by Ray Robinson
As she gushed about her parents, Antony found himself thinking that every child must know that one without the other is less, not more.
Jade was waving a hand in his face.
— Anybody there?
— Sorry. Here.
He pulled her present from his pocket. She peeled the wrapping from the box.
— Jesus, Ant. Is it real jade?
She fastened the clasp of the bracelet, her hands shaking slightly.
— You can tell, he said, by touching the stones. By how cold they are.
— Just like me?
He noticed how she’d stare at him before speaking. She’d blink a few times, her lips opened as she paused, her small nose flaring slightly. And what made her so truly adorable was the fact that she wasn’t even aware how adorable she was. Her eyes unbuttoned him. Uncertain what to say next, he licked his lips, nodded once and went, — Go on.
— You’re such a nice guy, Ant.
— I don’t feel like a nice guy. I feel dead inside.
— But I don’t see you like that. Only you see yourself like that.
He shrugged.
— You’re caring. Thoughtful. Sensitive.
— I’m a mess.
— We’re all a mess. We’re all struggling.
He could hear his heart beat.
— None of us know how to live our lives.
He watched her bracelet slide the length of her forearm.
— Is it too big? I can have it altered.
— It’s perfect, Ant.
She opened her arms and they held each other tightly.
Her voice into his jumper, — Let’s not fall out ever again, eh.
They held each other for while, listening to the sleepy sound of wind whistling through the cupola. She looked up at him, tilting her head slowly, and he felt her soft mouth on his. The heat of her breath. But their teeth clashed and she pulled away quickly.
— What?
John and Moon appeared. The four of them stood silently as the heat of a pheromone-flush prickled Antony’s cheeks.
John signed: So who has the weed?
Antony’s eyes, Jade’s eyes—the cupola was bright with sparks.
* * *
They made their way along narrow, country-dark lanes to the village pub. Antony sat beside John for most of the night, but he couldn’t concentrate on John’s frenetic hands—his mouth tingled, his eyes kept flashing over at Jade’s. Smirks, grins, beams, flashes. Obvious doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The four of them got back some time after midnight to find all the guests had left. Pete, halfway through his bottle of anCnoc, was watching Father Ted and chuckling away to himself.
Antony popped his mirtazapine and that was the last thing he could remember; waking up beside Jade, he freaked: he thought, just for a painful nanosecond, that it was Rebecca, and was thankful he still had his underpants on.
Jade nudged him sleepily. He held her until she nodded back off.
He dressed quietly and considered leaving a note on the pillow next to her. A solitary, emotive X.
Then he saw himself do it: he took a pair of knickers from her bedroom floor and stuffed them into his coat pocket.
* * *
The cab driver said he was on his way back from Bradford and he’d be there in ten. Antony looked up at the house, thinking about the sleeping family inside, thinking he might like a family of his own one day. He’d be Pete and Jade would be Eileen, they’d even have a golden retriever called Biscuit and a deaf raver son and a daughter who wouldn’t know what to do with her life.
But the warm fluffy picture dissolved as soon as he got home:
A pair of slutty six inch heels on the floor.
The montage of women’s faces on one wall.
The closet door open, a length of cordage hanging from the clothes pole.
A crumpled dress on the back of a chair.
He climbed onto the bed and buried his face in Rebecca’s T-shirt.
His tear valves burst their banks. A hot wetness slicked his face.
Inside: he grasped around.
Felt the presence of a hand in his.
She was here again.
But the sudden chill of her absence, a falling feeling that made him gasp,
— WAIT!
* * *
They’re my best friends. Mirroring. Approval. Admiration. He could say the words but they held nothing. He knew this was what other people had, that this was normal. A childhood being noticed, respected. There were times, way back, a handful of moments when he remembered it being just the two of them. Before Lou. Before the permanent glass in his mother’s hand. A time when laughter and light filled the house. But it hurt to remember. Like he was watching another life.
* * *
Bouncers stood in heated doorways watching the season slice the huddled queue with its wintry knife. Luckily John had stuck the three of them on the guest list and so when Jade and Moon eventually turned up the three of them got to queue jump. The club was better than Antony expected, with different deejays and veejays in six different rooms. The place stank of weed and red bull and dry ice, and there were an inordinate amount of crusties shuffling around, and chavvy rave-heads sitting on top of the bass bins, blissed-out and swaying.
They managed to find a good spot in the room where John was deejaying and began caning the drugs. Twenty minutes later, Jade was sat on his lap, burying her face in his neck and sighing hotly, — Coming up?
— Like a bastard.
They stroked each other’s fingers, relaying secret messages.
— Thank you, she said. For sending Eileen the flowers. She was proper made up.
— It’s probably the only Christmas Day I’ve ever enjoyed.
He squeezed her tightly.
— Your parents are tops, he said.
Meaning maybe with you I could be normal.
They held each other’s gaze in a prolonged and nuanced mind-read. They kissed long and deep and he felt something come undone, let go inside. Their brains began to soar and they had to dance. Bodies, limbs, minds entwined, smiling face to smiling face, they buckled themselves in for twists and turns.
* * *
He nipped into an empty cubicle and stood for ages, eyes watering as he strained. A sign above the cistern read: Keep Depressed. It made him giggle. He huffed and pushed for another minute and then filled his water bottle up and wandered back out into the pounding amphetamine beat and found himself in a room playing horrendously stark Speed Garage. He stood and watched bug-eyed teenaged boys twitching spastically in the sweat-foggy air, a multitude of wall-mounted cine-projectors throwing psychedelic images over their starved, cut-tone bodies. And the pretty little clotheshorses up on the podiums, self-satisfied in their strappy little dresses and micro-skirts, their Scary Spice hairdos and old-skool trainers. Things change, he thought. Things become less subtle.
He realised his eyeballs were vibrating.
He wandered for a while until he saw a face he recognised: Bone Head from Cheaper Sounds. Antony went up to him and, quite inappropriately, gave him a tight hug.
Then Antony saw the rest of the employees.
And then he saw Rebecca.
He touched her arm and she looked at her feet.
— Can we talk?
She folded her arms, flooding his heart with love.
— Just for a minute, he said. Please. There’s something I need to tell you.
All the stupid things he’d done, all the trouble he’d caused—it was there in her eyes, striking his heart like hammers.
That hard glitter. That visual silence.
— I’m not going to let you fuck up my night, Ant. Say what you want to say and fuck off. Or better still, leave the fucking club.
He bumped into her in a club and this is what she said: leave.
She nodded at someone behind him. Bone Head. He looked at Antony, looked at Rebecca, then shrugged and walked away.
She seemed t
o say: Just spit it out.
— I’m sorry, he said.
— You’re fucking joking, right?
— I’m sorry for everything.
— And that’s supposed to make it better?
— I’m seeing a therapist, he said.
She laughed. Snarky. Snide. That citric smile.
— I admit, he said. I was depressed.
The way she let her hair cover her eyes, hiding her thoughts.
— I know you’ll never take me back. I know I’ve ruined it forever. But I just want you to know that it wasn’t your fault.
Incredulous.
— It was me, he said. I ruined it. I lied to you. I was just scared of losing you. And I was right, wasn’t I?
You could see the memory unfold in her eyes. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. She moved away but he ran after her and grabbed her arm. She turned and slapped his face in a single, fluid movement.
— Fuck off you FREAK!
— Doesn’t what we had mean anything?
— Does it fuck.
Looking at him with such repulsion, such indignation. He recalled the thick mucus sound of her sobbing as she ran out of the flat the last time. The night in Wales when their eyes locked as they both said yes simultaneously. Yes, let’s make a go of it. Yes.
A tap on his shoulder.
Jade.
— What’s going on?
Idiotically, he smiled. Idiotically, he said,
— Jade, this is Rebecca. Rebecca, this is Jade.
And he was, quite suddenly, alone.
The music stopped. The clubbers kept dancing.
Fake bells began to chime.
They’re shouting, Ten.
They’re shouting, Nine.
They’re shouting, Eight.
* * *
He found himself reading it again – the last email Rebecca sent him, five months before.
SUBJECT: Re: Please talk to me
Drop dead. Get it through your THICK fucking skull that it’s OVER. Please stop phoning me and harassing me or I mean it, I’ll go to the fucking police.
You know, I always thought it was my fault. That I was doing something wrong. I’ve felt like that for over a year now and you knew and said NOTHING. I never want to see you again as long as I live.
Face it, I can never make you happy. I can never give you what you really want. And I don’t want to be in anyone’s fucking closet.
I was getting fucking sick and tired of you anyway. You’ve damaged any future we had together.
Stop mailing. Let go. It’s over.
He watched the blade passing over the pale, soft underside of his forearm, depressing blue veins, willing himself to slice deeper, deeper. Lying on his kitchen floor in a pool of blood? Waiting for hours to slip into an icy unconsciousness? No. He wanted guests sat around a hospital bed. He wanted concerned psychs tapping pens between their teeth, listening intently. Just someone, anyone, to notice.
Tell me about the first time you met your father…
He couldn’t even break the skin.
>Subject: Please talk to me
>
>This doesn’t have to be the end Rebecca. It really doesn’t. We
>can still make a go of things. We can still talk through this.
>Our love is too important to throw away. I’ll change. Why did
>you say you’d fucking marry me if you knew you didn’t love me?
>Just fucking TALK TO ME!
>
>Please. I will always, always love you.
>A
The come-down was oppressive. His serotonin had been gang raped, his alpha2 receptors were a whore’s spread legs and his 5HT2 receptors were a ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’. He wept at the weather forecast. He wept as Harold played his tuba on Neighbours. He wanted to be locked away, sectioned.
There’ll be a time in the future when you’ll need to see her.
He stared at the drawings of Rebecca on the walls and wanted to disappear. He knew it’d pass—it was just a couple of days of comedown blues.
But it was a fucking killer.
* * *
He remembered how he’d wake in the middle of the night, bladder bursting, his cock so hard it hurt, the twine wrapped tightly around his wrist, securing him to the bed. He’d hold on for as long as he could, but then he’d have to let it go. The release, the scratchy burn of piss. Because he walked in his sleep. Because he fell down stairs. Because he wandered out. So Mother tied him to the bed at night, until the school complained about the marks. Until they mentioned Social Services. But that was Val’s shame, not hers, and so released him into the night. But it was too late: Erection = pain = breathlessness = release = shame. His hard-drive was formatted.
* * *
He asked Rebecca if he could wear her knickers while they made love, just around an ankle. No way. He told her he wanted her to call him names. It’s embarrassing. So he asked her to play dead, to pose like a Dumas painting. Hold your breath. Don’t move. So she’d lie there, motionless, watching him through the blur of her lashes. Once, he asked her to choke him, to strangle him while they made love. Her face said I don’t know you. So he positioned her thumbs over the carotid and asked her to press. I’m scared. He found a scarf and asked her to pull it tight, just when he was about to come. Fuck you. He wanted a way out, an accomplice, someone to help him escape the endless keep going, the more more more of it, because danger is pleasure and pleasure is…
* * *
DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE…
* * *
The invisible path that led from his bedroom, down the stairs and out across the backfields. Stepping through gorse and heather in his pyjamas, hands before him, eyes closed into the night. Wandering woods, fingers grasping, he’d see himself stepping out of his skin, following an invisible path into the night as moor-wind raked his hair. He’d smell the body of another as the noisy night shivered: foxes jabbering on their slinking night-prowl; rabbits gripped in stone-hard yellow talons, squealing overhead; inward-bound bats with their shrill chirrups, flinging themselves around moorland bluffs. And the twit-twooing of ghost white, apple-faced tyto alba, testing the air in the echoing woodland. Nature, waiting for the Blue Hour.
He’d raise his arms.
Feel someone touching his dreams.
7.
Jade’s voice had a blur to it. A kind of fatigue.
— I’m sorry, he said.
— It’s fine.
— I just bumped into her.
— Whatever.
— I had no idea she was going to be there.
— Course.
— I don’t understand why you’re so upset.
— You wouldn’t.
— She means nothing to me any more. I know that now.
— Now?
— …
— I stood and watched you, Ant. I know what I saw.
— …
— Listen, a guy in the village.
— What?
— He’s asked me out.
— Oh really?
— Yeah.
— Why you telling me?
— Thought you’d like to know.
— Why don’t you?
— What?
— Go out for a date.
— …
— With ‘The Guy From The Village’.
— …
— Why don’t you say yes?
— I’ll do that.
— Yeah, you do that.
* * *
What Jade didn’t hear that afternoon was the sound of Antony’s heart violating itself as he realised he was totally, and utterly, in love with her.
* * *
He pressed the number for the Centre.
— I’ve got a stomach bug. I don’t think I’ll make it in today.
Trudy, for s
ome reason, seemed very disappointed.
He got the bus to Lizzie’s. There was a light on inside. He knocked three times before a shower-wet, disgruntled Sarah appeared.
— What do you want?
— I need to talk.
She left the door open and clomped up the stairs.
Antony sat at the kitchen table and listened to the hum of hairdryer and slam of doors. Sat in that room again, he realised how much he missed his outreach sessions.
Kenneth’s wit. His vigour. His riotous foul-mouth.
Sarah came back down and placed an envelope in front of him.
— What’s this?
— Open it.
Inside the envelope was a file; inside the file were Kenneth’s medical case notes from Manchester Memorial Hospital. Antony was sure he’d seen them before, but then he checked the date: 26 November 1995.
He read, still not sure what he was meant to be looking for.
Sarah sat beside him.
— So?
Antony shrugged.
She tutted and snatched the file. She pointed to an acronym: A.V.E.
— You know what that means?
His eyes searched the ceiling. He said slowly,
— Acute viral encephalitis? So?
She pointed again.
— And that?
The letters: HSV-2.
He shrugged.
— Look, she said. ‘Prodromal symptoms including genital lesions’.
— But that doesn’t…
— Dad was having an affair.
Antony searched her eyes.
— You don’t like me, do you, she said. You think I’m horrible to Dad?
— It’s really none of my…
— No, that’s the whole point. We appreciate everything you’ve done for him, but to be honest, he’s better off where he is. And yes, Mum is seeing someone else.