What about us?

by Jacqui Henderson

  “Grace...”

  I interrupted him. “Please don’t say that it’s complicated.”

  That overused phrase made me feel stupid, as though everyone else always understood ‘complicated’ things, only lumpy Grace couldn’t.

  “I wasn’t going to.” he said slowly. “The explanation is actually remarkably simple, but that doesn’t make it any easier, or even right.”

  “Can’t I be the judge of that?” I asked, “I mean before you disappear again. Don’t I even get the chance to understand?”

  It was so easy for me to be honest with him and just say whatever popped into my mind without having to think it through first.

  He nodded slowly. “Yes, you deserve that. Actually you deserve much more, but I can’t give you more.”

  “That’s ok Jack, really it is. I never expected any of this, but understanding will help. Then you can go back to wherever and not feel guilty about anything.”

  And I meant it, really I did. I knew I had no claim on him, but I was sure that if I understood something about the life he couldn’t or wouldn’t share with me, I could just hold onto the memory of this day and that would be nice. I mean, it wasn’t as though we’d done anything wrong; we’d just held hands and spent a day at the seaside together.

  Nothing about him gave me the impression that he was married; he didn’t wear a ring and he didn’t behave in the way that the other married men I’d seen with my Nan or my Mum did. But maybe he was, or at the very least in a relationship with someone more like him, someone he didn’t want to give up and that was ok, natural even and I could handle that.

  The waitress, in her neat black pinny and white apron, brought a pot of tea and two china cups and saucers. There were some slices of what looked like home-made cake on a china plate that was decorated with tiny blue flowers. They were almost the same colour as his eyes and I wondered if they were periwinkles. It was all so lovely and so unlike anything in my normal day.

  I poured the tea, the way I’d seen in films and waited.

  “That first time I met you, I was there for work.” he said. “I’m a sort of historian or maybe more a sort of journalist, the lines get blurred sometimes. I was just making notes and taking pictures, that sort of thing, when I saw you walking. You were lost in your own world, but there was something about you that made me watch you. On the one hand, a bit silly of me really, but a bloody good job on the other that I did!

  “Anyway, as I told you before, I thought you had stepped in front of the car on purpose and it just seemed so senseless. I acted without thinking. I ran, grabbed you and knocked you out of the way. I’m usually more subtle when introducing myself.”

  He smiled at me ruefully and I found myself smiling back.

  “Then once we were in the cafe I found I was enjoying myself. Actually, you’re very easy to be with Grace. I can just be myself and generally speaking, I err, well, I’m a bit shy and awkward around people I don’t know.”

  “That I can understand.” I said, interrupting him. “Not about you, but about me. I find it really easy being with you, too.”

  I looked across at him and saw that he understood, because he smiled.

  “Well, a cup of tea just to make sure you were ok turned into dinner and when I left you, I told myself that I wouldn’t see you again; that it wasn’t fair on you. I’m not even based in this country you see. I spend all of my time travelling; that’s my job and I rarely go to the same place twice. For one thing it’s usually against the rules and for another there’s always so much to do, so many other places to go to.”

  “They sound like funny rules to me.” I muttered.

  I didn’t know much about journalists, archaeologists or historians, except for what I’d seen on the telly, but from what I could recall, they seemed to spend a lot of time going to the same place. He shrugged. Again, it was as though he could read my thoughts.

  “Yesterday,” he said, continuing with his explanation, “I was somewhere really horrible. I won’t go into the details, but it was bad. I’ve seen some bad things in my job, but this... well this twisted me up inside. It made me question the whole ethos of only watching; just witnessing. I had to get away from there and I realised that all I wanted was to be with you. In all the time that has passed since our first meeting, I’ve thought of you often, so today I broke the rules and came back.”

  He sighed heavily and looked down at his plate. “But I can’t stay.”

  Some of what he said made sense to me, some of it didn’t, but I just knew, intuition you could call it, that he was telling me the truth. I knew then why he’d said goodbye so seriously that first time and I sensed he would have to say it again and soon. I also knew that this time he would have to mean it; for reasons that were clear to him but not to me.

  We’d finished our tea but neither of us had touched the cake. There didn’t seem to be much more to say.

  “Do you have to leave now?” I asked, but again, I think I already knew the answer.

  “I should really, I can go from here just as easily as from London.” he replied.

  “Probably for the best then.” I said, trying to sound happier than I felt.

  There was one of those silly moments when we both spoke at once; each just saying the other’s name and I think we both knew that behind each word was so much more that we wanted to say, but couldn’t.

  “I know, me too.” he said, standing up slowly. “I’ll pay the bill on the way out. Will you be able to get home alright from here?”

  “Of course I will, silly.”

  I tried to sound confident. I didn’t tell him that I’d never been further than Oxford Street on my own and even then, only once or twice.

  He brushed my cheek with his fingers as he left. I watched him pay, go out of the door and walk away... again.

  I sat there for a little while longer. I poured myself another cup of tea and thought about eating a slice of cake, but I didn’t really want to. I was confused and really lost. It was clear that he liked me; he obviously enjoyed my company and yet something was preventing him from even travelling back to London with me. I was certain he’d been telling me the truth, but there had been bits missing. That was why none of it really made any sense to me. There were things that he had held back and I couldn’t help but wonder what they might have been. Eventually, feeling frustrated, I thanked the waitress and made my way out to the street, standing there for a moment, realising that I didn’t know which way the railway station was.

  Suddenly I heard someone call my name and turned round to see Jack coming towards me from further up the street. All my confusion disappeared; he’d come back. I waved and began walking towards him. Then I realised that he was wearing different clothes. He had jeans and a T-shirt on. He also had a leather jacket, one of those fifties style ones and his hair was different; shorter and swept back off his face. I stopped in my tracks. I began to feel angry; I felt that he wasn’t playing fair, that he was messing about with me. He knew how I felt and yet it seemed that there was some sort of game going on, one that I didn’t know the rules to.

  I was torn. Part of me wanted to walk away, never to speak to him again. Another part of me wanted to tell him just how angry I was. I dithered and just stood there, watching him coming down the other side of the street. As he was almost opposite me he began to cross, walking between the parked cars. When he got to the middle of the road he stopped, checked his watch and then the strangest thing happened.

  The whole street shimmered; there isn’t any other way to explain it. It was like that scene in the Matrix film, where Neo has a sense of déjà vu, except this was different. I’m sure I must have blinked, because in that instant it seemed as though everything stopped for the briefest moment and then restarted. Everything was the same but had somehow changed. I felt nauseous and confused, wondering if I was going crazy.

  I scanned in all directions, but Jack wasn’t there anymore. He was gone, just like that. There was no possible way he could
be gone; for one thing he’d been crossing the road right in front of me and for another, there was nowhere to go; no alleyways or buildings that he could have dodged into. I must have stood there for ten minutes, but there was no sign of him. I knew I hadn’t imagined it; I’ve never ‘seen’ anything that wasn’t there in the whole of my life.

  In the end I asked someone for directions to the station and made my way there. I had to wait about fifteen minutes for the train and stood in the middle of the platform, so he could see me if he came back. But of course he didn’t. I got on the train and travelled back to London Bridge through the countryside, only by then it had lost all the magic and pleasure of our outward journey.

  As I walked into the empty flat the first thing I saw was his coat over the chair. I picked it up took it into my bedroom, sat on my bed and had a good cry, feeling thoroughly miserable. Then I folded it up and put it at the bottom of my wardrobe, together with his hat, gloves and scarf. Although I knew he wouldn’t be coming back for any of this stuff, I couldn’t bear to just give it away or throw it out.

  For weeks after that I tried to work out what he’d been trying to tell me. He had a secret, of that I was sure. I knew all the signs; I was a master at hiding things myself. I recognised the way he chose his words and spoke carefully; the way you can speak but say nothing at all that matters. I’d seen the way he glanced at me sideways, when he thought I wasn’t looking, trying to judge what to say and what not to say. I didn’t think that he had lied to me as such, but I was certain that there was something he hadn’t been able to tell me. I was also certain that it bothered him; he wanted to be honest but couldn’t. But no matter how many times I went over our conversations in my mind, I couldn’t find a single clue to what it was. Maybe there was simply someone else in his life that he didn’t want to hurt, or leave, but that just didn’t feel right to me.

  Then there was the ‘shimmering’ thing. That I couldn’t explain, not rationally anyway. As the weeks turned into months, I had to resign myself to the fact that I would never know. I looked everywhere for him, no longer walking with my eyes glued to the pavement, just in case he was around and was shy of calling out to me, but I didn’t see any sign of him and I had no option but to get on with my everyday life. I couldn’t forget him though, because nothing that nice or that strange had ever happened to me before. Admittedly, normally not much ever happened to me, so maybe that’s why it stayed on my mind.

  Even Mum noticed that something was up, which was unusual; she’s never been famous for her observation of other people’s feelings. I suppose I stopped tip-toeing around her. I’d spent my life judging her mood and her moods can change quickly, so I always had to be ready. There was no point in preparing dinner when what she really wanted was a drink, or suggesting that we watch the telly if she was waiting for someone to call. If she’d had too much to drink, which was often the case, her moods could veer back and forth without notice. It wasn’t that I stopped caring; I think I just stopped thinking about her all the time, while still trying to figure out what had happened. Not just the shimmering, but the whole thing was a complete puzzle to me. What bothered me most was why I cared so much about it all.

  There was of course, a price to pay for taking my eye off her and we spent a very long night at the hospital after another of her overdose attempts. Thankfully, I always found her in time and after one of those episodes, for a while at least, we usually became closer as a result.

  They were always caused by the most recent ‘love of her life’ leaving her, often just going back to the wife who demanded less from him. To her, at least when they arrived, they were always ‘the real thing, the one she’d been waiting for’, even though there had been so many over the years. I also knew, even if she wouldn’t agree with me, that just like the number nine bus, the next one would be along shortly; it was only a matter of time.

  Chapter four

  It was just before my twenty-first birthday when I met Jack again. In all that time I hadn’t forgotten him, but a lot had happened to me. Mum had taken up with yet another loser the year before, one who kept her drunk, spent what little money she had to call her own and stole from me as well. We had row after row about Gavin and about a lot of other things too. One day, after he or they had emptied my purse yet again, I found that I’d had enough, so I gathered what few things I had and moved out.

  One of the women I worked with at the home took in lodgers, usually foreign students from the university or medical students from the hospital. She preferred them, mainly because they were only there for a year and were gone during the holidays, but she made an exception for me.

  She gave me a large bedroom; one of the attic rooms at the top of the house. It was big enough for a really comfy armchair and a telly up one end of the room, with the bed under the eaves at the other. There were no windows as such, which made it really cosy, but there was a skylight, so I could still see the stars from my bed if I craned my neck a little bit. It was warm, comfortable and all mine. I’d bought some new stuff too; a couple of blue and yellow throws, one for the bed and the other for the chair. I also bought some framed pictures. One was of the sea at sunset; it appeared to change, depending on the light, so I enjoyed looking at it. I had some nice colourful china things and a mirror with a half moon and some stars painted around the glass. In many ways it was home, a place I liked to be.

  I shared the small bathroom with Natalia, the girl in the other attic room. She was tidy and quiet and came from Madrid, but I can’t for the life of me remember which part and she’d never been away from home before. Her English wasn’t brilliant, but it was good enough, better than my Spanish, which wasn’t hard! Sometimes we watched films on the telly together, or cooked a meal in the shared kitchen with bits from each of our supplies, or we went out for a cheap pizza or a curry. We didn’t eat out very often, because she studied hard and I had to take on more shifts to pay my rent and everything, but it was nice to have someone my own age to talk to and she never asked any of those prying sort of questions about my life. Towards the end of her year she met Mark, so I saw less and less of her, but that was ok too and in the summer she went back home to Spain anyway. Come late September, I would have a new neighbour for a year and I hoped they would be as nice as she was and not too noisy.

  I still checked up on Mum, but mainly when I knew Gavin would be out, which wasn’t often. She wasn’t eating enough and looked terrible most of the time. She cried a lot too, but wouldn’t hear a word said against him. I hated seeing her that way; it made me feel so helpless, but helpless is exactly what I was. It depressed me, but I made myself go at least once a week.

  It was during one of those visits that I reminded her that it would be my birthday in a couple of days; a special birthday at that. I mean twenty-one is a milestone by anyone’s reckoning. She was really low when I arrived. They’d had a big bust-up and he hadn’t been back all night, so she was exhausted and tearful. I should’ve known better than to bring up my birthday; me being twenty-one made her feel old. She’d had me before she was eighteen, so she wasn’t even forty yet, but she looked much older and we both knew it.

  She became impossible, shouting that no one would ever want her now she was old, that he’d been her last chance and now he’d buggered off too. Of course she wasn’t going to want to make any plans to celebrate with me.

  “What’s to celebrate?” she screeched at me. “I ruined my figure and my life carrying you, for all the thanks I ever get. Where are you when you’re needed? Bloody nowhere, that’s where! Go on, get out you useless lump of lard. I can’t stand the sight of you. Go on, piss off!”

  I didn’t want to argue with her; I knew she didn’t mean it, not really, so I just left her to wallow in her misery, while I took mine off home.

  I wasn’t really thinking about anything as I walked to the bus stop. It was dark and drizzling as I passed the cafe where Jack had taken me after my near miss with the car. I had a sudden urge to go in, if only to get out of th
e weather. I hadn’t eaten yet, so I ordered sausages, chips and mushrooms and a large mug of tea and sat by the window; looking out, trying not to think about anything, just watching the cars and the people going past, going about their lives.

  Who could say that theirs were any better than mine? Most of them had their heads down and quite a few were hunched. I mean people always want a better life; everyone, not just some people. At least that’s how it always seemed to me, so maybe nobody really gets the life they think they should have. Thoughts like that never made me feel better though. Just because my life was a mess, didn’t mean that I wanted everyone else’s to be too. I had to believe that some people got a great life, if only so that I could hope that one day it would be my turn.

  I’ve always liked watching that strange glow you get around a street lamp when it’s raining, so I think I’d stopped watching the people and was staring at that. It was at times like that when I really missed my Nan. She’d been so different from Mum and me; tiny and as thin as a rake. She was never able to sit down for more than a few minutes, so her flat was always spotless. She’d smoked the way Mum drank and always had a fag in her hand or hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She’d also been my safe place. I could always go there, she’d always been pleased to see me, at any time of the day or night.

  She’d had six kids and I don’t think any two of them had had the same father. Despite her small size she’d ruled the family with an iron rod and everyone jumped when she told them to. The boys were older than Mum and there were always at least two of them in prison or on parole at any one time.

  “Serves ’em right.” she’d say, “Thieving bastards the lot of ’em. Don’t know where they get it from, not from my side, that’s for sure.”

  She said it so often, that when I was a child I’d hoped that I was from her side, whatever that meant.

  Sometimes I’d ask her about grandpa and she’d say something like, “What do I want with a man under my feet all the time, getting in the way and messing the place up?”