‘Are you ever going to look at me properly?’ she says to him, hating the way her voice sounds, and he lets out a little laugh, short and sharp like a bark.
‘I don’t need to look at you to know that you’re pissed.’
She blinks at him, slow and stupid. ‘I’m not,’ she says, but the words are pointless; she knows it, he knows it. He looks up at her then, finally meets her eye, and Alice feels the anger deflate out of her like a balloon, sadness settling heavily on her in its place.
How did they get here, the two of them?
Tom and Alice have been together, on and off, since they were twenty-five. She met him on a night out, fell for his acerbic sense of humour, his bright, beady eyes, the way his face grew all animated when he talked about hockey. He used to play at a pretty high level, but a knee injury put paid to that about eighteen months ago. Sometimes, Alice wonders if that’s when their problems started, but other times, darker times, 3 a.m. times, she wonders if the problem is just him: the way he is built. The nasty streak that she knows is always there, but tries to pretend to herself is a figment of her imagination.
She didn’t notice it at first, obviously. The plea of all women, everywhere. And a lot of the time, Alice thinks it is her fault – she is too annoying, too loud, too earnest, too much. Too, too, too. A superlative sort of person. But when he tells her this, or rather, insinuates it, it confuses her – she’d thought he liked the fact that she is a teacher; when they first met he told her a story about how much he’d loved his teachers as a boy; the PE teacher who first handed him a hockey stick, the maths teacher who told him he was smarter than 90 per cent of the rest of the class. Little things that stuck in his mind. Some day, the kids you teach will be remembering you to their partners like this, he said one night, his fingers playing with Alice’s dark hair, and she’d smiled at the thought of it, felt proud. He told her he liked that she cared about things, that she wasn’t a pushover.
Now, the funny thing is that she is a pushover – to him, at least. Alice spends a lot of time walking on eggshells, scared to call him out on the things that bother her – the fact that he’s late tonight, the fact that he has stopped visiting her parents with her, the fact that he deliberately doesn’t laugh at her jokes, choosing instead to press his lips together, determined not to let a drop of approval out. But she knows what will happen if she does speak up – he will tell her she is being over-sensitive, demanding, unfair. He will say he’s been working all day and that she doesn’t understand that because her school day finishes at half past three in the afternoon and so she has bags of time to while away, of course she does. And then Alice gets to the stage where she thinks he is probably right – he does work hard, she is a needy girlfriend, she does make his life harder than it needs to be. He has told her he loves her – why doesn’t she believe him?
And then there is the flat. They currently rent a flat together in Hackney, and for ages now they have been discussing the idea of buying somewhere. Renting is throwing your money away, Alice’s dad says disapprovingly, which is easy for him to say because her parents bought their Richmond house in the eighties then sold it last year for triple the original price. It’s easy for her dad to tell her that renting is pointless when he and her mother now live down in Cornwall, where a three-bedroom cottage costs less than a grotty little one bed in Hackney Wick. Still, Alice had listened to them – she badgered Tom about it, repeated her dad’s words, told him that they ought to think about buying somewhere. We. It wasn’t as if she could afford it on her own.
So they look at flats and they hate them and they make pros and cons lists and they continue to live in their rented flat, throwing away almost £1,000 a month because they can’t find anywhere decent to live that is remotely within their price bracket. It continues, on and on in an endless loop of snarky comments and subtle words, until sometimes, in the early dawn hours, Alice dares to ask herself why she is thinking of buying a flat with this man anyway, when so often she feels like he hates her.
But she doesn’t say any of these thoughts out loud – she can’t. She loves him. That is the thing, always the thing.
‘Alice?’ Tom is staring at her, now, still nursing the last few dregs of his beer, and Alice shakes her head to clear it, like a dog getting water out of its ears.
She decides to be a grown-up; forces herself to smile.
‘How was work?’ she says to him, and he shrugs morosely.
‘It was fine, I guess.’
Alice waits for him to ask her how school was, but he doesn’t.
‘It’s nice to see the girls,’ she says, and then, meekly, ‘thank you for making time to come.’
‘I said I would, didn’t I?’ he says, and she nods; he did, after all. He’s only stating a fact.
‘Felicity seems keen on the new guy,’ he says, and Alice is momentarily surprised; he isn’t one to comment on her friends’ love lives very often. But it’s good, it’s good he’s showing an interest. Isn’t it?
‘Mmm,’ she says, a bit hesitant, unsure where the conversation is going but relieved that they aren’t snapping at each other, at least. She wants to take another sip of her drink but worries about what he will say. She should’ve just drunk more before he got here, she thinks sourly. She’ll know for next time.
‘You seem quite keen on him too,’ Tom says, and the words hit her with a dull, disappointing thud: ah, so that’s where this is going. He isn’t looking at her as he says it, he’s looking down into his drink, churlishly swirling the remnants of beer around. Alice watches the amber liquid churn, counting from one to ten in her head, willing herself not to get upset, not to say anything that might make this situation worse. Sometimes, she can snap him out of these moods, remind him why he loves her, make him laugh, or just soften. Occasionally, that happens without her realising; something in him will alter and Alice won’t quite know why, she will just breathe an inward sigh of relief that it has.
‘Tom,’ she says gently, and she lays her fingers flat on the table, feels the tiny splinters of the damp wood under her fingers. She could slide her hand across to his, unwrap his fingers from around the glass, squeeze them in hers. She thinks about doing this, but doesn’t.
‘The way you’re looking at him. It’s embarrassing. I don’t know why you were so desperate for me to come here tonight if you’d planned to spend the whole evening flirting with your best friend’s boyfriend. A man you’ve literally only just met.’
His lip curls slightly as he speaks, and he emphasises the word literally.
Alice says nothing, trying to think. She wants Grace and Hannah to appear back at the table, with their smiles and their warmth, but neither of them does, and everyone else in the courtyard is too far away from them to be able to hear what they are saying. You’re being ridiculous, Alice thinks, you don’t need witnesses, nothing bad is happening to you. It’s just your boyfriend, being a little bit jealous, that’s all. It’s because he loves you. It’s all because he cares.
But she can’t shake the feeling that she wishes someone else was around.
‘Are you not even going to deny it?’ Tom asks her, and this time he does look up, he brushes his hair out of his eyes – it’s getting long, Alice thinks absent-mindedly, her brain frantically scrambling for something else to think about other than this conversation – and his eyes when they meet hers are like hard, sharp flints in his face. Emotionless.
‘Tom,’ she says, ‘there’s nothing to deny. Of course I’m not flirting with Nathaniel.’ She pauses, watching his face, waiting for the moment the lines in his forehead ease up and his features settle. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
It’s those words that push him over the edge. Don’t be ridiculous. She should have known; the minute they are out she is frantically wishing she could retract them, cursing herself for being so stupid – Tom hates to be criticised, and more than anything he hates his intelligence being questioned. Ridiculous was a bad choice of word, a very bad choice of word.
> ‘I am not,’ he hisses, and he leans towards Alice, so that their faces are close together across the pub table, so close that she can see the little dots of red in the corners of his eyes, smell the beer on his breath. ‘I am not – being – ridiculous.’
She doesn’t know what it is, whether it’s the horrible scent of the alcohol on him, the hint of violence in his words, or the last sips of wine finally hitting her bloodstream but something inside Alice pushes back at this, a small resistance that forms behind her eyes and takes over her mouth.
‘Oh, Tom,’ she says, ‘you’re being worse than ridiculous now. You’re being stupid.’
Anger flashes in his eyes and before Alice can do anything about it, he reaches out a hand across the table and grabs hold of her upper arm, squeezes it tight, tighter. She gasps, the blood rushing from her face at the shock of it – Tom’s never laid a hand on her before, no matter how bad things between them have got, words are always his weapon of choice. He’s never touched her like this before, and so the feeling of his fingers digging into her flesh is both painful and surprising. Alice looks down at his hand; his knuckles are whitening, and for a second it is as if she is floating, above the table, above the smoky, cold courtyard, above the Red Lion pub and all the memories it holds, and she is looking down on herself and Tom, watching them from the inky, starry sky.
Alice can see the gleam of her hair, the glow of the heaters, and Tom’s dark slick of a head, the bagginess of his hoodie on the arm that is outstretched, gripping onto her. Hurting her. So this is where it starts, she thinks. The question is, where will it end?
And then she is back in her body and her whole arm is throbbing, and hot, embarrassing tears are pricking at her eyes and Tom is letting go, he has bowed his head, he is muttering something under his breath.
Alice thinks he’s saying sorry.
But she is not listening to him, now, she is getting to her feet and standing up, a bit wobbly but determined; she doesn’t want to be near him, she wants to be on her own.
‘Alice,’ he says, but she doesn’t answer, she turns away from him, shaky in her stupid new boots that aren’t impressing anyone, and she walks towards the pub, back to the toilets, her arm sore and painful from where he dug his fingers in as hard as he possibly could.
And that’s when Alice bumps into Nathaniel.
Grace
‘Where have you two been?’ Felicity pounces on us at the bar, chinking her glass of prosecco against our G and Ts with a flourish. Trust her to be drinking fizz – for her, tonight is a celebration. The moment when her lover collides with her oldest friends. She doesn’t know that I’ve been plunged into a nightmare – she doesn’t know the man she’s dating at all.
‘There was a long queue for the bar,’ Hannah says quickly, and I nod, my mouth dry. It seems easier to go along with it than do anything else. My tongue feels too big for my mouth, as though I can’t swallow properly, and I am overwhelmed by the absurd feeling that I might choke. I put a hand on the sticky wooden bar, trying to steady myself.
‘Are you OK now, Grace?’ Felicity asks, peering at me worriedly. ‘You went a bit weird outside when Nate arrived. Did you feel dizzy? Too much gin?’ She laughs, a high, tinkling sound that grates on me.
‘She’s fine now,’ Hannah says, firmly, and I think about protesting but cannot quite find the energy. I feel as though I am drowning, as if inside I am screaming as loud as I possibly can, but nobody in this entire, packed pub can hear me. Sweat breaks out on my skin.
‘So.’ Felicity leans into us, her expression conspiratorial. Her blonde hair falls prettily in front of her face and she pushes it back impatiently. ‘What do you think of him, Grace? Hannah, are you going to come out and meet him?’ She pouts, like a child, and Hannah grins.
‘Lead the way.’
I am saved from answering the question. I don’t know how I would begin to answer it. As we walk to the back door of the pub, I feel as though I’m marching towards my execution; dread makes my legs heavy, but I cannot think of an escape. I have to find a way to talk to Felicity, to tell her the truth. Or perhaps I should tell one of the other girls first, get them on my side? An image of my mother glaring at me comes to my mind – what will I do if they don’t believe me either?
When we get outside, though, to my intense relief there is no sign of Nathaniel. Instead, we find Tom sitting moodily at the bench on his own, an empty pint glass in front of him, his hood up so that the sight of him is slightly threatening; for a second, it distracts me from the dilemma in my head. He looks up when he sees us, pushes the hood back off his face, and there is something odd in his gaze, a sense of guilt, as though we have just caught him doing something he shouldn’t have. I go to my handbag, reassured to find it intact, my hands shaking slightly as I pull it over my shoulder. Hannah can’t make me stay here, not with what I know. I need to get away. I have an urge to be back down in my houseshare in Peckham, the duvet pulled firmly over my head, blocking out the world in the way I have tried to do ever since that night, the night I met Nathaniel Archer for the very first time.
‘Grace, sit down!’ Hannah says, reaching out and grabbing my hand, pulling me down onto the bench next to her. Felicity is looking around anxiously, clearly in search of Nathaniel, and Tom is barely speaking, grunting when Flick asks him where Alice is.
‘You’re supposed to be my drinking buddy, remember?’ Hannah is acting strangely; the alcohol has loosened her and her usually sensible attitude seems to have been laid to rest for the night. Whatever was bothering her earlier has clearly been put to one side; either that, or she is drinking to forget.
I know what that feels like.
‘Actually, ladies, I think I’m going to call it a night,’ Tom says abruptly, standing up and pulling the hood of his jumper back up over his head, the sleeves down over his hands. With his face partially obscured, he looks menacing, and even though I know that this is Tom, Alice’s Tom who wouldn’t hurt a fly, something stirs within me; a little spin of unease.
Felicity makes a face at him, a sort of pout, tells him not to be silly, that he must stay and catch up with us all. She’s always been able to wrap men around her little finger, has Flick, but Tom’s face is set, stony. I wonder where Alice is, whether perhaps they’ve had a row. I’ve never properly warmed to Tom in the way that Flick and Hannah have, I find there is a kind of darkness to his humour that doesn’t sit well with me – a harmless darkness, but there nonetheless. When I picture myself with a man – which I don’t do very often, now, a sort of shadowy blank appears in my mind when I attempt to – I don’t picture myself with someone like Tom. Still, Alice loves him, clearly, and that’s all that matters. My opinion of men is no doubt irretrievably warped; Tom is probably lovely and it’s just me that can’t see it. So what if he’s wearing a hoodie – it’s a cold night, after all.
‘Where’s Allie?’ Hannah asks, drunkenly, and to our surprise Tom just shrugs.
‘She’ll want to stay out with you guys. Just tell her I’ve gone, will you?’
‘I thought you were going to stay at mine,’ says Hannah, and Tom ducks his head, doesn’t meet her gaze.
‘Alice will. Tell her I’ll see her in the morning.’ He pauses, and then as if it’s an afterthought, says, ‘Have fun. Look after her for me, right?’
There is gravel in his voice. And then he is gone, vanishing into the night, and the three of us are left staring at each other.
‘Well, he seems a bit pissed off,’ Felicity says, breaking the silence, and Hannah makes a face, rolls her eyes.
‘He can be a bit like that sometimes, I wouldn’t worry about it. Allie knows how to handle him by now. She must be inside.’
‘You didn’t tell me what you thought of Nate,’ Felicity says to me, a dog with a bone. ‘Quick, before he reappears.’ She sighs, dreamily, like a girl out of a sitcom. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous? Honestly, you guys, I like him so much, it scares me a little. He’s so – well, he’s just perfect. I can’t believe
it, really. I have to keep pinching myself.’ She’s looking at me so expectantly, so hopefully, that I almost cannot bear it. My heart begins to accelerate in my chest, making my palms sweat even though the February air is cold, and the later it gets, the icier it feels.
I have to find a way to tell her.
‘God, Flick, you really have got it bad,’ Hannah says, and for a second she looks wistful. ‘Make the most of it while it lasts, I’d say – once you get into it for the long haul you’ll miss the headiness of the first few weeks; believe me, I know. Once you start farting in front of each other and discussing who’s going to put the washing away, some of the passion starts to die – it’s not me being mean, it’s just a fact.’ Her words are beginning to run together a little bit, sliding into one another like rain into a puddle – drip, drip, drip.
Felicity looks a bit uncomfortable, as though safe in her bubble she doesn’t want to hear any of this, but Hannah persists. ‘And then,’ she says, taking another sip of her drink, ‘when you start to talk about kids – well, once you get into that, it becomes a routine – mechanics, something to get through in order to bring about an outcome. The least sexy thing in the world. And then, when it doesn’t work…’
She trails off, and I see the moment that she realises, the point at which she remembers who she is talking to, picks up on her terrible mistake.
‘Shit,’ she says, uncharacteristically – Hannah never swears – ‘I’m so sorry, Flick. I wasn’t thinking.’
The air between us feels frozen, time suspended until Felicity replies. I let out a breath as she gives a quick, tight smile; I hadn’t realised I’d been holding it.
‘It’s fine,’ she says, ‘really, it’s fine.’
‘No,’ Hannah says, ‘I shouldn’t’ve – God, what an idiot. Me and my big mouth. I’m sorry, Flick.’
The Wild Girls Page 19