I’d been feeling increasingly unwell for quite a while and eventually I had to go into hospital for some tests to try to find out what was causing the severe stomach pains I kept getting. I’d made a good friend at work called John, and after Serena left we grew closer and he came to visit me in hospital. ‘When they’ve found out what’s wrong and you’re better, we’ll go away on holiday together,’ he told me. ‘I’ll look after you. Just give me the chance to take care of you and make you happy.’
What he was offering me was what I’d always wanted and had only ever had from my mother: someone to take care of me and to care about me. John was three years older than me and he seemed to want to look after me, which I think is what I needed at the time. My parents’ divorce had been miserable, and it was really nice to feel that, in the future, I’d have someone like John to rely on. He wasn’t confrontational or threatening in any way and he took charge of my life and made me feel safe, so I allowed him to break through the protective barrier I’d built around myself and, before long, I moved into a flat with him.
I think I knew from the start that I didn’t really love John, although I tried to convince myself I did, because I really wanted to. In reality, though, he was just a very good friend and someone I felt comfortable being with. For a while, everything seemed fine and then, gradually, he stopped wanting to do anything other than go to work, watch football on the television and go out with his mates, which meant I ended up sitting on my own, night after night, just waiting for him. I desperately wanted to be happy, but it seems that, sometimes, the more you want something, the more the opposite tends to happen. I wasn’t even 20 years old and it was beginning to feel as though my life was slipping away. And then, just when it seemed as though things were about as miserable as they could be, Serena came back from working abroad and everything changed for the better.
One night, when Serena and I were in the club we always went to, she leaned towards me and, shouting to be heard above the loud, throbbing beat of the music, said, ‘He’s watching you.’ She nodded her head almost imperceptibly in the direction of a group of uniformly dark-haired guys who were standing talking and laughing together at the side of the dance floor.
‘Who? Who’s watching me?’ I shouted back. But I knew who she meant. I’d noticed him almost as soon as we started dancing.
The next time we went to the club, the same guy was there again with his friends, and as Serena and I danced, he kept trying to catch my eye. Whenever I looked in his direction, which I tried not to do, he smiled at me and I pretended I hadn’t seen him. He was there the next time too, and the time after that, and then one night, when the music stopped for a moment and Serena turned to talk to someone she knew, I looked up to find him standing beside me.
‘Will you ever talk to me?’ he asked. The inflection in his voice – as well as his long-lashed, almost-black eyes – gave away the fact that he wasn’t English, which I’d already pretty much guessed. I shook my head and said, ‘No. No, I’m sorry. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to anyone.’ Then the music started again and I moved away from him and began to dance.
Later, when I glanced towards the edge of the dance floor where he and his friends always stood, he was still watching me. This time, though, there was a hurt expression on his face that made me feel a bit guilty. And then I thought about my father and all the unhappiness falling in love had caused for my mother and I looked away without returning his rueful smile.
A few days after that, I was alone in the store where I worked when I heard the familiar scraping sound the door to the street always made as it was pushed open and I looked up to see him standing in front of me. I could feel the heat of a blush rising into my cheeks and I turned away from him quickly, hoping he hadn’t seen the flash of recognition I knew must have been visible in my eyes. Then, muttering ‘I’ll get someone to help you’, I scurried through the archway at the back of the store like a startled rabbit and hissed at one of the guys who was on his break, ‘I have to go to the office. Can you speak to the customer who’s just come in?’
I must have looked like an idiot and ‘the customer’ must have felt so embarrassed. But I’d been taken by surprise when I’d seen him standing there and, for some reason, my instinct had been to get away from him. I knew he hadn’t opened the door by chance; there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he’d come to see me. He came back two or three times after that and although I couldn’t help but feel flattered by his interest and persistence, I did exactly the same thing each time.
Then, one evening, when Serena and I were at the club, the music stopped and he suddenly turned away from his friends, walked resolutely towards me, stood in front of me and said, ‘I am Kastriot. My friends call me Kas. Would you like to go for a drink with me?’
I looked directly into his face for a moment and thought how kind his eyes were and how confident he seemed to be, particularly considering the fact that his previous attempts to talk to me had been so comprehensively rejected.
‘No, thank you. I don’t drink,’ I answered, shifting my focus to a spot just above his left shoulder and praying silently that the conversation-stopping thud of music would start up again. But it seemed that God and the DJ weren’t on my side.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll go for a coffee.’
‘I don’t drink coffee either,’ I told him.
‘Tea then,’ he persisted. ‘We will go together and drink tea. It is a well-known fact that everyone in England likes tea.’
I glanced towards him and saw that his smile had become tentative and the expression in his eyes had lost some of its confidence. Once again I felt mean, but I couldn’t help myself from answering in a cold, unfriendly voice, ‘I don’t.’
‘Orange juice then?’ He looked confused and I felt my cheeks blush with shame.
He spoke good English, with an accent that sounded Mediterranean, maybe Greek or Eastern European, and he was undeniably handsome. He was about my age I guessed, or perhaps a little older, and despite his clearly faltering self-assurance, he still had an air of quiet dignity, which was in sharp contrast to the brash resentment or feigned indifference I knew would have been the response of most of the boys I came across. He seemed genuinely bewildered by my refusal to engage with him in any way, and unafraid to show that he was hurt.
‘I don’t want to drink anything with you,’ I told him, glaring at him fiercely. ‘I do not want to go out with you. I have a boyfriend.’ And, at that moment, God and the DJ relented and the room was filled with the thud of music, saving both of us from any further embarrassment. I flicked my hair to show my lack of interest and then turned away from him. Deep down, though, I knew I was acting like a stuck-up little snob and I hated being like that, but I had to protect myself.
Over the next few weeks, I got used to seeing him at the club every time Serena and I went there. It was our favourite club for many reasons – including the fact that we knew lots of other people who went there regularly and we always had a good time. And as he didn’t make me feel uncomfortable or threatened in any way, it never crossed my mind to stop going there. In fact, I suppose I became a bit intrigued by him. It was difficult not to be flattered by his attention and by the way he never seemed to take his eyes off me, and the truth was that I liked the effect I had on him and maybe part of me wanted to see how long it would be before he gave up.
John and I were still living together, although we were leading increasingly separate lives and had become more like flatmates than boyfriend and girlfriend. What used to seem like being taken care of had begun to feel more like being treated as an incompetent child, but at least there was sometimes someone at home with me and I didn’t always feel as though I was alone. I was on my own one evening, though, when my mobile phone rang and a number I didn’t recognise came up on the screen. As soon as I heard his voice I knew that it was Kastriot, my persistent admirer.
‘How did you get this number?’ I asked.
<
br /> ‘First, you have to ask “Who is this?”’ he answered in a mock-serious tone.
‘I know who you are,’ I said. ‘You’re the guy who watches me at the club. I’ve told you, I don’t want to talk to you. I’m not interested. Don’t call me again.’
As I pressed the button to end the call, I felt uneasy. I knew we didn’t have any friends in common, so how had he managed to get hold of my number? It seemed odd, but not enough to be any real cause for concern.
He phoned me a few more times after that, and each time I told him the same thing – that I didn’t want to talk to him; I just wanted to be left alone. Then, one night at the club, when Serena and I were dancing and he was standing in his usual place at the side of the room, he caught my eye and started bowing down to me. It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t help smiling and the next moment he was standing in front of me, pleading, ‘Why will you never speak to me? I have to talk to you. Please don’t make me suffer in this way. Let me take you away and marry you.’
I laughed as I said, ‘You don’t even know me!’ But, despite the absurdity of what he was saying and the fact that I had no intention of responding to his interest in me, I felt a small thrill of pleasure. I was surprised, too, by how disappointed I felt when Serena and I went to the club one evening and he wasn’t there; I told myself it served me right for being so unkind to him when all he’d been trying to do was talk to me.
He didn’t come again after that and shortly afterwards Serena fell in love and we stopped going out together as often as we used to do. Each time I did go the club, though, I looked for him and, for reasons I didn’t understand, felt a sense of missed opportunity when he wasn’t there, as I was certain I would never see him again.
John and I stayed together for almost three years, although for a lot of that time we led separate lives and avoided acknowledging the fact that any romantic relationship we’d had was over. We were still together when I got a text message one day from a foreign number.
‘Guess who?’ it said, and I knew immediately who it was.
‘It’s Kastriot,’ I texted back.
I don’t know why I was so sure. I hadn’t seen him for almost two years and there was no reason on earth for me to think of him then. But somehow I just knew.
Within seconds, I received another text: ‘How can you know this? I noticed you but you never noticed me.’
So I described the leather jacket he used to wear, the way a thick, dark wave of his hair fell over his left eye and how he always stood at the side of the dance floor with his friends.
‘So you did notice me!’ he answered. ‘Why were you always so mean to me? Why did you never talk to me? You broke my heart, but I’ve kept your number all this time.’
‘I was horrible back then,’ I told him. ‘I hated all men and didn’t want to talk to anyone. It wasn’t just you. I’m sorry.’
I’d always felt guilty about the way I’d treated him. Although it had been obvious he liked me, he’d never pushed or harassed me or been unpleasant in any way, even when I’d been cold and unfriendly and had refused to give him a chance and get to know him.
‘You were the most unapproachable girl I’d ever met,’ Kas told me. ‘It was as though you were in a bubble with a big sign on it saying DO NOT COME NEAR ME. You were the girl everyone wanted to talk to but no one dared to approach. You have no idea how much courage I needed to step forward and speak to you.’
‘I’m ashamed,’ I texted back. ‘I didn’t mean to be unkind to you. I was just trying to protect myself.’
‘I fell in love with you the first time I saw you,’ he answered.
I laughed as I tapped out the words, ‘How is that possible? You can’t love someone you’ve never really spoken to.’
‘And you can’t know how I feel,’ he retorted. ‘Every girl I see has your face. I can’t get you out of my head. I remember everything about you – the song that was playing when I saw you for the first time, all the music you ever danced to, the clothes you wore, the way you smiled …’
I’d never met any man who talked about his feelings in that way and I didn’t think for a moment that Kas was serious about loving me. And in any case, I was still living with John. But gradually, over the next couple of years – initially when he was living at home in Albania and later, when he moved to Italy – Kas and I became good friends. At first we just texted each other and then we began to talk on the phone, until eventually we were in almost daily contact and he had become the one person I could talk to about anything and everything that was going on in my life. When I was upset about something, he always seemed to understand and to say the right thing; when I was tired or fed up, he could make me laugh. And as my trust in him grew, I began to think that maybe I’d been wrong and not all men were like my father.
Even before I’d begun to talk to Kas on the phone, I’d been feeling increasingly stifled by my relationship with John. Ironically, his habit of taking charge and planning what we were going to do each day – the thing about him that used to make me feel so safe – was the thing that finally made me realise I wanted to get away from him. We seemed to have less and less to say to each other, and as I felt more detached from John, I grew closer to Kas. I would tell Kas about the arguments we were having and my suspicions that John was cheating on me, and he’d listen sympathetically and then say, ‘I don’t think this man is right for you. Maybe you shouldn’t be with him.’ And eventually, with Kas’s help, I found the courage to leave and to tell John, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t love you and I can’t do this anymore.’
John and I had been together for three years and even though our relationship had clearly run its course, splitting up was still hard. So I was grateful that Kas was always there, at the other end of a telephone, to help me through it. He was like a big brother as well as my best friend and he seemed to understand my doubts and suspicions. He made me feel as though I’d done the right thing in leaving John, and whenever I was miserable about it, he reminded me how good my life was going to be now that I was ‘free’.
In reality, however, I was 21, had never really lived on my own, hadn’t made many friends independently of John, and was frightened by the prospect of having to start my life all over again, alone. After Serena met her boyfriend, we’d more or less stopped going out together in the evenings. So I was grateful when Natasha, a friend I’d made at work, suggested a night out at a bar that had just opened. After that, she and I started going out together regularly and suddenly the future looked less bleak and lonely; life seemed to be full of possibilities.
And then, just a few months after John and I had split up, I fell in love.
Usually when I meet someone I’m attracted to, it’s an instantaneous thing: I look at them and bang! – I’m smitten. And that was exactly what happened when I walked down the stairs at a nightclub with Natasha and the guy working behind the bar looked up at me with big, brown eyes. While Natasha bought us some drinks, I stood beside her with my back to the bar, trying to breathe normally and hoping that the sound of the music was muffling the heartbeat that I could hear thumping loudly in my head. Eventually, Natasha turned and handed me a glass and I said to her, ‘That is the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen in my life. I have to know who he is.’
It was quite early in the evening so the club wasn’t yet heaving with people as it would be later and Natasha surveyed the dance floor with growing scepticism. Raising her eyebrows in mock bemusement, she pointed at a boy who was throwing his arms around like a demented windmill and asked: ‘Who? Him?’
‘No,’ I hissed at her. ‘Not there. The boy at the bar. The one who served you. No. Don’t look round!’ But it was too late, and as she turned her head to examine him, he looked up at her and smiled. Natasha smiled back at him sweetly and then scanned the room for a moment, pretending – unconvincingly – that she’d been looking at everyone. When she turned back to me she said, ‘He’s certainly good-looking,’ laughing as she added, ‘Oh I see! You’re really
serious.’
We’d planned to have just one or two drinks in that club before moving on to meet up with friends at another. But when the most beautiful boy in the world leaned across the bar and started talking to us, all I could think was, I don’t want to leave. Why did this have to happen tonight? So, when Natasha touched my shoulder and I turned to see her tapping the face of her watch and nodding towards the stairs, my heart sank.
‘Okay, well, we’re going now. So … Well … Goodbye,’ I told the barman, flushing crimson with embarrassment at the thought of how awkward and stupid I sounded.
‘What do you mean, you’re going?’ he asked. ‘You can’t be leaving already.’
‘Well, we have to meet some people and …’
And then I was walking up the stairs with Natasha, stepping into the cool night air and feeling as though I was about to burst into tears. What if he’s the man of my dreams, I thought. And I’ve just turned my back on him, walked away and let him go? What if I never see him again? I started to feel as though I was going to have a panic attack, which was only averted by Natasha reminding me that, as he worked in the club, he would in all probability be there almost every night of every week.
When we returned the following Thursday, he saw us as soon as we walked down the stairs and by the time we’d reached the bar, he’d already poured two drinks. He handed them to us and said, ‘You’ve come back!’ and for a moment he looked directly into my eyes before turning to Natasha and smiling. But she just waved her hand, laughed and said, ‘Oh, don’t mind me. I’ll just stand here and enjoy my cocktail!’
As soon as he spoke to me, my heart started to crash against my ribcage and my mind went completely blank. I tried to think of something to say, but all I eventually came up with was ‘Hi’. Luckily, though, I said it at exactly the same moment as someone further down the bar caught his eye and, with an apologetic shrug, he moved away, while I turned to Natasha and cried, ‘Oh my God! I can’t even talk to him. What shall I do? I don’t know what to say.’
Bought and Sold (Part 3 of 3) Page 11