In Real Life

by Chris Killen

  So Paul tilts his head and closes his eyes and opens his mouth and points at his inside-right lower gum with a trembly finger.

  ‘Oh, yeeesss,’ Doctor O’Brien says quietly, to himself.

  Yes? Paul thinks.

  Paul feels the doctor’s finger go inside his mouth and press hard on the lump, then prod at the skin surrounding it. He opens his mouth as far as it’ll go to accommodate all the doctor’s fingers and that little mirror on the stick, which clicks, occasionally, against Paul’s back teeth.

  ‘Right,’ the doctor says. ‘You can put your head back up now.’

  Paul opens his eyes and lifts his head. Doctor O’Brien is pulling off his gloves and dropping them into a bin. Paul scans his face, trying to work out the verdict.

  Doctor O’Brien sits back down.

  ‘Do you chew gum?’ he asks.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Paul says. ‘I mean yeah, I used to chew it quite a lot, yeah.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Doctor O’Brien says. ‘What you have there Paul is a buccal exostosis. In other words a bony outgrowth on the gum. These are most usually caused by excessive chewing, or sometimes from stressful situations, if you grind your teeth in your mouth, perhaps. Essentially it’s your mouth’s reaction to a sudden increase in stress on the teeth and gums. You’ve actually got a second one coming, too, on the other side, but it’s not quite as developed.’

  Paul shifts his tongue over to the other gum and prods it gingerly and sure enough, there’s another, smaller lump there, too.

  ‘Oh,’ Paul says. ‘So it’s not . . . um . . . it’s not . . . you know? Bad?’

  ‘Not at this stage, no. If they keep growing then yes, maybe you’ll need some minor surgery, but we’re talking about if it suddenly starts making eating a problem for you. Have they been growing very rapidly, would you say?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so . . .’

  Paul’s hardly listening now. He’s too busy feeling the ice-cold waves of relief flood through him.

  You have been given another chance, a benevolent, godlike voice says inside him. Do not fuck any more things up. Untangle yourself like a big black ball of tights. Start again, from this point here.

  ‘There is something else actually,’ Paul says. ‘I’d like to give up smoking.’

  Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 01:34:12 +0000

  From: lauren_cross83@hotmail.com

  To: fiveleavesleft@hotmail.com

  Subject: Worried

  Ian,

  I’m worried i’ve upset you.

  I keep telling myself that you’re just busy, working a lot, or maybe things have happened with the single, or maybe Avril has finally got in touch, but whatever I decide to tell myself, none of it’s really doing the job of shifting this ball of worry that I’ve been carrying around in my stomach ever since I sent you that last email.

  We are still friends, aren’t we? I want to hear back from you. I want you to email and tell me everything’s fine between us, that you’ve been doing [something or other] and I’m just being a nob, and you were about to email me anyway, because it would really upset me if things weren’t okay.

  I know I/we said that thing early on about fancying each other (and then never really mentioned it again). I’ve not forgotten it. And I keep thinking about that and then worrying that the stuff with Michael has upset you. Please tell me I’m overreacting. Tell me to get over myself. Anything.

  Also, I suppose I should tell you the full truth here, even though I’m so scared it will screw things up even further between us: I’ve started seeing Michael properly. It just feels like the right thing to do. I hope you can understand that.

  Oh god, this all feels like such a mess now between us, and I’m so scared I’m just digging myself a deeper hole. I just want you to know that, no matter what, I think you are absolutely fantastic and I will always be here for you and you have been so sweet and kind and helped me so much and I’ll always remember that.

  But even more importantly: please get in touch and tell me that I’m just being stupid and that nothing’s changed between us and that we’re still friends like before.

  love,

  L xxx

  LAUREN

  2014

  ‘I’ve taken the liberty of getting you a drink,’ Carl said, easing himself awkwardly out of his seat in order to lean across the pub table and kiss me. He smelled of the kind of aftershave my dad sometimes wore, and he was wearing a shiny burgundy shirt, tucked into a pair of dark blue jeans, and his hands touched my waist a little too familiarly as he pecked my cheek. His profile had said thirty-four, but he looked much closer to forty-four. ‘I hope that’s okay?’ he said, nodding down at the wine glass.

  I looked at it, standing there opposite his pint of lager.

  Was it okay?

  Was this what people did on blind dates?

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling a cold, prickling embarrassment sweep across my skin.

  I sat down and Carl slid himself back behind his side of the table, then leaned across it as if it was a job interview. It was quiet in the pub – why the fuck had we chosen my local? – just a few people perched on stools at the other side of the room, and I was thankful for that at least.

  An hour, I told myself. You need to stay here for at least an hour.

  ‘This is a nice place,’ Carl said, looking around. ‘I’ve not been here before.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, feeling a gloomy hourglass up-end itself inside me.

  What was I doing?

  Wasn’t this my birthday?

  Why was I spending it here with Carl?

  ‘I’ve just come back, you see,’ he continued, ‘from South America.’

  He sat back and took a big, proud swig of his pint. His skin was smooth and tanned and slightly oily, and his eyes wouldn’t quite meet mine. Instead they flitted from his drink to the jukebox to a woman who was laughing loudly, over by the bar.

  Maybe I’m just as much of a disappointment, I thought.

  ‘Have you ever been travelling?’ Carl said.

  And just then, as if on cue, ‘Californication’ came on the jukebox.

  I thought about my year in Canada: about Emily and Michael and you.

  ‘Not really,’ I said, trying to smile, feeling the bones creaking in my face, the grey sand collecting in a heap on the floor of my stomach.

  Only fifty-nine more minutes to go . . .

  Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2005 01:34:12 +0000

  From: lauren_cross83@hotmail.com

  To: fiveleavesleft@hotmail.com, jude_is_drunk@hotmail.com, ottomail@yahoo.co.uk, simon_johnson256@hotmail.com, stonersmoker84@hotmail.com, fizzypixiepeach@yahoo.com, sanguine_sarah_s@hotmail.com, craigyboy_mc@hotmail.com

  Subject: I’m (almost) Back

  Hi everyone,

  Just to let you all know, I’m going to be coming back early from Canada and if anyone wants to meet up that would be really good. It feels so long since I’ve seen you all and so much has happened and I’d really like to see you guys. I’ll be staying at my mum’s for a week or two, then the plan is LONDON.

  I know how dull group emails can be, so I’ll spare you all and keep this one brief.

  I’ve got a new phone now – the number’s 07896 187879 – and like I said, would be great to see you.

  love,

  Lauren

  IAN

  2014

  I’m woken by the front door slamming, then someone stomping down the hall. The light goes on in the living room. I look up at Carol from my place on the sofa and try to remember what I was doing. The last thing I remember clearly is going to Morrisons and blowing my birthday tenner on an oven pizza and a bottle of White Label rum.

  ‘What time is it?’ I ask.

  Carol doesn’t answer, just walks over to the sofa, then flops down on it next to me. I look at my laptop. The browser’s still open on Dalisay’s Facebook wall. I remember what happened now: Dalisay accepted my friend request and it turns out she has a boyfriend. A man with thick muscly
arms and spiky black hair called Marcos.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I say.

  ‘Can I have some of that rum?’ Carol says.

  Before I can answer, she picks up the bottle and pours a big slug into a mug that still has an inch of cold tea in the bottom, then knocks the rum/tea mixture back in one.

  ‘You alright?’ I say, knowing what a stupid question this is.

  Her eyes are red and puffy.

  ‘I broke up with Martin,’ she says.

  ‘Fuck,’ I say.

  ‘This morning. We’ve spent the whole rest of the day talking about it and then he drove me home just now.’

  The display on the DVD player says it’s just gone five in the morning.

  Carol has the voice of someone who’s about to start crying at any moment. I’m already pre-empting it, moving my hand to stroke her back, just as she begins to curl forward and put her face in her hands. And then she’s sobbing loudly into her palms as I stroke the bony knobbles of her spine, feeling each sob juddering up through her skin and muscle and bone.

  ‘Shhh, shhh,’ I whisper, pretending to be Mum, or Dad, or someone.

  A little later, I go out to the kitchen and make us instant coffees. I pour rum in them, too, and we sit on the sofa, our feet resting against the coffee table, and I let her talk more about what happened. I don’t really say anything though because there’s nothing much to say except, ‘I’m sorry.’

  She tells me how in the morning she opened Martin’s present – a shiny purple Agent Provocateur bra and knicker set that she just didn’t like – and looked at it and realised that Martin didn’t really know anything at all about her and never truly would and that the only reason she was even with him, if she was completely honest with herself, was out of an overwhelming terror of being left on her own.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, once she’s finished.

  ‘I’m thirty-one years old,’ she says.

  Me, too, I think.

  ‘What the fuck am I doing with my life?’ she says.

  I don’t know, I think.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ I say, and pour us out the rest of the rum.

  I get off the bus and walk the short walk to work. It’s a dull, grey, spidery Monday morning and I’m hungover and wishing I’d not chosen today to finally, finally, actually give up smoking. As I go in through the front door and up the main stairs, I grit my teeth and stick my hands deep in my trouser pockets.

  I wonder if Martin will say anything.

  My plan is just to keep my head down and hit my target number of surveys and in between calls I’m going to start searching for another job.

  I sit down. Turn on my computer. Plug in my headset. Log into the automatic dialler. Slowly the room fills up. Just before nine, Dalisay comes in. I pretend to be reading an article about global warming that someone shared on Facebook and wait for her to say hi, but she doesn’t. She just walks past me and takes her seat behind the partition.

  At nine, Martin appears in the doorway. He’s dressed as smartly as usual but there’s a small razor nick on his cheek, and his eyes seem smaller and darker, and just for a moment I actually feel sorry for him.

  He doesn’t know what he’s doing, either, I think.

  ‘Alright, everyone,’ he says in a slightly quieter voice than normal, clapping his hands limply. ‘Let’s get started, yeah?’

  He catches my eye and I wince on his behalf as he turns and heads off down the corridor.

  I complete the happiness survey with two old women and one old man, and no one seems particularly happy today.

  The highest score anyone gives me is an overall five out of ten.

  I never normally pay that much attention to the caller information on the dialler, but about halfway through the morning I notice I’m dialling the flat directly below Carol’s: Ms R. Langley, it says, Flat 7, Bridport House. No way, I think. I pass the door to Flat 7 twice a day at least, on my way up and down the communal staircase.

  The phone to Flat 7 rings for a long time and then finally someone picks up.

  ‘Hello?’ a woman’s voice says.

  I go through the usual spiel; I tell her my name and why I’m calling and promise her the possibility of entry to a competition where she may be in with a chance of winning a luxury holiday if only she has the time to take part in a short questionnaire.

  ‘Oh, go on then,’ she says.

  So I start the questionnaire.

  I ask her all the usual questions.

  Towards the end, in the ‘general overall happiness’ section, I ask how happy she’d consider herself overall, on a scale of one to ten.

  ‘I don’t know . . . four?’

  I ask her why that is.

  ‘Well, it’s not been the same since my husband passed away.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ I say, and type husbnd dead in the little box on my screen. ‘Anyway, moving briskly along,’ I say, ‘when you picture yourself in one year’s time, do you see yourself as: a) less happy than you are today, b) the same level of happiness, or c) happier?’

  ‘Well, c, I hope,’ she says with a small, sad laugh.

  At the end of the call, I thank her for her time and wish her all the best and tell her that we’ll be in touch if she wins the holiday.

  What I really want to say, though, is, ‘I live directly above you!’

  I want to ask if there’s anything I can do.

  I want to tell her that I’m sorry her husband died and that the world has become such a miserable place for her that she would rate it an overall four out of ten with one being not at all happy and ten being very happy indeed.

  ‘Just one final question,’ I say, making sure to speak in the same measured tone as before, as if this is a thing that we ask everyone who takes part. ‘Can you confirm your first name for me, please?’

  ‘Rosemary,’ she says.

  At the start of lunch break, Martin walks up to my desk. ‘Can I have a quick word, mate?’

  I follow him down the corridor. Today there’s none of the usual swagger in his step. Today he’s just sort of hobbling.

  The light isn’t on in his office and the room smells damp and old, like he’s possibly slept in it.

  He’s going to ask me about Carol and I’m going to have to tell him a lie.

  ‘Have a seat,’ he says, sliding himself into his big leather swivel chair.

  I take the seat opposite, and when we do finally look each other in the eye, Martin’s are sore and bloodshot.

  ‘I think we both know what this is about,’ he says quietly.

  I nod.

  ‘I’ve had another listen to your calls,’ he says, ‘and I can’t see any improvement whatsoever. In fact, if anything, mate, they’ve gotten a bit worse actually.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. Seems like you’ve got a completely different set of priorities to the rest of us here.’

  I don’t speak.

  I can’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Non job priorities,’ he says.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like trying it on with that Chinese bird.’

  ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘That’s not fair.’

  He folds his arms and leans back in his swivel chair and looks at me for a long, tense moment. He doesn’t look like a person who is making a decision about my future at Quiztime Solutions, though. He looks like a person who’s already made one.

  ‘Is this it, then?’ I ask. ‘Have you just fired me?’

  ‘Work it out,’ he says. ‘It’s not rocket science.’

  As I leave the building I automatically reach into the pockets of my coat for my tobacco and papers before remembering that I threw them away, first thing this morning. I can feel the dry dust of old tobacco in the corners of my coat pockets, but it’s not quite enough to make a roll-up out of. That sweet, stinging, need-a-cigarette feeling grows in my stomach as I start to walk down Deansgate, my head spinning.

  I turn the corner.
r />   At the gate to the park, I stop. There’s Dalisay again, sat on one of the benches, eating her sandwich.

  Deep down, I knew she’d be here.

  She pretends not to notice me until I’m right up close.

  ‘You okay?’ she says, once I’ve sat down next to her. ‘You look . . . funny.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say. And then, after a pause: ‘I think Martin just fired me.’

  ‘What?’ she says, genuinely surprised. ‘What for?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  I feel dizzy and out-of-synch, like the sound of me is running about a half-second behind the picture.

  I reach out and try to hold her hand.

  My fingers grope for – and briefly manage to touch – her red woollen mitten before she yanks it away.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ she snaps.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say.

  ‘I have a boyfriend, you know. Back home.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Marcos.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Marcos.’

  ‘I saw him on Facebook,’ I say.

  I watch the pigeons pecking around in the grass for a while.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’

  ‘As in right now?’ she says. ‘Or generally?’

  ‘Both,’ I say. Then, ‘I think I might leave Manchester.’

  I’m not sure if I mean it, though.

  ‘Me, too,’ she says. ‘My mom’s been sick, and I’d been saving some money to fly home for Christmas anyway. But I feel like I might end up going early.’

  ‘How early?’

  ‘Couple of weeks?’

  Just then her red plastic wristwatch begins beeping and she fumbles in her mittens to stop it, in the end offering her wrist to me to do it for her.

  I press the little button.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Well, end of lunch.’

  She stands up and I stay sitting on the bench.

  ‘You staying here?’ she says.

  I shrug.

  LAUREN