The Sight of You

by Holly Miller

  I fear this to be something of an understatement—growing up, I was always the one with my eyes mortifyingly trained on a nature book or, worse, an episode of Countryfile with my dad. I’d be barefoot outside as soon as winter became spring, collecting sticks and leaves and eggshells, getting mud on my face and twigs in my hair.

  Sometimes in summer, when the skies were hot and still, Dad would set up a bulb in the garden to shine overnight. A wooden box fitted beneath it, and early next morning we’d marvel at the moths we’d attracted that had danced through the dark as we dreamed. Elephant hawk-moths in bubblegum pink, garden tigers exquisite as any butterfly, and my favorite, white ermine, with their regal fur coats. We’d add them to our list, then stow them safely in the undergrowth away from prying beaks so they could shelter from the daylight before darkness fell again.

  My ex Piers used to rib me for being a nature nerd. He was the kind of guy who killed spiders with slippers, crushed wasps beneath pint glasses, squashed moths as they slept. And every time he did, a little bit more of my love for him died too.

  “Nothing uncool about having a passion,” Joel says.

  “I’m just a hobbyist, really.”

  “No potential for a career?”

  I pass him a wineglass, decide the story’s too long. “Maybe.”

  We clink gently. I take a chilled sip, feel a rush to my bloodstream that I suspect isn’t fully down to the alcohol.

  He’s leaning over to inspect my row of pots on the windowsill. “What are you growing?”

  “Those ones at the end are herbs. These are just houseplants.” I offer up a smile. “I like the greenery.”

  Moving on to my other bookcase, he examines my tiny library of travel books—a guide to Chile, Birds of South America, a collection of maps. Books on the Baltic states—hand-me-downs from a onetime friend of Mum’s who’d traveled there in her youth. I guess my parents thought they might go someday, but evidently they never got round to it. The farthest we ever went in my childhood was Spain and Portugal, the odd camping trip to France.

  I’ve spent hours lost between the pages of those books, armchair-traveling to unspoiled outposts and lunar landscapes, where civilization vanishes from view and earth submits to sky.

  “You’re a globe-trotter,” Joel surmises.

  I think of Grace, how she’d laugh at this. “In my dreams, maybe.”

  He seems to swallow, before gesturing to the books. “You’ve not . . .”

  “Not yet. I hope I will, someday.” I sip my wine. “There’s this . . . national park in Chile, way up in the north. It’s always been kind of my ambition to go there.”

  He looks over at me. “Yeah?”

  I nod. “We learned about it at school. I remember our teacher calling it . . . a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.” I laugh, pronouncing the words precisely for effect. “It just sounded so exotic, so exciting. Like somewhere in outer space.”

  He laughs too. “You’re right, it does.”

  A girl on my course at uni had been, claimed to have spotted a bird there so rare it’s almost myth. It made me want to go even more, that idea of being outsmarted by nature.

  “I’m kind of drawn to remote places,” I confess. “You know—where the earth feels bigger than you.”

  He smiles. “Yeah, humbling, isn’t it? Like when you look up at the stars and remember how tiny we all are.”

  Together we move to the sofa. Joel drops his free hand to Murphy’s head, lets his fingers fondle his ears.

  I sip my wine. “So where’s the most interesting place you’ve been?”

  “Actually . . . I’ve never been abroad.” He exhales and looks embarrassed, as if he’s just confessed to hating football or disliking the Beatles. “How dull is that?”

  Though surprised, I’m also a little relieved that he doesn’t carry with him travel stories from every continent, as Grace did, tales to make my life seem even more mundane than it already is. “Not at all. I’m hardly adventurous. Is there any reason you . . . ?”

  “It’s complicated.” I wonder what the story is, but before I can ask, he’s changing the subject, asking how long I’ve been at the café.

  “Actually, it belonged to my friend Grace. She . . .” The words buckle on my tongue. “Sorry. She passed away quite recently.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a few moments. Then, very quietly, “I’m really sorry. What happened?”

  “It was a hit-and-run, a taxi driver. He was drunk.”

  The soft stretch of a pause. I feel his gaze sweep gently across me, comforting as a lamp in fog.

  “Did they—”

  I nod quickly. “He got six years.”

  I go on to tell him everything then—about Grace and adopting Murphy, quitting my job to take on the café. “I was a PA before, at a factory. They manufacture metal packaging. You know—for drinks cans, aerosols, paints . . . Actually, never mind. I’m boring myself just thinking about it.” I put a hand to my face and laugh. “So what is it you do?”

  He seems uneasy suddenly. “Did. Actually, I was a vet.”

  Incredible—for a moment, I’m not sure what to say. My instinct, irrationally, is to wonder why he never mentioned it, before I realize there’s no reason at all why he should have. “But you’re not anymore?”

  “Taking some time out.”

  “Burnout?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I imagine being a vet can be stressful. Like being a doctor.”

  “Yeah, it can be.”

  “Do you ever miss it?”

  He seems to cast around for a response, then tells me he walks dogs as a favor for some of the older folk in the area, that it helps to stave off any pangs of regret.

  I smile, happy to be reminded there are genuinely good people left in the world.

  Joel sips his wine, his hand seeming large around the stem of the glass. He does have vet’s hands, I think. Capable, trustworthy.

  “So where’s Steve moved to?” I ask.

  “The new development by the marina.”

  “Oh, I spent most of my childhood down there. At the nature reserve.”

  “Waterfen?”

  “Yes,” I say, pleased. “Do you know it?”

  He nods, and I look again into his spilled-ink eyes. “It’s an excellent place to empty your head. If you know what I mean.”

  “I do,” I say.

  We chat for a few minutes more until we’ve finished our wine. But before I can offer him a refill he’s thanked me, given Murphy a parting pat, and made his way to the door, where he hesitates for just a moment before leaning forward to peck me on the cheek.

  The graze of his skin against mine brings a heat to my face I’m still thinking about hours later.

  14.

  Joel

  At Halloween, Melissa decides to drive all the way from Watford to drag me to the corner shop (something about week-old tangerines not really cutting it on the trick-or-treating scene).

  Over a week has passed since my drink with Callie in her flat. I’ve thought a lot about reciprocating, have rolled the conversation around my mind in the hope of making it smooth and seamless.

  But then I remember all the reasons I have to resist whatever it is I’m feeling for her. To honor my commitment to noncommitment. Not that doing so is easy when you live on different floors of the same house. Callie’s unguarded and charming whenever I bump into her, and a far more considerate neighbor than I am. She sorts our mail, reminds me when I forget about bin day. Leaves the occasional cake boxed up on my doormat after her shift.

  But my favorite thing about living in the flat below Callie is the power ballads that pelt forth from her shower most mornings. She’s a shocking singer, but I’ve discovered I don’t care. As it turns out, I love waking to the sound of her unique and strident discord.

 
I could stop going to the café, I suppose. But that seems extreme action to take on account of a crush. I’m a man in my midthirties, not a boy of fifteen.

  “We should really terrify the kids tonight,” Melissa suggests, as we walk to the shop, “and send you to answer the door.”

  “I’m very nice to children, actually.”

  “Come on. You’re the least kid-friendly person I’ve ever met.”

  “Inaccurate. I love kids. My nieces and nephew will vouch for that.”

  “You don’t like Toy Story.”

  “So what?”

  She shrugs. “It’s weird. Everyone likes Toy Story.”

  “You know what I think’s weird? Grown-ups watching cartoons.”

  Melissa brushes a strand of platinum wig hair from her face. The party she’d been going to in Watford has fallen through but, unsurprisingly, she’s sticking with her costume (Julia Roberts’s character in Pretty Woman. Obviously. Earlier she produced a can of silver hairspray, asked if I wanted to be Richard Gere. I said I did not).

  “Look, can you just walk behind me? I don’t want anyone to know I’m with you.”

  “Ha.” She loops her arm through mine. “I love embarrassing you, Joel. You’re so uptight and twitchy.”

  Well, I can’t really argue with that.

  * * *

  • • •

  I lose Melissa by the confectionery, grab a few essentials while I’m here. Baked beans, white bread, tomato soup, pizza. Maybe one day I’ll work out how to cook and do a Big Shop, like most people my age. But for now, cans and things in packets suit me fine.

  “Happy Halloween, again,” says a voice, gentle as a breeze.

  I turn, and it’s her. She made me a pumpkin spice latte this morning, brought it to my table with a little meringue ghost and a smile that still hasn’t left my head.

  “You know,” she says, “we forgot to talk about who’s going to be on trick-or-treater duty tonight.”

  I feign giving this some thought. “Well, actually I don’t believe in trick-or-treaters.”

  “Interesting.”

  “My theory is, if you pretend they don’t exist, they go away.”

  Callie nods slowly. “My theory is, you’re closest to the outside door. Are you honestly going to make me run down a full flight of stairs every time?”

  I tease her with a raised eyebrow. “I might.”

  “All right. I’ll make it fair.” She holds up a couple of packets of Halloween-themed Haribo. “I’ll buy the treats. But we have to split the leftovers later.”

  We share a look. It travels to my stomach, in long, lucid loops.

  But now I’m tasting Melissa’s perfume, feeling her arms lasso my waist. My heart sags a little, which isn’t really fair on Melissa. Still, in my defense, she is dressed as a prostitute.

  “I’ve got the Haribo, babe. Let’s go.”

  I clear my throat. “Melissa, this is Callie.”

  In Callie’s green-gold eyes, something dwindles. “Hello.”

  “Hello,” Melissa says, mimicking her tone exactly. “What are you dressed as?”

  Callie looks surprised, then at me.

  Mortified, I shake my head at Melissa. “You’re the only one in costume.”

  “I’d better get going,” Callie says politely. “Nice to see you.”

  Melissa takes me by the hand and leads me toward the till, boots click-clacking against the lino. “Who was that bitch?”

  “Hey.” I stop, drop her hand. “That’s a bit strong.”

  Her face lifts. “Joel! I’m just messing with you. See what I mean about you being all tense and edgy?”

  “You’re not exactly helping.”

  “So who is she?”

  “My new upstairs neighbor. She moved in when Steve left.”

  “You know what you need?”

  “To pay for this and go home? Preferably alone?”

  “Ha. You love me really.”

  No, I think. I really, really don’t.

  * * *

  • • •

  I’m sitting on the living room floor, back to the wall, pizza box next to my knees. Like always, I’ve ordered a large pepperoni to share at Melissa’s request. But she never eats more than two pieces, and I have to pick all the pepperoni off.

  She crouches next to me, extracts a slice from the box. “Hey, you know we’ve been doing this nearly three years now?”

  “That long?”

  A skeptical smile. “As if you don’t remember the exact date you first laid eyes on me.”

  I don’t, actually. But I do remember the occasion. A late-night exercise class, when I’d been going through a phase of thinking high-intensity spinning might be the answer to all my problems. (It almost was, in that I nearly dropped down dead halfway through the first session.)

  Melissa meandered over to me afterward, all Lycra and swinging ponytail and makeup firmly in place. I was bent double at the time, doing my best not to throw up.

  “New Year’s resolution?”

  It was January, as it happened. But I didn’t really go in for things like that. “Just want to get fit,” I gasped.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Making progress.”

  “Wow. How bad were you before?”

  After a shower and a protein shake we went back to my place. I was surprised when she called a couple of weeks later, but so it went on.

  Above our heads now, the creak of Callie’s floorboards. I picture her moving through the flat, wineglass in hand. Taking time at the window to drink in the stars.

  I can’t help wondering what she thinks of me, after our encounter at the shop earlier. Has she concluded Melissa’s my girlfriend? That I’m as shallow as I am untrustworthy?

  Maybe, I think, it would be for the best if she did.

  “Dominic hates pizza,” Melissa says, settling down by my side.

  I don’t recognize the name. But I do recognize the way she lays it down, like a parcel to be unwrapped. It’s not the first time, and we’ve never claimed to be exclusive. What we are suits us both. That’s why we’ve worked so well for so long.

  I sling three oily salami saucers into the box, play along. “Who’s Dominic?”

  “Someone I’ve been seeing.”

  “Older man?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  I shrug. “You’re a Richard Gere short of a party.”

  She smiles thinly. “No, actually.”

  “Was it his do you were supposed to be at tonight?”

  She sets her mouth in a way that implies it was. “We argued. He wants me to move into his place.”

  “How long have you been . . . ?”

  “Three weeks.”

  I masticate my carbs. “Sounds a bit full-on.”

  She slackens her jaw slightly. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

  “Look, in all honesty, if you’ve met someone you like, then . . .”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I don’t think we should be doing this. I want you to be happy. I’ve told you that.”

  We sit quite still for a while. I can feel a pulse, but we’re so close together it’s hard to know if it’s hers or mine. “We can just hang out tonight,” I say. “Nothing has to happen.”

  She snakes around to kiss me on the mouth. “Thanks. But I want it to, pizza-breath.”

  Ah, Melissa. I can always count on her to say the perfect thing.

  * * *

  • • •

  That night, I dream of something so disturbing it has me by the throat.

  Saturday night about a year from now, and I’m standing in Dad’s kitchen. He’s kicking off about something, jabbing an index finger in my direction. The words are hot with fury as they leave his mouth.

>   But they are words I can’t begin to comprehend.

  “You’re not even my son! I’m not even your father!”

  He says them twice during his minute-long monologue. I just stand in front of him, a little afraid, a lot stunned.

  And then he strides from the room, orders me to leave him alone. On the other side of the kitchen, an openmouthed Tamsin drops a bowl of strawberry jelly. It splatters across the floor and my feet. Stains them like blood.

  And now I’m at the foot of the stairs. Staring upward, shouting after him.

  “Dad? What the hell are you talking about? Dad!”

  15.

  Callie

  A few nights after Halloween, Joel catches me in the hallway.

  “Listen, I wanted to apologize.”

  Without warning my face blooms as I wonder if he’s saying sorry for the sounds I heard drifting up through my floorboards, late into Thursday night.

  I was in bed, watching a documentary about plastic in the ocean. At first I heard only a few thumps—enough to make me mute the laptop in puzzlement—but then, as the thumping became more rhythmical, overlaid with grunts and gasps, I switched the whole thing off and simply listened, motionless. I couldn’t help but picture Joel, wondering what he looked like, imagining how it might feel to be Melissa. I felt my skin creep with heat as my pulse began to thud, and then—just as I was shutting my eyes to let the picture fully unfold—there came a final, decisive exclamation before everything fell quiet. Guiltily, I fired up the laptop again and attempted to focus very hard on the grim footage of plastic being washed up on an Indonesian beach. But for the rest of the night and the next couple of days, the scene refused to loosen from my mind.

  Between an unexpectedly busy weekend in the café and my barely being at home, we’ve only passed pleasantries since—and facing him now, I’m struggling to meet his eye. I hope he can’t tell that I didn’t find it shocking or offensive—quite the opposite, in fact. He looks a bit embarrassed too, and I can’t think what else he’d be saying sorry for, so I run with it. “You really don’t need to apologize.”