Here's Looking at You

by Mhairi McFarlane

  Laurence slid back into the booth.

  ‘Polly and Becca from Accenture are joining us by the way. Ah, bingo,’ Laurence waved across the room at skinny women in billowing patterned dresses and spindly heels. ‘Warning, Polly is so posh she calls Cambridge “Cambles”. Get her to say “gastronomic”, it’s like she’s got a mouthful of gobstoppers.’

  ‘Thanks for checking this with me,’ James hissed.

  ‘Friends through work, no need to sprain your fanny over it,’ Laurence said, adjusting a cufflink as James blanched.

  James gave Polly and Becca a grimace-smile and sat numbly through Laurence’s banter and their delighted twittering, avoiding meeting mascara-lashed coy glances.

  He could only think about someone who wasn’t there, and a few hours of his life, sixteen years ago, that until now he’d chosen to forget.

  51

  Anna could hear her sister saying what if we have to break in and decided she’d rather have Michelle and Aggy in her flat now, than tradespeople replacing her door tomorrow. Slowly, she moved towards the door and answered the knocking.

  Michelle took her e-cigarette out of her mouth as she surveyed Anna.

  ‘Woah. We may have got here too late.’

  Aggy’s face appeared, to the right of Michelle.

  ‘Why are you in a baby gro?’ Michelle said.

  ‘It’s a Where the Wild Things Are onesie. It’s a wild rumpus suit and a cool cultural reference,’ Anna said.

  ‘It’s a boner-killing disaster, my love,’ Michelle said, bustling in with a Marks and Spencer bag for life, Aggy in tow and no invitation.

  Once in the front room, they circled Anna.

  ‘Oh my days, what’s that brown thing hanging from your arse?’ Michelle said.

  ‘The tail, quite clearly.’

  ‘It looks a bit fecal.’

  ‘And what are you watching?!’ Aggy said, looking at the TV where the screen was freeze-framed on a fanged man.

  ‘Buffy.’

  Anna’s guests’ eyes lingered on the giant plastic wheel of half-eaten microwave paella and open packet of Kettle Chips, next to a tub of hummus. And row of Cadbury’s grab bag confectionery pouches. OK, it looked bad, but Anna hadn’t eaten it all today. She just hadn’t cleaned up.

  ‘We’ve got a Mattesson’s Fridge Raider here. You eat the diet of someone who’s been captured by the Germans at the best of times, but this is some next-level shit,’ Michelle said.

  She sat down on an armchair, while Aggy perched on the end of the sofa, gingerly. She was used to seeing her elder sister in control, and the disarray, both emotional and domestic, clearly discomfited her. Anna knew that despite the jocularity, they were worried. Ordinarily she’d put them at their ease. But now, she couldn’t summon the energy: she was lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut.

  ‘First things first,’ Michelle, rustling in the M&S bag, ‘though they might be surplus to requirements, I have Percy Pigs of every variety in here. Apart from the lemon ones, they’re a bit nasty. Second thing, Anna. What is going on?’

  ‘I told you. I’ve been off work sick all week. Stomach bug.’

  ‘Yeeeees. But then we call, email, text, and we either don’t get answers or we get very brief replies, un Anna-ish replies. Then when we start making inquiries. Someone I am going to code name “Bee-Shell” in case you’re angry with her for this, realises the last person you saw before The Ensickening was that James from schooldays. And who then calls him at work, and is told there was some sort of … fight?’

  ‘Oh God, you spoke to James? Oh God!’ Anna pulled her onesie hood over her face.

  ‘Are they horns?’ Aggy said. ‘Is that a Satan suit?’

  ‘Ears,’ Anna muttered, through the fabric. She let the hood ping back.

  ‘I’m under serious pressure to find out what’s up from your colleague, Patrick,’ Michelle said.

  Anna sighed.

  ‘I’ve saved you from a visit from him, look at it that way. What was the fight about?’ Michelle asked.

  ‘James didn’t tell you?’

  ‘Nope. “You’ll have to ask her,” was all I got.’

  A small flicker of respect for James’s discretion burned for a second, before other memories extinguished it.

  ‘He saw a school photo and found out who I am. He laughed at me. I lost it and screamed at him that he’d been a dreadful bastard. He told me I was psychotic and said it wasn’t his fault I was a freak back then.

  ‘It was a massive humiliating ruck and has brought back every bad memory of being at school again.’

  ‘What a piece of work!’ Michelle said. ‘He called you a freak?’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ Aggy said, looking as if she might cry.

  ‘We already knew he was horrible. I just can’t believe I persuaded myself he’d ever be anything else.’

  ‘So. Suspected former bastard confirms his own continuing bastardy,’ Michelle said. ‘This is on him. How’s it had this big an effect on you?’

  It was a question that needed to be asked. Anna had been avoiding it.

  ‘I don’t know. He laughed, and in an instant we were back at the Mock Rock. It proved to me I am that girl. I will always be that girl who no one wanted to know.’

  ‘I wanted to know you!’ Aggy said, a tear sliding down her cheek.

  Anna leaned over and gave her an arm squeeze.

  ‘Thank you. But you didn’t have much choice, what with me being in your house. It was so stupid of me to hang around with such superficial, immoral people. I know who they are, why did I kid myself? They were nice to me and I let myself be flattered. It was so weak. I wanted to believe they’d changed. I wanted to think I’d changed. I wanted to finally be liked by the cool kids. How pathetic is that, at thirty-two?’

  ‘You are. You could be, you’re just too good for that,’ Michelle said.

  ‘No. It’s like … I’m wearing a disguise. Nothing’s ever real. The way I was treated then, that’s the truth of what people like him think of me. And it reveals who they really are. Everything else is bullshit.’

  ‘Then don’t see these superficial people. Sorted.’

  ‘I know,’ Anna said. ‘I’m waiting for emotions to agree with intellect that I have nothing to be ashamed about.’

  ‘I never dreamt they wouldn’t know who you were at the reunion, you know,’ Michelle said. ‘You’ve had all of the dragging up of the past and none of the putting it to bed. Sorry I made you go.’

  ‘I don’t blame you.’ Anna adjusted her tail. ‘It was me who carried on seeing James. Some part of me hoped it’d do some good, I guess.’

  Well that, and you were having fun, she thought.

  ‘But when you always say you’ve changed,’ Michelle reapplied e-fag to side of mouth, ‘younger Anna was clever. Younger Anna was kind and interesting and funny. These are the things people like you for and they didn’t arrive with adulthood. Yeah you look different to when you were a teenager, we all do.’

  ‘Everyone hated me, Michelle,’ Anna said, trying hard not to let the pressure in her throat turn into crying. ‘They loathed me. I’m not sure you ever fully come back from that. The feeling you are, intrinsically … unlovable.’

  Ah. There were the tears. Aggy hugged her as she wept, and Michelle got up, hugged her too and they all wept a bit more. Michelle eventually muttering, ‘Your romper suit could do with a nice hot wash, I reckon.’

  Anna sniffed and cleared her throat, but noticed she felt better for having uttered that terrible truth. When she saw her silly chubby face on those photos she felt so bad for that girl. She went to school keen and eager to learn and what she learned was that she was worthless.

  ‘Given you are loved, lots, this is plainly not true,’ Michelle said, as she sat back down.

  ‘Apart from the no-boyfriends-ever thing.’

  ‘Hang on. There are tons of men who’d like to be your boyfriend so don’t try any Miss Havisham bleating.’

  ‘This is
true. I had Facebook open the other day and Phil who I work with said he’d love to have a go on you,’ Aggy said.

  Anna laughed weakly. ‘OK. Percy Pig, please.’ Michelle lobbed a packet of Phizzy Pig Tails.

  ‘I think it’s still bad because you haven’t talked about it,’ Aggy said. ‘You don’t let anybody talk about it. Mum and Dad worry they’ll upset you if they ever bring it up. At the time, you shut yourself in your bedroom and read books, and now you store it all up inside, and keep new people at a distance. We’ve never even told Chris about the thing that happened …’

  This was uncharacteristically serious and perceptive for Aggy, and Anna listened. She had to. She could feel herself welling up.

  ‘Me and Chris have a laugh. I don’t want him to think of me differently …’

  ‘He won’t! Talking helps,’ Aggy said. ‘I mean, I once completely ruined things with this client I ended up in bed with and it was a nightmare – he told people stuff I’d said in bed and they laughed. And then I told the story my way and people laughed, but in a good way, and it was like, once I’d made it mine, it couldn’t touch me anymore. You know? Make a school photo your Facebook profile picture or something.’

  Anna pulled a face.

  ‘OK, maybe not that. But you know what I mean. Make the Mock Rock a story. Make it one of your stories. You’re so funny, everyone would laugh with you.’

  Anna leaned over and hugged her sister’s bony shoulders. When Aggy was a child, Anna used to say it felt like cuddling the Stabilo ruler in her pencil case.

  ‘I tell you what, I don’t think even this James is as self-assured as you think,’ Michelle said. ‘When I spoke to him, he asked if you were alright, several times. I got the impression he was embarrassed.’

  ‘Embarrassed to know me, mainly. He should be embarrassed at the things he said but he’s not the type to blame himself, I promise you that.’

  ‘He might think on it and apologise.’

  ‘Hah. Not holding my breath.’

  Anna thought about how upset she was at being discovered and wondered if, had she held it together, it could’ve been less confrontational.

  No. He’d laughed, denied all guilt and called her a freak. He’d proved all her suspicions right.

  ‘If he has pissed off, he wasn’t worth anything,’ Michelle said. ‘Also, you never much liked him anyway, did you?’

  ‘Not really,’ Anna said.

  ‘Do you feel up to going back to work on Monday?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good. I don’t think solitude is what you need. I think remembering how much you love your job is what will help.’

  ‘True. Granny Maude used to say: “Don’t work too hard if you want to be happy. Men like fun much more than they like clever. Which means you’ll be successful but lonely,”’ Anna said.

  ‘Granny Maude told me that if a man has an affair it’s because he was missing something at home,’ Aggy said.

  ‘This Granny Maude you two mention. Was she happily married?’ Michelle said, popping a Percy Piglet variant in her mouth.

  ‘Not really. She was always moody and Granddad Len always had the face of a haunted ant-eater,’ Anna said.

  ‘I might stop fretting on her relationship advice then,’ Michelle said, chewing stickily. ‘Granny Fraud more like. What’s that?’

  Anna followed Michelle’s line of sight.

  ‘A box of diaries. From school. I was going to look through them.’

  ‘Why, for God’s sake?’

  ‘To remember—?’ Anna shrugged tiredly, ‘I don’t know. After the reunion I thought, if I can’t get closure that way then maybe I’ll get it by facing all those memories and reading the diaries. Then I wasn’t sure I could face it.’

  ‘Bollocks, don’t wallow. I have an idea,’ Michelle said. ‘Why don’t we burn them? A pyre? Then that can be your closure. We’ll dance around it making whooping sounds.’

  Anna laughed and Aggy squealed.

  Ten minutes later, having heaved the box into the garden, they all stood shivering, half-lit by the combination of the kitchen light and the back door security lamp.

  ‘Don’t you have a metal bin or something?’ Michelle said, arms wrapped tightly round herself, shaking with cold.

  ‘The bins are plastic,’ Anna said.

  ‘We could try microwaving the diaries?’ Aggy offered.

  ‘Microwave paper and cardboard?’ Michelle said.

  ‘And metal, the padlocks are metal,’ Anna said.

  ‘We were only going to destroy the diaries, not get rushed to hospital with no hair and make the dipshit slot on the local news,’ Michelle said.

  She sighed. ‘You want something cooking properly, you cook it yourself. Have you got a barbecue set? And barbecue lighters?’

  ‘Wait! Yes.’

  Anna darted off into the undergrowth and hauled out a circular barbecue grill on three legs, full of ash, while Aggy ferreted around noisily in the kitchen cupboards.

  Michelle got it going with liberal use of matches, and called for the first diary.

  She prodded it with a barbecue fork, watching the teddy bear face warp and melt, an Alessi sister on either side, hugging her.

  ‘Nearly done. Slice the buns and ready the ketchup. Man alive it smells rank,’ Michelle said, coughing as the metal catch on the diary melted. ‘Keep it away from your costume, Anna, it’ll go up like a rocket. OK, Aggy, I’m ready for the 1995 diary now. Did you really have to write so much, Anna?’

  As they stood in a huddle, arms linked, Anna said, ‘Thank you, you two. I feel much better. I should have done this a long time ago.’

  ‘It’s time you accepted that they’re the ones who have something to be ashamed of. Not you,’ Michelle said.

  Staring into the flickering cauldron of soot-covered diary, Anna realised for the first time how true this was.

  52

  James had been at a meeting with Will Wembley-Hodges, an ‘artisanal cheese string producer’ in the Bermondsey Arches who wanted to bring his product to the mass market.

  He had to nod vigorously at a businessman in a pink straw trilby.

  ‘So you’re walking down the street, having a cheese string, but instead of processed cheese, it’s Armenian sheep’s milk cheese with black cumin.’

  James was tempted to reply with something along the lines of thank goodness someone’s tackled the ‘walking down the street with the wrong sort of cheese string’ problem, but obviously didn’t.

  His mind drifted during the meeting with schemes and plans of how best to apologise to Anna. He was working up to it. Freak, what had possessed him to use the word freak? He almost twitched with shame every time he recalled it. And then her mate Michelle had called him, and he’d felt awful when it became obvious he’d really upset her.

  When he got back to the office mid-morning, the hushed room had a strange tension.

  James was merely mildly perturbed until Harris passed him, carrying his vast tub of steamed chai. The look on his face was as grotesque as it was threatening: malign excitement, triumphalism, and most of all, gleeful anticipation.

  ‘James, can I have a word?’ Harris said, seating himself at his screen in the open plan office. You could have heard a pin drop.

  ‘Uh. Yeah?’ James said, sitting down.

  ‘Over here, if you don’t mind,’ Harris said.

  He got up and joined Harris at his desk nearby, who had the office’s general inquiries email account open as full screen. He clicked to open a sound file and the graphic rippled and jumped as it started. A voice came out loud and clear, amid background rustling and movement. It was a young-ish male Londoner and James took a moment to realise that the stranger’s voice was his.

  ‘… You don’t give two craps about what I do, fine. I get it. It’s a bunch of digital twattery that didn’t exist five minutes ago and now we sell it to you as essential, because unfortunately for you it is. Because everyone has smart phones and the attention span of Graham Nor
ton after a speedball and a Red Bull, even the ones who go to museums. But this pays my mortgage and I’m alright at it, so it’s what I do. Not everyone has a passion for their work like you …’

  Anna. It was that time he got tetchy with her, after they’d been recording the question and answer session for the app. What else did he say? Oh God, what else did he say …

  ‘… And you think my colleagues are dicks, guess what? So do I, with one or two exceptions. And they all seem to have surnames for forenames. But instead of sitting here trying to get a rise out of me every other minute and make it clear just how moronic you think it all is …’

  Harris hit pause.

  ‘That’s a nice way to talk about us all, isn’t it?’

  James stood motionless, trying to find a way to cope with his entire office hearing what he thought of them. It was like the experience of someone walking in behind you when you were slagging them off. But multiplied, many times. ‘It’s from UCL. Things going badly with the girlfriend, by any chance?’

  Of course. Their fight.

  Playing for time as his brain whirred, James squinted at the details of the email.

  ‘I’ve already sent it to Jez and Fi,’ Harris snapped, before James could come up with any sort of explanation. No surprises there. James had already sussed this was probably an employment terminator. It was nothing less than an audio resignation letter.

  The email sender was an anonymous email address and the message simply read: ‘It has come to our attention that a member of your staff conducted himself extremely unprofessionally during a recent project involving our university. We thought you might be interested to hear the attached file.’ The subject line was: ‘Urgent from UCL. re: James Fraser.’

  James licked dry lips.

  ‘I didn’t mean it. She was being arsey and I was defending myself. That’s been taken out of context.’