Much Ado About Sweet Nothing

by Alison May

  I don’t want to talk about it any more, so I shake my head, which he doesn’t notice. He’s still screening.

  ‘So you just happened to run into John.’

  I can’t be doing with him now. ‘No. He phoned me.’

  ‘And you didn’t think that was weird?’

  ‘No. Well he didn’t phone. Danny did. No. I did.’

  Ben opens his eyes. ‘So Danny phoned you?’

  ‘No. Danny texted, and so I phoned him back.’

  ‘So what’s John got to do with it?’

  I’ve explained all of this to him once already. Sometimes I wish my brother could accept that sometimes the obvious explanation is obvious because it’s just right. ‘John answered the phone.’

  ‘Danny’s phone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Danny’s mobile?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. They live together. It’s like me answering your phone.’

  ‘Do you answer my phone?’

  ‘Well, no.’ I’m not letting him win the point though. ‘But I might, you know, if people called you.’

  ‘People call me.’

  ‘Who?’

  He opens his mouth a couple of times, before he comes up with an answer. ‘Mum rings.’

  ‘Mum rings the landline because she doesn’t trust these new-fangled ways. And if you’re trying to sell your mother ringing you as a sign of a healthy and active social life, you’ve already lost.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  I smile. It feels weird. ‘Was worth a try.’

  ‘So, Danny texts you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Just that he needs to talk to me.’

  ‘So you ring him.’

  I nod.

  ‘And John answers.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then what?’

  I really don’t want to talk about it. ‘You know what. I meet him near Henri’s and Deano’s been there giving her flowers and then they’re all lovey-dovey on the doorstep.’

  ‘Lovey-dovey?’

  ‘Yeah. All kisses and hugs.’

  ‘And flowers?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I can still see them in my head, and I can hear John in my ear. He was good about it actually. He said he hadn’t been sure whether to tell me, and he stopped me confronting her right then and there. That was good of him. He could have just left me to it, but he stayed with me until he was sure I’d calmed down enough not to storm round there and do something I might have regretted.

  Ben has done the eyes closed thing again. When he opens them he’s speaking slowly, like you would to a naughty child.

  ‘And were these kisses, hugs and flowers, in the visiting aged aunt in the care home sense, or in the post-coital best-I’ve-ever-had sense?’

  ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘I know what I saw.’

  ‘Still not technically an answer.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  He mutters it, but I can still hear. ‘Still not an answer, actually.’

  ‘Leave it.’

  Ben grins, and does his best Mitchell brother mockney accent. ‘Leave it.’

  It’s something he used to do years ago to cheer me up. I’m not going to smile. Ben carries on. ‘Just leave it. I’m gonna sort it.’

  I cave. ‘Good. I want it sorted.’

  ‘I thought you wanted me to leave it.’

  ‘Nah. Sort it.’

  ‘Sort it. Leave it. Sort it. Leave it.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I jilted someone at the altar.’

  Ben nods. ‘Yep.’

  ‘It’s as if someone had announced it was going to be the best wedding Albert Square had ever seen.’

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘I know.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  Four weeks later

  Henrietta

  ‘Are you all right, Miss?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I am fine. Everyone keeps telling me I’m fine. I’m coping ever so well, apparently. So, yes, I am fine. I’m in the big meeting room that we use for Art Club and all the children are looking at me. I can’t quite remember what I was talking about, but I am definitely fine.

  ‘Just look in your books and …’ I look out at the room. No one has a book in front of them. There is paper and chalk and charcoal set out on the tables. ‘Right, not your books. Silly me. Why don’t you all just draw something with these things?’

  I pick up some of the chalks from the nearest table. ‘Yes. You can draw whatever you like. Carry on.’

  Normally the kids will take any hint that I’m not completely on top of things as permission to start throwing things at each other, especially at an arts workshop; there is an awful lot of cool stuff to throw. Today I seem to be making them uneasy.

  ‘Miss, can we work on our projects for the competition?’

  I nod. ‘Why not?’

  I sit down at the front of the room and just let them do whatever it is that they’re doing. Some of them probably will work on their projects. The rest can do whatever they like. I can see now that I do actually have a session plan on the desk in front of me. You see, last night I must have printed this out and when I got here today I must have got the charcoals and chalk out. I look at the plan. It says that we’re supposed to be making repeating patterns in black charcoal, and then again using colour. I imagine there was some point to it.

  It’s not that I don’t remember doing any of those things. I do. It’s just that they feel like someone else did them, and now getting up and explaining things and talking to the children just feels like something that somebody else would do. It feels like there’s a big puffy layer of bubble wrap between me and everyone else. It means that everything feels a bit muffled and distant. I quite like it, I think.

  There’s a knock on the door. I look through the window and recognise the knocker as the mum of one of the kids. They’re here early, I think. Then I look around and see that most of the kids are sort of staring at me, and there are quite a lot of parents waiting outside. I look at the clock. It’s nearly ten minutes after finishing time. That makes me giggle. I sort of wave my hand towards the door and sit and enjoy the giggling while the kids file out. Some of them are pushing. I’m probably supposed to tell them not to do that.

  There’s a lot to clear up after the kids have gone. I don’t quite feel like it though. Actually I feel like going for a little walk. I head out of the room and down the stairs. I pass by Trix in the main library, but I don’t stop to talk to her. I think she asks me something, but I just need to get outside. I want to be able to see the sky. That would make things better, I think.

  It’s cold outside. I giggle again as I realise my coat is still in the staffroom. It takes about an hour to walk home. It’s normally quicker than that, but today I walk in and out of all the little side streets around the housing estates on the way. I like looking into other people’s houses. It’s better than television. There’s one house that I stop outside where there’s a little girl playing in the living room. It’s a pretty room, a bit old-fashioned, but pretty. Trix would say it was chintzy, but I like it. The little girl is clambering up on the furniture. She’s got little blond ringlets and she’s just wearing a vest and pants. I hope she isn’t cold. She seems happy, so I think that it must be warm inside the house. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else with her. She climbs on to a chair in the bay window and looks out at me. For a minute I watch her watching me watching her. Then she waves, and I wave back. Then her mummy comes into the room, so I turn and walk away quickly before she can see me.

  At home I decide to clean the kitchen. It’s not Saturday, but somehow things seem to be getting dirty so quickly at the moment. I decide to do a proper job and empty the cupboards out and defrost the freezer. I start by taking all the frozen food out and putting it in on the w
orktop. Then I re-arrange the food on the worktop into piles by type of food. Then I re-arrange it into neat towers according to size. Then I get a spoon and sit on the kitchen floor eating the ice cream. While I’m eating a puddle of water starts to form on the floor underneath the freezer. I get four tea towels and build a sort of tea-towel wall around the bit of floor I’m sitting on so I can watch the water without getting wet. I’m quite proud of my ingenuity.

  It means that when the phone rings I can’t answer it though, because I can’t get off my little island. I hear the phone go on to the answer machine, and someone, it sounds like Trix, leaves a message. I stay sitting on my little island. It’s nice to be still again. It’s like it was before my dad and Trix made me get up at Dad’s house, and before Trix brought me back here.

  The water is starting to soak through my tea towel wall by the time I hear the banging at the door. I know it’s Trix this time, because she says. ‘It’s Trix. I’m going to come in. Is that OK?’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘I’m going to come in now.’

  I hear her unlock the door and come through into the flat. ‘Shit.’

  She disappears into the bathroom and returns with an armful of towels, which she uses to start soaking up the water off the floor. They’re my nice towels. She shouldn’t really be using them on the floor.

  ‘What were you doing?’

  I point at the freezer, but she’s still looking blank. Trix is a lovely woman, but not the most domestic. ‘I was defrosting.’

  ‘Well I think it’s defrosted.’

  ‘OK’. I stand up and start putting the food back in the freezer. Trix puts her hands on my arms and moves me to one side.

  ‘I think the food is defrosted too. I don’t think you can refreeze most of this.’

  ‘OK.’ I leave the food on the worktop and go and sit down on the sofa. There is still a wet patch on the kitchen floor where Trix hasn’t cleared it up properly. I shall have to mop it later. I don’t want to do it now. She might think I’m criticising what she’s already done.

  ‘Where did you go this afternoon?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Well I can see that. I mean, are you poorly? Why weren’t you at work?’

  ‘Because I came home.’

  She sits down next to me. ‘I told Danny you were ill. I said I’d agreed that you could go home.’

  ‘But you didn’t say I could go home.’

  ‘I know. I don’t want you to lose your job though.’

  I try, I really do try, to think about it from Trix’s point of view. I know that I just walked out of work. I know that finding me sitting on the floor in a pool of water must look odd. I know that if I keep wandering off from work I could lose my job. I even know that that would be A Bad Thing. I just don’t feel worried about it.

  Trix picks my hand up off my lap. ‘Do you think maybe you should see someone?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Well, maybe see a doctor, just to make sure that you’re OK.’

  ‘If you like.’ I honestly don’t mind one way or the other.

  ‘OK. Shall I make you an appointment?’

  ‘OK.’ That seems to please her, which is nice. It’s good to please people.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Ben

  ‘I’m coming. I’m coming.’

  It’s after eleven, so although I am coming to answer the door, I’m mainly shouting in the hope that whoever it is will stop knocking before the neighbours start complaining about the noise.

  It’s Danny. I haven’t spoken to him since the wedding day. That’s probably the longest we’ve been out of touch since I came back from Cambridge.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Course.’ He follows me through into the kitchen. ‘Do you want a beer or something?’

  He nods, and I dig two beers out of the fridge.

  ‘Is Claudio around?’

  ‘Gone to bed.’

  ‘Right. Good.’

  ‘What’s up, mate?’ I say ‘mate.’ That’s probably a debateable point at the moment.

  He sits down at the kitchen table. At least, there is definitely a table under the debris somewhere. He looks tired.

  ‘John’s gone.’

  ‘Well, he’s gone before…’

  ‘No. He’s gone properly. I chucked him out.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Well done.’ That didn’t sound right, did it? ‘No, not well done. Sorry. I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Yeah. You did.’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ We’ve known each other a long time. If he was looking for someone to say the right thing, he’d know better than to come here.

  ‘I don’t want to tell you the rest.’

  ‘OK.’ I wait. He’s going to tell me. It’s a myth that men don’t talk to each other. We just pick our moments, and do a lot of preliminary beer-drinking first.

  ‘I caught him coming on to Kingsley Berowne.’ He drinks some more beer while I let this titbit sink in. Kingsley Berowne is a city councillor, a married city councillor.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t think he even fancied him. I think it was just some sort of game. I’m humiliated, aren’t I? How can I go into work and be in charge? They’re all going to know about it.’

  I hold back from pointing out that most of them probably already know what John was like. ‘It’ll be OK.’

  He looks at me. ‘I’m a black, gay department head. Half of them already think I only got the job to fill a quota somewhere.’

  I don’t know how to respond. I’m used to Danny being in control. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I hate him for this.’ He takes another swig of beer. There’s more. I wait.

  ‘What you said …’ he starts but stops again. Time to rip off the band aid.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘What you said about him coming on to Claudio, was it true?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Would you have believed me?’

  ‘He admitted it.’

  ‘Coming on to Claudio?’

  ‘The other stuff. Deano and Henri, and making sure Claudio saw. I don’t think he thought Claudio would actually cancel the wedding. I think he just thought it was funny to mess with him.’

  That’s when I look up and see my baby brother standing in the kitchen doorway.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Henrietta

  The doctor seems like a very nice lady. She’s wearing a tweedy skirt and a cardigan, which makes her look older than she probably is. From her face, I think she’s really only about my age. It must be hard being a doctor at this age. Probably no one takes her very seriously. I wonder if that’s why she wears old lady clothes, to try to look older. And all the time I’m thinking that she’s talking to me, and I’m not really listening to what she’s saying, so when she stops talking I just sort of smile at her.

  ‘So, would you say you were feeling particularly down about things at the moment?’

  I shake my head. I don’t want to worry her.

  ‘Trix said you’d taken some time off work.’

  I nod.

  I feel sorry for her. I’m probably not being very helpful.

  ‘Do you think some more time off work would be helpful?’

  I lift my shoulders in a sort of half shrug.

  ‘Sometimes when people are feeling like this it is better to keep busy.’

  I tell her that I can keep busy at home.

  ‘That’s good. It’s important that you try to feel active and in control of things.’ I nod, to show I understand, and she signs a note saying that I can’t go to work for the next three weeks.

  ‘And what about medication?’

  I shrug. I’m not poorly, but I suppose doctors probably like you to have medication, so it shows they’re doing something.

  ‘Maybe just a low dose. Just to lift you over this little hump.’

  I nod. I don’t w
ant her to think I don’t appreciate what she’s doing.

  Trix is waiting in the reception, and she puts her arm through mine as we walk back to the car. ‘What did she say?’

  I show her the note.

  ‘Did she say anything else?’

  ‘She says I have to keep busy.’

  Trix laughs an odd little half-laugh. ‘OK, but no more defrosting the freezer.’

  I smile, so that she thinks I’m enjoying the joke.

  She takes me home and goes back to work. I decide that, in the spirit of keeping busy, I’ll clean the kitchen properly. I start in the corner behind the toaster. I brush up the loose crumbs, but there are a few right at the back, almost into the crack between the worktop and the wall, that I can’t get to. I try running my fingernail along the join, but that just pushes them further down. I go into the bathroom and get a toothbrush, but that doesn’t work either. Eventually I manage to suck them up with the attachment on the hoover. I go to put the hoover away and see my little handheld dirt devil on the shelf. Why didn’t I think of that? It would have done the job perfectly. Trix says I over complicate things. She’s right.

  It’s like with Claudio. He never called. He hasn’t e-mailed, but I still check every hour on the hour. I won’t let myself look more than that. A watched pot never boils, but he hasn’t tried to get in touch, and it’s not because he’s been busy, or because he’s been in a horrible accident, or because he’s lost his phone and his computers had a virus; it’s because he doesn’t want to talk to me.

  That’s the simplest explanation. I’m stupid. I’m a silly little girl, who can’t even manage to clean a kitchen worktop properly, and he doesn’t want to talk to me. I sit down on the floor next to the hoover cupboard, and consider this realisation. Then I remember what the doctor said about staying in control, and decide that I am going to take the initiative. Claudio doesn’t want to talk to me because I’m silly and stupid. I need to stop being silly and stupid. One kitchen worktop isn’t going to stop me from taking control of my own destiny. What I need to do, I think, is make everything perfect. I need to make me perfect, and make the flat perfect, and show that everything really is under control. Then things will be better. Everything will be better.