Never Saw You Coming

by Hayley Doyle

  ‘Do you think that’s what I mean?’

  I pondered his question. He was always encouraging me to see beyond the 2D. He tried to get his classes to do the same, which usually ended in titters or smart-ass comments.

  ‘Well, it makes sense,’ I said, nodding thoughtfully.

  ‘How?’

  ‘It’s cheesy but home is where the heart is, right?’

  ‘Clichés exist for a reason.’

  ‘If you don’t know where your heart is, where you’re loved, then you can’t call a place home, can you?’

  ‘And how does a young girl like you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘Because I don’t know where I belong. I never have. I mean, I really loved living in Singapore because my school was awesome. But we moved, and I always knew we would move, so I never felt like I could relax or make friends because I knew I’d have to say goodbye to them. It made it easier that other kids were in the same boat; you know, expats.’

  ‘I’ve always been intrigued by the students here like you, the expats.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was born in Kent, grew up in Kent, I even went to university in Kent. Moving to this school was like taking a rocket to the moon.’

  ‘You see, I’m intrigued by that. You must love Kent.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because you know it’s yours.’

  AJ laughed. ‘So, Zara Khoury, are you telling me you’re homeless?’

  ‘Privilege and material things aside, then yes. I’m a homeless bum.’

  ‘And what about this school? Don’t you see this as home, for now?’

  ‘AJ. You just answered your own question.’

  ‘I did?’

  ‘You said, “home … for now”. Surely home is … what’s that word that means forever?’

  ‘Permanent?’

  ‘Yes. Home is permanent.’

  ‘You’ve never had that, have you, Zara?’

  I shook my head. I’d also never completely realised any of this until I’d said it out loud. Mr Blackmore had helped to discover my talent, but AJ was helping me to discover who I was.

  ‘We can display these prints for parents’ evening,’ AJ told me as we both admired the finished pieces hanging to dry on clothes pegs across the art room. ‘Like a mini exhibition.’

  ‘With my name above them all?’

  ‘Of course!’

  I thought nothing of throwing myself at AJ, my arms wrapping around his middle.

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ I cried. ‘That’s the best news ever.’

  He hugged me back, no hint of stepping away. His hand fell upon my head and he tossed my hair, roughly yet meaning well.

  ‘You deserve it,’ he said. ‘Your parents will be proud as punch.’

  ‘My parents won’t see it. Unless we take a photo.’

  ‘They aren’t coming?’

  ‘Nope. My mom’s heavily pregnant, so she can’t fly. And my papa is too busy, but I don’t blame him, he’s got to work. It’s cool.’

  What wasn’t cool was Octavia Langford witnessing that hug. And informing Mrs Llewellyn. I was no longer allowed to engage in extra art sessions unless it was during scheduled art club. AJ was issued with a warning, something he told me when we met in town every other Sunday afternoon to sketch in the park. Sometimes I played around with the landscape, but when I felt particularly inspired, I created cartoon strips, breathing a fantasy into the world I knew. The forbidden friendship lit a fire within me, gave me a deeper understanding of what made me tick, and nothing became more important than finding ways to keep AJ in my life.

  Until AJ fell in love.

  He met the owner of an independent bookstore in the village close to the school’s grounds. How painfully romantic. He introduced her to me once, and never arranged another Sunday afternoon session again.

  And, it embarrasses me to admit, something deep within me cracked.

  I persisted in trying to get one of our meetings arranged, or perhaps to start lunch sessions again because, ‘Octavia’s stupid snitch was months ago – surely no one cares anymore!’ and when AJ said no, I cried, broken hearted at the loss of my first true friend. Well, at least that’s who I thought he’d been.

  Mrs Llewellyn found me in tears outside the art block.

  The stout woman, who did indeed reek of cigar smoke, became a mother figure to me for this long, strong moment, just as she vowed she would be to all her girls when they enrolled at the academy. I relaxed into tears as Mrs Lewellyn held me tight, walking me slowly to her office where she allowed me to pour my heart out over a cup of English tea and a digestive biscuit.

  ‘He was so much more than a teacher, Mrs Llewellyn. And I was so much more than a student. To him. I felt it. And I’ve never felt anything like that before.’

  I wasn’t allowed to discuss it any more. Mrs Lewellyn instructed me to go to class and ‘perk up’ because I’d gotten everything off my chest. She said it wasn’t an admirable quality to wallow.

  A week later, I found my dorm cubicle raided and a series of sketches resembling a cartoon strip – complete with my initials on every loose page – scattered all over my bed. The strip featured the intimate adventures of a small white cat with the letter ‘Z’ hanging from her pink collar, and her affair with a big black dog carrying a teacher’s cane, his fur splashed with spilt paint. Not one student took the blame for invading my personal space, nor did any of them pin blame on another.

  Adam Jeffrey Blackmore resigned from his position with immediate effect.

  And I was put on the first flight to Boston.

  24

  Jim

  So, Zara got to go to Hogwarts but didn’t learn to fly.

  I wonder how a girl like her would have survived in my school. It was Catholic, but about as religious as a packet of prawn cocktail crisps. The girls rolled their skirts around their waists so many times to show off their legs that sometimes you could see their knickers. The lads would stand around in large packs, hardly speaking, wide stances in Kickers boots and hands stuffed into the pockets of Berghaus or Helly Hansen jackets, too expensive for most families to buy their sons, but they found a way anyway. It was either that or the bullying would kick off. The girls approached us way more often than we approached girls, the gender split across the school yard as bold as a lightning strike. Christ, it must have been hell on earth for the misfits.

  I was lucky, I had good mates.

  Then, when we got a bit older, I had Helen.

  When you coupled off, and it was serious, it was a thing to stand off behind the science block, arm in arm. The daring ones would cop off, and yeah, Helen was daring. We’d kiss for the length of a lunch break, my balls aching to explode, the afternoon a fucking bastard to get through.

  I was clever though. Not bragging, like. My reports and exam results can prove that.

  But, hey, I wonder where I’d be now if I’d had the chance to go to Hogwarts.

  25

  Zara

  ‘Wow, I just talked a lot,’ I say to Jim, after a beat.

  He blows his lips out. ‘Sounds like you were better off out of there.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was one of the world’s top boarding schools. Still is. That stigma stays with you. I’m not blaming my lack of career on something that happened when I was fourteen, but—’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘I guess.’

  A sign for Heathrow airport indicates we’re getting close, although traffic is building up, moving, crawling, then moving a touch faster again.

  ‘Shall we play a game?’ I suggest. ‘To pass the time?’

  Jim nods.

  ‘A–Z of a TV show?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘What is this? 1999?’

  I scoff, a little shocked by how retro Friends has become. ‘Breaking Bad?’

  ‘Good choice. Me first. A – Albuquerque.’
/>
  ‘B – Bryan Cranston.’

  When we reach the letter ‘Q’ in our third round of the game, the latest topic being classical literature (Jim’s choice), the minibus crawls into gridlock.

  ‘It’s as if everyone has just accepted this is the way it has to be,’ I complain.

  Jim switches the engine off, folds his arms across his chest.

  ‘Honk your horn, Jim.’

  ‘What good’ll that do?’

  ‘Nobody’s honking.’

  ‘It might come as a shock, love, but that won’t budge the traffic.’

  I check the clock on the dashboard again. Thirty minutes ago, I was expecting to arrive at Heathrow precisely two hours before my flight is scheduled to take off. Now, I’m cutting it fine and moving nowhere fast.

  Jim closes his eyes, resting up.

  ‘Jim?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I’m going to miss my flight.’

  ‘It’ll move soon, girl.’

  ‘This is so frustrating.’

  ‘I don’t know what your problem is. Can’t you just read a book?’

  ‘A book?’

  ‘Yeah, if I wasn’t a slave to this wheel, I’d just sit back and read.’

  ‘Oh, sure. And where do I get a book from?’

  ‘You mean you haven’t got a single book in all that stuff back there? In your life’s belongings?’

  ‘No, books are too heavy.’

  ‘Not even one paperback?’

  ‘No, Jim. Not even one paperback.’

  ‘You’d find that time passes by quite beautifully with a paperback.’

  ‘Beautifully? Seriously?’

  ‘In fact, here you go.’ Jim reaches down into the shelf in his door. ‘Read this. It’s the book Mary gave me. It’s more the sort me ma prefers, but hey, a book’s a book.’

  I accept the book, some sort of thriller with the silhouette of a child dragging a teddy bear up a hill.

  ‘You brought this with you even though you knew you were driving?’

  ‘I always have a book with me. Always.’

  ‘You didn’t have one with you before we got to Mary’s.’

  ‘I did. I had the Gene Wilder autobiogr … FUCK.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I left it in the fucking BMW.’ Jim slams his palms against the steering wheel.

  ‘Guess you’ll be needing this back, then?’

  And Jim snatches back my offering, smoothing the crease in the cover, and returns it to the little shelf inside his door. As angry as he is, I have to admit that his temper is quite cute, how he cares so much for something as trivial as a book. I imagine drawing a little monkey with a red face, holding a bunch of books close to his chest, perhaps with a scholar’s hat and spectacles. Or, perhaps not a monkey. A frog. Yes, a little green frog, all protective about his precious paperbacks, hopping on them to mark his territory. That would make a great sketch.

  ‘Look, you’ve got bags of time,’ Jim says.

  But he’s wrong. Check-in will close in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes and although we’re just a handful of miles from the airport, we aren’t within walking distance. We’re trapped.

  ‘Wasn’t there a better route you could’ve taken?’ I snap.

  ‘Ah,’ Jim sighs. ‘I forgot this’d be my fault.’

  ‘Can’t you ever answer a simple question?’

  ‘Can’t you ever stop being such a demanding little princess?’

  ‘Fuck you, Jim.’

  ‘Oh fuck you, Zara. Fuck. You.’

  My mouth hangs open. How dare he. How DARE …

  ‘Stop gawping at me, Zara.’

  I turn away, keeping a tight hold of my disgust.

  ‘I didn’t cause that accident down there, or road works, or whatever’s going on, like. Don’t blame me. God, you can be so fucking childish. Did you know that?’

  If my intestines could loop into a knot, they would do so right now. I despise being called ‘childish’, a word my papa likes to use whenever things don’t work out for me. Like when I defended my expulsion, or dropped out of university (a course he also referred to as ‘childish’ because ‘drawing is for pre-schoolers’). He even called my relationship with Zein ‘childish’ because I never had a ring on my finger. To give him some credit, he did show fatherly concern about my scar, and lowered my rent when I couldn’t get a job. But when I cried he reminded me not to be so ‘childish’ because like all wounds, it would heal.

  Damn it, Jim’s right this time. I am being childish.

  ‘You think you’re the only one with problems, don’t you?’ he says through gritted teeth, almost as if he didn’t want me to hear him. I peer across, feeling as though I’m spying on him as he leans over to his phone, scrolls through recent contacts and clicks on, ‘Ma Home’. The loud speaker rings out and Jim snatches the handset, bringing it to his ear, keen for some hint of privacy.

  His mom doesn’t answer.

  Jim taps the wheel with his free hand, his foot revving unnecessarily. He hangs up and tosses his phone aside. It lands between my feet. I bend down and pick it up, placing it on the seat between us with care.

  ‘I’m sure she’s okay,’ I say, delicately.

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘She’s gone to a party … a sixtieth birthday party. She told you, earlier.’

  Rain batters down on the windscreen. We left one storm in Liverpool, and after driving down the spine of the country through wintry drizzle, we’ve hit another storm in London. The minibus rocks from side to side as enormous winds show the motorway who is in charge here. The traffic starts moving again, slowly, and as Jim edges forward, stopping, starting, stopping, starting, visibility is beyond poor and it’s a miracle he doesn’t drive into the back of the car in front.

  ‘Yvonne,’ Jim says, eventually, breathing a small sigh of relief, and although he’s speaking loud enough for me to hear, it’s clear he’s talking to himself. ‘She’s gone to Yvonne’s sixtieth birthday. Ethel Barton’s daughter.’

  And in complete silence, we make it to Departures at Heathrow. Twenty minutes too late.

  ‘Check-in is closed,’ the grounds staff inform us.

  I’m pulling endless reasons from the air as to why they should allow me to check in. From inventing a terminally ill grandmother, to pretending I’m a journalist keen on publishing a high-profile article on how airlines treat their customers, to yelling that the damn plane won’t be taking off for another hour, I fail on all accounts.

  My luggage is battered, tired, sitting on an empty line in front of an empty check-in desk, Jim resting upon it. He looks as worn out as the jeans on his long, skinny legs and I can only sympathise. The man, for all his faults, has done his best. He tried with impressive effort to get me here on time, and despite it costing me a small fortune, I just can’t remain angry at him. It’s too exhausting. In fact, he looks as disappointed as I feel.

  ‘What happens now?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m on stand-by for the next flight with availability. Tomorrow morning … if there’s a spare seat.’

  ‘Do I get to go home now?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘You gonna be alright?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Jim stands, overbearing in height next to me. I’m longing to brush my teeth, take a shower, lie down, and no doubt Jim feels exactly the same. Twisting my hair around and around, I secure it into a messy bun with the band around my wrist. And he smiles, just on that single side. It’s infectious, and I smile back. Our journey could have been a whole lot brighter if moments like this weren’t so far apart. Just that morning, I’d woken up in a cheap youth hostel beside a pub already swarming with students drinking pints for a pound. My heart had been totally broken, and it’s Jim who has been by my side.

  ‘You know what would be cool?’ I say.

  ‘What’s that, love?’

  ‘If we met by chance in say, a few years from now … a good chance, like—’

  ‘Like if I d
rove into the back of your brand-new BMW?’

  ‘Ha ha. You really should leave your mysterious empire and go into comedy, Jim.’

  ‘I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘But, what I’m trying to say is, it’d be cool if we met and I wasn’t a heartbroken wreck, and you weren’t hanging on death’s door with alcohol poisoning. We might have a shot at being friends. Maybe.’

  ‘It’s definitely crossed me mind that you were sent from hell to torture me.’

  ‘Oh, me too. Likewise.’

  I hesitate, but decide to reach out my arms towards Jim and his shaggy tattered hair, his thickening stubble. A small chuckle escapes from me first, then another followed by him, and he steps forward, accepting my farewell embrace. He’s all skin and bone beneath that dated old fleece he’s been wearing all day, his long arms wrapping firmly around my small back. I thought he’d feel damp, kind of cold, as his appearance presents. But he’s warm, like a gentle fire burning beside a thick woollen rug. I squeeze him tight. God. I could’ve done with a decent hug like this hours ago.

  ‘Well, if we don’t meet by chance again,’ Jim says, not fully breaking away, his hands resting on my lower back. ‘I hope that heart mends. It’s wasted on that lying bastard scumbag. You’re worth more.’

  Breathing in a little through my nostrils, I swallow the lump that’s popped up in my throat. Tiny tears prickle around the corners of my eyes and I wonder why more people in my life can’t decide to say such nice words to me.

  He’s leaving, backing away, except he reaches one arm out and I presume he’s about to give my shoulder a gentle punch, say something along the lines of ‘hang on in there, kiddo,’ then I remember he isn’t an American jock. Instead, he squeezes my shoulder and moves his hand towards my face, and with absolute tenderness, strokes the patch below my scar and says, ‘All the best, love.’

  At the check-in, a new line of passengers starts to form, ground staff now at the desks. That brief stillness within one of the world’s busiest airports has come to an end, and hustle returns to greet bustle. I sigh, preparing myself for the long, lonely night ahead of me as Jim gives one wave, a single salute, and walks away. The sliding doors to the terminal’s entrance are opening and closing with haste, a gush of angry wind slipping through and blowing in lingering dead leaves, a discarded sandwich wrapper, a loose luggage tag. Jim takes a quick step backwards when the wind sends a hit his way, before continuing onwards, forwards, outside.