by Louise Kean
‘Charlie, I’m really sorry, but we were just kidding ourselves, really, weren’t we? You know that …’
‘Where are you going to go?’ he asks, ignoring my pleas for him to agree with me.
‘I don’t know … I thought I might go somewhere a bit more permanently, live somewhere for a while.’
‘Like where, Australia? You can go to Australia, just not with me?’ His voice is filled with hurt and accusation.
‘No, probably not, more like … I don’t know … more like America or somewhere.’ I don’t need to tell him everything, but I can still be honest.
‘America? We’ve already been there, hell, we’ve lived there!’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go back to the same place obviously, I could go to New York, or Las Vegas … I don’t know where exactly yet, I just fancy going back.’
‘When will you go?’ He stabs at me with questions.
‘In a couple of months, I suppose, when I’ve got everything sorted. I don’t know how long it takes to get a working visa, and all the other stuff. I might ask work if I can get a transfer – there’s bound to be something going out there. How about you? Will you still go?’
‘Yeah, in a couple of weeks, I suppose. It doesn’t make any sense not to. I’ll be fine.’ Charlie hastily picks up his plate and scrapes the contents into the bin, and then throws it into the sink.
‘I should go,’ I say quietly.
‘Yes, you should.’ He has turned his back to me, and is barely audible.
I grab my bag and head for the door.
I close it behind me, and hear a crash of plates and pans behind me, inside the flat, Charlie letting me know how he really feels.
Almost Romantic
On the tube I am in two minds – to call Dale or not to call Dale. To wait until tomorrow, when I’m feeling less emotional, needing less to be hugged and consoled, or to bite the bullet and grab the bull by the horns. I get off the tube at Covent Garden, almost by accident, thinking I am going to work. I decide to go and have a coffee, sober up completely, and then make a decision.
The big question, ladies and gentlemen, is ‘do I want him to go?’
Charlie will be fine, or maybe he won’t. I know I have let him down hard, but that whole weird spell was short lived, a reaction to something terrible as opposed to a sustainable reality – even Charlie couldn’t have kept it up for much longer. He’ll survive, he’ll pull through, we weren’t going to work out.
But Dale? Dale has crash landed into my life at the most confusing point for years, at a time when Charlie is making his exit, I’m getting bored with my job, and I can clearly see thirty just over the horizon. Is the promise of Dale, and a little unexpected excitement and an unfamiliar continent, the real reason I could go to him now? Or is it because I actually want to see, as he does, how we could be together, whether we could fit? He is unlike any man I have ever known, and now is the time for something new and brave. If I am going to take steps to change my life, why not take massive ones? Why not step all the way across the ocean?
I sip a coffee in a coffee shop, I don’t even know which one; they all blend into each other these days. The high street is like one giant cappuccino, broken up occasionally by a clothes shop. You can’t swing a cat for hitting a low-fat sugar sachet. But they are good places to think. You rarely see couples in there, or anybody being social – it would never occur to me to arrange to meet somebody in one of them, they all seem so transient. They are ‘in and out’ venues, not a place to stop and chat – they have no atmosphere. But because of that, the people who do end up there seem alone, by accident. They always seem to be waiting for somebody, or thinking about somebody, or missing someone. Actually, they really just look like losers. As do I, now, sitting in this coffee shop, alone. I try and down my coffee so I can leave, and end up spilling half of it down my dress. I swear loudly, inviting stares from all the other people sitting on their own around me, thanking God they are not as conspicuous as I have just made myself. I can’t go and see Dale now, even if I wanted to, I am soaked from the bra to the waist. I remember the dress back at the office, grab a handful of napkins, and dash back to work. I change quickly, and head out again. Checking my watch, I see it is a quarter past ten. I walk towards Dale’s hotel, convincing myself I can turn back or get on a tube any time I like. I can just walk and think.
The streets are packed with people holding glasses, spilling out of pubs and spilling their drinks, pissed on the summer sun and the warm night air. I stop and start along the crowded streets, full of tourists walking around in ill-fitting shorts that they’ve had to buy in Marks and Spencer’s, because they had been reliably informed it wouldn’t be hot in London, and all they’d packed were sweaters and jeans. And tourists somehow need to wear shorts. And they need to carry cameras, and they need to talk very loudly to each other on the tube. Actually, they mainly just seem to need to annoy the shit out of me.
I linger outside the hotel for a while, and have a cigarette, and think. What is it exactly that I want to say, where exactly am I going with this? Shit, I am thinking way too much, and this is a night for impulses, and I just need to follow those impulses, go in there, and say whatever it is that springs to mind, even if it’s just ‘have a good flight’. Although it won’t be that, I already know it won’t be that.
My phone starts to ring as I get near the steps of the hotel and I drag it out of my bag quickly – it is Charlie. I want to turn it off, but I can’t. I deserve whatever he wants to say to me, and I have to take whatever he wants to throw my way – he is the one hurting right now, and I am the one on the way to a new beginning.
‘Hey, are you okay?’ I ask him as I answer the phone.
‘Jesus Christ, I’m fine! Stop asking me how I am! You really think a lot of yourself, don’t you – do you know how patronizing you sound? You haven’t ended my world, you know!’
I didn’t expect any of that. I thought maybe he’d be tearful, but he’s skipped that bit, and gone straight for the anger.
‘I’m sorry, I was just trying to be … nice, or something.’
‘Where are you?’ Charlie demands, and I suddenly get indignant. I don’t have to be a doormat to his feelings, I don’t have to be his sounding board. He doesn’t get to order me around.
‘I’m out.’
‘Out where?’ he slurs. Obviously he has hit the whisky after all.
‘Just out. On my own. Thinking.’
‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you. I just, I need to speak to you. You can’t just say that, and then walk off, and not give me a chance to talk to you.’
‘Charlie, we can talk, just not tonight, it’s not the time.’
‘When then? Tomorrow? Will you call me?’
‘Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. We should have a bit of time to think.’
‘Will you call me? If I don’t call you, will you call me?’
‘Yes, of course, I’m not cutting you off completely, Charlie, I’m just saying we should, you know, not be a couple any more. I’ll speak to you soon.’
‘Are you going home now?’
‘Soon.’
‘Why, where the fuck are you?’ Charlie’s anger boils over again.
‘I’m nowhere, just walking, Charlie, please, for God’s sake.’
‘Are you with somebody else?’ The question I’ve been waiting for finally comes, and even though I’ve been expecting it, it still hits with the force of a bullet at close range. This is the one I don’t want to answer.
‘Well, Nix, is there somebody else? For fuck’s sake, there is, isn’t there!’
‘No, no there isn’t! Please, just go, I’ll call you soon.’ I hang up, and turn off my phone, flustered and red, and I feel like my heart is getting a little more bruised with every word I say to him and each step I take towards the hotel reception. But I go in anyway.
I wait at reception while they phone upstairs, but it just rings. Dale isn’t in. But he hasn’t checked out. H
e is here, in London somewhere, I just don’t know where. I want to grab a car, and circle the town, hail a cab and get him to kerb crawl every short man in town, until we find him. But these are not the thoughts of a reasonable person. A reasonable person would just wait in the bar with one eye on the door. So that is what I will do.
I sip my drink, arrange my hair, check myself in my compact, and just sit back and think. I haven’t been so very brave. I have managed to tell Charlie it’s over, but it’s not like I’m forging some brave new world on my own. I haven’t conquered any fears, nothing really changes. I’ve bounced from one man to another, like I need them to lead me to my life, as opposed to going there myself, or letting some outside force take me there. When I was young, I used to think by seventeen I’ll be this, by twenty-one I’ll be this. Now I’m thinking about thirty, just around the corner, it will be here before I know it, and then forty. It’s a challenge to meet it, to grow up and face it. I have just bought a flat, my first flat. But I’m not ready for kids, I’m not ready for marriage. I’m not even ready to stay in the same job for the next month. I have no concept of commitment; the only thing that appeals to me is running off into the great blue yonder and wasting another couple of years, not making any major decisions if I can help it.
I feel my head nod, and realize I am falling asleep, and have not been watching the door at all. I get up and stretch my legs and yawn. Maybe I should just go home – I check my mobile – it’s half past twelve. I wander out to reception, and they’ve turned down some of the lights. I feel déjà vu; here again, at the wrong side of midnight. I head to reception, trying not to stagger with sleep, and ask the new people who have started working since I sat down to phone Dale’s number. They check his box. The guy behind the desk comes back to me, looking slightly embarrassed, and practically whispers, ‘I’m afraid he’s checked out, Miss.’
‘What? He can’t have, check again.’ I am sure it is a mistake and I only feel slightly worried, waiting for it to be resolved.
‘No, Mr Curse. He checked out about half an hour ago.’
‘But how can he have? I’ve been here, I didn’t see him.’ I look around, and point at the bar, and the door, and the stairs, not really knowing what I’m proving.
‘I’m sorry about that.’ He looks mortified.
I am mortified. How has Dale crept past me, and out again, without my even realizing? Without seeing me sitting there, waiting for him. Stupidly, I hadn’t left a message for him; I thought I would see him. I turn back to the desk clerk, and I am truly scared – I don’t have a number, or an address, I can’t write to him in two weeks and ask if it’s all right if I come and stay. If he goes, he really goes. I can’t decide what I want to do if he’s not here, it doesn’t work like that – he needs to be here to hear what I decide. He needs to be here.
‘Do you know where he went?’ I sound like an idiot just saying it.
‘He was heading to the airport – he’s the only person that’s checked out since I’ve been on.’
‘Do you know what airport?’ I can’t believe I am asking these questions.
‘Well, no, but Heathrow, I guess, that’s where the transatlantic flights go from mostly. But I don’t know for sure.’ He looks apologetic.
‘No, you’re right. Of course it’s Heathrow, thanks,’ and I am off and running. I don’t know where. I skid to a stop at the hotel entrance, and spin around to find the concierge, who must have got him a cab. How could he just leave, without saying goodbye?
I spot the concierge, who is down the steps by the tree with all the sparkling lights hanging from it – I’ve often thought how pretty it is, driving past, but not now.
‘Excuse me, hello!’ I shout and bound towards him.
‘Yes, madam.’ He is old and wise-looking; he will help me.
‘Have you called a cab for an American guy, a short American guy, in the last half an hour? He was staying here, going to the airport.’
‘No, madam, I can’t say I have.’ Not the answer I expected again.
I spin on the spot; where now? I feel tears of frustration welling up in my eyes.
‘I am looking after his bags though.’ I turn and face the concierge again. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’m looking after his bags. He said he’ll need a cab a bit later. He’s just gone for a stroll, I believe. His bags are in my holding room. If it’s the same man.’ He smiles at me in a gentle way, and I know that he is a very good man.
‘Do you know which way he went?’ I ask.
‘Well, he went towards the park, but I don’t suggest you go running off in that direction at this time of night, madam. Why don’t you just wait in the bar?’
‘Nope, been there, done that, fucked it up. Oh sorry.’ I apologize for swearing, he could be somebody’s granddad.
‘That way?’ I ask, backing away from him and pointing over my shoulder in the direction I’m headed.
‘Well yes, but I strongly suggest you just come back in and wait, it’s not safe to go running off.’ But I barely hear his last words, I am skidding down the road. There are loads of people about, I don’t know why he thinks it’s not safe – it’s busier now than at midday.
I get to the entrance of the park and stop suddenly – it is very dark inside. I actually don’t want to go in on my own. I’ve always been a little afraid of the dark. But in all honesty it’s not that. I’m not scared of the dark, I’m scared of being alone in the dark. I’m scared of being on my own.
I take a couple of steps forward, but I really, really don’t want to go in there. I have a flash of inspiration – like a dick, I have ignored my mobile phone, and I whip it out of my bag. It is almost out of battery, but it should last a phone call. I press ‘call’ and wait for it to connect, jumping up and down with all this surplus nervous energy that has found its way into my system. It clicks through and … starts to ring. And instantly I can hear a phone ringing. I hear Dale saying hello down the phone line, but I can hear him saying it as well, close to me, in real life.
‘Hold on,’ I yell down the phone, and take a couple of quick steps into the dark, thinking, if I do this fast, it will be fine. And there he is, sitting on a bench just inside the park, with his silly shaved head, not looking like himself. A wave of relief sweeps me, and then fear again – what do I even want to say?
I walk over to the bench, and sit down next to him, and he keeps looking at the grass in front of him, without looking up at me, and I am cold.
I sit shivering next to him for a minute.
‘I thought you’d gone, without saying goodbye.’
‘Nope,’ is all he says.
‘I’m glad I caught you before you left.’ I wait for him to ask me why, but he just sits there, staring at the grass.
I take a deep breath. I realize I haven’t spoken to him since I ran out on him this morning. It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning now. I think about where we were this time twenty-four hours ago.
‘I spoke to Charlie. I’m not going travelling.’ Still nothing.
‘I told him it’s over.’
‘Did you tell him about last night?’ he asks, the first words he’s said to me, in his familiar American drawl.
‘Well, no, I didn’t think there was any need to go into that, I was telling him it was over, that was enough, I think.’
‘Right.’ He still won’t look at me.
‘Dale, are you okay?’ I can’t believe he is showing no reaction whatsoever – no emotion at all.
‘Dale?’ I ask again.
‘Did he ask you if there was anybody else?’ he asks.
‘No, no, he didn’t ask,’ I say, and gulp.
We sit there for a couple of minutes, and I shiver again. He takes off his coat, and hands it to me. I slip it on, and snuggle into his borrowed warmth, and the smell of it.
‘I have to go soon,’ he says quietly.
‘That’s the thing,’ I say, and turn myself to look at him. He still looks at the ground, but speaks quickly.
‘I am going. I’m not staying,’ he says, and I am thrown.
‘Okay, well, I just thought we could talk about the possibility of, well, if you won’t stay, maybe I could come and see you … or something.’ I feel like a useless kid. All my courage has gone out of the window. He is non-responsive.
‘Why would you do that?’ he asks, and looks up finally. I can really see his eyes, feel them searching for the right answer from me.
‘Because, I’d like to see you … or spend more time with you … it would just be a shame if that was it.’ I trail off.
‘What, like last night? Do you want to come and see me, sleep with me, meet my kids, say hi to Joleen?’ He is being cold, and I don’t know why. Somehow I have hurt him all over again.
‘Why are you being like this? Don’t you think it would be nice to … keep in touch?’
‘I don’t know that it would. You don’t know what you want. I came here, I thought I’d say hello, and look what’s happened! You’ve split up with Charlie – you shouldn’t have done that!’
‘I didn’t do it for you! I did it because I was always going to do it! I did it because we were running on empty, and you being here, well, it just made me realize that I didn’t have to be with him because I felt sorry for him, or felt guilty about something, and besides you didn’t just come to say hello, you came with every intention of …’ He looks at me too deeply, and I look away.
‘Well, for whatever reason, Dale. I just think that we get on, you know? Maybe we could just see what happens.’
He stands up, and takes a couple of steps forward.
‘I have to go.’
‘No, no, you can’t just go like this!’ I shout and jump to my feet.
‘Why not? Because you aren’t in control, because someone is rejecting you for once? This is how it feels! I’m going.’
He takes a couple of steps away from me, and I run towards him, but stop myself short before actually touching him. He senses me behind him and turns around.
‘What, Nicola? Are you going to tell me that you love me? How desperate are you going to get here, to get the upper hand?’