Exchange

by Paul Magrs

  They reached his home first. Quite abruptly, the bus turned off the motorway and into his town. Their goodbyes had to be hasty.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘For today. I’ve never had a day like—’

  She kissed him.

  He was standing in the gangway, clutching his bags, leaning down to make himself heard above the wheezing engine noise. Kelly had lurched upwards, in for the kill, and Simon had flinched. He wasn’t expecting the suddenness of her moving in, or the warmth and the shocking wetness of her mouth. He found himself flinching and tried to stop himself. He opened his mouth too late, thinking he ought to reciprocate, to be polite and be open to her sudden kiss. But their teeth clashed, hard and painfully, and they both jerked apart.

  She laughed. She looked cross and piqued, but she laughed at him, and at their failure. ‘Go on, go on,’ she said. ‘Get off the bus. Or he’ll drive off again. You’ll be taken away from your town for ever!’

  As he hurried off without another word, his heart was banging away inside him. He felt elated and clumsy and foolish beyond belief.

  He jumped off the X50 Express and stood in the roadway to watch her zoom off.

  I messed it all up, he laughed, and I nearly managed to knock all her teeth out. She probably thinks I’m an idiot loser and beneath contempt, but… ! But she wanted to kiss me. She reached up and wanted to kiss me!

  Ten

  Simon was careful during the next week. As he quietly went about his business, he was expecting reprisals from every direction. The kids at the phone box would get him, as soon as they saw him alone. They would make him pay for Kelly’s attack and their leader’s abject humiliation. At school, too, he would surely be made to pay for skiving off. They would definitely find out what he had been up to and he’d get excluded and then expelled.

  He was going off the rails. His life was falling apart. His grandparents would be so ashamed of him. He would never go to college now, and he had ruined his life and all of his future hopes. He hadn’t even been able to kiss Kelly good bye properly. He’d cut his lip as they’d parted. He hoped he hadn’t damaged hers.

  She hadn’t phoned since their day out together and, was it his imagination, or had she been a bit cool with him at the Exchange on Saturday? They hadn’t had much time together. For once there had been other customers, besides Simon and his gran, and Kelly had been distracted, welcoming and inducting newcomers to the ways of the Exchange.

  She had smiled at Simon and given him a small wave. She took the money for this week’s books and stamped his grey membership card, but she didn’t talk to him like she usually did. Nobody would have been able to tell they’d shared a day out in the city like they had. Maybe that was the point. Their day together was a secret from Winnie. Kelly didn’t want to give that away.

  But still Simon fretted. He wanted some sign. He wanted to know that she hadn’t gone frosty; she hadn’t turned weird on him. But on Saturday there was no chance. And later, he couldn’t bring himself to ring her. Their talking last week had been so easy, and natural. He was so stilted when he talked on the phone. If she didn’t phone him, then he wouldn’t phone her. And besides, he felt too embarrassed, knowing the door to the living room was open; knowing how interested his grandparents were.

  As the days of the following week went by, Winnie made a remark or two, about how they hadn’t heard much about Kelly. Had the two of them fallen out? Had the two of them cooled off?

  Simon scowled at his gran. Of course they hadn’t. There was nothing to cool off about. They were just mates. He tutted and rolled his eyes when his grandad asked after his girlfriend. His grandad had adopted a matey and blokey attitude towards him, nudging and winking as if they shared secrets.

  In a way, Simon was dreading seeing Kelly again. She would expect him to kiss her properly next time. That last failure they could blame on the bus, on the way the ground had moved beneath their feet, knocking their heads together. But what about next time? He was bound to do it all wrong again. It wasn’t something he had much experience of. He dreaded it. It terrified him. Not because it was her. Anyone would have terrified him, opening their mouths, closing their eyes and glomming onto him like that.

  He hated to do things wrong. He was excited and flattered and amazed, yes — out of everyone, he was whom she wanted to kiss — but he was more scared than excited, in the end. He knew there was a good chance he was opening himself up to ridicule. That’s what happened, when you stepped outside of the things you knew.

  That week he returned to his reading with a vengeance.

  He had a handful of novels from the Exchange. They were fat, obscure things he had never heard of. The blurbs on their back covers promised labyrinthine plots full of incomprehensible twists. It was a relief to dive into the complexities of these books, and to get to know characters wholly removed from the realm of his own experience. That week he was living with scientists and spies, courtesans, cave men, astronauts, vampires and queens. He read hundreds of pages at each sitting, until his eyes hurt when he glanced from side to side. His eyeballs felt vitrified: as if the pupils were cracked and the irises were crazed with overuse.

  Still Simon kept on reading. Even at mealtimes, with the book on the tablecloth, causing his grandparents to comment, but he wouldn’t put it away. Bravely, he bunked off school again. When it came round to a full week since his trip to the city with Kelly. As if to commemorate that day his feet were leading him away from the school gates once again. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. He simply climbed aboard a bus that took him to Kelly’s town.

  He didn’t visit the Exchange. He knew she wouldn’t be there that day. He didn’t go looking for her, for the flat where she lived. It would seem like a weird thing to do. Like he was stalking her. He didn’t really want to see her in the flesh that day. He wanted to walk around with the idea of her. He just liked knowing that he was in the same town as her. He liked knowing that it wasn’t completely impossible for them to walk into each other by chance. That was something that could happen. And if it did, then fair enough. He would think up something to say to her. And if he didn’t, that was OK too. Probably it would mean that they weren’t fated to meet up that day.

  He was becoming a great believer in fate.

  ‘You’ve read too many novels,’ Winnie had told him, when they had discussed this subject only recently. ‘You’re starting to think the whole of life is plotted out like a book.’

  ‘Maybe it is,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s all written down and fated.’ He was thinking about his parents and their accident. Of course, he wouldn’t say this to his gran. It would upset her too much. But inside his own mind he was thinking about how his mum and his dad had been killed so quickly, so shockingly.

  ‘I don’t think you’re right,’ said Winnie. ‘I think you’re thinking too deeply about it. That doesn’t do, you know. In my experience, if you think about life too much, you only upset yourself. And that’s true. Look at your grandad. He’s been in a mood for years.’ This had been in the supermarket, with Winnie trying to tear plastic bags off a roll as they picked out fruit. ‘I don’t believe it’s fate, any of it,’ she said. ‘What kind of story would I be in, eh? What kind of story would that be?’

  Simon wasn’t sure about that, so he let the matter drop. He had a few ideas though, about what his gran’s story might be. It could be a romance, of sorts. Old Terrance, at the Exchange, he’d been looking at her funny. Simon had noticed that much, last Saturday. He was sure it wasn’t his imagination.

  Winnie had been explaining to Terrance about growing up with Ada Jones, about giving her the Christmas note book, and sacrificing that treasured object so that Ada could write her first story down. Simon had been listening in, pretending to choose his novels, and he’d looked over to see Terrance’s reaction to the tale. The man with two plastic arms looked enchanted. He was staring at Winnie, grinning at everything she said. Simon didn’t think that he was just amused by her. There was a glimmer of something
else there, too.

  Simon noticed another thing. The Exchange owner had smartened himself up. Knowing that Winnie would come, as she always did now, on Saturday afternoon, he seemed to have made an extra special effort with his appearance. His white hair had been washed and tamed so that it lay fluffily close to his scalp. He had shaved somehow, and had managed to iron himself a red chequered shirt. He wore ironed jeans, too. It was as if he was deliberately dressing younger. Trying not to look like a clapped-out old fogey.

  Is he really after my gran? Simon marvelled, spying on them from between the book stacks.

  Winnie was still a handsome woman, Simon thought, trying to look at his gran in an objective light. She was very smart and well groomed. There was something charming and feminine about her, that mature men responded to.

  This was amazing! What if they started having an affair? What if they asked him to cover for them? If he was drawn into their lies and deception? He wanted to talk to Kelly about it, but there wasn’t a moment in which they could find the privacy.

  Definitely, Simon thought. It was definitely true. The way that Terrance looked at Winnie spoke volumes. His eyes crinkling up like that, his mouth twitching at the corners, his nostrils dilating as he listened to her talk about her youth. They were all sure signs. Simon thought about it a lot during the following week. Terrance and his gran were teetering on the edge of grand, reckless passion! A last-minute fling in the twilight years of their lives!

  He couldn’t bring himself to ask his gran if she’d noticed anything. But she seemed chirpier after her encounters with Terrance, as if energised by his attentions to her.

  But Grandad… What about him? What if Simon was caught between his grandparents in some awful tug of love and loyalty?

  Simon went over all of this in his mind, on his second day bunking off school. He wandered around charity shops and newsagents and the chilled, damp, indoor markets, relishing the pungent scents of cheese and game and fish. It wasn’t often that he walked round these places alone. He went at his own pace: observing, hanging about, mulling things over. He thought about himself and Kelly, and about his gran and the man with two plastic arms. He thought about his grandad at home, sitting in his garage, oblivious to all this life and excitement; all the shenanigans going on around him. His grandad in his den, flipping through pages of bathing beauties in their dayglo bikinis. And eventually, after wandering all day and sitting quietly in cafes, having beans on toast and countless mugs of sugary tea, Simon thought about his mum and dad. And he was shocked that they had been out of his mind so much, and he hadn’t even noticed. All of a sudden, they hardly seemed real to him.

  They aren’t here any more, he thought. Their story isn’t moving onwards through time any more. It’s finished and now they can’t change. The rest of us are changing every day. We’re moving past them and soon they’ll be way behind, and out of sight.

  He thought about being a little kid and going to see his dad at work. His dad had been a security guard at the small airport not far from their town. From the earliest, Simon had loved to go to see the planes taxiing about; to go behind the scenes with his dad — feeling very helpful and special and privileged. And he thought about his favourite times with his mum: when they were alone and his dad was working lates, they would eat spicy stir-fries and noodles. They would treat themselves to all the exotic food his dad wouldn’t eat, and then they would read together, through the long hours of the night.

  Simon’s parents had been very much in love. He saw that clearly, now that they were gone. The bond between them had been so strong that even Simon had felt a little out of place when the three of them were together. He’d felt like an intruder, almost. Only when he was with his mum or dad alone did they really give their full attention to him.

  It had been natural for them to fly off on holiday together, leaving him with his grandparents. They all agreed, he was much more stay-at-home than they were. And he could see that his parents wanted to use this holiday they’d won as a kind of second honeymoon. They wanted to celebrate the life they’d had together, and Simon had waved them off in the departures lounge, at the same airport where his father had worked all their married life. Simon stood with his grandparents at the plate glass window’s, waving at the plane as it cruised gently down the runway, even though there was no chance his parents could have seen.

  He stopped himself going over these images. He blinked away that last picture of his mum and dad, going off through customs at the airport, his dad’s arm round her waist; his mum getting flustered, keeping a hold of all the tickets and documents. He shouldn’t dwell on all of this.

  Simon focussed on the cafe around him. Another old ladies’ cafe. He had been staring at the same page in his novel for the past half-hour. His aching eyes flicked through the same paragraph repeatedly, never taking in the sense of it.

  An awful, gloomy sensation of loneliness dropped over him and he realised that he was hopeless at spending his days alone. He shouldn’t even have tried. It was too easy to start feeling sad. He thought having a novel with him would be enough to save him. He had thought reading could lift him out of any gloom. Today it couldn’t.

  He sat in the old ladies’ cafe and wished he had company. He wanted to see Kelly.

  He wanted to be talking.

  Then, as he waited for his bus home, she phoned him.

  ‘Listen, sunshine, are you coming to the Exchange this Saturday?’

  His heart was pounding away absurdly. ‘Yes,’ he burst out. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got some news,’ she said. ‘I’ve had an idea.’

  ‘What…?’ He couldn’t get his words out. All sorts of things were crowding into his head. What did he really want to say to her? I’m in your town? I’m here right now? I’m standing in this queue to go home… and why aren’t you here?

  ‘I haven’t got time to talk now,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll explain on Saturday. But it’s a brilliant idea, Simon. You’ll love it.’

  ‘What is it?’ He was grinning now, carried away by her enthusiasm. ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, and paused. ‘It’s about your gran,’ she said. ‘About something we’re going to do for her.’

  ‘For my gran?’ He hadn’t been expecting that. ‘What?’

  But Kelly’s next few words of goodbye were drowned out in the rustic and murmuring press of the crowd about him, and the noise of the bus as it arrived at the stop. His phone gave three sharp bleeps as the connection was severed and he knew he would just have to wait till they went back to the Exchange. Kelly would let him know then.

  ‘Things will have to change around here,’ said Winnie, dabbing her eyes.

  She was so upset she hadn’t even asked Simon how his day at school had been. That was good. He wouldn’t have to lie. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked her, coming to sit at the kitchen table. ‘What’s upset you?’

  ‘Oh, him, of course,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘That silly old fool. It’s nothing new. He’s just had one of his rotten tempers on him all day long. Ever since he woke up. You know how it is. When he gets worked up like that, it’s murder for whoever is around him, and usually that’s me.’

  ‘Is he still not sleeping properly?’

  ‘I’ve told him to get himself down the doctor’s surgery and get some tablets if it’s such an issue. He claims it’s all down to me, though. Leaving the lights on so late, going trekking backwards and forwards and sitting up doing my reading…’

  Maybe they should have separate bedrooms, Simon thought. The two of them are out of synch. They’d be happier if they weren’t disturbing each other through the night. But they didn’t have the space now, to sleep separately and find some peace: not with their orphaned grandson living there. He was forcing them to lie together; to drive each other mad.

  ‘The latest thing he’s fixated on is lice,’ Winnie gasped, starting to laugh. ‘He keeps saying all my books are full of germs and bacteria and lice and all kinds of nast
ies. He says he can see all these things creeping about through the bedclothes. He can feel them crawling and burrowing through his skin and his hair. All from my old paperbacks that I read in bed. Well, I ask you. That’s just silliness, isn’t it? He’s got himself all worked up over nothing.’

  Simon didn’t reply. He knew his grandad could get himself into a temper over nothing. He was like a sudden storm blowing up out of nowhere, then expending itself briefly in thunder and hail. Then blue skies would resume and he’d wonder what had caused all the wreckage around him. But Winnie was careless with her husband’s feelings, Simon had realised in recent months. She never took any of his complaints seriously. She always continued to do exactly what she wanted to do. She had even grown used, over the years, to disregarding his violent but short-lived bursts of anger.

  ‘It’s different these days,’ she told Simon. ‘He’s drinking more at the Legion. I know he is. His tantrums arc getting worse. And the way he’s talking… about feeling infested and claustrophobic… it’s crazy talk, really, isn’t it?’

  I’m partly to blame, Simon thought. I’m crowding them out of their home. I’m making it worse for the pair of them. I just make more work for them. I create further tensions.

  ‘You read about old people losing their wits,’ said Winnie. ‘I’m starting to get worried about him. Yelling at me over the slightest thing. Glaring at me all the time…’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that.’

  Winnie spoke harshly to him: ‘How would you know? Your mind’s been elsewhere. You’ve not even noticed how your grandad’s been behaving…’