‘Listen, it’s not my business. You can do whatever you want.’
For a wild instant, I thought she was going to say something, and my heart turned. But then she leant in and I was kissed for the second time that night. She tasted of synthetic cherry.
‘Stop, Anna,’ I said, pulling away.
‘I know I’m drunk. But I want this.’
‘You ask about some random girl kissing me in a club, but maybe you should be the one explaining. Is he your ex or not?’
At this, she pulled away and I bit my lip. She struggled to her feet, then walked in zigzags across the road. It was too early for the line of taxis that would soon form, and the lane was quiet.
I followed a safe distance behind and stopped when she did. Her bare back looked orange in the glow of the streetlight, and I remembered being pressed up against her as we fell asleep in my bed.
‘You’d never marry me, would you?’ she said, facing the opposite direction. ‘Ever.’
She’d come out and said it. Just like that. After a summer of hints and talking in circles, shrugs and subject changing, it took several alcopops and a kiss from a stranger for her to break first.
‘Don’t take it personally,’ I said.
‘So this is how it ends,’ she said, her arms hugged to her body. ‘You refusing my hypothetical, future proposal outside a shitty nightclub in Ashford town centre. Aim high, Anna. Aim high.’
‘Can’t we just see what happens? Why slap a label on something that is already doing okay?’
She half turned towards me, the left side of her face obscured in shadow. Her expression was mocking, or sad, or perhaps she understood what I never could.
‘You still don’t get it,’ she said, before stopping her mouth with a hand. ‘No, that’s not fair. You’re fine as you are. It’s me that didn’t see.’
‘See what?’
‘I never do until it’s too late.’
‘What didn’t we get? What didn’t you see?’ I shifted my weight to the other foot. Why didn’t I reach out and touch her?
She turned so her entire face was visible. ‘Why do I keep doing this to myself? Trying to make both worlds work, as if I could be the first to step outside and still keep hold of everyone around me? Why can’t I be someone who just accepts her lot?’
Then she began to sway and it looked as if she’d faint. I stepped forward to catch her, but she wrenched away towards the pavement, where she fell on to a low wall and vomited into the grass.
I held her hair and soothed her back as she was sick again.
She stayed leaning on the wall for a moment, groaning quietly, then turned her head to me. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘What was in that drink?’
She stood and looked down at herself. There were lumps of sick on her jeans, and I broke a large leaf from a tree and brushed them off.
‘I just don’t care any more,’ she said to the air.
‘You’ll never get a taxi now. Not like that. Here.’ I gave her my arm. ‘We’ll go back to mine.’
‘What? No, I can’t.’
‘I’m down the road, remember? I’ll sleep downstairs. You’ve got nowhere else to go.’
Anna held my arm and we turned for home. When she stumbled in her heels, I put my arm around her waist to keep her steady.
It took us almost an hour to get to mine. We kept stopping for her to regain her balance, and I knew there had been something in that drink. I’d seen her drunk before, but this was something else. I thought of those men and their smiles as they watched her, and imagined their faces smashed to a pulp.
When we turned into my road, I saw from my watch it was closing time. I considered ringing Lisa, but I knew it would unleash a tsunami of shit. I tried to think of what Anna would want.
I was unlocking the door when she went limp against me. The door swung open and banged the wall as I caught her, and I swore as the upstairs light came on. When I carried her across the threshold, Dad appeared and I braced myself as he came downstairs.
‘Her drink was spiked. She passed out as we got back and I couldn’t stop the door because I was trying not to let her fall. Sorry for waking you. Go back to bed.’
‘Here,’ he said, reaching out to pick her up, taking care where he put his hands. He nodded towards the lounge. ‘Open the door.’
We walked in and I cleared the sofa. He laid her down and stood next to me.
‘I thought I’d put her in my bed and sleep down here, but I’m worried she might be sick and choke.’ I gave him a sideways look.
Dad nodded. ‘Bring your stuff down and sleep on the floor. I’ll get a blanket.’
When I came back downstairs, I took a bowl from the kitchen cupboard and set it down next to her. Dad handed me a freshly made up duvet and pillow, and I eased the pillow underneath her head and tucked the duvet around her legs.
Dad passed me a glass of water. ‘You should get her to drink this.’
I knelt down and touched her arm. ‘Anna,’ I whispered, squeezing her skin. ‘Anna, wake up.’
She was dead to the world.
‘Keep an eye on her,’ Dad said. ‘Make sure she doesn’t sleep on her back.’
He looked at me and went out of the room.
I took her phone out and texted Lisa: I’m fine. Don’t worry. Call you tomorrow.
Then I made my bed on the floor beside her, turning to face her so I could hear her breathe.
I woke the next morning to find her sitting cross-legged on the sofa, watching me.
‘Hey,’ I said, sitting up.
She raised the mug in her hand. ‘Your dad made me tea.’ An embarrassed smile.
I rubbed my eyes. ‘Oh. Right.’
‘He’s nice, your dad.’ She took a sip from the mug. There were black smudges under her eyes. I looked at the pillow and saw they were on there too.
‘How you feeling?’ I said.
‘Dreadful. I can’t remember a thing from last night, other than being in the club. I’m really sorry.’
‘For what?’
She shrugged. ‘Shouting at you? Obviously I’ve been sick, so that’s nice. Sorry you saw me that way. I’ve never felt like that before.’
‘Do me a favour?’
She looked at me.
‘Don’t take drinks from strangers, please. You’re too trusting.’
She smiled. ‘I’ve always had a problem saying no.’
I wanted to reach out and touch her.
‘I wouldn’t have thought that of you,’ I said.
‘Yeah, well …’ She set the empty cup down on the side and picked up her phone. ‘How you think of me isn’t necessarily how I am.’
That was the final night we spent together.
From: ANNA
To: NICK
Subject:
All these emails I keep writing. I know I’ll never send a single one.
November 2003
I didn’t notice Stella at the end of the driveway until I’d closed the front door. I pulled my jacket tight against the autumn air and was putting in my second earphone when I heard her usual hello, love.
She wore leopard print as always, her red hair bundled under a patterned scarf, and in her hand was a pair of secateurs. I shuffled towards her, kicking the yellow leaves and listening to the sounds of my feet as they dragged along the path.
‘Where you off to, sunshine?’ she said, grabbing a bucket and balancing it on the fence against her body.
I pulled a cigarette from my pack. ‘Daz is coming by,’ I said, cupping my hand and lighting up. ‘It’s Saturday, so … you know.’
‘And how is young Darren? Still scaring the girls?’
‘He’s good. Daz is good.’
She studied my face with a frown, doing the motherly thing. ‘You look tired, Nick.’
I gave a customary shrug as I shifted my feet. ‘Yeah, well … Life.’
‘You’re much too young to be giving that answer.’
I exhaled towards the sunflowers
that now hung drooped and faded. ‘I’m the oldest I’ve ever been.’
Stella arched an eyebrow in reply as she began scraping seeds into the bucket. She pulled at the centre of a sunflower with her fingers and there was a soft skid as the seeds fell against hollow metal. ‘What about that girl you’ve been seeing, the one Sal told me about? Is she the cause of this fatigue? Too much heart-thumping to get any sleep?’
I looked for Daz. No sign. My watch said he was late and I glanced down the road again. ‘Something like that.’
‘You enjoy it, Nicko,’ she said, moving on to the next flower. ‘Nothing like a first flush of love. Salvatore says she’s a good one too. Says you’re hooked. You’d best watch out or I think he may give you some competition.’
I smoked my cigarette.
‘And how am I, you ask?’
I gave a sheepish smile. ‘Sorry, Aunty Stel,’ I said. ‘So how about you? Anyone on the horizon?’
She snorted. ‘Lord, no. Pickings are slim at my age. They’re either divorced – and for good reason – or they’re prowlers, or they just want a woman to bring them dinner while they watch the evening game. No, thanks.’
‘You quite happy on your own then?’
She moved on to the final flower. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no to a bit of fun. But they always want more of me than I’m keen to give, Nick. You get fussy at my age. Health problems start creeping in, and you have to look at a bloke and decide whether you’d be happy seeing him without his teeth in, or listening as he prattles on beside you in the care home.’
‘You’re quite a way off that.’
She nodded. ‘That I am. But life flies after twenty-five. You’ll see.’
I heard the familiar turbo growl of Daz’s exhaust and watched as it charged down the road towards me.
‘You enjoy this girl, Nick. Treat each other right. I envy you the madness.’ Stella set down the bucket and opened the secateurs. ‘Ah well, here we go again. Another year gone. What did I say about time speeding up?’
Daz leant on the horn as he skidded to a halt, and I mumbled a goodbye to Stella and dropped my cigarette. When I shut the door, Daz waved and sped off in hope that my middle-aged aunt would be impressed by his bright blue – 0–60 in less than six seconds – Subaru with oversized spoiler at the rear.
I looked back in the mirror as Stella leant down to cut the stems of the sunflowers that had offered something bright for the summer of 2003.
Date: 20/02/2004
From: ANNA
To: NICK
Subject:
Hey. It’s been months. I thought you’d text or call. Did it mean nothing to you? Was I just another notch, like that time at uni with that girl? I remember you telling me on that first night in your bed, laughing, like shagging a stranger was an everyday thing.
I tried on wedding dresses today. I went with Jen and my mum to a bridal shop and they pulled out meringues and bias-cut and floaty chiffon and I looked like a fraud in every one. I stood as everyone adjusted my hair and made cooing noises, and when they spun me around and I saw my reflection, I thought of you. Bloody you.
I’ve thought about texting but what’s the point. I’m not sure I could take the rejection again. Anyway, it would seem I’ve chosen another path.
Here I am, trying to be good.
That boyfriend she had when I first met her.
She married him.
Part Three
* * *
2003
Life went back to normal afterwards. It wasn’t that hard. After all, we’d only hung out over the course of a summer. One summer. That’s maybe ninety days out of the eight thousand or so I’d been alive. Ninety days was one per cent of my life. Ninety days should hardly register.
But I’d get a weird vibration in my chest on the streets we’d walked together, or at the cinema, and in the pub where I once took her to meet the boys. My shoulders tensed whenever I saw a red Ford Fiesta. But I never saw her again. Not until years later.
I didn’t talk about her. Girls would ask on maybe a second or third date, ‘So, ever been in love?’ And I’d shrug or screw up my face and say, ‘You know …’
You know.
But sometimes she’d appear there in my head, when I’d be looking out a window at the rain, or photocopying my passport, or in summer when sunshine bathed my skin. Especially then. She’d come out of my pores in my sweat and I’d wipe her away from my top lip or she’d hang in the thick humidity like a blanket.
I tried to make sense of it. I bought a notebook and scribbled lines down as they came, hoping to trap the ghost of her in the pages so she’d vacate my head. I went a little crazy when Lisa told Sal she’d got married, filling the pages with indecipherable shit.
She was like those film reels I had spliced together. For a few weeks, they had their moment, the audience believing it was real, but eventually, they were taken apart and sent back. They had a beginning, middle and an end. Just like everything.
Summer 2013
‘New York?’
‘Yeah.’
Sal and I were in my garden at the barbecue, drinking beer. I occasionally picked up a utensil and gave the burgers a prod. Laura had asked me to keep an eye on them. I was not a man who considered my barbecue skills to be symbolic of my ability to survive in a wilderness, but I thought I should do my best not to burn them.
‘How? When?’ I had many questions.
‘Tilly’s been offered a job on a new show at MTV. Hosting. It’s a huge opportunity. She can’t turn it down.’
I could feel the sun burning my neck. ‘But what about you?’
‘I’m going too,’ said Sal, sipping his beer. ‘So we’ll be fine.’
‘No. I mean what are you going to do out there?’
Sal shrugged. ‘I have some money saved, believe it or not. And I’ve a mate out there who says he can get me a job to start with. Bike courier or something. Unofficial, obviously.’
I jabbed the end of a kebab. ‘I’m not sure a bike messenger’s salary will get you far in a place like Manhattan.’
Sal sighed. ‘Like I said, it’s a start. Tilly and I can share an apartment, obviously. MTV’s taking care of all that. God, Nick. Change the script for once.’
I took a swig of my beer. ‘I’m just not sure you’ve thought it through.’
‘No, you’re never sure of anything,’ said Sal. ‘That’s the difference between us. I didn’t need to think it through. As soon as Tilly told me, I knew it was right. We’ve even talked about one day ending up in San Francisco.’
I couldn’t look at him. I turned a kebab that didn’t need turning.
‘Besides,’ he went on. ‘I’m hardly setting the world alight as the manager of a video store. When did you last go out and rent a film? My job’s a dinosaur.’
‘So manage something else.’
Sal threw his bottle in the bin and it smashed upon impact. ‘Some of us don’t want to rot away in middle management.’
‘What about Dad?’ I said.
‘What about him?’
These six words summed us up.
Laura came through the patio doors holding a plate of sliced burger buns. ‘I’ve just heard the news,’ she said, kissing Sal on the cheek. ‘How exciting.’
Sal smiled. ‘Do you need any help?’
Laura slid her arm around my waist and I gave her a quick kiss on the head. ‘Grab the ketchup? Then I think we’re good to go.’
Sal edged past Mathilde, who was adjusting her hair using her reflection on the patio door. She was blonde now. I wondered what Sal thought of that and I knew he wouldn’t care.
‘So where will you live?’ said Laura, working her fingers into my jean pocket.
I pulled away to pick up the tongs.
‘Hmm?’ said Mathilde, as she twirled her hair around her fingers. ‘Oh, my producers have sorted me a beautiful, bijou apartment, right in le coeur of the West Village. And Salvatore says he has a friend who has a room he can rent. So we’re all
set.’
I stabbed the chicken legs with a thermometer and watched the dial inch round.
‘Mmm,’ said Mathilde, leaning in to smell the flowers growing on the wall. ‘That scent … c’est beau. It’s jasmine, yes?’
Laura nodded as she took the ketchup from Sal. ‘We went to the garden centre when we moved in. That was Nick’s choice. It’s taken a couple of years to settle, but now it flowers beautifully. Personally, I find the scent a little overpowering.’
‘What happened there?’ said Sal, nodding at the end fence that separated the garden from the alley behind. We turned to look. There was a round gaping hole between the posts, as if something had smashed its way through.
‘Some drunk kicked it in last summer,’ said Laura, handing Sal a plate. ‘Still waiting for your brother to fix it.’ She winked at me.
‘Meat’s ready,’ I said, dropping the tongs.
We helped ourselves to food and sat in the patio chairs in the sun. Sal had moved Mathilde’s chair into the shade by the wall of the house, and she sat there with her legs tucked underneath her, separate from the rest of us. She picked at her salad leaves and looked around in disgust.
‘You really should get rid of this hideous concrete and put down some grass, no?’
Laura wrinkled her nose. ‘Yes, I suppose so. But there are things we want to do on the inside first.’
‘Well, with four bedrooms, it’s certainly big enough for the two of you. A nursery next, perhaps.’ The bitch gave me a smile.
Laura coughed. ‘Drink, anyone?’
Afterwards, I took in the empty dishes. I filled the dishwasher, enjoying the precision and logic required to make everything fit. This was something I did take pride in, my ability to stack a dishwasher. It’s a rare skill. You have to put the cups in the right section and ensure that everything is within range of the jets. Of course, the jets only work when the door is closed, so you have to have foresight. Laura would roll her eyes, but there’s a comfort to thinking of the worst possible outcome and adjusting things to avoid it.
Another Life Page 15