Angel Avenue

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  I venture to the kitchen and put the kettle on. Within seconds, he’s behind me with his arms around my body and his near-nakedness heating my back.

  “I was going to tell you. And this is totally separate to the work, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I wait to hear what he has to say.

  “She always rings me whenever she and Jake are going through a rough patch. It’s a bad habit she hasn’t quit over the years. Eventually they sort it all out and she quietens down again. But this time, she won’t give up.”

  “Give up what?”

  “I think this time she’s trying to get me back.”

  “Trying to, what?!”

  I swing round and wish he would wipe the worried look off his face. It is doing nothing to calm me. I am venomous with the thought of someone stealing him from me.

  “Yeah, she does this occasionally. It’s been pretty bad of late, though. Odd texts here and there. Little things like getting Joe to ask whether we might ever get back together.”

  “She stooped that low?”

  “Yup.”

  I move away from him. I have to be in another room otherwise I may throw a plate or a glass. I dive back into the bedroom and sit on the edge of the bed and he eventually follows with two cups of tea.

  “You know she’s only doing this because she’s seen you with another woman, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “She’s never seen you with anyone else until now, has she? Until me.”

  “Correct.”

  “I wish I had never rung her that time now. She probably thought it was the greatest opportunity to try and get you back.”

  “Probably,” he sips his tea and nods.

  I feel sick and ask, “What have you said to her?”

  “I love Jules, I love Jules, I love Jules. Basically, that.”

  I nod and turn away so that he can’t see my face. I am crying again though I am doing a good job of hiding it.

  “Do you ever seriously consider taking her back? Giving it another shot?”

  I will him to shout me down and tell me without thought, without any consideration whatsoever, an irrefutable NO. He doesn’t. He stays quiet. I don’t want to know his answer. But he eventually speaks.

  “I wouldn’t. I love you.”

  “But you often consider how different things might have been, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  I ponder and for how long, I don’t know. I know my mug is empty because I am absentmindedly trying to drink what’s not there.

  “When we get to Christmas, are you going to be out and about like you have been?”

  “Possibly.”

  That possibility has me in knots. It has me feeling desperate and bitter. I love Warrick so much. I love the way he eats, talks, walks, sleeps and even, the way he farts in his sleep. I love him through and through. Which is why I have been holding my tongue for so long. Now it is getting to the point, where I cannot bite it any longer. I know myself and I know, if we get into an argument, it won’t be pleasant. I may let myself get irate enough to say things I will regret. My emotions are overflowing.

  “Get back with her. Go. Go away.”

  He’s hurting me more than I can explain.

  “I love you,” he reiterates.

  “Go and get lost, or get back with her. You don’t love me enough. You’ve been leaving me, night after night! I wish we never started sleeping together. Friends was better. I never expected anything then! I was better off. Now all I want is a normal life and you won’t give it to me!”

  “Stop saying these things,” he begs me, reaching for my hand, which I yank away from him.

  “Just bloody go!” I scream and start crying uncontrollably.

  Though my back is still turned to him, I sense him looking down on me because I hear his rapid breathing and the angry stamping of his feet while he tries to think of a comeback.

  He starts dragging his clothes back on and he leaves. He actually leaves.

  I spend the rest of the day crying in bed and decide something. I have one week of school left before we break for Christmas. I am going to throw myself into my work like nothing else for that week and for how ever much longer he holds out on me. If he decides he can give up his dire need to spend all his hours with homeless people (if that is what he’s doing!), then maybe I will consider taking him back.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jules

  Four months later…

  Thank God it is Friday. I’ve had about ten fags already today. That has to be a new record for someone who smokes recreationally.

  My magical find, Liza, who wrote that piece about Romeo and Juliet, was bumped up into my top set Year Ten class in the New Year. This was four months ago now. Ever since, I’ve noticed she has not been the same. I didn’t teach her regularly before, but I have spotted it. There is something bothering her, I can tell.

  So now I have thirty-seven pupils in this class and I even have to have one pupil sat at the corner of my own desk, because we are so crammed in here. Guess I have got to be thankful that I have so many bright kids to teach. But, you know. I worry these days that I am neglecting some of them. I worry about so much since the new headmaster came along and shook everything up.

  I am scribbling something on the remote chalkboard when I notice Hetty trying to get a look at what I am preparing for the next portion of the lesson. Yes, surprise, surprise, she’s taken that corner of my desk.

  One of my pupils, Aiden, is reading aloud to the class from Frankenstein and the children are enraptured. This is always one book that seems to hold their attention; throughout the years this has become clear to me ‒ kids love the macabre.

  I stand when he finishes reading the chapter where the monster comes to life.

  I walk in front of the class and ask, “Do you think Shelley wanted to explore the laws of nature or something else?”

  Hetty shouts without raising her hands, “Miss, Miss, can I say something!”

  I see eyes roll and know some of the other kids are tired of this too. These days, I rue every single day she’s been in this class. She just always tries to take over and it’s not the sort of class where I can exert my monstrous, dictatorial voice, like I do with the challenging ones. These kids are too clever and sometimes, much more difficult to deal with. They examine my every move.

  Hetty is a tall girl, lanky one might say, and with a wan complexion. I wonder how well she is treated at home. She’s got brains in her fingertips but there is something about her. She’s eager, desperate to please, and she doesn’t like anyone taking away the limelight.

  “Go on Hetty,” I respond with weariness.

  “I read she wrote it when she had this nightmare, dint she? That’s all it is! Just a figment of what’shername’s imagination.”

  “Yes, she did. She was up by some Swiss lake with a group of writers and they were sharing stories and ideas. There was a storm and as accounts have it, a vivid dream led her to write this story.”

  The class look on and I see Hetty’s pleased-as-punch face. They’re as tired as me of her constant need to rule these lessons but I dare not push her away. I sense something.

  “Liza, you told me previously, you have already read this book several times? It’s a favourite, isn’t it?”

  She nods. Liza, the little mouse girl with a gift for words bigger than my stash of chocolate at home, has retreated into herself. She may be small and she might be quiet but before she joined this class, she seemed happy and content in herself. These days she sits in lesson, head bowed, avoiding eye-contact.

  Hetty’s hand is in the air again.

  “Liza?” I repeat concisely.

  “You could say it is a book about yearning,” Liza begins in a quiet voice, and she gains her speech eventually, when she hears agreement from the rest of the class. “You could say Frankenstein wanted a brother. A son. I don’t know, a creation he could control. You could say it is a book about
repression. About some desire to rule mother nature. It’s not the God complex, it’s more like…”

  She pauses, so I take the helm, “Frankenstein had so much power at his fingertips, even he was frightened of what he was capable of. He stood alone in his achievement, didn’t he? He achieved the pinnacle of science, but at what cost? He might have been looking for companionship of some sort but whatever his reasons, they were selfish. Maybe he wanted a creation he could control. Maybe this book is about yearning and repression and nature rearing back against what is unnatural. Another interpretation is that physicians of the time were so obsessed with studying cadavers, Shelley either feared advances in medicine, or she herself was wishing someone she’d lost back to life. This is why we continue to study this book 200 years on… the interpretations are endless. The way each of us reads it will always be different.”

  They all nod with impressed gazes.

  “So, I have a question for you all to write out. It’s a long one so I will put it up on the board for you. ‘Do you empathise with the monster more than his creator? Why is this? Do we feel compassion for the creature because he’s searching for a father figure or is it because he’s in pain?’ Note it down and the usual two sides ought to suffice, okay?”

  Everyone nods and writes, their heads bowed over their notebooks. I spot Hetty’s hidden expression when I return to my desk. Her face is held in a stony, rigid scowl.

  I arrive home exhausted. My Year Eleven’s are on the cusp of their exams and are due to leave next week. I am anxious to see how Jack’s changes are going to impact on this year’s set of results. On top of all that, I have just had too many days recently when I get home feeling tearful and drained. I miss Warrick.

  He never came back. In fact a few days after I told him to go, I found all his things gone and his key posted through the letterbox. If that wasn’t a sign it’s over, I don’t know what is.

  I slide into my armchair and doze for a while, not quite asleep but too tired to move or feed myself. The stress gets to me on days like today, when I am faced with back-to-back classes, meetings and the worry about what is going on with Liza. I spoke to some other teachers and she’s been just the same in those other classes.

  Yes, it has been a long few months without Warrick. Everything is so much more of a slog without him. Nevertheless changes have occurred…

  When springtime started warming the streets a few weeks ago, I remembered how Amy and I used to sit and bask in the same warm rays when we were teenagers. We went up to the tree on the hill and stretched out where we knew nobody wandered. We used to use buttercups to see if light reflected under each other’s chins and that way we could tell if we liked butter ‒ silly, girlish little superstitions. I used to tell her stories of Mum and frankly, most of them were made up and imagined. You know, tales of her dancing in the Moulin Rouge or the Royal Albert Hall. I expect Amy knew they were little fibs but she never said.

  It made me realise something so I hopped on a bus and went to the other side of the bridge. I walked around for a few hours and saw how things had changed, and then, I saw her standing outside a shop as if she had seen me walk by and had dashed out to see if it were actually me. I stood and she strode toward me. I noticed she looked much older, much skinnier, and her hair which used to be black had been bleached white. We both always used to say that when grey started coming through, we’d go platinum together.

  Just the sight of her and her tiny frame made me cry. Me crying made her cry. I walked towards her and we cried together.

  I went into her shop, an alternative store selling everything from hookahs to dreadlock wigs and stick-on tattoos. It smelt of burnt incense and wood.

  “I like your place.”

  “I just decided to do something cool. Something different. It makes me stand out. Being a designer got boring, I was just making stuff to other people’s specifications.”

  I smiled knowingly as I admired her stock, which included a rack of clothes only the most seasoned Goth might wear. I picked up an incense kit and put it on the counter, making a purchase as an act of forgiveness. She rang it through the till almost in tears.

  “I saw him, last year. He wasn’t the same,” I revealed.

  “No. Nobody is ever quite the same after losing someone, especially someone like you,” she sobbed.

  “I wish we could go back, I really do. But we can’t,” I sobbed in return. “But I want you to know that in the early days, you were… my saviour.”

  My lip was wobbling unbearably.

  “You too,” she told me gently, her hand on top of mine.

  I took the brown paper bag with the incense in it and walked backwards intending to leave. When I did, I bumped into a large man, burly, dressed casually in sweats and a beanie hat.

  I apologised and heard the words, “Amy, Julie is crying. Will you go up, I can’t get her to stop.”

  I started walking out with a smile and when she shouted, “I love you,” I turned back and mouthed the same.

  I went to the bus stop, got on the next bus, and cried all the way home.

  I also finally cashed Dad’s cheque. It had been sitting in a drawer for too long and I went to the bank hesitantly. I didn’t know whether it would clear. I wondered whether he had that sort of figure lying in his account all the time! I stood watching the bank clerk and she glared at me, staring at the sum before her. When she finally told me it had all gone through, I walked back home in a daze. I was £50,000 up.

  So, I live in a house now. It’s a small, detached property that lies in a hidden suburb of character homes, directly opposite the leafy main road that runs by the university. My new neighbourhood is a winding, mysterious, hidden nook of this area, where physicians, academics, businessmen and footballers keep tip-top homes. Mine is unique in that it is probably the smallest thing here but it was just perfect for me and came on the market at the right time. It’s got three bedrooms, one of which I use as a study (yes, a separate study!). The other is a spare I keep all my junk in but heck, who is going to want to stay with me! I have a large living/dining room, a top-notch metallic kitchen delivered and popped up in one day by the nice men at B&Q, a downstairs lavatory even and an upstairs bathroom with, would you believe it, a roll-top bath. Luxury! There is even a finely manicured garden out back with trees, hedges and daffodils.

  I now take more pride in my home and I feel a sense of achievement. All these years of hard graft as a teacher enabled me to get a pretty hefty mortgage and Dad’s lottery money paid a generous deposit.

  Yet… there is something missing from this house, this life, this place. I have been maudlin like this since he left and never came back.

  When I moved out of the flat, I offered my nightmarish old neighbour all my houseplants and she took them gratefully. Behind the stern face, her brillo pad hair and a mouth with no lips, she turned out to be pleasant enough once we got talking. We actually had a nice conversation over a cup of tea and she asked me about the suave man I had been seeing. I forgave her nosiness and tried to fob her off, but I started crying and told her the whole story and she gave me a hug. Actually, a hug that might last a lifetime. Because it was the nearest thing to something I’d get from a mother. Anyway, I guess she is still enjoying the plants.

  Betsy retired and has been replaced by Vernon, a multi-disciplined teacher who also happens to have done theatre in his spare time. He’s helped me revolutionise the department and he’s got me out of the house to attend amateur dramatics and concerts. We’re friends. He has ten dogs. I love him.

  My new star student may never have been discovered if it were not for the headmaster’s changes and though I hate him a little still, with his idealistic ways and unrealistic demands, my job has gotten a lot more fulfilling and the challenging classes are now under control.

  I miss Warrick so much it hurts. There has been nobody since him and I am not looking.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Warrick

  Two days after she gave
me that ultimatum, I felt like I was dying without her. I rang Ronnie and told him it’s all over. No more. I can’t do it. He warned me about our contract, about me finishing the job, and I knew I couldn’t get out of it. I have to do this.

  I follow her when she thinks I am not there. I know how to prowl, as she once put it. I pull my hood over my head and trail behind her. Once, just after Christmas, I watched her meet a man on the Avenue. Well, more like she bumped into him. I followed as they walked together and just before they said their goodbyes, I hid down an alley beside the corner they stood on and overheard their conversation.

  “I am sorry about your divorce, but I want nothing to do with you.”

  “Why? Have ya got a boyfriend?”

  “None of your business.”

  “C’mon Jules, give me anutha chance.”

  “No.”

  She walked off and he watched her leave. I caught a look at his face and saw it was Laurie, the bastard. I remembered him from when I pulled up his files. There was quite a bit more I didn’t tell her about him. Laurie was institutionalised for most of his childhood, moved from one children’s home to another between stays with his mother, who seemed to shack up with blokes handy with their fists. Makes his gambling addiction seem more understandable I guess. Still doesn’t excuse what he did to her. I was prepared to fight him for Jules, but thank the heavens I won’t have to.

  She seems to have finally laid that ghost to rest. I also thank God every day she’s alive, still fit and well. I leave her alone out of kindness. It’s easier this way. I can’t bear for her to know what I am doing and why. Not yet.

  When I first met Jules, when we first started sharing a bed on a Saturday night, I was quite often woken by her talking in her sleep. She suffered nightmares and thrashed her body about, mumbling, “Get off me, leave me alone,” or, “Mum, is that you?” They stopped eventually, when I started staying most nights. However, the nights I left her, I knew she had been suffering them again. I came home late one night to discover her in a pool of sweat and while she was still in a deep sleep, I rolled her onto my side and managed to peel the sheets off and put a new one on. I don’t think she even realises she has them. They are obviously throwbacks to traumas of the past, but then I wondered also if the return of the nightmares was a result of the anxiety I was causing her. She’s better off without me.