My Legendary Girlfriend

by Mike Gayle

  ‘Lawrence,’ I said, pointing to an overweight boy sitting next to the radiator by the window, ‘I do believe it’s your turn to read today.’

  ‘But, sir,’ he complained, ‘I read last week!’

  ‘And you did such a good job of it that I’m going to get you to do it again this week,’ I replied tersely.

  He was right, of course, he had read last week but given the mood I was in since returning from Victoria Station, I didn’t really care about being fair, nor was I ever likely to.

  As Lawrence commenced reading and the class settled down into some semblance of peace, I sat down at my desk and took the opportunity to gaze out of the window and study the afternoon sky. In spite of earlier meteorological activities, the day had in fact turned out very pleasantly indeed: the sun shone brightly through the oaks, ashes and silver birches lining the playing fields, cottonwool clouds were dotted about the heavens, even the oases of grass amongst the sea of mud that constituted the football pitch appeared to have an added lustre to them. I opened the window to let a little air in. Today, I thought, as the dark clouds of depression slowly lifted from me, is a day possibly worth living.

  I’d actually been sitting on my freedom train. Not at the ticket office or even the platform – on the sodding train – rucksack in the rack above my head; in my right hand, the latest issue of the New Statesman (working that ‘I give a toss about politics’ look to the max), a Marlboro Light in the other and both feet resting on the seat opposite. I was literally five minutes from leaving Victoria Station and fifty-five minutes from becoming the happiest man alive. But it had felt all wrong. Not right. Just All Wrong.

  I tried not to think about it. I looked out of the window, speed-read an article on European federalism, counted the change in my pocket but nothing could shake this feeling. Within minutes I was back on the platform watching the last carriage of the 8.55 to Brighton disappear into the hazy distance.

  I called Kate. Dialling her number felt as natural and as necessary as breathing. I almost forgot why I was calling her – I just wanted to hear her voice. It was some time before she answered. She was just on her way to meet me – too excited to wait any longer – and she’d heard the phone ring just as she closed the door. She’d rushed back thinking the worst – that I’d had an accident and was calling her from hospital, or even worse, that the police had found her number on the body of an unidentified corpse in the Thames. I was sorry to disappoint her.

  Straight to the point was what the situation called for, any side-stepping of issues was only going to cause more pain in the long run. I took a long, slow breath and patted all over my body trying to locate my cigarettes. ‘Kate . . . Listen, Kate. You know that I love you, don’t you? I love you more than anything, but I’ve got to ask you something. I need to know this: if your ex-boyfriend wanted you back would you want to be with him and not me?’

  She was honest enough to mull over the question, which many, myself included, would never have dared. It was strange, she had become so used to the more bizarre aspects of my personality that the question and its abruptness didn’t faze her for a second. I was odd but she loved me. I was bordering on being unhinged and she didn’t care.

  She took her time, which was nice of her. She really was weighing up her answer, in spite of the fact that I was so obviously the low fat option. She’d loved Simon so fervently that it would be impossible for her to lie without my knowing. Her love for him hadn’t fermented into bitterness. Neither had she stopped loving him. She’d simply filed her love away in a box similar to the one I’d put her and Simon in, and now it was open there could be no stopping it.

  ‘Will, I don’t know why you’re putting yourself through this. I love you. Nothing’s changed since yesterday. My ex isn’t going to come back to me. I haven’t got a clue where he is. He could be anywhere. And he certainly hasn’t got any way of contacting me. There’s no point in discussing it, Will. Don’t you see? We’ve been let down by other people but finally we’ve got someone that we trust. We’ve got each other.’

  I was silent. I was right. I lit a cigarette and slipped another fifty pence piece into the pay-phone. Over the station Tannoy a nasally voiced BR employee announced: ‘This is a reminder: Victoria Station is a no-smoking zone.’ I returned my mind to the call. I could think of nothing more to say.

  ‘Will, don’t go all moody on me now,’ said Kate anxiously. ‘We’re nearly there. You’ll be getting on the train. I’ll meet you and everything will be all right.’

  I wanted to believe her. ‘All right?’

  She sighed lightly. ‘All right.’

  I checked my timetable for the next departure. There was another train at 9.35. I slipped the timetable back into my pocket, then took it out, screwed it up and tossed it on the floor. I wouldn’t be on the 9.35 or any other train.

  ‘No, it won’t,’ I said in response to her efforts to comfort me. ‘Everything will not be all right. It’s not happening, Kate. It’s over.’

  ‘Will, don’t do this,’ she said, trying to stop herself from crying. ‘Don’t do this. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. If Aggi told you she wanted you back you’d be there in a shot, wouldn’t you? You can’t deny it!’

  ‘No. I can’t,’ I lied. ‘And neither can you. But at least you’ve got hope.’

  Kate didn’t understand. ‘Will, what’s this all about?’

  Leaning against the back of the telephone booth I slipped gradually to the floor as the will to remain upright left me. The person in the booth next to me, a middle-aged balding man with a sad, pathetic boyishness about his face looked at me with a puzzled expression. I met his eyes – not defiantly, not even passively – I just met them. He removed his gaze straight away and turned his back on me. I returned my attention to the phone.

  ‘Your ex-boyfriend,’ I began lifelessly. ‘His name’s Simon Ashmore. He’s in a band – Left Bank. He used to be my best friend. He’s not now. He wants you back. He says he’s sorry. He says he loves you.’

  Kate began to cry. I stood up. I wanted to run after the train just so I could be there to make everything okay.

  ‘But he said he hated me. He said he never wanted to see me again. Why’s he come back into my life?’

  ‘Because he loves you.’

  ‘But I love you,’ she said.

  ‘And I love you and will always love you. But this isn’t meant to be. It’s not just about love. You said that love’s a random act. It’s true, it can happen anywhere at any time with anyone. But this, this is about being in love with the right person – the right person doesn’t come along twice in a lifetime. You’ve found yours, and it’s Simon, and that makes me happy.’

  She cried her heart out. I told her his number but she wasn’t in a state to listen. When she finally regained her composure I had to wait listening to the sound of telephone static in one ear and London commuters in the other while she searched for a pencil. I gave it to her again. She cried some more. I was determined not to make a scene – I didn’t want there to be any guilt, but neither did I want to belittle the selflessness of this act – so I held back my tears as best I could, which was right up to the moment when she said: ‘I’ll miss you forever.’

  And then I broke down.

  The balding man was so intrigued by my sobbing that he chanced another glance in my direction. Our eyes met but I saw through him, through the telephone booth, through Victoria Station and through London – out into the world at large and the everyday activities that make up people’s lives. This was the end. Through my tears and sobs I heard the pips. I searched maniacally for coins but found none and so resigned myself to saying good-bye in the seven seconds that remained.

  ‘Sir, I’ve finished the chapter. Shall I start the next one?’

  Six.

  Five.

  ‘Er, Mr Kelly?’

  Four.

  ‘Sir! Mr Kelly!’

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  ‘Mr Ke
lly! I’ve finished!’

  End of call.

  ‘Sir! Sir! Mr Kelly!’

  Lawrence had stopped reading and was now trying to get my attention by waving his arms.

  ‘What do you want?’ I barked, annoyed that he’d disturbed my train of thought.

  ‘I’ve finished the chapter, sir,’ he said hesitantly. ‘Shall I carry on?’

  I stood up and approached the blackboard at the front of the classroom. A brief gust of wind caught the letter of resignation I’d been working on and sent it spiralling to the floor. I hastily put it back on the desk and commanded my pupils’ attention.

  ‘You’ve just heard Lawrence read one of the most famous passages in English Literature on the subject of love,’ I said, carefully examining their expressions to see whether Ms Brontë had managed to penetrate their stony hearts. ‘Catherine Earnshaw has just explained to her servant, Nelly, the difference between her love for Linton and her love for Heathcliff. What, if anything, has this made any of you feel?’

  A wall of thirty-two pairs of eyes returned my gaze blankly. I was alone on this one.

  ‘Okay, so that probably is asking a little too much of you,’ I said, surprised that my sense of humour was still functioning. ‘Cathy’s talking about two types of love here: the first is her love for Linton which she says is “like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it. I’m well aware. As winter changes the trees.”’ I paused, studying the activities of my students: Kevin Rossiter was scraping the inside of his ear with a plastic pen lid, Sonya Pritchard and Emma Anderson (now quite ordinary girls in their school clothing) were passing notes to each other and Colin Christie was attempting to suck back a carefully manufactured thread of spittle all the way from his chin to his mouth. ‘But,’ I continued wearily, ‘her love for Heathcliff was like “the eternal rocks beneath. A source of little delight but essential.” Now here’s the good bit; she says, “Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” My question to you, 8B, is this: which kind of love would you prefer?’

  Although I hadn’t intended it as a rhetorical question I hadn’t expected anyone to answer either. In fact I was halfway to writing some suggestions on the board when a solitary arm waved diffidently in the air – it belonged to Julie Whitcomb, the girl who’d been so cruelly spurned by Clive O’Rourke on Friday. Her fellow students shuffled their chairs in order to stare at her in amazement. I smiled at her, giving her the nod to answer.

  ‘I’d like the kind of love that lasts, sir,’ she said, avoiding all eye contact. ‘I’d like the kind of love that lasts forever. It doesn’t matter if it’s plain, it doesn’t matter if it’s ugly. It just has to be there.’ She stopped and fixed her eyes on the novel in her hands, her face glowing redder than Kitty Wyatt’s on a cold day. ‘I’d have Heathcliff’s love over Linton’s any day, sir.’

  I thanked Julie for her contribution. ‘That was an excellent observation. But I have another question, 8B: what about Heathcliff in all this? I don’t want to spoil the book’s ending for you – but let me tell you, if you’re a tall, brooding, gypsy boy made good, it isn’t a happy one. The thing I’d like to ask you – a question I’ll admit I don’t know the answer to – is this: was he right to love her so much when he knew she’d never love him the way she loved Linton?’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ asked Julie.

  ‘I mean it’s all very well Cathy loving Heathcliff “like the eternal rocks beneath”, but isn’t he being just the teensy weensiest bit naive to think that the “higher” nature of the love they shared was in any way a substitute for having her there in his arms? Heathcliff let her marry the man who brutalised him!’

  Julie Whitcomb put her hand up again, shouting, ‘Sir! Sir! Sir!’

  I looked around the room, there were no other signs of life.

  ‘The thing is, sir,’ began Julie, quite obviously speaking from the top of her head, ‘I think that love’s more complicated than we think it is. Sometimes you fall in love with someone that’s just no good for you. It’s not your fault and in a way it’s not their fault either – it just is. And I think that’s what happened here. Heathcliff fell in love with the wrong person. I . . .’ She looked down at her desk sheepishly. ‘Sorry, sir, I finished the whole book over the weekend, sir. It’s just that once I started I couldn’t stop.’ I smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Anyway, I like to think that Heathcliff would’ve found the right person if he’d only looked. I think the right person’s out there for everyone, but you can only see them if you want to see them. The thing is, Heathcliff couldn’t see anybody but Cathy.’

  She buried her head in her book, overcome by self-consciousness. Most of the class were dumbfounded by the depth of her perception, although out of the corner of my eye I observed Kevin Rossiter sucking on the very pen lid he’d been using to clean his ears, Colin Christie eating a packet of crisps and Susie McDonnell and Zelah Wilson leaning back on their chairs whispering to each other – probably remarking how much of a twat I was.

  I looked at Julie Whitcomb, so small, so helpless and yet so wise beyond her years and was moved. Here was someone who wanted to learn, someone who was reading a text and responding to it. This was why I’d become a teacher. I felt a flush of pride and wondered if I was responsible for inspiring her or whether she was merely a freak of nature.

  I agreed with everything she said. It wasn’t just about being in love, it was about being in love with . . .

  ‘The right person!’ I yelled aloud, thinking back to my conversation with Kate. ‘You’re right, Julie. It’s not just about being in love. It’s about being in love with the right person! The right person was there all the time! She was there all the time!’

  The entire class thought I’d taken leave of my senses but as it meant that they didn’t have to listen to me witter on about a book bearing as much relevance to their lives as a Latvian bus timetable, they didn’t care. Smiling enthusiastically at Julie Whitcomb as I approached the classroom door I shouted, ‘Carry on reading by yourselves,’ and ran into the corridor in search of the nearest phone.

  ‘I need the phone,’ I said. ‘It’s an emergency.’

  Margaret the ancient school secretary examined me with an air of studied uninterest. When I was introduced to her at the start of term the first thing she’d said to me, after looking me up and down disapprovingly, was, ‘Don’t think you can use the photocopier willy-nilly, young man.’ Later in the week she’d point blank refused to give access to the stationery cupboard without her being there, and on Thursday she’d told me off for slouching in the corridor. She was pure evil in a tweed two-piece. There was no way she’d let me use the telephone to make a private call, even one that might change the entire course of my life.

  ‘Is it concerning school business?’ she bellowed. ‘The headmaster doesn’t allow private calls, you know.’

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death,’ I said patiently.

  ‘Whose life?’ she replied tersely.

  I studied her face: her thick grey hair in a tight bun; her mean, snaky eyes; her sallow cheeks, thin, tight lips and saggy liver spotted neck. She would’ve looked more compassionate if she’d been carved out of stone. Lacking the energy to even make an attempt to change her mind I ran out of the door and across the playground to the school gates. It took five minutes racing around Wood Green High Street before I finally found a telephone box that hadn’t been violated by Wood Green Comprehensive kids.

  I checked my watch. It was 2.24 p.m. I dialled the number and waited. It rang three times before the answering machine picked up:

  Hello, you’re through to Bruce and Alice . . .

  I checked my watch again. Her flight wasn’t until 4.00 p.m. I still had a chance. I fumbled through my phone book and found her mobile number. It rang six times before directing me to her voice mail.

  I was too late.

  I had no more tears left to cry. I’d finally become immune to life and was comforted by the lack of emotion. It wasn’t that I didn’t care – I did –
I just ceased to see hope where there was none. It was a lesson I was learning three years too late, but it was necessary all the same. As I walked back into school, up the stairs and towards my classroom, I promised myself that I’d never let this happen again. Never.

  As I approached the classroom door, my hand about to press down on the door handle, I noted that the rabble inside were strangely quiet. 8B were never this quiet voluntarily. I decided they were either dead or being babysat by the headmaster. For my own sake I hoped they were dead, because the only other option was that the school secretary had told the Head I’d gone mad and abandoned the class. This, I decided, was the end of the line for me and teaching. I was going to get sacked for sure, which scared me even though I’d made up my mind to resign. I was half tempted to carry on walking down the corridor and go home, but cowardice, I reasoned, was just another form of denial and I’d had about as much as I could take of not facing the facts.

  I opened the door and there in front of the class was Alice.

  She was wearing black jeans and a dark blue fleece-lined jacket, the kind that people who participate in outdoor pursuits wear. Her hair was out of place, as if she’d been running, and her cheeks managed to look flushed in spite of her perpetual tan. She had a rucksack on her left shoulder which she was keeping in place with her right hand. She released her grip, allowing the bag to slide off her shoulder and hit the floor. She didn’t look down, she just stared at me.