by Jason Arnopp
Rejecting such a stressful thought, I lose myself in the sea and this gorgeous floaty feeling. Oh yeah, the stud Scott Palmer was worth waiting for. He certainly didn’t seem so old-fashioned when we snogged on the sofa and then ended up on his bed.
Beyond the orgasms, though, lay something else. Something that immediately felt deeper and even more intimate.
Behind me, the window-door that connects the living room to this balcony slides open. Brief footfall on the decking heralds Scott’s arrival before he hands me a drink, wraps his arms around my waist and plants his chin on my right shoulder.
We fit together, don’t we? This kind of dovetail match feels so unusual for a new coupling. So very promising.
“Do you trust me?” he whispers in my ear, then hums Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. We share a chuckle at our Titanic recreation, then slip into a shockingly comfortable silence. Together, we watch the black ocean explode onto the beach, over and over, powered by a crescent moon.
My very own Leo DiCaprio may cement the end of my digital addiction. Everything seems so perfect, right down to us having met so randomly at the detox retreat. Like it was all meant to be…
Let’s not carried away, though. We’ve had sex, not a wedding. Let’s keep everything in perspective here.
Ah, fuck that – I demand to embrace the moment.
I demand to embrace this night.
I’m the queen of the world.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
3 October
What I am, is the queen of WTF.
The queen of the bewilderness.
The queen of churning guts.
Scott’s flat always had a minimalist look. And yet, little more than three months after our cheeseball Titanic moment, this place looks minimalist to the nth degree.
Swaying beneath the archway that connects the hall to this wide living space, I am a delicate Victorian dame in need of smelling salts.
I would sit heavily on Scott’s faux leather sofa, but I can’t, because it’s not here anymore. I would perch on one of his high-backed chairs, but there are none of those to be seen either.
There is nothing here.
Zero. Nada. Zilch.
Every stick of furniture, the TV, the desk, the PC, all of Scott’s possessions… they’re gone, all gone. Only the fixtures and fittings remain.
I seize upon the idea that all this emptiness must be a weird optical illusion perpetrated by the ailing sun and the salmon-pink sky. So I flick a switch on the wall, but none of the lights come on. When I try another switch, back through the archway, the hall stays drenched in black. Here, I realise what had seemed different when I peered in through the letterbox. The display table and its marble sculpture have gone.
This must be what people mean by an out-of-body experience. Feels like only my mind is moving around the flat, while my body stays put in the living room.
Reaching the L-shaped bend in the dark hallway corridor, I float inside the large bathroom and take in the bare sink. The metal rails where towels once hung. The parched, empty mouth of the medicine cabinet. I tug a long dangling cord by the door, but the overhead bulb fails to respond.
The flat is cold, and yet I feel hot, too hot by half. When I spin one of the sink taps and water pours out, I gratefully splash some on my wrists, then the back of my neck.
Out in the hall, the airing cupboard greets me with four blank, white shelves. Which only leaves the bedroom to check.
Gingerly, I grasp the door handle, then hesitate in darkness.
Droplets of cold water trickle down my spine as variants of Scott’s corpse present themselves to me.
Scott, hanging by his neck from the overhead Mediterranean-style fan, his tongue bulging grotesquely between his lips.
Scott, blue in the face, slumped stiff on the carpet with a syringe hanging out of his arm, wearing the shocked grimace of a man who did not expect to die today.
Scott, murdered in countless ways, all straight out of OTT horror films. Bludgeoned to death. Strangled until his eyes popped out. Beheaded with an axe…
Or this may be worse than anything you ever saw, in reality or onscreen.
Stop. Please stop. Let’s open the door and get this over with.
I clear my head to the best of my ability.
Then I twist the handle, push the door inwards and reveal the room.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
28 June
This no longer feels like a room at all. This space has become the eye of a storm.
The perfect storm.
Inside me for the first time, Scott thrusts hard enough to shunt the bed against the wall. My calves cushion his bare shoulders, even though I didn’t know I could achieve such flexibility. Go, me.
Without breaking rhythm, Scott eases my legs back even further, so that his face is directly over mine. Sweat drips from his forehead and lands on my cheek.
He and I haven’t talked about an actual relationship yet, but now our eyes lock and I feel owned. Usually I end up with my eyes closed, afraid to show myself, but straight away Scott and I connect. I mean, we really connect, like we’re gazing straight into each other’s souls and feeling comfortable with what we see.
This feels a shade unnerving, but also pretty damn awesome.
As Scott pushes me closer and closer to oblivion, a feral smile stretches his lips. His eyes glow. And yet, during those frantic breaths before he follows me over the edge, that wolf mask slips to reveal the vulnerable guy from Tinder.
I can see that he feels owned, too.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
3 October
Here’s the calm after the storm.
The sole evidence that the bed was ever here comes courtesy of the four carpet marks left behind by those fancy metal feet.
Both side tables: gone.
Walk-in wardrobe: empty.
I can’t believe this barren space is the same room in which Scott and I created our bubble. Surely this cannot be the safe haven which rendered the outside world an afterthought. I wonder briefly if I’ve broken into the wrong flat, but then I remember the unique wolf knocker. Besides, Flat Twenty-Three is definitely the one to which I sent Scott’s birthday card, two months back.
Floating back along the hallway, I struggle to comprehend the sheer nothingness of the whole flat.
Trying to grasp what’s happened here feels like trying to grab smoke.
By the time I’ve completed my circuit back to the living room, I’m determined to remain calm and positive. It seems so far-fetched that Scott really would bail on our relationship, especially in such a ridiculously extreme manner. I simply cannot bring myself to believe it. I won’t.
My eye flounders around in the nothingness once again…
… before being lured to the thing on the sliding door that leads to the grey, windswept balcony.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
5 July
Out on the sun-splashed balcony, seated on plastic garden chairs, Scott and I mop up the final mouthfuls of lunch. We’d tossed a couple of Quorn burgers onto the old barbecue that sits out here. The metal case may be thinly barnacled with salt after years of sea-facing service, but the grill handles the burgers and buns well enough.
When you gaze at the strips of beach on either side of the pier, you see more bare human flesh than stones. The media are calling this Britain’s most extreme heatwave. If I was still on Twitter, I’d see environmentalists using this fact as climate-change ammo, while idiots fire bullets of sheer denial back at them. Two distinct perspectives that can never meet in the middle. Another unwinnable social media war, in which each side tries to show their followers how well they’re doing in the argument by retweeting the opposition and adding their own withering putdown. Look everyone, I’m totally owning this guy! How great am I? I’ve used that technique myself, many times. I’ve returned to my phone endlessly to see how many Likes and RTs I’ve scored, while awaiting the opposition’s latest salvo with a thrilled kind of terror.
You protest too much. You’re dying for dopamine right now.
I genuinely believe I’ll never go back to the insanity, now that I have Scott. He checks his own smartphone a fair deal, but mainly for work, so that’s okay.
As we carry our plates back off the balcony and into the flat, I notice faded white marks on the glass of the sliding door, highlighted by sunshine. More sea-salt? No, these marks are on the inside.
Since I don’t actually live here, I keep my tone lightly teasing as I say, “Baby, when did you last wipe this door?” Yes, we’ve already progressed to the affectionate nickname stage of our relationship, even though we’ve yet to get any more creative than Baby.
“That pen’s supposed to clean off completely,” Scott says. “Maybe I’m skimping on the elbow grease.”
Sensing my puzzlement, he adds, “Oh, sometimes I draw on the window during my work breaks. It’s really good to shift posture from time to time. Ergonomics and stuff. Plus, it’s relaxing. Wanna try?”
Standing right in front of the giant whirring fan that Scott has positioned in the living room, I enjoy the sweat evaporating on my skin. “Oh God, you’re kidding, I can’t draw for toffee. Couldn’t even draw if you offered me fudge. Mmm, fudge. We need to go back to that amazing fudge place in The Lanes.”
As Scott dumps our plates into the spotless sink, he says, “Pretty sure I’ve still got two of these pens I use to draw on the window…”
“Seriously,” I protest, “I couldn’t even draw a square. Please don’t make me embarrass myself.”
Rinsing off our plates, Scott calls over: “See if there are a couple of big white marker pens on my desk? They’re liquid chalk.”
With some reluctance, I abandon the fan. First thing I see on Scott’s meticulously tidy desk is a pamphlet covered in writing. Looks like an old A-Z booklet that people would once use to physically write other people’s addresses on, back in, oh, the 1920s. This one has been repurposed and appears to be covered with… a whole load of his online passwords.
Memorise them. Memorise them all.
Hey, brain, stop that shit. I have no need to know my boyfriend’s passwords.
Yeah, but need and want can be two very different things… Plus, if he’s left this info sitting here, he’s practically asking for it.
“Can you see them?” Scott’s voice yanks me back to what I’m supposed to be doing. Forgetting the password pamphlet, I return to the sliding door with a big white marker pen in each hand. Joining me, Scott takes one. “We can do something where you don’t need to be able to draw. You only need to be able to copy, to trace.”
He heaves the sliding door shut, muffling the sounds of traffic and the infuriating plinky-plonky musical busker camped out on the seafront. Then he explains that we’re going to draw onto the window what we see outside.
I still take some persuading, but Scott makes us both a gin and slimline tonic, then twists the fan around to face the sliding door. The final convincer comes when he strips down to his shorts and encourages me to do the same.
Having begun on the left-hand side of our glass canvas, I draw around the outline of the zip-wire tower, then the wire itself. Must remember not to stick the tip of my tongue out of one side of my mouth. Not sexy.
Scott takes on the more intricate job of etching Brighton Pier, plus the four yacht-like masts that poke up out of the Harvester restaurant. He also handles the jagged line where the sea meets the beach, which I quite fancied doing myself, because I’m rather getting into this.
“Don’t do the horizon,” I warn him. “I want to do that part.”
“Do it together?” he suggests.
As I trace the horizon from east to west, Scott goes west to east. Together, stripped down to our bare essentials and hammered by blissfully cool air, the nibs of our pens finally come together.
Out here in the real world, two different perspectives actually can meet in the middle.
CHAPTER TWENTY
3 October
Drawn with white marker pen on the glass of this sliding door is a rudimentary cartoon face, the size of a dustbin lid. I’ve only noticed this bizarre vision now because the last gasp of sunset has blazed in through the glass, a fierce orange, as if setting the face on fire.
This face has empty circles for eyes. A scarecrow nose, shaped like a capital “V”.
What really hits me, though, is the broad mouth, with the mocking, half-moon grin.
Not feeling quite so calm and positive now, are we? Scott’s laughing at you. And you know damn well it was him who drew this.
How I’d love to disagree with myself.
I contemplate this demonic vision for as long as I can bear. What the fuck is this supposed to mean?
Even as I watch, these last embers of light fade, leaving the face a little less Satanic, as if encouraging me to keep an upbeat, open mind. Without even realising, I’ve placed both hands on top of my head with the fingers interlaced. Self-consciously, I drop them back down by my sides.
Okay. Time to take stock.
My boyfriend clearly hasn’t died of a heroin overdose, or I would have already discovered his corpse. And there’s surely no way he’s been murdered, or kidnapped, or any of that dramatic stuff I’d feared. Not unless his assailants had the entire flat cleared afterwards as an elaborate middle finger to forensic experts.
On closer inspection, the place actually hasn’t been cleaned. There’s still plenty of grime and dust, plus a few decaying scraps in the fridge. Hold on… what if Scott’s heroin addiction made him sell everything?
Okay, okay, Little Miss Drama Queen: we can surely abandon the “heroin” line of enquiry, no matter how ropey Scott’s looked of late. But what if he’s in debt and has felt too ashamed to tell me? This would make me question how much of a connection we really had, but it would also beat him having walked out on me, or yanking the rug out from under my feet with a mean-spirited leer.
What exactly is this face on the sliding door, if not a mean-spirited leer?
Drifting back out through the front door, I pop open a small cupboard to reveal the flat’s electrical fuse box. While studying the row of switches, hoping in vain to spot the odd one out, I try to imagine what kind of pressure might have grown inside Scott as my big move neared. What if debt weighed upon him until he ran for the hills, or work tipped him into a full nervous breakdown? He could be in hospital somewhere. Like I told Izzy: who would even know to notify me if Scott was—
A noise like the end of the world blares out of the flat and shakes my bones.
Jesus. This must be the entryphone handset, mounted on the wall inside the front door.
Could this be Scott, buzzing up? Even though we never arranged a time, is it possible that he’s sold all his furniture to make room for the few bits of mine I’ve brought? Maybe he wants us to buy a whole load of new stuff together? Did he want to surprise me with this fresh start?
Yeah, right. So he sold his desk, his PC, all his books and his Blu-rays too – even the towels in the airing cupboard – so that the pair of you can choose new ones. Get real! Also, if this really is Scott, then why would he need to ring the entryphone? Don’t tell me: he’s lost his own keys?
Oh. I know who this must be. My fucking removal men.
The entryphone blares again.
What do I say to these people, who have faithfully ferried my stuff all the way from a city in which I almost certainly should have stayed, to a brand-new city where I know precisely no one except Scott? Can I really tell them to perform a great big U-turn?
The only person I know who would willingly harbour my stuff for a while would be Izzy, if her place wasn’t already so cramped. Besides, I know Scott would show up the very minute I gave these people the order.
No retreat, no surren
der. I’m going to stay here and find out what the hell’s going on.
The buzzer sounds a third time. Drawing on every Zen technique I know, I slam the electrical cupboard shut.
When I pick up the entryphone, I’m still hoping to hear Scott’s voice, but nope, it’s The Beardie Boys all right. Against all odds, my voice comes out calm and collected, like it belongs to someone else. “Hi, sorry, I was in the shower. Will buzz you in now.”
Denial, that’s what I need. The magic ingredient to get me through the next hour.
Everything is fine. Everything is great, in fact, because I’m moving into this wonderful seaside flat with my utterly knowable soulmate, who definitely hasn’t vanished after daubing Satan on the window.
While waiting for the guys to get up here, I spy a few keys dangling from hooks above the entryphone. Only takes me a few seconds to confirm that two of these fit the door. No doubt a third fits the building’s main entrance, so at least something’s going my way.
For how long will you need these keys, though? For how long do you plan to stay? Should you even be here right now?
The act of faking a smile and a sunny demeanour, I’ve read, can trick your brain into feeling happier. So when The Beardie Boys show up, I fire some cheery small talk their way, apologise for the lack of lighting, then disappear. While they haul my boxes up from the foyer, I camp out on the balcony with the sliding door shut firmly behind me. Need to reassemble my head and work out the next move.
The garden chairs and table have gone, of course, so I’ve dragged one of my boxes outside. Here, on this impromptu cardboard seat, I can contemplate the sea in vague comfort. The barbecue’s been taken, too. But for Christ’s sake, by whom? If not Scott, then was it bailiffs? Implausibly thorough burglars?
