by Mike Gayle
The lead Scoutmaster, a man called Mr George, suggested Sellotaping the arm back on. Mr George had obviously never been a teenager because otherwise he would have realised how stupid his suggestion was. Sellotape may have been all right for Galactic Head, but I was only a kid back then. Now that I was thirteen, there was nothing on earth that could make Sellotaped spectacles cool. Thus, I decided, it would be far easier on my ego not to see anything at all, so I spent the rest of the weekend – that’s all of Saturday and most of Sunday – being pointed in the right direction. When I got home, my mum made me go straight to the optician’s to choose another pair of glasses. But how could I? It was like being asked to choose another nose. After three hours in the shop, trying on the whole range of children’s spectacles, I settled on a black pair. I took them home and showed them to all my friends but I couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d always be a second best to the pair I’d broken.
The thing about that weekend without glasses was that what I could see looked really nice. Nothing had any definition about it. Colours merged. It was like constantly being caught in the sort of cheesy soft-focus normally reserved for swooning heroines, all the rough edges smoothed away, all the blemishes blurred out of existence. Real Life seemed far away.
In my retrospective mood, lying in bed staring at the ceiling, I was reminded of the first time that Real Life and My Life collided in my head. I’d just completed a rather excellent picture of my mother. I’d painted her with a red smiling face and blue hair – most importantly of all I’d given her a neck. I’d noticed that those of my peers whose talents lay in the world of art rather than the sand pit, had drawn portraits of their mothers – specifically commissioned for Mother’s Day – without necks. Some had big round heads, others even had hair, but not a single mother had a neck. I knew my mother had a neck, so I gave her a neck. It was a long slender green one. It made me very proud.
After painting time, we were forced into our afternoon nap. The beds were set out in rows across the far end of the classroom. I usually ran to the one by the door so I could feel the draught come in and pretend that I was on a boat at sea. This particular day, I ran to a bed that faced the large window which spanned the side of the room. It looked out onto the trees in the yard near the playground. I wasn’t sleepy but I liked lying down. I could’ve run and jumped and played twenty-four hours a day, but I conceded this battle every time because the afternoon nap gave me a chance to think. Back then I rarely thought proper thoughts because I was too busy playing. Time was always NOW, in big, bold, upper-case letters. The future just wasn’t my concern.
I closed my eyes tightly and waited until I saw the red and orange floaty things that always appeared before my eyes when I did this. They were beautiful, but I could never look at them directly otherwise they disappeared and would only reappear once I’d stopped looking for them. After five minutes or so, I began to think about my mum. She had dropped me off at the nursery, as she had done every day since September. I was completely happy with this arrangement. I had no problem with being left alone with strange adults and a bunch of children I didn’t know. If my parents were trying to give me a head start on the advancement of my social skills then they should have asked me and I could have told them that I got along with everyone.
That morning I’d kissed mum good-bye but as I lay there that wintry afternoon, I began to think about where she was. I couldn’t explain it, but I suddenly wondered if she was real. I’d sometimes dreamt things that felt so real that they couldn’t possibly have been dreams. I once dreamt I could fly and, even now, can still remember what the city looked like from up in the sky and how the wind felt in my hair and against my skin. But when I woke up I couldn’t fly.
Lying on the bed thinking these thoughts, I concluded that my mother was just a really nice dream. I could remember the softness of her cheek that I’d kissed that morning and how smooth the tissue that wiped away her lipstick felt. I could remember her smell, which was warm and summery in contrast to the bleak day it really was. I remembered it all, just like I remembered that I could fly. Right there and then, I convinced myself that my mum didn’t exist, that both she and my dad, my bedroom and toys – all that I loved didn’t exist. Nothing existed except me and what I could see.
I opened my eyes, looked out of the window, saw the branches of the trees blowing in the wind and started to cry. Not loudly for attention, but softly, very softly. My eyes filled up and warm tears ran across my cheek onto the hand resting beneath my head. Within minutes I was in full flow. I felt sad and empty. I was an orphan. The teacher, Mrs Greene, a lovely lady who smelt of Pears soap, gave me a hug and stroked my hair, but I was inconsolable. ‘My mum’s not there! My mum’s not there!’ I shouted through my tears, but it wasn’t actually what I meant. What I wanted to say was, ‘My mum’s not real!’ In the end I cried so much that she had to call my mum at work from the telephone in the school office. When she explained to my mum what the problem was, she passed the telephone down to my outstretched hands to let me speak to her. As soon as I heard her voice, the tears stopped. My mum was real. It wasn’t a dream. Everything was all right.
1.05 A.M.
I’m in my flat, only it’s not my flat. It’s a better one but not too flash – let’s keep it within the realms of reality. And for argument’s sake let’s say that I’m still in London and I’m still teaching – although why I don’t know. The flat’s tidy and the cold water tap on the kitchen sink works. My records and CDs are in alphabetical order and I’ve got a state-of-the-art flat screen digital TV with cable.
Right. I’m busy in the kitchen. I’m chopping parsley and sprinkling it over a dish which I return to the oven for twenty minutes to crispen – well that’s what it says in my Delia Smith cookbook, anyway. Playing in the background is Elvis – Live From Madison Square Garden – it just fits the mood I’m in tonight – triumphant, jubilant, ready to please the faithful. There’s a knock at the door. I brush parsley from my hands and slip on my jacket which has been sitting on the back of a kitchen chair. As I enter the hallway I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Looking good. I’m wearing a dark blue suit from Paul Smith. It looks expensive but not obscene, chic and ‘with it’. No, scrub that. The suit’s too formal – where am I going? A funeral? No. I’m in something casual that could only have been bought on a shopping trip to New York. Let’s see. A checked Calvin Klein shirt and a pair of Chinos from Bloomingdales. No, no, no, no, no. It’s just not me – only models in GQ wear that sort of stuff. Okay, I’ve got it. I’m in a plain white T-shirt and a pair of old Levis and – here’s the best bit – I’m not wearing any socks! Nice touch, she used to like my feet.
I open the door and there is Aggi.
For a millionth of a second neither of us moves, frozen in time and space, our eyes saying more than words can communicate. I’m overcome by a sick and dizzy sensation that doesn’t last very long as it is soon overwhelmed by euphoria. I wrap her in my arms and squeeze. Her warm tears trickle down the back of my neck. I pull my head back, still pressing her close to me, and look deeply into those big, bad, beautiful, deep-green eyes I’ve missed so much.
‘William . . . William!’ she sobs. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Saying nothing, I increase the pressure of my grip so tightly that she almost feels faint, but she doesn’t resist, in fact she wants me to hold her tighter, because my embrace is declaring aloud the one thing she most wants to hear – ‘I forgive you.’
I relax my grip around her slender waist as she takes my hand and looks down, ever deeper, into my soul.
‘I thought I could live my life without you,’ she says, trying desperately to hold back her tears. ‘I can’t. I’ve tried and I can’t do it, Will. I’ve been so unhappy for so long. I thought you’d never forgive me. These last three years without you have been awful. I’ve been to hell and back.’
No. Definitely too melodramatic. More Barbara Cartland than Brontë. Okay, take it from, ‘these la
st three years without you have been awful. . .’
‘As soon as I’d ended our relationship I knew that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.’ She stops, her eyes well up with tears and her bottom lip trembles. The pause is not for dramatic effect – it’s for mercy. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me right now. Really, I have no right to be here. I gave up that right the moment I extinguished our love. But do you think that we could . . .? Do you think that we’ll ever . . .?’
She notices how little I’ve said. The tears flow rapidly. ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she screams. ‘You hate me, don’t you? Don’t you?’
I throw her a look I’d seen Nicolas Cage use on Laura Dern in Wild At Heart: intense, deep and unambiguous as if to say, ‘Baby, you’re mine – I’m yours – forever!’
She tells me she’s grateful I’ve invited her around for dinner. She says that she didn’t think I’d agree to see her. And I say something like, ‘Why ever not?’ And she looks down at her lap and then at her skirt, as if realising for the first time just how much she’s let herself go. Though I hate to agree, she doesn’t look like her old self. She knows it. I know it. And she knows I know it. It’s almost as if she’d gone to her wardrobe and plucked out her best glad rags to realise that she was only half right. While reassuring her that she looks wonderful, I pull out a tissue from a box of Kleenex man-sized on the coffee table and gently dab the tears away. At one point, she smiles at me gently as my hand accidentally brushes against her cheek.
We move into the lounge. I offer her a seat on the sofa next to me. I get the feeling that she wants to move closer and very slowly she edges her body nearer to mine. Just at the moment she’s close enough for me to feel the warmth of her breath against my skin, the radiation from her body and the smell of her perfume – Chanel No 5 – I evade her intimacy, announcing that I’ve got to look after the food.
Right, let’s skip the boring bits and get to the point where we’re just about to eat. On the plates (from Habitat) are a wild mushroom and yellow pepper lasagne, and a selection of vegetables. Not your plain and simple peas and carrots affair, no, these are the kind of exotic veggies Sainsbury’s have in little white containers covered with cling film. She tells me that I shouldn’t have gone to all this effort because she’s not a vegetarian any more, and I tell her that the effort was all for me, as I’ve not eaten meat in roughly three years.
I pour her a glass of red wine and tell her how this particular blend of grapes will complement the food wonderfully. I’m tempted to let her cup overflow symbolically but I don’t. She says ‘When’ absent-mindedly, just as the wine reaches the edge of the glass. I pour myself one, our eyes meet, she raises her glass to her lips and is just about to sip when she says, ‘What am I doing?’ Her glass in the air, she says triumphantly: ‘Here’s to us! Here’s to love conquering all!’
We clink glasses.
We’re in the lounge again, back on the sofa. Two table lamps illuminate the room, creating a ‘relaxed’ atmosphere. There’s no music in the background, although it does cross my mind to put on something laid-back like Tori Amos or Kate Bush. We sit down and I light a cigarette, not because I want one, but because I want her to know that I now smoke. Things have changed. Things have moved on. I’m the same man she fell in love with and yet different.
She tells me how dismal her life has been without me. How she gave up on her aspiration to be a social worker to work as an office junior in a firm of accountants. Recalling how her life lost direction after she dumped me, she sobs that she has felt adrift ever since. She even confides that despite her best efforts she has been unable to form a relationship with anyone new – ANYONE AT ALL . . . okay, one bloke, but she didn’t sleep with him . . . okay . . . there have been a few: Paul, Graham and Gordon but none of them understood her like I did, especially Gordon who had ginger hair and Paul who had taken her to see Chris Rea twice against her will. I hold back the information that I’ve been dallying with a few girls’ hearts, but she can see – Aggi can see them dancing in my eyes. And what she can also see is that I was over her the minute she told me it was over. Maybe even earlier.
The phone rings. I ignore it. Aggi moves to answer it and I hold my hand up, signalling that whoever is calling is nowhere near as important as she is. The answering machine clicks on and a refined voice – not altogether dissimilar to that of Audrey Hepburn – says, ‘Hi, Will! It’s Abi here. I just wanted to have one of our late-night chats but you’re not in! What’s a gal to do? Oh well. What are you doing next Thursday? I’ve got tickets for the theatre. It’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. It’ll be wonderful. Do say you’ll come. We can have dinner at my place again afterwards. Ring me soon. Please! Bye!’
Aggi and I sit in silence. She takes my hand and places it between her two. They look small and artistic, just the right length for piano playing and stroking my hair. Thankfully she has stopped biting her nails. The wine flows freely and we chat and laugh and flirt with each other avidly until the Moment arrives. I know it’s coming, I can see it a mile off. Once again, she slides herself closer to me, I feel the warmth of her chest pressing against mine, her eyes are closed, her faced turned towards me, her pale sensitive lips pursed to perfection and I prepare myself to relive all our kisses and . . . nothing. Nothing happens.
1.17 A.M.
The phone rang, denying me the opportunity to wallow in the depressing inadequacy of my imagination. I wondered who it could possibly be, but after a few seconds I made the decision to stop wondering, on the grounds that it was both pointless and stupid. I tried to argue back that neither of those reasons had ever stopped me before but I ignored myself and answered the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s only me.’
It was Martina.
I checked my watch, trying to gauge how outraged I should be. This late at night most normal people would either be a) not in b) fast asleep or c) having sex. As I wasn’t normal I wasn’t doing any of them – but I wasn’t going to miss out on a sterling opportunity to lose my rag, dump Martina and fill the yawning chasm of boredom stretching out in front of me. This was obviously some sort of gift from above – maybe I’d done something right today.
‘Martina,’ I began. ‘It’s nearly three in the morning. Why are you telephoning me at three in the morning? Are you insane? I thought it was my mother ringing to say that my Gran was dead. How can you be so cruel?’
I don’t know how I managed to say all that without laughing. I especially liked the bit about it being ‘three in the morning’ – exaggeration always was my favoured weapon in wars of words.
Martina was so stunned that she literally didn’t know what I was talking about.
‘I . . . I . . .’ was all she managed in her defence.
‘You what, Martina?’ I looked around for my conscience. It was nowhere to be seen. ‘It’s three a.m. Martina. You can’t go phoning people at three a.m. Look, this has got to stop. Yes, I know we had a wonderful time last Saturday. And I’ll always remember it.’ I wondered where my conscience had got to and decided it must have had an accident and drowned in one of the many pools of self-pity dotted around my internal landscape. This was the kind of mean-spirited, hard-hearted, totally selfish, self-centred thing that Simon would do. Finally, after all this time I was totally and utterly devoid of guilt – I was Sean Connery as James Bond. I could love them and leave them and not care because, at last, I didn’t give a toss about anyone but me. Shaken and not stirred! ‘Martina,’ I continued, limbering up for the kill, ‘I’ve got to tell you something. Look it’s not you it’s . . .’
‘I’m late,’ said Martina abruptly.
‘It’s nearly four in the morning,’ I replied, ‘of course you’re late. London’s not in a different time zone, Martina, half four in the morning in Nottingham is half four in the morning here too. This isn’t Australia, you know.’
She made small confused noises to herself. My efforts at biting sarcasm were obviously falling
upon deaf ears.
Martina sighed heavily. ‘I’m late, Will. As in, you know, late.’
I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was on about. After some moments of confused silence I concluded she’d either finally parted company with the last of her depleted stock of marbles, or she’d been helping herself to her mum’s Harvey’s Bristol Cream.
‘Martina,’ I continued, ‘I know you’re late. I’ve got a watch. The big hand’s on twelve and the small hand’s pointing at the five. You don’t need to tell me you’re late.’
‘Will, I’m . . .’
‘If you tell me one more bloody time that you’re . . .’
‘Pregnant.’
I nearly coughed up my lungs in shock. This was quite literally the last thing I’d expected. The events of last weekend had been consigned to the annals of ancient history as soon as they’d occurred. And now I was being called back to take responsibility for something that, mentally speaking, happened decades ago. The entire point of one-night stands was supposed to be that they lasted one night. They were not allowed to come back seven days after the event and tell you they were . . .
‘Pregnant?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘But how?’ I cried sulkily.
She started a sentence which I believe, had I let her finish, would’ve given me the text book explanation similar to the one I’d received thirteen years ago from Mr Marshall, my school biology teacher.
‘Don’t, Martina,’ I said firmly. ‘Just don’t.’ Huge droplets of sweat jettisoned from my every skin pore, so much so that my hands, wet with perspiration, lost all grip. The phone slipped from my grasp, smacking against the edge of the bed on its way to the floor. I sat and stared at it, carefully listening to the sound but not comprehending the meaning of the miniature Martina coming from the earpiece.