The Harder They Fall

by Debbie McGowan

  “So, what is it you want to say?” Josh closed the door and absently flicked the snip.

  “Well, that’s just the thing, isn’t it? I still don’t feckin’ know what I’m supposed to say,” Sean smiled, his eyes bloodshot and wandering on account of all the whisky he’d consumed.

  Josh pointed to the lounge: “In there. Sit, before you fall down and do yourself an injury.”

  Sean nodded in thanks and pushed off the wall, sending himself headfirst through the door opposite and half-falling onto the nearest chair. Josh sat on the sofa and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t seen Sean this drunk for a very long time, thankfully, because he did have a tendency to ramble on about things that in the heat of a drunken moment undoubtedly seemed important, but meant little the following day. This felt a bit different, and, he supposed, if he did have to put up with unannounced visits with the house in this state, then at least it was only Sean who was seeing it. He examined his carpetless floor and folded his arms.

  “A bit of regret there, Joshy? When did yer take ’em up?”

  “This morning. They needed replacing.”

  “Ah right, so. You got some new ones ordered already, have yer?”

  “Not as such.” Josh turned away.

  “I’ll have that cup of coffee now,” Sean said.

  “I didn’t offer you one, but seeing as you’re in no fit state to get home again, I suppose I don’t have a lot of choice.”

  “I could get home, no trouble at all. But I’m not going anywhere, not until you talk to me.”

  Josh didn’t reply and instead pushed past him and went to the kitchen, where he filled the kettle to the top so that it took longer to boil, and stayed with it, taking as much time as he could to make the coffee. He didn’t want to do this now. He didn’t want to do this ever. As if things weren’t bad enough already. Perhaps it was some sort of conspiracy: let’s see how long it takes for Josh to crack. The anger crackled under his skin; he took a few slow, deep, steadying breaths, picked up the two cups and made his way back to the lounge. Another bang on the door and half the coffee landed in a brown puddle on top of the underlay. He took the cups to the lounge, dumped them on the table, and went back to the door, stepping outside and closing it behind him.

  “George. Now’s not a good…”

  “I know. Soph phoned to tell me Sean was coming round.”

  “Yeah. He’s drunk, but I can handle him.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  George moved to leave, but then hesitated.

  “It’s all fine, I swear,” Josh assured him. “Can we talk about it tomorrow? Try and clear the air a bit?”

  George nodded and turned his back. Of course he would want to sort it out tomorrow. It was Ellie’s hen party tomorrow. Best not let anything as inconsequential as this ruin her fun.

  Josh watched him walk away. “Oh, and George?”

  He paused, with his hand on the gate.

  “Could you let me back in?”

  George huffed, came back up the path and took out his keys.

  “What would you do without me?” he asked. For once he wasn’t fishing for more, because he’d already found all the confirmation he needed. Josh loved the attention, but he didn’t love him. The only thing left now was a hope that they could resurrect some sort of friendship out of this mess.

  “I’d fall to pieces,” Josh replied earnestly. George was a little taken aback by this, but didn’t react. “And get really cold,” he added. George smiled and unlocked the door.

  “See you tomorrow. Good night.”

  This time he went for real, the sky maybe a little clearer than before, and Josh returned to the lounge to dispose of his unwelcome guest.

  “Right, you. Drink that coffee and tell me what this is about.”

  Two dates in as many nights: Rob insisted he had to go, as he had an early start in the morning. He would see her tomorrow night, anyway. Jess held on to him a little too long and he reluctantly dragged himself away. She stood shivering in the doorway, until the roar of the bike was no more than a distant hum, then went to bed, alone.

  Mrs. Davenport’s fridge was, and had always been, an immaculate contraption, not to be adorned with magnetic letters, toddlers’ attempts at abstract or surreal watercolours, or shopping memos, which was, of course, why it now bore a twelve page list of ‘things to do’. With only two days until the wedding, she was as frantic as predicted, but it was the same kind of controlled panic in which Eleanor was expert, and she could maintain this state for several weeks in succession. She thumbed through her mother’s list, noting the names copied at the top of each columned page. Charlotte came up behind her and looked over her shoulder.

  “See that?” She pointed at all the ticks in the column headed with her name. “How awesome am I, please?”

  Eleanor laughed at her sister’s boast. “How frightened are you, don’t you mean?”

  “Ha! She doesn’t scare me.” Their mother descended the stairs in time to catch this last declaration.

  “Who doesn’t scare you?” she asked menacingly.

  “Err…” Both of the sisters made themselves look busy.

  “Is anyone putting the kettle on?”

  “I will,” Eleanor offered, “since I’m not allowed to do anything else.”

  Their younger sister, Tilly, had yet to arrive, and wasn’t going to be impressed by the number of tasks she had to complete before this evening; yes, the pages were also organised, not only by day, but by time. This afternoon, for instance, Tilly had to contact the reception venue and check that they knew how many tables were required. Eleanor took the milk from the fridge and glanced at Charlotte’s section of the list again.

  “How have you done everything?”

  “I just have.”

  “No. Look. It says here ‘Friday, a.m.: contact florist to confirm drop-off time for bouquets’. Presumably you swapped the Beetle for a time machine?”

  “Nope,” Charlotte said smugly and took out her mobile phone. She pressed the screen a few times and handed it to Eleanor. On display was the florist’s automated confirmation service, with live tracking of deliveries.

  “Clever.”

  “Told you I was awesome.”

  Their mother had bustled off on yet another mission and could be heard shouting at some poor soul at the top of the stairs.

  “All right, Mother. I’ll do it now, even though it’s only seven-thirty in the morning. The neighbours must think you’re bonkers.”

  Charlotte scanned down the list of tasks under Teddy’s name. “He’s dead right,” she said, pointing to the relevant item. Eleanor leaned in to read it.

  “He can’t do that now. It’s raining. Aside from which, the grass looks perfectly fine to me, and even if it didn’t I’m not getting married here, am I?”

  “Ah, but you forget! The car is picking you up from here, which means the photographer will be snagging a few cheeky shots of the bride leaving the family home, which means…”

  “The lawn needs mowing,” Eleanor finished. “He’ll electrocute himself.”

  “I think I saw that on page twelve,” Charlotte grinned. “So, why are you here this early?”

  “I just popped in on my way back from visiting a terminally ill patient. She’s holding out for her son to arrive back from Australia. Guess when his flight’s scheduled to land!”

  “So, all this careful planning and you’re going to do a bunk in your wedding dress to attend someone’s death bed?”

  “It won’t come to that, I’m sure,” Eleanor said optimistically, although she hadn’t thought about what she would do if it did. “I’m going now, anyway. Good luck. And if you need to escape for a while, there’s a perfectly good pub on the high street.”

  “Thanks,” Charlotte retorted sarcastically. “See you tonight.”

  Josh stepped out of the shower and yawned. It was a bit of a struggle to keep his eyes open—not surprising really, considering it had taken
a full three hours to convince Sean that a) there was no whisky, and b) he ought to go home. In the end, he’d had to phone a taxi on his behalf and physically push him out of the house, closing the door in his face. Even then he continued babbling, as he meandered towards the road and presumably into the taxi, although for all Josh knew, he could have passed out on the pavement and not moved since. But at two o’clock in the morning, he didn’t care one way or the other, just so long as he was gone. The emotional interlude had wiped him out, and still his mind persisted in tearing around in circles, relentlessly seeking out aspects of his surroundings that needed changing. The curtains at the top of the stairs, the lampshade hanging from his bedroom ceiling—every object he passed brought with it a ceaseless surge of anguish and as he lay on the bed, staring at the suddenly offensive lamp above him, he gave up on the notion of sleep.

  The options, then, were to get either the stepladder or his laptop, both with the ultimate objective of replacing the curtains and the ceiling lights, for now he came to think on, they could all do with an update. He got out of bed again, thoroughly disappointed with himself for failing to fight the urge, but at least Sean’s visit hadn’t been all in vain, for he was planning to order the replacements in advance, if only to stave off further admonishment from that bloody know-it-all. As if he was going to book an appointment with Tierney. As if! He didn’t need him or anyone else telling him that what he was doing was mad. He knew it was mad. He was mad.

  Self control, of sorts, came an hour or so later when, with a virtual shopping cart crammed with interior furnishings and the cursor hovering over the ‘checkout’ button, Josh had a mischievous thought. He typed into the address bar and watched, as the login box automatically filled itself with the email account details. They had been stored on his laptop ever since George first returned from the States, when he had needed internet access to oversee the delivery of the house, then later, to contact his lawyer and make arrangements for the transfer of ownership. In the time that had lapsed since, not once had it occurred to Josh that he could access George’s email, but it did now.

  It had to be said that he kept a very tidy mailbox; down the left of the screen were folders labelled by the types of messages they held, whilst his generic inbox contained only his latest unread mail: a message from Eleanor entitled “Re: BOGOF cravats anyone?”, which made Josh chuckle in spite of himself, another from ‘RaymoJack’, with no subject, and three mailshots from online book shops. The one from RaymoJack (AKA Ray Jackson: one of the ranchers) intrigued him especially, as to his knowledge, George had cut all ties with the ranch when he sold it, and although it would give him away, he was sorely tempted to click on the unread message. However, it was the folder labelled “TTWDTA” that held the greatest allure, thus this was his first port of call. The list of messages took what seemed like forever to load, dimmed out and enticingly unclickable until they did, and he spent the time trying to discern the acronym. When the screen finally brightened, he knew he was in the right place, for these were messages not from, but to Eleanor, with a few to Kris: around two thousand in total. He started at the top and began to work his way down.

  LOL Kris - see you later. x

  Hey Ellie,

  Your mum is fabulous. I bet you look stunning!

  G x

  His suit still fits him - surprise, surprise - so am going with Soph from college. Thanks anyway. x

  How about this - you come to the stag do and then I’ll talk to him. Deal or no deal? x

  So far, so very uninformative. 3:30 in the morning and another 1,996 to go: he needed a more efficient strategy and paused for a moment to think.

  The problem was that most of the messages had no subject specified; however, they were sorted into chunks by date, and some were also bigger than others. He scrolled down the list, on the lookout for sudden gluts of several larger messages, stopping when he reached a number sent in quick succession, over the space of four days last Christmas. One was to Kris, the rest to Eleanor. Clicking on the topmost of these, he came up trumps, for an entire dialogue appeared below. For ease of reading, he started with the very first message sent and worked his way up to the most recent interchange.

  Hi George,

  I just wanted to say thank you - again! I still can’t believe what you did, you were amazing. We’re on the way to Ben’s now, and guess what? I’m going to have a baby!!! Wow, it feels really weird typing that! You’re the first person I’ve told (best Josh doesn’t know that, I’m thinking), other than James anyway. I don’t think it’s properly hit me yet, and I’m dreading telling my mum and dad. They think we only got together a couple of months ago. Eek!!!

  Well, that’s all I wanted to say really. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you! Hope you both have a brilliant Xmas.

  Ellie x

  ====================

  Hey Ellie,

  I only saw your message after you phoned Josh, so technically he is the first person you told, but OMG! I’m going to be an uncle again! You have no idea how excited I am!!!

  We’re having a *quiet* Christmas, apparently. Josh says he’s got to go and see his grandma tomorrow, so I’ll go to my mum’s. As for the day itself, I don’t know? Make us dinner and sit around watching the Queen’s Speech, I guess. Moan, moan, moan.

  Have a fab Christmas - your first one with James - how amazing! And what does Ollie think about the baby, or haven’t you told him yet?

  Hope the present is still all right. I bought it before I knew, obviously!

  G x

  p.s. give the little man a big hug from *Dorge*

  ====================

  Hi George,

  The Queen’s Speech? Tell him to stop being such a miserable git. Seriously, he’ll have the pair of you turning into that old couple from The Muppet Show, you know - the two old men in the box? Can’t remember what they’re called, but you know who I mean.

  Got to fess up, I opened your present already and it’s lovely! I didn’t know they made alcoholic hot chocolate and in all those different flavours! I can’t wait to try the Cocoa Cachaca, and they’ve got long dates on them, but I might have to chance just the one. I’m sure that’ll be OK.

  By the way, Charlotte asked if she can hire you as a bodyguard to sort out her ex. He’s been phoning her non-stop since we got here and let’s put it this way, she’s made it VERY F***ING CLEAR she doesn’t want to see him ever again!

  Ellie x

  p.s. Ollie thinks it’s awesome that he’s going to have a little brother/sister, but he’s more interested in knowing when Dorge is going to take him to play on the slide again.

  ====================

  Hey Ellie,

  Aww, Ollie’s too cute. And how funny is your Charlotte? Tell her hi from me, but I definitely won’t be doing anything like that again…not for a while anyway!

  Statler and Waldorf you mean?

  LOL - more like Hinge and Bracket!

  So yeah, it’s Christmas night and I’m stuffed. I made us a really intimate dinner, with the full works - found the best herby roasties recipe ever! Josh seemed to enjoy them, but you know what it’s like when you cook it yourself. Kind of loses its magic.

  Anyway, he’s in the bath (so wish I hadn’t bought him what I did, I’m never gonna get him out of there!) and it’s been a nice day I suppose. I’m loving being here of course, but…well you know the rest.

  G x

  ====================

  Hi George,

  Happy Boxing Day! Not! It’s a bit mental here. Oliver had a massive tantrum this morning, and Ben (the younger, not my brother, who is being an arse, incidentally) watched him, then said “Don’t be so silly Oliver!” You should’ve seen his face! Whatever, it did the trick and now they’re playing with Ben’s train set, although they had to wait for my dad and James to get off it first!

  You’ll have to give me that recipe - sounds amazing! Better still, you can come and make them for me! Only kidding, but you should definitely BOTH co
me round for dinner soon TOGETHER!!! And yeah, you’re right - it tastes so much better when someone else cooks it. In fact, I reckon everyone should have someone to cook for them - it kind of makes you feel special, if you know what I mean. Like my mum and her unbelievable Christmas dinners. If I can be even half as brilliant as she is…agh! Think my hormones are going to my head.

  Our Charlotte’s about to kick off (again), so I’ll leave it at that and give you a call when we get back to arrange something. Just one more day, thank God!

  Ellie x

  The darkest hour before dawn was when Josh’s failing eyesight finally gave him the willpower to stop trawling George’s email and get some sleep. Unfortunately, it meant he was still as exhausted descending the stairs now as he had been six hours earlier going up them, and he really didn’t want to get into the habit of surviving on caffeine again. Nonetheless, it was definitely time for coffee. He filled the filter machine and eased himself onto the kitchen cupboard, selecting a recipe book at random and flicking through the pages in reverse.

  Since George moved in, they had built up a mini-library of cookbooks, and there were now all manner of herbs and spices in cupboards, on racks, and anywhere else they would fit. He did seem to really enjoy cooking too, but Josh’s tastes were traditional and fairly basic. Thus, he could just about withstand a bit of garlic in his pasta, or some sage and onion stuffing, but he’d be happier with a plate of shepherd’s pie any day. He was aware that this train of thought was a means of concocting a reason to ask George to leave, because last night he’d concluded it was the only way, and almost succeeded in convincing himself that this was what he wanted. Deep down, he knew it wasn’t; that, in truth, he was terrified his efforts to make things right would only serve to send him away again.