Growing Up Twice

by Rowan Coleman

  I called my old landlord, Mr Bilton, that very night. It took him a few minutes to remember who I was, but when I gave him a week’s notice he wasn’t too bothered. Turned out he had just been about to chuck us out and sell the flat to a housing association anyway.

  So here we are a week later, and I’m about to say goodbye to seven years of variable luck, a few dozen beetles and the brown floral curtains.

  My new room already has curtains, and they look as though they might be from Habitat. They’re not, but they look as though they might be.

  Josh is bringing over a mate with a van to help us shift the heavy stuff. Selin is already here, having stayed the night and, judging by the sound of movement, is probably already labelling boxes with the marker pen that she brought from the office especially.

  I suppose I should feel sentimental, sad even. I have had some good times here. But every single happy memory I have is eclipsed by some low-down thing that Owen did to me. All the laughter I have had here is hidden by the shadows of the tears; I think I’d have to live here another hundred years to wipe out all the bad memories – and just imagine what the beetles might have evolved into by then. As it turns out I’m really glad that Rosie’s pregnancy forced my hand. Sometimes I think that if the whole of my life were left just up to me nothing would ever change.

  Rosie walks in without knocking, wearing only jeans and a bra, and points at her breasts.

  ‘Look at these! Look!’ She climbs up on the bed and kneels in front of me, shoulders back, hair tossed back, chest thrust out as if she is about to do a photo shoot for Page Three. I check I’m not dreaming. I’m pretty sure this is not the same kind of drunken, drug-fuelled situation as the very short, extremely embarrassing let’s-have-a-go-at-lesbian-sex-episode that happened back in 1993. That and the country-and-western episode are the two things we never talk about.

  ‘They’re very nice, Rose, always thought so,’ I say, pushing myself up on to my elbows and attempting to run my fingers through a tangle of hair. ‘But why are you showing them to me?’

  She rolls her eyes, as if I’ve missed her second head or something. ‘Because they’ve got bigger! Look! They’re massive.’ She jumps off the bed and goes over to my mirror, stands in profile, admires her cleavage and turns to smile at me.

  ‘Ha! Baby, there’s a new cleavage in town.’ I laugh along with her but I’ve got to tell you they look exactly the same to me. Rosie bounds over and grabs my wrist to pull me out of bed.

  ‘Let’s go and buy some new tops, quick, before I get to the tits-and-belly stage!’ I sit up in bed and pull back the brown curtains for the last time; the 8.22 from Paddington rumbles past.

  ‘Well, we could, but I really think we should move house first, don’t you? Doesn’t really seem fair to leave it all to Seli.’ I tip over the edge of the bed, root about underneath and bring out four mugs, one replete with beetle corpses. When I surface Rosie is looking mildly sulky. I think she really did forget we were moving. I continue in my best cheery girl-guide voice, that I learnt during my two weeks before I was chucked out for setting fire to the church hall curtains. ‘For starters, we’ve still got washing-up to do.’

  Rosie pouts. I think it’s charming that Rosie pouts and flutters at anyone regardless of sex, sexual inclination or longstanding friendship, so strong is her faith in her flirtatious ability, but it doesn’t wash with me. Not today.

  ‘But they are cool, aren’t they?’ she reasserts in a childlike voice.

  ‘Pammy would be proud,’ I say and I kiss her on the cheek as I walk past. Leaving her with my mirror for a few more minutes of self-admiration. What on earth will happen to my breasts if I ever get pregnant? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Proud of what?’ Selin asks as she turns up in the doorway.

  ‘My new breasts, silly!’ Rosie says, pulling her shoulders back.

  Selin glances at her chest with mild amusement. ‘Of course, how could I be so blind? Now come on, you two. I’m not doing the whole thing on my own, you could at least make a token effort.’

  ‘OK,’ we sigh in unison.

  The door buzzer makes me jump just as it always has done for the last seven years. As I skip down the stairs to answer the door I think about our lovely new doorbell at our lovely new flat that goes ‘ding-dong’ in a lovely Big Ben kind of way, not remotely like the final death charge of an electric chair in Missouri, or some other state where they fry people, anyhow.

  My good mood evaporates almost entirely as I open the door.

  It’s Danny.

  Danny, Josh’s-friend-who-I-slept-with-at-that-party Danny. Danny, who Michael so accurately referred to as ‘obviously-a-twat’ Danny.

  In the space of a nano-second I squint at Josh over his shoulder with murder in my eyes, and Josh shrugs and mouths, ‘He’s got a van.’ Or at least I hope that’s what he mouths. I swallow my pride and break into a smile that says, ‘So we’ve done it, so what? We’re all adults here.’

  ‘Hey, babe.’ Danny’s slow, designed-to-be-sexy smile breaks out over his pretty face and he looks me up and down. Danny is the kind of guy who has definitely got it going in the looks department. He is the sort of bloke who you’d never imagine would go for you in a million years, that kind of male-model Levi-ad look that heaven has surely reserved only for its natural counterpart, the slender elfin-waif woman. And that is his secret weapon.

  So surprised are you by his attention, so flattered by his compliments and drawn in by his charm, that you start to believe. As he quotes poetry at you and talks about art you start to think that he’s not just a vacuous lovely. You start to think maybe he could be into you, even maybe he could be the one to get you over your ex, and a damn fine-looking one too. You drink the booze, dance the dance, laugh the laugh and sleep with him. It’s usually dreadful sex (in this case he had the tiniest willy I have ever seen and that’s no word of a lie) and then he doesn’t call you and even though after that experience you’d rather snog Hannibal Lecter when he’s feeling a bit peckish, you feel pissed off and cheated.

  Well, not this time.

  No chance, sucker, I think. I’m sober, I’m busy and I’ve got an almost-eighteen-year-old secret lover who knocks the socks off you in the trouser department. At least I’m pretty sure he will do when we get past that over-excitement thing.

  It’s funny but it’s true, indifference makes you the most attractive thing in the world. As I make it clear to Danny that he is nothing but a distant regret, I just know that for the rest of today Danny is going to go for me hell for leather.

  I usher them both up the stairs and Josh whispers in my ear. ‘I’m sorry, he was the last resort, honest. This other bloke I know has gone to a folk festival in Surrey.’ He grins at me with what I would normally refer to as his winning smile. Oh well, you can’t win them all. I purse my lips at him and follow Danny up the stairs.

  When Rosie sees Danny the first thing she does is laugh, really hard, bent double at the waist, and she is barely able to resist pointing at his crotch. When she see me she laughs even more. Selin covers her mouth with her long fingers and looks studiously at the ceiling, her shaking shoulders contradicting her apparent composure. And I know why. It’s because I told them about his assets (or lack of them), and how he likes to talk during sex and say stuff like, ‘Hold on, baby, my love rocket’s gonna take you out of orbit.’ Which in retrospect is made all the more hilarious by his very very tiny little appendage. Put it this way: at one point I wasn’t even sure we had taken off. I bite back a giggle, Danny looks at Josh and Josh – who I hope to God hasn’t heard that story from Selin – shrugs and taps his forefinger on his head: ‘Mental.’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ Rosie says, her eyes filling with tears, ‘I’m knocked up. It’s hormones. By the way, thanks for helping … Danny.’ She’s off again.

  Selin shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry. When she laughs, I laugh. I’m just a sheep in that respect. Herd animal. Shocking lack of independence,’ Selin splutters
.

  I glare at them both.

  ‘Still, Dan,’ Rosie says, ‘now you’re here at least we know things will go with a rocket!’

  Josh looks on in utter bemusement as the pair of them collapse to the kitchen sink, patting each other on the back and wiping tears from their eyes. I’ll get them for this. Later.

  ‘Weird,’ Danny says, his blonde dreadlocks tied back into a muppet-style pony-tail, so self-assured that he would never guess they were taking the piss out of him. He saunters over to me and drapes an arm around my shoulders.

  ‘So shall we start with your room?’ He raises a probably plucked eyebrow and I raise both of mine back at him with contempt kept only in check by the fact of how very much we need his van.

  ‘Can if you like, it’s all packed away in boxes in the living-room.’ I pick his hand off my person as if it were a flea and sashay Mae West style into the other room. Josh shakes his head at me and Danny follows like the dog I always knew he was.

  It’s going to be a long day.

  Chapter Twenty

  In her new capacity as pregnant girl Rosie neither carries nor lifts but only points and directs, a role she was born for. Selin labels things and then cleans things and then sponges things down. As we don’t really have that much stuff and as the boys seem to be doing such a good job I tell everyone I’m going to phone Mr Bilton to see what’s keeping him and I retreat into my old room with my mobile. Bare of the meagre things that made it my room, it looks seedy and naked. For a moment I reflect on the pivotal moments that I have spent here and my sigh fills out its corners.

  I phone Michael. He answers after two rings.

  ‘Jenny, hiya,’ he says expectantly. We texted each other mid-week but this is our first live conversation since the sofa incident. It doesn’t take any intuition to realise that he has been anticipating and dreading this call just as much as I have, if maybe for different reasons. The immediacy of a live conversation after a series of cute but short text exchanges is a whole new ball game. In this world of electronic communication the old-fashioned phone conversation has almost become a sign of affection and esteem. Who do you call any more who you don’t really like or respect?

  ‘Hiya,’ I say. ‘Where are you?’ I ask with the habitual opening gambit of mobile-phone users the world over. I sit on the edge of the bare-mattressed bed and then lie back on it. At least I’m not leaving a memory of Michael behind here, never got this far.

  ‘Hiya,’ he says again. ‘Um … I’m in the park with some mates, playing footy.’ His voice rises at the end of the sentence as if he is asking me where he is. I listen to his breathing, which sounds even, and I listen for the background noise of boys shouting and I can hear none. For whatever reason he’s lying to me. I consider pushing it, but instead I retreat. I don’t want to discover any secrets Michael might have that would spoil my involvement with him, I want him to be my golden- (OK, ginger-) haired and impulsive dream. I want him to be playing in the park with his friends.

  ‘Yeah? Are you winning?’

  There is a beat of silence.

  ‘Actually, I’m not playing football, I just took the dog down the river … I’ve been sitting here for the last hour wondering if I should phone you. I just didn’t want to sound sad.’

  Whenever I wonder what I’m up to with this boy, a boy I’ve met three times, kissed on two separate occasions and somehow managed to slip into some kind of relationship with, he opens up my heart to show me. The knot of tension in my stomach explodes into a sunburst of warmth and the mid-morning light that finds my face through the bedroom window seems to seep in through my skin. I love it that he had been moping down by the river, and I love it that he didn’t lie about it. I love it that he had thought about this call just as much as I have.

  ‘I’m moving flat today. It feels strange,’ I say, wanting to talk to someone close about the oddly detached absence of mixed emotions I have about this day.

  ‘Yeah? I’ve never moved,’ he says and I try to imagine his house, the house where he took his first steps, rode his first bike and sneaked his first girlfriend up the stairs to fool around with. Which number am I, I wonder?

  ‘Anyway, school’s crap,’ he continues, ignoring the conversational road of me moving house for the first time in years, missing his chance to discuss it with me in a boyfriendy way. Lying on my bed I shrug my shoulders and smile as I listen to him.

  ‘It’s my birthday party in a couple of weeks. You are coming, aren’t you?’

  It seems like such an improbable scenario that I say, ‘Yeah, of course I will.’ I’ll think up an excuse as to why I can’t between now and then.

  ‘Cool … so when will I see you again?’ His voice drops a little, I guess in case the dog or some ducks hear him being soppy. ‘I miss you,’ he whispers.

  I run the palm of my hand under my T-shirt and over my belly. An intriguing little thought crosses my mind but I’ve got a feeling Michael wouldn’t be much up for phone sex and anyway I am supposed to be moving.

  A deep little sigh escapes from my throat and I say, ‘I miss you too. It’s difficult, though, isn’t it? You know. To be alone.’ Once again crackle-filled air takes over the silence for a moment. He breathes in sharply and I can almost see him leap to his feet.

  ‘I know!’ he says excitedly. ‘You can come here!’ I laugh out loud and think of his mother offering me tea and asking me about my A-levels.

  ‘Michael, you live with you parents.’ I state the obvious.

  ‘Yes, and for the whole of next weekend they’re away. Anniversary. You could come for the weekend.’ I think about it. It would be crazy. It can’t happen. But it would be great to be with him somewhere far away from everyone I know. In his big house where he assembled his first record collection, where he lay on his bed and wondered about what kind of person he was meant to be. Why not be there at the beginning of everything he is now? What harm could there be? No, it’s just too stupid.

  ‘OK, you’re on.’ I find myself laughing as I say it. Where did I develop this ability to kid myself right up until the last second? He whoops at the other end of the phone. I can hear his dog bark, and somewhere behind him kids are playing.

  ‘I just want to say,’ he says, ‘about the other night …’

  I stop him. ‘Michael, it’s fine, really. I had a great time.’ I giggle as I remember. ‘It was a little strange when the girls came back, but it was fun, really fun. You were …’ I can’t think of the right thing to say. ‘Great’ or ‘wonderful’ doesn’t seem appropriate. ‘Sexy’ seems a little out of proportion and ‘sweet’, ‘lovely’ and ‘fine’ all seem too patronising.

  ‘You were … fun,’ I finish lamely, hoping that I don’t sound as though I mean I found his enthusiasm hilarious.

  ‘I just want you to know that um …’ He coughs. ‘I want you to know, um, well, when I get you on your own again, things are going to be different.’ His stolid and determined tone curls my mouth into another indulgent smile. If this was any other man, by this time I would have been wholly overtaken by the Creeping Repulsions. That retrograde feeling of horror and disgust that, for reasons unknown, only seems to cruelly manifest itself after you have committed some intimate act with an individual who, in the cold light of day and the sharpened perception of hangover induced clarity, turns out to be the very person who you would not sleep with even if they were the last living example of your opposite number in the whole wide world. Even worse than that, they think you are now going out together. Which means all the awkwardness of having to come out with gems like you are (option one) ‘still in love with someone else’, or (option two) ‘just not looking for anything serious right now’ or in the very tough cases (option three) ‘would never dream of going out with a psycho like you, unless under the influence of strong lager and a full moon’. Once I tried reverse psychology and told one CR candidate I wanted commitment, commitment, commitment and children, lots of them, right after we got married. He must be the only man I have e
ver met who wanted all that too. It was a nightmare, and only option three worked in the end.

  But this is Michael. Sun-filled, innocent, happy-go-lucky Michael. He is all the games of spin the bottle that I have ever played, he is all the tight-lipped moments of tension I have spent trying not to laugh while some poor lad has been grappling with my bra fastening. Michael is the last moment before the first kiss under the glow of an orange street lamp, in the days when I could still see the stars in the sky. He is everything I was before I met Owen, and what I love about him most is watching him find his way. The smile resounds in my voice.

  ‘I look forward to it,’ I say. There is a short silence of smiles coming back at me.

  ‘Look, I’d better go,’ I say. We both smile silently for a moment longer.

  ‘OK, I’ll call you in the week to sort it out?’

  ‘Yeah, see you,’ I say softly.

  ‘Good luck with your move. See you,’ he says and hangs up.

  I stretch back on my naked bed and try to imagine his bedroom. There is something about Michael, something that doesn’t exactly remind me of Owen but something they have in common. Owen is very charismatic, maybe that’s it. One of the reasons I fell for him so totally at the beginning was his charm, which was genuine in the original meaning of the word, in that his manner could be beguiling and bewitching. In the early days after a reunion his displays of authoritarian love for me made me feel warm and secure. His romantic indulgences coupled with an innate sense that he was right about me prevented me from having to worry about deciding my own fate; for the first time since Dad left home I had someone else to make those decisions.

  But it’s not like that with Michael, it’s almost the opposite. I close my eyes and picture him in the sunlight in the park, in the shadows in Rosie’s room. It’s the way he sees me. Owen used to look at me in that way, with that desire and emotion, but the difference is that with Owen I would be living on tenterhooks waiting for that expression to suddenly vanish or dry up. With Michael I know that every time I see him he will look at me that way. He reflects my glory.