by A J Waines
‘Oh – right. Yes, of course.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t have them in the Land Rover. I’ll have to show you another time.’
The catch in his voice gave him away. He blinked a couple of times and looked into his glass. I shivered, but felt a burning heat inside my forehead.
I bit the bullet. ‘What’s this all about, Stuart?’
He tried to look innocent.
I carried on. ‘Something really weird is going on and it’s making me very uneasy.’
He scratched his ear. ‘Okay. Listen, I haven’t told you the whole picture.’
I laughed. ‘I think I can see that! Spill.’
‘I’m going through a divorce. Not my idea. It’s nearly over now.’
I stared down at my boots. ‘Oh…I’m sorry.’ It explained a lot; his reticence, his tendency to take one step towards me, then two more away from me.
‘I’ve also been going through a difficult time with my family. A few years ago, my brother was seriously injured in an armed robbery.’ I could hear the tremor in his shallow breaths. ‘Tony had to have his leg amputated.’ He focussed on my face. ‘He won’t go out; he’s turned into a recluse.’
‘How awful…’
‘It’s hard for me to know what to do. I feel so powerless.’
He told me more, revealing his torment and guilt, knowing his brother was in such a bad way. I followed his words intently. They weren’t the kinds of emotional details you’d share with just anyone.
He blinked. ‘Sorry – you don’t want to hear all this.’
I hooked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The time had come to own up. After his brother’s suffering, what I’d been through didn’t seem like such a big deal.
‘I need to tell you something, too.’ My voice wavered and I wondered if I was going to get it all out without melting into tears. ‘I was…attacked…at knifepoint a few months ago,’ I said.
His mouth fell open, his eyes fixed on mine.
‘It shook my sense of everything in my life. I’ve had…a couple of panic attacks.’
His head shook a little as if taking in what I’d said, before he spontaneously reached out his hand. He folded it over mine, enclosing it completely. His understanding pressed into my skin through his warm fingers. I felt tears prickle at the corner of my eyes with instant relief, but I didn’t want to cry.
‘Alice…how terrible…’
‘It was a mugging in a busy market – he fooled me into thinking he was in difficulty and I went into a blind alleyway. It was stupid, but I was trying to help. I didn’t think.’ I sniffed, not wanting to pull away from him to reach for my tissue.
‘From that day on – everything was different. The world became a dangerous, unpredictable place. I couldn’t trust people. I couldn’t even trust myself. I took tablets for a while…I’m getting proper therapy now…’ My little testament fizzled out. It wasn’t a success story – like his brother, it didn’t have a happy ending.
Without warning he was on his feet and in a clumsy movement – with me still sitting and him leaning over me – he threw his arms around me. I hid my face in his collar, feeling a combination of embarrassment – because people were staring at us – and utter emancipation.
He pressed his face against mine, rocking me lightly. Finally, with his arm still around my waist, he sank down next to me. We didn’t say anything for a while, then he asked me if I wanted to talk about how the therapy was going.
‘I will do, but not just now – I’m suddenly really exhausted.’
By the time we stood up together, everything had shifted. No words on the matter had been exchanged, but I knew our relationship had altered. We were no longer acquaintances. I didn’t know enough about this kind of thing, but it was as if something was sealed between us, an invisible pact. I could feel it as he held my hand on the way out. Stuart and I were no longer ‘just friends’.
Chapter 34
Stuart pulled up at the cottage behind the 2CV and switched off the engine. ‘Come over to my cottage for a meal tomorrow evening,’ he said as I turned to him to say goodnight.
His eyes were trained on mine and then drifted down to my lips. ‘I’m fairly inept in the kitchen, but I can take your mind off it with some decent wine. Prepared to risk it?’
‘That would be wonderful,’ I said. I’d barely known him five minutes, but I felt capable around him. So many times in my life I’d been invisible, but he made me feel solid and whole.
‘I can’t let you go without another kiss.’ He’d already given me six – I’d been counting – since we’d climbed into the Land Rover. He put his arms around my neck and for a short while his lips took away the cold, the anxiety about Karen, all the frenzy over Charlie. If only I could have stayed locked inside this precious cocoon.
My dreamy encounter came to an abrupt end when I got inside. There were squeals of laughter coming from the sitting room as loud music thudded through the floor. I tried to hang on to my final parting with Stuart, but the sitting room door burst open and Karen threw herself at me.
‘Nice night?’ she said, grabbing my wrist and dragging me in. I stood like a lemon in the middle of the room. There were piles of empty cans and bottles scattered everywhere, crisps crushed into the carpet, wet patches of spilt alcohol.
‘Have you screwed him yet?’ said Mark.
He was wearing camouflage combat trousers and a Newcastle United top. He never seemed to need extra layers like the rest of us. That’s because you’re a cold-blooded creature, I said, spitefully, to myself.
‘Shut up, Mark,’ said Karen. She handed me a glass spilling over with white wine. ‘Come and join us. No excuses.’
She cleared a space on the sofa, tossing magazines and empty bags of crisps to the floor, and pushed down on my shoulder so I was forced to sit. What were they doing making all this noise? Wouldn’t they wake Mel?
All I wanted was to go to bed and reflect on the delicious end to my evening – now it was all being spoilt.
‘We’re talking about the future, Alice,’ said Karen. She looked tired, she’d tied her hair back into a ponytail, but it seemed grey, not blonde in the firelight. ‘What are you going to do with your life, Alice?’
‘Let’s all name one big dream we’re aiming for,’ said Jodie excitedly. She looked fabulous in one of Karen’s pale pink mohair jumpers, its cowl neck revealing an inch of bare flesh at the base of her throat. She was kneeling by the hearth and Mark was playing with her feet. ‘You go first, Karen.’
‘Mine’s easy,’ she said, swinging her glass around. ‘I want to spread my wings. I want to explore the world, to live in different places.’
‘And how are you going to fund this round-the-world trip?’ asked Mark.
‘It would be linked to my job – I’ll get a job where I travel around as an executive.’
‘Haven’t you been out of the loop a bit too long – looking after others people’s kids?’ queried Jodie.
‘Yeah – I’d need a top-up – an MA, maybe.’
‘In what?’ I asked.
‘IT,’ she said definitively. ‘That’s where the money is these days. I’ll get a job in Google or Apple and go back to America with Mel...then Australia…Europe maybe.’
She stared into the fire and seemed to have ground to a halt.
‘Okay, Mark,’ said Jodie, ‘your turn.’
‘This is a stupid idea. Girlie twaddle.’
‘What’s girlie about having goals for the future?’ asked Karen.
‘Oh, come on,’ whined Jodie. ‘It’s just for fun.’
‘I want to enjoy life, man. Just have a good time. Go to Vegas. Play the tables…’ His eye glassed over at the thought of it. ‘Make shit-loads of money. Do gigs all over the world and come back to my penthouse flat in Soho.’
‘What about me?’ chipped in Jodie. ‘You haven’t mentioned me.’
‘Yeah, yeah – of course – with you.’ He patted her on the head as if she was a dog.
&
nbsp; ‘Okay – my turn,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get my stall, then my boutique in Notting Hill, and run my own business in fashion. And Mark and me will carry on being together and…’ her voice flagged a little, ‘get married.’
‘Not yet,’ he protested.
‘No – not yet – obviously, but eventually.’ She couldn’t disguise the flicker of disappointment in her voice.
The three of them turned to me. It was my go. ‘I’m going to train to be a teacher – I told you. Get my own flat, meet Mr Right…’
‘That’s not very exciting,’ said Mark. ‘What else?’
‘Take more photos – have an exhibition, maybe.’
Mark snorted. ‘Push the bloody boat out or what…’
‘Okay,’ I said, my voice loud and firm. ‘I’m going to be the kind of person who doesn’t stand for your putdowns, Mr Mark Leverton. I’m going to take some risks, be more daring – fly a plane, maybe, join a steel band, take a course as a stand-up comedian…’
Karen laughed and clapped, almost tipping over the full glass balanced on the chair arm.
‘That’s more like it,’ chuckled Mark.
‘Bloody hell – you have come on, Alice,’ said Jodie. She hiccupped and her head slumped forward. ‘I wasn’t very nice to you, was I, at Leeds?’ she grimaced. ‘I think Karen and I took advantage of you, especially me – I owe you an apology.’
She stood up and threw herself on me in an inelegant embrace. ‘I’m sorry, Alice, I was a cow.’
I didn’t know what to say. This had come completely out of the blue, largely fuelled by alcohol. She would have forgotten all about it by the morning.
‘Right – now we’re all friends again, I think it’s time to say good night,’ said Mark.
‘Noooo,’ groaned Jodie, flopping down between Mark’s open legs as he tried to get up. ‘Let’s talk more.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Mark, his eyelids blinking in slow motion with the effects of the drink.
‘Come on – let’s talk about where we wanna be in five years’ time. We could support each other, make a pact…you know – like mentoring.’
Mark got up, shooting a look at Jodie. ‘You’re off your effing trolley,’ he said and stormed off upstairs.
Jodie’s eyes followed him. ‘Why? Wha’d-I-say?’
She stayed where she was and sulked, rubbing her feet as though Mark had injured them. It took me back to the first time Jodie had cajoled me into following Mark. I’d forgotten all about it until now and it made me realise how selective my memories had been from Leeds.
Seeing the three of them again, it was obvious that my mind had chosen to hang on to the more favourable aspects and not how it really was at all. I had conveniently forgotten that both Karen and Jodie took advantage of me more times than I’d like to admit.
This particular unsavoury memory was from the start of our second year, when we were still in halls. Jodie had been edgy and paranoid at the end of the first year, thinking Mark might have been seeing someone else, but it had all blown over.
Now Jodie was panicking again and yours truly was called upon to spy. I tried my hardest to talk my way out of it – said I was too busy with course work – but Karen pleaded with me to follow him just a couple of times to put Jodie’s mind at rest.
She bribed me with promises to spend time together; a trip, just the two of us, to Knowsley Safari Park in Merseyside or any film I fancied at the cinema – and I caved in and agreed.
Jodie wanted to know where Mark went and who he saw when they weren’t together, so I tailed him a few times after our evening meal.
‘Tell me,’ Jodie whispered, as I went to her room the following morning.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I said, holding my palms out to her. ‘He didn’t do anything.’
‘So, where did he go?’
‘He was in the bar, playing on the fruit machines.’
‘On his own?’
‘Yeah. For ages. He kept winning and putting all the money back in again.’
‘Then what?’
‘He went for a swim.’
‘At ten o’clock at night?’
‘He must have borrowed a key – he was a bit drunk, I think?’
‘Was he on his own?’
‘Yes. He did loads of lengths in the dark – I waited. He was on his own the whole time.’
‘Then what?’
‘He had a shower, got changed and at about ten forty-five he went back to his room.’
‘On his own?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re sure – you’d better not be lying to me? Because I’ll find out.’
‘I know. I’m not lying.’
But I was.
Chapter 35
I hadn’t been able to relax that evening, chatting with the others, knowing I had to return the photos without being caught.
I found a moment shortly after Mark went up to bed, leaving Karen and Jodie engaged in an inebriated conversation about feminism and fashion magazines.
I collected the envelope from my bag in the hall and put the photos back where I’d found them, in Karen’s room.
Mel had been asleep in her cot. I bent over to check on her. Her little hands were pressed into tight fists and dribble formed a gluey string from her open mouth onto the bedclothes, glistening in the moonlight. I stood waiting to see the covers rise and fall in a regular rhythm.
She twitched and her foot broke out from the cover of the blanket. I reached down to carefully tuck it back into the warmth and my hand rubbed against something hard down the edge of the cot. I pulled it out thinking it was a buried toy, but it was a brown bottle of tablets.
I took it over to the window; the curtains weren’t drawn and the moonlight created enough light to read by. The label said ‘Promelegan’, but it was handwritten and there was no date or information about the dosage. I tipped a few tablets out – they had all been broken in half. I dropped them back in the bottle and hastily put it back where I’d found it. As I went to my room, I chanted the name to myself over and over then scribbled it down on a scrap of paper.
I sat on the bed – was Karen giving Mel something she shouldn’t?
I yawned and flopped back onto the pillow. I was too exhausted for once to think about that now. It would have to wait. Instead, I could let sleep carry me away and wrap me up in sweet dreams of Stuart. It didn’t look like I’d need a tablet tonight.
Ever since the night I found myself in the kitchen at 3am, I’d been wrapping a scarf around my door handle and attaching it to my clunky alarm clock. It was a precautionary measure, just in case my body took it upon itself to take off sleepwalking.
I’d brought the clock from home – I loved the bells on the top which jingled in a high trill when it went off. I’d been leaving it close to the edge of the chest of drawers, relying on it to crash down and wake me if I tried to leave the room.
Before I got undressed, I set it up again, just in case – although so far, I hadn’t attempted any more nocturnal wanderings.
Karen and Mel joined me in the kitchen the following morning just as I was wiping up my cereal bowl.
‘You look perky,’ she said.
‘Slept really well,’ I told her. I noticed the slim tank in the corner, disconnected.
‘No oxygen?’
‘I know, isn’t it great?’ said Karen. Mel was fixed into her highchair wearing a frilly mop cap a couple of sizes too large.
‘Are the others up?’
‘They seem to have had a bit of a row,’ she said.
At that moment Jodie burst in, snivelling and red-eyed. Her mascara was smudged copiously, as though someone had trampled over her face with dirty shoes.
‘Mark’s being a complete pig,’ she wailed. ‘He’s disappeared down the track again. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’
Karen gave me a stare behind Jodie’s back that said don’t ask.
It reminded me again of that night when I’d followed Mark.
He hadn’t gone straight back to his room after he’d been to the swimming pool like I’d told Jodie.
Mark had been drunk, that bit was true, but he’d gone to the music practice rooms after his swim. I followed him past the gym and the oldest hall of residence until we reached a small quadrangle. He looked at his watch and unlocked the store cupboard. He went there most days to get his drums, but not usually at that time of night. Live music wasn’t allowed after 11pm.
Recalling this now, I felt disgusted at myself for what I did. It seemed I was prepared to do more or less anything for Karen and Jodie in order to be accepted.
I followed him through the arch and stood a few metres away, hiding in the shadows under cover of the entrance to the concert hall. It was windy and scraps of cigarette and crisp packets swirled and gathered around my ankles. I bent down to scoop them away and heard footsteps – a woman’s high heels. I pressed my back against the glass panel out of sight and the clipped rhythm stopped.
‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ said Mark.
‘I can’t stay long,’ said the female voice. I dared to lean out a little so I could see her face. I recognised her straight away; Lena Arzano, known as the desirable minx in our block. She wore a short red dress that fitted like a tight bandage, showing off her heavy boobs and vase-handle hips. Mark shoved her against the wall and ran his hands along the inside of her thigh.
‘Rough tonight – is it?’ she giggled, pushing her tongue into his ear.
‘Whatever you want,’ he muttered.
‘Not here,’ she whispered.
Mark ushered her into the storeroom and closed the door. I’d seen enough. I went back to my block and found Karen.
‘You can’t say anything,’ she insisted. ‘It would break Jodie’s heart.’
‘But he’s fooling around with someone else. She should know.’
‘Leave it, okay. It’s what Mark does.’
‘He’s done it before?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why did you push me to spy on him, if you knew?’
‘Better you than someone else,’ she said. ‘That way she doesn’t have to know the truth.’