Angel Avenue

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  The pit of my stomach swells with bile and I hide my eyes when he shows me the box of notes I thought I had put away yesterday. I had been meaning to finally chuck them out. He must have spotted them on my table top. They are too bright to miss, I suppose, all written on rainbow-coloured Post-Its that men have left on my pillow. A teacher has plenty of them to hand on her desk and they have certainly come in handy for my ‘conquests’ to let me know why they have left my bed (all excuses). They all left because I didn’t put out.

  I now feel ill. I shouldn’t have kept them all. I shouldn’t have left them out. I now understand the look on his face. There have been many and one might have turned nasty on me. Warrick wouldn’t pick me up just expecting afternoon delight. He doesn’t look happy.

  I wait to see if he will say something else but he doesn’t. I bite my nails in anguish and roll over so I face the other way.

  When he hears me crying, he groans and I hear him mumble, “Oh, god.”

  He doesn’t want to comfort me. He wants to evade me now he knows how sad my life has been. He can’t hack it. Yet he is such a gentleman, he probably will want to hold me and make it all alright again.

  I don’t know why I am crying, not really. Perhaps I am tired, maybe it’s the emotion of all this – us getting together. I just feel idiotic, I guess. Warrick’s facial expressions are the reality I have been hiding from for so long. I have been burying the reality deep down. I continue crying because I can’t stop.

  He leaps across the room and his heavy weight bounces beside me on the bed. He lurches under the covers, grabs me and turns me to him. He takes hold of me against his body. I cry. I feel guilty.

  I tell him in a screechy voice, “You should go while you’ve got chance, Warrick. Get away from me. Escape while your sanity is still intact.”

  He holds me tighter and kisses my cheek, holding my naked body to his.

  “Jules, I only know I can restore your faith, if you’ll let me. If you can trust me?”

  “But I know what you think,” I say, my voice a squeak still.

  “What? That you’re a sado? I don’t think that at all.”

  “Why did you have that look on your face then?”

  “What look?”

  “Like my life is sad.”

  “No, I was just thinking that they really never gave good excuses, did they?”

  “No!” I exclaim.

  None ever did. It was half the reason why I kept the notes. They make me smile whenever I look through. Some of the excuses were pretty poor.

  Have to wash my car.

  Sorry, I left the oven on at home.

  My dog just got run over.

  Had a good time. See you around.

  You’re a top babe and you deserve better than me.

  You were an exceptional kisser. I must try harder next time.

  Thought you were amazing, Juliet.

  Now I am with Warrick, who’s laid beneath me and tense, I wonder whether it’s too late to wipe the slate clean.

  “Did they always leave notes?”

  “Most did, amazingly. They must have thought I would cry into my cocoa otherwise.”

  We chuckle but it’s not funny, not really.

  “It annoys me. There are some right insensitive pricks out there.”

  “They didn’t know me at all. They didn’t know my past. And maybe it was just that‒” I stop myself before I say anything more.

  He seems to know what I was hinting at and he finishes, “You had that demeanour of you can’t touch this.”

  “Yep,” I admit.

  Nobody wants to be friends with that. Or get to know that. They scarper as soon as they realise how strange I am.

  The truth is blaringly obvious. I know it. He knows it. So does everyone else. I am just ignoring the reality for as long as reality will let me. Slowly, this man is eroding the hard bitch shell I have hid behind.

  “Julie, you know I love you, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Rick.”

  “Well, I have to say, when you first brought me here, to your place, I did think it was all strange. The magazines… the plants. The candles. I mean, why so many candles?”

  My mouth twitches and I hug him harder. He loves me despite all that.

  “I was trying to fill so many holes,” I admit.

  No wonder Laurie ran a mile. No wonder all the other fellas freaked.

  Now, I wish only one thing. I wish I could find Laurie and ask him why. Why did he do it to me? Why did he hurt me so badly? He is the sole reason why I have been on this spin of meaningless existence. I used to have some friends, not good friends, but people I spoke to. Before him I used to walk down the Avenue with a smile on my face. Before Laurie I didn’t know how easy it would be to pull the rug from beneath me.

  “Tell me what I can do to make it better,” Warrick says so softly, into my ear.

  I would like to ask him to kiss me and hold me until the sun goes down again, and repeat. Day after day. Never leave me. Just hold me.

  I hold his cheek and kiss his lips gently, staring into his dark eyes.

  “I think I need to find Laurie and discover why he did what he did to me. Otherwise, I can’t move on. I am not sure whether I will ever be able to start fresh otherwise. You don’t deserve to have to mop up the mess he made.”

  “You really think that might work?” he asks on a sigh. He is tense. More so now I mentioned Laurie.

  “Yes. I need to have it out with him. Discover why. Tell him what it did to me. Explain. Make him see he can’t do this again, not to anyone.”

  “Okay,” Warrick says, and tucks some hair behind my ear in a gentle display of affection. I feel so comforted.

  Warrick is so fundamental to my happiness now, I couldn’t bear to ruin that. However, to move on I need to do this.

  “I’ll visit his campus and see what he says when I confront him. There is no point emailing or trying to phone, he would probably just ignore me.”

  “Do you want me to come with?” Warrick asks, a hint of worry in his tone.

  “No,” I reassure him, stroking his arm. “I shall be fine.”

  He keeps sweeping his fingers through my hair so lazily, my eyes are shutting with the calming sensation. He keeps stroking my hair and I fall, back to sleep, buried in his chest hair and warmth. I can hear his heart pounding and throbbing in my ear. He’s… I can’t describe what he is to me.

  When I wake, he’s gone but my breakfast is there again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jules

  It’s still half term and I am ahead with my marking etcetera so later that day, I decide to walk around some of my old haunts. I stride around my former campus and visit some of the professors that are still there in the Larkin building, telling them what I am up to nowadays. It proves to be a very pleasant experience. It gives me time to remember what I was like before Laurie. I was outgoing, tenacious and full of it. I had lots of acquaintances, people I laughed and drank with, but nobody like Warrick. Not one person who knew my past. I was running from what I was back then, pretending I was just any other student with a mission to get drunk and get a respectable Upper Second Class degree.

  I pass a café I used to frequent and recall that back in the good old days, they served 500ml mochas with half a can of cream and marshmallows thrown in, plus syrup if you wanted it and a flake to boot. They used to help keep me awake all night if I had a last-minute essay to hand in.

  I roll up to the Union bar and order a pint of Snakey B and get approached by a guy who asks if he can buy me another. I politely decline and say I am waiting for my boyfriend. I quickly sup up and leave, before using Dutch courage to seek out the sports psychology department. I wander round for a time like I belong there, secretly desperate to find a timetable. I discover one, finally, and read it quickly before I get thrown out or worse, bump into him.

  I seek a time when it will be quiet and I make a plan in my head, walking away from his sphere of work with a mind to ret
urning and finishing this, once and for all.

  I continue on my way and start walking back down the Avenue, when I see a roof plastered with a Union Jack shining in the sun. The car pulls up by the side of the road and toots, so I bend down and the window rolls for me to pop my head in.

  “Hey beautiful. Need a ride?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to be at this meeting down on Beverley Road.”

  “I was just going to wander down here and then head home.”

  “Okay, babes.”

  I dive in and sit on his passenger seat. He’s in a shirt and trousers and I want to rip them off.

  “You look sexy,” he growls.

  I kiss his mouth and tuck his hair back for him, replying, “So do you.”

  “I ought to take you back right now and do all unmentionable things.”

  “Warrick…” I draw out his name.

  “You make me so happy babes,” his face creases, “but I gotta go.”

  I kiss his cheek and dive out. I neglect to mention that tomorrow evening, I am going to face my demon. I shall tell him later. He needn’t have his day spoiled too.

  Part of me is shocked that Laurie is existing within my environs, so closely in fact, and yet he has not crossed my path since that day I saw him with a woman I suspect he may now be married to. He never tried to get in touch again despite knowing where I live and work. I expect he thinks I have forgotten all about him and that I never gave a second thought to what he did to me. He probably doesn’t realise I recorded every minute of our time together, inside my mind, and that I wouldn’t forget where he works and what he does.

  I continue walking down the Avenue and my mind wanders. I could skip it and save myself the stress of this, and not put Warrick through it either, but I need to settle my mind and I think he understands. This is one ghost I can confront.

  ***

  I found out from one of the timetables that Laurie holds a seminar from six till seven on a Wednesday night, so here I am. Last night I told Warrick about my plan when he came home from work. He asked me about a million times whether I wanted him here, and I just said no every time.

  Since I left the house half an hour ago, Warrick has been texting me incessantly, asking for updates and constantly needing to know I am okay. I think he’s practically moved in with me because he’s been at my place every night since Bruges. He’s waiting there for me now. I keep insisting I am fine. I really am. He doesn’t know it but having him in my life has made me brave enough now, to face what happened with Laurie. I need to know. I need to let go of the past.

  I wait in the quiet corridor. Thankfully at this time of the day, there is nobody around and it’s the perfect chance to collar him afterwards. I hear laughing and chatting inside the small meeting room. I thank the stars that the class wasn’t cancelled and I try to calm myself. I take deep breaths and make fists with my hands over and over. I am trembling with fear.

  When I hear the screeching of chairs and the sound of a familiar voice booming over his students as they prepare to leave, I pull back against a wall and keep my head down. I stare at a wall and wait. I see only trainers and ballet pumps pass me by. Then I see a pair of leather brogues and they stop, right in front of me.

  “Jules,” he says, and I look up.

  It’s Laurie. He’s alive. He has been all this time. Only, I made him into something else inside my head. Some part of me made him dead, unreachable. Many times, I might have tried to convince myself that a tragic accident took him. Perhaps he was a ghost who made love to me and then evaporated in the night. I stood on that corner hoping he might haunt me once more, but he never did. I chose men who were substitutes, until Warrick came along and became the only real man to ever hold me close.

  I laid awake so many nights after what happened between Laurie and me, fantasising the life we might have led or the love we might have grown to share. It was all a flimsy daydream.

  When he raises his hand to his head and runs his fingers through his hair in an awkward bid to take the heat off his face, I see a wedding band. Perhaps it should upset me but it doesn’t. It doesn’t surprise me, anyway.

  I don’t know where to begin. I had so many opening lines ready in my head, so many possibilities to choose from, and now they are all gone. Into the annals of my brain, never to be seen or heard again.

  “Jules, look,” he begins, still awkward. “Listen, lass, I did mean to come by and explain. I nearly did, so many times, only‒”

  “Only what?” I finally eyeball him, giving him the sternest stare possible.

  “Dere would have been no good way of paintin’ it.”

  “Painting what? The fact that I got hospitalised after I discovered you were engaged?”

  “What?” His eyes widen in total disbelief. Shock and horror. He drops his bag on the ground and runs his hands over his mouth.

  “I wondered what had happened to you, that morning…” I gather myself, plucking up the courage. I have waited so long to get this out of my system. I need to tell him exactly what he did to me. “I waited, for hours, imagining the worst. Imagining you dead, or… then six weeks later, depressed and out of my head with all kinds of reasons as to why you might have done what you did… I saw you with a woman, on the Avenue. I saw you… then I was sedated by paramedics. My neighbours called them. I was nearly sectioned, because of you.”

  “Ah, c’mon! Sectioned!”

  He throws his head back, scoffing at me.

  “Yeah!” I shout.

  “Ye really are a fuckin’ loony, ya know Jules. I mean, I t’ought you were odd wit’ all those magazines and books and candles, so at least now I know I was right to feckin’ leave ya be.”

  “Listen, okay, you, listen,” I point at him. I glare, and continue in a severe, deadly tone of voice, “I had an appalling upbringing. My mum topped herself, my dad was a philanderer. I never knew any kind of love until that day. So do you understand what you did?”

  “Listen, listen love. Okay… I’ll tell ya. Listen. I left dat morning. I was gonna get ya some breakfast. Only… I was in the shop, bumped into me on/off girlfriend. She needed to bend me ear over someting and we… talked… decided to give it a proper go. I asked her to marry me two weeks later.”

  There is only one way to respond to his words.

  His flippant, meaningless words.

  I strike him harder than I have ever hit anything. The crack sounds brutal as my palm smashes against his cheek and causes fire to radiate throughout my hand before a stinging heat makes me regret even bothering. He’s not worth it.

  He looks shocked to the bone and I know, he will have to explain the imprint I have left on him when he gets home.

  I warn him, spitting from the bowels of my throat, “You left me completely bereft. You could have been dead for all I knew. You know when you come inside a woman, you don’t just get back with your casual girlfriend the next day and pretend nothing happened, nothing hurts anyone. I hurt. I hurt for days, weeks, months, because of what you did to me. You could have slipped a note under my door at least, to let me know you were alive… but oh no…”

  I stand back and shake my head. I am violently angry, shaking and trembling all over. I want to scream and shout some more. I need to hit him again. Tears fall down his cheeks and I wonder whether I was too harsh. Too unfair. He stumbles back and reaches for a wall to steady himself.

  “Me wife, Penny, she left me a couple o’months ago. I luv her so much, she’s the only ting dat keeps me on track. So I have got me comeuppance, see!”

  His lip trembles and the fire raging inside me quells. He’s human after all.

  “Why?”

  “Cheated on her, din’t I? Like the fool I am. I have someting wrong wit me, must ’ave!”

  He falls against the wall and cries and I don’t know where to put myself or what to do. He pulls his knees up to his chest and buries his head in his arms, making a show of himself. If anyone comes by right now, he’ll tr
y to turn this back onto me, I know it – me, the intruder in this building. What kind of man is this? A coward, that’s what. If he’s expecting sympathy, he’s got another thing coming.

  “You should have searched for me. Told me the truth. Made amends in some manner. There is no excuse for the way you treated me. If you ask me, you don’t deserve Penny and she doesn’t deserve you. It’s you who needs reforming, nobody else. You’re a liar, a cheat and I wouldn’t be shocked if you’d gone behind her back loads of times before and after me.”

  “C’mon. Jules. Give us ya number. We could be friends?”

  I look down on him and see that smarmy smile I fell for all those months ago, but now it makes me baulk. I don’t know why I spent so much time pining for him. I guess I underestimate the cruelty of others – it is my fatal flaw. Now I’m sure this man is a prick and if he loved his wife at all, he wouldn’t be trying it on with me again.

  I shake my head, turn on my heel and leave him behind. How can I trust a thing that comes out of his mouth? He spent one day treating me like a princess and then left me stranded, in a sea of loneliness and despair. I spent more than a year after that wondering what I had done wrong. It turns out, nothing. Except maybe trusting too easily.

  I get outside and quickly text Warrick: Done.

  I start running and when I am halfway home, Warrick texts me and I slow to get a look at it: I’m here waiting.

  I keep running and my heart is pounding. I am rid of everything that has been plaguing me for I don’t know how long. I feel exhilarated and it makes me run faster. When I approach my street, I notice Warrick waiting outside for me. I run into his arms and hold him tight. I kiss him on the street, our hot tongues duelling and fighting it out.

  “I love you,” he smiles, his arms pulling me close, his voice breaking.

  He walks me to my door and stands behind me while I unlock it and struggle to get the key in the hole. I am still in shock. I have undone myself of so much hurt and pain.

  I get us inside and I wonder what he is thinking. I climb the stairs out of breath and the old lady sees us and gives me a snide smile. I return it and ignore her.