Never Saw You Coming

by Hayley Doyle

  The room itself isn’t too bad, though. Pine desk with a matching chair, a clean sink and mirror, a single bed with fresh folded sheets. Folded. Oh, God. I’ve got to make my own bed.

  I pick up the white bed sheet, hard and crisp, and shake it open.

  No. I’m just too tired.

  There’s nothing I want to do right now. And I mean it. Nothing.

  So, I flop down onto the bare mattress, not even pausing to remove my army jacket or my suede sneakers, damp with the splashes from the outdoor puddles. The sheet’s creases are harsh, lines as sharp as rulers, but I cuddle it against me. It can act as a giant tissue.

  I haven’t cried over a guy like this, ever.

  Sure, I cried over Zein (I know – Zein and Zara – believe me, that’s as cute as it got). Another lifelong expat, he was a first-class engineering graduate and we were on and off for years; usually on when we were both in Dubai. When he suggested a ski weekend in Beirut, I’d just been offered a promo job and couldn’t say no to the money. I mean, if I wasn’t paying my papa back for the wasted tuition fees after I dropped out of university, I would’ve gone. Except, I was. Paying my papa back. And, guess what? Zein fell in love on the slopes of Mzaar. Fate. They’re married now and have a son. I’ve always told myself that was beautiful because if it happened to Zein, it will happen to me. It happens to all of us.

  But I’ve been single – well, ‘dating’ – ever since.

  I check my phone.

  Nick is online. Oh my God, he’s online. And yet he hasn’t messaged me. Did he see me? God, of course he saw me. Unless he’s blind, something else he might have miraculously forgotten to mention along with the whole house and the whole wife and the two whole fucking children. I can’t help myself. I type.

  What happened today? Send.

  I wait for the tick. The two ticks. They don’t turn blue. He hasn’t seen it. He’s no longer online. He’ll reply as soon as he sees it, though. I know he will. His head can’t handle leaving it until later. He’s the most efficient replier since the internet began. Nobody replies more quickly than Nick Gregory. You’d think he had nothing better to do. Oh, we’ve joked about it a million times over. It’s one of our things.

  Come on.

  Where are you?

  I hold my phone close to my chest, too afraid to check again and yet not ready to let go. I think of the mop in the Peugeot. Oh, what a fool I am.

  I wish I hadn’t left those bottles of wine in my suitcases now.

  I grab my purse, go down five flights of stairs and run past Ida. There’s a store opposite and I buy their finest bottle of screw-top red. Five pounds ninety-nine. Back in my hostel room, I turn the lamp on, but there’s no bulb inside. The main light will have to do. Well, it’s either that or total darkness. Besides, I’ve unscrewed the bottle. This isn’t a party. I swig as the harsh light beams down on me, like the sun when you’re desperate to find shade. I swig some more. The wine is tart, dry, coating my teeth and landing in the pit of my empty stomach with a heavy splosh.

  In the corridor, I can hear Spanish voices, fast talking, full of song.

  My sobs grow thicker and slower, until I’m so drowned in disappointment that I drop my phone and, thankfully, fall into a deep, deep sleep.

  8

  Jim

  Pulling up in front of next door’s house, just to throw my ma off a little, I decide not to use my set of spare keys and ring the doorbell instead.

  ‘M’lady,’ I say, mocking some sort of posh accent. ‘Your carriage awaits.’

  My ma wraps her baggy cardigan across her body and rolls her eyes. ‘You been drinking? Get in, you daft sod.’

  ‘Nope. I haven’t been drinking and I’m not coming in.’

  ‘Y’what?’

  ‘You, m’lady, are coming out.’

  ‘Get in, soft lad. And what’s all this “m’lady” stuff? Get in, I’m freezing.’

  ‘Go on, go upstairs and put on your best frock.’

  ‘It’s gone eight o’clock. I’m watching Corrie.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Mother! I’m taking you out.’

  ‘Out? Why?’

  ‘I’ve got a taxi waiting,’ I fib. ‘He’s waiting on the corner.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘Best frock. Now. The spotty one you wore for me graduation.’

  ‘I’ll never squeeze into that.’

  ‘The jumper with the sparkly stuff—’

  ‘That’s me Christmas top.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t got Father bloody Christmas on it, has it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go!’

  The front door slams in my face and I return to my car, grinning. Closing my eyes, I imagine Griffo’s dad handing me a briefcase filled with notes wrapped in wads of a hundred quid. A strong handshake. Like in a film. What the hell am I going to do with it all? After pouring the lot into an empty bath tub – of course – and climbing inside; smelling it, crunching it, flicking it into the air?

  Fifty. Grand.

  My phone vibrates again. I know who it’ll be.

  I rally shouldn’t mix me dunks. I do love Snowy. He’s the bather of my kids. H xx

  Maybe I’ll bugger off to South East Asia for a few months. That’s where people go, isn’t it? Angkor Wat and war museums, partying in giant donuts floating along the Mekong? Or is thirty-three a bit too old for all that? Will I look like that loser who still hasn’t found his way? Around nineteen-year-olds, cocksure they’ve found theirs?

  Ah, shit.

  I feel soooooooo guilty. I really move Snowy. He’s a good man. H xx

  *love

  Christ’s sake. I’m just going to keep ignoring her. Helen’s lucky to be with Snowy. They’ve always had my blessing.

  Through the rear-view mirror, I see my ma coming, the street lamps reflecting off the sequins on her top. Good, her handbag is hung over her arm. Her pills will be in there. Sitting on her shoulders is her red anorak, slung around her like a cape.

  I jump out, opening the passenger door for her, and bow. She gives me an impatient slap across my head and bends over to peer inside the car, looking for a driver perhaps, before standing up straight again. A rocket squeals, bangs pattering out low in the sky above us.

  ‘What’s going on, Jim?’

  ‘I’m gonna tell you everything.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  ‘No need for any “Oh, Jesus”’; this is a genuine surprise. But if we stand out here all night, we might be struck dead by a firework and we’ll miss our chance. Get in, I’ll explain everything.’

  I gently help her lower herself in before settling myself behind the wheel.

  ‘Oh, love. What’ll the neighbours think?’

  I honk the horn – twice – and my poor ma jumps, a strange little yelp escaping her mouth. Off we drive. Sleepy streets lead towards a main road of struggling shops and many chippies, a pub on every corner. Rows of houses scattered amidst derelict warehouses, a disregarded part of the city that yearns for redevelopment. I feel bad calling this place a shit hole. It’s where I grew up, where my dad and my ma did their best, where – despite the negative press and lack of aesthetics – I’ve always been safe, welcome.

  ‘You’re looking at the dashboard as if it’s some sort of nuclear weapon,’ I laugh.

  My ma, the woman who always knows what to say, even at funerals, is silent. The racing seat swallows her and she sits back, her head pressed into the seat, eyes wide, frog-like, as if she’s sat at the top of the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. I’m going twenty miles an hour and yet her knuckles are white, gripping onto her handbag.

  ‘Tell me you didn’t steal it,’ she mutters. I notice she’s wearing lipstick, a rosy pink that shimmers on her thin lips. ‘Actually, if you did steal it, tell me the truth.’

  I pull over, a little too sharply. We both jolt.

  ‘Mam. You’re sitting in this car with me. Me. Your son, James Anthony Glover.’

  She shoots me a weary look.

/>   ‘I’ve never stole anything in me life. You know that.’

  Her eyes narrow. ‘Is this something to do with Griffo’s dad?’

  Oh, bloody hell. It wasn’t. But now it is.

  Turning the ignition, I sigh. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘Well, you don’t seem to wanna let me indulge in surprising you, so …’

  ‘Oh, don’t be daft. Look at you sulking.’

  ‘I’m not sulk—’

  ‘You are. Your chin’s gone all chubby and your lips are pouted.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Look, I’ll shut up. I’ll keep me big mouth zipped.’

  ‘Nah, forget it.’

  ‘I most certainly will not forget it.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I want me surprise.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell.’

  The tinkle of a piano sounds through the speakers. I turn up the volume and drive onwards. Elton John’s voice serenades us and I catch a glimpse of my ma’s face softening, her eyes closing into a smile.

  ‘Ooh, I love this one,’ she says, singing her own version of the words to ‘Your Song’. ‘Doesn’t it remind you of our Emma’s wedding?’

  I smile. It does. The last time all five Glovers were together in one room, dancing, laughing, alive. The relief it had given my ma when our Emma had announced she would be getting married in Liverpool, bringing her American fella and his folks to her home city, was priceless. It made up for the holy shock of our Lisa eloping to Las bloody Vegas.

  We turn onto the Dock road and as much as I want to put my foot down, feel the beauty of the power behind the rev, I remain as cautious as a learner, as sensible as an instructor. We cruise past the Liver Birds, then the Albert Dock floodlit beside the Wheel of Liverpool. Rockets sparkle across the sky, gentle bangs echoing from all around.

  ‘Your dad would’ve loved this,’ my ma says. ‘He’ll be looking down on us, leaning against them pearly gates, grinning from ear to ear. I can just see it.’

  I try to see it, too, but to me, it’s a scene from one of those biblical films from the Seventies, bellowing voices and beards, nothing that resembles something real, something true. I wonder how clear the images of my dad in heaven actually are to my ma, for although a lifelong Catholic, she doesn’t believe in God. Or the church. Or even the Holy Communion she takes each Sunday morning when she goes along with Ethel Barton and her daughter, Yvonne. She goes out of habit, of course, and pretends to believe out of guilt. She regularly admits to both.

  ‘You hungry?’ I ask.

  ‘Hungry? It’s almost me bedtime.’

  ‘You don’t fancy some supper?’

  ‘You mean like tea and toast?’

  The Titanic Hotel is one of the finest on Liverpool’s waterfront, and highly recommended by Griffo’s dad. An old rum warehouse in Stanley Dock shining with redbrick class, it has a vast, grand, and surprisingly cosy industrial feel. The lobby opens out into a spacious, thriving rum bar. Long wooden tables and modern hanging light fixtures surround us as we sit up on high brown leather bar stools.

  ‘Are you sure you wanna sit here, Mam? There’s a nice couch by the window.’

  ‘I love sitting at the bar,’ she says, her tiny feet dangling down, swinging. She’s wearing her black shoes with the little white bows on the toes, the ones she bought for my graduation. ‘I always used to make your dad sit on the high stools with me.’

  ‘Ah. I didn’t know that.’

  ‘We did go on the odd date, you know. Once or twice, like.’

  We order a cocktail each; I decide on a mai tai, my ma a pina colada. Melted ice dribbles onto my t-shirt and it strikes me how scruffy I must look right now. My knees are poking through the rips in my jeans.

  ‘I mean, look at this place.’ My ma lowers her voice. ‘Who would’ve thought people’d pay to stay somewhere called the Titanic? And it’s confusing ’cause it feels really posh, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t look anything like that ship that Jack and Rose fell in love on. It looks more like a warehouse.’

  ‘That’s because it is – well, it was – a warehouse.’

  ‘Can you believe I’m drinking a pina colada?’ she giggles. ‘Wait ’til I tell our Lisa and our Emma about this. They’re phoning home tomorrow night, you know. Isn’t that marvellous?’

  I raise my glass. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Am I allowed to ask what this is all about yet, love?’

  I give a little hum, teasing her. Then, I tell her the whole story. Starting with the phone call that morning in the toll booth to walking into the offices of Mersey Wave 103.4 to sign for my prize.

  ‘They gave me a free bottle of water,’ I add.

  ‘You can get free water from the kitchen tap, love.’

  ‘And then, there it was,’ I say, holding my arm out as if the car’s behind the bar. ‘No red ribbon or anything like I imagined, but I can live with that.’

  My ma looks into her pina colada, shrinking into the bar stool’s wide leather back.

  ‘I’m pleased for you,’ she says, not sounding pleased at all. ‘Just be careful.’

  ‘I can drive. I’ve driven the bloody van every time Snowy’s moved house.’

  ‘I don’t mean that. I mean be careful with your luck.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember that woman who won the Pools? It brought her nothing but misery. And all those lottery winners in the paper, they go on about how winning was the worst thing that ever happened to them.’

  Rubbish. My dad keeling over on the Dock road is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Nobody more than my ma should know that.

  ‘I’m gonna sell it,’ I say. ‘And take you to Florida.’

  ‘What? America?’

  ‘Well, what other Florida is there?’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘I certainly can do that.’

  She purses her lips, wafting away something invisible between us with one hand.

  ‘No,’ she says, but she’s fighting back a smile.

  ‘You’ve been desperate to go to Florida ever since they moved,’ I say. ‘Don’t deny it.’

  ‘And I’m not letting you waste your money on that. It’s a bloody fortune.’

  ‘It’s not a waste. It’s far from a waste. You’ll get to meet your grandchildren.’

  Her eyes are wet with tears, her voice shaky.

  ‘But I have met them, love,’ she says. ‘I’ve met them on the internet, on the screen.’

  It’s just not in her nature to accept something so expensive, so big. Even when I buy her M&S bath sets for Christmas, she always demands to know why I bother, and instead of saying thank you, she tells me how she makes do with the stuff from the Asda perfectly well, the peach melba shower gel. But, really, she absolutely loves the M&S set.

  ‘Well, you’re gonna meet them in person,’ I say. ‘Get real hugs. Real ones.’

  ‘I think I need a lie down. Will you take me home, love?’

  ‘Well … I was gonna get you a nice posh room, so you could enjoy them massive hotel beds and soft pillows, get a cooked brekkie in the morning.’

  ‘I’ve got soft pillows at home. And what am I gonna sleep in? This Christmas jumper?’ she snaps, then places her hand on her heart. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, love. But, I don’t want you spending a penny of that money on your old mother tonight. I want you to spend it on yourself, or a nice girl. That’s what you should be doing. Not worrying about getting me a room on the bloody Titanic. You know I can only sleep in me own bed anyway.’

  Yeah, I should’ve known that.

  ‘Now, that’s enough of getting all emotional for one night,’ she says, straightening her Christmas jumper. ‘Who the bloody hell do we think we are, eh? Getting carried away like that. Anyone’d think this was an episode of Corrie. You can’t tell I’ve been crying, can you?’

  I shake my head. No.

&nb
sp; ‘Right. Good. Now, get me a taxi, please, love.’

  ‘I can give you a lift,’ I say, but she’s already on her way through the lobby. ‘I’ve got a car, remember?’

  ‘You’ve had a drink.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t wanna stay? I’d love to treat you.’

  ‘You’re taking me to Florida! Let’s not go over all that again. And you got me a pina colada. Besides, I left me pills at home.’

  I know she’s not telling the truth, that they’re in her handbag.

  ‘I’ll give you the cash for the taxi tomorrow,’ I promise.

  Rockets still squeal above and in the distance, a smoky ghost dancing across the city. I turn around and reenter the Titanic hotel. The barman asks me if I’d like a table this time. I agree and order a pint, the sharp sweetness of that mai tai still hanging on my tongue.

  ‘Will anybody else be joining you?’ the barman asks.

  ‘Maybe,’ I reply and take out my phone. There’s a couple of girls’ numbers, sure, but only ones that it hasn’t worked out with and I haven’t bothered deleting. Scrolling through my contacts, everybody I care about is at Snowy’s party. They’ll be shitfaced by now. And—

  For fuck’s sake. Another text from Helen.

  Ru comin back to the party? H xx

  A pint is placed on the table before me along with a little bowl filled with mixed nuts.

  ‘Just me tonight,’ I say, and an emptiness sinks into me, as cold and as deep as the Titanic itself.

  9

  Zara

  Outside the multi-storey parking lot this morning, the street is littered with carefree students and fried chicken takeaway boxes. I’m drained. Sure, I slept, but not soundly.

  ‘You can’t park there, love,’ some guy announces.

  I know I can’t park there. And the way he calls me ‘love’ isn’t affectionate, rather like ‘shove’. I ignore him and re-jig my bits and pieces around my second- or possibly third-, fourth- or fifth-hand little Peugeot. I’m struggling to fit the mop across the back seat. I knocked it last night when I got my clean underwear out of a suitcase and it’s poking me in the ribs as I try to drive. I need to get away. Today is a new day and all sorts of wonderful things might happen with the right attitude. For a start, Ida wasn’t working this morning to give me a half-assed condescending look as I left the hostel.