Angel Avenue

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I stand over him and reiterate, “This is not a date. We can be really good friends, though. I sense that. You can tell me anything. So stop looking so fucking pent up. I grew up on a council estate full of nefarious shits. You can’t shock me.”

  He nods without saying another word and looks down at his lap.

  I get back to the table and I tell him, “I ordered us a portion of chips too… soak up the pints and all.”

  “Fine by me.”

  I notice he’s looking up something on his phone and I ask what it is. He hides it away and I snatch it from him.

  An online dictionary. He has it on ‘nefarious’ and its synonyms.

  “Maybe I should have called them scum, that better? You know, people who would shit on you rather than smile?”

  He chuckles and I announce, “Cheers.”

  We clink our glasses before taking giant gulps of the honey beer. I sense this man beside me is broken, despite his air of angelic innocence. I sense he is letting me take the helm of our discourse because he’s too frightened to do anything but. I have that effect sometimes.

  We’re a touch inebriated by the time four p.m. rolls around. We have been in the old git’s pub for three hours. Warrick is so relaxed he is practically sitting across my lap. He’s telling me the story of his life and well, I feel sorry for the guy. He is slurring and using grand hand gestures and everyone around us is pointing and laughing. I don’t care. Warrick can behave how ever he likes.

  I’ve learnt he got in a bit too deep with his police work and his marriage suffered. He misses his kid terribly. He’s not made much sense, to be honest, and when he’s had his back turned, I have been guzzling some of his drink because he can’t take it to save his life. How charitable am I? I am about six pints full and a tiny bit merry whereas he is only about a pint and a half full and absolutely sloshed. He was an undercover in a trafficking case. I haven’t questioned him further but I know there is so much more he has yet to tell me.

  I suggest he comes back to my place because he is too drunk. He can sober up while I keep an eye on him. He sings Nirvana’s Rape Me all the way back to mine and I kind of congratulate him on it. The neighbourhood needs a funny drunk for a change. He’s someone I could do to have around. He dances like a clown in broad daylight. I walk behind him, holding his coat and letting him make his street performance without my intervention. I smile like I haven’t done in ages.

  We stumble up the stairs and when we get into my flat, he falls on my sofa in a heap.

  “Eh Jules, come here will ya?”

  I am in his arms and my back is pinned against his chest before I know it. In seconds, he is snoring and puffing air against the back of my neck. I let myself have those few moments. He is a nice man. A hurt, jaded one, but a nice one. When I sense he may be dribbling into my hair, I prise myself out of his arms and leave him on the couch. I take a lavender print blanket and drape it over him before I go to the bathroom and run a bath. I need to get his saliva out of my hair.

  I am drinking a cup of tea, sat at the little antique table I have propped up beneath the window at the rear of my living room. It’s a table for two but really just for one, what with all my books scattering the further half. I see rain spattering the window and the alley beside the building below. It’s bleak and makes me feel comforted to be in the confines of my flowery little abode and its warmth.

  Warrick is snoring like a trooper now and I wonder whether I should wake him. I bet he would be gutted to discover he’s been snoring in front of a girl he might possibly like. I am too kind, maybe too scared, to wade in and force him out. He got drunk so easily. He must be a lightweight, perhaps why he had a half when I got there.

  It could be awkward when he wakes up. I mean, he was spilling his secrets to me. I try to remember what cheered me up after I got drunk as a teenager. Amy and I used to frequent The Harp and Glass and I would always have a pounding head the next day. Fun times. When a pork scratching really was enough to make me happy. Those were the days.

  I remember, somehow, that orangeade used to do the trick. I have none in so I venture to the kitchen and splash squash and lemonade into a glass.

  I sit by the couch, holding a tumbler full of orange liquid in my hand.

  “Warrick, wake up.”

  I shake his shoulder and he stirs. One eye opens and he groans. He shuts it.

  “Tell me this is a dream.”

  “It’s a dream,” I reply.

  “Tell me I haven’t made a tit of myself.”

  “You didn’t… honest,” I try to say without giggling.

  He moans and shifts onto his back.

  “What happened?”

  “You danced down the Avenue to Rape Me and you basically told me how fucked up your life is.”

  His eyes open and he pulls the blanket up around his mouth. He is inwardly kicking himself.

  “Here,” I offer.

  He sits up and gulps it all down in one. I go back to my table and continue sipping my cup of tea. I watch while he rubs his hands through his mass of hair and I notice his fingers. They are muscled yet worn. They show his age more than his face does.

  “What time is it?”

  “Six.”

  “Want to get food? May as well now,” he suggests.

  “I don’t know,” I pause. I feel my face twitching uncomfortably. This is out of my comfort zone. “I have a thing. About my Saturday nights… I…”

  “What, tell me? It can’t be worse than anything I have done today.”

  I notice for the first time that he has a weird scar underneath his chin. It is hidden beneath his stubble but it creases when he talks. In the dark evening light it is noticeable from the angle I am sat at, right across from him.

  “I watch Strictly in my pyjamas and eat chocolate until I fall asleep. There. Secret behaviour out.”

  He hides his face in his hands and groans, “Oh, she’s a sequin girl.”

  “Guilty.”

  “C’mon. Let me get us a takeaway, a bottle of wine and your chocolate. What d’ya say? To make up for the raping of the Avenue at the mercy of my poor singing voice.”

  I giggle. I want to tell him he actually has an amazing voice.

  “Well, the wine will be for me seeing as though you’re a lightweight,” I say with a reprimanding frown.

  “Guilty,” he admits.

  “I have chocolate already.”

  “So, what shall I get?” he raises his eyebrows.

  “Fish and chips. Scraps. Mushy peas. Pickled egg. Oh, and a can of dandelion and burdock. Better forget the wine…”

  I reel it off like nobody’s business. I rarely treat myself but after sheltering him today, he looks like he wants to furnish me with crap food and I want to let him.

  “You don’t ask much, love.” He stands and holds his head. “I hate myself. I am such a wuss.”

  “Yep, I’d call you a total tool if I weren’t a nice person.”

  We laugh simultaneously and I am very disturbed by how easy it is between us. This man really is my friend.

  “Just remember, I am not a stalker. When I come back knocking with your rancid pickle egg, you better open up.”

  I stand up and let him out. He winks and launches himself down the stairs. I go into the kitchen to prepare some knives and forks, plates and condiments.

  I have to give myself a moment when an image of Laurie flashes through my mind. The last time I felt any happiness was with him. Some part of me wants to push Warrick away but I have to rein that in. He’s friendly, that’s all. He is buying me a pickled egg and I just had him on my couch snoring and grunting like a swine.

  I close my eyes and can’t help but recall Laurie holding me like Warrick did earlier. Just one day with Laurie has haunted me for so long, like no other day or event ever has done. Nothing has ever obsessed me as much as him and the day we shared.

  There is nothing remotely romantic about my time with Warrick today. He’s a good mate and I feel sorry f
or him. He’s an older guy who knows full well that I am out of his league. He is a nice bloke with a chequered past much like mine and we have some sort of connection.

  I am still arguing with myself when the buzzer goes, announcing he is back already.

  Chapter Seven

  Jules

  Warrick plonks himself on the sofa after venturing out and I chuck him the ketchup. We feast on the greasy food. It’s delicious. I scoff like there is no tomorrow, scooping and shovelling. We grin like stupid cats and he laughs at my fixation on the TV. Yes, the sequins are on and I don’t give a toss. It brings light to my dark moods.

  “I am glad you changed your mind about the wine,” he says.

  “Why?” I mumble vaguely, too engrossed in some cricket player murdering the Argentine tango.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” he trails off.

  “If you have got something to say?”

  “I used to have a bit of a problem. With drink and stuff. I fear if I let myself buy it over the counter, I’ll start drinking alone again. I am okay as long as I don’t drink alone.”

  “So, you weren’t always a lightweight then?”

  “No. I mean. I used it to self-medicate. I got hardened.”

  “I can relate to that… becoming hardened, I mean.”

  We share an acknowledgement and I continue to engross myself in the sequins. He doesn’t eat all of his meal so I steal the last of his chips after eating my own. I need them. My metabolism is hard to keep up with.

  Stuffed and burping, I say to him, “Why are we so comfortable with one another?”

  “Cos we are. I dunno.”

  He looks at me with a grin and I smile back.

  “Do you think,” I begin, waving a fork at him, “that really and truly, it is because we’re both messed up. Clearly we are.”

  “Could be,” he says quietly, nodding.

  “What?”

  I know there is something. He is being polite, I suspect.

  “I just think, Jules, we each have nobody else, you know? Not right now, do we? Why else would we both be here, right now?”

  I nod and accept his assumption. It is true. I might have told him that I was off to meet a friend tonight and that would have been that, no takeaway and sequins. He might have had a date and I might have just smiled and waved him off. Truth was, he got pissed because he was upset and I brought him home because I wanted a hug.

  I glance at his face and his expression is one of open frankness. I raise my eyebrows. I have another thought.

  “Maybe, you reached out to me. You thought I needed help. Between your days as a copper and your current profession, you became an interfering busybody?”

  “Maybe,” he says, getting right on my goat. One word answers, grrr.

  “Warrick…” I begin.

  I notice he still does that thing when I say his name. My subsequent speech rolls off quickly, not even a little bit of it orchestrated.

  “I am beyond saving, trust me. I will die in this flat in my sixties. I’ll have three cats, Percy, William and Kafka. When I die in my chair from obesity due to chocoholic-ism, the felines will chew at me until the bones crumble into dust. Nobody will notice my passing. It will be so easy. The kids got their A grades and I got to go to heaven. Therein is my fate. Tada!”

  I stop speed talking and take a breath. I laugh, a nervous chuckle. But it catches in my throat and turns into a strangled, manic choke. He is looking at me with the saddest eyes.

  “Better to be alone than have hope raised and get it dashed,” I screech unconvincingly.

  “What happened to you, Jules?” His voice is solemn and concerned.

  I stare at him. I feel the world spinning around me and my heart speeding toward panic. I take some deep breaths. They don’t help. I feel sick and struggle. I might throw up my dinner and I don’t want to. Breath leaves me. My chest feels tight. It’s a panic attack. His eyes. I will his eyes to stop looking at me.

  He senses what is happening and he dashes across the room to where I am sat at my one-person table. He takes hold of my wrists and looks into my eyes.

  His voice calming, he instructs, “Jules. Breathe, breathe. I am here. Breathe. Look at my eyes. Breathe. Take a breath.”

  It takes all my will but I overcome the swell of my diaphragm to push my muscles back out, forcing air back in. I take breaths. I can see in front of myself again without the room spinning. I feel sharp, painful tears stinging the recesses of my eye sockets.

  He is looking at me with those eyes still and I manage to whisper, “Hug me.”

  He does. He lifts me from the chair and we stand, the pair of us. He takes me so tight against his body and we stay there, holding one another. He strokes my hair and hushes me. I recognise a strength in his arms and chest that was not immediately evident through his baggy clothes earlier that day. He is shaking as he holds me. I wonder why. He tightens his arms around me and strokes my back. I like the scent of him, it’s woody and natural.

  “You’re okay, yeah? Jules?”

  “Don’t let go.”

  He doesn’t respond.

  After a while I pull away and his face is right next to mine. He’s a couple of inches taller than me and it brings us nearly neck and neck. I notice close up, he has a strong jaw. He has purple-ish lips because he’s very dark and half the time they are open and make him look like he’s gawping ‒ but it’s just the way his face is set ‒ and now his mouth is pursed tight, closed in anxiety. His stubble is thick and grows like wild grass, sprouting in all different directions. His moustache is two distinct lines, though I doubt he manicures it that way, it just is. His ears are small and his Adam’s apple is broad and wide. He has moles everywhere, namely one on his chin and another on his temple. He is still looking at me like I made him so sad.

  “How did you get that scar? On your chin?”

  “Threw myself off a climbing frame when I was five. Bit my tongue and got this too,” he says pointing to it, trying to rub it away.

  I take his hand and make him hold it behind my back again.

  “Don’t let go.”

  I push my face in his chest and he tightens his grip on me again.

  “Those words… were the saddest I have ever heard,” he manages to say with a frog in his throat.

  “For your sake, I don’t want to cry or get panicky again, so please say no more.”

  “Okay.”

  I take a deep breath that shudders through me and calms me. Like the sort you take after a long crying session as a child. It makes everything seem alright again and you know it is the moment to shut your eyes and just go to sleep.

  “Were you a good copper?”

  I rest my cheek on his shoulder and spot a lot of tension set in his profile.

  “I suppose.”

  “Can I tell you something? If you were a good cop then you know how to keep a secret? You know when to listen and not look, yes?”

  “You can trust me. Implicitly,” he says, holding me still.

  I gather what strength I have left. I breathe deep.

  “Without going into detail, my mum topped herself when I was little and my dad is a philanderer. I was happily alone for years until I met a man when I was twenty-six who I thought I might have loved. But I lost him. I‒I‒”

  He encourages me, “Go on…”

  “To re-enact the day I met him, I wait on that street corner, every Saturday. I wait. I just watch the world go by. Sometimes a bloke takes my eye and I follow him. Sometimes I just walk into a coffee shop and wait for one to pick me out. I don’t sleep with them because I only care about one thing. I only want a hug. That’s all I want.”

  Silence like a sheet of ice hangs between us for seconds that seem like centuries as I await his response. What he does is pull me in so tight to his body. He is trembling so much I think it is the simple heat of my near panic attack that is stopping me from shaking all over too. He lets out the longest, deepest breath and kisses the side of my head.

/>   “Let’s walk,” he says.

  Our embrace maintains as he guides me to my bedroom. We don’t part but somehow manage to get on the bed together. Fully clothed, he curls his body around mine. He spoons me. Together we pull the blankets up around us. I can still hear the telly playing in the next room and I know my programme has finished. Something else is on and I realise it’s late.

  “I’ll stay if you like,” he says.

  “Stay. Don’t go.” His arms are so strong around my body. “I am sorry if it’s too much to handle. It’s not easy to‒”

  “Stop,” he cuts in, “we’re friends, yeah?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then you can tell me anything and I will be here. Like you said.”

  I feel that deep breath shudder wash over me again and I close my eyes, feeling so safe and warm, nothing can hurt me now.

  Chapter Eight

  Warrick

  I wake with a start and squint. Where am I? I am in her room! I raise my head and discover she’s sleeping soundly. She’s even more beautiful in sleep. I want to kiss her cheek but I can’t. I tried desperately last night and it was like the beer bottle, except I couldn’t, just, quite, get to her skin, like now. I am afraid once I start, I won’t be able to stop. I guess I am so lucky just to be in her bed, holding her.

  Yesterday when she walked into the pub, I thought I might be sick. She actually turned up. The girl is stunning. When she took her coat off and I got a look at her body for the first time, I had to take a deep breath. She’s sensational. She has these small, pert breasts. Just perfect. Did I just say breasts? Like I said, not interested for five years and then, she puts those puppies in front of me and hello. I am ill.

  She wore a pair of jeans and a thin green sweater that showed a little of her midriff when she stood up to stretch. I was a mess. I couldn’t concentrate on anything except thoughts of kissing her mouth, cheeks and hair.

  I was drunk. She didn’t realise I am a one-drink man. Two and I am hammered and laid up all the next day. She didn’t run a mile though! In fact she took care of me and even let me hold her all night.