Precious You

by Helen Monks Takhar

  I know I’m paying a high price to stay in this flat. But I can see KR’s place from here. I’m less than 100 meters away but from the darkened glass of the tenth floor, I am invisible to her.

  For four weeks now, I’ve got to see her spill out onto her front steps every morning. I know what times she comes and goes. I know how weak she’s feeling before she puts on her daily “I’m doing fine!” mask for the rest of the world as she drags herself to the end of her road and across Green Lanes to the bus stop at the foot of my block. I know on Sundays she tears around the park like something is chasing her, and in the afternoon strides to the pub with The Partner like they’re late for an important appointment.

  All this insight makes the price for this apartment worth paying.

  This is how catastrophic change begins. Small disturbances at the surface, the first suggestion of the sinkhole opening beneath; the moment in the horror movie the protagonist sees something out of the corner of her eye and dismisses it witlessly. I used to love horror movies. I can’t bear them now.

  Even though I felt uneasy about you, I couldn’t wait to see you that second morning. I couldn’t give what I felt a name. I still can’t. The best I can do is say it felt like a kind of imprinting. I’d been let down by my life and orphaned by my friends. I hadn’t talked properly to anyone who wasn’t my partner in so long, it was as if I had an overflowing store of friendship backed up in me. You. Yes, Lily, even though I wasn’t sure about you, I was that pathetic; I was ready to bury my doubts. This is who you become when no one returns your calls, and the only people troubling your mobile are your GP, your partner, or Vodafone.

  On Tuesday morning I spent ages choosing an outfit that might make me look fresh and relevant and not mutton dressed as lamb. I hopelessly tried to do my makeup to achieve a dewy sheen. I wondered if the time was coming when I should let my natural color come through, or dye my hair something other than black, which seemed suddenly blocky and incongruous against my dulling face. I desperately wanted to collapse the years between someone like you and someone like me.

  Part of me was glad when you weren’t at the bus stop. I was disturbed by the horrid dream I was struggling to shake off, but buoyed by the fact that my articles would be live on the website and in the shiny new editions on everyone’s desks by the time I got in. You may have changed the cover for the issues they’d distribute at the awards, but this edition would be all mine.

  I got to my desk. Still no you. And no coffee from Asif either. I turned to find the two of you nestled next to each other on the old subeditors’ desks, huddled around what looked like proofs of the most recent issue.

  “Good morning. Time for a quick catch-up? Katherine?” Gemma tried to get my attention from the doorway of her office.

  “Be right there,” I said distractedly, watching Asif run his fingers over his beard as you looked to gauge his reaction to something you’d just said. I watched until I couldn’t anymore, closing Gemma’s office door slowly on the sight of you throwing your head back in glee. Asif looked as if he could just climb right inside you there and then.

  “Congratulations on this.” She threw a fresh copy of Leadership toward me over her desk. “Some great foundations we can really build on.”

  “Thank you.” Is that it? For 12,000 words from your most senior writer? Patronizing.

  “What I want to talk to you about, today, is how we’re going to achieve that.”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope you’ll take what I’m about to say in the spirit in which it is intended…I’d like us to talk about reorganizing our content, making a few tweaks to your writing. So, to that end, I’ve asked Lily to look at what’s working and not working on the website. I should probably tell you, early indications on the two articles she posted—”

  “Two articles? I didn’t see any copy from her.”

  “Asif edited them yesterday evening. Well, they’ve already had more click-throughs and longer combined viewing times than all of your content in the last four weeks put together.” I watched you through the glass. You were now flicking your fingernails under your chin, before biting your bottom lip as you started to type. I was ready to assume it was your picture byline driving your traffic. “She’s young, but she’s a quick learner and she knows how to give online readers in particular what they want, so I’ve booked some time away from the office for you and her. She’s going to help you look again at your writing. There’s no shame in needing to reboot. You could find this is the best thing to happen at this stage of your career. Details to follow. Now, are you up for the challenge?”

  What a slap in the face. The humiliation. You were going to teach me. I didn’t yet know you would teach me the lesson of my life.

  “Of course I’m up for it.”

  * * *

  —

  YOU KEPT TRYING to talk to me all day, but I gave you the brush-off. I needed more of an idea of what I was dealing with before I let you know anything else about me.

  I read your pieces. A horrifying truth dawned. You were actually pretty good at this. A natural attention-grabber. Your headlines were nearly as enticing as your picture byline; your copy was as taut as mine was saggy. When I reread my features, they felt in the reading how they’d felt in the writing: hard work. I was angry, I thought it was at you and Gemma, but it was really at me, for being so tired of it all.

  But what had Asif been thinking, putting up two pieces from a day-old intern like that? He sent the odd smile over from his side, but knew me well enough to give me some space.

  It wasn’t until gone seven when the office had emptied that I heard him come up behind me to say good night.

  I looked about. You weren’t at your desk, but your machine was still on, so if you were going to file any more sparkling “content,” it would have to go through me.

  “Late night at the office, K? Kind of reminds me of old times.” Asif, hands in his pockets, took a step closer. I guessed he was trying to get back into my good books and it was only to make him feel better that I told him, “Ah, the days of yore. I miss them too. But you know me, Mr. Khan, there will always be a part of me that’s down with the brown.” I smiled and turned in my seat to face him.

  And I don’t know how, but there you were, right behind him; a millennial specter clutching an orange Bobble water bottle, complete with a luminous shard of cucumber glowing within. You looked flustered, maybe because you were appalled at the idea of Asif’s buff twenty-six-year-old body against my creaking bones as they had been once. I noted to one day tell you that just because you’d turned his head, you couldn’t undo history. Not even you.

  “Sorry, I thought I’d get a head start transcribing my—I can’t concentrate in my flat.” You turned to Asif who was by then smirking at his shoes.

  “Don’t worry. I’m off. I’ll bid you ladies good night. Don’t work too hard.”

  We both started typing and a difficult silence settled.

  “Would you like me to pretend I didn’t hear that?” you said eventually.

  When did young people get so prissy, so unable to take, give, or hear flirting? I had seen this attitude in so many of my interns in recent years. The rebuffed compliment, the blatant distaste when I’ve said something, anything, even faintly sexual. This wasn’t the first time I’d wondered exactly when and why a whole generation became so joyless, so sexless. Then I wondered if your indignation was fired because you’d heard I had a serious partner and believed there was only one way to do that right.

  A pause.

  “Shall I tell you something? My partner and I have a code,” I began. I wanted to shock you now; I had you on the ropes and this would be my one-two jab, to show you up for the wrongheaded innocent you were, give you something else to chew on. “There are rules. I meet someone I’d like to have sex with, we discuss our feelings and he signs it off, or he doesn’t. If he come
s across someone he’d like to have sex with, I say yes, or I say no. My partner signed off on Asif, once or twice, but then we agreed I should stop. You see, we’re a couple who are first and foremost for each other. That never changes. But if we’re lucky, Lily, we’re a long time alive, and a long time together. People my age are capable of believing there’s more than one way of doing something. My advice to you? Don’t judge what you haven’t tried.”

  Suddenly, displaying the full peacock tail of my sexuality, I felt restored; the real me rising from the ashes of the day. But this wasn’t my one-two jab, it was your rope-a-dope: the art of taking blows, letting the other fighter expend themselves before going in for the kill.

  “I wasn’t talking about that, whatever you’re talking about.” Your face was flushed with righteousness. “Racist language in the workplace? It’s a sackable offense.”

  You should be careful. How right Iain had been.

  And in that moment, I thought I knew what you were. You were here to get me sacked. Plain and simple. Gemma could be the acceptable face of sisters sticking together, middle-aged women doing it for ourselves, but you, her, the faceless head honchos now making up the new board, you all wanted me out.

  If only it had just been this.

  “I don’t think I understand, Lily. Exactly what racist language did I use?”

  “I, literally, don’t even want to say it out loud.”

  “Say what?”

  “That racist phrase you just said to Asif.”

  “You have to be kidding.”

  You began typing again in silence.

  “Language, between friends, old friends. It’s complicated. Nuanced. Coded. Sometimes, Lily, it’s perfectly possible you might not understand what you’re actually hearing.”

  You took a sip of your cucumber water, then typed some more. I started to pack my bag as if I was leaving work as normal, trying to act like someone who was definitely not at any risk of being sacked for being racist.

  “There’s a code of conduct?” you said eventually, voice sweeping up at the end.

  “What, so we can all work in a ‘safe space’? There’s a lot more to feeling safe at work than bleeding the joy out of every exchange between grown adults. Trust me.”

  A pause.

  “I guess I heard about your time off. I just thought you might need to possibly be a bit more careful?”

  “I wasn’t on holiday. And I was led to believe confidentiality was enshrined in the new Code of Conduct.”

  “I’m sorry. I must have heard Asif or one of the interns say something.” You tucked your hair behind your ears and looked back at your screen before deciding to power down. I logged off too, watching for a second as the light drained away from my machine, mesmerized by the little white dot in front of me, feeling the exhaustion in my bones, my brain. A sensation rushed in around me with sickening familiarity: the compulsion to lie down and never get up again. I didn’t even notice you’d come to stand by my chair, so when I turned to leave, your body blocked my path. I gasped. Awake again.

  “Katherine. Would you consider going for a drink with me? Tonight? Now? Give me a chance to clear the air? I’m sorry, I think I’ve really overstepped the mark. I’m still feeling my way with this place. With Gem.”

  Your black eyes seemed to plead with me. And I thought I saw it again, that loneliness. Your need to connect with another person. Perhaps we would end up getting a burger and talking like we’d known each other forever after all?

  “All right. OK,” I said, nodding dumbly, taken aback by the glint of a feeling shared.

  You handed me my leather from the nearby coat stand.

  “Shall we?” you said, smiling.

  “Give me one second.”

  I nipped to the loo to text Iain:

  Snowflake wants to go for a drink. Don’t worry about dinner. See you later xx

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sent a “Going for a drink, be home late” text over some spontaneous invitation, maybe one of the girls finding themselves on the Southbank or London Bridge and thinking, Sod it, let’s see if Rossy’s up for a drink. Iain knew how good it would have felt for me to be able to say I wasn’t coming home yet. He texted back:

  That’s fab. Enjoy xxxx

  You and I left the office, and that’s when we really started to talk.

  * * *

  —

  I DON’T THINK I’ve ever really seen you laugh, but you’re very beautiful when you smile. I remember thinking that you smiled a lot that night and how good that made me feel about myself. You were enjoying my company, my stories. You weren’t watching the clock, not like my old mates toward the end. And unlike them, with you, there was no sense of you waiting for the moment when you might, in not so many words, suggest I “pull myself together,” or inevitably get to asking if there was any way whatsoever it would be possible to get some money back after The Film. Talking without these things hanging over the conversation made me feel more like me again. And you asked so many questions that let me hear something of my old voice again. You knew how we all love a great listener, didn’t you?

  Looking back, I can see there was a tinge of something pre-rehearsed about some of your questions, and somewhere I clocked you’d all but had a personality transplant since your almost total indifference to me in the cab on Monday. But I jumped clean over my doubts and right into telling you my life story.

  Chatting to another woman again about my career, my reflections on life so far, was like slipping into a warm bath. How I wanted to soak away the aches and the pains of the last few years. The imprinting process in full swing as I tried to forget all the friends who’d abandoned me. First, the ones who had babies left me, though I could understand why. I was terrible around children. Who would want the scary lady in the leather jacket who never smiled near their kids? Then, The Film did for some of the women I’d cared about most. That hurt, a specific pain I’d not known before. I suppose it was like being dumped, but I didn’t know because I’d never been dumped. My luck had run clean out. My girls, my main girls were “pressing pause” on me, that’s what they said. But they never came back. Finally, there were a couple of remaining second-circle friends who hadn’t invested in The Film. But they didn’t know what to do with me when the beige began to blow in. They left me too. Soon enough, the only things left standing were my work and my Iain.

  “So, where did it all start for you, being a journalist? I’d love to know. I’m so early in my journey, I know how much I need to learn!”

  “Well, I came down to London in the late nineties, worked in a pub for a bit, this was in the days when you could rent a room in Walthamstow for forty quid a week. I know, fucking ridiculous, right? I applied for work experience at every local paper all over London, but with no training, no degree, and no connections, no one would look at me. Then one night, I was out seeing some mates in Islington and I saw these two guys start on some bloke. They had baseball bats. It was…ugly. My mates ran off home, fair enough, but I watched from across the way, got out my notepad and started getting down the details. Someone called the police and an ambulance. I managed to get some other eyewitness quotes and something from the police too. I told them and everyone else I was a reporter from the Islington Gazette. Then, I scooted back up the Victoria Line to my room, begged one of my housemates to borrow his PC, and filed the story to the Gazette. Just 250 words, but it was enough to persuade them I could come and do work experience. Pretty cool, eh?”

  “My God, yes! Amazing! Then what?”

  “I got there, loved it, worked my tits off, got on staff. The money was shit though. I knew I’d earn more on a trade mag. Junior news and features writer on Leadership was the first thing I applied for.”

  “And you got it.”

  “And I got it.”

  “And quickly became indispensable,
then the youngest editor in the title’s history.”

  “Yes…Yes, that’s me. How did you—”

  “I’ve been proofing biographies for the awards supplement?”

  I nodded. It sounded feasible.

  “I want you to know, I have, like, so much respect for your experience and how you’ve come up the ranks. It’s inspiring. I also really want you to know, I’m so embarrassed about the Gem-making-us-do-copy-camp thing. I basically begged her not to make us do it. But she’s got her ‘own ideas’ about how she’s going to run things, even though she has basically zero experience in journalism. But who are we to talk her down?”

  We.

  I liked how that sounded, so much. Too much. It resonated around my loneliness, arousing something deep and dormant. You and me: friends. The cub reporter and the grizzled editor, an alliance across generations against “the man,” or woman, in this case.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, swallowing the end of my second gin.

  “But I really do. I’m such a worrywart. Are you a worrier? Sorry, I’m not talking about, you know, your time off or anything.”

  “My beige period?” I tried to laugh.

  “Could I ask…was there a trigger for what happened to you?”

  I sighed and looked at you side on, my head cocked to show you I was trying to decide whether to share my private thoughts with you or not. But at that point, it was just that: a show. The sad fact was, I was dying to tell you everything about me. While I was still, apparently, thinking about it, you added, “You don’t need to worry about me. You can trust me.” And I wanted to believe you. I wanted to forget about the taxi ride and your holding back the truth about how you came to my magazine. I wanted to put all that to one side, chalk it up to coincidences, and let myself believe that the only thing for me to worry about was my failing talent. I wanted to let you convince me this was the case and at times like those, you were so dreadfully convincing.