My Ruth.
When the snickering at Samira’s performance started, it was quiet at first, quiet enough for her to ignore. But the laughter spread like a virus. Before long Miss Whatshername’s cries were drowned out by the sound of children laughing so hard they were crying.
Do you know, I really admired how Samira made like she didn’t want to break down as she retook her seat next to me. I guess I respected her more when she didn’t want to speak to me again, especially when the name “Sonnet Samira” stuck (sorry, Samira, coming up with that one was too easy!). But we’re adults now. Perhaps she’ll be happy to see a familiar face in the city.
When I see her across the bike shop, she’s holding something Lycra in front of her, wondering whether to try it on or not. I recognize her big sad face instantly. It’s funny how some people carry around the child in them forever. Samira and I are like that. I’m guessing KR is too.
I’m going to surprise her, tap her on the shoulder. We’ll catch up, I’ll find out if she works around here too, see if she fancies going for lunch one day. But when she starts looking about for a fitting room, she sees me first. She jerks her head away in a really unnatural way before turning back, as if she’s checking whether it’s really me. It takes her three attempts to get the Lycra thing back on the rail. She can’t take her eyes off me. Her mouth is open.
I wave to her.
“Hey. It’s me, Lily!”
She swallows, turns, and starts to stagger toward the exit.
I follow her outside. By the time I get there, she’s at the curb, checking behind her. I wave again.
The lorries and taxis screech and scream as Samira tries to cross the foot of London Bridge with the lights still on green. She runs down the steps toward Southwark Cathedral and I know I’ll never see her again.
Later on, when the concierge is grunting on me, I make myself think about what I did to Samira. Maybe I do deserve this, I tell myself. I may have only been a child, I may have been damaged, but I understand I deserved how much Samira wanted to get away from me. So, I accept there will be no catch-ups, no meals, no walks, no time with anyone who isn’t Gem or my mum, that is, until my lunch with KR and The Partner on Sunday. I’m alone.
* * *
—
THE CONCIERGE HAS finally left. It’s dark now. I eat cold soup and look again at Iain McIvor’s IMDb page. His thin CV, some trivia. Talent and People asked if they could “share my CV” with KR on my first day. She’d requested it, on the quiet, or so she thought. Yeah, go ahead, I said, knowing full well it wouldn’t tell her whatever she thinks she wants to know about me. What she’ll get is a curated version of my life on paper, but we all know CVs are total constructs. There’s always about as much you leave out of your life story, chunked under those usual headings, as you leave in. I know for a fact KR’s will have an early gap she’ll struggle to explain when she has to start hawking herself around recruitment agencies.
Of course, she’d google me, try to find me on social, but she won’t find this Lily Lunt in any of the usual places. With the racist corker on day two and giving me all that disgusting detail on her and her partner in the pub, she’s making this too easy. It could be over soon if I wanted it to be.
But I don’t want this to be too easy.
I want my plan to be painfully drawn-out. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but it also tastes the sweetest when it’s cooked slow.
Each year, I interview the next round of enterprising big shots at a photoshoot for the awards edition of the magazine we publish every spring: Rising Stars of Tomorrow. The first few years were mildly intimidating as I was finding my feet as editor, the next few, moderately inspiring, and I got a few good shags along the way. Then, the subjects started to seem so much younger than me, their tech-driven businesses less knowable, and me far less shaggable to them. Those years seemed to blur into one until I met Asif.
He was finishing up interning with some “augmented reality” guru who was one of our “stars.” I got chatting with him. In fact, he was the only one who seemed to actively want to talk to me at that shoot. He was smart enough, enthusiastic. I knew I’d be able to use him at work, so I invited him out for a drink that night to discuss what he wanted from his future. He became my intern a week later. Happier days.
That was four years ago, and as I prepared to do it all over again, I wondered how anyone manages to live their life well and happy when they feel their best years are behind them. And how much worse does it all feel when, like me, you’re forced to meet the banks of sharp young things stacking up behind you, like rows of teeth in a shark’s mouth.
By Friday, the final day of the shoot, I couldn’t even be bothered taking notes. I needed to produce the piece with the minimum amount of emotional energy, so simply recorded foreshortened interviews and decided to present everything as an unfiltered Q&A, rather than the extended profile pieces we’d normally do. There was once a time I prided myself on the quality of my questioning, my investigative probing that created the standout news and features I was known and promoted for. How incurious I was now, the one thing a journalist can’t afford to be.
I was bone-tired when I got the text from you:
Just checking—r we still good for Sunday?
I sent back:
Sure. KR
And I got back this:
Ridiculous.
That weekend, when I returned from my normal Sunday run, I found I wanted to dig out my old leather skater skirt from one of a dozen vacuum-sealed bags I’d packed into the tiny attic space above the airing cupboard, the skirt just like yours. I held it in front of my legs after my shower. I could still get away with it, couldn’t I?
My mother would have killed me if she’d ever seen the skirt. Firstly, for wearing something so hard and dangerous-looking and, secondly, for spending so much on a single item of clothing. The frivolity. The indulgence. But she was three years cold by the time I’d seen the skirt in Liberty’s. She died pinned under a quad bike on our land shortly after my eighteenth birthday. See, you don’t have the monopoly on fucked-up childhoods.
Her death had, in fact, been the first time I ever met a journalist. I’d always been interested in writing. I kept notes, even as a young child, all of which went into my first manuscript. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life, but the idea suggested itself to me when a reporter from the Matlock Mercury came to the farm, supposedly to get the inside track on the “tragedy” of my mother’s death. As an emotionally stunted only child of a dysfunctional parent, I observed the passably attractive journalist’s ability to disconnect from normal human niceties, to be able to doorstep a vulnerable teenager and try to extract her tears. I thought, Maybe I could do that.
The reporter wanted his photographer to get an image for the front page to support his narrative: a beautiful, fragile teenager left behind with no family and a farm in catastrophic debt. After the funeral, I asked to meet the reporter “off the record,” enjoying the feeling of such distinctly metropolitan vocabulary on my lips.
He was in his late twenties, which seemed almost impossibly old to me then. I wanted to find out how to get into journalism. He’d given me the big talk, chest puffed out, trying to blow me away with his incredible tales of reporting on house fires and localized job losses. But I actually felt sorry for him. He was stuck living in the arse-end of nowhere, just like me, but worse, out of choice. His job was to report on boring provincial lives, like mine. I was going to London. To become a journalist. Even then, I knew that no matter what got in my way, I would have the life I deserved, not the one given to me.
I looked again at the skater skirt. I knew it would risk me looking like the teachers you see in their dated casuals on the weekend, so deeply embarrassing, but I wanted to somehow make you think I was cooler than I was. It seemed my partner too cared greatly what he looked like. As
I walked back into our bedroom, I caught Iain pinching the gathering roll around his middle through the ancient, half-perished Sonic Youth T-shirt he was wearing.
“Hey, did I always have this?”
“I don’t know—did I always have these?” I sidled up to him, winking hard so he could see my crow’s-feet in all their glory.
“You look gorgeous. Haven’t seen that in a while.”
“I know. I think I’m having a midlife crisis.” I’d put the skirt on.
“Fuck me, we’ve had more of them than hot dinners in this house!” he laughed, pulling me in for a hug. “So, what’s the plan then? What can I find out for you? What shouldn’t we be talking about?”
“God, I don’t even know. Get her talking about herself. She doesn’t like swearing. Or drinking. Or anything even slightly off-color.”
“A proper fucking Snowflake. Well, this’ll be fun. I was going to suggest a quickie, but might as well head now and get the beers in before she shows up by the sounds of it.”
* * *
—
IT WAS OBVIOUS both Iain and I were nervous as we walked toward the pub. I threw on my weekday black biker to avoid giving you the satisfaction of seeing me in the green leather you’d identified I usually wear on weekends. I tried to get Iain to walk quickly to make sure we got to the pub before you, intending to bagsy my favorite table and settle ourselves in. Neither Iain nor I spoke as we gripped each other’s hands on the approach to the pub’s main entrance.
I should have known you would get to the pub before me.
There you were. You’d sat yourself at a table big enough for eight in front of the biggest window. It was a gray day, but somehow the clouds parted as we opened the pub doors. You were backlit by the sun when we both caught sight of you, flicking your nails on your pale throat and biting the orange pillows of your lips in anticipation, your hair a red halo.
“Is that her?” Iain asked, letting go of my hand.
“That’s her.”
You spotted us and removed yourself from behind the table, revealing your amazing breasts in a tight lavender angora V-neck, your full height and, yes, your own skater skirt, which made me deeply regret putting mine on.
“Katherine.” You planted a kiss on the air near my ear. “And you must be Iain? It’s so good to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.” You kissed him on the cheek, pressing yourself full against him as you brought him in for a hug, in a way that made me sense the blood rushing to his dick. I wished I’d pushed for a quick shag before we’d left the house. Suddenly, I wanted to go. Right now. Iain looked so flushed. Younger. It was as amazing to watch my partner’s grayed features bloom into life as it was dreadful. He’d shuffled his way around to the bench on your side of the table, forcing me to remain opposite you both. I may as well have given up there and then.
Throughout lunch, information flew out of you and it all sounded largely plausible; your itinerate London life with your mother (very Bohemian), boarding schools (as I knew already from your CV) paid for by Gemma (I could have guessed that), your father leaving when you were small (me too, though less out of choice than yours), you being caught in the middle of “two warring mums”; how you’ve “sometimes struggled to make friends,” but you’ve found solace in writing your blog about the “challenges of millennial life” and “the whole Leadership project.” My magazine, your “project.” You saw me bristling and switched back to talking about your blog.
“So, I guess it’s an attempt to chronicle the difficulties around establishing your identity today. To become financially independent; to somehow put together a proper life?” you told Iain, chucking a token glance over to me. Of course, your missives were targeted at people like you in their early twenties, but I found myself thinking, These are my struggles too.
“Get many trolls on your blog? What’s it called again?” This came out more aggressively than I’d meant, but I was already a bit pissed and unhappy at how confessional you were being with Iain there, when I’d got nothing from you on my own at The George.
“I used to get rape threats all day, every day.” You said the last bit to Iain.
“Fuck, Lil, that’s fucking terrible. How’d you cope?”
“I shut down comments and came off social. It just got way too much,” you told him and him alone.
“So how do I find your blog, Lil?” I asked.
“I was thinking it’s probably best I keep that under wraps? I don’t want to get caught up in the new sign-off structure. I’d never get anything written otherwise,” you said, the last bit privately to Iain too.
“And it’s hard enough to get anything done at the best of times, eh?” he said.
“Christ, it is,” you replied. Christ?
You and he were getting louder and closer together on the bench opposite. I tried, and most likely failed, to look as if this didn’t bother me in the slightest, but as your body seemed to inch closer to his, my blood pressure began to soar. So many questions for Iain. About him, about his writing. I started to talk, but each time, I was drowned out. The table you’d chosen was so wide, I couldn’t even kick him underneath it without being completely obvious. He barely looked my way. He wasn’t interested in what I had to say, and I could understand why: You radiated pure, vital energy as your vegan “roast” cooled, and you and my partner explored another conversational tributary wide enough for only two. I started to feel small and stupid in my tiny leather skirt. I ended up acting as barmaid and glass collector. When I took myself to the bar to attempt to flirt with the familiar barmen, I could see that Iain seemed to burst open, and I watched as words spilled out of him, pouring freely into you. Did I look as sweaty that night at The George as Iain did that Sunday?
And you’d discovered a new thirst from somewhere. You matched Iain drink for drink. Impossibly, you knew about The Film.
When I got back to the table, you were gushing, “OK, this is really weird. Oh my gosh, of course. Iain McIvor. That Iain McIvor. I’ve seen it. God, three times at least. I thought it was great. I mean, a bit of a rough diamond, but the writing was really strong.”
“How is it you’ve seen the film?” Iain asked.
“Oh God, I don’t know. Bootleg DVD? YouTube? Anyway, it was my mate who put me onto it. He’s a real film buff. We bonded over Béla Tarr.”
And it’s then I thought I really saw him drop his toe on your side of the grass: the greener side. But I knew, I desperately hoped, he had to be thinking deep down inside, something didn’t smell right. We’d been around the block too many times not to know when something or somebody seemed too good to be true. But like any good scam, you’d made it so appealing that he seemed to want to ignore those voices of sense telling you to go slow, proceed with care. Iain was so ready to hear your flattery even though your interest and fandom were ridiculous. He went to say something to you again, when I finally made a comment that was heard.
“When did you see me in my green biker?”
“Sorry?” You’d had two gin and tonics and at least three large glasses of wine—I’d been watching you swallow them this time—to wash down your fucking pretend roast. You were almost slurring. “Sorry, Katherine, I missed that?” And your lips had their natural color now, an indecently youthful pink under the orange lipstick left on the many glasses I’d taken back to the bar. In that moment, I experienced actual hate for you for the first time.
“When did you see me wearing my green jacket?” I said, flicking my eyes to Iain quickly to see that he was giving me a What the fuck? glance.
“I don’t know. A week ago maybe?”
“Where?”
“I’m really sorry, Katherine, I can’t remember.” You sent a concerned glance to Iain who’d now directed his eyes from me and to the floor, ashamed. “Must have been somewhere around here though. Green Lanes? Yes. I think it was Green Lanes.”
&nbs
p; “Green Lanes, was it? Pretty long road. You follow me down it?”
You didn’t say anything to this.
“Kathy. Love,” said Iain, increasingly desperate to stop me killing his buzz.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’d never want to do that,” you told me. Iain’s vision stayed on his shoes, but you held my gaze and took a long slug of your wine. “I’m just trying to get along, trying to be the most supportive person I can. It’s like copy camp. It’s nothing major, just a way to help out, but then, I’m sure it’ll be a case of, what might you say? Teaching an old dog new tricks?” You tilted your chin toward me and then, “Excuse me.” You smiled, mischief playing on your fleshy lips as you left for the bathroom.
“Old dog,” I nodded and drained my glass.
When you were out of sight, Iain turned to me. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, what the fuck, Iain. I’m going. You can do what you want, but I am not signing off on her if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
“She works for me.”
“I know…well, she works for your boss.”
“You’re incredible.”
“She seems to think you’re fucking incredible. That’s what she’s been going on about. You should give her a proper chance. You don’t need to be so bitter, you know?”
I knew Iain well enough to know he’d said the word I’d long used to describe my mother accidentally on purpose. I grabbed my jacket.
Precious You Page 9