Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  ‘I’ll tell you what she’s not doing,’ Elliot’s yellow eyes seemed to say, ‘she’s not sat with her parents sending almost text messages and watching her cat lick his own balls.’

  Chapter Ten

  A powdery cascade of dust fluttered down from the top shelf and into my lungs as I rearranged the Romantic Fiction section atop a teetering stool. I spluttered the dust mites from my windpipe and wiped the cover of a book on which a couple embraced before a setting sun. The quoted review read, ‘A romance for the ages.’ I scoffed and read the blurb before shoving it back between Cecelia Ahern and Jojo Moyes.

  I tried not to think about the characters that lay unread beneath my bed. I’d created them, breathed life into them. I’d rejoiced when they prospered and cried when they died, as if I, the author, had no control over them.

  I loved them like they were my children and I’d sent them out into the world to flourish, to grow, to be loved by people everywhere; but they had only returned ruined and rejected.

  I hopped down to the ground, felt a burning pain in the balls of my feet and told myself never to do that again.

  Jumping is for young people, Effie.

  ‘Romance is done. Does the True Crime section still need doing too? I think I need a little murder and espionage to get rid of this sickening lovey-dovey feeling I have inside of me,’ I said as I slumped down onto the sofa beside Arthur. When he didn’t answer I turned to him with a frown and found him staring off into the depths of the shop with vacant eyes. ‘Arthur, you okay?’

  I prodded his shoulder with my index finger, the haze of deep thought evaporating.

  ‘Huh?’ He turned to me and noted the duster in my hand. ‘Oh, thanks. I’ve been meaning to do that for a few days now.’

  ‘I know, but you’ve been far too busy making fake mistakes on your tax forms to fit in any dusting.’ I rolled my eyes and leaned my head on his shoulder. It was bonier than Theo’s. ‘Just ask him out, Arthur. He knows. Everyone knows.’

  ‘He does?’

  ‘He knows,’ I repeated, feeling his muscles tense beneath my cheek. ‘He knows and he still came anyway, which can only mean one thing.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’ He sighed and leaned his head on top of mine. ‘I’ve never been like this before. You remember that carpenter who came in to fix the shelves? I had him wined, dined and tooth deep in the pillows before he’d even finished the job.’

  ‘That you did,’ I replied, ‘but you didn’t love the carpenter; you didn’t even know his name.’

  ‘Do you love this Theo?’ he asked, the sudden change in topic giving me metaphorical whiplash.

  ‘I think I could,’ I said, ‘given enough time. But you two have had six years. Time’s running out to make a move, Arthur.’

  There was a pause in the conversation as we both sat in the silent shop. The street outside was silent with the mid-afternoon lull, as we both drifted into a state of catatonia.

  The bell above the door clanged and we both rose an inch or two out of our seats. The duster fell from my hand and a quiet whimper came from Arthur.

  ‘Sorry, is this a bad time? I can come back when you’re less run off your feet,’ Theo said as he closed the door behind him; his face breaking into a smile when his eyes found me.

  I stood up with the full intention of hugging him, but once I was up and staring into his face, I wondered if I should or not. I wanted to. I’d missed him more than was appropriate after knowing him for only a week, but I stopped myself and instead just rose and stood awkwardly beside him.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, my voice wispy and fragile like a schoolgirl’s. ‘I didn’t know when you’d be back.’

  ‘Well, here I am after so much not-so-popular demand.’ He held out his arms, as if to announce his presence.

  Every time I was confronted by Theo after some time apart, I assumed that he would have lost interest or some of that sparkle would have waned, but there it was in the bottom left-hand corner of his eyes.

  Arthur leaned over me and said hi before we all slumped back down onto the sofa and melded into its vintage leather comfort. Theo stretched out his arms and yawned. He looked at home in any place, relaxed, at ease and not worrying about what everybody in the room was thinking about him. I envied him in that way; in many ways.

  ‘So, how is the list coming along?’ Theo asked.

  ‘I ticked off the weird food one and then kinda ground to a halt,’ I said.

  ‘What list is this?’ Arthur asked.

  ‘Just some strange new kind of therapy that Theo’s forcing me into,’ I replied and filled Arthur in on everything.

  ‘You got her to go into a gym?’ Arthur asked, aghast.

  ‘I certainly did, the evidence of which is still on my face.’ Theo tilted his head to reveal the deep purple bruise that covered his jaw and bled down onto his neck.

  ‘Next thing you’ll be telling me that you got her to agree to go to Kate’s party.’ Arthur said with a laugh.

  My heart fell into my stomach. I wasn’t even going to mention it to Theo because I knew he’d make me go.

  ‘She conveniently told me nothing about this.’ Theo turned to me with judgemental eyes.

  ‘Specifically, so you wouldn’t try and talk me into going,’ I said, sending Arthur the stink eye.

  ‘Remember number ten on the list, Eff,’ he said. ‘Stop holding grudges.’

  ‘Ha!’ Arthur laughed. ‘Good luck with that one.’

  That evening, Theo and I sat in the treehouse and shared a margherita pizza from the shop on the corner. We’d popped into the off-licence and he’d bought a can of lemonade while I’d opted for a pre-mixed can of whisky and Coke. ‘Life on Mars’ played from the speakers of Theo’s phone as we devoured the pizza and sang along.

  I watched my mother as she washed up at the kitchen sink, her eyes continually glancing up at us.

  ‘I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think we’re being watched,’ I said, looking to Theo and motioning to my mother’s prying eyes.

  ‘Yeah, I noticed that too.’ He lifted a hand and waved to her, his smile wide. She blushed and waved back.

  ‘I need to get out of this house,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I would love to be able to do something without having to tell someone what I was doing or where I was going or how long I’d be.’

  ‘Yeah, you could always live on your own like me and go days without actually speaking a word,’ he replied.

  ‘I would, but some of us aren’t lucky enough to have parents who own property.’

  ‘True. I did get lucky there.’ He finished the last piece of pizza and closed the box, lying back and using it as a cheese-scented pillow. I watched him close his eyes and take a deep, lingering breath. His chest rose and fell to the steady beat of the breaths that whooshed from his nose. He was startling to look at, his hair falling down and brushing his lashes, his lips parted and ready to kiss, had I the nerve to lean over and do it. He looked like an effigy, serene.

  I don’t think I’d ever felt serene.

  His fingers drummed against his stomach as the song changed to ‘Heroes’.

  I turned back to the house, the heat gradually dissipating from my face. The kitchen window was empty now. Clearly Joy had had enough of spying for today.

  Elliot sat below on the grass, his tail whipping from side to side as he watched something moving among the blades. The treehouse was almost ten feet off the ground, a long way to fall, but that had never stopped me from hanging my legs over and pushing my luck.

  I thought back to when I’d been around ten years old. I’d just had an argument with Kate and I’d lost my temper with my mother, so I’d spent the whole evening crying in the treehouse. I’d sat where I was now, my chubby ten-year-old legs dangling down, and after an hour or two I fell asleep. I woke with a sickening flip of my stomach as I fell down, down onto the grass below, my radius snapping like a breadstick.

  At the time, it was the worst pain I’d ever felt, then I
grew up and realised that life was a greater pain still. Since that moment, when I had found myself spiralling downwards like Alice into the rabbit hole, I had begun to think a lot about death.

  I didn’t think about it in any overly serious way, I was just curious. Like, do people who die in their sleep ever know they’ve died? Did people die instantly when they were decapitated or did their brains carry on working long enough for them to see their own bleeding neck stem?

  ‘If you died right now, like if a lump of space rock fell and skewered you to this treehouse floor, what would you want your epitaph to say?’ I asked.

  ‘You know, I was just thinking the exact same thing,’ he replied, opening his eyes and turning his head to me.

  ‘Really?’ I asked lying down on my side, head propped up on my arm.

  ‘No, because I’m not insane,’ he answered.

  ‘No really, what would you want people to read on your tombstone for decades to come?’

  ‘You mean before they tarmac over me to make a new car park?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re taking all the fun out of this.’ I tutted.

  ‘Far be it from me to take the fun out of epitaphs,’ he said with a smirk. He thought for a moment and then said with dramaticism. ‘Theodore Alwyn Morgan. I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.’

  ‘What does that say about you?’ I asked, my brow knitted.

  ‘That I’m optimistic and, seeing as the great man said it himself, it shows my profound love for David Bowie. Your turn.’

  I’d thought about this before, many times. I didn’t need a minute to think. ‘Matilda Effie Heaton. I’d say I did the best with the time I had, but it’s wrong to lie on tombstones.’

  ‘How inspiring.’ He turned his face back to the ceiling, his eyes closing again. I lay my head down on the floor beside his and closed my eyes too. It felt oddly calming to feel nothing beneath my feet, as if I were floating. Maybe this was what serenity felt like.

  The song changed to ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ and I felt Theo tense beside me. He flipped over and quickly skipped the song.

  ‘Hey! I like that one.’ I tutted in annoyance and let my eyes fall closed again.

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologised, but didn’t change the song back.

  After a long silence I opened my eyes and turned my face to him; his eyes were still closed.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘Alwyn, huh?’

  His lips curled up into a crooked smile. ‘Shut up, Matilda.’

  Saturday arrived like an uninvited house guest when you have Netflix on pause, your PJs on and popcorn heating in the microwave.

  I’d burrowed down to the deepest depths of my floordrobe and pulled out anything that could pass as ‘dressy’. I hadn’t been out-out since my freshers’ weekend at uni and that had been a night to forget; cajoled into an awkward quintet of strangers, newly sharing a flat, forced to go out and get shitfaced in the pursuit of ‘bonding’. Cut to me, three hours in, about seven tequila shots and a stolen purse later, sitting on the toilet of a shitty bar and crying into my hair while the sound of ‘Backstreet’s Back’ from the DJ’s Throwback Hour thumped through the wall.

  I was less of a go out and party and more of a stay home with the cat kind of girl, so naturally my party wear was rather thin on the ground, literally.

  I picked up a floral skull dress from my emo phase and held it up against myself, frowning at my reflection and throwing it back into the pile.

  Theo had pulled out the trump card, which had been The List, and I’d been unable to refuse to go to Kate’s party. I’d promised to go along with this bucket list saga and backed myself into a corner. My phone buzzed from atop the groaning bookshelf beneath the window. I grabbed it and read the text; it was from Theo. He was on his way.

  ‘Shit!’ I shouted and threw the phone forcefully into the pile of clothes.

  ‘Language!’ My mother’s voice came from along the landing, quickly followed by her skulking footsteps heading towards my open door. ‘What’s wrong now?’

  ‘I have no clothes,’ I groaned.

  ‘Don’t give me that nonsense!’ Joy chided. ‘You can’t move in this room for clothes.’

  ‘Let me rephrase then, I have no clothes that I don’t look like a basking hippo in.’

  ‘Oh, do shut up!’ Joy picked up a shirt from the pile. It was black with a red rose floral pattern, a laced-up front and flared sleeves. ‘What about this?’

  I snatched it from her, with a little more aggression than was intended and held it up. ‘I look like a boozy housewife.’

  ‘Effie, it’s only Kate’s party.’ She crossed the room and squeezed my shoulders. ‘She’s your oldest friend. She won’t care what you wear.’

  ‘But I will. She’ll look like a Greek goddess as usual and I have to at least try and keep up.’ I picked up a pair of skintight black jeans, decided to couple them with the drunken mum shirt and grabbed my criminally underused heels from the windowsill.

  ‘It’s not a competition of who can look the best, you know,’ Joy said naïvely as she wandered back to whatever she’d been doing before.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ I mumbled to myself. ‘It’s always a competition.’

  The smooth motion of the ascending lift made me feel sick as I stared at myself in the burnished doors. Theo stood calmly beside me looking like he’d just come from an audition for James Bond, the bruised jaw helping to add to the devil-may-care narrative. He wore a blue suit with a skinny purple tie. He’d clearly gone to more effort than I had.

  I saw him turn to me in the reflection of the door.

  ‘So, is this a date?’ he asked.

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ I replied. I’d been far too busy having an anxiety attack over this party.

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to decide because I need to know if it’s appropriate for me to tell you that you look beautiful.’

  I blushed and looked down at the black suede of my shoes.

  ‘I mean, the outfit is really nice but what I like most is the greenish tinge to your face and the way you keep swaying like you might pass out.’ He smirked.

  ‘You’re the one who dragged me here. Which means that my nausea is at least fifty per cent your fault.’ I smoothed down my clothes and scrunched my hands in my hair in an attempt to give it some life. ‘Let’s just hope that Eloise “Fucking” Kempshore isn’t here.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll know her when you see her.’

  I clenched my fists at my sides and took a deep breath, closing my eyes and trying to slow my racing heart.

  I felt a warmth in my palm as Theo slid his hand into mine and gave it a squeeze. I looked up into his eyes. I could feel my cheeks burning. His thumb traced a line up and down my index finger and the sensation made my stomach flip. It really wasn’t helping the nausea.

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ he said. ‘If it truly is as terrible as you think it’s going to be, then we can just take advantage of the open bar and sit on our own.’

  If I hadn’t felt so sick, I might even have smiled.

  The lift made a quiet dinging sound and I looked at our slightly warped faces in the door.

  ‘If I fall down or embarrass myself, then please do the kind thing and just shoot me dead,’ I said with a shuddering sigh.

  The doors slid open and the terrible sound of jazz muzak filled my ears.

  ‘Breathe,’ he said quietly ‘and remember that wine is only a few moments away.’ He loosened his grip as I stepped out into a blindingly white hallway and his hand fell from mine.

  ‘Good to know,’ I replied, retaking his hand and squeezing it tight. ‘I’m gonna need this.’

  I’d never been to Kate’s penthouse apartment before; we tended to keep our meetings to neutral ground like coffee shops to limit the time we had to spend together. She’d lived here for less than a year, which could clearly be seen by the show-home cleanliness of the place. I supposed she
had a maid to clean for her. I couldn’t see Kate on all fours shampooing the carpet and messing up her manicure. I guess life must be very different when you earn enough money to be an insufferable show-off.

  It was an open-plan affair with floor to ceiling windows running down the entire side of the building, opening out onto a balcony that was clearly never used, which I’m sure was down to them not wanting to let the air in to muddy their sterile living conditions. It was huge with an overdramatic modernist staircase, which led up to the second level and sat in the centre of the room like some kind of installation art. Everything was in varying shades of cream or white, some with a smattering of sequins or diamantes, you know, just to make the place glisten a little more than it already did.

  The room fitted the occasion perfectly. It was clean-cut, stylish and wildly indulgent; much like the people filling it.

  ‘Wow,’ Theo said with wide eyes that sparkled with the reflection of the room. ‘It’s horrible. Impressive, but horrible.’

  I agreed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t jealous. Jealousy was my vice, always had been and always would be. I wished that I owned this sparkling, sterile apartment, simply so that I could sell it and spend the money on a nice one.

  The sound of lips smacking and ‘mwah, mwah’ could be heard as one cheek was pressed to another in the French way of greeting an old friend.

  I would not be doing the same.

  I was not French and I saw no friends here.

  My eyes darted from one face to another, searching for people I knew and should therefore avoid like the bubonic.

  I felt a premature rush of relief when I didn’t recognise any of them, until I saw the pearly whites of a grinning Eloise ‘Fucking’ Kempshore rushing towards me; a phone in one hand and a Martini in the other.

  ‘Effie Heaton!’ She giggled as she spoke, her words dancing up and down, riding the laughter in infuriating waves. ‘How long has it been?’