by Jo Duchemin
“Do you want me to come visit you?” I could hear the wheels in motion in Sandra’s head already, planning how to explain to her children she was leaving them again, wondering which train she could catch, how long I would need her to stay. I didn’t want to burden her.
“No. I’ll be fine. It’s just still raw,” and open and gaping, and pouring blood out of me, I thought.
“He only just left, time heals everything. I’m here if you need me, just call and I can be on a train.” There was the faintest tinge of relief in her voice, which I hoped was because she thought I was alright, not because she had escaped a trip to see me.
“I’ll live.” It was about the only thing I could guarantee, at the moment.
“Do you want to look for another flatmate?” Sandra asked sincerely and I felt like an ungrateful, spoilt child, for imagining she would be relieved not to have to travel to see me.
“Nobody could replace Marty.” That much was overwhelmingly true.
“Better than being alone.”
“No. I don’t need the money. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t want anybody else.”
“OK. Oh, I forgot, the reason I was ringing was to invite you to ours for Christmas. The kids can’t wait to see you, and you can stay over – I just redecorated the guest room, you’ll be our first visitor.” She was forcing herself to sound bright and breezy. I’d forgotten about Christmas. It was only two weeks away.
“I don’t know if I’ll be very good company.” My eyes filled with tears, this time for my parents. This Christmas would be the first one I didn’t spend in this house with them.
“You need to be with family. I won’t take no for an answer. You know that.”
“Thank you. It’s going to be really hard.” I stopped speaking, unable to continue.
“I know, it’ll be hard for me too. Come up on Christmas Eve, stay until Boxing Day, or whenever you like. Get the train and your Uncle Ned will collect you from the station.”
“It’s really kind of you.”
“Shhhh. We’re family.” For the umpteenth time this year, I wished Aunt Sandra lived closer. I’d have loved to be able to have a cuddle with her, to feel like a little girl again. She was a wonderful woman. I realised that, selfishly, I hadn’t asked anything about her and the family.
“Are you guys OK? The kids enjoying the snow?”
“Oh yeah, they’re thrilled – school’s closed!” Sandra giggled, “meanwhile, I’m frazzled. I don’t know how the teachers put up with them. Two hours at home so far, and I’m ready to throttle them! What have you got planned for the day?”
“Nothing.” No rehearsals or lectures today – nothing to distract me from my heartache. Marty and I had planned to spend the day together in the house, playing Scrabble, watching old films, kissing. It would have been beautiful.
“Gives you a chance to catch up on your laundry and chores though – I have a laundry basket that requires its own postcode! Don’t even start me on the ironing, the kids are going to school crumpled tomorrow, I don’t even care anymore. Who invented this idea that clothes should be flat anyway? Oh, crap! Claudia, honey, I have to go. Allison has just fallen over and scraped her knee.”
“Thanks for calling, and well, everything. I miss you.” I closed my eyes with the effort of not breaking down again.
“I miss you too, kid. See you soon and call me if you need me.” She hung up.
I needed her. I needed someone. No, I just needed Marty.
Chapter 17
I lay in bed for most of the morning, cradling Marty’s book close to me, as a mother would protect a baby. I didn’t care that I was hungry and thirsty. I didn’t care that Marty might be watching my pain. I just didn’t care anymore.
After speaking to my aunt, I felt more alone than ever. I’d cried so much that my eyes stung and the skin on my eyelids felt sore, red raw. My lips were chapped from me biting them in an effort to withhold my tears and from a lack of hydration. My hair was limp and bedraggled where my tears had washed into it. I didn’t care about that either. I had nobody to look good for now.
Sleep brought a welcome respite from my despair. I was thankful for the absence of dreams.
When the pain grew too immense to contain, I disappeared into a fantasy in my imagination, pretending Marty was just at work and he would reappear through the door at any moment. The idea brought a temporary comfort.
By the afternoon, I decided that I’d wallowed in self-pity enough and, for Marty’s sake, I’d get up and make some effort to create a semblance of a normal life. I decided to run a bath, thinking a shower would not provide a long enough distraction from my unhappiness. Whilst waiting for the bath to fill, I wandered around the room that had belonged to Marty, when he first came to live here. It was stark, vacant, a cruel reminder that he was gone. A letter had been placed on the pillow. I snatched it up.
Dear Claudia,
If you’re reading this letter, then I have left. This would not be my choice. Either you have sent me away, or we’ve been separated by other forces. I am writing this letter after spending the night in your bed, after admitting my love for you. I am concerned that, if I do not leave this letter, I will never get a chance to tell you how beautiful it has been being in love with you. You are truly unforgettable. I feel blessed for the time we have already spent together. I will always love you. If I have left, I will not be returning. Please don’t hide your heart away. Find a man who can be as lucky as I have, to be honoured with falling in love with you.
Love,
Marty X
I don’t know how many times I read his letter. I lost count. I stood there, mesmerised by his words, for I don’t know how long. Long enough that when I returned to the bathroom the bath was filled and threatening to overflow. I hadn’t added cold water, so I would have to wait for the bath to cool down before I could get in it. I read and re-read his letter another handful of times, feeling both overjoyed and dismayed with every word. He’d known from the start – he’d told me several times – there was no happy ending for us; but I never wanted to believe that. Now, it had happened and I had no idea of how I would survive. I had to just take every second, every heartbeat, one by one.
I walked back to his room, and looked out of the window. Children were playing on the green opposite, making the most of the fading daylight and sparkling snow. I watched them play for a while, throwing snowballs, making snowmen and lying on the ground, waving their arms about, creating snow angels. If only it were that easy to conjure up an angel, I’d have one in the room with me. My heart felt like it was burned. The damage would never heal; I would carry the scars forever.
I took my bath, spending so long in the tub thinking that the water turned cold and my fingers took on a prune-like appearance. I cried again, watching my tears make ever-increasing circles as they rippled on the bath water. The effect was hypnotic.
I didn’t feel like making an effort to blow-dry my hair but, as I needed to fill up the time until I could sleep again, I took the time to get the worst of the damp out. The buzz of the hairdryer’s motor was oddly loud in this silent, heartbroken house.
I knew I should eat. Part of me wondered if I would manage to make myself faint if I kept my blood sugar low and if I might be able to speak to Marty that way, but I remembered my promise to try to carry on with my life. Knowing my luck, I’d run into George again. I couldn’t understand why he hated me so much when Olivia had been so kind and compassionate.
I made myself a sandwich, not caring enough to cook anything. I sat at the kitchen table, a scene of so many conversations with Marty, and missed him immensely. His empty chair was a stark reminder of happier days that were now gone, forever. I closed my eyes and pictured him sitting there, with his beautiful smile that made his dimples pronounced. I imagined his eyes twinkling as he t
old me he loved me, the courteous gesture of kissing my hand. My heart beat just a little bit stronger, and I knew I had to stop torturing myself. He’d gone.
I didn’t have a lot of experience with men. My first real boyfriend, at the age of sixteen, had only dated me for a few weeks. I’d broken up with him after he started pestering me for sex. I’d been strong through the break up, convinced that if he was worth having he’d find a way to fight for me, that if he truly loved me he’d wait for me to be ready. He didn’t. In fact, he started dating another girl and got her pregnant within a month of breaking up with me. Since then, I’d lived strongly by the old adage that ‘no man is worth your tears and the one who is won’t make you cry’.
Was this how a girl was meant to feel when she broke up with her boyfriend? Even thinking of Marty as just a boyfriend felt wrong, he was so much more than that. He was every beat of my heart. How could I even begin to pick up the pieces of him leaving?
I crawled back to bed, breathing in the fading scent on his pillow, and began another fragmented night of sleep.
I woke up at a stupidly early hour in the morning. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep any longer. I had a rehearsal scheduled in four hours time, and nothing to do in between, but get myself ready, and miss Marty. I didn’t feel like the gaping hole he’d left in my life was getting any easier to cope with, but I wasn’t crying all the time. I just felt numb now. Lying in bed, missing him, wasn’t helping, so I figured I may as well get up and get ready. I hoped that the sooner I started the day, the sooner it would be finished, so that I could at least go back to sleep to switch off my feelings.
I put Donna’s CD on, in the kitchen, while I cooked myself a breakfast. I wasn’t normally a girl who ate big meals in the morning, but as I had nothing else to do, I figured trying to keep my hands busy with a few saucepans of food might help. I tried to sing along with my character’s songs, but my voice sounded strained from my previous two days of crying and my heart wasn’t in it. Donna would rip me apart at rehearsal, but what could she do that would be any worse than what I’d been through this week?
I ate my breakfast, not tasting any of it, just going through the motions. I wondered if that would turn out to be a metaphor for the rest of my life. Instead of using the dishwasher, I washed my plate and utensils by hand, to waste more time. I hated that I’d gone from savouring precious borrowed time, to wasting time when faced with a boring eternity.
With two hours left before my rehearsal, I decided to head to the university. I planned to grab a latte in the coffee shop, before heading to the theatre, to rehearse prior to my cast mates arriving. At least it would be quiet and I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone.
It was the first time I’d left the house since Marty’s departure. The air was cold and the ground was covered with day old snow; it looked beautiful, but had a frozen, hard edge to it. My boots created a squeaking sound as I trudged down the path. The footprints Marty and I had made on the driveway were now erased by further snowfalls and my single trail today made me feel even more alone. I tried to shake off the feeling and walked slowly to the university.
The streets and campus were deserted, all sounds muted by the snow. The world had an eerie, dream-like quality, and it increased my loneliness. When I reached the coffee shop, I found it was closed. It appeared I was the only person who had made it into the university in the snow.
I was absentmindedly looking at a notice board in the coffee shop window, reading but not absorbing the words, when I heard another set of steps behind me. Expecting to see one of the workers for the coffee shop finally turning up for work, I was surprised to see Ben. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out my face under my woolly hat.
“Claudia? Is that you?” he asked.
“Yes it is. Hi, Ben.” I couldn’t fake any animation in my voice. It was a monotone that didn’t sound right.
“What are you doing here?” He looked pleased to see me.
“Waiting for the coffee shop to open,” I tried to make a joke, to be my normal self when I felt anything but normal, “I need a latte! I’m tempted to break the door down.”
It was a weak joke but he laughed anyway. “What time do they open?”
“Twenty minutes ago.” I rolled my eyes.
“Shit, you’re kidding me?”
“I guess they can’t get in with the snow,” I shrugged my shoulders, not understanding his panicked look.
“The director has sent me out for coffee, she’s going to kill me.”
“Donna?”
“Yeah. She’s vile,” Ben raised his eyes to the sky. “What will I do?”
“What did she ask for?” I wanted to help him, his task would give me a distraction for a few minutes.
“A cappuccino. Do you know how to make one?”
“No, don’t be silly. But I do know a machine in the students’ union that can make one. It wouldn’t be the same as one from here,” I cocked my head to the closed coffee shop, “but it will do.”
We walked the few minutes to the students’ union building, making idle chatter. He told me how he’d been called in to watch the rehearsal today, so that he could start planning the camera positions that would best capture the stage action. Donna was antagonising him already, treating him like a lackey and ignoring any creative input he wanted to have.
“You should hear the things she’s said to me,” I said to him. “There are no redeeming features of this woman!” I wanted to make Ben feel a bit better about the situation.
“What did she say to you?” he asked.
I breathed in deeply. “She told me I was dancing like a virgin.”
He looked mortified. “I…er…what did you say?”
“That I was a virgin, and I didn’t have a problem with that so I didn’t know why she did. And the rest of the students applauded me. She even apologised.” I smiled briefly, mostly at the memory of Marty leading the applause.
“Wow. And what’s the gossip about a stage light nearly killing you and Marty pulling you out of the way just in time?”
Hearing Marty’s name made me instantly pale. “Yeah, that sounds right.”
“Claudia, are you OK? What’s happening with you and Marty? You like him, right? I knew it.”
I nodded, suddenly unable to speak.
“So, has he asked you out yet?”
I nodded again. I hadn’t expected Ben to guess how we felt about each other.
“Well? Any gossip?”
I had to stop him talking. “No gossip. He left. He went to work abroad with people who really need his help. I loved him, he loved me, but it wasn’t enough to stop him going.” The only lie in the speech was the word ‘abroad’.
“Shit. Are you OK?” Ben looked concerned.
“No.” I was done with stretching the truth.
“What will you do?”
“What can I do? He left and took my heart with him. I’m really hoping that time does heal all, otherwise I’m a lost cause.” I tried to smile, but I could feel tears moistening my eyes.
“Bugger, I’m sorry…” Ben paused for a second, then continued, “do you think this cappuccino will pass her test?”
I was grateful to him for changing the subject and examined the rather pitiful excuse for a cappuccino in the plastic cup. “Um, it doesn’t look especially tasty, but it’ll be worse if we get it to her cold. I don’t suppose we could melt a few laxatives in it, could we?” I tried to act a grin and made, I thought, a half decent job of it.
“Do you want her having a go at you when she feels poorly?”
“Point taken. Let’s take it to her now.”
We made our way as quickly as we could to the theatre in the snow, I nearly fell a couple of times, but managed to right myself before I hit the ground. I missed having Marty to catch my fall. We arrived with the drink still hot. We agreed that Ben should go
in first, taking Donna her drink and I would arrive a few seconds later, giving Donna less time to moan at him, as she would surely start moaning at me.
I waited outside for a few minutes, watching icicles drip as they melted off the trees. I reminded myself that nothing she could say would ever make me feel as bad as Marty leaving me. I took a deep breath and entered the theatre.
As I walked into the staging area, I could hear her berating Ben. I hid in the corridor.
“This filth is not fit to be called coffee – where did you get it from?”
“The Union, but…”
She cut him off, “I told you to go to the coffee shop and I asked for a cappuccino with cinnamon, not chocolate.” From my hiding space, I pictured my golden cloud that I imagined when I sang and floated it across the room to surround Ben, wishing its shimmering light could give him the confidence to stand up to her.
“I did – it wasn’t open, this was the best I could do. I’m here to set up camera angles, not to fetch you coffee.”
She was silent. I strolled the final few steps into view.
“Good morning,” I said, in the brightest voice I could muster.
“Claudia? You look like shit.” Donna really knew how to make a girl feel a million dollars.
“Oh, sorry about that,” I replied, “I’m not sleeping well. I keep having nightmares about stage lights falling from the sky and nearly landing on me. I wonder what my solicitor would think about that?”
“Cappuccino?” Donna offered me the plastic cup of coffee that Ben had struggled to get for her.
“I’m more of a latte girl.”
“Suit yourself. Why are you here so early?”
“I wanted to rehearse some of the songs in the performance space, before everyone got here.”
“You need the practise.”
“Exactly.” I agreed, knowing it would annoy her more than if I stood up to her.