After The Fall

by Sarah Goodwin

  I watched the DVD to the very end, when it faded to snow and left me heavy and hot with desire. I was hard in my jeans, and aching to get into the bathroom and toss myself off. I took the DVD out of the computer first, not wanting it to be discovered, and noticed that on the top there was faint writing, done in a marker that had worn almost all the way off.

  Enjoy the killer rimming, I did. Can’t wait to get you alone. C

  It was clearly an old message, meant for whoever had owned these DVD’s before I’d found them at the side of the road. Still, it made me uneasy to think that a pair of lovers had enjoyed the film that Nate had given me. That they had been together and done those things, when me and Nate were sharing the exact same disk and not doing anything. No matter how much I suddenly wanted to.

  Fortunately, the urge disappeared almost as soon as I’d locked myself in the bathroom and stroked myself through an orgasm. I was satisfied then that I wasn’t going to go running to Nate just because of one dirty video.

  I washed my hands and dried them, before leaving the cold bathroom and going back to the silent study.

  The days before the exam were the worst.

  I couldn’t sleep properly for one thing, and my stomach was all knotted up and tense, so I could barely eat. I felt sick every time Bradley or Janey mentioned the upcoming tests, which Bradley did frequently, and quite maliciously, as if he knew that I was shitting myself in panic.

  I revised every spare second at home. Or at least, I convinced myself that I was, that having the binders open while I watched films on the computer upstairs was actually a form of revision technique. Every time I tried to read them I’d panic at how much I didn’t know, and my brain would lock up, refusing to learn. More than once I came close to asking Emma for help, but the thought of her finding out, ahead of me getting my results, how useless I was, made me keep silent.

  I could, in short, have really done with a friend. But who did I have to go to? The couples, who were more loyal to Emma than to me, the nameless men at the Unemployment club, or Nate, who was probably still pissed off with me?

  Actually, the thing that worried me, even more than my impending failure at re-qualifying for my job, was the realisation that even though I was angry at Nate for kissing me, and even though I thought he might well punch me if our paths crossed again – I still wanted to see him. In fact, it was a daily struggle to keep myself locked up with my text books, and not out on the street, on my way to Nate’s.

  Most of the time I was in a state of permanent irritation. The altercation with Nate, the online chat with Coop, and my looming exam failure were like ground glass under my skin. I shouted in exasperation when the dog next-door yapped constantly at Mick, threw dirty dishes into the sink and complained bitterly at the mess, and greeted dropped books, spilled drinks and minor breakages with a belligerent, loud, ‘For fuck’s sake!’.

  Eventually, Emma said, “Get out, and walk this mood off. It’s doing my head in.”

  So I struggled into my hoody, banged out of the house like a moody teenager, and walked down the street, and around the scruffy park at the end of the road. There was an aluminium slide a roundabout and three swings, all formerly painted, and now showing scrappy diamonds of peeling colour. The grass was showered in flakes of it, like snow nestled in between crisp packets, cans of Special Brew and White Ace, and heaps of wet fag ends. The grass was overly long and tough, no children were playing there.

  I sat on a swing, the chains that held it up were thick and heavy, bolted to the rubber seat. They jangled lightly as I sat down, and I swung a little as I smoked a cigarette and tried to get rid of the ball of hot anger that constantly squirmed in the pit of my stomach.

  It was mid morning, and the playing field beyond the park was wrapped in thick mist. The shadow of goal posts stood out, and the silhouette of a lonely tree reached up to the blind eye of the sun. A lumpy body shuffled out of the grey air, pushed open the rusty gate to the play park, crunching over broken glass and thin gravel. I recognised Cora beneath her purple fleece hat.

  “Hey,” she said, sitting down on the swing with a greeting like a collapsed lung. I offered her a cigarette and she took two, lighting one up and tucking the other into a pocket for later. She didn’t look much like herself, her usual outfits were the kind I’d seen on stalls at the market, day-glo, fishnet, tulle and velvet. Today she was in a colourless denim skirt that had dragged in the mud, a creased, pale green shirt and a dark blue fleece about five sizes too big for her, stippled in places with white paint.

  She saw me looking and folded in on herself, hugging her fleecy arms across her stomach. “They’re my old clothes, for walking.”

  “Where are you walking to?” I asked.

  “Just around. My mum said I needed to get out of the house.”

  “Me too– my wife I mean.”

  It occurred to me that she was at the park so early because she was avoiding kids her own age, who were doubtless still in bed. A fat pigeon gargled contempt up in its tree. Cora threw a crushed Strongbow can at it.

  “Why does your wife want you out? She having an affair?”

  “No, I’m just not much fun to have around right now. I’ve got an important exam coming up, and it’s stressing me out.”

  “I hate exams,” Cora said with feeling.

  “Me too.”

  “I had to take loads to stay in my year at school, and they made me sit in the PSHE woman’s office for hours. People kept coming to the door and whispering that I was pregnant, or retarded.” She snorted bitterly, “most of them are so retarded they probably believe their own bullshit. Fucking septics.”

  “Not getting on too well at school then?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “They think I’m a freak, because I’m so different now than I was before. Even though they hated me then too, I know, I’ve read some of my old diaries.”

  “What were you like before?” I asked.

  “Stupid, quiet,” she looked down at her skinny thighs, like twigs under the heavy, dew spotted skirt. “Fat.” She said quietly, her lips twitching away from the word. “But, while I was in my coma, I lost lots of weight, and...I don’t know. I’m different. I don’t want anything to do with any of my old stuff, my clothes...and I’ve been reading a lot, swotting for all those tests. I’m almost top at everything.”

  “That’s good.”

  She looked at me, long and hard, and I could see her working out if she wanted to talk to me anymore. She’d been caught out, at a low ebb, and she’d confided in someone, in me.

  “I didn’t try to kill myself,” she said at last, “everyone at the group says that I did, but I didn’t.”

  “I don’t think that you did,” I said, “how did you lose your memory then?”

  “They were chasing me, after school, throwing bits of gum at me, then they started properly coming after me, with the older kids, throwing stones, one of them had a hammer...and I couldn’t run fast enough,” she said, “so I tried to get away, lose them. I ran over a level crossing when the barriers were down, didn’t get hit by the train, but I ran into the road on the other side, looked back to see if they were gone and got hit by a Mini Metro.”

  I winced. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, shit,” she said with a sigh, “and now everyone’s making out that I’m suicidal, saying all my scars from the accident are from me cutting myself. I mean, it’s all shite, only some of them were me, and only recently, but everyone at school wants to believe it. Like they’re craving it. And they won’t give up, they don’t even feel bad about the accident. They’re still taking the piss.”

  Tears blurted from the corners of her eyes and trailed down her face, which, when it was pinched up in misery, looked froglike and pallid.

  In that moment I realised something about myself, and that was that I was not a natural at dealing with people, especially women, especially young ones, who cried on swings and had clearly been through the wringer.

  “It could be worse,” I
said, edging around the issue.

  “How?” Cora sniffed.

  “At least you don’t remember before, what it was like. So it doesn’t have to matter to you. They’re the ones stuck in the past. Pathetic really, when you think about it.”

  Cora digested this, and her blotchy, tear streaked face produced a wobbly smile, like the head of a sunflower bombarded by rain.

  “They are kind of pathetic.”

  “There you go. So screw them, they’re re-running last year, you show them you’re all about now. The new, improved, Cora.”

  She nodded, scrubbing one sleeve of her virtually fossilised fleece across her eyes. “Septics,” she muttered.

  “Damn right, you do what you want. They can fuck off.”

  She swung a little, and I lit another cigarette, looking out over the playing field, wet and misty as ever. Core stopped her swing with a scuffle of her feet and a rattle of chains.

  “Better get back,” she said, “see you at group.”

  I raised a hand to wave her off, and she wandered away, out of the park and into the mist. I hoped that I’d advised her well, and not just slapped a plaster on a stab wound.

  Slowly, the swing next to me became still, I tossed my cigarette end into the grass and watched it fizzle out. I was stuck. I didn’t want to stay in the damp and dreary park, but I didn’t want to go home to my revision either. In all honesty, I wanted to go and see if Nate and I were OK after our tussle under the railway bridge. I suspected not, and the thought that I’d lost a friend, my only friend, made my chest heavy.

  “What’s up, shit-for-brains?” Gregory said, slipping onto the swing next to me and almost making me fall to the ground in surprise.

  “Jesus,” I said, settling myself on my swing, “you almost gave me a fucking heart attack.”

  Gregory didn’t look in the least perturbed by this, he almost seemed amused. “Million miles away eh? Don’t blame you. What I wouldn’t give to be a million miles away from this dump.”

  “Still no luck on the job front then?” I asked, trying to be polite.

  He sucked air in through his teeth. “Fuck all about, and the job centre’s a load of bullshit and chips. Got me in for a computer skills class, then spent an hour teaching me how to switch on a PC from 1995. How to send an email. How to open a word document.” He spat onto the woodchips. “Like I’m a fucking retard or something. Last time it was teaching us how to act at an interview – don’t swear, sit up straight and lie your bollocks off. Easy.”

  I shook my head in sympathy. “I might be joining you soon. I’ve got to re-qualify for my lifeguard job. If I don’t, I’ll be out on my arse, there’s nothing else for me at the leisure centre. Except for stocking up the vending machines, and that’s some other tosser’s job.” I said rudely, thinking of Terry.

  Gregory made a derisive noise. “Anyway that’s what, ten hours a week? Less? At minimum wage you’re looking at sixty pounds. That’s the same you’d get on jobseekers. It’s bullshit. Total wank from start to finish, and, I’ll tell you something else, never, I repeat, never, get on to DSS. That’s even worse.”

  “DSS?”

  “Old name for it, Housing benefits it is now. And no bugger’ll take them. I mean, it’s money, it’s the same as some other bastard’s cash, but will they take it? No. On most of the flat lettings they put ‘No DSS’ before ‘No Pets’, before ‘No Smokers’ even. Like I’m going to piss on their carpets and stink up their wallpaper. And you should see some of these places, you wouldn’t know whether to cry or go and find some petrol to burn the whole lot and start again. Saw a place the other day with a kitchen/bathroom. No DSS. Fucking criminal.”

  I’d never heard Gregory speak so openly, or at length about anything. I found I liked his angry disbelief. It was a nice change from my own hopelessness. It made my blood run hot again, made me feel the need for action, for effort on my part.

  “Saw Nate yesterday,” Gregory continued, “down at the warehouse.”

  I was instantly interested, and forced myself not to appear it. “Really?”

  “Mmm, something’s not right with him, he’s got something hidden away.”

  I’d wondered how open Nate had been with the rest of the group, and now I knew for sure that he was still in the closet, or at least, I did, until Gregory said,

  “I mean, I know he’s a raging bender, but there’s no need for him to shut himself off. We’re all mates aren’t we? Even those of us who support West Ham, vote Tory, or take it up the exhaust.”

  I laughed, startling the scornful pigeons from their perches.

  Gregory grinned.

  I wanted him to talk more about Nathan, to fill me in on what I’d missed of my friend’s movements in the last few days. But Gregory just swung absently on his swing, looking down at his brown trousers and brown boots.

  “What’s going on with you and Margery?” I asked.

  His mouth twisted in pleased secrecy. “We’re alright.”

  “More than alright, and missing AA to boot.”

  “Yeah, well,” he shrugged, “it’s a load of shit, isn’t it? Trying to ‘get us through this’ when there’s nothing to get through. We survived, didn’t we? It’s just the living to do now.”

  I nodded, wishing that I could feel that certainty that I was right, that what I wanted was right. I wished that I could see the way ahead of me, which despite my desperation, was still as obscured as the playing fields. Lost in mist.

  Once I’d gotten into the habit of walking off my stress and sitting in the park for a few minutes each day, my revision started to look less impossible, and became merely difficult. I read in the study each day, ate with my folders propped up in front of me, and even ignored the television in favour of cramming in a little more practice.

  Still, I was worried about the test itself, but I couldn’t let myself dwell on it, I realised. Failure would be assured if I went into it imagining what losing my job would feel like, and the pressure it would put on me and Emma.

  One morning, when I came downstairs early to get a cup of tea and a half hour of revision done before work, I found a blue envelope on the front mat. It was too early for the post to have been, and in any case, I saw that there was no postmark on it. Not even a full address. It had my name written on it though.

  Inside the envelope was a good luck card, a cheap one, the kind you’d buy in a post office, selected from a tiny carousel of cards that had been there for years. It had a bunch of yellow flowers on the front, and slanty gold letters spelling Good Luck!. Inside, someone had scribbled out the greeting and replaced it with a simple, Good luck, from the AA and the dole dossers!

  It was from Nate, of course. I didn’t need to look at the name scrawled at the bottom to know that.

  The gesture was exuberant, random, clumsy...everything I remembered about his clutching hands, the hungry way his mouth had touched mine, devoured mine. Daring me to give something back.

  I kept the card, and put it in my pocket. I even took it into the test with me.

  I had my exam in the back office of the leisure centre, sitting at an empty desk in the tiny, cluttered space. The other desk was occupied by stacks of paperwork, leaflets and novelty desk toys. The whole room smelt like old trainers and sandwiches kept too long in lockers.

  The test was not too difficult. Most of it was common sense lifesaving, with a few questions about health and safety and pool servicing thrown in. I only had to skip two questions, and although my answers to a few were a little brief, and I finished in forty minutes as opposed to the given hour, I left the office feeling vaguely confident.

  Chapter Nine

  As it turned out, my confidence was misplaced.

  In my exam results, but also in myself.

  The results came by first class post three days after the test. I didn’t get my official copy until I arrived home from work, but by then I already knew what was inside the plain, brown envelope; the end of my career, such as it was, and another weight to
toss into the pile at the back of my mind.

  Bradley had been the one to tell me, of course. Ten minutes after I’d walked through the doors and into the staffroom. I’d made myself a cup of tea in the stripy mug that I’d started to think of as mine, and snaffled a biscuit from the tin. Just time to read a few pages of the Metro before I was on the clock.

  Bradley had come into the room, fixed me with a pitying, boyish smile and smug eyes as he’d handed me the piece of paper.

  I’d read the first line, and known that I was out on my arse.

  I’d even stood up to leave when Bradley started his speech, which, from the sounds of it, he’d been practicing the entire time I was trying to relearn how to do my job.

  “I know that this has come as a shock, to you. No one wants to be told that they’re unfit for their job, especially for one that they’re already doing,” he began, a kindly, viperous twist to his mouth, “but it does happen, and I’m sure you’ll find something else, maybe something better fitted to your skill set?”

  For one, single second, I saw myself as he must see me – older, married, over the hill and looking hair-loss and middle-aged spread right in the face. I was an unskilled idiot, given the job out of necessity when my other unskilled post had ended. I wasn’t like him, gleaming with promise and keen as a school-boy at his courses and overtime.

  Then that second ended, and I walked past him, dropping my whistle onto the counter and lifting a hand in a wave without turning round.

  “See ya Bradley.”

  I let the door swing closed behind me before I muttered, “in hell.”

  Janey, who Bradley had obviously told ahead of me, was all sorrowful smile and reassuring pats. I actually welcomed her concern.

  “You’ll get something else you know, you’re clever, really clever.”

  “Thanks Janey.”

  “And,” her smile twitched between crumpling and broadening, “you’ve got Emma, haven’t you? To see you through.”

  “Yeah, she’s great,” I said.