by Laura Kemp
Vicky isn’t scared about being here by herself: backpackers travel like this all the time. She’s had to make friends with people this last fortnight anyway and she’s done well, considering she’s not the most outgoing person.
Besides, she’s got the absolutely best feeling about her last month away!
Mikey’s got a week off coming up, just before he starts working for Apple. He got the job, sounds like a glorified salesman to her, but he’s happy. So he’s coming to see her! He finally caved in.
She got the email last night: Vicky is absolutely made up that that he’ll be here, but she hasn’t told Kat – that might tip her over the edge, make her think they’ve planned it behind her back. Vicky emailed back a million exclamation marks and said she’d tell him exactly what to book as soon as she knew where she was going to be. What he doesn’t know is that he will hear from her the day after tomorrow – via a letter she’s made Kat promise to give him in person!
She wants to surprise him but also she wants him to be able to hold it in his hand as if he’s holding a piece of her. Emails are all right but a letter is concrete, like you can’t delete it. And she’s kind of opened up a bit to him. Not at first though because it begins with her plan for them: after Kat’s departed, she’s going to the bus station to catch an overland ride to the Cambodian border, from where she’ll travel to Siem Reap. She’ll wait for Mikey there before she goes to see the temples of Angkor: it’s where they filmed Tomb Raider, he’s going to die when he sees it! Then they can go to the beach at Sihanoukville, followed by the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh and fly to Vietnam. It’s going to be amazing, she just knows it: she’s all shivery thinking about it because she’s is pretty sure that something’s going to happen. Like, after Kat said during their fight that Vicky might be a little bit in love with Mikey, she hasn’t been able to stop her tummy somersaulting. Vicky thinks she might be a smidgeon right. Thinking about what she said has sort of shocked her: but in a heart-racing way, like what if he feels the same? She’s re-read all his emails and he has been really nice – she’s tried to be totally objective about them but, yes, there could be something there. Vicky has hardly slept since Kat suggested it, but she’s not tired: she gets these pulses every time she imagines seeing him. She’s even started to have rude dreams about him, which makes her blush when she wakes up. Oh God, she thinks, imagine if they did get it on - it’d be so mad! But it’d be perfect. Perfectly mad.
At the end of her letter, she says that she has been longing to see him – she makes a joke that she might give him a promotion from back-up man. But then she gets serious and says the more people she’s met and the more places she’s been to have made her realize how special he is: she always knew he was, but being at home makes you think that’s how it is in the big world. But it isn’t – everyone pales in comparison to him. She doesn’t exactly say that she wants to try getting together but she says ‘if you’re single then we could see what happens’. He’d have to be thick not to get that and that’s one thing he isn’t. Then she cracks another joke just in case: if she’s got it all wrong, then feel free to never contact her again. It took her ages to put it in the proper tone – even though it felt completely right to do it – but she finished it off by head torch while Kat slept or at least jabbered fitfully. Had she done it by email, she wouldn’t have had the chance to double-check this was what she wanted to do. But she still decided to go for it this morning as they packed up their bags and she gave Kat the envelope, telling her she had her to thank for this. Vicky had felt weepy and grateful, as she said it and she expected Kat to respond in the same way: a recognition that Kat had been the one to make Vicky admit her feelings. All she got back was a promise she'd deliver it. But things haven't been right since their row - there's a stiltedness where once there was intimacy.
Vicky hugs her knees at the prospect of hearing back from him. She examines her calves - for the first time ever she’s got some definition there rather than big hefty cankles. She’d already lost a stone with all the walking, but another half has come off after a dodgy bowl of prawn noodles ten days ago. Her appetite has definitely gone down, she is a classic bored trougher, but here there’s so much to do she can sometimes forget to eat. And there’s not potatoes and bread and crap like that on offer, just healthy rice and stir-fries. Her hair is longer now too, a fraction below her shoulders, and it’s bleached blonde by the sun. Vicky has never felt so good. But there’s a horrid side to it too because Kat has never looked so awful. Her shoulders are bony and her skin has broken out in spots, poor love. Vicky sees a bead of perspiration run down Kat’s left leg: Vicky looks up to see if she’s noticed. She’s been hyper-sensitive to anything relating to her body of late, flicking at invisible things on her arms and scratching at nothing, but she seems unaware now. Only her right leg jiggles, poised to scale the step of the bus as soon as it arrives and seal herself into the air-conditioned capsule of bus, airport and plane which will be her refuge.
‘I think that’s mine,’ Kat says, pushing her glasses up her nose, craning her neck to confirm it. ‘It is!’
For the first time in ages, she gives Vicky a big smile, a genuine one. Jesus, Vicky would be like ‘kill me now’, if she had to go home.
It takes an age for the bus to make its way down the street as tuk-tuks dart here and there and idiots walk out into its path without looking: Vicky will be glad to move on from here, get back to some real travelling.
She gets up and holds Kat’s hand.
‘Take care, okay?’ she says, ‘Make sure you see the doctor when you get back.’
‘I just need to get home,’ Kat says as her eyes settle on Vicky. ‘I’m sorry. About everything. You can enjoy yourself now, eh?’
Kat tries to make it look like she’s being funny.
‘Don’t be silly, I’m going to miss you.’ Then, because she’s her friend, she does a fake jolly add-on: ‘We’ve had a great time! Seen loads and done all sorts, haven’t we?’
It was true, definitely true in Vicky’s case.
‘Yeah,’ Kat says, gulping. ‘You go careful.’
Vicky nods and gives Kat a hug. Kat is stiff though and begins pulling away the second the bus pulls up. She’s the first one in the queue and as she boards, Vicky says: ‘See you in a month!’
Kat looks back at her blankly, as if she doesn’t understand.
‘When I get home!’ Vicky says to explain. Blimey, she’s a right sieve head.
‘Okay’ is all she says then she makes her way up the aisle to take a seat on Vicky’s side. They wave a bit as everyone gets themselves seated for the journey, fussing with their bags and tickets and books.
And as the bus crawls off, Vicky picks up her rucksack then walks alongside Kat’s window blowing kisses.
‘Don’t forget to give Mikey the letter!’ she shouts, using her hands as a loudspeaker, as the bus picks up a little speed.
Vicky trots alongside, waiting to get the thumbs up, but Kat stares straight ahead and doesn’t look back.
Chapter Thirteen
V
Cowbridge
‘Mustard nuts?’ Vee repeated, spinning around to see Pierre waiting for something.
‘Well?’ he said, his gigantic black eyebrows raised like two standing bears.
Her mind raced. She’d been miles away. Mustard nuts? What the hell? Was it a bad translation of some bizarre French term of endearment? Or, oh God, this wasn’t one of his team-bonding things, was it, like he’d christened her Mustard Nuts? If so, why? She didn’t own a pair of nuts, had no connection with mustard, and it sounded offensive, to be honest. If she smelled spicy it was because of his shop not her own fumes.
She decided to say nothing – she didn’t want to give him ideas – and, with her best sad doggy eyes, got ready to apologize for being caught daydreaming in the store cupboard knee-deep in pasta, pickles and preserves.
‘How are we doing? You know, stock-wise, with mustard and nuts?’ he said, his hands on either sid
e of the door frame as if he was holding up the entire room.
‘Oh, I see! Right, well, er, I haven’t got that far yet. I’m only on F.’ She pointed at the capital letter she’d sharpied onto the shelf to show where she’d got up to on her alphabetical rehaul. Pierre had been astounded this morning when she’d suggested it. The room had been a higgledy-piggledy mess in which he couldn’t find products or keep track of supplies. A bit of order would make a huge difference, she’d said. He’d behaved like she’d discovered penicillin. ‘You are a genius. Marginal gains!’ he’d shouted at her. ‘Making small improvements add up to major improvements!’
‘Does that mean I’ll be Employee of the Month for May?’ she’d asked, her tongue firmly in her cheek.
‘You have a very good chance,’ he’d said without an ounce of irony. The complete nutter.
The job had been slow, dusty and sneezy, but she’d felt like hiding away today. After a period of doing the badass strong woman thing – which had been down to picking herself up post-Jez with work and friends – the buzz had started to wane as the effects of flying solo and living with Mum and Dad kicked in. Vee felt flat. The tears had run out; the last time she’d cried was a fortnight ago when she’d been at Murphy’s. Once she'd got over the horror of the van breaking down and Murphy's shock, the night she’d spent there had been brilliant. It had turned out to be the best night since she’d been dumped, maybe even before that. Over beers and some clean-eating thing he’d dished up, Murphy and her had connected effortlessly and Orla was absolutely lush. They’d stayed up until 2 a.m. reminiscing and catching up: Murphy had filled in a few gaps about his rise to success and Orla had revealed he’d made his way through half of London in pursuit of the perfect woman, which had made her feel a bit funny until she told herself he had a right just as she did to have a history.
But when she’d crept out early the next morning to do the cheese pick-up, she’d felt as if she was walking out of a life which could’ve been hers had Murphy and her ever got together. That thought had shaken her: imagining them as a couple hadn’t occurred to her since Thailand when she’d written him that letter. And it wasn’t as if she’d want to be with him now; there were little bits of the old him, his humour was still there, but Murphy was too shiny, too self-aware. She couldn’t stand to live like that, worrying if she was cool enough, eating the right thing and wearing the uniform that such a life demanded. She’d done that with Jez and look where it had got her.
Going home to her teenage bedroom every night emphasized how little she had compared to Murphy and Kate. Mum was great at leaving her be and Dad had offered to decorate her room, giving her the choice of colour scheme and curtains, but she’d so far resisted: she couldn’t bring herself to imagine she was back there for good. But where was she going? What was she aiming for? There was no money to retrain – yet – and the thought of going on Tinder or Guardian Soulmates made her feel ill. But time was ticking: yes, she knew she was only thirty and in theory she could be in her forties before she started a family or found her professional calling, yet those things didn’t fall in your lap the second you decided to go for them. It could be years before she felt ready to trust a man or an instinct again, and then how many attempts would it take for her to reach a place of contentment? This fear translated itself into late-night searches of ‘freezing eggs’ and ‘adoption over the age of forty’ which only made her freak out further.
The constant reminders that she was waiting for something were exhausting. Everywhere she looked, she saw what she was missing: the loved-up couples calling in the deli for brunch; sharing the bus with other losers rather than driving herself to a career in an executive set of wheels; and wondering what crazy Jez was doing while she was on the sofa with Mum and Dad watching their latest box set, out of bounds if one of them was out. One night, she’d been so desperate to talk to a friend, she’d messaged Jemima in Brighton: you couldn’t ring her these days because she was always mid-feed or the baby was crying. She didn’t want to lean on her – how could Jem console her when she had to be loyal to Jez? It had been a waste of time: the baby had a temperature, Jem was knackered and yes, Jez was still with ‘her’.
Vee didn’t want to overload on Kate – it was too early for that. Bottling things up was making her negative. She knew it was self-indulgent to consider ‘why me?’ and she fought against it most of the time. But sometimes, like today, she just needed to retreat from being in the audience of other people’s lives. That was why she had offered to hole herself up in the store cupboard.
‘We’re out of banana flour,’ she announced, to show she had been doing some work. ‘Whatever that is.’
Pierre sighed. ‘Banana flour is a superfood. Gluten-free. High in resistant starch which helps to protect against diabetes and colonic cancer. Controls blood sugar. Can substitute normal flour and be used in smoothies.’
Vee sneered a bit too wildly.
‘We sell a lifestyle here, Vee. Humans believe poshing up their nosh makes them sophisticated. There are also health benefits too. Ergo, there is a market for it. That’s what we do.’
Vee rolled her eyes: had she still been with Jez then she’d probably have known all of that. Food trends were his forte. Her move back home, where Mum bought Hovis and Heinz, was the extreme opposite of Brighton. She realized now that her dabbling in veganism and hot yoga had all been half-hearted, just to fit in. Just to be loved, approved of and feel special. With shame, Vee recalled how she’d been sniffy at first when she'd returned home, but now she actually preferred a nice spag bol and a weepy.
Doubt came along and stamped her on the forehead: what was she doing here? Peddling wares for idiots who lived off kale, used beard wax and juice cleansed their colons? She felt her skin prickling with irritation.
Pierre’s forehead cracked like it was about to avalanche.
‘I’m sensing something here. Are you in need of a camomile tea?’
‘No, I’m bloody not. And what’s wrong with PG Tips?’
‘PG what?’
Vee shut her eyes and counted to ten. ‘I think I just need to get on with this,’ she said, knowing that if she didn’t cool it, she’d be out of a job. She was entirely grateful to Pierre for giving her this opportunity and he wasn't to blame for her finding fault with tarty food.
‘Would you like to play my anger drum?’ he said, earnestly.
Her jaw dropped. He was weird, she knew that, but she’d never put him down as a pervert.
‘Pierre!’ she squeaked, ‘that is completely inappropriate. You do realize that, don’t you?’
‘But it helps, having a good bang. It’s a release. We can do it quick while the shop’s quiet.’ He nodded furiously at her. Then he nipped out of the doorway, leaving her to rip off her apron and throw it on the floor. There was no way she was standing for this.
Before she could run away, he was back with a huge smile… And a hand drum. A bloody instrument. That was what he’d meant! An actual drum, which made her realize how uptight she’d been. Her whole body relaxed with relief. But what did a drum have to do with how she felt?
‘Right, so sit down and cross your legs, like me.’
She inched her way to the floor, examining him with wary eyes, wondering if he was in actual, fact King of Kooky Land.
‘Good. Now take the drum.’
He held it out as she weighed it up. It was gaga, he was gaga. But would it make her feel any worse? Unlikely. So she tentatively reached out and did as she was told.
‘And… off you go!’ He sat smiling expectantly at her.
‘But…what am I supposed to do?’ Examining the wooden goblet-shaped object in her hands, Vee felt horribly self-conscious and she was glad of the dingy lighting.
Pierre shook his head at her, cross that she was so clueless. As if she’d ever mentioned drumming before! He snatched it off her and began.
‘Like this…’
He tapped out a rhythm, softly at first.
She shifted aro
und on her bum – she’d sat on a discarded piece of pasta – and fussed about before getting comfy.
‘Experts believe drumming can reduce stress, lower blood pressure, conquer social isolation, boost immunity, improve psychological well-being…’
He increased his tempo and touch on the skin of the goblet-shaped drum. Vee watched, hiding her amusement because she didn’t want to insult him.
‘…we all have a natural sense of rhythm. It can take us back to the womb, when we’d hear our mother’s heartbeat. It’s affordable, accessible, sustainable…’
He closed his eyes and began beating harder, his head jogging. After a while, she found her foot was tapping along and she was breathing in time. It was eerie the way it did seem to calm her: take her to a state of being rather than feeling and worrying and thinking.
‘…we are born drummers. And, yes, while you might feel foolish, it is imperative you try. Small pleasures are the key to happiness.’
Shortly, he faded his fingers out then handed it to Vee.
‘Your go,’ he said.
Awkwardly, she started with one hand, then stopped. This was ridiculous.
‘I can’t do it. I feel all creepy.’
‘Try,’ he said, setting a tempo with the clap of his palms. Vee’s tummy rumbled. She’d eyed up some quiche for lunch and the sooner she did this, the sooner she could eat. So she got on with it. After a shaky start, all jerky like being on roller skates for the first time, she managed to get into the swing.