by S. E. Lynes
I rang off. My hands were on my knees. My hair had come out of its clip and was stuck to my forehead. The bottom of my nose was raw. I pushed at my face with my hands. I didn’t bother with a tissue or even the hem of my T-shirt. Tears were an inconvenience but I knew there’d be no stopping them, not today. Katie was off out. Mark would be making small talk with boring Roy surrounded by men in cashmere jumpers, or over at my best friend’s house stroking her hair and telling her he didn’t know what he’d do without her. There was no rush for me to get back. To anywhere. Ever. I wanted out. I wanted to press the ejector seat on life but didn’t know how to do it. It was like murder, a question of practicalities. Timing. Nerve. Opportunity.
Was that what I’d been doing these last months? Was that what I’d done? Tried to kill myself by proxy? See how far my high-scoring empathy could take me in someone else’s death? Had I been trying to remove the last possible boundary? Skin dissolving. Drops. Water. Cohesion.
I was water. They were drops. A man was drowned in the canal. Cells from him would have floated into the water, become part of the water, indistinguishable from the water.
I tested the flex of the office phone. I wrapped it round my neck and pulled, making myself choke. The flex loosened. I couldn’t. It wasn’t fair on my family. I was trapped, buried alive.
I dug out my tissues and cleaned myself up, ran my fingers through my hair and put my clip back in because… because what else was I going to do?
I walked through the pitch-black lounge of the pub. One foot in front of the other, out of the front door. It was all I could think of doing.
‘Hiya,’ said a voice.
I looked down to see that beautiful smile. A young person who saw me.
‘Ian. What are you doing still here?’
‘My film premiere was cancelled.’
A laugh escaped me. My heart hurt just to look at him, to see him smile and joke. Seconds passed, became a minute.
‘You look pissed off,’ he said and shivered.
I looked at him, really looked at him. His face was pale, his hair matted, and his sleeping bag looked dirty. He looked no more than twenty years old, twenty-five tops.
‘You’re cold,’ I said. ‘You’re hungry. There’s a stack of food in the kitchen. How about I microwave something for you?’
He smiled. ‘That’d be really great, ta.’
I rolled up the shutter and unlocked the pub again. ‘Let’s get you fed and warm at least.’
He followed me through to the kitchen carrying his sleeping bag and a holdall, thanking me all the way.
No sooner were we both inside than I noticed how badly he smelled. Poor lad. I wondered if he realised.
‘There’s a shower upstairs,’ I said. ‘It runs nice and hot – it’ll warm you up. How does that sound?’
Now that we were indoors, his teeth looked whiter against his grubby face.
‘That sounds amazing.’
‘Come on then, I’ll take you up.’ I led the way up to the staff quarters. I think even then I was thinking I could let him sleep in the bed up there, even if it was for just one night. No one need ever know.
‘You’ll have to manage with the hand towel,’ I said, showing him into the little staff shower room. ‘But if you look in the cupboard there, you’ll find some men’s clothes. They belong to Dave but he only keeps them for emergencies. Give me the clothes you have on when you come down and I’ll wash them for you tomorrow, then we’ll swap back on Monday. How does that sound? Dave won’t know a thing.’
He was standing there in the doorway, hands clasped in front of him. His hair was dirty blonde, thick, with a natural wave. He didn’t look like Kieron but he reminded me of him. Same build, perhaps. Same gentle way about him. Trusting.
‘I can’t take someone else’s clothes,’ he said.
‘You can. I said you can. I can handle Dave, don’t worry. I’ll wash the towel an’ all. Dave won’t know a thing – he’s not in till Monday afternoon.’ I smiled to show I meant it, but he still faltered. ‘Go on. I’ll warm us up a couple of steak pies, how does that sound? There’s some frozen oven chips knocking about and I’m sure Bill the chef left a baguette out and some cheese.’
Finally, smiling all the while, he went through and closed the door. As I made my way back down the stairs, I heard the shower run and imagined how good that must feel, to have the lovely clean warm water run over you when you were filthy and cold.
At the foot of the stairs, I stopped. He was singing a song I recognised though I couldn’t remember the words. He sang in tune; his voice was sweet. I had no idea where all this was leading. I’d acted on instinct and now here I was with a homeless boy in my work bathroom.
I put a steak pie in the microwave and shoved a tray of chips in the oven, which was still warm from a late order. While I waited, I cut a big chunk of baguette and made up a cheese and pickle sandwich, plenty of butter. I thought I could maybe put together a bag of supplies to tide him over. Until when, I didn’t know, although Kieron’s room was hovering at the edges of my mind.
The door upstairs opened – I heard the squeak of the hinge. Footsteps on the stairs and then Ian appeared in the doorway looking – and, I was sure, feeling – cleaner than anyone had ever felt. He looked a lot younger too. I’d put him in his twenties, but now he looked like a kid, possibly late teens. His face was pinker, his hair thinner, lighter with the dirt washed out.
‘I used a bit of that deodorant spray,’ he said, apology in his tone. ‘I hope that’s OK.’
‘I tell you what,’ I said, laughing a bit, ‘those clothes look a damned sight better on you than on Dave. Dave’s got a right gut on him.’
He looked down, patted his non-existent stomach. ‘Not much danger of a gut at the moment.’
I told him to go and sit at the bar and followed him out into the main lounge.
‘Drink?’
‘Are you sure?’
I raised my eyebrows at him. ‘You’re eighteen, yes?’
‘Nineteen actually,’ he said. ‘Would it be OK to get a pint of Stella?’
‘Coming up. What’s your full name, by the way?’
‘Ian Brown. You know, like the singer from the Stone Roses? My parents were massive Stone Roses fans.’
‘Oh, I used to love them. I went to see them at Spike Island back in the day.’
‘No way! My parents went to that gig!’
‘So if you’re our Katie’s age, you must have been born, what, 2000?’
A nod and another smile – how generous he was with them, like he knew they cost nothing to give. I put his pie and chips in front of him and he ate greedily, closing his eyes to the first mouthful of food. While he wolfed it down, he told me his tale. There wasn’t much in the way of surprises, to be honest. It certainly came as no surprise to learn that after his parents had split up, he’d run into problems with what sounded like a string of boyfriends his mother had welcomed a bit hastily into the family home. The last one had proved final.
‘I had to get out of there,’ he said. ‘Slept on a mate’s sofa for a bit but I couldn’t stay there forever. Things went OK, did a bit of building work cash in hand, found a room in a house, but I got into weed and next thing I couldn’t afford the rent. It all went tits up basically. My own fault.’
‘How will you turn yourself around?’
He shrugged. ‘Not everyone’s as kind as you. People don’t see me. It’s like I’m—’
‘Invisible.’
He looked right at me. Something passed between us.
‘Exactly,’ he said.
He should be out with his friends, I thought, watching him eat first his meal, then the rest of mine. He was all alone, half dead from hunger, cold, loneliness. I thought back to Katie’s party, and to the last time I’d been in a pub with Kieron, the night we dropped him at uni. I remembered the deafening noise, how the kids had all stood in groups, how they’d all been checking their phones every five minutes. I could remember thinki
ng that no one really spent time with one another anymore. I said as much to Kieron. These kids were talking to friends who weren’t there while the ones that were there were talking to other friends who weren’t there either. They were living in a to-be-confirmed future and a photo-captioned past while the present and all it offered eluded them entirely. Now, I thought about those kids and realised they were all just like me: looking for connection elsewhere. Misplacing their love. If anger turned to misplaced hate, I thought then, so loneliness turned to this, this misplaced love.
I stood up to clear the plates. ‘Tell you what we’re going to do.’
‘What?’
‘We’re going to go for a walk. I’m going to take you to where I go when it all gets too much. And we’re going to work out a plan, a life plan. How does that sound?’
‘Sounds good,’ he said.
He helped me wash up and then together we locked the bar.
‘Just let me stash this,’ he said and jogged round to the back of the pub with his sleeping bag, returning a couple of minutes later without it.
‘That took a while,’ I said.
He sniffed and brushed his hands together. ‘Just so no one nicks it. Right, let’s go.’
Chatting non-stop, we walked through town, over the bridge that crosses the canal, and towards the bottom of Heath Road. This will have been getting on for half eleven, quarter to midnight.
‘What is it you think you might want to do when you get yourself back on your feet?’ I asked him.
‘Plumber,’ he replied straight away. ‘The money’s good and I like people. I get on with them, like. I did go to college but it was hard to stay clean and warm and fed, so in the end I… I dropped out.’
‘I understand. Sounds like you got yourself into a bit of a mess, but you just need a new start. A base, food, routine, that type of thing.’
‘I do, yeah. That’s what I need, but it’s so hard.’
I wondered if I could give that to him, that start. What Mark would say if I suggested it. It might be exactly what we needed. But at the same time, I could feel a tension building up in me, and when I pressed my arm against my bag, it came as no surprise, none whatsoever, to feel the solid shape of the knife against my wrist. I couldn’t remember putting it in my bag and yet there was no surprise in it being there. My veins were rods running through me. It’s a wonder I could bend my limbs at all. Yes, the knife was there, where I had known in some dark part of me it would be. But whether it was for protection or destruction, I didn’t know.
We reached the town hall. Behind the railings, the grass verge stretched away, darkening by degrees into a deep jet void. In the upper branches of the oaks, the wind rustled the leaves. The town hall itself stood white and toy-like at the top of the rise. I thought about my wedding day, a day full of joy, of love.
On the other side of the road, the Red Admiral stood proud in its car park. The lights were still on; there were still people talking outside. It was a young person’s venue, I thought. Probably had a late licence.
‘Come on,’ I said, nodding towards it. ‘This used to be my local when I was your age.’
‘So you took him into the pub?’ Blue Eyes asks.
‘I did, yes.’
Did it feel weird, taking a homeless lad for a drink?
Blue Eyes didn’t ask that; that was me, asking myself.
And the answer would be no, not really. I’d flowed around this boy like water. I’d understood what he needed, what would make him feel better, and as no one else wanted my kindness, my love, I suppose you’d say, I’d offered it to him. Our feelings have to go somewhere, don’t they? None of us are above that, and lately I’d effectively been practising my… I suppose, with hindsight, you’d call them my grooming skills: engaging strangers in conversation by using insights I’d spent a lifetime learning – how to read faces, how to read bodies, how to listen, how to adapt, what they were really asking me for beneath the words they said or didn’t say. If someone was shy, I knew to chat so that they didn’t feel any responsibility for maintaining the conversation, but at the same time, if there was something they were struggling to say, I could give them space to reach it. With the extroverts, I knew I could tease more quickly, establish something affectionate, almost intimate, from the off. And I could adapt to every human need in between.
I’d rehearsed. I was prepared.
They were drops. I was water.
At the door of the pub, I hesitated. I hadn’t been inside since it was all crème de menthe and lemonade, cider and black, the crafty sighting of a Fourth Division footballer if you were lucky. The previous time I’d gone in, I’d not known it was the last time I’d go in as a young person, otherwise I might have made more of a fuss of it. We never know when it’s the last time, do we? For anything. The last time I ever breastfed Katie, I would have savoured the moment instead of wishing she would hurry up so I could hang the washing out. The last time Kieron let me hug him before he went off to uni, I would have held on tighter.
There on the steps of the pub, I texted him: Thinking of you. Hope you’re behaving yourself. Love Mum xxx
‘Is there a problem?’ Ian asked.
‘No, love. Just texting my son.’
I knew I wasn’t right. But I could never have known it was the last day I would spend as a free member of society.
42
Rachel
‘Last orders is half midnight,’ the bouncer said, opening the door with a self-important tip of his chin.
I let Ian go in first, followed in his wake. Back in the day, I would have pushed first through these doors like a cowboy into a saloon. Drenched in Limara or Impulse or one of those other cheap body sprays, face smeared in foundation and blusher, hair quiffed up with sticky mousse, elasticated black miniskirt and my trusty Docs: the bee’s knees, the dog’s bollocks, the cream. A walking fire hazard, more like. We all were. And how smoky it would have been then. Our clothes used to reek when we got back to whoever’s house we were staying at that night.
But now, walking in, it smelled only of bodies, the ammoniac whiff of badly dried clothes, trailing vapours of long-ago-applied aftershave. I kept my head down. The carpet had changed – purple and reds nowadays, though I couldn’t have said what it used to be. There’d been fake books on fake shelves, I remembered, back in the day, and a kind of fenced-off raised podium, which was still there, tables and chairs on it just the same. I pushed through warm, sticky limbs, the dull rarararara, the ack-ack-ack of tipsy laughter.
There was a tiny space where the fag machine had been a million years ago, next to the ladies’.
‘Wait there,’ I said. ‘What’s your poison?’
‘My poison?’
I chuckled, feeling older than Aristotle. ‘I mean, what do you want to drink?’
‘Oh, sure. Peroni? Is that OK?’
‘Righto.’
Getting served would be tricky. I was invisible on a good day and this place was full of better-looking people half my age. Maybe I’d stand out on that basis. The bearded lady at the carnival type thing, a Zimmer frame thrown onto a dance floor. I’m exaggerating for laughs, I know, old habits die hard, but still. I queued at the bar. When I reached the front, I took a twenty out of my purse and held it up. Money is visible at least was my thinking. The barman with the goatee served first the bloke with a cantaloupe melon stuffed up each T-shirt sleeve and a neck thicker than a tree, then the woman next to him, arms thinner than toothpicks, but when he raised his eyebrows at the woman who replaced that woman, she nodded at me and said: ‘I think it’s this lady next.’
I thanked her, even though the look on her face said she was wondering why the bloody hell I was here when I’d be more at home in the Wilsons or the Prospect or, well, at home.
‘A pint of snakebite and black, please,’ I said, surprising myself – I hadn’t had it for decades. ‘And a pint of Peroni.’
‘What’s snakebite?’ the barman asked. Bless him, he was no more than twenty.
‘Half cider, half lager in the same glass, dash of blackcurrant.’
On the way back to Ian, one sip of snakebite was a time capsule to long ago, when I’d been fighting lads off with a shitty stick. They would skulk outside the ladies’, fall over themselves to light me up in the days when I held a lit cigarette at arm’s length for effect. As it was, no one was bothering me anymore. The #metoo movement was not a worry; more like #notme, to be honest.
As I handed Ian his pint, our eyes met. And there, as ever, at the howling core of him, was loneliness. Loneliness connects all of us, I thought. We are all so terribly lonely. The full weight of the sadness that had grown into my soul a year ago, that was now part of it, was now having its cover pulled away inch by slow inch. Until last night I’d had Lisa, but now she was gone, taking Mark with her from a place already lost to me: my heart.
‘Cheers,’ I said, and we chinked glasses.
‘This is really kind of you.’
His eyelids drooped. I thought I caught spirits on his breath – whisky or brandy – but I couldn’t be sure.
‘I was supposed to be going out with my daughter.’ I had to shout into his ear, it was so loud in there. ‘But she stood me up.’
He cupped his mouth with one hand and shouted back, ‘Is she at uni?’
I noticed he’d already drunk two thirds of his pint. ‘No. Not as such. She’s taken a year out.’
His head rolled a little. I realised he might have taken something but couldn’t be sure. Picking someone up off the street wasn’t straightforward – something I ought to have known. But he’d seemed so helpless, so innocent, and he’d reminded me so much of Kieron.
‘I got stood up in here once,’ he said, his shoulder grazing mine.
‘What was her name?’
‘Darren.’
Our eyes met. We laughed.
‘Another thing that didn’t play out well with my mum’s last muscle man.’