by Laura Kemp
He turned into his road, leaving behind the roaring buses and sirens, and checked out the multi-million-pound houses which led to his place. One day, he always thought, admiring the four-storey squeaky clean facades that protected immaculate insides and gardens as living spaces. One day. If he kept on going, then who knew? The app economy was now bigger than Hollywood and it wouldn’t slow down: every company, every organization needed an app. Billions would give way to trillions. But it wouldn’t just be confined to phones; cars, TVs, gyms, even fridges and clothes would become ‘smart’. He imagined a world where watches checked blood pressure and ordered medication without a GP appointment, where heating systems adjusted automatically to the temperature.
Yet the problem was, more developers were flooding the industry. There were those free programming software kits, so anyone, literally anyone, could do it. Profit margins were going to fall. Soon the younger kids would be snapping at his heels and he needed to think about what he did next. Perhaps he should leave Kode and set up a consultancy to matchmake demand with supply. Remove himself from the actual doing. But that felt too far in the future. Jesus, he wasn’t forty! And he still yearned to make an app which made it big. Some mad game-changer that set the world alight. But what? The World Peace app was out of the question.
He checked himself then: it was Friday night, he’d end up giving himself a headache with all this thinking. Park it there, brainstorm on Monday because now it’s the weekend. What he’d do for a cold beer.
Coming up to his block of flats, he sniffed at a white van parked opposite. The residents’ committee, made up of Lexus, BMW and Golf drivers, would have a fit if it wasn’t gone by the morning. Forget the gunshots they sometimes heard from other boroughs, a drop in property prices was the biggest crime. Tapping in his security code, he got a nod from the concierge who handed him some post. He’d read it tomorrow: all he wanted to do was to sit on his west-facing balcony for a bit to catch the last rays. Then he might go to the gym in the basement, grab a premium lager, bit of PlayStation and make something fancy for dinner. Orla was out tonight so he had the place to himself.
Up the stairs, into his lobby, he let himself in and then stopped.
He could hear voices, a bit of laughter. Shit, he murmured, it was Orla and she was bashing around in the kitchen. He’d told her to go easy on the units – they’d cost a packet.
‘Thought you were going somewhere?’ he called, hanging up his bag, irritated enough to not notice the thrill from the cold tiled floor on his feet when he kicked off his stinking espadrilles.
‘Thought you were too?’ she said, appearing in the hall, looking behind her then at him.
‘Ruby’s got a private view, I’d forgotten.’
Then he noticed she looked a bit cagey, like. She’d wrapped a leg around another and was bobbing about, like she was a robin dying for a piss.
‘What’s your excuse?’ he said, moving forward. But she blocked him by moving into the middle of the corridor.
‘There was a change of plan,’ she said, her eyes darting back to the kitchen. ‘We’ve got a guest.’
‘Oh Christ, it’s not one of your neglected kids, is it?’ She was always threatening to bring one back.
‘No!’ she said, actually looking at him as if he was the mad one.
Murphy groaned and ran his hands through his hair: he was growing it because he wanted to distance himself from the short-back-and-sides Yuccies, the Young Urban Creatives, who were still wearing beards and moustaches long after he’d shaved his off.
‘Who then?’ he said, going in to the loo. ‘Please tell me no one I know,’ he shouted out through the open door, his words echoing off the brick-effect white gloss tiles. If it was a mate of Orla’s he could grunt hello then get on with stuff.
‘It is, actually,’ she whispered loudly, telling him off like he was being unwelcome. ‘Don’t kill me but…’
‘Who?’ He wiped his hands on a thick fluffy grey towel and came out to face her. She had her best Bambi eyes going on and he knew then that whoever it was equalled a nightmare.
‘It’s… Vee,’ Orla said, looking as guilty as a BBC presenter from the seventies. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure Vee wasn’t about to walk in on them.
‘You. Are having. A giraffe,’ he hissed, shaking his head and shutting his eyes. He’d managed to get over the embarrassment of their drink in Cardiff: it had taken a bit, but finally the stinging humiliation of it had faded. She was out of his life once and for all. Her being here made him feel hot and uncomfortable again.
‘No. I’m not.’
‘Jesus, Orla,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Look, you said it was okay for me to get in touch with her.’ That defensive look because he was apparently being unreasonable. ‘We started messaging then she was up here, something to do with work, picking up a delivery, and her van broke down and she had to get the AA out, by which time it was too late to do the pick-up and while she had, from travelling, three numbers for people who lived in London, they were so old one had moved to Scotland, another had no space because they had three kids and the third was off his tits, and she doesn’t know anyone else here and she didn’t want to drive back empty-handed. She can do the pick-up first thing tomorrow. I’m sorry. You said you’d be out. What else could I do?’ His first instinct was to run, but to where?
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he said. ‘Why did you offer?’
‘Because she needed help, Michael. Is it that difficult to understand?’ she said, her hands jutting at him. ‘You’re a prick, you know that. She doesn’t know anyone else in London. She couldn’t afford a hotel and she has only just started this job and she doesn’t want to let down her boss. She’s upset. Thinks she’s incapable of being a grown-up. Why are you so bothered anyway?’
‘Because it’s weird.’
Orla screwed her face up, making him feel a bit tight. All right, maybe he had gone a bit OTT, but seriously, why couldn’t Vee just sort herself out?
‘And anyway, she can’t want to stay here, surely?’
Orla dropped her head then and he guessed.
‘You told her I wouldn’t be here, didn’t you?’
She looked back up at him with dejected eyes.
‘This is the problem with being helpful, Orla. Yeah?’
He crossed his arms and sighed.
‘Well, she’s not staying,’ he said, ‘Get rid of her.’
‘No! Don’t be so terrible.’
‘You created this, you fix it.’
‘Go and stay at Ruby’s or someone else’s…’ Orla’s eyes glinted with power. She knew he had nowhere else to go – he had mates, of course he did. But he’d never crash on them. He prided himself on being self-sufficient.
‘Right. If you won’t do it, I will.’
He brushed past Orla and marched into the flat. Vee couldn’t stay here. No way. He’d make up an excuse. Even give her the money for a hotel if he had to. He wanted to chill not pretend it was all hunky-dory over a bottle of wine and dinner. This was his home, for fuck’s… shit.
He stopped as he heard crying. Then Murphy could see her on the balcony, her bare shoulders shaking, the sound of tears coming in on the breeze through the French doors.
Her hair was wobbling – the pink was gone and it was cut into a long bob, which he knew was a lob because Orla once had one – she was sobbing her heart out.
He would have to be an absolute bastard to tell her to go. In fact, he couldn’t believe he’d even considered evicting her: was this who he was now? Was he that much of a lowlife? Murphy felt the pressure then to prove he wasn’t. And he bristled at the realization that whenever she tripped into his life, she made him reflect on himself and want to be a nicer person.
Murphy put his hands over his face and prayed she’d have disappeared by the time he took them down. But no. God didn’t owe him anything.
Resigned to having to do the right thing, his heart in his mouth, he slipped outside and as he s
aid her name he ran his thumb over the thickened skin of the scar on his finger.
‘Vee.’
She jumped and turned around, her eyes on stalks. ‘What are you doing here?’ she gasped.
What was it with these two? First Orla and now Vee, making out he shouldn’t be in his own flat.
‘I live here,’ he said, all sarky. Then he repeated it again, this time without an edge because she looked rough as, puffy and red. Tired and - Jesus, he was coming undone here - lost. His fingers tingled. Like something was changing in him, but he didn’t know what.
‘I was just popping in. To say hi to Orla. I’m on my way now,’ she said, averting her eyes, moving to go past with her back to him, ‘I’ll get my bag and some loo roll to blow my nose, if that’s okay, then I’ll be gone.’
He said nothing, processing the sight of her desperate to get away from him. Like he was a serial killer. Asking for permission for bog roll.
She hugged herself, rubbed her face, tucked a tendril behind her ear and looked everywhere but at him.
‘I would never have come if I’d known you were here. Honestly.’
It was like a kick in the bollocks – seeing her shrivel in his presence made him feel sick, disorientated. This person who’d been his best friend for years, who had been his right-hand woman, wanting nothing to do with him. Okay they hadn’t got on when they’d met in Cardiff recently, it had been awkward, hideously awkward, but she didn’t even want to look at him now. He swallowed hard, acknowledging the realization that she’d never wanted to see him again. Yes, he’d thought the same afterwards, but in all honesty that was because she’d been off with him: being rejected by her again was his overwhelming feeling rather than the embarrassment he’d claimed to have felt. He understood that now and he ached all over, dizzy with the distress of seeing her so distant. Because now he could admit it: he’d met up with her in the hope she would cure him of this sickness inside him, this inability to be close to someone. Her. That evening when he’d been humourless and nervous, she hadn’t bothered to reach in to try to find him and he’d been rejected all over again.
Yet when he saw her just now, he’d felt protective, as if he’d been stripped of all the stuff he carried around with him. The anger and the bitterness. He’d only wanted to comfort her.
He couldn’t bear it: he knew now he had one last chance. This was it.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, stepping back, giving her space, ‘you can stay. I’ll let you two catch up.’
‘It’s fine. I’ll look for a B&B,’ she said, grabbing her phone out of her back pocket but clearly unable to see anything through those fat tears which were bowling down her face.
‘You can have my room. I’ll go on the sofa.’
He turned and left her in the evening sun which cast her long shadow into the lounge. Even when he wasn’t looking at her he still saw her.
Orla came out from her room and he just nodded at her to go on through. Vee could tell her the news.
A strange sense of peace came over him: he had survived this moment and there was no bang, no explosion, no falling apart. It was the most unfamiliar feeling: warm and soothing. Like he’d crossed some line.
Dazed, he opened the fridge and stared in, seeing bottles but not really taking them in.
Then he felt a hand on his arm. ‘I just wanted to say thank you.’
He looked to his side and Vee was there, her chin trembling, wisps of hair around her head like a halo. Her touch was…something else. Not electrifying but grounding, like home.
‘I don’t know London,’ she said, quietly. ‘Turns out I’m a bit of a bumpkin. With no buddies.’
‘What? You? The international traveller?’ Now he’d dropped the defences, it was surprisingly easy to slip back into their banter. How was that possible, he wondered? It was like they were seamlessly carrying on a conversation which had started sixteen years ago and that meeting in the bar had never happened.
She laughed through her nose which produced a huge bubble of snot. But, damn it, rather than disgust, he only found it sweet and nostalgic, this being the sort of care-free relationship they had, where they could expose all of themselves to the other and not feel judged.
‘Oh, God!’ she said, flapping her hands and wiping it away. ‘What a state I am.’
‘There’s not exactly a line of mates at my door either.’
Vee looked unsure then, like she was weighing something up. But she decided to go for it.
‘So… how about we become, you know, friends then?’ she said shyly.
He played at sizing up her offer then shrugged.
‘Might as well, eh,’ he said, ‘I’m Murphy. Bit of a prick. How do you do?’
He put out a hand. Then, oh shit, she was crying again.
‘Happy tears,’ she said, pointing a finger at them, having seen his face drop.
‘I’m Vee. Bit of an idiot. Nice to meet you.’
Then she took his palm and they shared an emphatic but brief shake. But the feel of her warm hand stayed with him and his eyes began to smart.
This was important, he wasn’t sure why, it just felt seismic. Like he was transforming, doing exactly what Orla had said he should, to see if he could like himself, dare to open up to possible hurt, forgive Dad, make Mam proud. To move on. He didn’t know what Vee’s role in all of this would be, not specifically, but he sensed that forgiving and forgetting the reasons of the breakdown of their friendship and making it up with her could put him on the right path.
‘Beer?’ he said, quickly, as the word caught in his throat.
How were they going to start again? he wondered, as he fished one out and watched Vee use her teeth to twist off the top, as she’d always done. It was the oddest thing, seeing her here in his kitchen, pulling a move he’d seen a million times.
She took a long gulp and he considered asking about her job, her parents, her plans… but then that would all come naturally if it was meant to progress. When they’d met in that classroom all those years ago, they hadn’t gone and had a deep and meaningful. They’d just had a chat about music and then it had all clicked. He had to trust it would be there again: because he felt it. Because he was being himself, letting her in. All he wanted to do was stick with this calm. It was obvious what to do.
‘Want to listen to some vinyl?’ he said, loping off into the lounge, where Orla was trying not to look over the moon about the way this had all panned out.
‘Vinyl? As in records?’ Vee said, padding in behind him and settling down on his corner sofa next to his sister as if they’d been doing this for years.
‘Yeah, you know, as in a round thing. You stick a needle on it and music comes out.’ He flicked through a stack of albums in a wave of déjà vu which fluttered around his heart.
‘Oh God, don’t tell me it’s cool to like records again? Murphy, you are such a hipster!’ Vee teased, making Orla snort.
‘But there’s something about the scratchy sound. And you can hold the record, feel the music, like you’re part of it.’ He stroked his Technics record player, enjoying the touch of its flawless walnut sheen. ‘It’s beautiful…’
Then self-conscious because he knew he sounded up himself, he added: ‘I told you I was a bit of a prick.’
But where he expected to see mirth on Vee’s face, she was just nodding.
‘No, I get it,’ she said, softly. ‘Like it’s real. Not up in some cloud.’
He actually felt himself blush in appreciation. This simple exchange was natural: their minds still met. Like they’d come out of some fog and had reached out to one another.
He waited for his inner cynic to jump in. But there was silence. He knew then what he was going to play.
Without a word, he pulled out their favourite album as kids, Different Class by Pulp.
He slid out the vinyl, held it with his fingertips, blew on it to get rid of any dust then placed it down before carefully lowering the needle onto the grooves. He felt like a surgeon.
/> As the crackle gave way to the first song, he finally let his eyes rest on Vee for a second.
Her way of holding a bottle at the neck so as not to warm up the booze; her head nodding a fraction out of time to the beat; her eyes staring at nothing accompanied by an enigmatic smile. It was all the same.
He just hoped it would be different this time.
*
Bangkok, Thailand, February 2008
Seven a.m. on the Khao San Road but it could just as easily be the afternoon, Vicky thinks.
Even now, there’s a grey fog at thigh level from the car fumes; virgin backpackers step wide-eyed out of taxis; old hands with hennaed wrists sit saucer-eyed in the bars, all fucked and laughing; horns beep, techno pumps and haggling hawkers offer ‘nice price’ between the steaming rubbish. It’s a rotten, decaying place but Vicky is glad of it, this baking hot and sweaty morning.
It’s a distraction from the fact that here, at a bus stop, her journey with Kat ends.
Vicky drops her dusty rucksack to the floor and takes a seat on it while Kat remains standing, strapped in unwilling to take hers off; she is primed to jump aboard her transfer to the airport, desperate to fly home. Her head strains to catch sight of it, which is due any minute. An enormous cockroach scuttles towards them, its terracotta shell gleaming brighter than Vicky’s painted toenails. Usually she’d warn Kat because she’s developed a massive phobia after one crawled into her bed through her mosquito net. Vicky doesn’t like them either, but this is their home, she’s the visitor not them. But she says nothing because Kat is wound so tightly she might snap. Ever since their row two weeks ago, things between them have been strained. Not because they weren’t getting on, they sorted it, but because Kat has shut down. It’s as if she’s on sleep mode or like a telly on standby – there but not there. Quiet, refusing to go out and explore, counting down the days until she can leave. She’s spent her days showering, complaining she feels dirty, so much so she won’t risk using her ‘filthy’ hands to put in her lenses. With her glasses and severe French plait – to stop anything getting tangled in her hair – she resembles her schoolgirl self. To be honest, Vicky will feel relieved when Kat’s gone: it’s been really hard watching her suffer. She’s tried to speak to her, help her, but Kat is stuck in a tight-lipped and drawn loop: Vicky gets that it’s her way of keeping herself together. But it’s meant that Vicky has been alone for a good while now and she’s sort of felt responsible for her. At least when they part, Kat will feel safe.