by Kitty Wilson
‘Dominican Republic,’ Alison hisses with the ferocity of a stage villain as she answers a question about where people begin their Christmas Celebrations in October. She has almost jumped out of the seat with excitement that she knows and that the pencil-sharpening team looked bemused by the question.
‘How do you know that?’ I ask.
‘My old neighbour is from Santo Domingo but I’ve been reading up for this.’
‘Definitely a tradition I can get behind. Shall we move? Little bit of Caribbean sunshine for our Christmas next year.’ I giggle.
‘Next question…’ The quizmaster, who is dressed in a beautifully cut three-piece wool suit, silk tie and matching artfully angled handkerchief and has dreadlocks so long they are doubled up, shoots us a look that manages to combine both the widest grin and eyes that firmly say, ‘Shut up for a minute.’ I like him. ‘What was the traditional Christmas meal in England before turkey became popular?’
‘Ooh, I know this. It’s a pig’s head and um … um … mustard, it’s mustard,’ I hiss at the team. I’m loving this and learning tons of stuff.
Although how anyone is supposed to know how many houses per second Santa has to visit to get all of his deliveries done, I don’t know. The quizmaster gives us a margin of error of twenty, not enough, and there is some very irritating fist-bumping coming from the other table. I don’t want to wish them ill – although Alison’s filthy looks are sending bubonic plague levels of ill over there – and the results haven’t been counted yet but they really do need to dial down their levels of smug.
Somehow Dave knows it was twelfth-century French nuns that started the tradition of putting an orange in the bottom of the stocking.
‘He may not know much about history but he seems to have the habits of nuns ingrained in his brain!’ Alison confides in me with an arch lift of her brows.
‘Very niche.’ I waggle mine back.
‘She gave me one of those novelty books one Christmas about nuns when she was threatening to leave me for a convent!’ Dave immediately responds.
‘You were going to become a nun?’ I ask, interest piqued.
‘Of course not, but it’s best to keep him on his toes, make him think I may have a better offer.’
‘She’s always been very comfortable in a costume and on her knees!’ Dave jokes and Alison hits him with a coaster.
‘She’s not the only one.’ Janet guffaws.
‘Forgive him, Belle. He hasn’t learnt that we live in the twentieth-first century and his humour hasn’t been acceptable since the seventies.’
‘My friend Temperance would say there’s no better offer than being a Bride of Christ!’ I giggle.
‘And she’d be right. I hope you’re listening to this, Dave, no better offer! I’ve heard about this Temperance, Rory says that she … ooh, Dave, go!’
The dapper quizmaster has rung an old-fashioned bell to signify that the quiz has reached half time. Dave practically leaps out of his chair and, taking our orders, hotfoots it to the bar. Eve and Janet get up with equal speed to peg it to the loo.
‘I’m so glad you’re here, Belle.’ Alison reaches out and puts her hand across mine.
‘Me too. But tell me, how are you?’ I say quietly, so to escape earshot of anyone at neighbouring tables. I haven’t see her since her op, though Rory has filled me in with a lot of it. But as supportive and empathetic as a son can be, or a husband, I don’t think they can truly empathise with what it must feel like to be preparing yourself to go under the knife like that. I know now is neither the time or place but I want her to know I care and am an ear should she ever want it.
‘I’m okay.’ She looks at me and I can see that she understands my intention. That, like me, she doesn’t want to waste this moment with small talk.
‘Honestly, I’m scared. I don’t want it. I know I have to, I know not doing so would be beyond stupid. But the thought of walking into that hospital, actively putting one foot in front of another so I can lie there and have a surgeon take such a big part of me away… I’m terrified and don’t want it.’
I put my hand over hers before I speak. ‘Look, I know you have a lifetime’s worth of friends, and you have Dave and Rory, but if you want to rant at someone, say all the nonsensical stuff you’re scared to confide in people who know you really well, I’m here. I listen, I don’t judge and I won’t ever tell a soul. Call me the minute you want or need a rant or a sob or just a whisper, and at any time, day or night. Honestly, I keep the strangest hours so you won’t be disturbing me. Call me.’
‘You’re a love and you’re right, I’m very blessed with the people around me—’
‘Like attracts like,’ I say quickly
She smiles. ‘But an ear outside my social circle, that would be nice. I have the Macmillan nurse too and they are wonderful but there’s something about you, Belle. I may well take you up on that. In the meantime, I am so grateful that you are in my son’s life.’
‘Ahh,’ I say and then am unsure of what to say next. I don’t know if I am? Your son seems to have booted me out of his life. Luckily the need to fill the gap is relieved as Dave comes back to the table, a tray of drinks precariously balanced in his huge hands.
‘Ooh, would you look at that! There he is now. Rory! Rory!’ Alison screeches with excitement and my forehead crinkles as intensely as a Klingon’s. I’m too scared to raise my eyes from the table and all the doubts I have about coming along tonight resurface. However, there is no escaping. I slowly – very slowly – raise my eyes up towards the door and as I do so I see Rory standing there, staring right at me, and as he looks at me the expression on his face freezes my heart.
Shit! He’s going to think I’m a right weirdo and he’d be right. Whilst I may feel very comfortable sat here with his family, it definitely looks a bit stalkery. I should never have come.
I look under the table for an escape and then picture myself crawling across the flocked carpet on my hands and knees like all heroines in all ;movies ever. Although without the rom and on my part not really feeling the com. Plus we all know how that move would pan out, I’ll end up looking completely bonkers.
What am I going to do? Shit, shit, shit!
I have no option but to stay put. I raise my eyes again to meet his. A small seed in me – okay, a giant avocado stone of a seed – hopes that when I see his face this time it will be flooded with the pleasure it has been all month. That I’ll see the obvious joy at being around me weave through his mouth, his green eyes, that look that is so, so addictive, that it seduces me into thinking of future possibilities. Hope is fluttering all the time whilst my inner voice is saying to me in a firm, dismissive and slightly patronising tone: if he’s not answering your calls or returning your messages it’s because he doesn’t want to. None of these ‘he’s lost his phone’, ‘it’s out of charge’ excuses are valid. People don’t answer because they don’t want to. There isn’t going to be any joy in that face to see you sat with his mum and step-dad.
I look and see horror is flooding his face like armies on a dawn-flushed plain. My heart freezes even further as the ice of his alarm slowly fills my veins, cracking them one at a time as all hope seeps out of me.
‘Rory’s here,’ Eve trills as she darts back to the table, unaware of what is unfolding, the subtext. Janet is trying to pull the quizmaster in the corner. Alison and Dave both look from Rory to me and back to him again, recognising that there is something going on that they don’t know about. That I am a cuckoo in the nest.
Rory gives Alison a sad little half smile and then wordlessly turns and leaves.
My face is burning and I am filled with mortification, with shame. My selfish desire to take part in this quiz, experience a normal family Christmas activity, to try and force Rory into talking to me, the embarrassment of all of this floods through me. I feel as if I have betrayed Alison’s trust and I make a lunge for my coat, hat and scarf. I need to get out of here. It is no longer important how many bloody stops Santa
makes in a second; the heat from the fire combines with my humiliation and something is stuck in my throat, I am getting hotter and hotter and hotter and feel like a volcano trying to force the lava back down, knowing its spill and the torrent of destruction it will unleash are inevitable.
I wind my way around the table.
‘Belle. What’s going on?’ Alison asks. I shrug my shoulders because right now I cannot make words come. If I open my mouth and make a sound I am scared of what will rush out.
I push my way through the still crowded bar, through the door, and the cold of December blasts my face. I don’t dare cry; each tear will freeze as an icicle and I may be stuck this way for ever. I cannot be this way for ever. I am a mess.
I see Rory walking down the hill towards the corner of Picton Street. Once he turns onto Stokes Croft I will lose him; the swirls of people that populate this area will be out in full force tonight. I can hear them even from here.
‘Rory.’ I force my mouth open, to call him, to stop him. For all of his new-found dislike of me I need to hear him, I want him tell me why he cannot face me anymore. What has caused this shift from friends to enemies. This could be my last chance. No sound comes. I try again and this time it bellows out of me like wind filling sails, like Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire.
‘Rory!’ I watch as he pauses. He stands still for a minute and I take advantage of his lack of movement, running helter-skelter down the hill, praying that I don’t hit an icy patch, that my ankle doesn’t turn, that I catch him before he begins his walk away again.
‘Rory!’ I shout a second time, to keep him there. This time he turns and under a streetlamp I see his face lit up – drawn, sad. Wait for me, wait for me runs through my head; I’m telepathically willing him not to turn and walk away again. I race towards him, my feet slowing to a running stop as I approach the lamppost.
‘Rory!’ My breathing is heavy now and I bend slightly to catch my breath before looking up at his stony face. ‘I can explain.’
‘There’s no need. Go back in, win that quiz for Mum.’ His tone is dulled, a robot just before the batteries run out. He smiles a little wan smile and suddenly instead of wanting to make everything right I am filled with anger. How dare he? He doesn’t answer my messages, he walks out, away from his family when he sees them – presumably to avoid me – and now his sad little smile is fully infused with a pity-me martyr tone. Nah, bollocks to that.
I know this glorious man in front of me has his issues, I know that something has occurred to turn him from Technicolor to washed-out sepia and I strongly suspect that somehow he has mixed me up in his misery and now he needs to escape. I get that. I understand a need to escape. I spent most of my late teens embracing that. But understanding he is grieving, that he has things he needs to process, doesn’t mean he gets a get-out-of-jail-free card. It doesn’t mean that he can’t be held accountable for his actions here and now. His mum has had to go without having him around for years and now he’s in the country, what? He can’t sit in a pub with her and her friends, make her really happy for an evening, because of what? Because he is having some kind of tantrum, some kind of crisis about me being present. So, stand like an adult and ask me to leave, don’t silently walk out and leave your mum there confused and abandoned again.
And actually, what about me? We’ve been good friends now for a month, a sped-up whirlwind of a friendship that may not see December out, fair enough, but that doesn’t give him the right to go from being my closest confidante to someone who won’t pick up the phone. Nah, nah. I’m not having it. I deserve a little bit more respect than that and I’m going to bloody take it, not thinly smile and accept that being treated like bullshit is all I deserve.
‘Do you know what, you can stop that. Stop that right now. You go back and win that quiz for your mum and then you can come find me and talk to me, tell me why you’ve suddenly turned into someone whose behaviour lacks any kind of merit. Who thinks it’s okay to ghost his mate, not give a shit about how it makes her feel.’ I am standing tall now, one hand on my hip, the other waving about with the ferocity of an Italian mama when her boys have let her down.
‘Look, I get that you and my mum get on and I’m happy about that. But I’m a grown man, I know what I’m doing. I don’t need you to tell me what to do right now,’ he snaps back. I raise an eyebrow.
‘Yeah, you think? I beg to differ. Nah. Not beg, I do differ. I think that’s exactly what you need. Your mum wants you in there next to her. You’ve flown halfway across the world to spend time with her and what now, cos I’ve done something to piss you off, upset you somehow, you’re going to let her down? I know you’re more of a man than that. I know you are.’
He breathes deeply and shakes his shoulders a little before standing and staring at me, the lost look temporarily gone from his eyes.
‘Yeah, you’re right. I need to go back.’
‘Correct. Now I’ll get myself home so you don’t have to put up with me looming over the table but you kinda owe me an explanation later. You can’t be all you-deserve-to-surround-yourself-with-people-who-respect-you and then go and undermine that at the last minute with your own behaviour. I need to know what I’ve done to cause this flip of attitudes. You owe me that.’ His face softens and I fight everything inside me to stop doing the same. His absence has hurt me.
‘You haven’t done anything, Belle. Really, you haven’t. It’s me…’ He reaches out to touch me and I flinch back. I can feel the tears coming now but unlike before when I felt frozen, this time they are hot, washing down my cheeks, melting tracks as they go.
‘Don’t you dare. Do not dare pull that line out.’
‘But it’s—’
‘I don’t care how true it is, you can find a better way to say it. You’re an articulate man. And you know that I wouldn’t have believed you a little while back, I would have assumed it was me at fault and that you just didn’t know how to say that. But something’s happened recently, shifted, and it’s thanks in part to you that I don’t feel that way anymore. I have been wracking my brains for days, trying to work out why you can’t celebrate the Jamal thing with me, a thing you set up the meeting for, and I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, I really don’t. I think you have. Regardless of whatever you’re going through, and I am here for you if you want me to be…’ I pause to draw breath; that is a lot of words tumbling out at once. ‘Nothing will change that, I am here to hear you, but nothing stops you sending a frigging text to say, “You know what, I need a bit of time, my head’s a bit of a mess but I’m pleased for you”. And expecting that from you doesn’t make me egocentric and self-centred. It makes me someone worthy of a fucking explanation when you fall off the face of the earth!’
‘You’re right.’ He shrugs his shoulders and I am infused with a mix of emotions – pity, empathy, irritation, anger – but I hold them back, let him speak. ‘You’ve been a good friend to me this month and I shouldn’t have ignored your messages and of course I’m pleased for you with the Jamal thing. You deserve all the support in the world. It’s a good business decision for him as well, adds more to his profile, and pleases his heart. Don’t see it as a favour; he didn’t do it because you’re likeable, although you are, he did it because he can see it makes sense to have you on his team. You can be trusted to deliver his vision in an honourable and effective way. Your merits won this. I do owe you an apology and probably an explanation but Belle, right now, right now you’re right, I need to get in that pub and spend some time with my mum, put a smile on her face. And truthfully I don’t know how to say what I need to say to you.’ He flashes me a smile, a brief fake one and I have a vision of me putting my hand in his mouth, pushing it down his throat and pulling out these words he is having difficulty saying. I don’t want to hear about how Jamal feels about me. I need to hear how Rory feels.
Rory nods in the direction of The Mont and we turn to walk back up the hill. Our feet falling into a rhythm together, ironic symbolism. This time the war
mth of the pub isn’t scaring me off but now tempting me as a symbol of what I can’t have. We’d been having fun before Rory turned up, I wanted to be part of beating smug team quiz-winny face but also I need to deal with those words – he needs to say stuff to me and doesn’t know how.
‘Okay, you may have things you need to say to me and don’t know how to. I’m going to gloss over the fact that that in itself is a little hurtful, as you’ve grown to be someone I feel I can talk to honestly. Be me. In fact, I’ve confided more in you in the past month than I have practically anyone else in my entire life. I let you in and I’m thankful for that, you have been doing a good job of teaching me to have less walls, be more open rather than merely pretending to be. It’s a shame that you’ve fucked me over at the last minute.’ I pull myself back, remind myself that my words need to be constructive not merely reactive and coming from a place of hurt. Although it’s hard. My emotions want to scream at his face right now, jolt him into having an emotional reaction. A purge.
‘Sorry. I’m not trying to be aggressive, or judgey or blaming. I’m trying to be good here, honest, but I’m hurt.’ Even this admission isn’t enough to make Rory say anything in response. He is still matching my pace but his eyes are very much focusing on the pavement. I take a deep breath. I’m going to push forward; even if I receive no answers it may do me some good to say it. I need to say it. I’ve spent years biting back my feelings with my dad, avoiding confrontation and uncomfortable moments, I’m done with that now. Now I want to speak but do so in a mindful way, not ride roughshod over the person I’m talking to simply because I have found my voice. We reach the square archway that leads to the entrance of The Mont and both stop. I don’t have much time before he heads back through those doors, leaving me out here.
‘What I am trying to say is I’m sorry you don’t feel you can talk to me like I have learnt to talk to you—’
‘No, that’s not it, Belle.’
‘Well, what is it?’ I pause, my breath held in my throat as I telepathically plead for him to open up, tell me what is causing this look in his eye, what has changed us so drastically from that couple that had cuddled up in front of the fire on Christmas Eve Eve, him stroking my hair, the desire between us palpable and, I had hoped, mutual.