Stella arranged for flowers to be put on the other grave. We’d tried to get Sal as close as we could. After it was over, Stella and Dad went to pay their respects and I waited by the car.
It was open invite at the pub afterwards and it was clear he’d been loved. Standing room only. We stood in groups holding paper plates of sausage rolls and sandwiches cut into triangles. Dad took root at the bar.
‘I’m so sorry, Nick,’ everyone murmured in my ear. Sal’s ex-girlfriends – Tess couldn’t face it – threw their arms around my neck and left wet smudges on my jacket. The lads patted my back and hid their mouths with their beers.
A few of his New York acquaintances had made the trip. Good of them, really. They shook my hand and between mouthfuls of fruitcake said things like, ‘He was always the life and soul of the party. Who would have known? Was he depressed?’ Those who really knew him didn’t ask stupid questions. I thanked them for coming and bought them each a drink.
Mathilde couldn’t make it. Apparently she’d moved to LA and it clashed with auditions for pilot season. She sent flowers instead. White fucking lilies.
Maybe she couldn’t face it either, said Laura. You wouldn’t want her there anyway. Be grateful.
Be grateful.
Oh, and Anna was there. Maybe I should have said.
I’d left Dad and Stella by the graves and begun walking back towards the road. The rain had softened to drizzle and I turned up my coat collar and lit a cigarette.
Ahead by the gate, I saw a figure waiting underneath an umbrella. I knew her instantly. There was something in the way she held herself, even in the rain, as if she would not be defeated. I took a deep drag.
I looked up when I reached her. Her face looked the same, a little older, lovelier. It had been several years since I’d seen her at the wedding. She wore a black dress and pearls and looked at me with sad eyes, and although I had wondered if she’d come, if the endless online tributes to Sal would find their way to her, I found myself wishing she hadn’t.
She leant in and I felt the cool touch of her leather glove on my neck. Neither of us spoke. I wondered how long was appropriate to hold her and which of us would pull away first.
‘I wish I knew what to say,’ she said into my coat.
‘Just don’t tell me you’re sorry,’ I said, holding the cigarette behind my back. ‘Everyone’s sorry, and I’m not sure I could take it from you.’
She let go.
‘Good of you to come.’
She looked at the ground. ‘I wasn’t sure, but …’ Her eyes were on me. ‘I loved Sal. You know that.’
‘I do.’
‘I wish it was the right time to say it’s good to see you,’ she said. ‘It’s been so long.’
I turned my face away to exhale the smoke and nodded. ‘It must have been a trek to get here from Scotland.’
She blinked. ‘Oh. No, I moved out a few months ago. I’m back in Ashford now.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s complicated,’ she said, and tucked her hair behind her ear.
I cleared my throat to speak, but nothing came out.
‘I thought Sal was better,’ she said, looking down at her gloved hands. ‘I know something like that will never leave you, but when I knew him back then, I thought he’d found a way.’
I shrugged as if the thought was a new one, as if it hadn’t repeated in glorious Technicolor through my brain each day since I’d flown across the Atlantic. ‘His girlfriend had just ended it.’
Anna gave a slow nod. ‘The French one you told me about years ago? He adored her, didn’t he?’
‘She had this strange power over him,’ I said with a grim smile. ‘I could never understand it, but then maybe it was him I never understood.’
‘We can’t control who we love, though.’
I listened to the rain as it dripped down the leathery evergreen leaves on the bush beside us. The iron railings gleamed black. Everything looked sharp, senses heightened, the way it does when death comes to visit and there’s a brief glimpse into deeper things.
‘You coming to the pub?’ I said. ‘There’ll be a few you know. Plus the chance to have awkward conversations and watch my dad get hammered.’
She looked down the road. ‘I think it’s better I give it a miss. Don’t want to cause you any trouble, especially today.’
I followed her look in the direction of my car several metres away, and two eyes inside pretending not to watch us.
‘Oh, right. Yeah.’
‘I am sorry, though, Nick.’ She leant in again and kissed my cheek. ‘Sorry for being sorry, but that’s just the way it has to be.’
She stepped away.
I put my hands in my pockets. ‘Sal had these nightmares when he was a kid. Some nights, I had to help him down from the window. I’ve wondered if that’s how it happened, the first time when he fell – that he had a nightmare and there was nobody to pull him back. And then he just knew there was no future lying in a bed. Never getting up again. Because you have to be desperate to drink bleach, right? You have to really want it to end.’
Anna was quiet. She watched me kick the ground. The rain stopped and she closed her umbrella.
‘I know what it’s like to have no home,’ she said, ‘and feel like a stranger with your own family. You just want someone to love you. It makes you do desperate things.’
She straightened her back as if to say goodbye and stayed right where she stood.
‘Maybe we can do that drink sometime?’ she said, pressing fingers to her wet cheeks.
‘I’d like that.’
She began to walk in the opposite direction. I breathed in my dying cigarette and listened to the fading sound of her leather shoes on the wet pavement.
Look back, I said inside. And when she reached the end of the road, hidden from the waiting cars, she did.
Anna messaged soon after and asked if I still read much. Not really, I typed back. But you always wanted to be a writer, she said. How can you write if you don’t read? I waited a while then said, yeah, I don’t really write any more. She didn’t reply to that.
It was a few days later when she messaged again: I’ve just finished a book I think you’d like. Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Try it. I think it’s you.
I didn’t reply, but the following lunch break, I went out and bought it.
It was a thin volume of short stories about older men and women still figuring things out. Characters who’d failed somehow at life, whether a marriage or a job or a friendship. They were all broken in some way. Someone would ask a question and a character would respond with a comment about the weather or else say nothing at all. I read a story each day on my morning commute to the sound of a classical playlist I downloaded to drown out other people.
After the final page of the final story, I stared out the train window and tried to work out what she was telling me.
We went back and forth like that for a while. Sending each other the name of a film the other should watch, or books, or a song they should hear. We didn’t have permission to say what we wanted to say, and even if we did, there was no guarantee we would have done so. We kept to pop culture and the words of other people to speak for us. There was a permanence to it that way. You could revisit that book or that song, and it would be like hearing each other say it all over again, even though neither of us had ever actually said it. We could shape the words and meaning to what we needed in that moment.
It was a type of invention and fantasy, I think we both knew that, but that was fine. Perhaps it was more real that way.
Desire / by Anna
You should know my fear
If you have me, no longer will you want me
You won’t write pages
The nib of your pen will run dry
You would be like every man
Or every person
Who wanted something so much they burned themselves up with wanting
Like Henry who craved h
is Anne
Divorced Rome for her
Then cut off her head and said
She bewitched him
There is a scene that repeats in my head. It’s almost a part of me now.
We go to Venice at the end of November.
The hotel is on the Grand Canal, a pink square building with whitewashed walls. Our room is small and absent of things, apart from a bed and a rickety wardrobe. Through the double doors is a narrow stone balcony on the water.
We spend most of the weekend fucking.
I want you to make love to me, she says on the first night, so I do, going slow and stroking her hair like I know she wants. Then we fuck against the wall. She tells me to pick her up and I wrap her legs around my body. When she puts her hands on the back of my shoulders, I tense my arms against her touch. I make love to her in other ways too, but we always face each other. She says she wants to see me, to know it’s me that’s there.
After we’re done, we throw open the doors at the end of the bed and watch the white curtains float in the breeze. Outside are rooftops and red sunsets, but we lie naked on top of the sheets and I don’t really notice the view.
We order room service and take long showers.
On the second day, she drags me from the bed and we go for a walk. We stumble across a square with a church in one corner and children playing on the cobbles. The sun bounces off the peeling coloured walls. Outside every door and window are boxes filled with red geraniums, and I close my eyes and inhale the scent.
She wears a white summer dress and a straw hat. In the middle of the square, a band of old men with leathered faces give her appreciative looks and talk to her as if she’s one of their own. She smiles and shrugs and takes hold of my hand, and when they see me, their mouths drop open.
We sit and drink beer at a café table. I pay the bill and she leads me by the hand into the little church. I lean against a pew and watch as she exclaims at painted frescoes and the beauty of the light. After a while, the sight of the gold makes her feel ill, and we walk back out into the sunshine, my hand on her waist.
We find another table at another café. They bring us a carafe of the house wine and we sit close together, sipping and staining our lips. After the first glass, she turns and gives me a long kiss. She doesn’t care who sees us.
When we come apart, I turn to pour more wine and see the first line of a web has been cast from my glass to hers. A tiny spider works away, spinning our present into the past. I break its web and close my fist around it.
On our final night, we have run out of money. We share the cheapest meal from the menu and wash it down with red wine.
We spend another hour in bed and then I step on to the balcony for a smoke. The sun is setting in the distance, and there is the sound of laughter and lapping water as the gondolas float past.
She rises from the bed and comes to me. Nothing is said as she leans against my back, moulding herself to my form. As she presses her body into the line of mine, I feel the quick, strong beat of her heart, like a siren, and it occurs to me that she is a human being, just like me.
Spring 1997
We should have been at school that day.
We’d got on the bus that morning, Sal and I, and made our way to the back, where Daz lay sprawled across the seats. He moved his feet and we dropped down as if carrying lead weights in our pockets.
‘You both look like shit,’ he said, throwing his tie over his shoulder.
I leant my head against the window and shut my eyes. I’d hardly slept that night and hoped he’d get the hint that I wasn’t in the mood for banter.
‘You good, Salvatore?’ said Daz, ruffling Sal’s hair.
Sal ducked away. ‘Piss off, Darren,’ he said, resting his leg in a triangular shape on the adjacent seat to build a wall between them.
The bus came to a halt at the next stop and Daz gave a long whistle as a girl got on. She wore the grammar school uniform and looked terrified every morning when she had to find a seat.
‘All right, darlin’?’ Daz called. ‘Come back here and sit on my face if you like.’
‘You know she’s, like, twelve,’ I said. ‘That’s pretty sick, Daz.’
He threw up his hands. ‘How’s it my fault if Year Sevens look older these days? She’s a butterface, but Christ, that body.’
There were two grammar schools in Ashford, the girls’ and the boys’. If you passed your eleven-plus, you went to a grammar and from there it was plain sailing to uni and a decent job. Kids that didn’t pass went to the comprehensive, where the majority left at sixteen for a supermarket job or to sign on. Some slipped through the cracks, going on to good things, but it was a harder fight. I’ve never understood it, judging kids by the rep of a school formed years before they got there, but anyway. We all went to the comp.
‘You and grammar school girls,’ said Sal, rolling a cigarette.
‘You know they’re at it full-on lesbo in the cupboards,’ said Daz, closing his eyes with a sigh. ‘It’s not right, keeping horny girls cooped up. They need a guy to sort them out.’
‘And I bet you’re the guy,’ I said, watching the revolving doors of an office building spin around with suits. All going in, none coming out.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Daz. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘I won’t be on the bus home,’ said Sal, slipping the smoke into his pocket.
‘Hot date?’ said Daz.
‘Why?’ I said, looking past him at Sal.
‘I haven’t done my maths. Bellend’s already given me an extension and said that if I missed it again, I’d get detention.’
‘I had him last year,’ said Daz, sniffing. ‘What a cock.’
‘Yeah,’ said Sal. ‘He hates me.’
‘It may have something to do with you once crawling under the table and Tipp-Exing “twat” all over his patent leather shoes,’ I said.
‘That was quality,’ said Daz, swaying with laughter. ‘Can’t believe you didn’t get expelled.’
Sal shrugged. ‘They said I would have if it hadn’t been so soon after …’ He paused and looked out the window. ‘I think it demonstrated creativity, personally.’
‘Know what?’ said Daz. ‘Sod this. Let’s not give them power over us. Why don’t we have a day to ourselves? Your dad’s at work, right?’ He reached into his bag and pulled out a VHS. ‘I nicked my brother’s new porno and it’s blinding.’
Sal leant forward. ‘I’m up for it.’
‘How ’bout it, Nicolas?’ said Daz, slapping my back.
‘We’ve got exams soon, Daz. It’s a pretty big year.’
‘Mate, too late for that now. It’s either up here,’ he pointed two fingers at his brain, ‘or it’s not. Come on. We won’t have many days left for this. Now or never.’
They cheered as I put a hand up in surrender and Daz hit the red STOP button. We bounced along the aisle to the front and Daz blew a kiss to the girl as I pushed him off the bus.
‘Don’t do that,’ I said.
‘Defending her honour?’ He offered me a fag.
‘Just let her ride the bus.’ I cupped my hands and flicked the lighter.
‘Oh, don’t worry, she can ride whatever she wants,’ said Daz, and he did a thrusting action at the bus as it pulled away. ‘I’m just a taster of what she can expect in the real world.’
We walked together on the pavement, Daz spinning his record bag by its straps. Cars and vans sped past and the air was thick with rush-hour fumes. We had to almost shout to be heard.
‘I like grammar school girls,’ said Sal, pulling his rucksack on his back.
Daz found this hilarious. ‘How the hell would you know? You even fingered someone yet?’
‘I’m not a virgin,’ said Sal, taking out his smoke.
I stopped and stared at my fourteen-year-old brother. ‘What?’
‘Shut up,’ said Daz. ‘You’ve had sex with a bird? Pull the other one.’
Sal smiled as he lit up. ‘Don’t bel
ieve me then.’
‘Who?’ I said.
‘You don’t know her.’
Daz rolled his eyes. ‘No trail. How convenient.’
‘I don’t care if you believe me,’ said Sal, walking on. ‘I’m hardly going to tell you her name, am I? You’d probably write “slut” across her locker or something stupid.’
‘Where’d you do it?’ I said, catching him up.
‘Her house after school. That time I helped set up for House Drama. We finished early and she asked if I wanted to go back to hers and watch something.’
‘Aha,’ said Daz, walking slightly behind us. ‘So she does Drama.’
Sal spun round. ‘Seriously, Darren, piss off. I’m not telling you her name and you’re not working it out. If you do and tell her or anyone else, I’ll cut your throat.’ His hands were tight fists.
Daz took a step back. ‘Easy, Sal. Jeez.’
We walked on in silence for a while, letting the traffic fall behind. Gradually the houses started widening out. The view became greener as the pavement narrowed, forcing us into single file. Sal went in front, Daz at the back. I had a million questions.
‘So give us a rundown,’ said Daz. ‘I mean, course I’ve shagged birds. But every one’s different, innit.’
Daz brimmed with self-confidence. At nearly sixteen, we were both desperate to lose it. Daz prowled school discos with a hip flask of vodka that he’d sneak into plastic cups of orange juice. He’d offer one to a girl, upfront about the contents, and she’d usually drink it to show how cool she was about alcohol. They always got off with him, but it never got further than a hand up the top. He would never have shut up if he’d made it further.
‘If you’ve shagged loads, then you already know, don’t you?’ said Sal.
Daz put on the porno when we got back to ours. I grabbed a six-pack of crisps from the kitchen and the cans of Dr Pepper we’d bought from the newsagent on the way home. We sat in the living room, eating and drinking and jeering at the screen as a repairman screwed a housewife over her husband’s desk. The postman knocked on the door and he joined in, then a pretty young neighbour popped round for a cup of sugar. Before too long, the husband arrived home from his office job and it became an almighty gang bang.
Another Life Page 21