All the Good Things

by Clare Fisher

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That was kind of a granddaddy thing to say.’

  ‘Granddaddy! Jesus,’ he said. ‘I’m only twenty-nine.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I slid his tickets across the counter.

  ‘Next.’

  A grumpy-faced couple bustled towards me and I tried to concentrate on them, I really did. Except my eye wandered over to Screen One, where the funny-not-funny man who’d turn out to be your dad was looking at me as if I was the most special thing he’d ever seen. Then he disappeared into the dark and I smiled into the couple’s grumpy faces; at last, I dared hope that the next thing that happened to me would be good.

  8. Falling asleep with your legs tangled up in someone else’s

  When your dad turned up the following Wednesday, it was impossible not to smile.

  ‘So.’ He grinned. ‘I do have a code but, erm, I thought you could put through that deal you did last week, remember?’

  He was earlier this time, and the women behind him were shifting from foot to foot and sighing. Plus, this blabbermouth spotty sixth-form student, Tom or Josh, he was on the next till, and I could already feel his ears twitch in my direction. That bad, bitchy voice, the one that told me there was no point, rose up from wherever it had been hiding and hissed: Don’t start thinking you’ll get with someone like him. He’s clearly used to getting whatever he wants. Why not give him his first taste of disappointment?

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can give you an Orange Wednesday but that’s it.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Orange Wednesday or not? It’s the same price either way but you better decide. People are waiting.’

  Tom or Josh’s eyes were all over me – he’d tell Chantelle I’d been rude – but I didn’t care. When your dad mumbled he’d go for a normal and then I gave it to him and he finally shuffled off, I felt, for the first time in ages, like things weren’t just happening to me; I was making them happen.

  Orange Wednesday came and went and, at last, I was rushing to the bus stop, stomach rumbling, already looking forward to the beans on toast I’d microwave when I got home, when a voice called: ‘Hey, Miss Wednesday!’

  There he was, slouching on the Holiday Inn steps, fag in hand, shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal two sturdy forearms. He kept twitching, like he couldn’t get comfy inside the role of bad boy. The streetlights caught on his chin and his cheekbones in a way that made me want to stare and stare at them.

  Just keep walking.

  But I’m curious.

  Think of your bed.

  It’s cold and boring.

  Do you really want a repeat of Dale?

  He’s. Not. Dale.

  And so I stopped.

  ‘Hope I didn’t get you in trouble,’ he said.

  ‘Nah, don’t worry about it. Good film?’

  He frowned. ‘Yes. I mean no.’

  ‘I’ve seen the first half four times and it made me laugh but not in the way you’re meant to laugh,’ I said. It wasn’t until my words were mingling with the smoke between us that I realized how hungry I’d been to say them – and how many more words were trapped inside of me, hungry to be heard.

  ‘God,’ he said, ‘that must be annoying. In my job, I’m the one I have to bore. The same presentation, over and over again. Most clients hide their boredom well but occasionally they’ll let out a yawn, and it takes everything I’ve got not to join them.’

  ‘Maybe you should. Maybe you should just be like, fuck it.’

  ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘If you say so, Miss Wednesday. Fuck it!’ Then he threw his butt on the pavement between us and squished it flat.

  I tut-tutted and put on my best mean-policeman-or-parking-warden voice: ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you a £50 fine for that, Mister. You can’t just go around doing whatever you please, Mister. It’s time the likes of you learned your lessons.’

  He laughed and laughed. ‘Jesus, you’re spectacularly terrifying, Miss Wednesday.’

  We were closer now, our toes either side of the butt. He smelled of those Christmas-tree-shaped air-fresheners that always dangle in minicab windscreens.

  He grinned. ‘What can I do to stop you dobbing me in?’

  ‘Well . . .’ Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it. He can’t possibly like you, a guy like this – not a boy like Dale, a real man.

  ‘Would a drink do?’ He nodded towards the Holiday Inn lobby. ‘It’s not the most happening bar in the world, but it’s fairly well stocked.’

  I sighed dramatically. ‘I guess.’

  The Holiday Inn bar was empty apart from one or two Humpty-Dumpty-like businessmen hunched over a beer and an iPad.

  ‘That,’ your dad whispered, as he led me into a fake-leather booth, ‘is how I’m determined not to end up.’

  ‘What,’ I said, ‘like Humpty Dumpty?’

  He laughed. ‘Exactly. Now, what tipples your fancy, Miss Wednesday?’

  ‘Nipple? Did you say nipple?’

  He flushed. ‘Certainly not! What do you think I am?’ He scanned the drinks menu. ‘How about Sauvignon?’

  I didn’t know what that was but I said, sure. A mini chandelier dangled over our booth, and although a few of its bulbs were blown, I liked it; it made me feel like I was somewhere far from Streatham and a lot more exciting, like New York or Tokyo.

  His hand shook as he poured the wine. It was a nice hand; big but delicate, smooth-seeming skin. Shaking or not-shaking, it was beautiful.

  ‘Cheers.’ We clinked our glasses.

  ‘I hope it’s not too dry.’

  The only thing I know about wine is that I hate it, but I swallowed half that glass in one. He took neat little sips but somehow managed to get through his just as quick.

  ‘You haven’t got Parkinson’s, have you?’ I blurted. I’d only eaten a slice of toast and half a pack of Maltesers all day; I was already pissed. ‘Not being rude or anything,’ I added. ‘It’s just, you’ve got the shakes.’

  ‘Oh,’ he snuck his hands under the table, ‘that happens when I’m nervous.’

  ‘Does it?’ I stretched my legs under the table until my toes hit his shins, which were radiator-hot. ‘And why would you be nervous now?’

  He downed the last of his glass and poured himself another, topping up mine while he was at it. ‘To be honest, I’ve never done anything like this.’

  ‘What? Had a drink? You a Jehovah Witness or something?’

  He laughed. ‘You know what I mean . . .’

  ‘Really,’ I said, kicking off my ballet pumps and wrapping my feet right around his calves. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You really want me to spell it out?’

  I nodded. ‘Spelling’s not my strong point.’

  The rest of his wine disappeared into his mouth. ‘Right. Here goes. I’m married with a kid. I’m only here three nights a week for work. But then I met you. I . . .’ His fingers fluttered about in the air. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And now, now . . . I really, really want to take you up to my room.’

  I downed my wine to stop me saying anything.

  ‘Not the smoothest way of going about it, I know, but then, I was never smooth.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I prefer crunchy.’

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Me, too.’

  Your dad’s room at the Holiday Inn is one of the places I’ve felt the safest – not because he scattered pants and tissues and receipts and ties and other pieces of his life over its beige-and-brown-and-beige-again surfaces, but because we were in it and somewhere between us and its walls was love and lots of it. Not that this made things easy; love never makes things easy. What it makes them is shiny and if you’re not careful, they shine so bright, you stop seeing the thing beneath the shine.

  ‘This is the TV,’ he said, buzzing open the flap to reveal the TV. ‘And in here,’ he opened the wardrobe where three identical white shirts lurked on the locked-to-the-raili
ng hangers, ‘is the kettle. You know, if you want a cup of something.’ He pointed to the bedside table and told me it was the bedside table. ‘And this,’ he said, his cheeks blushing as if, just beneath his skin, a bottle of ketchup was exploding, ‘is the bed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I wondered what that big squishy thing was. And that,’ I pointed at the glimmering white toilet bowl, ‘I’ve been wondering what to call that all my life.’

  ‘Oh God.’ He combed his fingers through his hair. Then he laughed – just a few tuts at first, as if he didn’t mean it, but pretty soon his whole body was shaking, there were tears spurting out of his eyes, he flopped on to the bed and I flopped down beside him and then I rolled into the dip where his still-shaking body was.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He stopped shaking. ‘I’m not . . . dead.’ A bit more laughter, and then he rolled on to his side, propping his head up on his elbow, and said, ‘I’m sure of that. For the first time in a long time, I’m sure I’m alive.’

  ‘Do you ever have days,’ I said, reaching across the sheets and stroking his hair, which was soft, like a rabbit or a cat. ‘When you’re not sure?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He stroked my hair in return. ‘You wake up feeling like there’s a person – a heavy person, who you don’t love or even know – lying on top of you.’

  I knew what he was talking about. I knew exactly. ‘And it makes you feel like, what’s the point?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And, is this it?’

  ‘Yes!’ he said, then wrinkled his forehead and added: ‘But you’re so young. Surely you can’t feel like that already?’

  I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him everything. Even the things I’d never told myself. But when I opened my mouth, the wrong words came out: ‘I’m not the one hiding away in a Holiday Inn.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘True.’

  ‘And you’re too young for a mid-life crisis. Even if you have got a wife and shit.’

  He went red. ‘Maybe it’s a quarter-life crisis. That’s a thing now, apparently.’

  I stared at him. He stared at me. Then he grabbed me round the waist and climbed on top of me, but carefully, propping himself up on his forearms so he didn’t squash me.

  He kissed me on the lips. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said, between kisses. ‘So tiny and cute.’

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be tiny and cute but I did want to be beautiful. And I liked the way he breathed all three words on to me like they were good things. What I loved was the way he didn’t just kiss me on the lips, not like Dale; he kissed parts of me that had never been kissed before, like my neck and my shoulders and my thighs. He kissed parts of me I never usually thought about, like the strip of skin between my collarbones, and my knees. He let me kiss him everywhere, too; let me play with his hair, kiss the soft strip of skin behind his ears, rest my cheek against his bicep, the smooth, muscled slopes of his back, and what he referred to as his ‘four-pack’.

  When it was over, he didn’t fall asleep or go straight to playing zombies, not like Dale. He smiled at my body. ‘You are unbelievably hot, do you know that?’

  ‘I’m not.’ I was used to ignoring my body as much as possible. It seemed like a whiny, annoying thing. I’d never thought of it as beautiful. But the way your dad cupped my bum and my boobs, said it didn’t matter that they weren’t bigger, they were perfect just the way they were, it made me wonder whether my body could be a good thing, too.

  ‘I’m peckish,’ he said. ‘How about you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He laughed. ‘How can you not know?’

  ‘When I get hungry, there’s often not food around. So I just ignore it until it goes.’

  He shook his head. ‘Let’s get some room service, then.’

  I started to shiver so he let me wear his jumper. It came down to my knees and I had to roll up the sleeves about ten times before I found my hands.

  ‘Cute!’ he said.

  Room service turned out to be paninis, chips and onion rings on a plastic trolley. I crammed one chip in my mouth. Then another. And another. The chips were like a massive alarm clock going off in my stomach: WAKE UP, WAKE UP! Before I knew it, I’d scoffed most of the chips and a whole panini.

  Your dad picked at an onion ring, watching. ‘That’s quite a performance, for someone who’s not hungry!’

  ‘I guess I was,’ I said. ‘I just didn’t realize it.’

  At Tom’s there would often be takeaway but the boys would scoff most of it before I got a look-in.

  ‘Well, you eat,’ he said, kissing my forehead. ‘You eat as much as you want.’

  I don’t know why, but as I watched him watching me eat, I realized: I didn’t know what his name was. He didn’t know mine. I started to laugh.

  ‘What? Let me in on the joke, Miss Wednesday.’

  ‘We . . .’ I told him.

  ‘Oh.’ Disappointment sucked some of the sparkle from his eyes, and I got why; it had been great, acting like we could be whatever kind of humans or animals we wanted.

  ‘My name’s Beth,’ I said. ‘Although you can keep calling me Miss Wednesday if you want.’

  He smiled. ‘Mine’s Phil.’

  We fell asleep with our arms and legs tangled. We’d only been together for one night but I could feel our insides getting tangled, too.

  9. When you’re so happy it hurts

  ‘Spoke to my son yesterday.’ Lanky Linda smiled into her pie and mash. ‘Told him I was reading Of Mice and Men.’

  ‘Oh?’

  She shoved her plate to one side and leaned towards me. ‘He didn’t believe me. But when I started telling him all about it, how it was about two guys who you wouldn’t expect to be friends but who were, and how they cared for each other even though they didn’t have anything else, they were living in some barn on some farm in some woods, he got interested. At first, he was saying “It’s gay” and “I hate it”, but then he admitted it was good to start off with but it ended shit because no one got what they wanted and good people did bad things.’

  The Lee and a few of the others looked our way. ‘What you two whispering about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t look like nothing,’ said the Lee.

  My stomach clenched and I remembered; I wasn’t at home. Everywhere, there were rules. Rules for what to do and how and when. Rules that got shouted at you five times a day. Rules, like the ‘don’t have private conversations at dinner’ rule, that crouched in the silences, then, just as you were starting to feel relaxed, they pounced.

  ‘She’s telling me about her son,’ I said.

  ‘She speaks!’ someone yelled.

  ‘Oh, her son.’ The Lee leant across the table and forked some mash off Linda’s plate and into her mouth. ‘Better you than me.’

  When they’d stopped staring, Linda whispered, ‘You do better to keep quiet. There was this woman last year and she got it bad because she kept going on about how it wasn’t –’

  ‘So what happened with your son?’ I said.

  Linda shrugged. ‘Oh, you know. I said the book was still good even if it ended bad, he said I was dumb, I hadn’t even got to the end yet so how could I talk, blah blah, it was almost like we were at home, arguing on the settee, when that was it. Ten minutes up.’ She nibbled at her mash. ‘Even so, it was better than usual. Much better. So, thanks.’

  The next time we were in the library, she stopped me after a few pages.

  ‘We’ve still got forty minutes,’ I said.

  ‘But this is a good bit. They’re dreaming about their farm and stuff. I know it ends sad, but it would be nice to spend this week imagining they’ll have it.’

  I’ve been reading that book ever since. Reading it alone, in my cell, in my head, isn’t so good as reading it out loud to Lanky Linda. But it’s still good. I won’t ruin the story for you in case you read it; I’ll just say that it made me cry. A lot. I didn’t just cry because I was sad, t
hough; I cried because I was happy. Because the story wasn’t about whether you get what you want or you don’t. It was about caring for people even though they’re not perfect. It was about daring to dream even when you’re in a place where dreams aren’t meant to reach – especially in those places.

  Those first months with your dad made me so happy it hurt. We ate and fucked and laughed and talked and slept with tangled limbs two or three nights a week. We talked in silly voices. We talked in serious voices. I don’t know what we talked about but we’d talk until the sun was nudging at the edges of the Holiday Inn curtains and we couldn’t talk any more.

  He’d text me once or twice a day. He’d text stuff like: I’M MEANT TO BE WATCHING A POWERPOINT BUT ALL I CAN SEE ARE YOUR TITS. Or: YOU ARE THE JAMMIEST GEM OF SOUTH LONDON. Or: DOES ODEON RUN A SEXIEST EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH AWARD?? Or even: YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I COULD DO ANYTHING.

  In the hours between his texts, images of him would float through my head and a stupid grin would spread across my face. At first, Chantelle would hassle for the details – ‘Which position did you do first?’ ‘How long did he take to come?’ ‘Did he ask you to do anything kinky?’ – but after a few weeks, her eyes would glaze and she’d interrupt me by shoving her phone in my face and insisting I looked at her mate’s Facebook post about her new Armani handbag, ‘Because she reckons she’s all that but she ain’t. I hate it when people act like they’re all that when they ain’t.’ Or if she saw me grinning for no reason, she’d say very loudly to the Chuckle Sisters: ‘Jesus, Beth’s thinking about him again.’ She’d laugh, though, so I knew she didn’t mind really; she thought it was funny.

  I didn’t even mind when she got rude. I didn’t mind the Chuckle Sisters ambushing me in the toilets with dumb questions like: ‘But is it real love?’ ‘How do you know it’s real?’ ‘Does he ever read you poetry?’ Didn’t mind when the bus was late because some dickhead was shouting at the driver about how his travel card from two weeks ago was really valid for today; I’d just stare out of the window at all the people walking, limping, running, cycling, slouching, skateboarding into their days, and think how amazing it was that each and every one of them had as many things going on under their skins as me. And when some old geezer with hairs busting out of his ears and his nostrils marched up to the Snack Station and went off on one about the online booking fee and how extortionate it was and how also, while he was at it, the popcorn prices were a disgrace, I just smiled and said: ‘You’re right.’