by Emlyn Rees
Outside, by the bonfire, the burning canvas and paint combine to produce a satisfying smell. I feel no regret. It holds too many memories. And not just of what happened between McCullen and me on the night before the holiday, either. Too many memories of me. Of the person I was. All that chat. All that scheming and manipulation. It’s worthless, and I know it’s worthless now, because all that Don Juan bullshit put together hasn’t helped me get the one thing I want: Amy’s forgiveness, or, more specifically, Amy. She’s made her decision, and if it’s final, then that’s just the way it is. I can’t force her to think any differently. And I was stupid to think that I ever could. I watch the canvas curl in on itself and crumble into ash. Then I turn my back on it and head inside.
I get to Chloe’s at eight on the dot.
‘Matt wasn’t kidding,’ she says when she opens the door.
‘About what?’
‘About you, you poor baby. You look like shit.’
So much for my pre-dinner shower and shave. I smile weakly. ‘Thanks,’ I say, checking her out. ‘You look great.’ She does. Stunning, even, in a short black number. Not that it does much for me, the way I’m feeling right now.
‘Come here,’ she tells me, putting her arms round me and squeezing me tight. ‘Let me give you a hug.’ She keeps me close for a minute, then leads me by the hand through to the dining room. ‘I hope you’re hungry,’ she says, pouring me a glass of wine. ‘I’ve cooked enough for ten.’
Looking around the room while she’s off in the kitchen, this doesn’t seem entirely inappropriate. With the effort she’s made, there might as well be a full-scale dinner party going on. The posh cutlery’s out on show. Soft music’s playing from the stereo and a candle burns low. I look down at my crumpled shirt and faded jeans and feel guilty as sin. Then I remind myself: it’s only Chloe. She wouldn’t give a toss if I was wearing a nun’s wimple and a stetson. And I’m right to think this. She appears a few minutes later with the starters and a grin as wide as the Grand Canyon. And she starts talking and she doesn’t stop. She manages to steer round the topic of Amy all the way through the meal. Even I manage to forget for a while. But then, when we’re sitting on the sofa, sipping our coffees, the black dogs return once more and I fall into silence.
‘So, tell me,’ she says. ‘What happened to Jack the Lad?’
‘Gone. Departed.’ I shrug. ‘On a sabbatical, at the very least.’
‘When’s he due back?’
‘I wish I knew.’ I struggle for words. ‘Everything’s changed. None of my rules seems to apply any more.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t know. Women. I thought I had them sussed. I thought I knew what made them tick.’
‘And now you don’t?’
‘No. I haven’t got a clue.’ I tell her about Amy not returning my calls, about my going round there on Sunday, the works. I even tell her what Matt caught me doing last night.
‘There’ll be others,’ she assures me. ‘You’re attractive. You will find someone else.’
I close my eyes for a second, but all I see is Amy at the side of that road, tears running down her face. ‘I don’t want anyone else.’
Chloe rolls her eyes and digs me in the ribs. ‘Now you’re being melodramatic. This is reality. We take a knock and we pick ourselves up and we start again. That’s how it works.’ She rests her hand on mine. ‘You’re going to have to get a grip on this, Jack,’ she sighs. ‘It’s not going to be easy, but it’s something you’re going to have to do sooner or later.’
‘It’s hard, Chloe. It’s really fucking hard.’
She runs her hand through my hair. ‘I know, baby,’ she says. ‘I know it is. But you’ll get over it.’
‘Yeah, well I can’t see how.’
We fall silent for a minute or so, then she says, ‘I can help you, if you want.’
I turn my head towards her. Her face is only inches away from mine. ‘How?’
She moves in closer, whispering, ‘Like this,’ and I feel her lips pressing against mine.
‘Don’t,’ I tell her, pushing her back. ‘This isn’t what I want.’
She must see from my face that I mean it. I watch her as she sits back, lights a cigarette and stares across the room. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, turning back to me. Her face is flushed.
‘We’re friends, Chloe,’ I tell her, as gently as I can. ‘Good friends. But that’s all.’
‘I know. I’m being stupid. Too much to drink.’ As if to prove this, she gets up and collects her wineglass, fills it to the brim. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her, meaning it. ‘It never happened.’
‘You really love her, don’t you?’ she asks, after she’s finished her cigarette.
‘Yeah, I really do.’
‘Then write to her. Tell her how you feel. Maybe that’ll work for you. It must be worth a go. After all, you’ve tried everything else.’
‘I will.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise. I’ll do it tonight and drop it round to her tomorrow.’
Chloe comes over and leans down and kisses me on the cheek. Then she stands up and smiles, shaking her head at me. ‘The Bastard Child of Bon Jovi, indeed. What are you like, Jack Rossiter?’
Matt’s still up when I get back, sitting in the kitchen, reading a magazine.
‘You’re early,’ he remarks. ‘I thought you two would be chatting all night.’
I sit on the edge of the table. I’m not going to tell him about what went down with Chloe. It’s a dead issue. There’d be no point. ‘I’m exhausted.’
‘All that rockin’ and rollin’ last night take it out of you, did it?’
I smile back at him. ‘Sorry about that. And thanks for sorting my head out this morning. I needed a good kick up the arse.’
‘The pleasure was all mine.’ He checks my face. ‘You’re okay now, though?’
I nod my head. ‘Yeah. Well, no, but that’s how it goes. It’ll just take time.’
‘And meantime?’
‘Meantime?’
‘Meantime,’ Matt informs me, ‘we’re going to have fun.’
‘Fun?’
‘Yes, fun. You remember that. Going out. Having a laugh. Getting laid.’
‘To tell the truth, Matt, getting laid’s the last thing on my mind.’
‘I’m not talking about you. With a face like that, you’ve got about as much chance of pulling as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’m talking about me.’
I stand up, yawn. ‘All the same, mate, I think I’ll be giving it a miss for a while.’
‘Fair enough,’ he says. ‘You’ve got till Saturday. Because then you’re coming out. With me. You’re coming out clubbing and I’m going to remind you what it’s like to have a good time.’
Upstairs, I sit down at my desk and take out a sheet of paper and a pen. Dear Amy, I begin. And then I stare at the sheet. It seems so small compared with what I’ve got to say. But still, I try. I try and I fail. Because I don’t know how I’m even going to begin to tell her how much I love her and how much I miss her, or set the record straight on what happened that night with McCullen. But also because I don’t want this to end. And this is the end. Of that, I have no doubt. This is the place where I sign off. Whatever happens next is down to her, and her alone.
10
Amy
‘IF YOU THINK I’m going out clubbing on Saturday night, you’re very wrong,’ I say for the last time.
H has her lips pursed around a beer bottle and she stares despairingly at me from the other side.
‘I’d be no fun. I’m just not in the mood,’ I continue, shovelling up the last dollop of korma on some nan bread and cramming it into my mouth.
We’re sitting on my living room carpet, the remnants of our Indian take-away between us. H insisted on bringing it round earlier. She thinks all the trauma of the last week is going to make me too thin.
I wish.
H burps and undoes the top
button of her jeans. ‘What have we just spent the last hour discussing?’ she asks, but she doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘You’ve got to move on. You can’t put your life on hold.’
‘I’m not,’ I say, weariness spreading over me. I lean back against the sofa and look at the ceiling.
‘You are. You’ve been working every hour that God sends—’
‘But it’s a new job,’ I interrupt.
‘Bullshit! You’re avoiding thinking about Jack. You have to get over it. And the best way is to go out and have some fun. Look, the tickets are free. It’s a new bar, and there’ll be music and dancing. We’ve got to go, it’ll be a really good laugh.’
I pull up my knees and wrap my arms around them, whilst H prattles on. I feel sick. It could be to do with the fact that I’ve just consumed enough food to feed the population of Milton Keynes, but it could also be the recurring feeling of nausea I experience every time Jack’s name is mentioned.
I can’t blame H for taking the practical route. I can’t blame her for cajoling me into going out. For the last week, I’ve been festering like the kind of forgotten matter you find under a cooker. If it was H who was behaving as if the end of the world was nigh, I’d do the same as her. I’d suggest drowning my sorrows. But going to this new bar she’s harping on about?
I’d rather eat my own head.
I know I’m being mean, but half the reason H is so enthusiastic about going out is that Gav’s going away and she’s determined that he’s not going to have a better time than her. He announced unexpectedly that he was off for a week on some corporate hospitality jaunt with his company. It’s to help all his team ‘bond’, according to H, who is very sceptical about the whole thing. She thinks that quad biking and golf competitions are for tossers.
I think she’s jealous.
As a result, since I returned from HFH (Holiday From Hell), H has gone all Girl Power on me. And whilst I love her to death and value her support, I do wish she’d piss off and leave me alone. I don’t want to be chivvied out of my bad mood. I want to die. And H just doesn’t get it.
She hasn’t got a clue.
For starters, how can she think I’ve been avoiding thinking about Jack? I’ve done nothing but think about Jack for a whole week. In fact, I’m so pissed off with him being in my head that I’m considering booking myself into a mental institution for some electric shock treatment.
He crowds into my every waking hour and blocks out all the sleeping ones. I’ve done everything to make him try and go away. I’ve thrown myself into my new job, like a matador into a bullring, but it’s taken every ounce of my concentration to pick up even the smallest of instructions. Because if I stop concentrating for just one second, it hits me all over again.
Like now.
‘Oh babe,’ says H, letting out a hopeless sigh. She reaches forward and holds my hand. ‘Stop it.’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t help it,’ gulp, trying to curb the onslaught of yet more tears. Where are they all coming from? That’s what I want to know. Surely it isn’t possible for one person to have this much spare water inside them.
‘Listen. This is exactly why we’ve got to make plans. You can’t sit around here all weekend, blubbing.’
‘I can,’ I sob, failing to keep control.
‘But you’ve worn out “Winner Takes It All”.’
I sniff loudly and wipe my nose. ‘I like Abba.’
H screws up her face at me. ‘You should get out more.’
‘Shut up.’
She blows out a deep breath of concern. ‘You know, I bet Jack isn’t feeling this miserable.’
H has got her war face on again. She’s taken Jack’s behaviour as such a personal slight that I’m glad she’s never met him. I think if she bumped into him in a public place, she might garrotte him. I can just see the article in the Evening Standard:
MAN ASSAULTED IN CHECKOUT QUEUE
Twenty-seven-year-old lothario, Jack Rossiter, was brutally beaten with a packet of frozen peas in Tesco earlier today. Unremorseful assailant Helen Marchmont of Brook Green denied temporary insanity. ‘He deserved it,’ she railed at shocked shoppers, before being escorted to Shepherd’s Bush police station. Rossiter was later discharged from hospital following a two-hour operation to remove a frozen corn on the cob from his personage. Surgeons said that he would always walk with a limp. Yet following a statement by Ms Marchmont, angry crowds, brandishing a variety of root vegetables, gathered outside Rossiter’s bachelor love den and riot police had to be brought in …
I nod and blow my nose to calm H down. The general smothering of my face with kitchen towel will also stop her from guessing what I’m thinking. Because I don’t want to admit it. I don’t want to tell her that I bet Jack is feeling as miserable as me. He might even be feeling ten times worse. And despite the fact that he’s hurt me more than I could imagine, the thought of him hurting makes me feel even more miserable.
Liberated Nineties Woman? I think not.
‘I don’t want to talk about Jack,’ I say. ‘Let’s just leave it.’
But H hasn’t finished.
‘It’s not as if he’s banging down your door begging for forgiveness,’ she points out.
‘No, but—’
‘He’s called you a couple of times, and then what? Nothing. He’s given up trying. He’s broken your heart and he doesn’t give a shit. In my book, it’s all about respect and that, quite frankly, isn’t remotely respectful.’
I hang my head in silence. She’s right. There’s nothing I can say, but despite myself I still feel defensive.
H can tell. ‘Hello? Calling Amy? He was unfaithful to you.’
‘He didn’t sleep with her.’
‘Oh, so that’s okay is it? You want him back?’
I rub my temples. How can I answer this question? Because my heart screams YES. Of course I want him back. I’ve been through every emotion this week from murderous anger, to indignation, to utter dejection, but the fact remains that I miss him. And I love him.
Correction.
Loved him.
Yet despite that, I do want him back. But I want the Jack back I made love to on the beach. I want the Jack back who holds me all night. I want the Jack back who makes me laugh and makes everything all right.
But no, I don’t want the Jack back who could sleep with Sally McCullen and, what’s more, lie to me about it for a whole week.
And this is where I’m stuck.
Because both Jacks are the same person.
H knits her brow. ‘If he’s done it once, he’ll do it again,’ she warns. ‘Blokes like that always do.’
‘I know.’
I can tell she’s about to give me a dose of tough love. ‘If you want a relationship where you don’t trust him, then go ahead. But don’t come crying to me when it all goes wrong.’
‘I don’t want that. You know that.’
‘Trust is the most important thing,’ H rails on. ‘If you don’t have that you’ve got diddly squat. And Jack has blown it, it’s as simple as that. It’s hard to take, I know, but it’ll stop hurting in time.’
‘Will it?’
‘Of course it will.’
‘Why do I feel so confused then?’
‘Because you think you miss him. But you only miss what he represented – security and all that stuff.’
‘Oh,’ I mumble. I feel like she’s just explained the answer to a mathematical puzzle and I still don’t get it. She’s so annoying when she’s on a therapy roll and, by the looks of things, it’s only just started.
H stands up. She reaches down for my hand and hauls me to my feet.
‘What are you doing?’ I protest.
She drags me into the bathroom and turns on the light. ‘Now then,’ she says, folding her arms. She nods to the cabinet mirror. ‘What do you see?’
I can see both our reflections. I look puffy-eyed and generally as if I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. I’ve also got a spot the size of Manchester on
my chin.
‘H, this is stupid,’ I moan.
‘No it’s not.’
I roll my eyes at her and look at her in the mirror. ‘What do you want me to say?’
H ignores me. She eyeballs me back. ‘Meet Amy Crosbie. The girl who loves to get shat upon from a great height, because she’s too weak to be on her own. This is the girl who’ll go out with a lying, cheating bastard, who won’t tell her that he loves her, who’ll take her on holiday and almost kill her before he clears his conscience—’
‘Stop it!’ I interrupt, my hackles rising. ‘I dumped him, didn’t I?’
H sucks in her cheeks. ‘Exactly.’
We stare at each other for a long moment. I think back to the holiday, but Jack has robbed me of all the good memories, because what he did totally negates the best week of my life. And the worst part of it all? I didn’t even suspect. I was such a doting fool that it didn’t cross my mind he was carrying a bombshell that would blow us apart. Finally, I see H’s point.
‘You’re right,’ I say.
‘He doesn’t deserve you.’
I sigh and shake my head. ‘No, he doesn’t.’
H gives me a long hug, before she breaks away. I follow her back into the lounge and watch her whilst she clears up the take-away cartons and dumps them in a corner.
‘Right. Well that’s it. I’m having no more long faces from you madam,’ she announces. She goes to the stereo and throws in a CD. ‘This one’s for you.’ She cranks up the volume and as the music belts out she starts to sing, screwing up her face as if she’s Tom Jones.
She knows her tough love has worked, but just to make sure, she’s doing what she always does. She’s making me laugh.
I feel a surge of affection for her as H jumps on to the sofa and drags me up after her. We shriek over Gloria Gaynor, doing a ridiculous formation dance in the cramped space.
We waggle our fingers at each other and I’m feeling immensely cheered up.
We’re bellowing ‘I will survive’ so loudly that it takes me a while to hear the door buzzer. I jump off the sofa and turn down the stereo. I’m sweating.
‘Did you hear the door?’ I ask H, lunging for the intercom.