All the Good Things

by Clare Fisher

  9.40 p.m.: That things went so far between us, it was all one big accident.

  7 a.m.: OK, you’re obviously not going to come to your senses so I suppose I’ll have to come round tonight. I’ll be there at 8 to collect the ring. The ring and nothing else.

  He wasn’t angry; he was just confused. He was confused because of Jenny. Because he was stuck with her even though he didn’t love her. Because he loved me but he didn’t know how to do it. This was because he’d only seen me in hotel rooms and bars and takeaways and that curry place in Tooting; he couldn’t imagine me in a home. In his home. But that didn’t matter because he was coming round that night and I was going to show him. Most of the stuff I’d bought with Marcia was broken, and what with spending so many nights at the Holiday Inn and so much time at Chantelle’s, I’d more or less stopped cleaning. One whole bathroom wall was now black with mould. Crumbs and dust everywhere. But it didn’t scare me. I’d go to Wilko’s and buy some things to carry on making myself ‘at home’ where me and Marcia left off. Then clean like a maniac.

  I used to think, when I went to other people’s houses, that every poster on every wall, every cushion, every doormat, was part of some big plan. Some life blueprint that everyone had except me. However, once I’d been to the Home sections of TK Maxx and Wilko’s and Morley’s, this started to look like a BS idea. Like the couple in Wilko’s who spent half an hour arguing over which soap dish to buy. Half an hour. It went like this:

  Her: Let’s get this one.

  Him: Why that one?

  Her: It’ll be easy to clean. And it’s a nice colour.

  Him: But it’s well expensive.

  Her: It’s not the most expensive.

  Him: It’s ugly. It reminds me of my grandma.

  Her: But you love your grandma.

  Him: I love her. Not her flat. I don’t want our mates thinking we live in a grandma flat.

  Her: Since when did you judge your mates by their soap dish?

  Him: You wanna go Subway?

  Her: What?

  Him: I’m starving.

  Her: But we really need a soap dish.

  Him: Fine. Let’s just get this one then.

  Another woman, red-faced and sweaty from the gym, heaped tea towels and hand towels and towel-towels over her arm, not even checking their size or price or colour, and dumped them at the nearest checkout. Then a man marched up to the old woman stacking shelves and asked whether they were stocking the bread bins that were featured in the Sunday Times home magazine last weekend. The old woman stared at the guy like he was talking some other language. The guy sighed and unfolded a scrap of magazine from his pockets. ‘This one. With the wood-effect. I’ve looked all over Home but I can’t see it anywhere.’ ‘Oh that,’ said the woman. ‘That’s not in Home, it’s in Special Promotions.’ And the man huffed off.

  These people didn’t have a plan. They didn’t even have the paper or the laptop or whatever to write the plan on. They did things by hoping, by guessing, by holding their hands out in front of them and trying to feel what was just ahead. They’d buy stuff, and they’d fill their flats with it, and people would come round and think, so this is who you are, and they’d think it, too; they’d fool everyone and themselves it was all meant.

  I already had a turquoise soap dish, so I bought a tea towel and a hand towel to match. I got some turquoise place mats and turquoise salt and pepper shakers. I got a framed poster of some turquoise flowers and a set of turquoise tins in different sizes which all fitted inside one another like Russian dolls. Did I remember why I’d chosen a turquoise soap dish in the first place? Was it even me who chose it, or was it Marcia? It didn’t matter. Phil would come round and he’d think, Bethany is a turquoise person. A bright and unusual person. I never knew. It also didn’t matter that I was scraping the bottom of my overdraft; as soon as Phil left Jenny, he wouldn’t mind helping out with stuff like that.

  That afternoon was one of the happiest of my life. I turquoised over my flat’s damp and dirty places. I wiped and sprayed and scrubbed. In a few hours, me and your dad would be starting our new life together, which would start with food. Proper grown-up food. With napkins and candles and wine. Plenty of wine. I’d never cooked for anyone before, not even myself; I only heated things up. (Actually, I often didn’t bother to do that, I’d just cram something down my throat, standing up, cold, but never mind.)

  5 p.m., and I ran down to Tesco, which was jammed with mums juggling trolleys with babies, with beanie-hatted students lugging beer crates and piles of frozen pizza to the checkouts, with couples who clearly couldn’t wait to get back into bed with each other; I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind all these people and their lives because for once, I felt that I, too, was a person with a life. I bought a tablecloth, napkins, a set of wine glasses, two bottles of wine, salad, olives, tortellini, tomato sauce, crisps and Parmesan. All you had to do was heat it up but the pictures on the packets made it look like proper grown-up food. It was all Tesco Finest, almost every packet containing words like ‘artisan’ and ‘rustic’ – your dad would be impressed. Of course, they ID-ed me, but I didn’t care; I just handed over my passport and smiled.

  6.30 p.m. and I couldn’t sit down because every time I did, I noticed a speck of dirt; the more I cleaned, the more dirt I saw. I’d never cleaned under the sofa, for example, or wiped the skirting boards or the windows or the bathroom mirror. I scrubbed the bathroom until my hands were red raw with bleach, and it still didn’t look clean.

  7 p.m. One missed call. Unknown number. Voicemail. I listened to it straight away, but it wasn’t your dad; it was the hospital. They wanted to check I was all right. They’d done some tests and they needed to talk to me about the results so if I could call them back straight away please and thankyouverymuch. Well, I would not be calling them back. Not yet.

  7.30 p.m. What if he got here early? What if I wasn’t ready when he did? I was like those dumb-arses on Come Dine With Me who ‘forget’ they’re hosting a dinner party on TV and then make their meal in a massive rush. Except, I hadn’t forgotten; it was just that I’d never done this before (microwaved beans on toast doesn’t count). I opened the Tesco Finest artisan crisps. Tried one. It was good. Tangy. More like a potato than a Dorito. The problem was, I didn’t have a big, beautiful bowl to put them in; I only had two bowls in my whole flat; they were small and white, different shapes, both chipped. And we needed them for the pasta. I ripped the packet down the seam and laid it flat on the table. It reminded me of a pub. Then I remembered the olives: surely they’d make it more grown-up? I didn’t have a bowl for those, either. Or a dish. What was the difference between a bowl and a dish? Did it matter? Was it grown-up? It was silly. 100% silly. But not as silly as the olives looked, all oily and bored at the bottom of that plastic packet. Something – tears, anger, fear – prickled at my throat and I might’ve cried had I not unscrewed the bottle of wine and glugged it straight down. This wasn’t exactly a grown-up thing to do, but no one was watching so what did it matter?

  7.45 p.m. Tesco claimed the tortellini only took five to seven minutes to cook, so there was no point cooking it yet. But I laid out the pans and boiled the kettle so there’d be as little as possible to do when he got here. Then I had a few more glugs of wine.

  7.55 p.m. The salad! I’d forgotten about the salad. Rocket and wild leaves. It tasted bitter. Makes a delicious accompaniment to Italian pasta dishes. Balsamic dressing recommended. Balsamic. What was that? I didn’t know and I didn’t have any and the wine made me not care so I glugged some more. I arranged the salad in two little mounds on two little plates. It looked a bit sad and lonely so I topped it off with some olives. I dribbled some of the olive juice on to the leaves, too. Yes, that was better. It was like what you’d see on Come Dine With Me. It was almost good.

  8.00 p.m. No Phil. Yes, wine.

  8.05 p.m. Wine. Wine, wine, wine.

  8.10 p.m. A knock at the door. I opened it right up. And there was Phil, your dad, fingers on h
is coat zip, red-faced from rushing to see me. Just me.

  ‘I missed you!’ I flung my arms around him. He didn’t hug back. He didn’t even let go of his zip. ‘You must be cold,’ I said. ‘And tired and hungry. Come in.’ It was a strange-good feeling, being the one with the place to invite people into, not the other way round.

  ‘Red or white?’

  ‘Bethany –’

  ‘I’ve tasted the white, I couldn’t help it, and it’s way better than at the Holiday Inn. Oh, and I’ve got crisps, too. Posh ones. Artisan.’ I shoved the packet under his chin and laughed and my laugh came out all loud and jagged but I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t hide it, there wasn’t even any music for it to hide behind.

  ‘Bethany.’

  ‘Just eat a fucking crisp.’ This was wrong. All wrong. No one swore on Come Dine With Me. Not this early on, at any rate.

  ‘OK.’ He munched one. A really small one. Then he raised his eyebrow like he was surprised. ‘Ooh, those are good.’ His hand disappeared into the foiled darkness; when it emerged, half of the packet was in his palm. I wouldn’t have minded a few more crisps myself, but if they were making him happy and him being happy meant he’d stay, I didn’t mind.

  ‘You’re hungry, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, yes, but –’

  ‘Take your coat off.’

  ‘Bethany.’

  ‘Take it off.’

  He opened his mouth and in that reddish darkness I saw a mush of crisps and words, none of which I wanted to see, so I grabbed his zip. I started to yank it but he grabbed my wrist and I said ouch I said you’re hurting me and he said, if you get off me, I’ll get off you, but I didn’t want to get off him and so I didn’t and then he pushed me.

  He pushed me really hard and I bashed into the table.

  The olives fell on to my shoulder and I fell on to the floor. My hip hurt and my bum hurt and my heart, that hurt, too; and to top it all off, olive juice was dribbling down my neck and into my bra. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.

  I waited for him to say sorry. To squat down, ask if I was OK, stroke me, help me, carry me to the sofa. Wipe the olive juice off with my new turquoise tea towel. But he didn’t. He just crossed his arms and said I’d better give him the ring or the police would be getting involved.

  ‘Why would they want to get involved?’

  ‘The money.’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘Bethany. Come on now. Just give me the ring and then I’ll go.’ He took a deep breath, in and out. ‘And we can both get on with our lives.’

  ‘But . . .’ If he wasn’t going to help me up, I’d have to get up on my own. So I did. And I walked over to the hob and put the kettle on and poured the tortellini into the pan, but already it didn’t look grown-up; it looked shrivelled, like a person who was way too old, or a baby that had been born way too soon. ‘I’m making tortellini. It’s Italian.’

  As he opened his mouth to say something, the kettle steamed and bubbled. Turning my back on him, I poured the water over the pasta; I was about to put the lid on, because that was the next instruction on the back of the packet, only I didn’t get a chance to pick it up because your dad was suddenly right behind me. I thought he might lean forward and kiss the back of my neck, like he used to. Instead, he yanked my arms behind my back – which is why I always look away when the officers do that to the women in here. ‘Listen to me. This has got. It’s gone. Too far. I never meant . . . I was confused, OK? And it was a bit of fun. That’s all. But it’s not fun any more; it’s over. It’s over, Bethany. That’s it.’

  ‘But I’ve made you dinner. I’ve bought loads of –’

  His grip tightened; later, there’d be big red marks where his fingers had been, and tomorrow, finger-shaped bruises. I was glad. ‘I don’t care. Give me the ring.’

  ‘No.’

  Then he let go. He breathed in deeply. Maybe he was going to break down and cry. Maybe he was going to kiss me. But no. No, he didn’t do any of those things. I’m sorry to tell you that your dad slapped me. He slapped me hard across the left cheek and harder across the right. Everything was stinging, singing an ugly song. My legs went all wobbly again and I had to grab the work surface to keep up.

  ‘It’s in my bra.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s in the padding of my bra.’ I’d hoped this would be sexy. That it would be a fun, if slightly weird, warm-up to a make-up fuck. ‘If you want it, get it out yourself.’

  Huffing, he yanked my top halfway over my head and stuck his fingers down my bra and when he couldn’t get it, he spun me around and undid the straps with both hands. His fingertips were rough and cold, but they didn’t rest on me, they pushed the skinny circle of metal out of the pouch where my bra pads were, then let go. He held the ring in the palm of his hand, staring at it as if he wasn’t quite sure whether it was real.

  ‘Phil . . .’

  But it was too late. He was going, he was going, he was gone.

  Gone.

  And later, much later, when I remembered about the pasta, I found it, floating in the water, bloated, dead.

  I wanted to run. I wanted to run into away and out the other side. I couldn’t, though. I couldn’t clear the table or empty the pasta pan or put the wine glasses back in the cupboard; I couldn’t even look at them. I flopped on to my bed, which was cold and clammy with old sweat. No one was going to warm it up. No one. This was it; just me. I didn’t close my eyes because I couldn’t, because things were already dark enough. It was as if every person who’d ever left me was pinning me to the mattress. No point trying to get up.

  ‘I’m here, Beth,’ said Erika, when I’d been silent for way too long. ‘I’m going to be here for you, no matter what.’

  ‘But how do I know that? Everyone leaves me, eventually.’

  ‘I won’t. Now is not the past. But you have to work to make it different.’

  ‘What if I can’t? What if I’m not clever enough?’

  ‘Beth.’ She rubbed her left earlobe. Her hands were still raw but her earlobe was soft. It was big, too. ‘It’s not about being clever. It’s about being here. Being you.’

  I gulped. Her words were so kind, they hurt.

  ‘Now, go back to that bed. How you were feeling. Only, this time, imagine me lying there with you. This time, you won’t be going through it alone. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  And she was right. I guess that’s why people tell stories to other people, even hard ones.

  The next morning, the sun woke me up. I hadn’t bothered to close the curtains – there wasn’t even much point as they were too small for the window – and so it shone straight on to my face. People say that bad weather only makes you feel worse than you’re already feeling but I reckon it’s the opposite; at least then you know there are bad things outside of you, too. All that warmth on my skin made me feel worse. Dry mouth, tight head. A hangover. At least this was a pain with clear edges; one I’d travelled into and out of a million times before. I ran into the kitchen and dunked my head under the tap, slurping straight at it, like a dog; this hurt my neck like hell but I didn’t care because at least it meant I didn’t have to face last night’s bloated pasta and limp salad. Yet. Then my phone started buzzing.

  ‘Hello?’

  Maybe it was your dad. Maybe he’d realized what an idiot he’d been. Maybe –

  ‘Is that Bethany?’

  I had to think for a moment before mumbling yes.

  ‘It’s St James’s. You left yesterday without being properly discharged? We need you to come back in for some more tests.’

  ‘Why?’ The thought of going anywhere seemed impossible.

  ‘Following the tests of yesterday, we have some concerns.’

  ‘What concerns?’

  ‘We can explain when you get to the hospital.’

  ‘Manipulative fucks.’

  Whether I said this before or after I hung up, I don’t remember. My mind kept scribbling this picture of the hospita
l, all bright lights and pastel colours, and a bunch of nurses, hanging about and drinking tea and saying, I wonder where she is? Where’s that Bethany? I hope she gets here soon. It was actually quite a good thing to imagine. It was also good to have a reason to leave.

  The distance between my flat and the bus stop felt twice as long as usual, and every person I passed seemed twice as happy as usual, but the bus was half-empty and I got a seat and there weren’t any stinky people sitting next to me so I felt a bit closer to all right. Replaying the nurse’s words, I even felt important. Maybe I had cancer. Or some disease so rare they didn’t even have a name for it. Maybe they’d run loads of tests and there would be an article about me in the paper and I’d set up my own Instagram and die quickly but die popular. People would feel so sorry for me, they’d be nothing but nice; they might even stick around. By the time I got to the hospital, I was 100% certain that getting my drink spiked had been an accident of the good kind.

  ‘Now, we’re concerned,’ said the nurse. ‘Because your blood tests suggested you’re pregnant. And surely you must know that your current level of alcohol consumption could be harming your baby.’

  ‘Pregnant?’ The word felt strange in my mouth. ‘I can’t be.’

  The nurse sighed and raised an eyebrow like she’d seen this episode way too many times before. ‘Are you sexually active?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And do you use contraception?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  She shook her head. ‘Honestly, there’s enough education these days. It’s not like before. Here.’ She pushed what looked like a test tube towards me. ‘Pee in that.’

  Apart from its warmth, I found it hard to imagine, as I handed the test tube of pee to the nurse, that it had anything to do with life. No way could I imagine another human deciding to grow inside me.

  Except you were. ‘You’re pregnant. Six weeks in, so early days. I wouldn’t go round telling everyone yet, or anything – that is, if you decide to keep it.’

  ‘I’m pregnant?’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re sure?’