by Mark Morris
Except that it was important, and not simply to me, but to him too. What had happened to him as a child had created something between us, a presence which I sensed hovering in the shadows from time to time. I didn’t want to hassle him about the experience, but I felt strongly that he still needed to talk about it. It seemed clear to me that he still had some of the old poison in his system, and that he would not be fully free of its effects until he allowed someone to draw it out of him.
Later, of course, I would blame myself for his violence, would put it down to my own bad handling of the situation. I’d ask myself why I couldn’t have left well alone, would convince myself, despite evidence to the contrary, that if I had, then things would have been fine between us. It’s only now that I know his lack of control, his propensity for violence, was his problem, not mine. It was in him, and of him, before we had even met.
But all that was to come. In the Blue Posts, when I suggested that he was naive, he gave me a black look, then muttered, ‘Don’t treat me like a child, Ruth. I’m just disappointed that you have this attitude, that’s all. Doesn’t skill and talent and hard work and … and commitment count for anything these days?’
‘Not much,’ I was going to quip, but then I saw that he wasn’t in the mood. I reached across the table and took his hand. His palm was ice-cold from clutching the bottle.
‘Of course it does,’ I said. ‘What I’m saying is, it’s good to have contacts, even friends, in the business, but of course you’ve still got to prove yourself to them, you’ve still got to show that you can do the job. I’m not saying Chris is going to employ you because he likes your jokes or thinks you’re an OK bloke or whatever. But he might get you an audition for something. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’
Matt pushed his bottom jaw out, but I could see that he was wavering. ‘Suppose not,’ he muttered.
‘Good. Drink up, then, and let’s get going.’
As far as I was concerned, the evening went pretty well. Matt was a bit quiet, which I put down to his shyness at meeting new people, but Chris and Paula seemed to like him well enough. In the cab on the way home, however, he went stone cold on me.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked him. He didn’t answer, just stared out of the window, elbow on the thin sill, hand cupping his chin. I glanced at the driver. I could tell Matt was pissed off, but I didn’t want an argument here, in front of this complete stranger.
‘Matt, what’s wrong?’ I murmured, trying to keep my voice light. I put a hand on his arm, but his skin seemed almost to squirm away beneath my touch, muscles tautening under the skin.
I left it for thirty seconds or so, hoping he’d come round, then I leaned towards him. ‘Matt, talk to me.’
He mumbled something.
‘Pardon?’ I said. When he didn’t respond I tried again. ‘What did you say, Matt? I didn’t hear you.’
He half-turned towards me, shadows massing on his face like storm clouds gathering in an autumn sky. ‘I said I’ve got nothing to say.’
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What have I done?’
He gave me a contemptuous look. ‘You honestly don’t know?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t.’
He stared at me with such blank intent that I started to feel uncomfortable. Finally he said, ‘Think about it,’ and turned back to the window.
I was shocked and confused. What the hell had happened to make him like this? I wasn’t that drunk, so I knew I hadn’t done anything that I would regret later. I hadn’t flirted with either of the boys, or made a big thing of the fact that Matt was an actor in front of Chris, or ignored Matt, or excluded him by indulging in in-jokes, or made a fool of myself. As far as I was concerned, it had been an evening of good food, good wine and good company. So what was his problem?
He refused to talk to me all the rest of the way home. When we got back to his flat I said, ‘Do you want me to come in with you?’
‘Please yourself,’ he muttered and got out of the cab, dropping a fiver on the seat.
My confusion was turning to anger now. If it hadn’t been for the cab driver I would have shouted after him not to be so pathetic.
I considered going home, but I couldn’t leave it like this, particularly as I had no idea what I’d done wrong. I paid the driver and got out, and was just in time to catch Matt letting himself into his building. ‘Matt, wait!’ I shouted when it looked as though he was going to shut the door behind him. He didn’t wait, but at least he left the door ajar. I ran up the steps and went in after him.
I didn’t like Matt’s place much. I always preferred it when we went back to mine. The building was dingy and always had a faint odour of cat’s pee. There was a man who lived on the ground floor who was always drunk, and kept slipping into diabetic comas because he didn’t look after himself properly. Matt had called an ambulance out to him three times, having heard him moaning for help in a dreamy, distracted way as if he were stuck in the middle of a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from.
Matt had left the door to his flat ajar too, which I saw as a good sign, as a sign that he was willing to talk. I went in, prepared to be conciliatory, and found him in his poky sitting room, hunched forward on the edge of his armchair, clutching the TV remote control and staring intently at an old film in which all the men were wearing trilbies and extruding sharp, snappy, machine-gun bursts of dialogue.
His flat was clean and tidy enough, but no amount of embellishment could disguise the squishy, mismatching furniture studded with cigarette burns, the threadbare carpet, the sooty stain on the wall above the convector heater.
‘Matt,’ I said, but his only response was to turn the volume up on the TV. That really irritated me, but I tried to keep calm. ‘Matt, this is silly. I don’t even know what I’ve done.’
He turned to me then, and there was a look on his face that was going to become all too familiar as our relationship started to spiral downwards into ever darker and narrower alleyways over the ensuing months and years. It was an expression that managed to be both frighteningly impassive and yet brimming with contempt.
‘How can you not know?’ he said. ‘Are you stupid or something?’
I felt my throat tightening with anger again. ‘No, I don’t think so.’ I paused, took a few deep breaths, making myself calm. Eventually I said, ‘But something’s obviously happened tonight that’s passed me by, and for that I’m sorry. I thought we’d had a good time.’
‘We were having a good time.’
‘So what happened to change that? Please tell me, Matt. I need to know.’
Abruptly he jabbed his thumb down on the remote control and the TV picture was sucked into darkness. ‘I don’t like being made a fool of,’ he said.
I gaped at him. ‘I’m sorry. I think I’ve missed something here.’
‘You made me look stupid in front of your friends.’ His words were clipped, quiet, almost without emotion.
‘How?’ I asked.
‘You all had a good laugh at my expense, didn’t you?’
‘Did we? Why, what did I say?’
He tilted his head to one side, twisted his face into an expression of schoolground mockery and said in a jabbering falsetto, ‘Ooh, of course Matt’s a poor, destitute actor. He only goes out with me for my money. I’m your meal ticket, aren’t I, Matt?’
Realization dawned. It had been a tiny part of a much wider conversation, and I hadn’t used anything like the tone that Matt had just spouted back at me. What I’d actually said was that Matt, like many young actors, was finding work hard to come by, but that I was making enough money for both of us to enjoy the little luxuries of life – meals out, visits to the theatre or the cinema, the occasional weekend away. At the end of this, I’d nudged Matt and smiled and said, ‘Regular meal ticket, aren’t I, Matt?’
I laughed, relieved that what lay at the root of his discontent was nothing more drastic than this.
‘Oh, Matt, it was only meant as a joke. No one took it seriously. Everyo
ne who was there tonight knows how tough it is being an actor.’
He said nothing, simply sat staring at the blank TV screen. I went over and crouched down by the side of the chair, put a hand on his arm.
‘I’m really sorry, Matt. It was insensitive of me. But I honestly didn’t mean anything by it.’
Still he didn’t say anything. Still he didn’t look at me. I rubbed his arm, leaned forward and kissed him on the side of his head. ‘Can we be friends?’ I asked.
I expected him to turn and sigh and nod, maybe even to murmur an apology for being so touchy, but still he continued to stare straight ahead as though I wasn’t there. I knew how serious and determined he was about his career, and how touchy he became if anyone made even the slightest disparaging comment about it.
‘I’ll make us some coffee,’ I said. ‘I really am sorry, Matt.’ I walked into the kitchen.
I felt bad for having upset Matt, but at the same time I knew I hadn’t said anything too awful. In Matt’s narrow, mildewy kitchen I filled the kettle with water and set it to boil, got two mugs down out of the cupboard and reached for the jar of coffee.
It was at this point that I sensed a presence beside me, and half-turned, sure it would be Matt coming to make up. I glimpsed his impassive face and then got the impression of something dark and blurred flying towards me. I had barely begun to flinch when the thing connected and crunching pain exploded in the side of my head. My vision flashed with a starburst of light, and then I was falling.
I put out my hands to break my fall, but misjudged the distance and fell heavily, bending my wrist back and bashing my hip. I remember thinking I must have had an accident, that something had fallen from above and hit me on the head. When I looked dazedly up and saw Matt looming over me, I thought he was there to help, to reach down and lift me up, and I raised a hand towards him. Then he hit me in the face.
His fist connected with my lips this time, the bottom one of which burst like a tomato. I felt pain rushing up from my jaw into my skull. I think I screamed and rolled away from him. My mouth was awash with blood. Its coppery slickness made me gag. I knew Matt had left when the overhead strip light which he’d been blotting out suddenly zinged back into view, its harsh brightness piercing my vision.
I lay there for a while, unable to believe what had just happened. It seemed like a sickening betrayal of all Matt and I had shared in the past few months. It was the end, it had to be the end. I had always vowed that if a man ever showed any violence towards me, I would leave him – no questions asked, no chance for an apology, no looking back. But when I’d said that, I hadn’t really thought it would ever happen. I hadn’t reckoned on the fact that I could ever build up a relationship with a man who was capable of doing this. I’d told myself that if I ever met such a man I would know immediately, would smell it coming off him like a musk, and so walk away.
But I hadn’t, had I? I hadn’t had a clue. There had been no gradual build-up (though later, when it was all over, I would see little signals along the way), no warning, no nothing. It had simply come at me out of nowhere – bang, bang – with devastating suddenness. The fear of walking the streets alone at night, the fear of being mugged or attacked, had suddenly invaded what I’d thought was a safe place in my life, and the result was disorientating, shocking. I didn’t know what to do, how to react. What was I supposed to do? What were the rules?
I lay on Matt’s kitchen floor for a while, and then I pushed myself groggily into a sitting position. The pains in my face were like weights that shifted uncomfortably each time I moved my head. My dress was covered in blood from my bust lip. I felt sick and dizzy. I sat against the wall for a bit, taking deep breaths, feeling the throb of pain each time I sucked air up through my nose. I listened, but could hear nothing. Had Matt gone out? I didn’t feel scared of him at this point, just shocked at what he had done. It was as if he had peeled his face off like a rubber mask to reveal an entirely different one underneath.
Eventually I got to my feet and went through to the bathroom, cupping my hand to catch the blood that was still dripping from my chin. I washed my face in cold water and then I looked in the mirror. I was relieved to see that I didn’t look as bad as I’d thought I was going to. My bottom lip was split and swollen, but you wouldn’t have known I’d been hit on the side of my face, even though it felt stiff and sore. I sat on the side of the bath, holding damp toilet paper to my lip until the bleeding stopped. My head was telling me to walk out of that place, get a cab home and never see or speak to Matt again.
I opened the bathroom door, and straight away I heard sobbing. It was the full-blooded, heart-wrenching sobbing of the utterly bereft. Perhaps I should have drawn strength from it, revelled in it, but I couldn’t. I didn’t exactly feel pity, concern, a need to comfort, but all the same I knew I couldn’t simply walk away from someone who was that unhappy.
I followed the sobbing to Matt’s bedroom. He was lying on his front, arms stretched out in a crucifix shape, face buried in his pillow. I watched him for a moment and then, voice thick, I said, ‘Matt.’
He stopped his crying abruptly, sort of swallowed it down with a gulp. For a few moments he remained in the same position and then he slowly turned his head and looked at me. His face looked as if he’d had raw onion rubbed in it. He looked stricken and ashamed.
‘Ruth,’ he whispered. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’
‘You hit me,’ I said. ‘You attacked me, Matt.’
‘I know.’ His face crumpled as if he was about to cry. ‘I know I did, and I can’t … It was unforgivable. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. You’ll leave me, won’t you?’
The bluntness of the question threw me. Yes, I should have said, yes, I fucking will leave you, but the thought of it just ending like this – despite what he had done – horrified me. We’d had five months of happiness. How could it all finish so abruptly and brutally? I hesitated for a moment, and then I said, ‘I should do.’
‘I know,’ he blubbered. ‘I know you should.’
‘Why did you hit me?’ I asked him.
My voice was plaintive, like a little girl’s. Matt rolled over on to his back, then heaved himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed. Head bowed, shoulders slumped, he looked exhausted, shell-shocked.
‘It was … it was all closing in on me. I felt as though I was being laughed at, that nobody was taking me seriously. That’s not a good enough reason, I know, but I just … I just lashed out. And now I feel so awful and so sick and so sorry.’
‘You hurt me,’ I said.
‘I know. I know I did.’ He started to cry.
I went to him. I know, I know, bloody mug, bloody sucker, but I went to him and put my arms round him and made shushing noises, just like a mother whose small child has banged his head or cut his knee. He cried in my arms, and I felt so terrible for him, even though I know I should have been feeling terrible for no one but myself.
At last his tears stopped and he whispered, ‘You’d better leave me.’
‘Why?’ I said softly.
‘Because I’m not good enough for you. I hurt you. I’m just so fucked up, and you … you don’t deserve what I did to you. You’re such a sweet, lovely person, and I’m just … just such a shit. Just a fucking, fucking shit for doing what I did.’
Part of me wanted to agree with him, but seeing him so distraught was far worse than my physical pain. And seeing him so full of remorse did not exactly nullify but did soften the mental shock of what had happened.
So I continued to hold him and whisper to him and comfort him. I didn’t tell him everything was all right, because it wasn’t, but – fool that I was – I was already beginning to think I could see how we might move forward from this.
After a while, he raised his head and again he whispered, ‘I’m so sorry, Ruth. I’m so sorry.’
eleven
After my dream about Matt and the spiders, my primary instinct was to pack up and go home. I couldn’t, though, because if I
didn’t look for Alex, who would? I wondered how long I might have to stay here, what would happen if I didn’t find him, how far I could go before admitting defeat.
‘Stop it,’ I said out loud. ‘You are going to find him.’
For the time being I still had options, lines of enquiry to pursue – I tried not to see beyond that. There were people I could talk to – the Chinese waiter, children and staff at the school – but my priority was to get into Alex’s flat and see what I could find. After last night’s experiences I was scared, but if what had happened at the station had been intended to scare me away, then in a curious way it had had the opposite effect, had bound me to the town even tighter than before. Something was happening here, something bad, something that Alex had been sucked into. Maybe he had found out too much, or maybe it was to do with the fact that he was gay, or an outsider – or maybe it was none of these things. The why wasn’t important. The fact was, I believed he was in danger, and I couldn’t leave here until I’d got to the bottom of what was going on. The grey man, Matt, the fiddleback on the stairs, the body at the station – they were all glimpses of a bigger picture whose composition I had yet to clearly see.
Unlike yesterday, when the hostile reception I’d encountered at the police station had incapacitated me, sent me fleeing to the dubious sanctuary of my room, last night’s far more disturbing events had perversely encouraged me to be proactive, to approach the day with a very definite plan. Even though I was more frightened than ever, I had come to realize that you couldn’t give in to it. If you hid you would be found. If you cowered you would be nothing but prey.
I ate a solitary breakfast in the lounge bar of the Solomon Wedge, then sought out Jim and paid for two more nights’ accommodation. I watched him closely as I told him I wanted to stay longer. If he was surprised by my decision he didn’t show it. I couldn’t decide whether or not he was involved in whatever was going on in Greenwell. He had a far more expensive car than he ought to have been able to afford, and he had neglected to tell me that the railway station was long disused when I’d asked for directions to it yesterday, but what did either of these things prove?