Precious You

by Helen Monks Takhar

  I knew I looked far worse, unwashed, untethered, so perhaps I was playing the part of the truly bereft better than you after all. Some small victory, though it didn’t feel like one, and there was no one there to see it anyway.

  I had no idea who would show up and, as it turned out, there are only four of us: you and me, and you’d brought your mother and Gemma along too.

  I sat alone on the empty bank of pews on the left side. Iain’s life and now his death, so small. A life without impact. A death without mourners. Family: estranged or dead. Friends: gone. Colleagues: forgotten. The smallest of lives with only a partner, a lover, and her screwed-up family left at the end.

  Who would come to my funeral? Who would be there for me at the hour of my death? My life in brackets.

  You left the front pew to deliver the first eulogy.

  “I didn’t know Iain for very long, but he had an enormous impact on me, on my life. He was a kind, funny, generous, and spirited man, who had recently made some great changes in his life, which makes his passing all the more devastating. I will miss him terribly and I will never forget him.” You looked around as if for a round of applause or something. Why are young people so fucking thick? “Katherine, I wondered if you would like to say a few words?”

  A few words? A few words to summarize his near-fifty years, nearly twenty of those with me? Gemma and your mother dared not look at me. I didn’t let myself imagine what version of events you’d told them about your coupling for fear of exploding at you there and then.

  I got up. I was woozy. No sleep at all the night before. I’d got to a stage beyond desperation, beyond loneliness. My gym membership had run out. I hadn’t managed, or even wanted, to wash for days. I went to my GP for more sleeping pills and he’d sent me away with a new prescription for Citalopram, my old antidepressants. I picked them up, but I wasn’t going to take them because I felt I was somewhere beyond depression too. I’d not eaten that day, or the day before. I was putting petrol in my car in five-pound drips. I was down to the last £43 on a credit card on which I had no hope of making the minimum repayment. Iain’s funeral? It was just another out-of-body experience I made myself go through.

  Limping up to the lectern, then looking out to you, all I could manage was this: “I met Iain McIvor nearly twenty years ago. I loved him very, very much. He was my world…He was my partner…I don’t understand what’s happened. I don’t know why he’s gone. I can’t imagine what drove him to the state he was in when he left me, left this world. We’ll never know why he felt so desperate, why he had to obliterate his feelings that night. I hope he’ll be able to forgive whoever it is who put him there…My heart is broken. I love you forever, Iain. My Iain, I will miss you.”

  You’d chosen the music well. I suppose he must have foisted his Teenage Fan Club, Sonic Youth, Jesus and Mary Chain tunes on you. When he did, did he dance like a dad, eyes closed, one finger pointing in the air, waggling a single leg, rooted to the floor? Or was it possible you’d actually got to know him? Maybe Iain was just a person whose life story you could tell in small paragraphs, not volumes. You knew he was a man trapped in time, an earlier time in his life. A young wild man in Glasgow, then London. A romantic. A chancer. A loser.

  In a coffin, the curtains closing as you watched beatifically.

  * * *

  —

  OUTSIDE, YOU RACED into a waiting black car and slammed the door behind you, ensuring I had no chance of speaking to you. Meanwhile, your mother approached me.

  “I want to apologize for my daughter’s behavior. I’m so sorry for your loss and I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive our family one day.”

  Her accent. Not at all posh. Traces of Nottingham. She was small and plain. She looked like she’d had a hard life. She took my hand. Hers were rough. They reminded me of my mother’s hands. She hummed with disapproval, like my mother. In fact, I could see your mother disapproved of you in a way Gemma never would. I could tell she didn’t know what to do with you. Never had, but in a completely different way from Gemma.

  “Elaine, enough. Let’s go,” said Gemma, almost pushing her toward the family’s car from behind. She stumbled over to it and got in the front seat next to the driver.

  “Gemma. While I have you, is there any update on the investigation?” I asked her.

  “You want to do this here? Now?”

  “It’s just I haven’t heard anything for a while. I’m…I’ll be honest, Gemma, I’m running out of cash. What’s happening?”

  “It’s over, Katherine. You’ll get a letter next week.”

  “Saying what?”

  “Saying you’ve been dismissed for gross misconduct.”

  “What about the troll? Where did the investigation into that go?”

  “It was Asif. Disgruntled for reasons unproven.” She looked me up and down. “Anyway, we sacked him. All dealt with.”

  “Asif?” I flustered. “But, but what about my statement for your investigation?”

  “No longer required.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Come on, Katherine. The massages at the Rosewood not enough? You thought you’d make us pick up the bill for two bottles of champagne too, then treat yourself to a designer leather jacket? Your dress for the awards and a five-star stay in Sussex? Close to ten grand on your corporate credit card. I warned you and you let me down. You made me look like a fool for defending you. I’m a whisker away from a vote of no confidence because of you.”

  I hadn’t made a fool of her, you had. Just like you’d made a fool of me. Your thefts had been staring me in the face, hadn’t they? But I’d let myself be dazzled by the possibility of our friendship. No one was a bigger fool than me, especially because I still thought I had an outside chance of getting one over on you when you were, as always, moves ahead of me.

  “Lily stole my Leadership card. She thieved it and fucked me over, just like she did at the Rosewood and the awards. Look at the evidence: She’s stolen my reputation, my job, and my Iain.”

  Gemma nodded. “Katherine, you may as well know we found your card locked in your filing cabinet. Do you know, I’ve always had an idea you were lazy, but I didn’t believe you were a fantasist until now. Or a racist.”

  “Racist?”

  You’d been holding your ace up your sleeve; keeping it back to prolong my agony, toy with my half-dead body until there was no further sport to be had from me. I should have known, but I didn’t, because I’d let myself think better of you. What an old fool I’d been.

  “I could have got rid of you on week one. Lily told me you used racist language in the workplace. Sackable offense. But she gave you a chance.”

  “Lily, giving me a chance?” I tried to address this to you as you sat stony-faced behind enormous sunglasses in your car.

  “Now that is ridiculous.”

  “Katherine, can I gently suggest we stop this conversation now? It’s over.”

  It was time for Gemma to hear my defensive lines. She couldn’t, surely, shake these off?

  “Your actions with Lily, the copy camp thing? That’s ageism. You failed to take adequate account of my mental health problems. You…you failed to tackle online abuse against me—the troll threatened to rape and kill me and you stood by and did nothing to protect me! You failed to create a safe place for me to work. You have to take some responsibility here; at least give me a chance to put the record straight.”

  “Failed to create a safe space? That doesn’t sound at all like you, Katherine. That sounds rather like something you’d probably describe as a Snowflake’s defense.” She paused to stare at a stain on my once sleek, now filthy, black pencil skirt. “Unlike you, I have some respect for people Lily’s age. We need them. They are smart, they are dedicated, they are a credit to us. They are everything you’re not, which is what makes you so afraid of them.”

&nbs
p; “I can demand redundancy.”

  “No. You cannot.”

  “But you must be replacing me?”

  “No. Your role’s been subsumed into a new one. We have a new Head of Content.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Lily. Lily is our lead on content creation.” She stifled a smile.

  “Content creation? We used to call it writing before the whole world got so fucking stupid!” I said through teeth I realized were bared and gritted. I must have looked like a rabid animal. Did that make you even more self-satisfied, in the back of your funeral car?

  “This is just totally inappropriate. I’m sorry to see things appear hard for you now, but you know—”

  “Leave it now, Gemma. Let’s go,” your mother called through the passenger window.

  “You’ve never really helped yourself, have you, Katherine?”

  You were watching me from within the car. My hate burned through me. The vehicle began to pull away. I ran forward, slapped my hands on the bonnet. The driver slammed on the brakes. Someone shrieked in the background. Yes, I looked like a woman possessed, a woman on the very edge, and I didn’t care. You needed to share in what you’d made me.

  I walked around to your window and knocked hard near your face with my knuckles.

  “You. You! This is all down to you. I know what you really are. I am on to you.”

  I wasn’t. It was an empty threat at this point. But it wouldn’t be, soon enough.

  * * *

  —

  I DROVE BACK to my preferred spot on Church Street, burning through eighteen quid’s worth of petrol sitting in traffic and getting lost along the way. I spent £21 on a bottle of Tanqueray and walked to the park, where I sat on my jacket and started to drink it. My phone rang.

  “Katherine Ross?”

  “It sure is,” I said, pissed.

  “My name is Mr. Okoh, I’m the executor of Iain McIvor’s will, his solicitor.”

  “Will? Iain had never had a will. Always talked about it, never got around to it. Typical Iain, really. Anyway, we were still young, weren’t we?”

  “This is doubtless a difficult time, but I have a need to speak with you concerning the matter of the property you jointly owned with Mr. McIvor. Are you able to come into my office?”

  “No. No. Just go ahead and tell me now. He left it to fucking her, didn’t he?”

  “Mr. McIvor bequeathed his fifty percent share of the jointly owned property to his partner at the time of his death and she would like to initiate the process of purchasing your fifty percent, Ms. Ross.”

  “Buying me out? Of my own home?”

  “It could be the cleanest solution.”

  “I don’t have any equity! I have debts. I have nowhere to live.”

  “So, I take it buying out my client isn’t an option?”

  “I don’t have any options. Don’t any of you understand? I haven’t had ‘choices’ for years! Did he leave me fucking anything? He’s given her Holloway too?”

  “You still have what is rightfully yours. We can make arrangements—”

  “Ha! No. No I don’t. I don’t have anything!”

  I hung up, swallowed the rest of the bottle down in ugly glugs that put most of it all over my face, even into my eyes. I staggered to my feet and smashed the wet, empty bottle on the tree trunk. As I tried to get back to my car, it could have been the alcohol, or it could have been the pointless rage taking over my whole body from my flushed face to my clenched wrists down to my unsure feet, but I could barely see where I was going.

  Because it looked very much like you had finally won.

  APRIL 19—THE DAY I START AGAIN

  I never thought it would turn out like this. I regret, like really regret, that he’s not here, I do, but somehow this has taken my plan to a level I could have never contemplated. I’ve ended up with everything he had, everything he built with her.

  I thought he’d just been speaking with a solicitor to sort things with the flat. A will? That had never even been in my head. I had no idea. I don’t know about this stuff. Not really. But I guess I did say a few things here and there about my past home life, how the one thing that would make me truly happy would be never having to worry about the roof over my head. Financial security that would mean I’d never have to feel afraid of being at the mercy of Gem or my mother or the concierge or anyone else again. Maybe I’ve got to the stage where people like Iain will do what I want, even when I’m not trying? What does this make me? All I know is that Iain must have wanted to secure my future should anything happen, and then something did.

  Naturally, the police wanted to know more about me when they discovered he’d only just changed things; wanted to know where I’d been on that Friday night, etc., but my new (lovely) downstairs neighbor soon put them straight.

  Obviously, we had to talk about what happened in Leeds, but we dealt with that quickly too.

  Now, here I am in her flat. I’ve accepted Gemma’s offer to help me buy KR out and make it all my own. I may be just another millennial borrowing from their family to get on the property ladder, but with my new, paid job, plus the income once I’ve spruced up Iain’s Holloway flat, I have a genuine chance of paying her back. I can get my balance back to zero with Gem, then, who knows, maybe I can walk away forever. I won’t need her anymore. I can be free once and for all.

  I know how it all looks, but honestly, I never wanted it this way. I’m on my own again, but I’ve found I’d rather not be. I’ve grown. I’ve changed.

  APRIL 29—IAIN’S FUNERAL

  I’ve never been to a funeral, let alone organized one. But today I’m sitting in the chapel, looking at Iain’s coffin, with her on the opposite side across the aisle. I still can’t believe it’s happening. So surreal. I say a few moving words, then, well, I have to give her the chance to say something. They were together, at one time. Not a monster, we can all see that now.

  She gets up. She looks like some kind of tramp. Her hair is plastered to her face. Her clothes look rotten. She speaks and she’s clearly trying to blame me for Iain’s death, but I think again about when I found him. What I saw, out of the corner of my eye, before the paramedic put a shiny blanket around my shoulders and turned me away from the scene. But it’s her who gets to say to me: “I’m on to you.”

  She’s finally putting the pieces together.

  But so am I.

  Asif called and now I’m getting the clearest idea ever of who Katherine Ross really is. Now that I’ve found Iain’s copy of Creep Feeder in his stuff at Holloway, I expect some answers on why she got to be such a force of destruction.

  APRIL 30—THE DAY I GET OUT OF HERE FOR GOOD

  I’ve finished reading, I know why Iain wanted her out of his life and why he didn’t want me to finish the manuscript.

  The idea of being anywhere near her makes me sick. I don’t like being in her flat anymore. I know I won’t be able to sleep here again. I feel her black life surrounding me in the night. I wish the morning would come.

  Now I know I don’t need to feel any guilt about her being homeless, jobless, broke, and alone. People like KR want people like me to be more “resilient,” well, guess what? Now it’s time for her to toughen up. Because this time, I won’t stop her falling, she can throw herself right into the traffic and she can stay there.

  I wrote a post for my blog earlier, just for her for when I’ve let her put it all together. But I’m not going to post it, not now. Not ever. She can let her doubts and her questions eat her up forever, until there’s nothing left of her. It won’t take long.

  I’ve packed all of my things into my trunk. It’s five-thirty in the morning. I can see the sun shining from behind the clouds. I think I’ll be able to sleep now.

  I was a knockout when I was your age, but I didn’t realize it, not until the sun had set
and the height of my day was over. I thought it would shine on me forever, and I didn’t care if it was right or fair to me or anyone else. I never questioned the source of that power nor cared how it minimized me or every other woman until I met you. I let the attention I received in my twenties have me believe I was special. I wonder now how many other women mistake what they experience when they are twenty-one as real power. Surely about 95 percent of the internet revolves around the twenty-something woman: trying to look like her, trying to fuck her, trying to harness her power. Because power through youth and beauty is as fleeting as it is potent. Instead of beating men at their own game, dragging each other down, imagine a world where women protected each other when our lights are deemed to shine the brightest? What if we shielded each other when the male gaze perceives that light to die, at some ineffable point after your twenty-ninth birthday?

  But we don’t live in that world.

  I have less than £3’s worth of petrol left and I’ve decided to drive until my car just stops.

  But then, there you are. I spot you near the junction at Green Lanes. You’d pulled up at the side of the road to take a smug sip of your fucking filtered cucumber water. You’re getting back onto your bike now, preparing to pedal toward the junction. I move too, sensing the air change as you pick up velocity and your blood speeds in your veins.

  Zooming away from me. Way ahead of me. Your life exactly how you’d want it. My London life wound back to the start, but with you playing me. Me but better. Me but prettier. Me but with bigger tits. Me but more charming. Me but with money. Me, but equipped to win in the world as it is now, as it changes.