by Louise Voss
I wanted to cry. How utterly, utterly humiliating. And what if Alex had recognised me? If he’d looked through two minutes earlier, he’d have seen me without the sunglasses.
I’m such a sodding failure.
At the next station, I got off the train – carefully – and walked past Alex’s carriage as if heading for the exit. He and the girl were sitting near the door dividing their carriage from the one I’d just left, and they had their heads together. He definitely didn’t see me, so I ducked back into the next carriage down, where I positioned myself with a clear view of them through the other door. Morning rush hour was well and truly over, so I had no problem getting the seat I wanted.
Seeing them together made me feel sick, and I realized I was shaking. Partly from the shock of my fall(s), but mostly I think with sheer anger, that I was reduced to following this little geek and his fat girlfriend around London, making a fool of myself in the process, chasing after money that he owed me. I wish I was a bloke. It would be so much simpler – I’d just kick his head in until he paid me back.
They got off at Kings Cross, and Alex didn’t once look around as I followed them through the tunnels and up to the main line station. It was much easier to slip along behind them in the wide crowded concourse – lots of bagel stands and coffee bars to lurk behind. People were looking oddly at me again, but compared to the humiliation in the tube train, it was nothing. Alex bought a ticket, and they walked slowly to a gate which said ‘Milton Keynes’ on the screen next to it.
Then they kissed; lengthily, disgustingly, pornographically. I wanted to heave. He was running his hands all over her back and blubbery buttocks, pressing himself against her as if they were going to get down and dirty right there on the platform. They both looked upset, as if he was going away somewhere for ages.
What if he was running away, to get out of paying me back? But he had no luggage with him, just a WHSmith bag which looked like it had a book in it. He couldn’t be going for long. I decided to march up to him then and there, and demand my cash. I was just working up to it, my breathing shallow and adrenaline pumping through me, egging me on – when a whistle blew and Alex tore himself away from his girlfriend, waving behind him as he jumped into the train.
Damn, I thought. Now what? I felt at a sudden loss, all dressed up for battle and no-one to confront. The girl turned away, a troubled expression on her chipmunk face, and walked right past me without seeing me. I felt like a ghost. Instinctively, I turned too and began to follow her. I was curious. Who was she? What was so fucking brilliant about her that Alex could just drop me and fall in love with her instead? I’m much prettier! I bet I’m more interesting and successful, too.
She got back on the Northern Line, and I sat down three seats away from her, hoping she wouldn’t recognise me as the woman who’d fallen over. The whole time I toyed with the idea of going up to her and warning her about Alex, but something kept preventing me. I made little deals with myself: if the seat next to her comes free, I’ll do it. If she uncrosses her legs, I’ll do it. If that man leaves his newspaper behind when he gets off, I’ll do it. But none of those things happened, and before I knew it she was getting off at Tottenham Court Road.
I followed her past the umbrella-sellers (it was starting to rain) and the fake designer bag stall on the corner, across the road opposite the Dominion Theatre, and then right into a little side street past the YMCA. The streets looked weirdly shimmery through my sunglasses, which were starting to annoy me. I felt as if I was walking around in a fog. Then I realized that there was absolutely no reason I shouldn’t take them off, since Whatsherface didn’t know me from Adam. I whipped off both the scarf and the glasses, relishing the feel of the drizzle on my forehead and flat hair, watching as the girl walked into a newsagents across the road. I crossed too, intending to loiter outside, reading the headlines of the papers in a plexiglass cabinet on the pavement.
Another woman was just coming out, a tall, skinny, Cruella de Vil-type with the boniest knees I’ve ever seen. She was ripping the cellophane off a packet of Malboros, and she and the girl nearly bumped into each other.
‘Morning, Emily, so glad you could struggle in for us today,’ I heard her say to Alex’s girlfriend. Emily – what a typical, mealy-mouthed wimpish sort of name. Emily blushed puce.
‘Sorry I’m late, Pernilla,’ she said. (Pernilla? That was even worse than Emily) ‘I had a doctor’s appointment – I did email you about it on Friday.’
‘I don’t recall,’ said Pernilla coldly, and I felt like cheering. I lifted up the flap of the newspaper cabinet, and pretended to scrutinise the front page of the Daily Sport. ‘See you back in the office.’ Emily nodded, bolting into the newsagents, and Pernilla began to teeter across the road on her spindly legs, sucking on a fag like it was a McDonalds milkshake.
On impulse, I whipped out my shades, put them back on, and hurried after Pernilla. I don’t know what possessed me – and in truth, I’m not at all proud of myself, even though Emily had been laughing at me in the train – but I brushed past her, my heart thumping.
‘Emily hasn’t been to the doctor’s,’ I said out of the side of my mouth, like the spy I was. ‘She’s been with her boyfriend. I saw her.’ Wincing at my sneakiness, I doubled back on myself, dashed away and hid around the corner before Pernilla could say anything in reply. I saw her turn round, mystified and shocked, but by that time I was already out of sight. She stood puzzled for a second, and then marched angrily up the steps of a tall Georgian building in Bedford Square.
(I changed my mind. So what if I get her into trouble? She laughed at me. They both did.)
Emily hurried out of the newsagents a minute later, unwrapping a Twix and shoving a finger of it into her mouth as she went into the same building. I let a safe period of time elapse before sauntering past and noting the plaque on the wall by the door: Frazer Shaw Publishers Ltd. She bloody would work for a publisher, wouldn’t she! Frazer Shaw are quite decent too – not one of the biggies obviously, but I think they do quite a bit of contemporary fiction. I began to regret talking to Pernilla, just in case she turns out to be an editor, and Patricia sends my novel to her. Perhaps Pat’s so impressed with the 20,000 words I emailed her last week that she’s already thinking about showing it to editors - it’s going so well at the moment. So maybe this was a mistake. …I know it’s unlikely that she’d remember me, but you never know. Wouldn’t that just be my luck?
Chapter 22
Alex
Monday
The day started well. Emily came with me to the station after a wonderful night together, lying in bed, making love, drinking wine and eating Belgian chocolates in frilly paper cases beneath the quilt; it was like being in a little shelter, the two of us protected from all the missiles and bullets the world could throw at us. On the way to Kings Cross we saw something really funny: a mad woman hurling herself on and off the Tube train, for reasons best known to herself. She was a real Care in the Community case, by the look of her. Emily and I giggled about it all the way to the station, and our shared laughter helped alleviate my nerves about seeing The Dragon – although even as we were laughing I felt uncomfortable about how close I’d come to a breakdown in the past. It could so easily have been me entertaining the commuters on the Tube. And now here I was, about to get on another train to visit the root – the living cause – of those problems.
Still, as we crossed London I kept looking at Emily and thinking how lucky I was, and how great it felt to be with someone. I put my arms around her to prevent her from being knocked into by strangers, even though the tube train wasn’t all that full. Then, at Euston, I felt a great wave of emotion crash over me as I said goodbye to her.
‘I wish you didn’t have to go to work,’ I said.
She kissed me. ‘I wish I didn’t either.’ We kissed again. ‘But my boss is a real old bat.’ Another kiss. ‘She sacked the girl who worked there before me for having too many days off sick.’
The train was read
y to leave. I lingered on the platform, clinging to Emily until the last possible moment, when the guard blew his whistle. I leaned out of the window, feeling like a character in a wartime movie, heading towards the blood-drenched fields of Europe, not knowing if I would ever return.
‘Call me tonight when you get back,’ Emily said as the train dragged itself into motion.
‘Okay.’
‘Good luck.’
As I went into the carriage to find my seat I saw a guy nudge his friend and roll his eyes at me, as if he thought it was a great joke that I had been leaning out of the window saying goodbye to my girlfriend. I felt a flare of anger, but immediately suppressed it. Why should I let someone like that get to me? I smiled sweetly at him.
The train was packed. I found the only empty seat, which was next to an old woman with an enormous bag of crisps on her lap. I think it must have been a magic crisp packet: it lasted her the entire journey, as if she was trying to suck every crisp to death.
The journey passed both quickly and slowly. Quickly because I dreaded getting there; slowly because I wanted to get it over and done with so I could return to London and Emily. After our eventual arrival at Milton Keynes I went to sit outside a café opposite the station, to fortify myself with a coffee and a cigarette. I was terrified that I would see somebody I knew: an old school friend, for example. I didn’t want to have to give a summary of the last ten years of my life.
I took the same bus that I used to take out to the estate where I grew up. I sat at the rear of the bus which was half empty, fortunately, so nobody noticed this sick-looking guy, trembling like a jellyfish on the back seat. When we reached the bus stop nearest to my mum’s house ( I almost typed ‘my house’ then: but it isn’t my house; it never was) I nearly stayed put. Sod the four grand. I didn’t need it. It wasn’t worth it. But then I thought of Siobhan, and how I had to get the money to her, and forced myself to disembark.
I stood in front of the house, and before I had a chance to change my mind again, the door opened.
‘Hello Alex.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Are you just going to stand there gawping or do you want to come in?’
She looked older. She’d put on weight since I’d last seen her, and the extra bulk made her look shorter. Her black hair was peppered with grey and her face was heavily lined – not so much crow’s feet as raven’s feet. Well, it suited her.
I followed her into the kitchen and stood awkwardly by the kitchen table. Some fossil of a DJ was wittering away on the same portable radio Mum used to listen to when I was at school, but apart from that the house felt uncomfortably quiet and still. It hadn’t changed at all since I’d lived here – the same floral wallpaper, the same sickly-green paint, cracked tiles, dirty paper lampshades. I had this horrible feeling that I was eighteen again, that the last decade hadn’t happened. A week ago I might have welcomed the chance to start my adult life again, see if I could avoid making the same mistakes next time, but now I’ve got Emily - and I don’t want to erase my life.
I couldn’t shake the timewarp sensation. I felt my face to see if there were pimples on my chin. Annette would come through the door at any moment, her usual sneer making her look ugly. But it was just Mum now. Alone.
‘Annette’s already been round to collect her cheque,’ she said, reading my mind. She caught my eye for a second then looked away. I could hear her breathing above the song on the radio.
‘How is she?’
She shrugged. ‘She seems alright. Living in Cheltenham with an electrician. Robert. She brought him down at Christmas. Can’t say he electrified me.’
She laughed dryly, and said, ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘Umm …okay, thanks. I just need to use the loo.’
I left her filling the kettle and went upstairs to the toilet. After washing my hands I stuck my head into my old bedroom, expecting it to be empty. It was almost exactly as I’d left it. My old quilt was on the bed; my posters of The Cure and Transvision Vamp were still on the wall. Seeing it sent a shudder through me. Why had she kept it like that? It seemed unnatural, creepy. It was as if I’d died or gone missing, the bedroom of a teenage murder victim whose mother can’t bear to alter a thing. I rubbed my forearms, felt goosebumps rising.
Back downstairs, I went into the front room. A widescreen TV dominated the room. There was a photo of Annette at her graduation ceremony on the mantelpiece. And a picture of me when I was, what, five or six? I was holding our tortoise and grinning gummily. I picked up the photo and wished Emily was with me to see it. She’d have laughed at my fantastic Eighties haircut and the prized Blue Peter badge pinned to my hand-knitted tanktop. . For a moment I felt aggrieved that Mum didn’t have any pictures of me as an adult. But then, where would she have got any from? She’d have had to employ a private detective to follow me.
I went back into the kitchen and found a cup of tea waiting for me.
‘It seems so strange seeing you here again,’ she said. I didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to say. I got the impression that there was something she wanted to tell me, some speech she had rehearsed while awaiting my arrival. She kept opening her mouth to speak and then closing it again, the words catching in her throat. Instead, she lit a cigarette and, after hesitating, offered me one. I shook my head. Weird – I didn’t want her to know I smoked.
We exchanged a few banalities about the weather, and then she said, ‘Well, I suppose you want your cheque.’
She opened the cupboard above her head and took down what looked like a biscuit tin. Then she opened it and pulled out the cheque, handing it to me. There was my name, and the words ‘Four Thousand Pounds Only’. Not really a figure to get a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? contestant excited, but enough to sort out a couple of my problems. I took out my wallet and slipped it inside.
‘Should come in handy, I’d think,’ Mum said. ‘I’m thinking of spending my share on doing up the kitchen. Maybe I’ll have double-glazing fitted. Or I could go on holiday, I suppose.’
She turned and looked out the window and I followed her gaze, out at the dull road with its dull houses and cars and people. The sky was the colour of pale charcoal. No, I tell a lie: it wasn’t even that interesting. It was a nothing colour.
I finished my tea and didn’t know what to do next. All the muscles in my body were tensed; my shoulders hurt and I was aware that I been picking at the skin around my fingernails.
‘So,’ said Mum. ‘Are you… seeing anyone?’
I realised with a shock that there was genuine interest in her voice. Actually, more than that: hope. Maybe she was hoping that if I had a girlfriend, there might be a grandchild on the horizon – not that I’d ever let a son or daughter of mine near her. I almost lied; nearly told her I was alone – but I couldn’t resist the urge to talk about Emily.
I told Mum all about her: basic biographical facts, like the fact that she was twenty-seven, worked for a publisher and originally came from Brighton; I told my mum how pretty Emily was, and that ‘things were going really well’. I told her that I was in love.
She nodded, and although I had expecting this news to make her smile, she was frowning, her eyes downcast. Maybe she knew what I was tempted to say: that Emily was the first woman I had ever loved (and yes, I know, I know, I used to think I loved Siobhan, and the others, before her, but I was never deluded when it came to loving my mother), and that it was her own fault. And in that moment I realised something: I didn’t hate her. Not anymore. I felt sorry for her, living here on her own, her children driven away, her son a stranger to her. It was a pitiful situation. I also felt a weight lift off me, the pressure of hatred dissolving, evaporating into the grey air.
‘I’d better go,’ I said. ‘I need to get home.’
She nodded.
‘Don’t you want to stay for tea? I got a nice quiche in. It’s from Marks and Spencer.’ There were some cakes beside the bread bin. I guessed she’d bought those for the occasion too.
‘I have to catc
h my train,’ I said.
‘Got to get back to her.’
‘Emily.’
‘Yes. Maybe you’ll bring her up to meet me one day,’
‘Maybe.’
All of a sudden I was outside. I walked towards the bus stop, not looking back. I wished everything could have been different. I wish I could have stayed and had a piece of quiche and the cakes she’d got in specially. But things weren’t different. And it wasn’t my fault.
The train was twenty minutes late and I stood on the platform listening to a furious gaggle of long-suffering commuters calling for the head of the Transport Minister, reminiscing about the good old days before privatisation and the electrification of the railways. When the train finally arrived, we piled on and found our seats. I felt emotionally washed out, itching to get out of this dreary dump and back to London. As the train departed I leaned my head against the window and felt the vibrations work their way into my brain. I couldn’t wait to see Emily.
I fell asleep somewhere between Milton Keynes and Watford Junction. When I woke up we were pulling into Euston and I had a cold trail of dribble running from my lip to my chin. I wiped it away, looking around surreptitiously to see if anyone had noticed. I felt rough, my head sore where I’d been leaning against the window, pictures from my mobile dreams still lingering: Mum, staring out the window; Emily, giggling as I kissed her belly and thighs. I wiped my chin again and noticed a girl smirking at me, but I didn’t care. Thoughts of Emily had galvanised me; I would see her later, I thought, and we could crawl back into our bed-linen Anderson Shelter.
I got off the train, heading for the Tube. The cheque felt heavy in my pocket and as I waited for the tube train to arrive I allowed myself a small cash-based fantasy. The other day, Emily and I were talking about my writing ambitions: she read a couple of my short stories and told me they were “incredible”. Of course, she’s biased, but it made me glow to hear that. My dream has always been to write full-time; to be a writer, not a fucking call centre worker. I’m sick of McJobs. I remember Mum telling me once that it was stupid to have such unrealistic ambitions. ‘You’ll just come crashing down,’ she said. Well, as far as I’m concerned it’s better to try to fly than spend your whole life hugging the ground because you’re scared. There was a poster on the wall behind me, a huge pair of star-shaped sunglasses from the cover of a debut novel looming over me. The author of that novel must have been in the same position as me once. It isn’t impossible to fly. I decided right there and then that over the next couple of months, while I was looking for work and while the £4000 lasted, I would spend every spare minute writing.