It's About Love

by Steven Camden

  Everything’s quiet. Just the thump in my chest.

  I need a tea.

  INT. – NIGHT

  Duvet stirs at the edge. A foot, an ankle, a girl’s leg. Painted toes reach for the floor.

  The smallest sounds seem louder in the middle of the night.

  Unscrewing the lid on the milk. The rollers on the cutlery drawer. Even the tea bag landing in the mug, like a heavy snowflake.

  The oven clock says 03:33. I stand waiting next to the sink. My foot doesn’t hurt any more.

  In the dark window I see myself. I am getting big. The clear outline of my chest muscles. My upper arms thick and starting to define. The ridges above my hips cutting inwards, then down behind my jogging bottoms.

  I look strong.

  As the kettle boils I hold my hands out in front of me, balling fists and tensing every muscle in my upper body, lifting my chin.

  “Looking good, Lukey.”

  I almost fall over. It’s Donna. She’s standing in the kitchen doorway wearing one of Marc’s T-shirts and nothing else. It only comes halfway to her knees. My eyes go straight down to the floor and I see her red toenails.

  I’m half naked. What did she say?

  “Can’t sleep either?” Her voice is soft enough to not need to whisper and I have to grip the seams of my jogging bottoms to stop my hands coming up to cover my body.

  “Make us one too, will ya?” She nods at my mug on the side and I spin round to get another from the cupboard. Donna’s here and I’m half naked.

  You’re just topless. No, I’m half naked.

  I hear her pull out a chair behind me. I didn’t even hear them come in. If she’s staying over, things must be going well.

  “Is Marc asleep?” I say, pouring the water, seeing her reflection in the window.

  “Like a baby,” she says. “A baby who snores like a lorry and sleeps in a star jump.”

  And I can feel her smile.

  “Sugar?”

  “No, thanks, but you got any biscuits?”

  I reach into the bread bin and pull out the half packet of ginger nuts. “Only these,” I say, holding them up, still not turning round.

  “Perfect,” she says, and I’m ten years old, trying not to stare at her bra. I hand her the mug and the biscuits, then take my mug and go to leave.

  “Sit with me, Lukey? For a minute?”

  So I do. I sit opposite her, elbows on the table to hide more of my body. The difference between topless and half naked is who else is in the room.

  Donna bends her knees and puts her feet up on the chair and all I see are the edges of T-shirt against the skin of her thighs, her arms, her neck.

  What you looking at?

  I grip my mug with two hands and stare at my thumbs.

  “So how’s college?” she says, and I try to make her my big sister. Having a big sister would be brilliant. Somebody who knows more, but doesn’t make you feel like you’re a rubbish version of them.

  “It’s all right,” I say.

  The crack of a ginger nut. Her fingertips brushing crumbs from the side of her lips. Marc’s asleep. Me and Donna are John Travolta and Uma Thurman in the diner scene from Pulp Fiction.

  “So yous two are getting along?” Sip.

  Donna shrugs. “Yeah.” She dunks half of her biscuit and bites it. “He feels different.”

  What does that mean?

  I don’t say anything.

  Donna takes another ginger nut. “Who knows, Lukey, eh?”

  She offers the packet. I shake my head. She puts it down and speaks through a full mouth. “My dad used to say to us, if things don’t alter, they’ll stay as they are.”

  I repeat the words in my head. Whoever’s writing this script is giving all the best lines to everyone else.

  “What about you?” she says. “Did you sort it out with your girl?” She smiles. “Your brother told me.”

  And it should feel awkward. It should’ve cranked the embarrassment up another notch, but it doesn’t. There’s no point feeling embarrassed about something that’s broken.

  “She’s not my girl,” I say.

  Donna leans forward. “But you’d like her to be?”

  Leia’s face in the doorway. Disappointment. My blank phone screen.

  I’m biting the inside of my cheek. “No chance of that now. It’s been made pretty clear. I messed up.”

  “And that’s it?” Her voice is slightly harder. I look at her. Donna from the pub. Marc’s girl.

  “What do you mean?” I say.

  Donna takes out another biscuit and points at me with it. “I mean, handsome, if you really like her, if you actually like her, it’s not done.”

  “It’s complicated, Donna.”

  “Course it is. Everything’s complicated, Lukey. Listen, look at me.”

  I do.

  “What do you see?”

  I don’t know what to say and I want so badly to say something amazing.

  “A girl, right?” she says. I still have nothing.

  “A girl who fell in love with an idiot. A brilliant idiot, but still an idiot. Agreed?”

  Don’t you nod. I nod.

  “Right, so if that’s what I did, does that mean I’m an idiot?”

  I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. No?

  “No.”

  Donna shakes her head. “Of course I’m an idiot. I should be the one in control. The one who says no, you see?” She doesn’t give me time to answer. “But that’s the thing, I’m not in control, am I?”

  She puts another biscuit in her mouth and crunches.

  “But what about choice?” I say.

  Donna thinks as she chews.“You can’t choose a feeling. You can only choose how to act on it.”

  And I’m trying to figure out whether what she’s saying completely goes against what I’ve always been told, or whether she’s kind of saying the same thing in different words. Either way, it feels like it’s helping. I don’t feel like a little kid.

  “So why would you choose to be with an idiot?” I say.

  Donna finishes her tea.

  “Because nobody’s one thing, Lukey. You make a person one thing, and you’ll miss out on everything else that they are. That they could be.” She points at me. “And they’ll always let you down.”

  She stands up and puts her mug in the sink, then walks back over to me. “If you’ve ever had a moment where you felt her feel good with you, like, really felt it, then it’s still a choice. Just give her some time to make it.”

  I’m about to ask more, to get her to explain, be more specific, but before I can, she leans down, kisses me on the top of my head, walks to the door, then stops and turns back. She looks like a film poster.

  “Nothing before its time, handsome.” A smile. Then she’s gone.

  My fingertips trace the top of my head where her lips were as I picture her tiptoeing up our stairs, along our landing, easing the bedroom door open, crossing the room and slipping under the duvet of the single bed, next to my sleeping lucky idiot older brother.

  INT. CLASSROOM – DAY

  A squared horseshoe of faces. Light flickering in a darkened room.

  The sound of gunshots through a silencer.

  Noah’s face as he stares at the empty seat.

  Cut to time lapse of clouds moving above high city buildings as the sun rolls down the curve of the sky.

  EXT. – NIGHT

  The burnt halo of a floodlight.

  Laces pulled tight. The sliding metal of a gate unlocking.

  Shouts of boys.

  I don’t know who picked the teams, but I’m with Zia and Tommy’s on the other side. His cousin Aaron and his workmates make up the rest. Tommy didn’t even look at me as everyone laced up. Now he’s standing in the centre circle of the five-a-side Astroturf pitch, the ball under his foot, looking like a Spartan in an Aston Villa kit. I look across at Zia, he just shrugs and then we’re off.

  Straight away I feel slow. I haven’t played in a w
hile and these lot are used to playing with each other, pinging it around the damp ground, like a pinball. They’re all older and shout constantly, telling each other where to go, what to do. I’m just concentrating on holding my position, guarding the space. Then Tommy’s on the ball and heading straight for me. His feet dance. Step over. Drawing me in. Drag back. I lunge, he skips past, leaving me cold. I feel like a tree. By the time I turn round, the ball’s in the back of the net and he’s slapping the hands of his team mates.

  “One nil,” he says, as he jogs past me, moving back into position.

  And that’s how it goes.

  Every time Tommy gets the ball he attacks me, running through other people just to take me on. I lose track of the score after they’ve got fifteen. It’s like he’s floating. That feeling of watching somebody sing. The music of talent.

  Nobody says anything, but it’s obvious. This is my lesson.

  When they call time, I can feel my lungs, and I get it. I deserve it. Yeah, he pulled a knife, but he would never use it.

  What he did was stupid. What I said was mean.

  Everyone moves off the pitch to let the next game start. People are swigging from bottles of sports drinks, patting each other on the back, shaking hands. I work my way round the other team, pressing sweaty palm after palm. I can feel Zia watching as I approach Tommy, my hand out.

  “Good game, Tom.”

  He gives me the briefest shake possible. “Guess strong’s not the same as fit, eh, Lukey?”

  I can feel him ready to bite back at anything I say. So I just nod. “Guess not.”

  He almost looks disappointed as he turns and walks off towards the car park. I roll my socks down to my ankles and feel the cold on my calves.

  “I’ll speak to him,” says Zia, patting my back.

  The two of us watch Tommy drive off, then start walking towards the bus stop.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” Zia says, looking at his phone.

  “What?”

  Things get darker as we move away from the floodlights.

  “Michelle texted me.”

  It takes me a second to place the name, then I see it, the two of them in the kitchen, her looking at him.

  “I just wanted to … you think … is it cool to text her back?”

  He puts his phone away and looks at me like he just stole something.

  “Course it is, you idiot,” I say, and his face lights up.

  “Yeah? I mean, I didn’t wanna, you know?”

  I bump his shoulder with mine. “Do what you like, man. You’re not the one who messed up.”

  INT. – NIGHT

  Smart phone vibrates on the arm of a suede sofa.

  A girl with black bobbed hair opens the message and smiles.

  I hear explosions.

  Donna and Marc are curled up on the sofa watching Rush Hour, I can’t tell which one.

  “Where’s Mum?”

  Marc doesn’t look up from the screen. “She’s with Dad. Think they’re talking birthday plans for you.”

  Yeah. Right.

  Donna looks up at me. “You OK?”

  Her expression says she means about Leia, like, have I done anything to try and sort it out? My mouth says, “Yeah.” The rest of me tells her I haven’t done a thing.

  “You wanna come sit with us?” she says, patting the sofa next to her. I pull at my sodden T-shirt.

  “Thanks, but I need a shower.”

  “I made casserole,” says Marc. “It’s in the pot in the oven.”

  Chris Tucker swings Jackie Chan round like a rag doll to kick a bad guy in the face.

  INT. – NIGHT

  Condensation on a mirror. Running water. The edge of a hand.

  An arm curved around a knee. Naked thighs.

  A body folded in half, lying down in the shower.

  You’re taller in the morning. That’s just science.

  The decompression of your vertebrae and cartilage as you sleep.

  The chance for your body to recover. To grow. Fact.

  The best time for your body is when you’re unconscious.

  Doing nothing allows space, and in that space, you take the steps to move forward. Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing you can do. Right?

  Everybody’s dead.

  Except Arnie, of course. And his daughter. And the pretty lady from the airport, who just happened to get dragged into the chaos.

  The end credits of Commando roll up the screen, but I’m not really watching. I can’t remember when Saturday mornings switched from SpongeBob to Schwarzenegger, I just remember enjoying Marc letting me be part of it.

  Him and Donna are still in bed. I’m guessing Mum is too. She wasn’t back when I went to bed. I bring up Leia’s number on my phone and stare at the numbers behind the fracture in the screen.

  What’s she doing right now? Really? Again? What’s the point?

  Fine, what’s Tommy doing? It’s Saturday morning. Tommy’s asleep.

  Dad? Asleep.

  What’s Zia doing? Are you gonna go through every single person you know?

  He’s probably texting Michelle, trying on different outfits for when he meets her later.

  I click off the TV and just sit, in the corner chair, staring out through the net curtains. My eyes close and I’m on the street.

  I’m driving and I can see the flats to my right. I pass the petrol station, pass City Road and hit the dual carriageway. The sun’s doing its best to bleed through clouds and the roads are still Saturday-morning empty. I’m on my college bus route, the scenery moving past me like familiar photographs. I approach the cricket ground and, instead of going straight on, I turn left towards Cannon Hill Park.

  The houses get bigger and the colours seem to deepen and the roads have more trees. Red and brown leaves pasted on to the floor by the damp. I take a left and slow down, rolling to a stop outside her house. I move up the front path, then up, past the door, above the ground-floor bay window and red bricks, to the bedroom, through the glass, and there she is. She’s sitting on top of her duvet, propped up by thick pillows, her notebook resting on her thighs as she writes. Dark T-shirt. Stonewashed jeans. Hair in a bun. Perfect.

  She looks up, like she heard something.

  Then I’m there. Standing at the end of her bed. She doesn’t even look shocked.

  “Took your time, Skywalker.” She’s smiling, and I can feel myself filling up with calm.

  Cut.

  Empty living room. Just me. Staring at my cracked phone screen. Luke Henry. The idiot who thought he could be different to those who came before him. Who wanted to be. Pretended he was, pulling a rug over the fact that he’s exactly the same.

  Push button. Delete contact? Yes/No.

  Why did I have to break everything?

  I don’t deserve her. Yes.

  Contact deleted.

  INT. SUPERMARKET – DAY

  Bearded man holds a shampoo bottle in each hand. One expensive designer. One own brand. He weighs them like he’s checking fruit.

  I’m pushing a trolley.

  As I lean on the back, the front wheels lift up and I’m thinking I could probably lift this thing clean off the ground and how far could I throw it?

  Marc gave me a list of stuff to get and I was happy to get out of the house. The supermarket’s full of old people taking six hours to choose a melon. I could push off and plough these lot down like dusty skittles.

  Courgettes.

  I see Pete, the manager, near the deli counter. He’s giving some blonde girl a lecture about how to arrange the cooked meats. Dickhead.

  I doubt he’d recognise me even if Iwalked right up to him, but I turn back down the fruit and veg aisle and loop round to avoid him.

  Brown rice.

  I think about Simeon. Is his face marked? His perfect skin? Has he been working out in the mirror, telling himself he’s gonna kill me when he sees me?

  Sesame oil.

  Then I see Noah.

  I hang bac
k, so I don’t catch him up. Last thing I want is some strained conversation about missing the lesson yesterday, or even worse, questions about Leia.

  A young mum passes the end of the aisle, pushing her trolley with one hand, dragging her sobbing toddler behind her with the other. Zia’s probably somewhere with Michelle, giggling and sharing a milkshake, avoiding saying my name in case it kills the mood.

  “Afternoon.”

  He came up behind me. For a split second I consider pretending I didn’t hear him and just walking away.

  “All right?” I say.

  “I’m all right, how about you? Missed you again yesterday.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  I look past him towards the tills.

  “I spoke to Leia.” Please don’t ask anything. Please just leave it.

  “I guess you’ll be working by yourself now?”

  My stomach’s twisting. Read my face, Noah. Leave me alone.

  I take a can off the shelf. It’s coconut milk.

  “If it’d help to talk, I’m happy to,” he says, and I picture swinging the can round into his face. Would he be quick enough to block it?

  “I’m fine, thanks.” I drop the can into my trolley. “I’ll see you later, Noah.”

  “Luke.” He puts his hand on my arm. I look at it. Then at him. He’s smiling. “Sometimes, when things don’t work out, it’s good to go back to the start, to what you know.”

  “Like you did?” I watch his face change at the tone in my voice. I’m facing him now. He’s like, half an inch taller.

  “I’m sorry?” he says, staying calm, but I can feel him setting himself.

  I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “No.” He stares at me. “What did you mean?”

  Really, Noah? Here? In the supermarket? Fine.

  “I mean, is that what you did? Was that coming back to the start?”

  My hand squeezes my trolley bar like I’m trying to break it off.

  Noah shakes his head. “I still don’t get you. You might need to break it down for me, sensei.”

  He wants it. I can feel my pulse.

  “What happened?” I say. “You write this film, you get out, move away, probably get all kinds of chances to do more films, and yet here you are, back here, teaching a bunch of snotty kids in a Portakabin. Shopping on your own on a Saturday afternoon.”

  “You’re shopping on your own on Saturday afternoon.”