Can't Get You Out of My Head

by Sue Shepherd

  Remarkably, they had to ask for food. Shirley seemed to have no appetite at all.

  ‘Have you got anything we could eat, Mum?’

  ‘Course, Jim. You should’da said.’

  Beth tried to hide her surprise. Why the hell would James need to say he was hungry, at four o’clock in the afternoon, after having no lunch, and driving all the way up there?

  ‘Dean, go and light the oven. You know I can never get the bloody thing to catch properly.’

  With trepidation, Dean made his way into the tiny kitchen. There followed a great deal of clicking, accompanied by him swearing under his breath. After several attempts, with a whoosh, they all heard the gas catch light. From the kitchen, Dean shouted, ‘Feckin’ thing!’ and returned to the lounge, sucking his fingers.

  ‘Stupid prat,’ Craig muttered to himself.

  Dean punched Craig hard in the arm. Craig immediately punched him harder. No one but Beth appeared to notice.

  ‘Get back in the kitchen and see what’s in the freezer. Jim wants some dinner.’ Clearly, Shirley put James high above his brothers.

  The food they were offered, when the rather dysfunctional oven managed to cook it, was pizza and fish fingers. The pizza was Margherita, Beth’s least favourite flavour.

  Shirley ate one fish finger, declared herself done, and lit another fag. She continued to smoke as the rest ate.

  At some point during their ‘meal’ a middle-aged man appeared at the back door and, after some money had changed hands with Craig, he selected one of the TVs and headed off out the back door. Beth wasn’t introduced to him, he didn’t acknowledge her existence.

  What with it being Christmas and all, Beth had assumed they’d be drinking alcohol. She’d packed an overnight bag and left it in the car. At home they always had snowballs on Boxing Day. However, the only alcohol they were offered at Shirley’s was beer. It was a cheap brand, which tasted nothing like the deliciously cold beers they’d drunk in Australia. Beth only drank a few sips from her can.

  The day dragged on. Shirley fell asleep on the sofa, in-between smokes. The boys put the TV on, and they watched some random Christmas programmes. Then, at about 8 p.m., as Casualty started, James took Beth into the hall and asked, ‘Are you OK to drive home?’

  ‘I thought …’

  ‘You’re sober, right? I’ve had too many cans. You can drive my car, yes?’

  She wasn’t a confident driver, she’d not long learnt, and her usual trip consisted of home to work, and back. The thought of driving all the way back from Bolton in the dark filled her with dread. Even so, she couldn’t hide the fact she would be delighted to leave. ‘OK. If you direct ‒’

  ‘Right, well, you’ve seen enough. Let’s go?’

  Beth nodded. Staying the night in that house would’ve made her skin crawl anyway.

  Lisa had been unusually quiet up to that point. However, at the offer of an early exit, she screamed, ‘For once, your idiot boyfriend is one hundred per cent right. We have definitely seen enough. Take us home.’

  Beth picked up her bag, and in less than a minute they were ready to say their goodbyes. The boys had switched back to DVDs and were watching another horror film, whilst Shirley continued to doze on the sofa.

  James shook her. ‘We’re going now, Mum. See you.’ He kissed her cheek.

  ‘OK, Jim.’ She didn’t seem surprised they were about to embark on a long drive in the dark. She didn’t urge them to stay and have more food or play a few party games. Shirley was nothing like Beth’s family.

  ‘It was … nice to meet you, Shirley.’ Beth wasn’t sure whether to kiss her too.

  ‘Yes.’ Shirley’s eyes never left her favourite son’s face. She wasn’t interested in Beth.

  Outside, they got back into James’s car. Beth adjusted the driver’s seat and turned to wave. But no one was stood on the step. Of course the front door was blocked, they couldn’t have stood on the front step even if they’d wanted to. The odd arrangement with the door aside, they could still have come out of the back door and stood in the front garden. But no, no one wanted to wave them off. No one cared.

  Opening the window, Beth took in a breath of cold December air. They both stunk of cigarette smoke, accompanied by a kind of damp washing smell. The drive home was going to have to take place with the windows open.

  She waited for James to speak. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to say how sorry she was that his family hadn’t made more of a fuss. She wanted to say how amazing he was to have originated from that awful place, and to have become the wonderful man he was. She wanted to explain that now she understood why he’d gone to Australia, and why he’d taken the job down south. He needed to be far away, before they dragged him down, and he became one of them. It was clear Shirley didn’t possess the skills to demonstrate her love for her oldest son, on anything other than the most basic level. Beth was just desperately sorry for him and …

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Save your pity.’ He knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

  ‘I just ‒’

  ‘I said, SAVE IT! You wanted to meet my family. You’ve met them. You sure you’re OK to drive?’

  ‘I told you, yes, if you direct me.’

  ‘Follow this road round, turn left at the end. Keep going straight until we hit the M60.’

  ‘OK. But ‒’

  ‘Let’s just get the fuck out of here.’ He swallowed hard.

  Thirty-six

  The New Millennium had dawned. The Y2K bug that people had endlessly speculated about had failed to materialise. Now some, like Nanna, were left working their way through hundreds of tins of beans and numerous packets of toilet rolls, which they’d cautiously stockpiled in their garages.

  It was the middle of January, James and Beth were cuddled together in his bed. They’d recently made love and he was clearly ready for round two.

  ‘Don’t bother getting yourself excited. That was the last condom.’ Beth was the bearer of the bad news.

  ‘Oh, flamin’ hell!’

  ‘Don’t blame me. You buy them.’

  ‘Yeah, I know but come on.’

  ‘Look, we’ve just done it. You’ll cope until you can get to a shop.’

  ‘What harm would it do, honestly? I mean … if you did get pregnant?’

  She gave him a shove. ‘You do remember I was pregnant when I was sixteen, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course. I remember all of it. But … this is different. A baby would be OK now?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t even know if I can get pregnant. I just know I don’t want to have to tell Mum and Dad I’m going to be an unmarried mother ‒ again!’

  A lazy smile spread across James’s face. ‘So … don’t be unmarried.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Beth gulped.

  ‘You heard me. Don’t be unmarried.’

  Her heart began to race. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying – will you marry me?’

  ‘And that’s how you ask me? In bed!’

  James jumped out of bed. Kneeling on the scratchy carpet, he repeated his question, ‘Will you marry me, sweetheart?’

  Lisa gave a sharp intake of breath. She clearly thought it was a ridiculous idea. ‘For goodness sake, he’s stark bollock naked!’

  But Beth couldn’t help being excited. James was amazing, he was handsome, and he was funny, and he wanted to be her husband! ‘Seriously? You want to marry me?’

  ‘Yes. I love you.’

  She held her breath. She wanted to remember this forever. She took in every detail of the room. She memorized his face, just as he was at that moment.

  ‘Can I have an answer, please? This carpet is hurting my knee and I’m flamin’ freezing.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, you can have an answer, and yes, I will marry you.’

  He got back into bed. ‘Right, we’re doing it again, condom or no condom.’ He covered her in kisses.

  Beth was under the illusion they�
��d probably wait a few years before they got married. After all, she wasn’t even twenty yet, and James was only a couple of years older.

  But he had other ideas.

  A few days after the proposal, she voiced her thoughts, and James cut her short. ‘Love, I didn’t ask you to marry me, so we could piss about pretending to be engaged for years. I asked you to marry me, so we could get wed. I don’t want to wait any longer than we have to.’

  She was shocked to hear that he wanted them to be married within a matter of months. But deep down she was also flattered. ‘He must really love me.’

  At this, Lisa’s campaign to change Beth’s mind began in earnest. ‘You don’t know him well enough.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’ve known him for ages.’

  ‘Rubbish. It’s a few months if you add it all together.’

  ‘I know I love him.’

  ‘Can’t you see what he’s doing?’

  ‘What? What is he doing?’

  ‘If he marries you, he’ll became a part of our family. That’s all he wants. He’s just trying to put as much distance between Shirley’s son Jim, and the person he is now.’

  ‘No, I can’t see that. Why can’t he just be marrying me because he loves me? Why do you have to twist things?’

  ‘I’m not twisting anything. He’s already mentioned that he doesn’t want his family to come to the wedding. He decided that within days of the friggin’ world’s most unromantic proposal.’

  ‘It was not unromantic, thank you very much. Anyway … I don’t think he really meant that about Shirley and the boys.’

  ‘He absolutely did.’

  ‘Well, even if he did mean it, I figured I had time to change his mind.’

  ‘But you don’t. Not if you’re doing this thing to his ridiculous timescale.’

  ‘He has a good point about his family. You saw them!’

  ‘They’re entitled to an invite. At the very least, surely?’

  ‘He doesn’t want them there, Lisa. Can you imagine his mum smoking her way through the reception? Craig and Dean staring into space, unable to have the simplest of conversations with our side of the family. It’d be awful.’

  ‘Yes, it would be awful. But what’s more awful is James trying to completely disown them. It’s all too rushed. You haven’t thought it through.’

  ‘I’m not a child any more. I know my own mind. If you can’t agree with me, then … just keep quiet. I don’t need your opinion on my fiancé.’

  Lisa had one final comment to make. ‘When it all turns to rat shit, and believe me, it will, don’t come running to me. I’m done with sorting your useless life out.’

  Lisa’s comments had sown the seeds of doubt. With her sister’s warning ringing in her ears, Beth decided to broach the subject with James. ‘Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to invite your family to the wedding?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. They’d hate it. I’d hate it. You’d hate it …’

  ‘Maybe they deserve an invite at least. They’re your ‒’

  ‘If we invite them, they might think they have to come, and we’ll be stuck with them. It’s a lose, lose situation.’

  ‘I see what you’re saying but …this whole wedding doesn’t seem to be about you at all.’

  ‘Of course, it is. I’m the bloody groom, aren’t I?’

  ‘I know. But at this rate there’s not going to be anyone on your side of the registry office.’

  ‘Beth, seriously? Shirley at our wedding?’ James looked unconvinced. ‘She won’t be standing around eating all the fancy food you and your mum have talked about. She won’t make polite conversation with your nanna and all your bloody Hertfordshire friends.’ He said this in a fake Southern accent. ‘No, she’ll get bladdered and smoke the place out.’

  Beth couldn’t help but see his point. It was the same argument she’d presented to Lisa.

  A few days later, Beth was putting together the guest list. She was disappointed that there weren’t more people to invite. It was going to be an extremely small do. Blimey, I’m even thinking of including Michelle’s mum. I must be desperate to pad it out. With her mind on the neighbours, she suddenly found herself thinking of Charlie in Singapore. She wondered how he was getting on, was he seeing anyone? When was he coming back?

  ‘If you’re thinking about him, you’re definitely not ready to marry James.’

  ‘Oh, Lisa, give it a rest.’ Refusing to admit there could be even an ounce of truth in her sister’s statement, Beth fobbed her off. ‘I was just thinking I’d like to see him.’

  ‘So, you weren’t thinking of his dopey face pressed up against the bus window? You weren’t remembering the time you both fell asleep and he held you all night?’

  Why did Beth even try arguing with her? Lisa was in her head; she knew her too well. ‘OK. Fine. Maybe I was thinking of him, but only for a second. I love James.’

  ‘But he’s rushing you. He’s forcing you into something that can’t be easily undone. I find the whole thing very fishy.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be the smoked salmon Mum and Nanna want to have for the reception.’ Beth tried to laugh it off.

  ‘Yeah. Don’t give up your day job,’ Lisa groaned. ‘Listen, I know you can’t persuade him to invite his family, but didn’t you ask him for the names of his friends?’

  ‘He’s going to let me have them.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When I remind him.’

  ‘Which will be when?’

  ‘Soon, OK?’

  ‘I’ll look forward to hearing some names, then. I mean, if he’s got nothing to hide, he’ll tell you all about his friends, right?’

  Beth was determined to prove Lisa wrong. ‘Fine. I’ll ask him tonight!’

  She wasted no time, cornering him as soon as he arrived at her house for dinner. ‘James?’

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘I understand why you don’t want your family at the wedding. Although, I don’t agree with not telling them until afterwards, but ‒’

  ‘We’ve been through all this before.’

  ‘Let me finish, please? But … you still haven’t given me a list of your friends. There must be people you’d like to invite. Surely? Lads you grew up with? Went to school with?’ Beth waited. Praying for a couple of names, anything that would shut her sister up.

  James replied, ‘Maybe some of the lads from the site.’

  ‘But before that …’

  ‘There’s no one from my old life. You’re my family, you’re my friend, you’re my everything.’

  It should’ve been a romantic statement, but in reality it wasn’t.

  A huge pressure descended upon Beth. How can I possibly be his everything? ‘But when we were in Bondi, you were friendly, you had mates. How can there be no one back home that you ‒?’

  ‘FINE. You want the truth, I’ll give you the truth. I did have a group of mates. They were a decent bunch of lads. But I borrowed money off some of them when I first got back. Just enough to get me straight until I got some work ‒’

  ‘Why does it matter? If you paid them back …’

  He shook his head. ‘I haven’t got around to paying them back yet. One by one they got tired of waiting. Things were said, things that can’t be unsaid. We’re not mates any more. OK? Happy now?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not happy. Why did you buy me those earrings for my birthday if you owed people money? Why treat me to meals out? You should’ve paid your friends first.’

  ‘Oh, please forgive me for treating you on your birthday. Is it my fault that I wanted to be a good boyfriend?’

  ‘No, but … your friends.’

  ‘I just asked them for a bit more time. They weren’t prepared to give me it. There’s nothing else to say.’ James’s eye twitched.

  Desperate to reel the conversation back in, Beth placed her hand gently on his arm. ‘Well, I suppose, if they were good mates, they should’ve understood. I’m sure you didn’t borrow much. They could have given you
a bit more time.’

  Changing his tune, James snapped, ‘Don’t judge my mates. You don’t know a thing about it.’ Turning towards the door, he added, ‘Do you know what? I think it’s best if I stay at mine, on my own, tonight. I’m doing a seven ’til seven shift tomorrow and you know how they wear me out.’ With that, he shut down the conversation and left.

  Beth flinched as the front door slammed.

  Lisa coughed. ‘Um … I hate to say I told you so!’

  The plans went ahead, and, with miraculous speed, their wedding began to unfold before them. They set the date for July, just before Beth’s twentieth birthday. Pat and Beth made all the decisions. James seemed happy enough to simply stand back and be told what to wear and where to be, at any given time of the day.

  As Lisa had already, smugly, pointed out, he seemed determined to distance himself from his family.

  Even though Beth realised this, she was still shocked when he offered to be the one to change his surname. ‘Why would you do that?’ she asked. ‘No one does it that way around.’

  ‘I think it’s legal. Besides Campbell is a nicer name than Collier.’

  ‘Not particularly. They’re quite similar.’

  ‘Nah, Campbell’s nicer. I just think it works better.’

  ‘Are you for real?’

  ‘I fancy being James Campbell.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. It’s just … wrong. I want to be your wife. I want to be Mrs Collier.’

  ‘All right. Please yourself. I was just offering,’ he bristled.

  ‘Well, I’d rather you didn’t.’

  ‘Just forget I said it then.’ James backed down, reluctantly.

  ‘Fishy,’ decided Lisa. ‘Very, very fishy!’

  Thirty-seven

  About a month before the wedding, Beth was getting out of her car when she heard a familiar voice behind her. ‘Beth Campbell, are you stalking me?’

  She spun round, a smile already on her face. ‘Charlie Morris, you wally!’ He held his arms open and she ran to him. ‘When did you get back?’