After The Fall

by Sarah Goodwin

  “’Course.”

  We walked to Nate’s flat, and while I waited in the hallway, my jacket sticking to me in the cool air, while Nate swore and rattled around his wardrobe, kicking off his soaked jeans and dropping them on the floor.

  “Is my towel out there?” he shouted.

  It was, in fact. A rectangle of thin, brown-ish towelling. I picked it up and took it around the corner, just as Nate was tugging off his briefs and throwing them to join his shirt and hoody. He turned around, his long hair flat and dark over his face, one brown eye showing through the soaked strands.

  “Towel,” he said, making a grabby motion with his hand.

  I held it out, and he took it, rubbing his hair first, leaving me helpless and faced with the sight of him, naked.

  The first thing that crossed my mind was that I shouldn’t be looking. Then, that of course I could look, I was a man, a straight, man. And they saw each other naked all the time, at the gym, friends changing in front of each other, like Nate was doing now. But they didn’t want to look, which was why they could. I...didn’t know whether I wanted to look, or not.

  I just know that I didn’t look away.

  Nate ruffled his hair with the towel and, maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to take longer at it than he needed to. Leaving me free to ogle him, which was what I realised I was doing. I couldn’t help it, my eyes were pulled towards him, like he was a car crash, a ten story tower block in flames, and I was rubbernecking from the side of the road.

  My eyes were glued to him, sliding over his long, darkly haired legs, one with a long scar over the knee. His arms were stretched up over his head, showing off the tawny patches of hair underneath. His chest was muscled but compact with dark brown nipples and a trail of soft, curling hair heading down his stomach, spreading out and lining his thighs and crotch. His dick was soft at the moment (though I remembered how it felt when it wasn’t, and felt my stomach clench at the thought). I looked away then, but not before the sight of it could be etched into my brain.

  Nate shifted, towelling down his chest, and I turned around. I could hear him shuffling, drying himself and then searching out dry clothes, putting them on. His hand on my shoulder surprised me.

  “Let’s be going then,” he said, and his voice was low, smoky. His hand was very warm on my cold, wet shoulder. “Sure you don’t want to borrow something of mine?”

  I shook my head, a touch too violently.

  “Shame, you’d look good in some of it,” he moved away, but not before he’d pushed a little closer, close enough that I felt the half-stiff shape of him against my leg. Maybe he’d liked me looking. It was a sobering thought, and I kept my hands and eyes to myself as we walked towards the school.

  Nate was unusually quiet, having rolled a small number of thin, stubby cigarettes, he chain smoked all the way. His shoulders were low, and he seemed less light and energetic than usual, as if someone had cast him in cement shoes.

  “Something up?” I asked eventually, as we paused at a graffiti covered crossing, waiting for the light to turn green, or for the traffic to let up.

  “Nothing,” Nate said, “just...it was my day to go sign on today. Another week with no work, no fucking luck, and what am I going to do for the next two weeks? When I’m not job searching I’ve got sod all to do.”

  “I thought-”

  “Yeah, I’ve got my books, and films and the telly,” he said bitterly, “fuck lot of good that is. I’m spending too much time up here,” he jabbed his temple. “Thinking...was my life this shit before I lost my memory? And why the fuck didn’t I have anyone to come looking for me. A wife, a fella?”

  It was the most that Nate had ever spoken about his life before, and he said it with a fierce look in his eyes, like they were red hot stones. A look aimed straight at me.

  “Maybe you did,” I said, offering the best I could and feeling that it wasn’t enough. “Maybe they’re looking for you, and they’re having shit luck.”

  He snorted. “Fat chance they have of finding me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve no name.”

  “I thought-”

  “Nathan’s not my real name,” he sighed, “I chose it when they let me out of the hospital. Beats John Smith.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  He grinned. A bucket of water on his smouldering dissatisfaction. “Springsteen”

  I laughed, and he joined me, but the laugh was short and sharp. Afterwards he returned his spiky glare to the pavement ahead of us.

  “If they’re out there, they’ll find you,” I tried to reassure him, “they’ll have pictures to put in the paper, or on the news. They’ll be calling round the hospitals...how long has it been anyway?”

  “Not very,” Nate sniffed, “I wasn’t that badly hurt, just my head, you know? Few scratches, bruises. So, I was only in hospital a few days while they sorted all this stuff out. Got out three weeks ago.”

  “See, no time at all. It’ll happen eventually, you’ll see.”

  Nate shrugged, and I abandoned my futile attempts at cheering him up.

  After a bit more silent walking, and another cigarette, he looked up from his staring contest with the path and said, “where’d you get those DVDs anyway?”

  “The house clearance.”

  “Yeah, but where? Which house?”

  I tried to think. “It was on the way from the leisure centre to yours, on the street with the One-Stop. The house by the crossing, with the porch.”

  Nathan’s expression didn’t change, but he became more thoughtful as we walked on. We reached the school and climbed over the gate, which it seemed the custodians

  would never leave open for us, and went in through the front door.

  The whole of the AA were assembled as before, Margery in a sugar-pink dress over black leggings, both of which were straining like sausage skins, Cora with her hair braided, picking at the beigey-pink plasters on her arm, and Gregory, in head-to-toe khaki and eating salted pretzels from a large bag.

  Nate pulled down plastic chairs for us, and we parked ourselves next to Gregory, who offered his pretzels. Nate munched a handful and I wondered how long the meeting was going to last. I wanted a drink already.

  Sal arrived five minutes after us, looking rushed and carrying three binders in her arms.

  “Good evening! And how are we all this week?” she began cheerily. Cora visibly retreated from the brightness of Sal’s voice, and Nathan raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Now, Connor, how have you found starting your journal?”

  In all honesty, I hadn’t. What was the point? It wasn’t like I was going to forget anything now, not when my entire brain was empty of the past and ready for any amount of new memories. A few weeks wasn’t exactly going to be taxing for it.

  “Great,” I said, and offered no further comment.

  “Could you elaborate? What have you been writing about?”

  “Work.”

  “So you’re back at work?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how are you finding that?”

  “Shit.”

  Sal blinked, then frowned at me and turned to talk to Margery instead. Nate chuckled and clapped his hand on my thigh, where it lingered just long enough to squeeze.

  Margery was talking about her visit with her daughter, and I tried to focus on that, rather than the hot place on my leg where Nate’s hand had been.

  “She’s been living in Ibiza for five years,” Margery said, “I sent her a letter when I first got out of hospital, and we’ve been emailing. She runs a club there, so it’s hard for her to get time off. But she came and stayed with me last week, for four days.”

  “That must have been nice,” Sal said.

  “It was,” Margery’s eyes became wet, and her mascara started to run. “But then she had to leave and...it was so awful, she was upset the entire time, because I couldn’t remember her as a little girl, or any of her birthdays, or-”

  “It�
��s important to focus on the positive,” Sal said, cutting her off. “Those four days were full of new memories, weren’t they?”

  “But they weren’t good ones,” Margery whispered, “we spent the whole time watching TV, or out at the shops. And at night I could hear her crying in the next room.”

  “Now now, don’t upset yourself.”

  “She’s not fucking upsetting herself,” Gregory put in, “you’re upsetting her.”

  “I’m not,” Sal bridled, her doughy face turning a funny shade of pink, like a ham with sunstroke. “I’m just trying to get her to think a little more constructively-”

  Margery chose that moment to howl with misery and dissolve into tears. Gregory gave Sal a look that could have set a lump of asbestos ablaze. He winkled a tissue out of his sleeve and passed it over to Margery.

  “There you are love.”

  She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. She had amazing eyes once all the gungy mascara was wiped off, like a picture of Audrey Hepburn I’d seen in the window of the emporium.

  “Fancy a G&T? You can tell me all about it,” Gregory said, and Margery nodded gratefully.

  “I think it would be better to talk about it here, with the group, rather than in a pub. And alcohol isn’t going to improve anything,” Sal said.

  “Shows what you know,” Gregory told her, getting up and steering Margery out the door. “We’ll see you next week, maybe.”

  Sal flushed and blustered like a robin while the three of us watched.

  “Well,” she said, “well...let’s continue, shall we?”

  Nate looked at me, and I could tell that he dearly wanted to tell her that, no, we would not be continuing. But, it was still a little early to go to the pub, and he was in no hurry to go back outside, where the rain had started up again.

  “Cora? Why don’t you start the announcements?”

  Cora looked up at Sal, and her hand flattened itself over her plasters. “My boyfriend broke up with me...and I cut myself.”

  Sal’s face fell, and I officially gave up on the meeting, turning my attention to the wall until it was over.

  “Well, that was a laugh and a half,” Nate muttered as we walked towards the pub. “I thought Sal was going to run off with her binders and never come back.”

  “It must be hard for her, with us all being so shit at therapy,” I said, playing devil’s advocate.

  “That’s because her therapy is bullshit. In proper AA, like with alcoholics and crack heads, they have former drunks and druggies come in and tell you how it gets easier, and that they know exactly what you’re going through. That’s what we need, some amnesiacs who went on to be successful human beings. What does bloody Sal know?”

  “Not much,” I admitted.

  “Exactly, and I’ve been going to those meetings since I got out of hospital, and they haven’t helped at all.”

  We reached the pub and Nate pushed the door open, raised a hand at the barman and steered me towards a table right at the back, where the room was warm and stuffy, and deserted.

  “I’ll get the first round in,” I said, fishing a tenner out of my pocket.

  Nate didn’t try to stop me, just nodded approvingly and stretched his feet out onto my chair as soon as I’d left it.

  “Keeping it warm for you,” he said, at my look.

  I bought us both pints and a bag of crisps, because it had been ages since lunch and I was ready to start eating beer mats. I put the glasses down on the table, and after his first sip, Nate looked at me and asked, “So, how’re things with you and the missus?”

  It was a question I’d expected from Sal, but I suppose I wouldn’t really have answered it properly if she had.

  “She’s...not happy with me.”

  “Why?”

  “She says I’m not spending enough time with her...not trying hard enough to get back to normal, seeing my old friends and stuff,” I couldn’t look him in the eye, “she says I’m spending too much time with you.”

  “And what do you think?” Nate asked, voice purposefully light.

  “That I don’t want to try and act like friends with people I don’t know, and that I should be able to do what I want. I’m not a kid, I’m thirty-two...besides,” I said, fiddling with a crisp, “I like going round to yours.”

  Nate was looking at the table, but I could see the edges of his mouth curl into a smile.

  “I like you coming over.” He took a swig of his beer. “And what did Emma say about work?”

  “That I was lucky to have a job at all.”

  Nate tipped his head slightly to one side. “She has a point, not many going at the moment.”

  “I know.”

  “But then, it’s easy to know that you should be grateful, and another thing to feel it.”

  I sipped my pint.

  “So, do you reckon she’s gonna have all your old mates over, get you to try and remember them?” Nate asked.

  “Probably, I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Cheery.”

  I glared at him. “What if I hate them? Like I hate my job? And me and Emma...we’re not...”

  “Not what?”

  “Getting along.”

  He looked at me shrewdly. “Is that code?”

  I directed another glare at him, though this time I ruined it by snickering. “No. I mean, we’re not doing that either, but we don’t talk or anything. All we do is get up, have breakfast, and then eat dinner after work in front of the TV.”

  “That sounds like man and wife to me, least, as far as I know,” Nate shrugged, “maybe you need to force it a bit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, when kids learn to swim by getting tossed in the sea. You need to do it, ready or not.”

  I thought about Emma, her blonde hair and darkish skin, of the warm dent she made in the bed. I thought about how much better I slept when I was on the sofa.

  “What if...” I started, and the words I don’t want to, stuck to my tongue like burrs.

  “What if...” Nate prompted.

  “I’m not...good at it?” I said, smearing the wet circles that my glass had printed on the table. “I mean, it’ll be the first time, the first one I remember, anyway.”

  “Huh, I suppose it will,” Nate said, as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him before. “Hey, that means I was your first kiss.”

  I scratched at the table, and a layer of grey, sticky dirt came off under my nail.

  “At least you know now that you’re not into men,” Nate said softly, “I mean, you didn’t like what we did that night at mine, and, you’ve already married a bird. Sorted.”

  I wanted very much to believe that it was sorted but as we left the pub, and Nate put his arm around my waist, I felt his warm fingers just under the hem of my shirt, and I wanted them to travel higher, for his whole hand to be pressed to my hip. I didn’t know where these wants came from, maybe from the knowledge that I hadn’t been touched in a while, not since Nate and I had stripped drunkenly on his sofa.

  From the way Nate’s hand lingered on me, I thought maybe he wasn’t so sure that things were sorted either.

  Chapter Six

  Emma waited until Friday night to spring the party on me.

  The rest of the week had been exactly like the first half, boring, tense and suffocating. The day after the meeting at the school, I’d gone into work and stopped at the reception desk to have a word with Janey.

  “Morning,” I said.

  She didn’t look at me. “Morning.”

  “So, why were you so pissed off with Nate yesterday?” I asked, wanting to get to the point before she had a chance to avoid me.

  She looked up at that. “Nate?”

  “Nathan, my friend from the amnesia support thing I have to go to.”

  She blinked. “I’m sorry, I thought...never mind. I’m sorry I shouted at him, could you tell him?” Her cheeks were pink.

  “If you didn’t even know his name, why shout at him?”
/>   “I thought, maybe he was someone else,” she shrugged.

  “But who?”

  “Just...someone who used to hang around here, before...before your accident. He caused trouble for you.”

  “What kind of-”

  The phone chirruped, and had hardly finished its first ring when Janey snatched it up and said, “High Elms leisure centre, Janey speaking,” her words running together in her hurry.

  I went into the changing room, and got on with my day, hoping to catch Janey again. But she seemed to be purposefully busy, shuffling files, going to fetch office supplies and snatching up phones that I swore hadn’t made a sound, whenever I went through reception.

  That was also the day I started my journal.

  I wasn’t really sold on its ability to help me regain my memories and fix my personal life. After all, it didn’t really seem to be helping Margery and Cora. But I needed something to help set my head straight on a few things, namely what I was doing with Emma, and with Nate, who seemed less and less like a friend, and more like the only solid thing in my life. He was after all, the only one who knew me, the new me, whoever that was.

  It was only a ninety-nine pence reporter’s notebook, and a Bic biro that I’d taken from work, but still, it served its purpose. I sat down with my lunch and scribbled almost two dozen little pages full of thoughts and occurrences. I wrote about the hospital, or at least what I remembered about my time there. I wrote about coming home with Emma, meeting Nate...fucking him. The unemployed men’s club, and all about the mysterious Coop, and the C who’d phoned me.

  When I was finished I put it into my shoulder bag, under my spare work shirt and my empty lunch box.

  For the rest of the week, I wrote in my journal every day, noting down what had happened to me, which wasn’t much, and how I felt about it, which was plenty. I had a constant clot of unease in my chest, whether I was at home or at work. I hadn’t seen Nate since the night of the meeting, I’d been spending my time with Emma at home instead. Mostly we made stilted attempts at conversation over our evening pasta, but not always. Sometimes we went out to pubs, nicer ones than Nate had taken me to, but they made me less comfortable.