by Emma Curtis
‘You don’t need to.’
‘Yes, I do.’
He leans an elbow on Graham’s desk and scratches his thumbnail across his forehead. ‘Whatever I did at the Christmas party, if I came on too strong or I crossed a line, I apologize. I should have apologized weeks ago.’
‘We were as bad as each other. I should apologize for leaving you looking like a plonker.’
Jamie laughs. ‘Yeah, you did. So, what I want to ask is, will you give me another chance? Will you let me take you out for that drink?’
I don’t say anything, because I’m not sure what to say.
‘Do you know how long I was awake last night, thinking about how I would ask you? You don’t make things easy.’
‘Jamie, I …’
To my horror, I start to fall to pieces. It feels like a mild version of the last time. My hands are trembling. I want to explain that it isn’t personal, that it’s because I’m a mess, but I can’t because I’m not ready for the rest of that conversation. His face falls, and he pushes the chair back, but I grab the armrest. He waits for me to speak, and I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I have this. I am under control. I remind myself that I have a choice; embrace life despite what happened, or let it go and accept that I’m on my own.
Then David Gunner will have won, and that is not going to happen.
I take a deep breath. ‘OK. Yes. I’ll go for a drink with you after work.’
He doesn’t exactly punch the air, because that would be weird and uncool, but he does grin. He would hate me if he knew why I agreed.
Jamie and I go to a pub equidistant between our respective flats in Chalk Farm and Kentish Town. We cycle back from work together, me following him, and even though it’s dark and damp, it feels like we’re on a jaunt.
On the way, we cut through the back streets, a mix of council estates and shabby Georgian terraces. We are cycling past a row of houses being renovated when Jamie waves his right hand, slows into the kerb and brakes. He points. It’s dark, so it’s hard to make out what it is at first. Three yards before the turning on to the Chalk Farm Road, there is a railing. Tied to it are several cellophane-wrapped bunches of flowers, some wilting, some still vibrant.
‘Poor Guy,’ I say. ‘What a shitty way to go.’
We find a table in a quiet corner of the pub and tuck our helmets underneath the bench. I insist on buying the first round and Jamie argues, but I want to set the subliminal ground rules. I don’t want to feel as though I’m being bought, in the old-fashioned sense. Not that I tell him that; I just say that I owe him and leave it there. I bring our drinks over and place them on the table; Jamie puts down his phone and smiles.
‘Do you come here often?’ I say, because I can’t think of anything else.
The first ten minutes are sluggish, but then the alcohol hits, loosening both of us. His awkwardness becomes less obvious, my reticence less rigid. We begin to discover the things we have in common. We love reading and have both used books to escape bad times. We both enjoy historical novels, which leads to a fierce debate on the relative merits of Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden, whom I favour. Jamie describes a childhood spent moving from country to country with his Armed Forces father. He talks about the loneliness of arriving at different schools and having to start all over again and how tired he used to get of having to remember names and faces. Even now he can’t recall the boys and girls who, for a few fleeting months at a time, he could call his best friends. I get that.
By now he’s told me so much, been so open and funny about his mistakes and his growing up, it’s become painfully obvious that I’ve been less generous. After I come back from a trip to the bar and look for the chair with my coat hanging over it, rather than for him, I realize that I have to make that leap of faith and tell the truth. It’s that or lose him. I set the glasses down on the table, sit and chew my lip. I don’t know where to start.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Can I tell you something about me?’
‘So, what you’re saying,’ Jamie says. ‘Is that you can see that my eyes are brown, but you won’t remember that?’
‘Kind of.’ I think about how I’ve heard Deborah explaining it to her students. ‘Basically, it’s the difference between vision, the actual seeing by the eye with its component parts, and perception, which is the part your brain plays. It’s not something that you can pin down. An optician can’t help you improve your perception, only your vision. The information your brain receives is interpreted using things that aren’t quantifiable, like memory and emotional connection. My perception is fine for everything that isn’t a human face. So, I can see each of your features, I can acknowledge the brownness of your eyes, but I can’t see the Jamie-ness of it. If I was asked tomorrow what colour your eyes were, I’d probably remember, but if you approached me, like you did at Guy’s wake, I wouldn’t know who you were, despite that piece of knowledge. If I knew you well enough to know that you had a mole on your left ear, that would help me enormously. Bettina is easy because of her hair, but I could easily mistake a similar stranger in the street for her, so I don’t look at people when I’m out and about, in case they wave at me or something. It’s like a game I can never win.’ When he nods encouragement, I hesitate. ‘Are you falling asleep at the back of the lecture theatre?’
‘No! You’re doing brilliantly. So, you aren’t forgetting me, you just haven’t retained a memory of my face that makes any sense or distinguishes me from the next man. Just a bunch of features that have no associations attached to them. Brown-eyed male.’
‘Yes,’ I say, smiling. Apart from explaining it to Rebecca, I don’t get the chance to marshal my thoughts like this and try to make a normal person understand what it is I have or lack. It’s both hard work and a pleasure. ‘When you think about the brain and how it reacts to a face, you can understand how much someone like me can miss. Your brain takes in a mountain of information and makes a judgement as to all sorts of things, both physical and emotional: whether it’s been given this information before or whether it’s new, whether it wants to trust it, engage with it or whether there are more negative thoughts and associations. Did you know that, during an interview, the interviewee will have got the job or been rejected within fifty-five seconds of walking into the room? Never mind what’s on their CV. Am I making sense?’
‘Yeah. I’m not struggling with it. So, let’s say you were interviewing somebody, you’d be more interested in their achievements than their face. You’d make a great interviewer, because your focus would be what makes them tick, not the physical attributes they were born with. A bit like The Voice. That would be a plus, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’ve never thought about it that way.’ I smile. ‘Thanks, Jamie. It’s nice to hear something positive for a change.’
He sits back and takes a long drink. ‘I aim to please.’
‘I can empathize with your experience of changing schools and having to get to know a new set of people. When I was at school, it felt like that every day.’
‘It must have been hard.’
‘Particularly since back then I had no idea there was anything wrong with the way my brain worked. Once,’ I say, smiling now at the memory, ‘I was swimming in the sea with Isabel and Mark – I think I must have been about seven because Dad was still around – and I got pulled under a wave and when I surfaced I couldn’t see them anywhere, so I got out and sat down on a towel next to Mum and Dad.’ I glance at Jamie’s face. He’s listening intently. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t until Dad started speaking French that I realized they weren’t my family.’
Jamie laughs his head off and I protest that it wasn’t funny, that I was incredibly embarrassed, but soon I’m laughing too, tears streaming.
‘Laura.’
And there it is, in the way he says my name, as if he’s caressing it, as if it’s new to him and wonderful to say out loud, that takes me back to Hoxton 101, to that lovely, happy, drunken connection, to what it was that I found in him
that night.
He cups my cheek with his hand and I tingle.
‘After the Christmas party,’ he says, ‘I thought you might have gone off with someone else.’
My happiness drains. ‘Why would you think that?’ I say carefully.
‘I saw the cab driving away. It looked like there were two people in it.’
‘Then it wasn’t mine. There were loads of people out there; loads of minicabs and Ubers.’
‘Sorry. Forget I said anything. You confuse me.’
‘So, it’s my fault?’
‘No. I don’t mean that at all.’
He sounds so frustrated that I feel bad. We both pick up our glasses at the same time and there’s an awkward silence. He shuffles, plays with his phone, checks his messages. I do pretty much the same. To anyone observing us, we must look like a date gone wrong.
‘I’ve spoiled the evening,’ he says, looking stricken.
He isn’t to blame for any of this. I’m upset because I’m ashamed.
‘Nothing’s been spoiled.’
I reach over and touch his cheek, slide my hand around the back of his head and draw him to me. When we part, he looks both surprised and delighted. Once again, David is at the back of my mind. I meant the kiss, but I also needed to claw back some of the power he took from me. But I’ve told a lie and Jamie believed me. Or he wants to. Not the healthiest start to a relationship, if this is what it is.
‘My sister says that I’m too nice,’ he says. ‘I should try and be more of a bastard if I want to get the girl.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
We look at each other for a moment too long, then we get up at the same time, laughing as we scramble into our coats. I want so badly to salvage the evening.
‘Coffee?’ he asks as we go out into the night and the brightly lit street. A bus rumbles by, nondescript faces behind steamed-up windows.
‘There’s nowhere open.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘I know you didn’t. And yes, I’d love one.’ I surprise myself. ‘I only mean … God, sorry.’ What do I mean?
Jamie laughs. ‘I’m not assuming anything, Laura. I just don’t want the evening to end and it’s too cold to be outside.’
‘OK. Good. Thank you.’ I unlock my bike, pull my gloves on and follow him on to the road.
34
Laura
I MIGHT SLEEP with him, I think, as we cut through the residential streets to his flat. He has a racing bike, mine is a sit-up-and-beg, but he goes slowly, making sure I don’t fall behind. I want to know that I am still capable of enjoying a man’s company and his body; that I can lose myself. If I do, I’ll be doing it in full possession of my faculties. It’s a decision, not an impulse. My behaviour must seem calculating, but I calculate constantly: that is my problem and my salvation.
And I don’t want to go back to my flat. Not yet.
He helps me get our bicycles into the narrow hall, giving a dry laugh when I offer to chain mine up outside. We squeeze past and I follow him into his tiny sitting room. I don’t want to lose sight of his face, so I hover round him, like an irritating fly. He doesn’t seem to mind.
Jamie’s flat resembles any other cheap rental I’ve ever been in: magnolia walls, trunking round electrical cables, brown carpet, beige sofa, beige curtains. In the corner of the sitting room is a disproportionately large TV. There are French windows and I cup my hands against them, making out a small paved patio with a garden table, three chairs and a couple of sad-looking pots. Behind me, on the coffee table, there are several days’ worth of Evening Standards and a mug with the dried remnants of his morning coffee. A plate with crumbs. Jamie tidies all this away while the kettle is boiling. I sit down and watch him, my hands clasped round my knees. He is never more than eight foot from me, which is comforting.
He sits down at the other end of the sofa, and we hold our mugs, mirroring each other.
‘So?’ Jamie says. ‘What do you think of the place?’
‘It’s functional.’
He grins. ‘I had somewhere nicer – well, more interesting at least – when I shared with three other guys. I’ve only been living on my own since last September. I’m still adjusting.’
‘I’ve lived on my own since leaving uni.’
‘That must be lonely.’
I lean back into the cushions and stifle a yawn. ‘I like it. I shared for three years and that was enough. I could get a handle on my flatmates, but their friends and lovers were a total nightmare. I need somewhere I’m not going to run into a stranger in my kitchen every time I come home.’
‘Makes sense.’ He’s looking at me over his mug as he takes a sip, his lashes lowered. ‘I was thinking …’
I twitch my eyebrows. ‘You were, were you?’
‘I’m not just a pretty face.’
‘That’s lucky because it would be lost on me.’ He laughs. ‘Anyway, I was thinking that if your brain won’t accept information about faces that comes through your eyes, what about using your fingertips? Like blind people do?’
‘Jamie, that is so creepy. I can’t go up to people and start running my fingers all over their faces. Maybe if I was in a relationship. And I don’t think it would work anyway.’ I touch my own face, palping my fingertips over the ridge of my nose, the swell of my lips, brushing my eyelashes. ‘It doesn’t say anything to me. Just lumps and bumps.’
‘Try on me.’ He puts his coffee down, and I nod, feeling an odd tingle.
I close my eyes and try to relax as I touch his skin, moving my fingers firmly. His cheeks are slightly rough, his lips feel more generous than they are. His lashes tickle my thumb pads.
‘You’re right.’ He laughs. ‘It is a bit creepy.’ He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles.
‘Can I tell you something awful,’ I say, because the tension is scaling up too fast for me.
‘Yeah, go on.’
‘When I was sixteen, I spent practically the whole end-of-term disco snogging this boy because I didn’t know who he was and was too embarrassed to ask. As soon as the last slow dance was over, I said I was going to the loo, and I legged it out of there.’
Jamie laughs. ‘Poor kid.’
‘It was all right. At least I wasn’t propping up the wall all night.’
‘I meant the boy. Did you find out his name?’ He leans forward to kiss me, but I put my finger against his lips.
‘Yes, because he asked me out eventually. I said no.’
‘That must have taken a lot of courage.’
‘No. Cowardice really.’
‘Again, I meant the boy.’
‘You are so funny.’ I don’t often get teased and it feels nice.
‘So, is that what happened at the staff party?’ Jamie asks. ‘It was easier to snog me than ask me?’
‘Er … well, partly.’ I make a face; a grimace to show him how mortified I am. ‘I hadn’t wanted to be there, and you being so persistent was such a surprise. I didn’t want to spoil it.’
He folds his arms. ‘Not sure how I should take that. If you had found out it was me, it would have broken the spell? Is that it?’
‘No, it isn’t! Not at all.’
‘Then kiss me.’
I let him lead me into his bedroom. I block out the image of another man’s naked body, of a blue shirt lying rumpled on my hallway floor. Even Guy tries to intrude, riding his bicycle along that dark street. Jamie crushes me into his arms and I sink against his chest. We stand with our bodies pressed together, and for a while this is all I need.
‘I didn’t change the sheets,’ he admits, embarrassed. ‘I thought it might look like I was making assumptions.’
‘Are you saying this whole evening was premeditated?’
Two spots of colour appear on his cheeks. ‘I didn’t ask you on impulse. Many sleepless nights went into planning.’
My top has no buttons and he pulls it up over my head and I notice that his hands are shaking too. I undo my bra myself as he
steps out of his jeans and stands in his white boxers and maroon socks. I will myself to stay calm, not to let the fear creep under my skin. I put my hands on his shoulders to warm them and he holds my waist. He lowers me down and then collapses on to the bed beside me and it’s all so clumsy and silly. Laughter catches in my throat as he kisses me again, sliding his hand down and round the curve of my waist and hip.
I try so hard to focus on him, on his caresses and the warmth of his body, the tension in his muscles, but the world darkens so that the night is inside my head as well as outside, and I experience a rush of horror.
It’s as if a door has opened, even though I push against it with all my strength. Jamie’s lips become his lips, Jamie’s hands become his hands. I squirm at his touch, but he thinks it’s pleasure. I begin to fight harder, frantic, jerking my head away from his kisses. I wedge my arms between us, curling my hands into fists to hit him with. He lets me go abruptly and I sit up and shove myself backwards against the headboard, wrap my arms around my breasts and drop my head. Tears trickle into the gap between my forearms and my knees. I can hear the rasp of Jamie’s breath as he pulls himself together. When he tries to hold me, to give comfort, I shrink from his touch. The bedsprings move as he stands up and I think he’s left the room but then he comes back and drapes his dressing gown over me. It smells of him.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,’ I mumble.
He sits down again, but this time he doesn’t attempt to touch me. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No. I need to go. I … Can you leave the room while I get dressed?’
‘Of course.’ He pauses. ‘Whatever it is, Laura, I want you to know that I would give anything to be able to help you.’
I wait until the door closes, then I unwrap myself carefully. I’m still crying, my throat aching from suppressing the howl of anguish that has built up inside me. I move like an elderly woman, dressing myself slowly, my hands clumsy, my bones rattling. When I’m ready I find Jamie in the kitchen, leaning against the cabinets, his brow furrowed with worry.