by Bankes, Liz
I tell him that a really nice thing about going out with Cal is that I’ve got to know Max better. He says he likes it too.
I tell him that he should get back together properly with Gabi. He says it’s up to her really.
I tell him that I think Cal is cheating on me and what I heard him say to Dan and that I’ve read his phone and looked on his computer. He doesn’t really get a chance to say anything, because I carry on talking.
I tell him about the Spankathon video.
Suddenly Max’s face comes into focus. He’s holding a bottle of beer and he’s saying, ‘You shouldn’t be selling me this.’
I look at him, confused. I say, ‘I’m not selling it to you, Max, the people at the bar are.’
I can’t find him after that.
Pub nine. Nothing (cannot find the bar, or anyone I know, or my purse).
Realise that Max said, ‘You shouldn’t be telling me this.’ Directed to the next pub by strange man in robes who might be in a cult. Go into the toilets to collect my thoughts and decide what to do, but instead I am sick.
Pub ten. Water.
Fed to me by a kindly stranger after I am found face down in another toilet.
Pub eleven. Water/beer.
Realise kindly stranger was Arlo. He walked me to the next place and because I obviously have some sort of death wish I steal his drink when he’s not looking.
Pub thirteen. Sip of something horrible from a hip flask.
Fed to me by an old man after I tell him I am looking for my boyfriend who has left me for a whore. He then tells me I have missed pub twelve. Have an epiphany as I walk back up the road to find pub twelve and realise that the strange man in robes was Simon in his elephant suit.
Pub twelve. Nothing.
Barman asks for ID and I run away. I actually run.
Pub fourteen. Nothing.
Find everyone else and am briefly deliriously happy, but soon go back to feeling sick. Decide alcohol is a terrible thing. Worse than drugs. Tell lots of people this. Decide I am going to find Cal and sort this out once and for all.
Pub fifteen. Nothing.
The pub Cal works in. I march up to him at the bar. He ushers me outside and we end up walking out of the little alleyway the pub is in to the road. Soon the walls of the colleges on Broad Street are looming up around us. It’s probably the most wide open, public place we could be. Cars and bicycles whiz past and people shout out things to us. Some ask if we’re okay. Which I guess you would do if you saw a couple screaming and crying at each other. And if that couple were dressed as a pig and a cow.
Botanic Garden.
Sitting on our bench – not quite sure how we got in here, but I think a hedge was involved. Both fully clothed. I think we just broke up.
Chapter 21
‘Hello?’
‘Good morning, is that Mrs . . .’
That can’t be right.
‘Cockbum?’
Oh no, wait, that’s an ‘rn’, not an ‘m’. My tired eyes went blurry and now I’ve just called someone Mrs Cockbum.
‘Cockburn?’
‘It’s pronounced Co-burn.’
How?
‘Oh, I do apologise, Mrs Co-burn. I was wondering if you had two minutes to —’
Slam.
My hand is shaking as I take a sip from my glass of water. I feel completely hollow. No sleep in two days hasn’t helped. But it was the sober, quiet argument that drained me even more than the screaming, drunken one.
It came the day after. After Cal had slept in Dan’s room, because Dan was asleep on the sofa. I passed out and relived our fight (or what I could remember) over and over again in horrible, vivid dreams. He walked in in the morning, looking pale and tired, not wanting to look me in the eye.
Because our fight didn’t get rid of the problems. It made them real and unavoidable.
‘Hello?’
‘Good morning. Is that Mr Beard?’
‘This is Mrs Beard.’
‘Oh! I do ap—’
Slam.
We both had our things. The things that kept rearing up and we couldn’t get past. His was that I could think he was the kind of person to cheat on me. Mine was that all his friends knew that he was possibly getting kicked off his course. Everyone knew, except me.
‘Who’s this?’
‘My name is Rosie and I’m calling fr—’
Slam.
He hadn’t intended to confide in Cleo, apparently. She’d found him downstairs in the middle of the night, working on an essay. They’d told him he could stay on the course if he handed in three essays and resat one of the exams. Cleo had managed to persuade some second year to give her all his essays last year, so she offered to help Cal.
But, I told him, surely he’d know that sneaking into her room at night would look dodgy. The way he ‘Oh’ when I said that was like it hadn’t even occurred to him. That’s the biggest difference between us – he doesn’t think. I think too much.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I said. Even though I knew what he was going to say.
He said he didn’t want to disappoint me. He talked about when I introduced him to my parents and went on about how he was going to be a lawyer. And how I always told him I was proud of him. I wanted him to shut up. He was taking lovely moments between us – stuff that I used to think of and smile – and turning them sour.
I told him to shut up.
And that he was wrong. I’m not the sort of person who would care if he fails. I just want him to be happy. He looked at me with this tired, sad face. A face that was nothing like him.
‘I’m not going to do my exam. I’m going to drop out.’
I met his eyes.
‘That’s fine,’ I said. My voice came out high and tight.
‘See. You can’t hide it. You’re disappointed in me. You don’t want to be with a dropout.’
He was kneeling so close to me. My heart ached so much it stung. All I wanted to do was reach out and hug him, but I couldn’t. Because when he’d said it, a flash of disappointment went through me.
He thinks I’m cold and unfeeling.
Am I?
He stood up.
‘I can’t deal with someone looking at me like that, sorry.’
I was angry then. He’d decided for me – he hadn’t given me the chance to be supportive. And I was angry about the voice in me that was wishing he’d stay on the course. I wanted to lash out – think of something to say that wouldn’t let him make me the bad person and then just walk off.
‘Maybe if you’d spent less time watching porn and more time doing your work then this wouldn’t have happened.’
He span back round and stared at me. ‘What?!’ he said, almost laughing.
‘I saw – on your computer.’
He frowned, looking less confused, but still confused. Okay, it had been one video. But still.
‘Why were you on there? You have your own.’
‘What? I . . .’
‘Were you checking up on me there as well? Like on the phone?’
‘I don’t think that’s the point, Cal.’
He ruffled his hair in frustration and sighed. Then looked around the room, trying to work out what to say. The seconds dragged out painfully.
‘I feel I have to be perfect for you,’ he said eventually.
‘I don’t want – I never said that.’
‘No, but it’s you. You have all these . . . high standards and you beat yourself up if you think you’re not meeting them. Why wouldn’t you have them for the person you’re with?’
I couldn’t speak. It felt like his words were ramming into my chest and everything was blocked by this confused ball of feeling that I couldn’t work out. Pity that he felt like that and outrage that he’d got me wrong and a cold guilty feeling that he’d got me right.
He swallowed. ‘Maybe we should talk later. When it’s not so . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry, Rosie.’
Then he walked out of the door and I was a
lone in his room again.
I can’t bring myself to make another call. The headset suddenly feels tight and like it’s pinching my head. I pull it down so it’s round my neck. Quite vigorously, apparently, because Bruiser turns round.
‘You okay?’ she grunts.
Up till now I’d managed to keep it in. Even when the Noah and the Whale song came on shuffle when I was walking to work. And when one of the people I called said nonsense words until I hung up, which is what Cal always does to cold callers. And when Georgie and Tina spoke for ages about Tina moving in with her boyfriend.
But ‘Are you okay?’ always gets me.
I try to nod and tell her I’m fine, but my voice goes wobbly and all the sadness wells up everywhere. And soon I’m sobbing noisily at my desk. The kind of sobbing where you can’t control your breathing and you make loads of weird gulpy sounds and people look over to find out how a dying pig managed to get into the office.
Everyone on my table looks up. And, between sobs, I start to explain. Georgie and Tina come over and Georgie says it’s Cal’s loss and he’s obviously a total knobhead. Tina says ‘Knobhead’ and nods. Ron, the only man on our table, gets me some Maltesers from the vending machine because he says his wife likes to eat chocolate when she cries. Then Bruiser pats me on the back in what is meant to be a reassuring way and I fall off my chair. Deborah the office gossip puts her head over my computer and says that from what she could see on Facebook Cal was clearly a wrong ’un and was putting on weight.
I’m so grateful for how nice everyone’s being that I don’t even think about the fact that I’m not friends with Deborah on Facebook till later.
I don’t tell them any of the details of it. I just try to smile and nod and say thank you over the sob sounds. And they tell me I can do better and all men are bastards, but it doesn’t matter what they say really, I just want it to carry on so I don’t have to go back to thinking about it. Slowly my breathing returns to normal and the tears stop flowing. And then Clint comes over. He puts his hand over mine in a slightly creepy way.
‘Rosie,’ he says. ‘No one likes failing. Especially failing in the arena of love. But look on the bright side. You’re quite an attractive girl. I probably would. And I don’t say that lightly.’
And I burst into tears again.
Chapter 22
I walk into the pub and Cal lifts his head from the pit of depression he’s been in all day. He stands up and looks at me, his eyes sparkling because he has also been crying noisily in front of all his colleagues all day. Then he starts walking towards me. By a coincidence, a love song has started playing on the pub sound system. I’d like to pretend it’s something cool and indie, but actually it’s Love Story by Taylor Swift. When he reaches me I start trying to tell him how I want us to sort everything out and he puts his finger gently on my lips and says, ‘Shh. I love you. Nothing else matters.’ Then he grabs the back of my head and kisses me (just at the bit in the song when the key changes) and everyone applauds. I look at the crowd on the patio and realise all our friends and my parents are there. Mum smiles at me and then she shouts, ‘Get out of the way!’
Wait a minute.
There’s a flash of black and a shrill, high-pitched bell rings out. I jump back onto the pavement and the bike whizzes past, missing me by inches. I was in a complete daze, standing at the crossroads at the top of Broad Street where my fight with Cal started. It’s also next to Cal’s work and I know he finishes his shift soon.
The same scenarios have been playing in my head on a loop while I’ve wandered aimlessly around town for the two hours since I left work.
1. I walk into the pub and find crying Cal. Then, kissing, applause and Taylor Swift.
2. I walk into the pub and instead of Cal I find Cleo. She tells me Cal has left to catch a plane to France, not because he doesn’t love me, but because he thinks I don’t love him and it is too painful to stay. Cleo puts her hand on my arm and tells me to go because I might still catch him. I turn and run and soon I am approaching the airport barrier. (Conveniently the imaginary airport is running distance from the pub.) I stop Cal just as he is about to go through the gate (after having leapt over a security barrier like the little boy in Love, Actually). Then, kissing, applause and Taylor Swift.
3. I don’t go to the pub, but instead leave a note for Cal telling him I’ve gone to the Bright Sparx networking event (beautifully written with the fountain pen I happened to have in my bag). Cal comes looking for me and arrives at the party to see me at the centre of a group of people telling a hilarious story. He realises what he’s missing and then kissing, applause, Taylor Swift.
None of this is actually helping me decide what to do. But while I’ve been thinking it, my feet have walked me to the alleyway that leads to Cal’s pub.
The road has all these lovely little houses on it, painted different colours like pink and blue and yellow and all of them with beams on the ceilings. Cal and I always said that when we lived together it would be a place like the ones on this road.
I can’t believe that we’d talked about living together and now I can’t even walk up to him and speak to him. How can you think of living with someone who you aren’t even honest with? And who isn’t honest with you? I feel hollow as I wonder if the whole time we’ve just been telling each other what we think the other one wants to hear.
Next to the pub is a little, old-fashioned inn where we stayed once. Most people would think it was ridiculous to stay somewhere right by where you work, but Cal thought it was brilliant. He phoned me to tell me that it had taken exactly twenty steps for him to get to work. Then he snuck back to see me on his break. Then phoned me to say he’d made it back in nineteen.
I can’t help smiling, but just as I am picturing him, I hear him. Laughing. I stop in the tiny passageway next to the pub.
Cautiously, I edge forward so that I can peep round the wall. A big group of people are sitting round a table on the outside patio and playing cards. Cal’s laugh rings out again.
As I wait in the passageway, a new and quite different scenario starts playing in my head.
4. I walk out on to the pub patio and find Cal playing cards with all his friends. His eyes are completely dry, because all the fun he’s been having hasn’t left any time for noisy crying. He tells me I shouldn’t have come and that I should move out of the house and go home. But first he is going to kiss all of his female colleagues and make me watch.
I turn around and walk away.
Chapter 23
Quite a few students are here already. The networking event is at one of the Oxford colleges. It’s one that is hidden away from the road and is quite small compared to the other ones I’ve seen, but still with the old-looking sandstone buildings set round a quad. Flowers and vines creeping up the walls make it seem less austere than some of the others and it must be one of the more relaxed ones because we are allowed on the grass. Long tables of drinks are laid out on the quad and waiters with trays of food are dotted around. The scary red-headed ball-crusher woman who runs the course is here.
I go over to one of the long tables to pick up my name badge. As I sign in, I take a deep breath. I’ve been thinking so much about this being something that could distract me from thinking about Cal, I’ve forgotten I will need to ‘network’. There are going to be people from local businesses here to give us advice and, in the words of the course leader woman, ‘judge us’.
As I think that, I hear her voice ring out over the quad.
‘Good to see you, Steve. We weren’t sure if you would make it.’
I turn back towards the main doors and see the man who lives next door to Cal, with Rory trotting along beside him and Rose running full pelt onto the grass.
‘It’s the BURGLAR GIRL!’ she shouts as she sees me.
Heads turn around the quad.
‘I was locked out,’ I say and I get a few wary looks before people return to their conversations.
Steve waves apologetically as he walks
over towards the woman. Rose runs towards me and Steve looks like he thinks about stopping her for a second and then decides to let her go. She’s sprinting and her hair is sticking up all around her head like a fiery halo. I think she might be about to jump on me, but then she suddenly stops dead.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi, Rose. How are you?’
She starts telling me about the summer holidays club she is going to and how it was ‘Pirate and Princess Dress-up Day’ last week, but she didn’t want to go as a princess.
‘Oh, cool. Did you go as a pirate, then?’
‘No, a bear.’
Her father calls over to her to come and have some squash, but at the same time he’s explaining to Ball Crusher that he can’t stay long.
‘I couldn’t find a babysitter,’ he says. ‘And I don’t want these two terrorising you the whole evening.’
I look down at Rory, clinging to his dad’s leg and staring up with his big eyes. I can’t really imagine him terrorising anyone if I’m honest. Rose, however, has picked up a piece of gravel and looks like she might be about to carefully drop it in the woman’s drink, which she’s left on one of the tables.
‘Hey, Rose,’ I say quickly. ‘Why don’t you tell me about being a bear?’
She comes over and starts doing loud bear impressions, but at least the course leader won’t be choking on any stones.
The networking goes on all around me and I’m deep in conversation with a five-year-old. Even Rory, who is sitting obediently on a wall and reading a book, comes up to show me a picture of a cat and tells me his dad is letting them get a kitten soon. Steve might have a job getting them to agree on a name, seeing as Rory wants to call it Oliver, while Rose prefers the name Big Bum.
Steve finishes talking to the course leader and chats to me. It turns out that he is an economics lecturer at this college. And he’s a single parent since his wife died two years ago, which is why they’ve downsized into the house next to Cal. There’s one of those awful pauses that always happens when someone tells you something like that and you don’t know how to react. But he fills the moment by thanking me for watching over the kids so he could at least talk to a few students.