Lucy turned red and gave me one of those ‘ignore him’ looks, but she seemed deeply humiliated by it all. Ben visibly cringed.
It dawned on me that this man had quite a serious alcohol problem, and that maybe Ben hadn’t fully realised this. At least David’s vitriol wasn’t personal. Maybe Ben had been brought up with it and thought it was normal for a man to behave in this way. It wasn’t. Of course.
His mother was lovely, though, and I couldn’t help but feel an ache. As if someone like her had been the missing piece all along. If I’d had a mum around then maybe my dad wouldn’t feel so sad about things. Sometimes he gets really depressed.
‘So who do you live with?’ she continued to probe gently.
‘I live with my dad – just me and Dad. No brothers or sisters,’ I replied, hoping she wouldn’t start asking too many embarrassing questions, but I was sure Ben would have briefed her on my unusual situation.
‘Sienna, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but Ben tells me that your father suffers from quite a fascinating illness. Sorry, I don’t mean fascinating, I, er, I mean . . .’ she stuttered, trying to correct herself and blushing slightly. At least she wasn’t pussyfooting around the subject.
‘Yes, he has narcolepsy—’
‘Narco-what?’ I was rudely interrupted by Ben’s father, who spat flecks of saliva into the air as he spoke.
‘Shut up, Dad,’ shouted Ben, clearly quite angry with his father’s behaviour.
‘It’s OK,’ I said quietly, holding Ben’s hand discreetly. He squeezed it back. ‘Basically, it’s a condition affecting the neurological system. It’s a sleep-wake issue. My dad, George, has cataplexy, too, which is another condition that goes hand in hand with narcolepsy. It means the triggers for his sleep are emotional ones, so when he feels any kind of strong emotion it will send him off. So, in non-scientific terms, it means that he falls asleep pretty much all the time,’ I finished, taking a deep breath of the woody air.
I was so hungry now it was making me feel faint. I took a tiny sip of my wine, aware that it would go straight to my head, and I wanted to stay sharp enough to be on my toes around Ben’s father.
‘So he could be standing up and he would just hit the floor?’ she asked, both eyebrows raised in utter surprise.
‘Yes, spot on. Anywhere, anytime. He has really hurt himself, too. It’s a constant worry, really. Obviously he can’t work. In the eyes of the government, he’s disabled.’
‘Ah, I suppose he’s leeching money off the rest of us paying our taxes, like all the others with depression and ADHD and all these made-up illnesses you lot have nowadays. Basically, he’s just chronically lazy,’ muttered Ben’s father.
Now that was close to the bone. I felt it cut into me like a knife.
My boyfriend erupted. In fact, erupted was an understatement. It was as if someone had dropped a match into a tank of petrol. It made me jump and my heart race in my chest.
‘Right, that’s it. I’ve had enough.’ He walked round to face his father, who was looking away from him. ‘What the hell is your problem, Dad? I’ve brought Sienna here to meet you and Mum. She’s incredible, and your ignorance is shocking. She’s hard-working and patient and kind, and you have no idea what she’s been through,’ he yelled, drawing closer to his dad’s face with each word until they were nose to nose. His breathing was fast and his nostrils were flared. A major scene appeared to be unfolding.
‘Look, don’t worry,’ I said, pulling his muscle-bound frame away from the dismissive man sitting in the chair. This was all a bit shocking. Lucy, meanwhile, had escaped to the kitchen.
What an utter disaster. This couldn’t actually have gone any worse. Why did Ben bring me here if he knew his father would act like this? I had so many questions to ask. I tiptoed into the kitchen and left my boyfriend and his father to their fight.
The shouting was barely audible through the heavy wooden door I had closed behind me. Lucy sat in the corner of the room, shaking with the stress of it all. I sat down softly beside her. ‘Lucy, please don’t worry. Please,’ I pleaded with her, resting my hand on hers. Her skin was soft and crinkly, so delicate you could see the veins beneath.
‘I’m so, so sorry, Sienna. I think we’re losing him,’ she sniffed.
‘What do you mean, “losing him”?’
‘I think he has some serious mental problems. He’s been acting like this just lately – it’s all very recent. It’s not all the time, either – sometimes he’s sweet and loving, and then he’s like this. He isn’t the man I married.’ She threw her arms in the air in despair.
‘So it’s not . . . the alcohol?’ I asked with trepidation.
‘Well, that plays a huge part,’ she admitted, tracing her finger over a napkin. ‘But now he has these big rants, these angry shouting sessions. He would never have been like that a few years ago, Sienna, never. He would have welcomed you in, cooked for you. Been the man he used to be. He would have adored you – you’re lovely,’ she finished, looking up at me with hope.
‘I’m so sorry he isn’t well, Lucy. I know what it’s like to live with someone who’s poorly,’ I said, getting up. ‘Would you like some tea?’ I asked.
‘Yes please, love.’
We only stayed for another couple of hours. Lucy and I had lunch together while Ben sat with his father, trying to work out what on earth had gone wrong. What had come unravelled in his mind? He searched for signs and answers in the angry tone of his father’s voice and in his facial expressions. It must have been a hard thing to come home to.
‘Sienna, I am so deeply sorry,’ Ben said as soon as we piled into the car. It was dark by now and my shoe was still damp.
‘Ben, please, don’t. I know he didn’t mean it. I just feel really bad for you. Really bad.’ I turned towards him. I could see the outline of that lovely nose of his in the moonlight.
‘I just can’t believe it. I don’t go back too often, but he has never been like this. To be honest, I kind of thought Mum was exaggerating when she mentioned it on the phone the other day, so I just forgot about it.’ He looked down at his lap guiltily.
The journey home was a quiet one. I couldn’t see the geese or the fields in the darkness, but I imagined them. I suddenly realised I was in a proper relationship, a scary one with the ‘I love you’s and the complex family disasters. While I had been scared about what it would be like to meet a normal family, I soon realised that there wasn’t one, really. There were so many family units out there, trying to get by without vital pieces of the typical working machinery. Mum, Dad, the kids and the dog. I thought about my beautiful Elouise, bringing up her little boy on her own, a lone soldier. I thought about Dad and me. I felt lucky in a strange way – lucky that it was just Dad and me, and we loved and understood each other entirely.
When I got back to the flat that evening I watched Paris When It Sizzles with Dad, his choice. Then I made him his favourite dinner, pesto pasta with goat’s cheese, and ordered some books about colonialism for him online – it was the latest thing he was studying. I also bought some more of the black notebooks he likes to write in. While the day had turned sour in a most unexpected way, it had made me aware of a feeling closer to home: a feeling of gratitude and the simplicity of acceptance.
Nick
‘I want to see the book.’
‘What book?’
‘You know which book I’m talking about, Nick.’
‘Nope. If you’re talking about the Bible, there isn’t a copy in this house.’ I grinned and started to crawl on top of Chloe, who was lying on the sofa in a pair of shorts and a racing-back vest. I nibbled on her neck but she pushed me away playfully.
‘Very funny, Nick. I’m not talking about the Bible. I’m talking about the book Sienna made you for your birthday.’ She raised an eyebrow, and wrapped a long, smooth leg around me.
‘Oh, that book. Sure, no problem.’ I got up and went to my room, taking each step very slowly like a child on its way to the dentist. I wanted to po
stpone the start of the next world war. Deep down I wondered how she even knew about it. I hadn’t told her. It had been three months since my thirtieth birthday, and the book was placed in one of my drawers beneath unpaired socks and half-opened credit card bills. I wasn’t exactly hiding it, but I didn’t think Chloe would understand so it wasn’t going to sit on my coffee table. I was a little nervous, if I was honest. Not from guilt, just through fear that Chloe would storm out and leave me with a plate of curry all over my face.
Opening the large oak doors of my wardrobe I noticed five hangers with Chloe’s dresses on. This was new, I thought. I pulled open the drawer and felt around for the book, my fingers searching through a mountain of socks and pants until they ran across the edges of the thick paper. There it was.
I gently pulled it out and took it down to my girlfriend, who had now drawn a blanket around her and lit some candles. They filled the room with a vanilla scent, the kind of smell you would only have in your house if there was a woman in it. Nights like this were my favourite kind. It was achingly cold outside, and I was warm inside with a beautiful girlfriend and a takeaway. A chicken dansak, to be precise. A dish I hoped I wasn’t about to be wearing.
‘Don’t you think we should wait until we’ve eaten and cleared away the food, Chloe?’ I asked, wincing at the thought of curry oil blotting the pages and seeping into the photographs.
‘No. I think we should look at it now,’ she responded bluntly.
Her messy hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and one of the plaits had become detached and was hanging next to her face. I sat next to her on the sofa, balancing the book on my left knee and her right knee. Some talentless plum was whining away like a dying animal on The X Factor, so I turned the sound down.
My pulse started to race. This was quite scary. How was she going to react?
‘Right, let’s have a look at this,’ she said, wiping her fingers on the blanket. I wished she wouldn’t do things like that.
The first page was the squirrel article clipping, something I’m amazed that Sienna kept. Even then, when we could have gone our separate ways and simply become colleagues who didn’t really like each other very much.
Chloe gently leafed through the pages over the next fifteen minutes as I sat beside her, waiting for the fallout. Waiting for the claws and tears. She traced her index finger over some of the photos, read the receipts and tickets, trying to maintain an expression of calm and happiness. But it was fake. I could tell.
She saw everything: the photo booth, the trip to Amsterdam, even the dry-cleaning ticket from the time I dropped a garlic chicken on her lap in a French restaurant (long story). She reached the end, closed the book hard, took a deep breath and turned back towards the television. Silence.
‘Oh come on, Chloe . . .’ I said.
‘What do you mean, come on? Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ she said, tears starting to drip from her eyes.
The doom feeling filled my stomach again. ‘I was worried you would react like this, Chlo. That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.’ I sighed, realising this looked even worse now.
She continued staring at the telly, pushing a chunk of fluffy naan bread into her mouth as her chin wobbled. Another fat tear slid down her cheek.
‘It’s too much, Nick. I don’t like it,’ she said, wiping the water from her face with a shaking hand. The tears were falling rapidly now.
I shuffled closer to her and wrapped my arms around her slim shoulders, understanding why this would upset her, but knowing I wasn’t guilty of anything.
‘Listen, sweetheart, I’m sorry I didn’t show it to you. She doesn’t mean any harm by it. Look, maybe you should get to know Sienna a bit more, then maybe you’ll understand what she’s really like.’ I instantly regretted this.
‘Do you think we would get on?’ she asked, but I was unsure whether or not she was being sarcastic.
Would Chloe and Sienna get on? Chloe: blonde, feline sexpot with a temper like molten lava and a raging libido. A smoking, drinking, wild child. Sienna: a naturally beautiful (stunning, in fact) angel whose biggest tantrum came when someone stole my wallet in Soho and the police wouldn’t take a statement. Even then she just raised her voice a bit and slammed her fist on the desk. Carer to her father and a saviour to her friends. Calm, devoted, loyal and trusting. Probably not.
‘Yes, of course you would,’ I said, hoping we could change the subject. I suddenly imagined them in various coffee shops, eating shortbread and laughing over the size of my penis. Chloe might even tell Sienna that I fart in my sleep.
‘Great, well, let’s organise something,’ she said. She was being serious.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Anything.’
‘OK,’ I agreed, taking a bite of chicken decadently steeped in the most delicious sauce.
‘Can I have her number?’
‘OK. I’m just eating now, but I’ll give it to you later, yeah?’ I replied, desperately hoping she would forget.
She nodded and turned the sound up, assaulting my ears with a tone-deaf builder from Stoke who had endured great tragedies in his personal life and now felt the need to torture the great British public live on air to make up for it.
‘I got a good film for us to watch, you know,’ I said as I cleared away the greasy plates, glad that this hadn’t blown up into a proper row. I felt a wave of guilt at the thousands of calories but felt sure I would burn some of them off with a couple of hours of duvet sports. Well, if Chloe wasn’t too upset still . . .
‘That sounds lovely,’ she responded, kicking off a pair of cute slippers. The impending storm seemed to have passed over.
From the doorway I looked at Chloe and saw her lying there with a look of contentment on her face. Maybe it was all over now. All the drama would dissolve and become this silly thing we’d once gone through when we were young and stupid. All the hurt and the confusion would fade into the blackness of a memory. I had found my girl. She had found her man. Simple.
‘Chloe,’ I called quietly from the edge of the living room.
‘Yeah?’
‘I love you.’
Sienna
BEEP.
It was half past two in the afternoon, a Sunday afternoon to be precise, when I got the message. The olive-branch text from Chloe. It was a shock, to say the least.
‘Hi, Sienna. It’s Chloe. I got your number from Nick. Hope you don’t mind. Are you free for a coffee this afternoon? Xx’
So that was how I ended up in an overpriced deli with her, warming my cold hands on a latte. The place was mainly decked out in green marble, with big glass counters displaying a feast of expensive meats, smelly cheeses and strange sticks of bread twisted like strands of DNA. There were numerous strings of salami hanging from the ceiling behind the tills, and the staff looked like genuine Italian food buffs, wiping their rough hands down crisp white overalls. Near the window was a gold freezer containing a plethora of brightly coloured ice cream packed with chunks of chocolate, pecan nuts and ripples of caramel, glittering under the dimmed lights. It was a typical trendy London haunt, selling things I could neither pronounce nor afford. It was nice, though.
Chloe was wearing a pair of light blue skinny jeans and a T-shirt with some band on it that I’d never heard of. As I knew already, Chloe was achingly cool.
I had been a little nervous about this, fearful that she was going to start asking me about the incident in the toilet on Nick’s birthday. The time when she overheard me telling her boyfriend that I adored him. We hadn’t spoken about it since, but she was clearly furious at the time.
The café was packed with wealthy-looking couples, some with their children wearing miniature versions of designer labels. It really wasn’t my cup of tea. We ordered a plate of shortbreads with little jam hearts in the middle.
‘The reason I wanted to go out just us two is because obviously I’m going out with your best friend, and I’ve heard so many great things about you,’ she gushed sweetly, brush
ing some crumbs away from her top lip. ‘I don’t know you, but I’d really like to. We work together and everything, but we hardly talk. I feel like you’re a stranger, really.’
That was sweet, I thought, as I nibbled the edge of one of the biscuits, which crumbled luxuriously. Maybe we wouldn’t discuss the toilet incident. I really hoped we wouldn’t. I’d often thought about contacting her too, but she’d beaten me to it. I’d been hoping we could break the ice and shift all this awkwardness that had built up between us.
‘Thank you. I’m really happy for you and Nick – he seems so chilled out now you’re together.’
She smiled, a look of real accomplishment.
I recognised that expression. It was the look a woman wears when she has discovered the man she wants to be with, the man of her dreams. The one who inspires her to be a better person. And I can hardly blame her. For years he has been the man I want to be with too. He’s a catch. And she is so lucky.
‘Are you OK with Nick and me, you know, being friends?’ I asked, my heart thumping hard in my chest. I believe in honesty and I’m not afraid to ask questions like this.
She looked down into the bottom of her cup and bit her lip. She was so damn pretty it hurt.
‘I need to be truthful with you here, Sienna. I haven’t always been OK with it. At times I’ve been really mean to Nick over it, kicked off and stuff because I was worried there was something more between you than there is.’
I didn’t say a word; I was starting to experience tunnel vision. The bustle of the people around us seemed to slow right down and I was just looking at Chloe’s face until I got double vision. There were two of her now.
‘But he’s told me time and time again that he’s never felt anything for you like that, and that you’re just friends.’ Chloe almost sounded as though she was sneering. I felt like she was mocking me, but I knew I was only imagining it.
Just friends. I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my stomach as I imagined him holding her close at night and telling her that I wasn’t a big deal. Maybe they even laughed about it. About me. But what did I expect? Of course that was what he was going to say. That was all he felt. I’d always known that, but hearing it hit me hard.
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