by Mike Gayle
‘You might have a point.’
‘Ask the landlord to put one in.’
‘I’m not sure I can do that. Have you seen Mr McNamara? Word has it that he used to be a professional wrestler.’
I laugh. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,’ insists Jim. ‘What does matter is that Mr McNamara is the size of a house with a short-fuse temper that could lose a man like me his home and his head.’
‘And?’
Jim sighs heavily. ‘I’ll ask him next time he comes round.’
Wednesday, 14 February 1996
7.02 a.m.
I receive one card: a black and white photo of a heart made in pebbles on a beach. Inside, it reads: ‘Happy Valentine’s Day. You make me complete. All my love, always, Alison.’
7.38 a.m.
I receive two cards:
1. A huge satin padded card with a cartoon cat on a heart-shaped cake. Inside it reads: ‘I wanted to do something different this year. This is the least tasteful card I could find. It’s not easy being away from you but if this card, like us being away from each other, represents rock bottom, then things can only get better. Big love, Jim.’
2. The card was forwarded to me from my parents’ address. It is a plain white card with a real rose petal on the front. Inside, in Damon’s handwriting, there is a D and nothing else.
Thursday, 7 March 1996
7.24 p.m.
I’ve just been round to Mr McNamara’s. The conversation went like this:
Me: ‘Hi, Mr McNamara. Sorry to bother you. It’s just that I’ve only got a single bed in my room and when my girlfriend comes to stay there’s no room for the two of us. I was just wondering if you could supply me with a double bed. My girlfriend is on the verge of giving me a really hard time. I’m sure you understand what a difference a bigger bed would make.’
Him: ‘I’m renting the room to you – not your girlfriend.’
I couldn’t see the point of pushing the matter any further, given that this was the full extent of Mr McNamara’s reasoned debate. And as I’m perfectly happy in the bed five days out of seven I decide to let sleeping landlords lie.
Friday, 8 March 1996
10.22 p.m.
Jim has come to stay with me in London. He hasn’t mentioned the bed so I assume everything’s okay. I don’t want to ask him about it because I don’t want him to think I’m nagging him. My flatmate Viv nags her boyfriend constantly and never lets him get away with a single thing. I don’t want to be like that. I want to be a cool girlfriend.
Sunday, 10 March 1996
6.35 p.m.
‘So I’ll see you next weekend?’ I ask, as we prepare to say goodbye at the station.
‘Yeah,’ says Jim. He gives me a huge kiss.
‘You’ve got the bed thing sorted, haven’t you?’ I ask.
‘Or course,’ he says reassuringly.
‘I knew you would. I wasn’t checking up on you.’
‘I know, it’s fine. It’s all sorted.’
Friday, 15 March 1996
11.57 p.m.
Alison and I have just arrived at my place.
‘You know what I’d really like to do?’ purrs Alison, as we stand in the hallway.
‘What?’ I say, even though I’m pretty sure what the answer will be.
‘I think we should christen the new double bed!’ she exclaims, and then she begins nibbling my earlobe. Before I know it we’re scrambling up the stairs and towards my room. We kiss frantically on the upstairs landing and manoeuvre ourselves into my room backwards, then flop on to the bed. This is exactly the moment at which Alison realises there isn’t a new bed to christen. If I’d had a single ounce of sense I would’ve bought one as soon as I’d left her the previous weekend. I didn’t, however, have even half an ounce of sense so instead I ignored the problem as if it might sort itself out. By the time it occurred to me to do something about it was nine thirty last night and all the bed shops I could find in the Yellow Pages had been closed for hours.
‘Where’s the new bed?’ asks Alison.
‘There’s a little problem with that,’ I explain quickly.
‘But I thought—’
‘I lied. I asked my landlord and he wouldn’t budge.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I knew you’d get annoyed.’
‘So when were you going to tell me?’
‘I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t notice.’
There’s a long pause. I’m convinced Alison is going to explode. But she doesn’t. All she says, quite calmly and quietly, is: ‘Tomorrow we’re going shopping.’
Saturday, 16 March 1996
2.05 p.m.
We’re in Beds, Beds, Beds, a bed warehouse in nearby Stirchley. We look at dozens throughout the afternoon. We do the sitting-down thing, we do the lying-down thing and we even do the part-sitting, part-lying thing. At around four o’clock we finally make our decision: a Sleepnite pocket-sprung divan. At the till I agree to pay the extra ten pounds for same-day delivery, then scrabble for my credit card. But Alison stops me and gets out her cheque book.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Writing a cheque, stupid.’
‘I can see that, but what’s it for?’
‘It’s for you. You’re getting the bed because of me. I get the benefit of not being permanently crippled. And, even better, I now know that when I come up here I’m going to get the best sleep ever. The least I can do is pay half.’
‘You do realise what this means, though?’
‘What?’
‘That this bed will be our first joint purchase.’
‘It’s just a bed, Jim.’
‘No, it’s not. After this will come cutlery, vacuum-cleaners, wardrobes, TVs, fridges, washing-machines, microwaves and mortgages, everything.’
‘So?’
‘So, nothing. I’m just letting you know that it’s a momentous occasion. For instance if we ever split up –’
‘– which we won’t –’
‘– of course, which we won’t – but if we did there could come a point where we’ll be arguing about which one of us will get this bed we’re buying right this very second.’
‘So, what do you want me to do? Not pay for half of it?’
‘I wasn’t saying don’t pay for it. I was making the point that it’s a momentous occasion.’
‘You’re insane, Jim. But if it makes you feel any better, if we ever do split up –’
‘– which we won’t –’
‘– of course, which we won’t – I’ll get the bed.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we’ll agree to it right now.’
‘Why would I agree to that?’
‘As an incentive not to split up with me.’
I laugh. ‘But I’m not going to split up with you.’
‘So you won’t mind relinquishing all future claims to this bed, will you?’
‘You’re making my head hurt.’
‘You started it.’
‘Come on, let’s just pay and get out of here.’
‘Not until you give up all future claims on this bed. I’m serious, Jim. I can’t go buying beds with young men who can’t promise to stick around.’
‘But I am sticking around. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Then put your half of the bed where your mouth is.’
‘And then we can go?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, I hereby declare in front of . . .’ I peer at the nametag of the girl on the check-out ‘. . . Becky Collins that should I ever split up with Alison the bed we have bought today will belong completely and wholly to her.’ I turn to Alison. ‘Satisfied?’
Alison kisses my cheek. ‘Absolutely.’
Sunday, 17 March 1996
4.03 a.m.
It’s the middle of the night and I’m lying next to Jim in our brand new bed when the phone rings and wakes me. I look at the clock, y
awn, then nudge Jim.
‘Hmm?’ he says sleepily.
‘It’s the phone,’ I reply.
‘Let the answerphone get it,’ he says, and with that he puts a pillow over his head and goes back to sleep.
4.19 a.m.
A phone’s ringing again. This time, it’s Jim’s new work mobile. I open my eyes and turn on the bedside light, but I have no idea where it is. I nudge Jim again. ‘Hmm?’ he says sleepily.
‘It’s your mobile this time.’
‘Just ignore it, babe. It’ll be the guys from work again having a laugh.’
‘I wish you’d get some better friends,’ I tell Jim, but he doesn’t reply as he’s already drifted back to sleep. So, like Jim, I put a pillow over my head and try to get back to sleep. The phone carries on ringing and I continue to lie there waiting for the answerphone to kick in. When it does I turn over in bed and snuggle up to the warmth of his body.
4.23 a.m.
Once again I’m yanked out of sleep by a ringing phone. It takes me a few moments to realise that this time it’s my own mobile. I don’t bother trying to wake Jim. I just get out of bed and search for the phone in all the usual places. I check the pockets of my jeans, which are lying on the bedroom floor, my handbag, next to the bed, and my coat pockets and I still can’t find it, but my stumbling around the room finally wakes Jim. ‘What’s wrong now?’ he mumbles from bed.
‘I’m trying to find my phone.’
‘Who’s phoning us now?’
‘I don’t know,’ I reply impatiently, ‘because I can’t find the phone.’
‘It’s in my jacket pocket on the back of the door,’ says Jim. ‘You gave it to me last night to look after.’
He’s right. As I get nearer to his jacket I can hear it more clearly. I take the phone out of the pocket and answer it.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Alison?’
It’s Jim’s sister, Kirsty. She sounds upset. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m sorry to phone you in the middle of the night. I never would normally. It’s just that something terrible has happened.’
‘What is it?’ I ask, as my heart begins to race.
‘It’s Dad,’ she says. ‘He had a heart-attack. He’s dead.’
I’m in tears as I listen and Jim, now awake, leaps out of bed to find out what’s wrong. ‘Who is it?’ he asks.
I hand the phone to him, put my arms around him and hug him with all my strength. When he puts the phone down he cries and cries as if he’s never going to stop.
Friday, 22 March 1996
11.15 a.m.
It’s the day of the funeral and my parents’ house is packed with relatives of all descriptions from uncles and aunts to boyfriends of second cousins and even the fourth ex-husband of my grandad’s former sister-in-law.
An elderly woman comes up to me, puts her arms around me and kisses me on the cheek. I have no idea who she is. ‘I’m really sorry for your loss,’ she says, in a Yorkshire accent.
‘Thank you,’ I reply.
‘Your father was a lovely man.’
‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘He was.’
This sort of thing has been happening all day. People have been coming up and telling me that the last time they saw me was when I was a toddler, or that I’ve grown up to become a fine young man, or in this lady’s case that I’m a credit to my father. She begins telling me about her connection to my mum’s side of the family in great detail. From what I can gather she’s my mum’s second cousin’s wife. Apparently I met her once when I was eleven and she once bought me a train set for Christmas. I have no recollection of this. I’m just wondering how I’m going to extricate myself from the conversation without appearing rude when Alison appears at my side.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she says to the old lady, ‘but Jim’s mum wants to speak to him in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, that’s fine,’ says the old lady. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
I smile at the old lady, then Alison takes my hands and leads me along the hallway in the direction of the front door.
‘I thought you said Mum was in the kitchen,’ I ask, confused.
Alison smiles. ‘I lied. I was watching your pained expression from the other side of the room and thought you might need rescuing.’
‘Very clever, Ms Smith,’ I say, laughing. ‘Well rescued.’
‘Do you fancy coming outside while I have a fag?’ asks Alison.
‘Yeah,’ I reply. ‘Why not?’ I open the front door and sit on the step and Alison squeezes in beside me. ‘This used to be my favourite place to sit when I was a kid,’ I tell her, as she lights her cigarette. ‘I used to like watching the world go by.’
Alison inhales heavily on her cigarette and exhales with a sigh. Looking down at her calves, she picks a stray bit of fluff off her tights absentmindedly.
‘How are you doing?’ she asks, checking for more fluff.
‘Okay,’ I reply ‘I still can’t believe this has happened. All morning I’ve been thinking how, at twenty-five, I’m too young to be without a dad. This is the kind of thing that people in their thirties and forties are supposed to deal with, not people in their twenties. People who haven’t really stopped being kids yet.’
‘It seems so unfair,’ says Alison. ‘I hate that this is happening to you.’
‘I miss him, Al, I really miss him. I’ve been trying to remember everything he ever said to me, every moment we ever spent together. It’s like I want to be able to watch it again and again like a video, but I can’t because I never played those moments enough when he was alive. I never used to like looking back because the only people who look back are the ones who haven’t got a future. And it’s only now he’s gone that I realise you have to take stock regularly. You have to rewind and review things and try to make sense of them because they might not always be there.’
11.31 a.m.
The undertakers have just arrived to pick up the immediate family to take us to St Mary’s for the funeral service and there’s a flurry of activity. The decision has been made that my mum, my sister, Alison and I will travel in the first car, with other close relatives in the second and third cars. When I tell Alison this, she seems reluctant. ‘Are you sure?’ she says. ‘Shouldn’t someone closer to your family be in the first car, like one of your aunts or something? It’s just that I feel like a bit of an impostor being here. I’m not really family, am I? I’ll get a lift with one of your uncles or something.’
‘No,’ I say firmly, as I put my arms around her. ‘You’re absolutely wrong about this. As far as I’m concerned you’re family. I don’t think I could’ve got through any of this without you. You’ve been there every step of the way. You’ve sorted out everything from packing my bags to sorting out train tickets. You’ve done all the things I couldn’t do for myself. You’ve just seen what needed doing and got on with it. You just understood. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? That’s when you know something’s right. That’s when you become family.’
Then, without saying another word, I take her hand and lead her outside to where the rest of my family are waiting for us. One by one we get into the first car, my mum first, my sister next to her, then me, then Alison.
My family.
PART FOUR
Then: 1997
1997
Friday, 17 January 1997
9.34 a.m.
Jim and I are finally moving in together today. A vacancy came up in the Greene Lowe office in Blackfriars a few months before Christmas. It’s on a higher grade than his old job, he gets more responsibility and more money too. The place we’re moving to is a ground-floor flat in a converted house in Muswell Hill. It’s got a living room and a small kitchen and bathroom. It isn’t brilliant and it’s over-priced, but we reasoned it would do us for a while. The best thing about it is that it’s semi-furnished so we don’t have to go out and buy loads of expensive stuff, only items that we need, like a pine table and four chairs. We got them from Habitat in th
e sale – our second joint purchase. I’m pathetically excited about having my own table and chairs because it means we can invite people round for dinner: we can entertain. It makes me feel like we’re well on our way to being proper grown-ups. Finally we’re shedding our semi-student status. I feel like we can now be a proper couple.
10.00 a.m.
Alison and I, with a fair portion of our worldly goods in the back of a van I’ve rented for the weekend, have just turned up at our new flat. As I get out and open the rear doors I can’t help but stare at the black bin-liners, suitcases and boxes. It’s weird having everything you own, everything you think makes you, packed away. And even more strange when some of the stuff belongs to the person you’ve decided to share your life with.
Thankfully, Nick and Jane have turned up to help us and as we bring the boxes, bags and suitcases in to the flat it strikes me that Alison hasn’t got much stuff. She’s never been much of a stuff person. She has the girly stuff: the must-read literary books, the candles, the Indian-textile throws, the cushions, the photos of friends and family, the crap portable black-and-white TV, the ancient top-loading video-recorder, the sackload of beauty products (including several million bottles of shampoo and conditioner despite the fact that last time I looked she only had one head in need of shampooing/conditioning), and, of course, the clothes, but that’s it. Standard girly stuff. Small-volume girly stuff. Not large-volume stuff like I have. She lacks the hundreds of CDs, the CD racks, the hi-fi, the non-ancient portable TV, the non-ancient video-recorder, the two suitcases and the bin-liners of clothes, shoes and trainers, the dozens and dozens of back issues of FHM, The Economist and Spiderman Monthly, the life-sized cardboard cutout of Chewbacca, the out-of-date-but-I’m-still-going-to-read-them-because-there’s-an-interesting-article-in-there weekend supplements of newspapers, the video-games console, the emergency alcohol (a four-pack of Carlsberg, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a half-drunk bottle of Absolut citrus) and more . . . much more.