Your Closest Friend
Page 12
All is now quiet upstairs. She must be asleep.
You are closer to me than anyone, I think, my phone still in my hand.
Then, somewhere beyond the ceiling, in the sleeping room, I catch the fleeting buzz of a phone, thrilling to the knowledge of how close she is. I turn over, burrow down into my pillow, happy in the belief that soon I will be free to say these words directly to her, no distance between us. We will be together, lying in each other’s arms, and no one will be able to separate us, ever again.
Part Two
* * *
11.
Cara
Thursday comes and I leave the office as soon as the show is over. I take the Tube to Parsons Green and walk for five minutes until I reach the surgery on the New Kings Road that Kamila has recommended. My journey takes me close to Finn’s house and I try to push down on the excitement I feel. It has been raining all morning, the pavement slick from the latest downpour, the trees on the green dripping. I’m nervous, as I always am whenever I have to see a dentist, but this time, the anxiety is leavened by hopefulness. My childhood phobia had been a millstone around my neck until Kamila handed me the card of one of her university friends – a dentist who specializes in conscious sedation – and instructed me to call her.
I like Dr Nichol from the moment I meet her. She is small and very beautiful, her pregnant belly swelling beneath her clinician’s tunic. Warmth emanates from her ready smile, her light touch, her liberal use of endearments as she probes me for information to determine the seriousness of my phobia.
‘One time I chipped a molar while chewing a sweet,’ I tell her. ‘It took me over a month to pluck up the courage to get it seen to. I just kept popping paracetamol and eating on the other side of my mouth.’
She laughs and nods, and then asks if she can examine my teeth.
My heart is beating hard and fast as the chair reclines and while her examination is gentle at first, I feel my hands gripping the armrests as she begins to scratch away plaque, and prods the enamel of my teeth. As she works silently, I count in my head – an old childhood habit to ward off fear. Her belly brushes against my arm as she leans in close and I think about the baby curled inside her. My own experience of pregnancy was of mood swings and amazement – the hormonal soup in my veins held sway but, every now and then, I would catch myself with wonder, and think: Is this actually happening? Is this real?
Perhaps that’s the closest I can come to describing how I have been feeling in the days since it happened – it’s like the hormonal daze of pregnancy. Life has carried on, outwardly normal, but there have been times when I have been sitting at my desk perusing emails, or at home up to my elbows in the kitchen sink, when it will suddenly come at me, what we have done, and I feel breathless with amazement. Amazed at my own audacity. Amazed at the circumstances that led up to it. I think of him pulling me into the house and slamming me against the wall. I think of myself being led submissively – excitedly – up the stairs to bed. Not a day has passed since it happened when I haven’t thought about him, about the pressure of his body against mine. It can take a few moments for me to compose myself after these recollections.
It has only happened once. Does that constitute an affair? The very thought of it – even now, pinned to this chair as Dr Nichol conducts her examination – sends a trill of hilarity through me. An affair – me! Casual sex – illicit sex – has always seemed the domain of others. It’s for younger, more modern people. In this new Tinder age, casual sex seems to have become de rigueur once more, but for me sex has always been about some level of commitment, or at the very least some spark of hope that it will go somewhere. Perhaps some shreds of my Catholic upbringing stubbornly remain. But what happened last week seems to spin and turn in my head with little thought of where its orbit is taking me, let alone the consequences of what might happen.
Outside, the rain hisses against the window pane, but here in this quiet room, classical music playing softly on the radio, I allow myself these gentle musings. It’s only happened once, and can, arguably, still be contained. I know I should be overwhelmed by remorse for my infidelity – my betrayal – but if I’m honest with myself, those feelings of guilt have been occasional and not as searing as I imagine they ought to be. Perhaps this is helped by the fact that Jeff didn’t come home last weekend after all; an unscheduled visit from a client kept him in Berlin. The distance helps. In a way, the distance feels normal. I feel brushed by guilt, but not impaled by it. I don’t like to think what that says about me.
In the last week, Your Closest Friend has fallen silent. It’s like he’s been calmed, satiated, made peaceable. Or, perhaps, the device has served its purpose. I’ve had two phone calls from Finn at work, and a couple of WhatsApps. But when I leave here today, I will see him. The clinic is within easy walking distance of Elphiron Road. We have arranged to meet for coffee, to sort things out between us, set the matter straight. Yet, if that’s what we’re doing, then why do I feel this burst of happiness in my heart, this frisson of nervy excitement? My reward, perhaps? A naughty little treat for overcoming my phobia. One fear trumped by an even greater risk.
I have been so caught up in the delirium of my thoughts that it is not until Dr Nichol runs a tiny hook-like instrument between my teeth and gums that my terror rears up from the shadows. I raise my hand for her to stop, and sit up suddenly in the seat.
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her.
‘That’s alright, dear,’ she says peaceably. ‘Take your time,’ and she offers me a paper cup filled with water.
After I’ve sipped, I try to explain. ‘It’s just I had a bad experience as a child – a toothache that was allowed go untreated for too long.’
‘I understand,’ she tells me, drawing off her latex gloves.
‘You must think I’m a little mad,’ I laugh, and a thought of my mother stirs briefly in my head, drawing me down the dark avenue of childhood memories. Her agoraphobia trapping her in our house for weeks on end, until the pain in my mouth became so unbearable I was sobbing for help. In the end, a teacher at my school intervened, but at that stage the damage had been done.
‘You would be amazed how many patients of mine have shared your experience,’ she reassures me. ‘Now, you have a couple of molars that need attention, and there’s a scratch on your front tooth we ought to take care of. I think the best thing is for you to make an appointment with our hygienist and then once your teeth have been cleaned, come back to me and we’ll set about fixing those teeth.’ She must see the anxiety on my face, for she lowers her voice and touches a hand to my upper arm. ‘Don’t worry, dear. I’m going to give you a prescription.’
She turns away, rolling on her little wheeled stool over to the countertop that runs the length of the room. Clicking her pen, she begins scribbling on a pad, explaining as she writes: ‘It’s a script for temazepam. A mild sedative. You take it an hour before your appointment. You’ll find that it will take the edge off things and ease your anxiety.’
She runs through a list of questions to assess whether there’s anything in my health or history that might preclude me from taking the drug. Then, satisfied with my answers, she pulls the script from the pad and hands it to me.
‘This will cover your visit to the hygienist, as well as the subsequent visits with me.’
I ask about the possible side effects, remembering my anxiety outside the lift at work. The last thing I need is to crank up my paranoia. But she tells me the most likely effect is drowsiness, and warns me not to drive after taking them.
When I step outside on to the street, I feel a sense of relief that’s akin to escape. I begin to breathe normally, as if I’ve been holding my breath the whole time I was in there.
It has stopped raining. Finn and I have arranged to meet across the road in the Eelbrook. At a break in the traffic, I run across, tucking my rolled-up umbrella into my bag. I’m standing under a canopy, checking my phone for the time, and a droplet falls and bounces off the back of my hand.
Its coldness draws attention to how hot I had become sitting in that chair. It’s early, and I’m considering whether I’ve time to take a stroll around the Common to compose my thoughts, when a dog barks and I look up and there he is.
Finn. Crossing the green at a leisurely pace, watching me with a broad smile on his face.
Both of us raise our hands in greeting, and I see him laugh at our simultaneousness, then put his hands in the pockets of his old familiar parka. And as he steps across the pavement towards me, I know with deadening certainty what will happen. There will be no coffee, no long chat, no wistful what-might-have-beens. I know that as soon as he reaches me, he will put his arms around me and I will let him kiss me, even though it is the middle of the day on an open street, cars and vans whizzing past on the New Kings Road. And I realize how much I have been wanting this.
‘Hello, you,’ he says, taking one hand from his pocket so he can reach around the back of my head, grasp the hair at the nape of my neck and draw me towards him.
I can feel the smile lingering in his kiss.
Afterwards, we lie together in the bedroom we once shared. Neither one of us speaks. Some of the passion we’ve just spent still clings to the air. The windows are shuttered against the afternoon sunlight, which came on suddenly, burning away the memory of rain. Distant sounds of traffic filter into the room, and somewhere down the street, there are children playing in a garden, their voices rising and falling.
I’m lying on my side, facing the shuttered window. Finn’s arm lies beneath the crook of my neck, his body pressed close against mine. The skin along my back, my thighs, my heels, tingles with the contact. His breathing comes slow and even but I can tell he’s not asleep. In this murky half-light, familiar shadows announce themselves: the tall mahogany dresser by the window that we bought together at an auction on the Fulham Road. Some framed Ralph Steadman prints that we never got around to hanging still propped against the skirting board. The half-open door to the bathroom, the penny tiling on the floor reflecting light thrown by the frosted-glass window.
Soon, I must leave here, and that makes me feel sad. We have yet to speak of when we will see each other again, although I know we will. I can feel the weave and pull of greater complexities around us, now this has gone deeper. My handbag looks prim, almost stern, sitting on the chair alongside the bed, as if it has observed us having sex in silent disapproval. My phone lies within it, on silent. Once I look at it, there will be messages and emails that will demand my attention, but for just a few minutes more, I want to hold on to this peace.
After a while, I feel Finn’s free arm stirring. His fingers come to rest on my shoulders, then trace gently along my arm to my wrist.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asks.
I’m thinking about the risk I am taking by being here and how I only ever take risks when Finn is involved. All my adult life, I have been unable to decide whether Finn is good for me or bad for me. When I’m with him I feel brave, ready for the challenge, willing to leave my comfort zone. When we’re together, I can feel myself coming alive. But there is always the niggling doubt that it’s a path to self-destruction. At the back of it all lie the memories of how he has hurt me. My life without him seems safe and secure, but also tame, timid. Unlived? The question I’m turning over in my mind, unable to answer, is which version of myself is the more authentic? Which version is true?
I don’t tell Finn any of this. Instead, I say, ‘I’m thinking of a party we went to once. It was in Canary Wharf, I think. A media party of some sort – I don’t remember. Everyone was wasted. You especially.’
‘No surprise there,’ he says lightly.
‘Some of us went up to the top floor of the building and out on to the roof. It had a sort of terrace, surrounded by railings, but you weren’t really supposed to go out there. One of the guys who worked in the building took us up to show us the view. Do you remember?’
I turn to look at him and he takes the opportunity to free his arm from under my head and then half-props himself up with it, so that he is looking down on me.
‘No. I don’t remember.’
I can feel some trace of the exhilaration I felt that night, being up so high, the nauseous excitement of looking down at the glimmering lights below.
‘You’d done a little coke,’ I go on, ‘and you went over to the railings – which weren’t very high at all, actually – and slung one leg over. You really don’t remember?’
He smiles and shakes his head, traces a fingertip down the line of my breastbone.
‘Your foot was on the outer ledge, straddling that rail. All you had to do was shift your weight on to that outer foot and you’d have slipped, fallen – what, thirty, forty storeys? Everyone was shouting at you to get down, to stop messing. I went over to you to tell you to stop it. And you just looked at me. I put out my hands. And for a few seconds, watching you balanced there precariously, it was like I could see the fall happening, like I could feel the drop myself.’
‘So what happened?’
‘You said …’
He waits. His finger has grown still.
‘Well? What did I say?’
I’ve strayed too far into this memory. It’s too intricately laced in events unmentioned. An old anger waits on the margin, ready to be summoned.
‘Never mind,’ I say.
‘What?’
‘You took my hand and climbed back to where it was safe.’
I turn away from him and sit up, leaning forward to reach my clothes on the floor. Behind me, I can feel him watching, unsatisfied. I pull on my bra, step into my knickers. I’m standing by the bed, zipping my jeans, when he says, ‘I asked you to push me. Didn’t I?’
He’s lying back against the pillow now, but his eyes are still fixed on mine. There’s no levity in his voice, no impishness.
‘You said you didn’t remember.’
‘I don’t.’ He breaks his gaze away, stares at the ceiling. ‘But it’s the kind of thing I’d do.’
Dressed, I pick up my shoes and grab my bag, in two minds over whether to kiss him goodbye. The euphoria of our reunion has died away now, replaced by something quiet, almost sad. It feels uncomfortably like regret. He grabs me by the waist and pulls me to him, his grip around me tight and assertive. From the slight frown on his face, I think he’s about to ask when he’ll see me again.
But instead, he asks, ‘Were you tempted?’
‘What?’
‘To push me.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say.
I smile then, bat him lightly on the chest, but inside my heart is a fluttering moth beating at daylight beyond a pane of glass. His grip on me briefly tightens. Then, released, I sit back, reflexively smoothing a hand over the sheets.
He keeps on looking.
‘Of course you were,’ he says, and his voice is cold.
12.
Amy
The church is on a busy road, across from a McDonald’s; there’s a Primark on the corner. Hard to imagine achieving any kind of solemnity here amidst the grubby high-street commerce, the grey rush of traffic on the street beyond, the impatient beeping of horns. Rain hits the flight of steps up to the entrance, making them treacherous, and the mourners don’t linger. It’s the end of September, and it feels like the seasons have shifted. I duck my head down and hurry up the slippery steps and into the blank modern church.
The congregation are loosely scattered among the pews. It makes the space feel emptier somehow, even more depressing. I can see the crew from Pret huddled together. Monica’s squat form bunched between Emerson and Pamela.
I take a seat in a pew on my own. My eyes glance over the heads of those gathered here. The white-haired relatives, the youthful friends. It’s been a month since the death, long weeks rolling past waiting on a post-mortem, the release of the body, some mix-up involving burial requests.
Neil’s coffin stands close to the altar, propped up on some kind of metal trolley. There’s a framed pictu
re of him on top, the kind taken by a high-street studio photographer – grey backdrop and cheesy grin. I can imagine Neil cringing in his coffin at the thought of it. And then my mind is in the coffin with him, and I’m wondering what clothes they’ve put him in, whoever dressed him. Probably not the ripped jeans and T-shirts with corny logos that he used to favour. Almost definitely not those godawful trainers. I’d bet anything his mother or someone picked out some sensible chinos and a nice sweater for him to wear for all eternity, and the thought makes me feel depressed and angry. I have to pinch the skin on my inner arm, twisting it a little, just to keep myself present, stop myself from slipping off.
A man comes in and takes the space next to me. He’s older than I am, with the greyish appearance of an uncle or a distant relative of the deceased. A puff of air comes out of his lungs as he dumps his weight down, the wooden bench rocking a little. There’s like fifty empty pews in the freaking church, but this guy has to pick mine.
‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ he says to me, like we’re already acquainted. ‘A young man, shot down in the prime of his life. Shocking.’
I say nothing, but take out my phone.
‘A friend of yours, was he?’
I hate this kind of busybody. All my life, I can’t fucking stand them.
I keep my eyes on my phone, refusing to look at him, and say, ‘I don’t know you.’
I can feel the wave of surprised resentment coming off him.
‘Charming,’ he mutters, and makes a big deal out of getting up and clambering back out into the aisle to find someone else to torment.
‘Asshole,’ I say under my breath, my eyes straying after him.
I catch Monica looking. She’s spotted me hunched in my jacket off to one side. Her face is flat and expressionless, her eyes combing over me. She turns to Emerson and whispers something to him, then he too turns to look.
I glance down at my phone, at the message I’ve typed.