Selfish People

by Lucy English

  I got it all wrong and I got it all wrong for years. The pretty girl under the apple tree, what happened to her? She fell. That is the only way I can see it. I fell and I’m still falling. I’m going down further and further. All that was expected of me was that I be sweet and uncomplaining and I couldn’t even do that.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When Leah arrived back in Bristol there was Clive on the sofa watching his telly, surrounded by beer cans. Tatty jumped up and barked. Clive jumped up too – ‘Ho, ho, the return of the little family’ – and he found a bag of sweets for the boys stuffed down the back of the sofa. Leah repacked the bags ready for Al’s. This house is poxy and smells of dog. This is the bottom, of course there is no further. There is nothing worse.

  Even when Al had a hundred bones to pick with Leah she didn’t mind. She didn’t have to pretend any more that it was all right, because it wasn’t. It was horrible and she knew it and so did he.

  Later that evening Clive and Leah watched a daft video about space warrior women and she would have stayed there in the fluffy armchair delighting in the tackiness but Rachel phoned.

  ‘How was deepest Ruislip?’

  ‘Just as ever.’

  ‘Saturday night, you on one or what?’ She was parodying Bailey.

  ‘What’s on offer?’ said Leah, cautious.

  ‘Just a drink in the Woolpack. Usual crowd and …’ but she didn’t finish. ‘You’ll find out,’ she said most mysteriously.

  ‘Good news? Bad news?’ and Leah was curious now.

  ‘You’ll find out,’ laughed Rachel.

  Leah dressed carefully in a shimmering green jumper with silver threads and green velvet leggings, until she, too, felt mysterious. The night was clear and full of stars as she crossed the park. At the Woolpack were Bill and Carol, Ange, Declan, the Petes, no Bailey and no Rachel. The conversation was about mountain bikes. There didn’t seem to be a mystery.

  ‘And how are you?’ asked Carol.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Leah.

  ‘You know,’ said Carol, ‘I don’t know a thing about bikes, or cars or football,’ and she sighed with the sigh of someone who had sat through dozens of such conversations.

  ‘How is Rachel?’ said Leah.

  Carol looked surprised. ‘She’s very well.’

  ‘I’ve been away,’ said Leah, meaning, tell me what’s going on.

  ‘Then you don’t know,’ said Carol. She looked up and smiled. ‘Well, here she is,’ and there she was, floating towards them, all in grey, but with her cheeks blushing like roses and her eyes like stars. She’s in love … but with who? The only person not here is Bailey.

  But Rachel slipped next to Declan and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Um, hello darling,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late. My hair wouldn’t dry.’

  ‘It looks fine. It looks all soft,’ and Declan and Rachel gazed at each other in the wordless gooey way of new lovers. The conversation stopped, apart from the other Pete who couldn’t spot a new lover if one fell under his Muddy Fox.

  ‘I’m sure we could do it in three hours, but we could stop for lunch. What do you think, Bill?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Bill. ‘Ian was my mate, but Declan’s my mate too, and Ian was Declan’s mate and I’m sure he would say, go for it …’

  This baffled Pete, but everybody else understood. Rachel returned to earth and looked around the table. ‘Hello, I hear you’re going on a bike ride.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Leah when Declan was at the bar. ‘When, where, why, oh, do tell me.’

  ‘It was last Wednesday,’ said Rachel, leaning closer to Leah. ‘I invited him round for dinner. I thought, it’s got to be now, and we discussed every topic you could think of – Ian, Oliver, the government, his job, the walls, the floors – until about two in the morning and I thought, he’s never going to ask, so I did, I said, Declan, are you staying or what? and he said, oh um er yes I’d love to, and I said, if you stay it’s a relationship not a quickie and he said, oh um er yes. So, it’s a relationship.’

  ‘And how does it feel?’ asked Leah. She couldn’t remember what it felt like to be gooey with somebody.

  ‘It’s very new,’ Rachel said, cautiously, as if she couldn’t quite believe it herself. ‘I feel guilty about Ian. I mean, it’s all so soon.’

  ‘You can’t wear widow’s weeds for ever. You can’t be miserable for ever.’

  ‘No I can’t.’ And she sounded determined.

  Declan came back. ‘Well, matey,’ said Bill, ‘here’s to you, well done, good luck and all that.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Declan, blushing and looking his most cute.

  ‘You coming on the ride?’ asked the other Pete.

  ‘Sure, I could do.’

  Rachel listened. ‘He’s forgotten. We’re going to visit my parents that weekend.’

  ‘Your parents, is it that serious?’

  ‘If you can stand a weekend with my parents, you can stand anything.’ Rachel looked around the table. ‘I see Bailey’s not here.’

  ‘Does it matter?’ said Leah, glad that he wasn’t.

  ‘He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like me and Declan being together. He’s so offhand. He’s acting like an abandoned baby and Declan’s so tolerant. He’s running around trying to sort him out and be with me. I know they’re mates but I’m not going to let Bailey wreck this.’ She was fuming, and Leah smiled, but not so that Rachel could see. This was how she remembered Rachel, raging, fighting.

  ‘I’m fucking angry,’ said Rachel and then paused as if she had just caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror. ‘Goodness, I’m shaking.’

  ‘Stuff Bailey,’ said Leah and she meant it.

  Rachel invited them all back for coffee. The whole drunk pile of them. They filled her exquisite sitting room. She put on jazz. The coffee became Irish coffee and then just cups of whisky. Declan, next to Rachel, gradually keeled over until his head was in her lap. She ruffled his hair. ‘Sometimes …’ said Declan, waving a joint, ‘life is so very …’

  ‘Change this music!’ said Bill. ‘Jazz makes you flat.’

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Rachel.

  ‘… confusing …’ said Declan.

  Later in the week Sarah rang and they arranged to meet in the Red Café. Leah was late because the bus was late and when she burst in Sarah was already at the table. She looked tragic and mournful with her dark hair over her face.

  ‘I’m so pleased to see you,’ she said, stretching out her hand. The café was busy. There was a queue to the counter. Shouting was coming from the kitchen and the waitress was flustered. ‘We’ve got a new cook,’ she said apologetically. ‘Yours is twenty-three, remember.’

  Leah eventually sat down with Sarah.

  ‘It’s awful,’ said Sarah, ‘everything’s falling apart. Neptune’s on my Sun, it’s so disorientating. My aura’s thin, I’m being psychically attacked.’

  ‘And what’s happened?’ said Leah.

  She brushed away her hair. ‘Chris one has got a job in New York for a year, and he’s going, and what about the girls? I said, you’re their father. Lily’s distraught, she cries every night. Isn’t it bad enough for them to have a father who leaves their mother, but this? Chris two is having second thoughts. I said, I need you, I need you in this difficult time and he says he can’t handle it. Oh, it’s so infuriating. Neptune transits, I do hate them.’ She smiled bravely and sipped her herb tea.

  ‘You have to hang on,’ said Leah. ‘You have to believe it’s going to be all right.’

  ‘How nice to see you. I know you understand, and I know things are hard for you.’

  ‘I think they’re getting better,’ she said, not sure if they were. ‘Some obstacles have been … removed.’

  ‘I know you’ve been hurt,’ said Sarah softly. ‘You find it difficult to be open. You find it difficult to trust.’

  ‘Yes …’ said Leah. Up the other end of the café someone was shouting,
‘Twenty-three, twenty-fucking-three, one bacon sarnie, who ordered the bacon sarnie?’

  ‘God, that’s me,’ said Leah and put up her hand. She turned, and storming down from the counter was Bailey. It wasn’t until he slammed the wretched sandwich on the table that he saw who she was. ‘Oh no,’ she said and their eyes met. In his were a combination of rage and fuck-off-you.

  ‘You messing me about or what?’ he yelled.

  ‘I didn’t hear you,’ said Leah.

  ‘You fucking deaf or what?’

  ‘I’m not deaf, Bailey.’ They stared at each other. Bailey’s hair was tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt so she could see all the muscles up his arms. The T-shirt had the words LOVE HOUSE on it.

  ‘Excuse me.’ He cleared up the cups on the table and strode back to the kitchens.

  Sarah tilted her head to one side; her blue eyes were clear and penetrating. ‘You are shaking and pale. Why are you afraid of this man, and why is he afraid of you?’

  Leah looked at her sandwich. She didn’t feel hungry at all. ‘It’s all over,’ she said at last.

  Sarah squeezed her hand. ‘Is he why you left Al?’

  ‘No,’ said Leah, not looking at her. ‘You know why I left Al.’

  ‘But this didn’t help?’

  ‘It didn’t help a thing.’ And she squeezed Sarah’s hand back. ‘I knew he had a job, but I didn’t know it was here. Sarah, I didn’t know at all.’

  ‘You don’t have to justify yourself.’

  ‘I can’t eat this.’ She pushed the sandwich away.

  ‘I’m not surprised. You’ve been attacked. Why does he want to attack you?’ Her hand squeezed tighter.

  Leah was aware of Bailey watching them. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I can’t tell. I promised. I can’t.’

  ‘Beware of secrets,’ said Sarah. ‘You don’t know what they will grow into.’ She released her hand. ‘Eat your sandwich. Food can be very grounding.’

  Leah did, swallowing each mouthful with difficulty. Bailey, at the counter, was watching them, pretending to polish tea cups.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Winter crawled out of Garden Hill like a wet cat. Blossom was out in the park and in the Project gardens. It was the beginning of April. Leah was at the school to see Ben’s class play. It was a whimsical story about a caterpillar who turned into a butterfly and somewhere in it was the Easter Bunny so they all got chocolate eggs. Ben was the caterpillar, in green tights. He looked like one too, solid stocky boy that he was, and Sarah’s Jasmine, of course, was the butterfly. She knew her lines perfectly, and also everybody else’s. She kept telling the other spring animals to speak louder or stand over there. The teacher had hoped for a poignant tale but the whole thing was a farce and the parents laughed at the wrong moments.

  Afterwards Leah walked back towards Cotham Hill, thinking about children, caterpillars and butterflies. She walked past the shops and the Red Café. She stopped. Bailey was at the counter. Before she could wonder why she was doing it, she was going inside.

  ‘Just a coffee,’ she said like any other customer and she put her money in front of him. He looked at her oddly, but he wasn’t displeased.

  ‘Well, I ain’t seen you for ages.’

  ‘… with milk,’ she said, and took her coffee to a table by the window.

  The café was nearly empty. The students were on holiday. She stared hard at a vegetable shop on the other side of the street. You are watching me and I can feel it almost as if you are touching me. It feels dangerous and exciting … ‘One day I will be a beautiful butterfly and flutter round the flowers until I die’ – that song is stuck in my head. ‘I will fly towards the sun, I will fly towards the sky but right now I’m just a caterpillar.’ She looked round and there was Bailey, with a lime green T-shirt, red trousers and dangling earrings. He dropped a cigarette packet on the table. ‘Fag break,’ he said. He sat down and lit up.

  ‘My children go to school up the road,’ said Leah. Bailey tapped his fag packet and she took one. ‘So, how are you then?’ she said.

  ‘Mega. Like the job. The sports is brill. Declan’s moving out so I’ll have the whole gaff to myself.’

  ‘He’s moving out?’ She hadn’t seen Rachel for over a week.

  ‘He’s round there all the bloody time so he might as well live there. That’s what I think.’

  ‘And do you mind?’ She remembered Rachel’s outburst.

  ‘Why should I?’ and he stubbed out his fag defensively. ‘I could get someone else in. That would do me.’

  Leah immediately thought of Jen. ‘Yes, you could,’ she said and finished off her coffee. Your casual attitude is slipping. Replacing it is a suspicious uneasiness. He gave her one sharp look as if she had no right to ask him questions at all.

  ‘Fag break’s over. I’ve got work to do.’

  The Easter holidays started with Al taking the children camping. They were going to Wales with the men’s group. When he arrived it was raining.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got the sleeping bags?’ he said.

  ‘They used to be in the attic. They’re probably still there.’

  Al sniffed. He looked like he was getting a cold. ‘Have you remembered the gumboots?’ said Leah.

  ‘You don’t have to pack my bags for me any more, you know.’

  ‘My boots don’t fit me,’ said Ben.

  ‘Mine are at school,’ said Jo.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ said Al. He sat down. He was never comfortable in Clive’s house, even less so when Clive was there. Right now, Clive was in the kitchen washing up last night’s dinner and talking to nobody in particular.

  ‘Basically, the rain’ll be good for the gardens, don’t know about the apple trees. Must fix that gutter. Leah, what shall we have for lunch? Chips and chops. Chops and chips.’

  ‘How cosy,’ sneered Al. ‘So what are you going to do in my absence, dear wife, bonk the whole of Totterdown?’

  ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ said Leah.

  He puffed on his roll-up. ‘You know,’ he said so that only Leah could hear, ‘if you started up with anybody else, I’d kill you.’

  ‘It’s not likely,’ she stammered. ‘In fact, it’s completely unlikely. It’s not what I want.’

  ‘What you want. What you want. I’ve never bloody known what you want.’

  ‘Do you want peas with your chops?’ called out Clive.

  ‘Yes, please,’ called back Leah.

  ‘Peas to please. Peas to please. Ho, ho!’

  Al banged his fist on the table for no reason other than to make Leah jump.

  ‘When are we going?’ said Ben.

  ‘We’re going now,’ said Al.

  She watched them go off in the rain. Not to Wales but back to Al’s to find the sleeping bags.

  In the middle of lunch Rachel phoned from a callbox. ‘We’re in the Wolfpack, and where are you?’

  ‘Eating chops,’ said Leah with her mouth full. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Usual crowd.’ But she knew Bailey was there.

  ‘I’ll be straight over.’

  The rain was not the driving whistling rain of winter but soft spring rain that felt so life-giving she wanted to drink it. Across the park there was such a fresh mud-growing smell it made her run faster and faster. She dashed into the pub like the Easter hare. She shook her umbrella and sat down but inside she was still racing. The scene around the table was static, like a tableau with the characters adopting their most usual postures, but next to Bailey was Sally.

  She looked miserable and was unsuccessfully trying to draw Declan into a conversation. Rachel was watching them like a hawk.

  ‘Why doesn’t she stay at home? She’s always pestering him with some problem. Mind you, things are going to change. Declan’s moving in. Did you know?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Leah. ‘Is this a good idea?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said with unwavering conviction. ‘He can
have Ian’s room. I’ve got it all planned.’ She was wearing a petal pink lamb’s-wool jumper and a grey full skirt. She looked just like a sprig of cherry. Sally was dressed in a shiny blue tracksuit, the sort that looked good on Bailey because he was athletic. She had now engaged Declan’s attention and they were talking about teaching. Leah looked at Bailey. He was all in black, as if life were a funeral, his hair was loose and gelled, so each curl was a separate ringlet. He pushed his hair behind his ears and regarded Leah. Defensively at first and then with interest. They said nothing.

  ‘Come on Declan, you getting them in or what?’ said Bill.

  ‘Declan, Declan, mine’s a pint,’ said Bailey.

  ‘If he drinks more than four pints I’ll kill him,’ said Rachel. ‘He’s supposed to be helping me move stuff into the loft this afternoon.’

  ‘Declan, what are you doing later?’ said Bill. ‘The girls, sorry, the women, are going shopping. Come and watch a vid.’

  ‘Sure, I could do,’ said Declan.

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Don’t be hard on him,’ said Sally, red-faced. ‘Teaching is such a stressful profession.’

  ‘And how is your course going?’ asked Rachel with all the charm of an anaconda. Ange and Carol giggled, probably about something totally unconnected.

  ‘And weren’t you glad,’ said Sally to Leah, ‘that I persuaded Al to go back to college?’ Leah wasn’t glad at all, but surprised. She hadn’t suspected it was Sally.

  ‘He has too much talent to waste, I told him. I told him he mustn’t give up his career just because of a bust-up.’

  I do not think the ending of a ten-year marriage is a ‘bust-up’. I’m beginning to understand why Rachel doesn’t like you.

  ‘Is he well?’ said Sally. ‘I haven’t seen him for weeks.’

  ‘He’s gone to Wales with a men’s group and their children. When he gets back he’ll have pneumonia.’ But Sally wasn’t listening; Declan bringing back the drinks had distracted her.