After The Fall

by Sarah Goodwin

  Nate opened the door and raised his eyebrows. “Aw mate, you shouldn’t have.”

  He let me in and I put the box down by the front door.

  “I found them on my way here.”

  “Where?”

  I shrugged. “House clearance a way back towards the leisure centre.”

  He inspected the box. “Well, maybe you’ve got pikey blood in you after all.”

  I kicked his shin. “Got anything to eat?”

  “Plenty,” he jerked a thumb at the kitchen, “victuals for the hunter.”

  He showed me into the living room and then disappeared into the little kitchen. I heard the oven door opening and shutting with a squeak and a bang.

  I looked around the little room, noticing that the bed had clean sheets on it, faded army print ones. The cabinet with the TV on it was at the end of the bed, and I got up to look through Nate’s DVD collection. There weren’t many, but I spotted a few new library rentals.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” I called through to him, “I found you something.” I went and got the DVDs from my bag.

  “What is it?” He asked, sticking his head around the kitchen door.

  I presented him with the glossy cases.

  Nate looked at them, and laughed. “Very thoughtful.”

  “Well, I thought, you’re a man, you have a TV, therefore, you must be in need of more porn.”

  He chuckled, and ducked back into the kitchen, returning with two plates piled with mashed potato and thick meat ragu. “Trade you some shepherd’s pie.”

  We sat down on the sofa, and Nate put on a film about an amnesiac, who was also a government agent.

  “Thought you’d appreciate the connection,” he said.

  “Yeah, it’s just like my life,” I drawled, “I wish. If I have to go back to that fucking pool every day for the rest of my life, I’ll end up jumping in the pool with a car battery in my hands.”

  “I don’t actually think that would work...still, you could always quit.”

  “I can’t,” I sighed, “I don’t want to ask Emma exactly how in the shit we are, but I know we need the money. Job seekers just wouldn’t cover it.”

  Nate sighed sympathetically.

  “This is amazing by the way,” I said, forking more potato into my mouth.

  “Thanks, I made it myself. Lots of time to kill during the day.”

  “How’d you know how?”

  “I got a book out of the library. I get lots of books out actually. Novels and that. But the recipe books are my favourite. Lots of pictures of really nice food, and all this important sounding advice like, never over beat muffin batter, as it will result in rubbery muffins.”

  I laughed and he grinned.

  “I’m just trying to fill up the time, maybe find out what exactly I like doing.” Nate shrugged.

  “Must be nice.”

  “It can get boring. What about you, what have you worked out about yourself?”

  “Nothing. Aside from that I like shepherd’s pie, and I bring home rubbish I find on the street...I haven’t really had time.”

  “Because of work?”

  “Because of...everything. The meeting, work, being at home with Emma in the evening. I haven’t had much time to just...relax, and think.”

  Nate shifted, “Look, if you want me to stop bugging you to come round here-”

  “No, I like being here.”

  “Good.”

  “There’s another thing though, I got this weird phone call last night,” I said, suddenly remembering. “I had an email on my computer, saying ‘call me’ so I told them to call me instead. Then, on the way home from work, I got this call, just silence, but I could hear someone breathing, then they hung up.”

  Nate raised his eyebrows. “Weird.”

  “I know, and I still don’t know who it was.”

  “Maybe you’re a secret agent,” Nate said, nodding at the screen. “They trained you, shaped you, and now they’re hunting you.”

  I laughed. “Why would they be hunting me?”

  “I don’t know. Because you ripped them off for a billion quid, or you sold secrets to the Welsh, or...fucked the president of Russia.”

  “Yeah, because that carries the death penalty.”

  “Depends if he’s a munter or not.”

  Nate got cans of Strongbow from the fridge and we drank two each while we watched the rest of the film.

  When the credits exploded onto the screen, I went to ease myself out of the seat and drag myself in the direction of my bag and box.

  “Time to get home,” I said.

  “Alright, I suppose I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow?”

  “Shit.” I’d forgotten that I’d have to go back. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  “Ah, it’s not that bad, we can get a few drinks afterwards.”

  I mock glared at him. “That’s all you’re getting.”

  “Hey, I’ve got porn, what do I need your scrawny arse for?”

  I smirked, and he raised his can to me, wishing me a ‘good day’s grind’ at the pool tomorrow. I picked up my box and went down the steps outside.

  The streets were dark, the streetlamps glaring down through their cataracts of filth. Cats leapt from the shadows and picked their way soundlessly across the road. Wildly overgrown hedges whickered in the wind.

  When I arrived home I dumped the box in the hallway and walked into the kitchen, looking for a glass of water. Emma was sitting on a plastic chair by the microwave, in her pink dressing gown.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “I was with Nate, from the AA group,” I told her, “I left you a message on the phone.”

  “I didn’t get it.”

  “Well, that’s not my fault.”

  I stood there for a long, tense moment, while Emma stayed silent and looked at me. Just looked. But it felt like I was being x-rayed by God.

  Then she got up and went upstairs to bed. I knew that I’d done something wrong, more wrong than staying out without telling her. But I didn’t know what, or how to fix it.

  I got my drink of water, slurped down two glasses, then went into the living room and made a bed up on the sofa.

  Even though it was cold and uncomfortable without the duvet, I slept well.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning Emma and I ate our Weetabix in silence. She had a coffee in front of her, but wasn’t drinking it, I had two cups of tea, and it was almost time for me to head off for work when she sloshed her now cold drink down the drain and said, “We can’t go on like this.”

  Idiot that I was, I couldn’t think of anything to say aside from, “Like what?”

  She looked at me like I was crazy, or thick, or both. “Like this,” she repeated, “us never talking, you being out at all hours with God knows who-”

  “I told you I was going out, that I was with Nathan-”

  “But you didn’t ask me, did you? You just left a fucking message. Like I’m your housemate instead of your wife.”

  To my surprise she was almost in tears, and I realised that this must have been brewing since the day she brought me home from the hospital, maybe even before, when she’d found out her husband was gone for good.

  “I just want things to be how they were,” she sniffed.

  “But I don’t know how they were,” I said, slightly louder than I’d intended. “I don’t know what we used to be like. But now I’m here, stuck in a shit job, with you. And you don’t talk to me either, you’ve barely told me anything about who I was.”

  “Who you are.”

  “Well, maybe I’m not so sure.”

  She looked at me, stunned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that, I’m not happy. Working there, living here, like this.” A look of hurt crossed her face, and I felt bad, but she’d started this. She’d broken the silence that surrounded us, dominating every minute while we struggled alongside each other. “I just want to know...”

  “What? What
is it that’s so important?” She looked totally incredulous, her blonde hair still sticking up at odd angles, her face bare of make-up and suddenly looking so much older than it had before. “You know, most people would be glad to have a job. Do you know how many men are out of work right now? Even more women, for Christ’s sake. You’ve got a house, friends – who you haven’t bothered to ask about by the way. And you’ve got me.” Her voice cracked. “You don’t have to go through this alone. Because you’ve got me.”

  I looked at her, and I really wanted to feel something, to feel anything but shame and guilt. I wanted to feel that I wasn’t alone, that she was right, I had an ally. But I couldn’t make myself recognise her. Emma was a stranger, and all I knew about her would barely fill a blank piece of paper. I was alone when I was with her, and that was so hard to take that I knew I couldn’t tell her.

  I thought of Nate, all alone in his bedsit, whiling away his hours on DVDs and library books. Of him and Gregory and all the rest down at the Unemployed Men’s Club. What would they give for a steady job? A wife who had dinner on the table every night at five on the dot. A life beyond drinking and playing pool and a hundred other pointless activities.

  I realised in that moment how lucky I was, and how careless I’d been. I’d been complaining about my life, when it was better than most had. I’d let myself fall into bed with a stranger, a man, before I’d even considered that I might be happy with Emma. I could grow into my marriage, get to know her. Just because she was a stranger to me now didn’t mean she would remain one forever. And I’d already fallen for her once.

  “I know I’ve got you...and I’m sorry, I just need to work on, believing in this.” I said.

  She shook her head, a tiny sob breaking through her iron control.

  “This, is our life.”

  “I know, and I really am sorry, and I’m going to try to make it up to you...I’ve got a meeting tonight, and I’m really going to try to get better...to get back to how we were. How I was.”

  “We were happy,” she told me. “I know you don’t remember but we were.”

  “I believe you,” I said, and I did. She was so sure, so sad, that I knew we must have been so in love. I wanted that again.

  Emma seemed happier, she wiped her wet eyes and dabbed her cheeks with her sleeve. After a few seconds she collected herself, cleared her throat and picked my plastic lunchbox up off of the counter.

  “Here, you’d better be off to work.”

  “I have to go to the meeting straight from there.”

  “That’s OK.”

  I paused, uncertain, but I had to say something. “And I, sort of said I’d go for a drink with Nate after.”

  She looked annoyed at that. “You’ve spent a lot of time with Nate recently.”

  “Well, he’s the only friend I have...that I remember,” I added quickly.

  “Mmm, maybe I should invite some of your other mates over, just so you can spend some time together?”

  That sounded like hell, sitting in a room with a load of people who knew me, but who were strangers anyway. But I had to try.

  “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

  She handed me my lunch, and I put it in a carrier bag. Then she kissed my cheek, pausing for a moment before planting another kiss on my lips. It was dry and awkward, and tasted like coffee, but I was glad that we were getting on.

  I left for work, and managed to get there early enough for a cup of tea in the ‘café’ with Janey and Phil, who was one of the early morning cleaners. He was in his fifties, hated the Conservatives and wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions. Janey nodded politely while he talked about the rising cost of living and the cuts to public services. Despite his diatribe, he was easy to talk to, and I told him about the Unemployed Men’s Club, and all the people I knew who didn’t have jobs. When I told him about Sal and the meeting I had to go to, he laughed bleakly.

  “And what good’s it done you so far? None I bet. But still they’re itching to throw money into these ‘initiatives’ and ‘support systems’. Meanwhile there’s some mother in Cornwall who can’t get her cancer treatment on the NHS.”

  “I’ve only been to one session,” I shrugged, “it might get better.”

  Phil grunted as if he seriously doubted it.

  Bradley turned up twenty minutes after I did, and as soon as he stepped into the little seating area, the light mood and the friendly chatter disintegrated. Phil scooped up his cloth and bottle of chemical spray, Janey shot back out to the reception desk, and rolled her eyes behind Bradley’s back.

  “Hey Connor, ready to face the day?” he said, so chipper it made me want to punch him. Who says stuff like that?

  I copied Phil’s grunt, and Bradley handed me an envelope. “Here’s the date for your re-examination. Just to make sure you didn’t lose any of your vital training in that accident.”

  I got the feeling that, in another life, maybe back in the swinging sixties, Bradley would have been the type of guy to say ‘alrighty’ and ‘okey dokey’. I kind of wished he’d fall into the pool and drown. Or at least have his gelled hair ruined.

  I was going to be re-tested in two weeks time. Two weeks of Bradley ‘supervising’ me, and two more weeks of feeling like the lowest of the low as I handed out floats like a trained chimp. Terrific.

  Also, and it might have been a minor point, I was really getting sick of ham sandwiches, KitKats and apples.

  I finished my small pack of cigarettes on my break, and crossed the main road into the town centre to go and buy some more. The closest place was Tesco, one of the little local branches and I bought a pouch of Cutters Gold, the same brand as Nate, as his were nicer than mine anyway. They smelt almost familiar, probably because he’d been smoking like a chimney around me since we’d met. I also picked up a flask of vodka, just because he’d been keeping me in beer and whiskey since the first meeting. I tucked the bottle into my bag and went back to work.

  Bradley was standing in reception, and Janey gave me a pained look from over his shoulder, clearly wishing he’d piss off. Bradley turned round, saw me, grinned, and then made a weird choked-sneeze noise.

  I froze and looked at him, what the hell was that about?

  “Have you been smoking?” he said.

  I had in fact rolled up another cigarette on the way back to work, as well as the one I’d had at the start of my break.

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t you think that’s...inappropriate, given that you work at a health club?”

  I looked at him, waiting for him to get to the punch line. But, with a creeping sense of dread, I realised that he was serious.

  “It’s a leisure centre,” I pointed out kindly, “hardly a top gym.”

  “That’s not the point, health is what we want people to strive for, eating their five-a-day, exercising, it’s in the government’s new campaign...”

  “Anywhere that I can buy a Snickers,” I said, pointing at the vending machines, “I can smoke. And it’s not like I’m doing it in here, I was on my break.”

  “Well, you’ll have to do something about the smell,” he blustered, “spray yourself with some air freshener or something.”

  “Because what could be more healthy that a lungful of carcinogenic roses?”

  Bradley glared at me, and then looked down at my shoulder bag, from which the neck of the bottle was protruding.

  “Is that...alcohol?”

  “Yes, yes it is.”

  “You can’t bring that in here!”

  “I bought it on my break, to drink outside of work,” I said, getting more and more pissed off by the second. I walked past him and into the employee changing room, where I stowed my bag, sprayed myself with some Febreeze from under the sink, and gulped a cup of water from the cooler.

  Bradley avoided me for the rest of the day, and I counted that as a victory.

  After work, I walked into reception and realised that it was raining outside. Not drizzling or sprinkling, but full on pissing it down,
like someone had upended a lake over the town. The sky was heavy and pitted, like old concrete hanging over us. Everything seemed weirdly backlit by the setting sun that slanted through the pitch coloured clouds. I put my bag on a chair and looked through it for my umbrella, a shitty little collapsible thing, but better than nothing. It was in my locker, I decided, probably under where all the info sheets and leaflets that Bradley kept giving me were lying.

  I went back and, sure enough, there it was. As I stepped back into reception, brandishing my tiny umbrella, I saw Janey standing outside, in the rain, holding a magazine over her head and talking to a hunched figure in a hoody. Both of them were soaked, but neither seemed to care. Janey was shouting, waving her arm around and laying into the man next to her. He stood there, stooped and unresponsive, but bristling like a stray dog.

  As I got closer, the automatic doors swished open, and the pelting rain, the shouting increased drastically in volume.

  “...have no shame coming here. How could you? Especially now, when he has this chance. Get out of here! Get away-”

  “Janey?” I shouted, and she turned towards me, mouth opening into a little black circle. A raindrop plopped in, and she didn’t even blink.

  Then I recognised the man next to her, his pale grey hoody stained almost black with rain. “Nate?”

  “Hey!” he called, a smile breaking on his face. His hood cast a shadow over him and made the grin as dark as Janey’s open mouth. “I thought I’d come and get you, walk with you over to AA?”

  Janey dropped her sopping magazine and shot towards me, shoes dripping wet. As she crossed the carpet and passed me, she looked up at me and touched my arm, squeezing it.

  “Careful,” she muttered, not meeting my eye. Her face was flaming, from anger or embarrassment, I wasn’t sure.

  “What?” I started, but she was already gone, fleeing for the safety of the locker room, her handbag and coat.

  I put up the umbrella and went outside.

  “What was all that about?” I said, holding the wilting bit of fabric over us.

  “Not a bloody clue, crazy bint” Nate said, his teeth rattling in his skull. “It’s fucking freezing out here, mind if we drop by mine? I need a dry pair of pants and everything.”