‘I thought we’d have the computers here, and the consulting space there, and... I think we should have a bar in the corner, and a pinball machine, you know, to relax at the end of the day.’
‘It sounds amazing! But why are you in such a hurry? I thought you wanted to go to university?’
‘Degrees are useless! It’s just wasting time studying things you will learn in the field anyway. I want to make money quickly.’
‘Trust me, I understand how important money is,’ I said bitterly, ‘But won’t you get more clients if you have a degree? Surely you can wait for a couple of years.’
‘I’m not waiting three years! I want to get married.’
The word echoed in my brain like a thunderclap.
‘Married?’
‘Yes, I was going to ask her as soon as things get going here. Me and Alex reckon we can build up a good client base in about six months.
Was he still trying to provoke me? Was this some sort of challenge, or was he just trying to let me know that he was planning to take my friend away from me for good? It was like a competition to see who could get her to love them best.
‘Well, it sounds like you’ve already made your decision. I don’t think you need me here.
‘No Mia, you’re wrong. I know how you feel and I would like your blessing.’
‘No shit?’ I snorted.
‘Nina isn’t happy if you’re not happy and we both know - well, all three of us know - that you haven’t been entirely happy with our relationship from the beginning so, for Nina’s sake, I want to do everything I can to prove you can trust me.’
‘Who am I, the Queen? My opinion isn’t that important. I’ll admit, I think it’s all a bit too soon, you know, the ring, marriage, but if you are happy then... you are happy right?’
‘Yes. I think so,’ he replied a little anxiously, playing with his fingers.
‘So what’s the problem? If it’s not about dance, I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about anyway, so take my blessing and let’s get out of here.’
He shut the door and we walked back towards the city centre.
‘So.have there been any developments with Patrick?’
‘Maybe.’ I said, looking away.
‘Nice! We could have a double wedding!’
‘God, no thanks, I’m quite happy to enjoy being a teenager for now.’
‘What have you got against marriage?’
‘Nothing! I just it’s a bit overrated, that’s all.’
‘Are you saying you wouldn’t like to get a ring?’ he said, pointing over at a jeweller’s shop.
‘I’m saying I don’t think you need a ring to show your love or make a commitment to someone.’
‘But it’d be nice, though.’ he urged, dragging me across to the window display and pointing out the glittering jewels in their velvet cases. ‘Look how shiny…’
‘Seriously, Carl, a rubber band could do the same job. When you find your soulmate, you just know – there’s a sensation of peace and well-being so intense inside you that it’s like when you finally arrive home! It’s like you knew them in a past life or something, and you were waiting your whole life just for this one person you were meant to be with. You could not see each other for a year and nothing would change between you, because you trust one another completely, and you know that, with or without a ring, or marriage, that person is the only one for you, and you will be together forever.’
I realised that I wasn’t talking about Carl and Nina anymore, but about me and Pat.
Carl suddenly became thoughtful.
‘So between us.’ he said.
‘It couldn’t work between us because I’ve always known who the person for me was.’
‘And do you think Nina is the person for me?’
‘And how would I know? I’m not inside your head! Do you get butterflies in your stomach when you think of her? Do you miss her like air if you don’t see her for half a day? Do you have fun together? Do you want to tell her everything, even the smallest, stupidest thing that happened to you? Or you just want her to be yours because she’s a trophy? I think you should think about that before messing up your whole future, that’s what I think! I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but Nina is like a sister to me, I worry about her.’
I turned back to the window. No, I didn’t want a ring, but I did want Pat to have something of mine to keep close during those long hours of dangerous exercises and on lonely night watches.
Suddenly my attention was drawn to a leather bracelet. It was a simple black strap with a small metal plate and an inscription I could not translate.
Serva me. Servabo te.
I went in, followed by a dejected Carl.
The jeweller informed me that it meant ‘Save me. I’ll save you’.
It was perfect.
We walked towards Nina’s house in silence, and when we got there, Carl hesitated at the end of the drive.
‘What’s wrong,’ I asked, ‘Aren’t you coming in?’
‘No, I’ll, er, leave you to get on with it. I’d only get in the way.’
‘Was it something I said?’ I asked, feeling a little guilty about the way I’d spoken to him earlier. Perhaps I could have said it with a bit more tact.
‘I think, I don’t know, maybe you’re right, maybe I am moving too fast with her, and I should back off a bit.’ he said, moving away.
‘But... wait a second, what do you mean you’re backing off a bit, are you finishing with her? I didn’t mean any of that stuff about marriage! I told you, I don’t know anything about relationships, just dance steps and muscle cramps!’ I laughed nervously.
‘No, you’re right, though. We’re too young, we should be out enjoying ourselves, not getting tied down with serious relationships.’
‘No, no, no, back up a minute’ I was getting scared. ‘That is not what I said! Relationships are great, but you can be in a relationship and still enjoy being young at the same time! You can carve your names on trees, have stupid T-shirts made with your photo on, buy each other massive stuffed toys for Valentine’s Day. I’m saying you can be committed without marriage, not that you shouldn’t be committed at all!’
‘I don’t know Mia, it’s made me think. We need to have a break so I can decide if this is what I really want.’
‘Of course this is what you want, you moron! Nina is the best thing that ever happened to you! You said it yourself, she’s perfect! Don’t worry about not being able to get a boner, it’s just nerves!’
Oh, what the actual fuck? Why did I never think before I opened my mouth?
‘Did she tell you that?’ he asked, horrified.
‘No! No, of course not!’ I desperately tried to backpedal ‘She... I guessed? Not that you seem like... I mean, she was worried she put too much pressure on you, and…’
‘I’d better go,’ he said quietly.
‘No, Carl, come on! These are just the sorts of things girls tell each other, I would never have told anyone else! It’s just, like when boys all get together and they’re like ‘Hur, hur, did you see Sandy Robinson’s tits?’ I imitated a big blokey voice, but he didn’t laugh.
‘I would never have told anyone about your crush on Patrick,’ he said bitterly.
‘Oh. will you still not?’ I asked cautiously.
‘What do you take me for?’ he snapped, before turning around and walking away.
I’d really done it this time.
What should I do now? What could I tell Nina?
I took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
Nina opened the door with a smile,
‘Well you took long enough getting here! It’s almost dinner time. But where’s Carl? ‘
‘He had to go home, his mum called.’ I lied.
‘Without stopping by to say hello? Something must have happened, come in, I’m going to call him.’
But the idiot had already switched his phone off.
He’d left me in the shit because he didn’t have the
balls to tell Nina he was having second thoughts. Now I was going to have to deal with the fallout. It didn’t help being in Patrick’s house without him there. I could see his bedroom door, closed, at the top of the stairs, and I wanted to run inside and bury my face in his pillow.
It was a horrible evening, Nina was frantic, wondering why he wouldn’t answer her calls, and all I could do was to keep telling her to stay calm and that I was sure nothing had happened. Twice, in a few months, my best friend, the most wonderful person in the world, had been treated like crap and betrayed by two bastards who told her they loved her.
And this time, the worm who had caused her weak certainties to fall apart had been me.
‘I’m going to his house, come on!’ she said, throwing me my jacket.
‘Are you sure? It’s really late and you’ll see him at school tomorrow anyway.’
‘No, something must have happened. He always answers. He must have had an accident, it’s the only explanation!’
No, that was the only explanation for an innocent soul like Nina who, despite being surrounded by people who kept lying to her - including me - continued to trust them.
Laetitia was in the kitchen humming a happy tune to herself, and seemed surprised to see us getting ready to go out. Nina told her we were going back to mine to look at some work on my computer. We would have dinner there and then Carl would bring her back.
The taxi pulled up at the end of Carl’s road. I imagined him sitting round the table with his family, oblivious to the distress he was causing. And to someone he had said he wanted to marry less than an hour before!
Nina knocked on the door.
After several tries, Carl’s mother opened, visibly embarrassed, keeping the door ajar as if we were double-glazing salesmen.
‘Carl’s not in,’ she said, tightening her dressing gown around her neck.
‘Do you know where he went?’ Nina asked, clearly bewildered and a little hurt.
Carl’s mother remained unmoved. ‘He didn’t say.’ she answered shortly, starting to close the door.
‘But... I don’t understand, we were supposed to see each other tonight, did something happen? Tell me, please!’
Hearing her reduced to begging, something inside me snapped. I put my foot in the door, wedging it open.
‘If you must know, your son has got my friend pregnant and her father is out looking for him. It would be better if we found him first, don’t you think?
Carl’s mother turned white. She told us he had gone to Thomas’s for a poker game.
Nina was losing her mind, she didn’t understand what was going on and the idea that he didn’t want her anymore had begun to creep its way slowly under her skin.
We flagged down another taxi and she took my hand, staring straight ahead while the car sped through the night, the silence broken only by the sound of bhangra music coming from the radio.
It was all so absurd. It made no sense for us to go chasing across the city after a pair of probably drunken idiots. I didn’t want my friend to suffer any more humiliations. At our age we should have been in our rooms listening to music, going out with our friends, and maybe sneaking a crafty cigarette behind the bus stop, not out begging men for inconsistent explanations. It was something I had seen my mother do too many times before.
‘Listen, Nina, let’s go home, please.’
‘No. I want to know what the fuck is going on.’
‘I’m sure if we just sleep on it tomorrow everything will become clear.’
I really hoped it would. Surely by tomorrow he would realise he had made a mistake and come crawling back, having invented a good excuse as to where he’d been all night.
We arrived outside Thomas’s house, and Nina asked the taxi driver to wait for us. Through the bay window in the living room, we clearly saw Carl and Thomas, surrounded by cans of beer, and with them were Bibi and Dell.
And poker wasn’t all they were playing.
Thomas had his hand down the front of Bibi’s knickers and Carl had his face buried in Dell’s tits.
Nina was frozen to the spot, unable to move, unable to look away, the tears running down her cheeks, incredulous, hurt, and disgusted. She took her phone and threw it violently at the window, which cracked from top to bottom. Thomas spun around and ran to look outside.
‘Bastards! You fucking pair of bastards!’ she screamed with all the breath in her lungs, ‘I hate you all!’
I saw Carl struggle to his feet, pulling up his jeans. In a moment they were in the doorway, clearly drunk and unable to stand upright.
‘Nina,’ Carl said, and stared at her stupidly, swaying.
‘So it was just with me that you couldn’t fuck, was it? What’s wrong, am I not slutty enough for you?’ she yelled, opening her coat and lifting up her top. ‘Here you go, look! Do you think you can get it up now?’
And she stood there in her bra, sobbing bitterly.
‘Nina, no!’ I shouted, running to pull her coat closed and lead her back to the taxi ‘Come on, let’s go. That piece of shit doesn’t deserve any more of your time.’
Meanwhile Bibi and Dell had also appeared at the door and Carl, trying to save face with them, shouted:
‘Fine! Let your friend brainwash you! It was her who told me to dump you! I wanted to marry you!’
I turned and strode under his nose.
‘I told you not to go too fast, you idiot, not to shag Dell!’
I got into the taxi where Nina, shaken by her humiliation, couldn’t stop crying.
The driver set off again at full speed, this time with the radio off.
‘The bastard, the bastard, I can’t believe it. I trusted him. This can’t be happening, it’s a nightmare!’
I didn’t have an answer because there was none. I might have expected something like this from Thomas, but it was hard to imagine that Carl, kind, caring and loving Carl, was cut from the same cloth. Had what I said really made him back off? Could it really have taken so little to make him rethink his entire future in a few minutes?
‘Did he really want to marry me and you told him not to do it?’ Nina asked me, wiping her eyes.
‘I told him that to get married he had to be absolutely sure of what he was feeling and that a ring is not enough to show love for a person, and that you are too young. Was I wrong? I didn’t tell him to get drunk and fuck Dell Grabowsky!’
‘What a bastard, trying to blame you. Give me your phone, I want to call my brother,’ she asked, sniffling.
I handed it to her.
I knew how he would feel when he heard. This was his worst fear: not being able to intervene to help the people he loved. Even if it was just by kicking Carl’s stupid arse.
She dialled his number by heart and waited. In my agitation I hadn’t realised what was bound to happen when he picked up.
‘Hey, baby, I’ve just finished, I was about to call you. How’s dance school going? I miss you so much!’
Nina looked at me, baffled, then looked at the display, read the word ‘Angel’ and put two and two together.
‘Your gay friend from dance school?’ she shouted in disgust. ‘How’s the breakup with your boyfriend going, Patrick?’ she laughed bitterly ‘I trusted you. I trusted you both! You. I don’t know what to call you! You make me sick! You’re worse than Carl! ‘
‘Nina, I … we … we were going to tell you.’ I stammered, genuinely mortified.
‘How long has this been going on, eh?’ she shouted into the phone, ‘Come on Patrick, how long have you two been at it under my nose?’
I couldn’t hear Pat’s answer but I did see the concerned look of the taxi driver reflected in the rearview mirror. God knows what he thought.
‘I’m getting out, I don’t want to stay with you a minute longer!’ she screamed, opening the door.
The driver braked sharply and, turning around, told Nina to get in the front with him, and he would take her home first, then drop me off afterwards.
Nina did as she was
told, and the journey continued in impenetrable silence. When we arrived, I put a hand on her shoulder, but she turned and glared at me with a look I had never seen before.
‘I hate you Mia! I hate you and I hope something horrible happens to you so you can understand what I am feeling.’
She got out of the taxi and when inside without looking back.
The taxi driver took me home and wouldn’t let me pay for the extra trip to my house.
‘You don’t worry, ducky,’ he said kindly, ‘Tomorrow you will find the way to make peace with her. Now everything is anger and pain, but like my granny in India used to say, when you sit at the edge of silence, God will speak to you.’
I thanked him for all his help, and got out of the car in a sea of confusion and fear. On the one hand I felt relieved because at least we had finished hiding, but I had never wanted her to find out like that and I couldn’t understand how I could have been so careless.
Pat called me, upset.
‘I called Nina, but she’s not answering, what’s going on? Where are you?’
I explained to him what had happened, sobbing at the thought of how I had hurt Nina. I felt Pat’s frustration at not being able to be there to talk to her and try to fix things, but I had always known it wouldn’t be an easy thing for her to accept. I didn’t think he realised quite how important he was to Nina, who was distraught at the thought of sharing him with anyone.
‘Pat, you can’t imagine the look in her eyes. She said terrible things, she hates me. She thinks I have betrayed her, and it’s not true, you know it’s not true!’
‘I know sweetheart, of course not! I’ll call home now and try to calm her down. It’s a shame it had to come out like this, but maybe it’s best now everything is out in the open.’
‘Pat... you would never do that to me, would you? I wouldn’t have believed it of Carl…’
‘Baby, no! I will never leave you. Never.’
His voice cracked, but I could tell he didn’t want me to hear how upset her was, and he added in the most relaxed tone he could, ‘But you need to concentrate on your audition, and then in a few days I will be back home and we will be together.’
If I Can't Have You Page 27