you weren’t exactly ‘with’? Was she about to make a fool of herself, revealing her copy of the dating rules handbook was archaic?

  She felt as if she’d been blindfolded and spun in that party game where you staggered off and tried to regain your balance and your bearings. She’d left this house only hours ago, in a completely different mood. The blazing sunshine that accompanied her task of schlepping over to Clapham felt wrong. Once again, seismic shifts could take place in your life, but existence in general had the audacity to carry on as normal.

  Delia wanted rain. The art director of real life had messed up.

  Adam answered the door and Delia tried not to dwell on the look of apprehension he was wearing. She obviously hadn’t called to ask for ‘a chat’ instead of a date so they could put Paris back on the table.

  ‘Hi. Can we talk upstairs?’ Delia said.

  Adam said nothing, only nodded, and Delia was tense with the difficulty of what she was about to do. To make matters worse, he put his hand in hers and led her up to his room, whilst Delia tried not to focus on how that felt.

  Once inside, he pushed the door shut, folded his arms and leaned back against the wardrobe. His expression told her that he roughly knew the shape of what was coming.

  Delia knotted her fingers.

  ‘Uhm. Paul came to see me.’

  Pause. She expected something here, yet Adam said nothing.

  ‘We’re getting back together,’ Delia concluded, slightly hoarse.

  ‘Getting or got?’

  ‘Got.’

  Adam put his chin on his chest.

  ‘Sorry,’ Delia added.

  There was a poisoned silence. Adam cleared his throat and moved his back, standing up straighter.

  ‘Fast work,’ he said.

  Delia could hardly deny the timing was vulgar. Moving on to a second man while your body was still reverberating from the seeing-to you’d had from the first.

  ‘He’s over the whole “having sex with another woman” thing, then?’

  Delia couldn’t go into the details of bereavement or depression.

  ‘I can’t explain now, but he had his reasons.’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’

  ‘He promised me it’ll never happen again.’

  ‘Of course he did.’

  ‘Look. Adam. I haven’t done this lightly. I’m not a doormat.’

  ‘I didn’t say you were.’

  In the face of his dangerous quiet, Delia floundered.

  ‘He’s made a big gesture. He proposed, with a ring. He asked Emma for her blessing.’

  ‘Your mate?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He got your friend to say you should marry him?’ Adam said, finally showing anger, turning his eyes to the heavens. Delia noticed he was so white he looked pale green. ‘Manipulative bastard.’

  ‘I don’t think he intended it like that. He’s making amends.’

  Delia tried to speak and her windpipe wobbled. Tears threatened to start and she made an effort to control herself. It wasn’t fair on Adam to weep and turn herself into the victim of the piece.

  ‘You’re forgiving him for how he’s treated you?’ Adam said. ‘Actually, don’t answer that, as you clearly are. OK. Whatever I say doesn’t matter.’ Adam shook his head. A tear rolled down his cheek and he didn’t brush it away.

  ‘We weren’t … we were just having fun though, weren’t we?’ Delia blurted, startled.

  ‘So it seems,’ Adam said, shrugging his shoulders, yet his voice was shaky. She’d never seen him vulnerable. ‘You’re moving up north?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Adam shook his head and looked away, and Delia got the feeling he couldn’t trust himself to speak.

  She was stunned, and ashamed. She’d deliberately not dwelt very hard on how he’d react. She knew she wouldn’t have his heartfelt congratulations, yet despite the warm words she’d had no time to as
sess how strong Adam’s feelings truly were. Yes, he’d said things, but people did, when they fancied someone. Him now shrugging Oh dear that’s a shame we could’ve had some good times, have a safe journey had been a distinct possibility.

  This was the most touching discovery, made in the most agonising way – he really did like her. Delia swallowed hard. It wasn’t awkward. It was quietly devastating.

  ‘When do you go?’ he asked.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Delia said. ‘I’m packed. I don’t have many things here.’

  ‘Evidently,’ Adam said, raising empty eyes to meet hers.

  ‘Adam, I’m so sorry—’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Don’t apologise. You want that more than you want this. There’s nothing more to say.’

  Silence again. In fact, there was so much more to say. Delia wanted to tell Adam about what he had done for her, and what he had come to mean to her. How she’d come to London at her life’s lowest ebb. How his transformation from enemy to this incredible friend – and now incredible shag, as it turned out – had been the very best of it.

  That he’d changed her life and restored her faith in male human beings, and that she’d come round to thinking he looked good in pink. She would never, ever forget him.

  Understandably, all that mattered to Adam was that she was leaving with Paul.

  This was it. She would never speak to him again, never laugh with him, never hold him? It felt wrong. Surely it wasn’t meant to be like this? Weren’t they both meant to waltz away with warm memories, couldn’t they keep in touch? She hardly needed to ask. She wished she’d known the price at the point of purchase. That sex meant a full stop to the friendship. It had become something else last night, something that was over before it had begun.

  Knowing a last time was a last time was unbearable.

  Delia gazed at him and tried to commit his face to memory. She wanted to draw it. She could see he’d rather she left.

  ‘Goodbye, Adam.’

  ‘Yeah. Bye,’ Adam said, in such a low voice she could barely catch it. Arms folded, he stared at the floor again, not looking at her.