by Beth O'Leary
‘She’s going to hurt you, Dyl.’
The frustration hits me quite suddenly; it’s unusual that Marcus manages to get a rise out of me, but that tips me over the edge.
‘You just don’t want me to move out,’ I snap. ‘You want to keep me here.’
He recoils slightly, and I watch as the hurt registers in his eyes.
‘I’m trying to look out for you. That’s all I’m doing.’ He’s keeping his voice carefully steady, but the hand on his wine glass is white at the knuckles.
My phone beeps in my pocket; I fumble to check it so quickly I drop it, and I hear Marcus snort with derisive laughter as he heads back into the kitchen. It’s a WhatsApp message from Addie.
Let’s talk again tomorrow? Sorry things got heated – I shouldn’t have bitched about Marcus to you. I’d love to move in with you xxx
Thank God. The worries melt away, the anger extinguished like a gas flame flicked off at the switch; I’m going to live with Addie, and find a job, and make my own way until I’m Professor Abbott, scholar and poet and lover of Addie Gilbert. Marcus’s protective instincts will ease eventually; he’ll grow to trust Addie, and she’ll start to understand him better. Everyone will come around.
Addie
It’s early summer, June time, and I’m still getting used to the pure joy of sharing a flat with Dylan.
Well, maybe not pure joy. We fight a fair bit now we live together. Teething problems, I think – and Marcus. He’s always a good source of arguments. This morning me and Dylan yelled at each other for half an hour because Dylan spent two hundred quid on a television stand we don’t need, but really we were arguing because yesterday Marcus accused me of manipulating the situation during a game of Charades at Cherry’s house and Dylan once again failed to clock Marcus being a dick to me. And I couldn’t exactly say, Marcus was mean about my charades technique and you didn’t stand up for me, so instead I said, We can’t afford this. Money’s such an easy thing to argue about. Especially with Dylan.
As I pull into the school car park, Etienne is climbing out of his BMW. He raises his hand to me in greeting and I wave back, yanking the handbrake on and trying to remember if I pencilled both eyebrows or just the one. Can’t recall for the life of me. It’s been one of those days. Already.
‘Ready for the summer to start?’ Etienne calls as I lock the car and jog over. He smiles. We’ve relaxed around each other over the last few months. I don’t think about every word before I say it any more, and my heart doesn’t beat quite so hard when he comes into my classroom unannounced.
‘Nah,’ I say, wrinkling up my nose. ‘Thought I’d stick around and help out at the summer school.’
He laughs, and I glow.
‘You’ve done well this term, Addie,’ he says. ‘I’ve been really impressed.’
The glow brightens. ‘Oh, thank you. I’m really grateful to you and to Moira for everything you’ve done to help me, and all your patience as I found my feet.’
‘I have a good instinct when it comes to people,’ Etienne says, holding the door open for me. ‘I knew you’d make a great teacher. And I knew you’d be a good fit here with us.’
The outside door to the staffroom is stiff and heavy, and Etienne has his hands full of folders. To keep it open for me, he stands in front of it – I have to pass close to him to step through. I give him a brief smile as I brush past, then I breathe in sharply. His gaze is on my face, and there’s a heat there. It’s hard to define, but there’s no mistaking it. It’s wanting.
‘Even Tyson’s dad has come around to you,’ Etienne continues as we head for the coffee machine, side by side now.
His tone is light and casual. There’s no trace of that look. I avoid his gaze as we make coffee in the staffroom. We talk. Just chit-chat. Already I’m rewriting the scene: he didn’t look at me strangely at all, he was just polite and held the door for me.
But then he touches my hand as we both reach for the fridge door. My heart skips. He catches my eye and there it is again, with a secret smile.
‘Sorry,’ I say, retreating, cheeks burning. ‘You go. I’ll wait.’
‘No worries, Addie,’ he says, still holding my gaze. And then – gone again.
I swallow and take my coffee straight to my classroom. I wish Etienne wasn’t so handsome. I wish me and Dylan hadn’t fought this morning. I wish I hadn’t blushed.
I glance at the clock – only a couple of minutes until the kids start filing in. I’ve been stood here with my coffee, staring at my own blank whiteboard, doing nothing for almost ten minutes.
I pull my phone out and open my WhatsApp chat with Dylan.
I love you. Sorry for getting upset about a stupid TV stand xx
He’s already typing.
Love you too. And it wasn’t stupid. Or rather, it was stupid, because I spent too much money on it. I’ll return it at the weekend.
I smile. Then he starts typing again.
But will you go for a drink with me and Marcus tomorrow night? I really want you guys to try and get along. Please? xx
I spend an hour trying to decide what to wear for the drinks with Marcus, getting more and more annoyed at myself with every outfit I chuck on the bed. It’s a hot evening, still in the twenties after six o’clock. I toy with the loose cotton dresses I wore last summer in France, but they all look too short. I’m so used to wearing dresses that cover my knees for school now; a minidress looks kind of scandalous.
In the end I wear jeans, Converse and a threadbare white T-shirt that always slips off my shoulder. I’m going for carefree and cool with the shoulder-slip, but as soon as I leave the house I realise it’s just an extra thing to think about. It keeps slipping too far and showing the top of my scratty strapless bra.
We head to a pub a few roads away from our flat. It has dark blue walls and pint glasses dangling from all the old beams on the ceiling, each with a little lightbulb inside. For a moment I see it as Marcus will see it: how try-hard it looks, compared to the cool London pubs he likes.
He’s already there, at a table by the window. The street light streaming through the glass casts his face in triangles of light and shade. He’s beautiful. I forget that, probably because he’s usually being such an arse.
We hug hello. He holds me at a distance, hips away from mine, the way you hug a colleague or a distant cousin. He and Dylan talk for a while and I keep missing moments to get involved, opening and closing my mouth like a fish.
‘So, Addie,’ Marcus says, picking at a beer mat on the table. ‘How’s school?’
‘It’s good, actually. I’ve kind of figured out how to do this teaching thing, a bit,’ I say, twisting my pint between my palms. ‘Behaviour has been the toughest thing for me. Getting them to respect me.’
‘Must be hard when you’re not that much older than them yourself,’ Marcus says.
‘Yeah, and half of the Year Elevens are a foot taller than me already, too,’ I say, pulling a face.
Dylan beams. It breaks my heart a little, how happy he is to see us getting on.
‘And the hot head teacher?’ Marcus asks. ‘How’s he?’
I feel my cheeks flush and it makes me blush even harder, because I know it looks like guilt.
‘Etienne?’ I say. ‘He’s fine. I imagine. Who told you he was hot?’
‘Dylan’s mentioned it,’ Marcus says, shooting Dylan an amused glance. ‘Once or twice.’
When Dylan’s embarrassed, you can see it in his eyes – they go sort of tight at the corners.
Dylan has never once mentioned Etienne to me. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned him to Dylan, either.
‘Right,’ I say, trying to sound like this is no big deal.
‘He recruited you, did he, the hot head?’
‘Yeah, him and Moira, the assistant head.’
Marcus gi
ves Dylan a significant look.
‘What?’ I ask, looking between them.
‘Marcus . . .’ Dylan trails off.
‘I have a theory,’ Marcus says. ‘If a man ever recruits a woman, on some level, he wants to sleep with her.’
‘That’s . . . that’s horrible,’ I say. ‘And definitely not true?’
‘So he doesn’t want to sleep with you, then?’ Marcus asks.
I blush again. Never have I hated my pale skin more.
‘No, he doesn’t want to sleep with me,’ I say firmly. But I can feel Dylan’s gaze on my cheeks. I can feel his uncertainty. ‘It’s not like that. Obviously.’
I want Dylan to say something. Isn’t this where he should step in? Shouldn’t he tell Marcus to shut up, back off, get lost? Marcus gives a little smirk and my blood boils.
‘So anyway, I have some news,’ Marcus says into the silence. ‘I’ve got a new idea. An app.’
Marcus generally has a new idea on the go. All of them fizzle out or evaporate to make room for the next one.
‘I figure, I can work on this anywhere, why not here?’ he says, spreading his hands.
It takes me a moment to process. I’m still humming with embarrassment and anger. Still hot with it.
‘You mean here, like, Chichester?’
‘Yeah. I’m going to rent a place just outside town. Two-bed house with a jacuzzi,’ Marcus says, leaning back. ‘I’ll throw a housewarming, obviously.’
‘That’s great,’ Dylan says, but he’s blinking too much – he’s taken aback too. ‘I thought you said nothing happened in Chichester, eh?’
‘Well, I bring the party,’ Marcus says with a grin. ‘Chichester won’t know what’s hit it.’ He slides out from his side of the table. ‘Time for another drink. Same warm ale again, Addie?’
He doesn’t meet my eyes. He hardly ever does, to be honest. Like I’m beneath him, not even worth looking at. I want to remind him, sometimes. How he looked at me at the start. He fancied me in France, I’m sure of it. He wasn’t too good for me then, was he?
‘Yeah, the same again, please,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’
Once Marcus has ambled away, I watch Dylan sip at the last of his lager and feel a rush of rage at his mildness. He always gives Marcus the credit. He’s the same with me, too, and that’s something I love, so it makes no sense for me to hate it. It’s totally hypocritical. But I feel the anger all the same.
‘Don’t you think it’s weird?’ I say. I can’t stop myself. ‘Him moving to Chichester now, after making such a fuss about you coming here? And him bringing up Etienne being hot, like that? In front of me?’
‘Why?’ Dylan says, eyes flicking to mine. ‘Is it awkward for you to talk about?’
It’s the sharpest I’ve ever heard him speak to me. He yells sometimes, when we argue, but he’s never quick and catty like that. I’m still staring at him when my phone buzzes into life on the table. It’s Deb. I frown. Deb hardly ever rings me out of the blue, she usually messages first.
‘Hang on,’ I say to Dylan, sliding out of my seat. ‘Back in a minute.’
I pass Marcus on my way out the door, already lifting the phone to my ear. His eyes lock with mine. It’s so unusual, him looking me right in the eye, that it sends a jolt through me. His expression is hard to read, but it’s soft, unlike himself.
‘Leaving so soon? Was it something I said?’ he asks. The corner of his mouth begins to lift. A slow, sardonic smile, and that softness is gone.
‘Hello?’ I say into the phone, moving past Marcus. I hear him breathe in sharply as I brush past. His shoulder collides with mine a touch too hard to be an accident, though I’m not sure if that’s him or me.
‘Addie?’
I step out into the cooling summer evening and press the phone to my ear. Deb sounds . . . strange.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
‘Probably,’ she says. ‘Probably.’
‘Are you crying?’
‘Yes,’ Deb says carefully. She sniffs. ‘I’m having a bit of a crisis.’
‘What can I do? What’s wrong?’
‘Well. Hmm. I think I may be pregnant.’
Deb is breathing hard, like she’s preparing to leap off a diving board, or maybe in the very early stages of labour. Her expression’s weird. Way too serious. I hate seeing my sister looking worried, it’s like seeing Dad cry.
‘It’s just a stick,’ I say. ‘All you have to do is look at it, and then you’ll know.’
‘It’s a life-changing stick,’ Deb corrects me, looking down at the pregnancy test half hidden in her fist. ‘And I’m finding looking at it totally impossible. Because then I’ll know.’
‘Yeah,’ I say weakly. ‘Yeah, that makes sense. I probably oversimplified, really.’
Deb pokes at her boobs with her free hand. ‘They’re not that sore,’ she says. ‘It’s probably just a menstrual thing. I’m probably just about to start my period. My very overdue period.’
‘Yes. It’s probably that. So just take a little look at the stick and then . . .’
‘Or I could be pregnant.’
‘You could be pregnant.’ I give the pregnancy test a significant look. ‘If only there were some way to tell.’
‘You’re not being very supportive,’ Deb tells me.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just the suspense is killing me. Please look at the test. I can’t stand not knowing. We are basically one being, Deb. Your womb is my womb.’
Deb pauses in thought. ‘That’s very sweet of you to say,’ she says. ‘I think.’
There’s a long silence. I shift a little on our parents’ bathroom floor. It’s carpeted, a worn dark-blue carpet that’s always speckled with white flecks of toothpaste spittle and soap suds. I feel a sudden pang of homesickness. Everything’s so easy here.
‘If your womb is my womb,’ Deb says, ‘will you take this child, if there is one growing inside me?’
‘Wow, err . . .’
‘Oh,’ Deb says in a small voice. She’s shifted her hand and looked at the pregnancy test result.
I grab it off her. One line. Not pregnant.
‘Thank God,’ I say, clutching the pregnancy test to my chest, and then I remember that Deb just weed on it and chuck it across the floor.
I look at Deb. She’s crying quietly with her lips pressed together.
‘Oh, Deb, hey,’ I say, nudging her shoulder with mine. ‘Hey, it’s OK. You’re not pregnant, it’s OK.’
‘Yes,’ she says, wiping her cheeks. ‘Yes, it’s OK. It’s good. I’m just . . . Well. I’d imagined it, I suppose. That’s all.’
‘Imagined it? Like . . . imagined being pregnant?’
‘Yeah.’
I wait, a bit lost.
‘I’m never going to have a baby, am I?’ Deb says.
‘Do you . . . want to? I thought you didn’t?’
‘Me too. I don’t know, now. I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t want a husband. But I sort of wanted this baby for a minute. In the abstract. Which makes me think maybe one day I might actually want one in the concrete.’
‘You don’t need a husband for a baby!’ I wave a hand towards the discarded pregnancy test. ‘Look! You nearly just got one, all on your own!’
Deb laughs wetly. ‘I guess. I’ve just always tried extremely hard not to. So it’s a bit strange to think that maybe I want to have one after all. Don’t I know myself at all?’
She looks genuinely perplexed.
‘Sometimes you don’t know what you want until you nearly have it,’ I say.
‘Well, that’s a terrible system,’ Deb says, scrubbing at her teary cheeks. ‘Right. Life crisis over. No baby. Do you want a drink?’
I glance at the time on my phone. I ought to go back to the pub. Dylan will be hoping for that, and Marcus won’t – all the more reason
to go. But I want to stay here, at home, where everything smells of comfort and Mum’s favourite washing powder. I want to stay with Deb, who always makes me feel like enough.
‘Board game and wine?’ I say.
‘Perfect. Help me up, will you? My life crisis has made me weak.’
Dylan
Addie and I suit the summertime, I think – all the raw sunshine and long days, Pimms with strawberries and thick, velvet peach slices. As we adjust to living together, as we find new quiet patterns and learn who likes which mug best for their morning coffee, the thick dread feels far away from me, like someone I knew in another life.
We go up to London one weekend in Addie’s holidays, to see a play – she was initially reluctant, claiming that everything I like is ‘incomprehensible’, but I talked her around with promises of famous actors and ice cream in the interval. It becomes clear within minutes that I have chosen very poorly: the website claims that this modern interpretation of Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris is ‘as lurid and scintillating as an episode of Love Island’, but it turns out no amount of neon swimwear could make this play accessible. I sit here, teeth gritted as the Queen of Navarre takes a full five minutes of groaning to die, and wonder what the hell I was thinking dragging Addie to London to watch this absolute car crash.
As Addie shifts beside me, bored, frustrated, I reach for her hand.
‘Let’s go,’ I whisper in her ear.
‘What?’ She blinks at me in the half-darkness of the theatre.
‘This is drivel,’ I tell Addie, my lips against her ear. I feel her shiver at the contact and it makes me hot; I can never resist that shiver. ‘It’s dreadful, Addie. It’s . . . what would Deb say? It’s absolute toilet.’