The Butterfly Effect

by Julie McLaren

  “OK, here we are. I hope you don’t mind, but we’re going to eat with my parents. Everywhere was booked up, and I wanted you to meet them anyway.”

  I have no idea whether my face reflected the true extent of my horror at this prospect, but if it did, Greg chose to ignore it and got out of the car. I was still sitting there, trying but failing to think of anything that would get me out of this, when he came round to my side and opened the door.

  “Come on then, let’s get inside. It will all be ready by now, and Mum hates it when I’m late.”

  It was a drizzly November late afternoon and already dark, but I could see we were heading towards one of a small number of identical houses. They were local authority stock, constructed from some kind of concrete blocks rather than bricks, and I recognised them as similar to those in a street in my parents’ village. Of course this was nothing that would have concerned me in itself, but the house we were approaching was festooned with Christmas decorations even though it was still another week until the start of December. A sad-looking Santa leaned drunkenly towards his friend, a fully inflated snowman with a sinister smile. He was guarding the other side of the front door, and between them, they almost blocked the entrance to the small porch. Various bells and stars winked and flickered in every window and another version of Santa in his sleigh, complete with numerous reindeer, was picked out in lights across the front of the house.

  “We love Christmas here,” said Greg, somewhat unnecessarily, but I swallowed the sarcastic response that had popped into my head and said something about liking it too. I didn’t say this with any emphasis or enthusiasm. It was a polite, throwaway comment, but Greg seized upon it as if it were the most significant thing I had ever said.

  “Oh, that’s great! I’m so pleased. I’ve been worrying about it, you know, that you’d be one of those bah, humbug types who sneer at people who like Christmas. My parents would celebrate it all year round if they could afford it, so they’ll be delighted you love it too.”

  What could I say? I did like Christmas. Admittedly only in the way that most people like it, but there was no point in contradicting what I had said a few moments before, and I could think of no words to express what I thought about displays like this – certainly none that wouldn’t have been downright insulting. So I said nothing as Greg tried to get Santa to lean in the other direction and rummaged around for his keys.

  We entered a tiny hallway, hung with yards and yards of tinsel that swayed gently with the breeze from the open front door and snaked up the narrow stairs in front of us, twisting and curling round the banisters in a riot of different colours. Greg took my coat and hung it with his, on some pegs at the bottom of the stairs.

  “We’re here!” he called, and a door opened to reveal a small, round, white-haired woman with rosy cheeks. She was wearing an apron with a Christmas pudding emblazoned on the front and a flashing reindeer badge. Her earrings were tiny little Santa hats.

  “Oh, Billy, we were wondering where you were,” she said with what I guessed was mock sternness, then she waited whilst Greg introduced me and we shook hands. Billy? Why the hell had she called him Billy? I was beginning to feel seriously uncomfortable by now, and I even considered making a bolt for it, there and then, but how hysterical that would have seemed; how embarrassing.

  “Come and meet my father,” said Greg, guiding me towards the room from which his mother had appeared. “I’m afraid he can’t walk very far these days.”

  We went into the room, which was a lounge-diner, crammed with a shiny new-looking leather three piece suite at one end and a round dining table at the other. It was stiflingly hot, with a gas fire on full and the smell of cooking making it seem quite airless. Greg’s father was a frail-looking man, almost bald and very thin. His hands were twisted with arthritis, but he had a lovely smile and I could see the likeness to Greg.

  “Pleased to meet you, my dear,” he said, giving my hand a squeeze. “The boy has told us a lot about you. Seems you’re quite a little songbird!”

  I blushed, muttered some kind of self-effacing nonsense and sat down on the sofa beside Greg. There was a lot of clattering coming from the kitchen which led off the lounge by a door at the back, and when Greg’s mother called for his father to come and help, he rose from his chair with difficulty and hobbled off, leaving us alone. Now was my chance.

  “Why did your mother call you Billy?” I whispered.

  “Oh, it’s just a family name,” he said. “My middle name is William, but my mum actually wanted that to be my first name, so she started calling me Billy when I was little and it stuck. I’m Greg to everyone else.”

  Relief flooded through me. What he said had a clear ring of authenticity about it, and I could just imagine his funny little mother taking matters into her own hands and calling her baby by the name she preferred. It actually suited him better, and just for a fleeting moment, I had a vision of me calling him Billy at some point in the future. But that was a future that would never happen, of that I was sure, and even the thought of it made me feel queasy. These were nice people, there really was nothing to worry about, but they were never going to become part of my life.

  In a matter of minutes we were summoned to the table. I had half-expected a turkey with all the trimmings, given the devotion to Christmas, but it was beef. I had to suppress a smile when I remembered Olga’s comment, as this particular joint was well done to the point of being a little tough, but the rest of the meal was actually rather good. The potatoes were crispy, the Yorkshire puddings were fluffy and the vegetables were just how I liked them, with a little bit of bite. We ate with very little conversation and I was the first to clear my plate. I put down my cutlery and sat back with a satisfied sigh.

  “That was absolutely lovely. The best roast dinner I’ve had in ages,” I said, with only a small and excusable degree of exaggeration. Greg was beaming from his place opposite me and his mother reached across and touched my arm.

  “You’re very welcome, my dear, but this is nothing. Just wait until you see this table at Christmas!”

  Fortunately, my response to this was so immediate that there was no opportunity for it to be filtered by any notions of politeness or convention, or I have no idea how the conversation would have progressed. It was bad enough as it was.

  “But I won’t be here for that!” I said, and then I saw the expression on Greg’s face. If looks could kill, his mother would not have lived to see another Christmas, let alone cook the dinner, and she turned a deep red.

  “Oh, I see. It’s just that Billy, I mean Greg, said ...”

  “No I didn’t,” said Greg, “I said ‘if’, Mother, not ‘when’. I said ‘if Amy comes for Christmas dinner’. I never said she was coming for sure. I haven’t even asked her yet!”

  There was a terrible moment of silence, broken only by the sound of Greg’s father resolutely sawing his way through a particularly tricky piece of beef with hands that were too bent and deformed to hold the cutlery properly. I had to do something, so I told them that my own parents would be expecting me for Christmas and would be hugely disappointed if I did not come. This was only partly true, as I was hoping to spend as little time as possible there on Christmas Day, but it seemed like the best thing to say at the time.

  “Of course they’d be disappointed! I can’t imagine what we would feel if Billy suddenly told us he was having his Christmas dinner somewhere else. We’d be devastated, wouldn’t we George?” said Greg’s mother, and then she turned to her son.

  “Billy, I’d like you go and check on the pudding for me. And when you’ve done that, I suggest you go upstairs and put your glasses on. Your eyelids are swelling up.”

  Suddenly, Greg seemed to have shrunk. He slumped in his chair like a moody adolescent, and then he sighed, stood up and left the room, shoulders down.

  “I’m sorry about all that, my dear,” said Greg’s mother in hushed tones. “He gets a bit carried away sometimes. Rushes things. He’s not a bad lad though
, and we couldn’t hope for a more devoted son. He bought all the furniture in this room you know, and he always pays his keep, regular as clockwork. We thought we’d never have any children, but then along he came, out of the blue, and he has never given us a moment of trouble since the day he arrived!”

  I had no idea how to respond to this. Greg’s mother appeared to be telling me that her son, who apparently still lived at home, was a bit odd but basically harmless and good-natured. This did not seem like a very strong endorsement of him as boyfriend material, but I was not concerned about that at the time. I was concerned about how much longer this ordeal would last and how I could get Greg – who wasn’t my boyfriend and was never going to be – to drive me back to The White Horse without first consuming pudding.

  “Ah, there you are, that’s better,” said Greg’s mother as he returned. “I don’t know why you wear those stupid contact lenses when you know they make your eyes sore. Anyway, go and get the dishes from the sideboard, there’s a good boy, and I’ll bring it in.”

  Greg did as he was told like the good boy his mother said he was, then sat back down opposite me. I glanced up and only just managed not to gasp out loud when I saw that his eyes, behind his glasses, were an innocuous light brown. Gone were the stunning grey irises with the green and blue flecks, sitting, no doubt, in a little pot on a shelf in the bathroom. It didn’t matter, not by then, but I couldn’t help feeling slightly cheated. Would I have chatted to him, had a drink with him, on the night of the gig if he’d been wearing his specs? Obviously I was a very shallow person, as the answer to that was quite probably ‘no.’

  I had to eat pudding. It was a bizarre experience, as we all sat there and ate generous portions of lemon sponge and custard as if nothing untoward had happened. Greg’s father asked me about my school, how many different classes did I have to teach and were many of the children naughty? His mother asked about my parents, as if she was still weighing me up as a potential daughter-in-law, and Greg joined in by answering some of the questions for me. I was mildly surprised at how much information about my life he had retained, a fact that should have rung some alarm bells but didn’t, especially as there were some things I could not remember having even discussed.

  Fortunately, the focus on my job enabled me to exaggerate my very pressing need to get home and write lesson plans, and Greg, having made quite a long speech about my dedication, could hardly argue with that. Of course I offered to help with the washing up, but there was unanimous agreement that I was a guest, and therefore exempt from that particular task. In any case, his generosity seemed to have extended to the installation of a dishwasher, so I could leave with a clear conscience. There was only the car journey to endure, and the necessity of making absolutely sure that he had got the message. This was not a relationship and that was that.

  I said goodbye to Greg’s parents with relief but no animosity. Hands were shaken, cheeks were kissed and thanks were exchanged. They probably knew it was the last time they would see me, but we kept our farewells bland and general and then I squeezed between the two inflatable icons outside and followed Greg to the car. As we set off, I decided to take the initiative and lead the conversation for as long as possible, so I extolled the virtues of his mother’s cooking and complimented the warmth and cosiness of their home. I even provided him with a little more information about my own life, by comparing his parents’ obvious affection for each other to my own parents’ interminable cold war. I talked almost without pausing for breath, not daring to stop for fear of what he might say if I did. I talked as if my life depended on it.

  At last, the illuminated sign of The White Horse appeared at the end of the street and I felt myself relax. Only a few more minutes and it would all be over. My bag was on my knees, so I made a point of searching for my car keys and holding them in full sight.

  “Door to door delivery,” I said with false brightness as he indicated left and pulled up, directly behind my car. “Please say thanks again to your parents, it was a great meal, and it’s been ...”

  “Yes, it’s been great, hasn’t it?” said Greg, completely failing to realise where I was heading, or if he did, failing to admit it. “How about a drink one night next week?”

  My heart sank. This was going to be more awkward than I had allowed myself to hope.

  “I’m sorry, Greg,” I said, forcing myself to meet his unremarkable eyes, “but I’m not looking for a relationship at the moment. My life is so taken up with teaching that I barely have time for my friends and the band, and it wouldn’t be fair to you. I’m going to say goodbye now. It’s been very nice to meet you, but I have to say ‘no’ to the drink. Sorry.”

  I opened the door and started to climb out of the car, but I didn’t get away that easily. “We can be friends though, surely,” he said.

  How was I supposed to respond to that? I could hardly say no, I don’t want to be your friend, you are beginning to give me the creeps and I hope I never see you again. So I said something that was anything but enthusiastic without being entirely negative. Something like ‘of course’ or ‘why not?’ I was so keen to get away that all my focus was on that moment when I would be able to swing my legs around and plant my feet on the pavement. Shut the car door. Watch the tail lights disappearing into the night. I really can’t remember my exact words, although I’ve tried often enough, desperate to work out whether I inadvertently encouraged him, but really, in all but my craziest moments, I know it always comes down to the same thing. I could have told him to fuck off and die and he would still have come back for more.

  Not that I knew that then. I honestly thought it was all over as I closed my front door and leant against it, almost laughing out loud with the joy of being back in my own space. Human beings don’t like being rejected, and although I thought he might feel sad, or angry, or even that I had led him on, I really didn’t think I would see him again. It was like people who meet on holiday and exchange email addresses. We must keep in touch, oh, yes, we must, and if ever you are in Leeds, or Leicester or Norwich or wherever they are heading back to … Everybody says it, but nobody really expects it to happen. Certainly not when the plane has landed and the harsh reality of a suitcase full of dirty clothes and work in the morning hits them. That’s what it will be like, I told myself. He will drive home, and maybe he’ll think about me for a day or two, but he won’t really believe we are about to start up some kind of shared social life. He’s not stupid, whatever else he is.

  Luckily, the story about lesson plans was exactly that: a story. I had completed all my preparation that morning, including the discovery of a neat little presentation downloaded from a resources site. That had saved me an hour or more, so I had plenty of time to text Olga.

  I’m back. Seriously weird evening!

  Olga wasn’t keen on long text conversations, she much preferred the spoken word, so my phone was ringing within seconds. I’m not especially proud of the way I portrayed Greg’s parents and their house, how I turned them into caricatures, how I reduced her to tears of laughter when I described the poor semi-inflated Santa or how that led to silly innuendo about Greg’s possible sexual prowess or lack of it. It was unkind and snobbish and they didn’t deserve it, even if Greg himself was fair game, but I suppose it was my way of dealing with it. Joking about it made it seem less serious and helped to disperse the horrible creepy feeling I had still not managed to throw off completely.

  “Well,” said Olga, “I suppose that’s the price of fame and you’ll have to learn to live with it, but I’ve still got a pile of marking to do, even if you are Little Miss Organised. I’ll see you on Sunday if not before, and thanks for the laugh!”

  Nothing else happened for two or three days. I went to school, taught my lessons, came home. More often than not I fell asleep in front of the television as soon as I’d eaten, before waking up and forcing myself to work for another hour or two and collapsing into bed. I had seen Richie looking at me across the staffroom once or twice, but then I a
lso saw him sharing a joke with one of the PE teachers – him leaning in and her tossing back her raven hair – so I guessed he was keeping his options open. In any case, I was too tired to worry about him, and the experience with Greg had put me off relationships altogether, at least for the time being.

  It was later in the week that I sat down with my laptop just before bed. I tended to use my phone to keep on top of things, but this was the first occasion I’d had time for a proper browse. I deleted my emails – almost all of them were junk – then turned to Facebook. There were two new friend requests, so I accepted them both, almost without thinking. It seems like madness now, knowing what I know, but in those days it all seemed so benign. I had hundreds of friends, many of them people I had never met, but they were friends of friends and what possible harm could it do?

  Then I saw what I had done and my stomach lurched. Gregory Payne. If he’d called himself Greg I may have paused long enough to think about it, but now it was done. I really didn’t want him seeing my posts, checking out my photos or worse still, messaging me, but what could I do now? I could hardly unfriend him again that quickly, it would look strange, so maybe it would be better to go along with it for a while. He’d probably lose interest before long – after all, he was a good-looking guy, smart, well-dressed. He may not have been my type, but surely some other girl would like what she saw and enjoy his company?

  I went to bed, but now the uncomfortable feeling was there again, lurking in the background. I told myself not to be so stupid, after all, he’d waited all this time before making contact. If he had been thinking about nothing else I would have received the request long before this, but the feeling didn’t recede. It was like waking from a dream in which something has gone horribly wrong but you can’t remember what it was – a tight, anxious feeling, dissociated from reality but difficult to shift. I didn’t know it then, but if this was a dream it would turn out to be a nightmare from which it would be very hard to awake.