Love, Almost

by Hayley Doyle

  ‘I did. God, Beth. I did. I’ve never felt that way before.’

  ‘You need to hold onto that, babes; store it in a special place. But you’re dragging it out and you know what? I think it’s warping what you had …’ then Beth puts her hand across her mouth to prevent a laugh escaping.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I ask, wondering what’s brought this on.

  ‘I’ve just gone on and on about how you never try hard at anything, and when it comes to Jack, fuck me, you’ve tried so hard. You’re still trying! You’ve literally gone all over the fucking world. If you’d put half of that effort into being an actress you’d have won a fucking Oscar by now.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to find this funny?’

  ‘What else is there to do?’ Her face turns serious again. ‘I’m not sorry.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I want you to live your life and be happy, Chlo.’

  ‘I want that, too! For both of us.’

  ‘So don’t drag me backwards.’

  Beth straightens her skirt as she stands and hooks her bag on her arm. She shakes out both hands as if she’s just washed them and the hand-dryer is broken. A shiver envelops her before she pulls herself together.

  ‘Enough of this,’ she says. ‘I can’t be indulging in this soft chitchat any longer, babes. I’m off. Got a ton of things to tick off me list before the morning. I’ll ring you on me lunch tomoz. Okay?’

  I blow her a kiss.

  A single gust of wind brushes a few stray leaves around my feet. Autumn is on the horizon. The new term is imminent. Beth turns left and disappears down a residential street of Victorian terraces, where every window has white ledges and matching wooden shutters. I check my phone and enjoy the satisfaction of seeing a reply from Si.

  Aggggghhhhhh. I’m in Bruges! Back on Saturday AM. X

  Fan-fucking-tastic.

  There are a few more messages – afterthoughts to his response: Am I back for good? How did my mum react? Have I had a change of heart about teaching? Did I want to watch the first week of Strictly with him this Saturday night?

  This is all lovely. Truly, it is.

  But it doesn’t solve my current situation.

  I’m going to have to take advantage of the key sitting at the bottom of my satchel.

  And with an ache that could break me into jagged pieces, I head south on the tube.

  30

  The aroma of warm tomato sauce greets me. Onions. Garlic. Minced meat?

  Nothing smells familiar.

  I throw my key into the blue Marrakech dish and put my denim jacket on the coat rack. I notice instantly how it hangs tidily, with ease, with no large garments to contend with. In fact, the narrow hallway is somewhat brighter, as if a few extra inches have been added either side. There’s a sense of out with the old, in with the new. Jack’s coats are gone.

  The floorboard creaks beneath my Converse and I freeze mid-walk, splay my fingers to keep my balance. I feel like an intruder. Tiptoeing closer to the kitchen, the smell of bolognese gets stronger.

  OH! GOD!

  My chest drops into my belly, like when you go down the steep part of a rollercoaster and you wonder whether you might’ve shat yourself. Just a bit. But you recover quickly. Relief comes as quickly as the shock did … I haven’t shat myself.

  But that hunch over the hob, stirring the sauce. That chin, cocked out in concentration.

  It’s Jack.

  It’s his brother. Freddie.

  He was supposed to be moving in next week, although it looks like he’s done a fine job of it already. Two new sofas have replaced the L-shaped makeshift bed I’d slept on in the weeks after Jack’s death. The coffee table is littered with opened ASOS packages. Rudolf isn’t anywhere to be seen. I fixate on the tealight candles on the windowsill. Some are burnt out. I wonder if they’re the same ones that Jack lit months ago, or if they’re new, the wick still warm. I should say hello, but the clanging of a tin lid on the kitchen floor beats me to it.

  ‘AGH!’ Freddie yells. ‘HOLY MOTHERING FUCK OF … OH, SHIT ME. SHIT!’

  I back into the wall, and echo, ‘AGH!’

  Freddie clambers down to pick up the lid, his hands suffering a bad bout of butterfingers. He’s catching his breath whilst repeating more fucks and shits. His face is very different to Jack’s, and not just because he’s clean-shaven; his features are strikingly ‘Trish’ with those small, burning eyes and cheekbones that mean business. He’s built like Jack, though, and perhaps it’s the lack of hairiness that makes him look a tad overweight. I never thought of Jack as overweight, more a giant.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ I blurt out.

  ‘You scared the shit out of me!’ He’s shielding himself with the lid.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d moved in.’

  ‘I thought you’d moved out.’

  ‘I only went to … erm …’ I don’t know how to explain myself. ‘I’m – sorry.’

  ‘I’m done. I’m done, done, done,’ Freddie says, more to himself than to me. His hands fly up as if he’s being held at gunpoint and the lid once again crashes to the floor. We both yelp, although mine’s a gasp and his is a squeal. In his frantic state, he stubs his toe on the cooker and I’m hoping he’s referring to that when he calls out, ‘You crazy bitch!’

  He hops past me and throws himself onto a sofa. Pulling his sock off, he repeats his yelp-squeal, stretching out his toes.

  ‘I’m not being dramatic,’ he whimpers. ‘I’ve got an ingrowing toenail.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I offer.

  ‘I play a lot of rugby, you know.’

  I nod and decide to get him a drink of water. The glasses are in the same cupboard as always; the same cups, the same beakers and tumblers. I spot a Beatles mug lurking in the back. That belongs to me. As I close the cupboard, it creaks on its hinges. Freddie lets out another yelp, but much quieter than the previous outbursts.

  ‘It’s like living in a haunted fucking house,’ he says, throwing his head back into a cushion and closing his eyes. ‘I’ve only been here for three days, but ah man, I’m done. I’m so DONE.’

  ‘You keep saying that.’

  ‘Because I am.’

  ‘No need to snap.’

  ‘I’m not snapping,’ he snaps. ‘I’m scared. And I’m not afraid of admitting that. I’m not, you know.’

  Jeez. Freddie Carmichael has issues. But that’s not for me to stick my nose in.

  He takes the water I hand to him.

  ‘Cheers …’ he says, and falters.

  ‘Chloe,’ I remind him.

  ‘Sorry. Chloe, yeah. Cheers.’

  I perch on a bar stool, comfortable enough not to run away but not feeling sufficiently at ease to sit on the other sofa. Freddie drains the water in a series of fast messy gulps, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘This was such a bad idea,’ he says, staring into the empty glass. ‘Jack still gets post.’

  Agh. I was hoping that had stopped. It’s impossible to know everything he might be on a mailing list for, though. Before I went to Thailand, a catalogue for camping equipment had arrived for him.

  ‘It’s like the walls have eyes,’ Freddie says. ‘Everything I do, there’s a thud, or an echo. That lampshade on the ceiling rattles, you know. I’m not imagining things; I’m not.’

  ‘I know.’

  I want to tell Freddie how much I believe him. The lampshade does rattle. But it’s because of the fella who lives upstairs, the one who travels a lot and pulls his suitcase around the wooden floor. Now’s not the time, though. I let Freddie go on.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to remember my brother. But I don’t want to be reminded of him every second of the fucking day. You think that’s sick, don’t you? You do, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I mean, it’s hard not to think about my brother and not relate it to how he died.’

  I wholeheartedly get it, and I clench the stool I’m perched upon. Thanks to Freddie I c
an see Jack crossing the road, feet away from this flat, his heart beating with an abundance of life, his mind full and active, and I see the van come hurtling around the bend on the hill. I hate these visions, the ones I’ve been concocting over the past few months. God, I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Freddie asks.

  Me? I realise I’m breathing heavily. ‘I was just thinking about …’ And I don’t need to finish the sentence aloud, don’t need to spell out that he’s just reminded me of exactly what happened to Jack. But I don’t know exactly. It’s all guesswork.

  ‘No one’s gone down for it,’ Freddie says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s literally nobody we can blame, is there?’

  I’m hit with a memory, except it feels like a dream. Not a pleasant one. A disjointed conversation with Giles, the neighbour from the second-floor flat. I think I was drunk. That fog of screw-top wine I’d hibernated into during the days that followed. I was taking the recycling out. Or a bin. And I was wearing one of Jack’s t-shirts with no jeans or leggings, just my bare legs, unshaven and so white they could reflect the hot London sun. Giles called my name. No; he tapped me on the shoulder. I was aware of my wine breath, my unbrushed teeth. ‘Did you see it in the Metro?’ he’d asked. His voice was calm, clipped, kind. I said, yeah. Or nodded. I can’t recall. But I didn’t indulge. Of course, I hadn’t seen anything in the Metro. ‘It’s such a tragedy,’ Giles had said. ‘Nobody to blame.’ I can’t remember how I got back into the flat, how I said goodbye. If I said it at all.

  ‘I blame the driver,’ I say to Freddie.

  He narrows his eyes and drops open his mouth, glaring at me. Without words, his whole expression tells me he’s deeply offended by what I’ve just said. I retreat, break his gaze, but I know he’s still staring at me, burning holes into my skin with his disgust. What have I done? What have I said?

  ‘You’re sick,’ Freddie whispers.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘You blame the driver?’

  ‘Well – erm – yeah, and why? Don’t … you? Or, clearly not. Erm—’

  ‘He wasn’t obese! Never smoked! To all intents and purposes, he was healthy, happy, and then the Grim Reaper came along, didn’t he? Ooh, decided to pick him. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.’ And Freddie turns his hand into a pistol, pointing it directly at my forehead. ‘Boom!’

  I jolt, intimidated.

  ‘Boom! BOOM!’ Freddie continues, spitting as he speaks. ‘And that decision wiped out the driver’s son, and, of course, my big brother. So yeah, I could blame him; the big fucking Grim. But no therapist is gonna help me through that shit, are they? Ha! Ha, ha. What could they tell me? That I’m in the same boat as every other living person? Pissed off at death? Death himself. Or herself. I’m not sexist, you know. I’m not. Death is as likely to be a she as a he. Unless! Unless Death is neither. Nothing. But it must be something. Something that’s nothing couldn’t make us feel so bad, could it?’

  I’ll be honest, Freddie lost me somewhere around ‘healthy’ and ‘Grim Reaper’.

  ‘Who was healthy?’ I ask meekly, a croak in my throat. ‘The driver?’

  ‘BOOM!’

  ‘Look, you’ve confused me and I just want to understand. Please?’

  ‘B-b-b-boom!’

  ‘Oh, “boom”, yourself!’ I say, picking up a loose tangerine from the breakfast bar and chucking it at his head. I’d like to say this was a kneejerk reaction to being shot, but maybe it was loaded with intention. Definitely maybe. Freddie breaks out into a surprised smile. He likes me challenging him. I get the feeling he rambles on like this often and perhaps nobody pulls him up on it. Trish probably thinks it’s brilliant! Expressive! A stroke of genius! To me, it’s plain irritating and my mum would give him a smack across the head and tell him to take a cold shower.

  ‘What’s there to understand?’ Freddie asks, picking up the tangerine and holding it in his palm, examining it for damages. ‘You read the papers. You were living on this road, for God’s sake. Did you see it? Hear it? Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t understand. Can’t you give me some answers?’

  My head is hurting. I think of that little emoji with the exploding brain.

  ‘I didn’t read the papers,’ I admit.

  A silence overcomes us. The pause lasts longer than I’d prefer. A bus drives past and the windows rattle. Freddie jumps up and the cushion he was leaning against falls to the floor. He picks it up and drop-kicks it carelessly, knocking the telly a little and causing a stray coaster to slip onto the carpet. With a grunt, he exits the room. I hear him thrashing around the bedroom, drawers opening and closing, zippers zipping.

  I gaze at the ground in despair, unsure of what to do with myself.

  The carpet is new. Cream, like before, but fluffy and immaculate, not a stain in sight. Now that I see it, I smell it; the rubbery newness. I want to take off my Converse and my socks, allow my feet to melt into the marshmallow of the soft bristles. I’m also paranoid that if there’s a single mark present, it will be my fault. An effervescence grabs my attention and I see the bolognese bubbling over. I run to its rescue and turn the hob off.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Freddie says. I whip around and he’s leaning against the door frame, a North Face bag weighing down one shoulder. He points to the bolognese. ‘It’s the family recipe, but I made it with Quorn. I’m a vegetarian.’

  ‘Okay …’ I realise the Quorn has contributed to the overall unfamiliar smell.

  ‘I never read the papers,’ he tells me, lowering his bag to the floor. He speaks slowly, calmly, taking deep breaths between sentences. ‘I mean, I wasn’t living in London then, so I didn’t have access to the Metro. It was in our local paper, too. I refused to read it.’

  I nod. He must know I understand.

  ‘I was, however, living with my parents. When it happened. The driver of the van had a heart attack. Whilst driving. His son was in the passenger seat and apparently had tried to take over the wheel. He went straight through the windscreen from the driver’s side. The driver was dead before the van even hit Jack. Case. Closed.’

  My eyes close. If I keep them open, I’ll see the road through the front window, the exact road where Freddie’s story took place. But now, I see my own version emerging from the blackness of my eyelids. I force my eyes open; engage with Jack’s brother.

  ‘Did you know he had a day in lieu?’ I say. ‘It’s why he was off work. If he’d gone in—’

  ‘STOP! I’m done. Remember? I told you. I told you before. Done.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No. I am. Sorry. But I’m freaked, you know. Really freaked.’

  Another bus hurtles past, a double decker this time. Freddie retrieves his bag.

  ‘And THAT,’ he says, any serenity in his voice gone. ‘Fucking THAT!’

  He’s referring to the wall above the cooker, the blood draining from his round, smooth face. It’s the man sat in the shopping trolley. I glance up and swear Ronald McDonald blinks, bows his head a little. It’s like when I went to Speke Hall in Liverpool as a kid; the eyes on the paintings followed you around the room, and we told each other stories of the Pink Lady and the Grey Lady to evoke nightmares. But I’m not scared. There’s no mystery to this picture, and God, nothing to be feared. It’s just Bangkok market tat.

  ‘Anyway. Bye, Chloe. I’ve got to get out of here.’

  ‘I should go, too.’

  ‘Why?’

  The new sofas and carpet are enough to remind me I don’t live here any more.

  ‘Look,’ Freddie says, waving his hand, ‘don’t answer me. I don’t want to talk any more. I’m tired, you know. I need a coffee. Like, now. A proper one – not the instant shit I found in that cupboard. Fuck. That picture is just – I can’t – I mean … Chloe. Have a good life. Bye.’

  The front door slams shut, and I freeze. I keep my breaths small, discreet.

  Nothing creaks. No bus rattles the windows. The Quorn bolognese tickles my
nostrils and whets my taste buds. The ski lesson is still Sellotaped to the fridge and for the first time, I see the funny side, imagining Jack clapping his big hands and howling at my pathetic efforts. I unpick the tape, rip the email in half, then half again, and pop it into the recycling.

  ‘We did it,’ I say. ‘Kinda.’

  Kit and Gareth’s wedding invitation can come down, too. But I won’t be throwing that away. Gareth designed it, psychedelic swirls around the date and venue, their faces camouflaged beautifully within the design. I place it on the breakfast bar. It’ll look fabulous in a frame.

  ‘We did that, too.’

  The fridge looks less cluttered. I feel a strange sense of calm.

  Still taking up space, though, is the flyer for Ross Robson’s gig. I take it down, read the date; Jack’s day in lieu. How different that day – that night – should have been. Would I have appreciated Ross’s sense of humour, or would I have been on the other side of the fence? Somehow, it doesn’t feel right to discard it. I put it back beside the estate agent’s card.

  Something is missing.

  The photo of Jack on his dad’s shoulders. I wonder if Freddie took it.

  There’s no size 13 trainer or stray stripy sock lying around anywhere, either; no parka for me to melt into. It’s like the flat has been disinfected of Jack. There are, however, voices coming from the communal garden. Giles, and he’s laughing at Ingrid. Or rather with Ingrid. The gentle lilt of her accent is musical. I walk into the bedroom and notice the window propped open on its hinge, a chill filtering in. On impulse, I close it tight. As the silence greets me, I open the wardrobe and pull one of Jack’s sweatshirts off a hanger, wrapping it around my shoulders. A musty smell welcomes me, the remains of aftershave rubbed into the wool from what was once warm, warm skin.

  ‘There you are,’ I smile.

  All of his clothes are right where he’d left them.

  Beth was wrong. This isn’t warped. This is where I’m meant to be.

  I think I can finally sleep in the bed tonight.

  31

  Surrounded by squeaky new shoes destined to be scuffed by the end of September, I shuffle through the corridor to meet my new form class. I’ve been assigned a Year Nine group. God. Fucking. Help. Me. Before I became a teacher, anything I associated with Year Nine bore the fond glow of yesteryear – my first snog at Lindsey Jones’ fourteenth birthday party; class detention for being rude (or witty, as we interpreted it) to the substitute maths teacher; playing Dulcie in The Boyfriend. Now, Year Nine is a snake pit.