Don't You Forget About Me

by Liz Tipping

  “As what?” I said, raising my eyebrows.

  I knew what he was going to say. That he had more chance of winning that than April saying yes. The truth is I wasn’t so sure. If these were the sort of lengths he would go to when wooing her, I had to take my hat off to him. He turned towards the machine and with a look of intense concentration, moved the lever forward, then to the side. The claw dropped down and made contact with the giant panda, clamping it in what seemed a slightly barbaric manner, and began to lift it up. To my amazement, it held the panda fast and moved it across to the prize bin.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said, unable to contain my excitement. “You’ve done it!” Stubbs opened a sliding door and pulled the enormous panda out, his biceps barely feeling the weight. He went to present it to me and I stretched to grab it.

  “I thought you said you didn’t see the point of cuddly toys,” he said teasingly.

  “I didn’t.”

  Then he handed the bear to me and I struggled with how to hold it. Eventually I went for hooking its arms under mine.

  “Come on,” he said, smiling.

  We walked around the pier. Carrying the giant bear around the amusements made me something of a celebrity with pre-teen girls.

  “Where did you get that?” one girl asked as me and Stubbs were ploughing two-pence pieces into a machine that looked like it was about to fall and present us with a photocopied fiver.

  “He won it for me,” I said.

  The girl sighed and said, “I wished I had a boyfriend who would win me a panda.”

  I had hoped Stubbs hadn’t heard. After a while this taste of the celebrity lifestyle I was experiencing all got a bit much and I suggested we walk around outside for a bit or maybe get a drink. It was when we stepped outside and made our way along the wooden boards to the edge of the pier that I noticed it wasn’t just pre-teen and teenage girls looking at me, it was women in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties as well. All of the women looked at me. And then I realised that it wasn’t the panda that was catching people’s eyes. It was Stubbs. I took a big gasp in and held my breath. In a strange fit of jealousy, I snatched at Stubbs’s hand.

  “Come on,” I said and pulled him away from all the gawking stares. How had I not realised before that Stubbs was in possession of some kind of magnetising female attraction powers and could make women stop in their tracks? If he had this much magnetism with strangers on Weston-super-Mare pier, imagine what he could do with April.

  “What?” he said, laughing at me and the frantic way I was tugging him along the wooden boards to find somewhere out of the way of gawking eyes. We turned a corner and found ourselves behind the pier. Stubbs was still laughing and I was a little out of breath from my half running. I leant on the railings for a minute.

  “How do you do that?” I said.

  “Do what exactly?”

  “Get everyone to look at you like that.”

  He stepped back from me and folded his arms. His mouth twisted into a half grin and then he laughed.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “Oh I know what’s the matter with you!” He pointed at me as if he had just discovered something.

  I honestly thought he had sussed me out and he knew I was jealous, that I had some silly crush on him. I started to shift from one foot to the other and I was literally squirming. I could feel my cheeks starting to go red.

  “Oh, yes, I know what’s the matter with you!” He spun around and paced up and down a bit like he was a scientist who had discovered the answer to life, the universe and everything. “You. You, can’t stand the idea that maybe…”

  I didn’t want to listen to the words coming out. I hugged myself and I was practically in the brace position. I was convinced he was going to announce that he knew I had feelings for him or worse – that I was in love with him.

  “You,” he continued, pausing his walking up and down and pointing at me. “You can’t stand the idea of anyone looking at you. You know people notice you all the time, and now I’m here to witness it. You can’t stand it.”

  “It’s not that at all,” I said. “It’s you. You with your magnetism or whatever it is you have going on. It’s probably pheromones or something.”

  I dived towards him because I am afraid to say, I was going to sniff at his armpits so I could finally find out why all these people, these women, were looking at him but on my way there to uncover the secrets of Stubbs’s magnetising powers, I slipped a little on the wooden boards of the pier and my face landed somewhere between his chest and underneath his arm. If I had been competing in the National Headbutt Someone in the Armpit competition, I totally would have won.

  “Whoa!” he said. “Steady on.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and another on the back of my head. “You all right? What happened there?”

  “Nothing,” I said, looking down, wishing I could fall through the cracks in the boardwalk. “It’s just that, you know, no one was really looking at me. Everyone was looking at you – and well this bear, but mainly you.”

  “No,” he said. “Hey. Come on.” He gently nudged my chin up. “People do notice you, you know. You think you’re…ordinary, but you’re not.” He stared intently into my eyes. He was so sincere, I almost believed him. But whether it was true or not, all I wanted at that moment was for him to notice me. At the same time, when he did look at me, I felt like he could see all of me. Then Stubbs spontaneously pulled me closer and hugged me so tight. Friends – me and Stubbs were friends. This hug showed it. Me and Stubbs were friends and absolutely would definitely never be anything more. I was sure of that until he kissed me on top of my head, which kind of made my world explode as I repeatedly asked myself what the bloody hell was going on and desperately wishing he had kissed me.

  *

  “Shall we go then?” he said, pulling back and studying my face for a response.

  I nodded. We turned to walk back along the pier and Stubbs slid his arm over my shoulder. The sun was much lower now and lit up the wet sand so it glowed yellow. As we joined the promenade and walked back towards the car, I still noticed people looking at Stubbs and the bear I was carrying under my right arm. My left arm trailed awkwardly in front of me. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that I should hook it behind Stubbs’s back, so much so that I had to fight the urge to stop myself from doing it. I stiffened my arm so much it was almost painful. Stubbs switched between looking around excitedly and saying how much he loved it here, to checking in with me by looking at me. He kept announcing what a great day he’d had and we soon arrived back at the car. It was the first time since the end of the pier he’d taken his arm away from me and I immediately missed the contact, wanting to rewind the whole walk again.

  He opened the passenger door for me.

  “So,” he said. “Good date then?”

  I nodded, feeling a little coy.

  “Good,” he said and gave me a wink as I climbed into the car. He leant his head in, holding a hand on the roof. “So you reckon I’d impress April then?”

  This wasn’t mine and Stubbs’s date, I reminded myself. This was all for April. And when I rewound us walking along the pier together with Stubbs’s arm around me all I could see now was Stubbs walking there with April. April eating candyfloss and taking selfies of her and Stubbs and everyone looking at Stubbs and April as they walked along. It felt like April was stealing this moment from me despite her being a hundred miles away.

  *

  Stubbs pulled up outside my flat, turned the engine off and sat there for a second. He didn’t say anything, so I went to open the door.

  “Wait,” he said. “What’s up?”

  We’d barely spoken on the way back.

  “Nothing,” I lied. “I’m just knackered. All that sea air.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Come on then. Oh actually, no just wait a second. Need to finish the date off properly.” He shot out of the car and jogged round to my side to let me out. He held my hand and lifte
d me up.

  “Let’s get you to bed then.”

  I laughed. “I wouldn’t try that with April, not exactly subtle is it?”

  “No,” he said dropping my hand. “I meant I want to get you to bed.”

  “I should just give up now, Stubbs, if I were you.” His awkwardness made me laugh.

  “No I didn’t mean that. I, uh, just meant because you were tired. Sea air. Long journey. You know what I meant, Dunham.” He rubbed his hand over his face, then looked at ground. He stood for a while, scratching the back of his neck. He did that when he was thinking.

  “It was a nice day, Stubbs.”

  “Nice?” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Really lovely.”

  “Oh wait, we forgot your bear.”

  “How could I have forgotten him?”

  Stubbs opened the boot and passed me the panda.

  “Can I ask you something, Cara?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said, not wanting him to ask me anything at all.

  “On a date…would you expect…that’s saying if she even says yes to…” He was beginning to mutter. “Well would you…expect to be kissed?”

  I was pleased it was late and getting dark so that Stubbs couldn’t see me blushing.

  He stepped towards me and continued muttering. “Because you know, I need to kind of know if I…well if I…”

  Even with all his muttering, which was quite frankly very off-putting, since the instant he had said the word “kiss” I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like to kiss him. I noticed a little scar above his lip and I saw how full his lips were. He took another step closer and placed a hand on my arm.

  “Whoa there,” I said. “You’re not going to…”

  “What?” he said in alarm. “No way! I didn’t mean I wanted to kiss you. That would be gross.”

  “Thanks a bloody lot,” I said whacking him round the arm with my bag.

  “I didn’t mean it like that – that it’s gross as in gross like euuwww.” He pulled a face and stuck his tongue out, which made any visions I had of kissing him kind of less appealing. “I just meant like you know, it would be like kissing Divvy or something.”

  “Like kissing Divvy? That’s even worse. Christ almighty, Stubbs, you know how to flatter a girl.” I turned around to walk away. He put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me around so I was looking him in the face.

  “No,” he said, laughing. “I just meant that because we are mates and everything. Otherwise I would totally kiss you. Totally.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said walking towards me. He paused just moments from my face. “Yeah,” he said again.

  “Well, I suppose that’s okay then,” I said. He was so close I only needed to whisper my response. “Isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said inching a bit closer.

  He nodded and bit his lip. I was convinced any moment I would feel his lips on mine. I imagined again what it would be like. I reckoned he would hold my head and position it to get into the perfect position for kissing me firmly. Then he’d move his hands down towards my waist without breaking the kiss once. I held my breath, still imagining what it would be like. And I wanted him to kiss me; I wanted him to kiss me so badly. I started to move towards him. But just as our lips almost met I completely freaked out. I couldn’t bear the thought of kissing Stubbs and having him for just that moment, then losing him for ever.

  “I’m going in, then. I’m tired,” I blurted out.

  Stubbs stood back a little startled, holding his hands up in surrender. “Fine,” he said.

  “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I said, hurrying up the steps to the flat.

  “Okay, cool. Whatever,” he said looking a little bit perplexed.

  I was nearly at the door when he called me.

  “Cara. Wait a minute.”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t, I’m actually very busy right now.” And if that wasn’t a completely moronic thing to say and I wasn’t already making a gigantic hash of things I added, “Bye now,” even though I am pretty sure I had never said “Bye now” in my life.

  “Cara.”

  I turned round as I got to the door.

  “I thought we… Have you never thought we…”

  “What?” I felt annoyed and sure that Stubbs must have heard the annoyance in my voice.

  “Nothing. Forget it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I went inside and up to the flat. Once I’d let myself in, I peeked through the front window and could see Stubbs was still leaning on the bonnet of his car, not moving. I saw him get up to move towards my front door and then he seemed to think better of it and got in the car and drove away.

  I held on tightly to the bear, hugging it, and looked at the flowers Stubbs had bought me this morning. I’d forgotten to put them in water and they were already wilting. I should have kissed him, I told myself. I should have kissed him and told him how I felt, but I couldn’t because Stubbs was the one person who I felt safe with. I never felt like that humiliated little girl when I was with Stubbs. If I had tried to kiss him or tell him how I felt and he rejected me, I would be humiliated again and I couldn’t stand to be humiliated in front of Stubbs. This thing I was feeling, whatever it was, I had to let it go.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Forty tickets!” said Liv and jumped out of her seat as I walked into the shop.

  “Wow, seriously? That many?” I rushed behind the counter to see for myself on Liv’s laptop. Liv was clapping her hands.

  I took my coat off and slung it on the back of the chair behind the counter. I scanned round at the cardboard cut-outs to see if I was doing the right thing and I could see they all approved.

  “This is incredible, Liv,” I said.

  “I know.” We still had a way to go before we would have enough to buy all of the equipment, but it was a start. It was encouraging.

  “We still need to raise a lot more than that though, Liv.” I was feeling energised by the ticket sales. It had become a tangible thing now. It was going to happen, and I was ready to throw myself into it, partly because it would stop me thinking about Stubbs.

  “And, I have some even better news,” she said. “Alan said as the sale is going ahead, we can keep the stock between us.”

  “Okay, that was nice of him, but how does that help us?” I couldn’t see where Liv was going with this or why she was so excited to inherit a massive DVD collection.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “If the stock is now ours, we can sell it.”

  “We can have a closing down sale!” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  I glanced around the shop. We must have had thousands of DVDs. Even if we sold them all for less than a pound each, we’d make a lot of money.

  “We have to let everyone know,” I said.

  At that point, the bell on the shop rang and I flinched, wondering if it was Stubbs. I wondered if he would pop in today – or if he ever would again. But it wasn’t Stubbs, it was Weird Roger, asking for Free Willy and sniffing around for free cakes.

  “Roger,” I said, straightening myself up.

  “Are you going to tell me to clear off again?” he said. “I’ll pay for the cakes.”

  “No, Roger, I want to know if you would like to purchase any films?”

  “Not really, no,” he said. “Not a fan of films, really.”

  “Then why do you keep asking for Free Willy, even though we have never had it in stock and most likely never will?”

  Roger took a deep breath in. “A laugh innit?”

  “Well not really, Roger, no. It’s getting a bit old in fact. Like fifteen years old.”

  Roger pulled up a chair without being invited to and took one of Liv’s cakes without asking.

  “But everyone laughed when I first said it. Someone might laugh again one day.”

  Poor Roger, holding on to a moment that made him happy and trying to do the same thing over and over again. Liv brought more te
a out. “You’re going to have to go now, Roger. We’re having a very important business meeting,” she announced.

  Roger helped himself to another cake and took it with him. I told Liv all about what had happened at the seaside yesterday and she gave me a stern talking-to.

  “You have to stop moping about. You have to take control of your destiny and stop hesitating. If you like Stubbs, you have to tell him. You can’t hang on to what has happened to you in the past, doing the same thing over and over again like Weird Roger. Just because you’ve been vulnerable in the past, it doesn’t mean you are now. You need to tell him,” she said. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Liv so animated and what she was saying was true.

  “You’re right,” I said. “You’re right. I’ll tell him.”

  *

  I wanted to tell Stubbs, but first I wanted to do something for him. I took the negatives I’d taken from his place that night along to the photo processing shop. They printed them while I waited and put them onto a CD as they did it.

  I took the photos and studied them. They were incredible. Street photography, I think Stubbs called it, portraits of people Stubbs had met at various places. There was a portrait of a craggy-faced street sweeper, the lines in his face filled in with dirt, a tooth missing as he grinned at the camera and leant on his broom. And another one of a group of ladies chatting animatedly outside a hairdresser’s, one of the ladies in bold African prints held on to another woman because she was laughing so much. Another one of a group of teenagers laughing as they posed for Stubbs like they were in a music video. He’s not in the photographs, but I can feel his presence in them. This was Stubbs capturing those happy moments that were already there; he wasn’t trying to make moments for others. He was so good at this, in his photos and in life. He stored up all the good stuff – a series of snapshots where there’s nothing but joy.

  I was playing through all the things that happened yesterday, when I had a notification. The auction had closed.

  “Congratulations, you have won the auction.” It was what I had spent days wishing for, but it wasn’t as thrilling as I thought it would be. It didn’t give me a fraction of the pleasure that Stubbs’s photographs did or the joy that being with him held. It was becoming very clear to me that this cardigan wasn’t the thing I wanted at all.