Closure

by Jacob Ross

  Julia’s fiancé was fourth chair in the second violin section of a provincial orchestra, which sometimes played in Reykjavik or Bonn, but mostly played Hooked-on-Classics style programmes at a West Country concert hall.

  “You say that like it’s difficult to believe,” said Julia.

  “How old are you?” said Stevie. “Twenty-four? Twenty-five?” He wiped the Guinness froth from his beard. A few nights ago, they’d all been in The Albert and Stevie explained the plot of the novel he was writing. Julia had been faint with boredom, but stuck it out because Stevie had got a round in. Whenever someone bought a round of drinks it entitled them to bollocks on about writing or painting, or the audition that would have been the Big Break, if only the alarm had gone off, if only they had arrived on time.

  “How’s the book going?” said Julia. When Oliver asked her to marry him they had just graduated, and he’d taken the job with the provincial orchestra. He obviously envisaged a perfect domestic set up: coming home every evening to eat the lasagnes and chicken kormas that she’d lovingly microwave. Julia sobbed heartily at the proposal, said yes, and moved to London. She kept the engagement ring in the box that contained her diaphragm, so that she wouldn’t forget it when she went to visit her fiancé.

  “You know what it is?” said Stevie. He leaned in, and Julia stared at the little acne-pits on his temples. For a moment she imagined him crumbling like a sand sculpture, running grain by grain to the floor. “You know what it is? It’s this fucking place. Can’t get anything done. I need to get out of here, rent a cottage. Have your parents got a cottage? I could pay. Well, not very much. Cottage in the Outer Hebrides, or somewhere… anywhere. If they’re not using it, I bet they wouldn’t mind me staying. I’d pay the electric and gas.”

  “I’ve written three songs this month,” said Julia. She said it so convincingly she almost believed it herself. She’d hummed a couple of tunes and thought of a few lyrics, but nothing had quite coalesced yet. If she went home right now, she could probably crack out one entire song by the end of the evening, maybe two, but you had to let your subconscious do a lot of the work, otherwise the results felt strained.

  Tally sat down with them. Legs was chatting up a girl with two full tattoo sleeves.

  “When’s the wedding, then?” said Tally. He was a photographer. He’d taken photos of all of them, in the pub or in someone’s back garden at a barbecue, and he always said the same thing. So when you’re famous, I’ll be able to say once I photographed you. Julia knew he was hoping for someone to reply: when you’re famous, I’ll be able to say you once photographed me.

  “What makes you think you’re invited?” said Julia. She hadn’t advertised her engagement, but now that Louise knew about it, everyone would know. Julia didn’t mind. It seemed to have made her more interesting, especially as her intended had been elevated to world class soloist, although why he would jet around the globe leaving her to rot in a Tapham basement bedsit wasn’t entirely clear.

  “No, really,” said Tally. “Are you, like, getting married this year? Because if you’re moving out of your flat, I was wondering if I could move in.”

  “There’s a lot to think about,” said Julia.

  She went to stay with Oliver most weekends, but they had stopped discussing things like where or when they might get married, or where they would live, or anything at all to do with a future that stretched beyond the next seven days. She wasn’t in love with Oliver any more, which was horrible, but sometimes she felt that he wasn’t in love with her anymore, and that was even worse.

  “Oh, sure,” said Tally. “You could sub-let to me so you don’t lose your tenancy.”

  “I’ll think about it,” said Julia.

  Louise stopped by their table, on her way out with her doomed young man. “Did you see Warren Peston in here earlier? Are you all blind, or what? He was over the other side, with all these bright young wannabes. Sad, really. He kept looking round to see if people were looking at him, but nobody was.”

  “He’s done nothing good in the last ten years,” said Stevie.

  “He was always crap,” said Tally.

  “I hope we don’t end up like that,” said Louise.

  “I’m going home,” said Julia.

  “Hang on,” said Stevie, “about your parents’ cottage…”

  “Oh, yeah, I’ll ask them,” she said. Her parents didn’t own a second house. The closest they had got was when they attended a whole day sales pitch for a timeshare apartment, in exchange for a week’s free stay in a “holiday village” in Benidorm.

  The next afternoon she rode the bus back to Halting Village. Three pupils to see, all boys; the youngest was ten and the oldest thirteen. A gouty old man was dying in the seat next to her. She turned her face away from him and his germs.

  The very first lecture, on their first day at university, the professor had stood there so pleased with himself and said, “I don’t wish to shatter anyone’s illusions, I don’t want to ruin anyone’s lovely dreams, but you’ll find out sooner or later so I may as well tell you now. Most of you, of course, won’t pursue a career in music. You’ll go into retail or leisure or catering. You know the old joke, don’t you, – what do you say to a music graduate? Burger and fries, please. But for those of you who do continue with music, 95% – or more – will inevitably teach.”

  Julia was never going to become a piano teacher. She made that vow right then and there in the lecture hall.

  This morning she had sat at her keyboard and tried to finish a song. If you sold a song to a top recording artist you could make millions. You had to know the right people, but Julia had started reading Rolling Stone recently, which was the first step. She kept lists of songwriters and producers. It was a start.

  “I’m not looking for love,” Julia sang quietly, trying out her new chorus. “I don’t need understanding.”

  The gouty man sneezed without covering his mouth.

  “Give me respect,” she sang, louder. She pushed the bell so that the bus would stop. “Or you’ll see what I’m planning.”

  Hand on heart, Julia could say that it was Henry who had made the first move. But that didn’t mean anything, really. It was Julia who had made the decision. She’d made it on the day that Stephanie had asked her if she could schedule in some lessons for her husband who had played the piano as a boy and wanted to take it up again.

  Two months before that, Julia had come downstairs after teaching Amelia, and overheard Stephanie on the phone. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but she’d hesitated at the kitchen door when she’d gone to collect her cheque. Usually, Amelia ran in ahead of her, but the child had scarpered up to her bedroom to finish watching something on her laptop before her next scheduled activity began.

  “No, I do absolutely recommend her,” said Stephanie, drawling in that rich person’s way (they never worried about taking up too much of your time). “Amelia’s really coming on, she’s got her playing Mozart, would you believe.”

  The door was slightly open and Julia should have walked through it right then. Instead she waited outside.

  “She’s got these huge eyes,” said Stephanie. Julia smiled to herself. “They’re buggy. Bug eyes. And she wears the most extraordinary clothes, but she is classically trained. I’ll text you her number when I hang up. She’ll amuse you. What? I don’t know… but she will. There’s something so… unformed about her. It’s like she just struggled out of a shell.”

  So when Stephanie scheduled lessons for Henry, Julia decided straight away.

  The following week Henry took her from behind while she played standing up – Chopin, Etude Op. 10, No. 3 in E Major, popularly known as “Chanson L’Adieu”. As she reached the midsection and a long sequence of diminished sevenths, a scholarly appraisal that she had read at university came to mind. Something about the “classical chasteness” and “romantic fragrance” of the piece. She tried not to laugh in case it put Henry off, but he was huffing and puffing by now, and noticed neither her
giggles nor her mashing of the climax of double sixths.

  She wasn’t supposed to play too well, anyway, so that it would sound like Henry, continuing with his lesson.

  “God Almighty,” said Henry, pulling up his trousers.

  Julia reached for the packet of tissues in her handbag, made some discreet adjustments beneath her skirt, and sat down on the chair, leaving the piano stool free for Henry. “Shall we finish with scales today? We seem to have skipped them at the beginning.”

  “Julia,” whispered Henry. He leaned over and breathed heavily into her ear, and she pulled away sharply, fearing he would poke his tongue in.

  “Thought I heard someone…” said Julia. The music room, as Stephanie called it, was on a kind of mezzanine level, jutting out at the back of the house. You went up three stairs from a landing that served only the music room, so nobody passed by directly. Julia and Henry always left the door slightly open to show there was nothing to hide.

  “Kiss me,” said Henry.

  “A major,” said Julia. “Two octaves, contrary motion.”

  Mostly, after the deed, Henry acted as though nothing had happened, as did Julia. It was a modus operandi that she had initiated which nevertheless irked her from time to time. Did he feel anything for her at all? But when he slobbered like this her back stiffened. If she played something now the tensions in her shoulders and hands would wring a tinny sound from the keys.

  “We can’t keep on like this,” said Henry. When he stood up his stomach seemed quite flat, but sitting down, especially now when he’d gone all slack, you could see his paunch.

  “Play it,” said Julia.

  Henry complied.

  “Not bad,” she said. “Your fourth fingers are still weak.”

  “I feel terrible,” said Henry. “I’ve been taking advantage of you. I swore to myself that last week would be the last time, and now I’ve gone and done it again.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” snapped Julia. A moment ago he was drooling in her ear, and now he was… what? Dumping her?

  “What the fuck is wrong with me?” moaned Henry.

  Julia stared at him. Henry was a Managing Director at an investment bank. The suit he was wearing probably cost more than all of her possessions put together, her keyboard included. He was pathetic.

  She scooted across from her chair, squeezing onto the piano stool with him so that their legs were pushing against each other as tightly as if they had been bound for a three-legged race.

  “It’s okay,” said Julia softly. Last week, on the doorstep, she had decided to stop seeing him. If anyone was going to get dumped it should be him. “I’ll tell you a secret. It’s me who’s been taking advantage of you.”

  “Right,” said Henry. He laughed miserably.

  “Poor little innocent lamb,” she said, rubbing her hand along the inside of his thigh.

  Henry groaned. “God Almighty,” he said.

  Everyone was in The Albert, but Julia walked on by. When Stephanie had said she was “unformed”, Julia hated her. It was the thing that frightened her most. Everyone else seemed so definite, and she was just a blur. Sometimes at university, when she was supposed to be studying, she’d go online and take personality tests – questionnaires that you filled in, clicking on the answer that applied most to you, or answering on a scale of 1 to 10 where one means “very” and 10 means “not at all”, or vice versa. Then you got your results back, and you could read what kind of personality you were (“passionate and extrovert… you’re heading for a career in the creative industries!”), which was comforting until she took the next test and got a completely different result (“rational and introvert… your strengths lie in coolly detached analysis”). There was a specific kind of personality test, a kind of psychopath test that measured empathy. The first time Julia completed it, she scored like a bereavement counsellor but when she took the same test again, a few months later, she had turned into Hannibal Lecter. Each time, with all of the tests, she had answered as honestly as possible. There was no one looking over her shoulder. And she was a different person every time!

  She could be Stephanie. She could be another Stephanie – marry an investment banker and live in a big house, and hire private tutors. But she wouldn’t marry someone like Henry, even though he’d stroked her hand in the front hall as he said goodbye, and despite herself she’d shivered with pleasure. She wouldn’t marry Oliver either. Not now. Not ever. She’d have to give him the ring back. He wouldn’t want it but he’d take it, and he’d probably be relieved.

  Julia descended the steps to her basement flat. She stood in the dark, damp stairwell and looked up into the misty orange light of the street. She thought of Henry, zipping his trousers and moaning. In the morning he’d be at his desk, doing clever things with money. Julia took her key from her coat pocket. For a moment she hesitated. The flat would be cold and she would be alone. She could go to the pub first and sink a few with Stevie and Tally and Louise. When you were with other people, even if they didn’t really know you, you came into focus, as though you’d stepped outside of yourself and looked back in through borrowed eyes.

  She slid the key into the lock. There was work to be done, and she hadn’t even started yet.

  KOYE OYEDEJI

  SIX SATURDAYS AND SOME VERSION OF THE TRUTH

  1. The Saturday she found sanctuary.

  She finds her bravery that morning and tucks it into the chest pocket of her dungarees. When she sees him she asks him to open his mouth and close his eyes. He is hesitant but does as instructed. They are in the park, sitting on the mound the slide is built on. Bricks have been set into the soil on the incline and, beneath this, their BMX bikes lie on their sides. Sunlight strikes his sealed eyelids so that all he can see is red. He worries about the state of his breath. Once he feels her mouth on his, he presses his lips together. She parts his lips with an urgent tongue; forces her wet flesh inside his mouth. He smells the anti-climbing paint that clings to her, feels her sticky fingertips on his forearms. She tastes like peppermint. He feels desirable, important, even attractive. As she pulls away, he opens his eyes and asks if it is always supposed to be like that.

  “Like what?” she says.

  “Wet. With the tongue.”

  “Wet,” she repeats. She rises and lets her momentum steer her down towards the ground. She climbs back onto her bike as though she needs more time to consider a response. She kicks the pedal up and tells him that it’s what her father has taught her.

  They spend most weekends together. She comes over to his home to draw, read comics or play fantasy board games. He has no siblings; she is usually the only other child in the flat. His tall, brooding and short-tempered father intimidates most of his friends. But not her; she likes his dad. Each Saturday evening she sits down for dinner with them at the Formica-topped table, drinking what he drinks and eating what they eat. A white girl who balls the pounded yam and scoops the okra as well as he does: it takes him a while to get used to the picture her presence creates, the way she listens to his father’s childhood memories as though each tale held some promise – like a movie trailer offering splices of what’s to come.

  There are times when the boy is taunted for letting a white girl take up so much of his space, especially one whose forehead is slightly larger than average and whose skin seems to pull at her skull around the cheekbones. He knows she isn’t the most put-together girl in their neighbourhood. She is deathly pale, and during summer the rosacea and broken capillaries in her cheeks burst to life. But she is ten-years-old and he is ten-years-old and it feels like everyone else their age is trying to be fifteen.

  They both live in council flats in South London. He, in a post-First World War structure; she, close by on the Aylesbury Estate – a collection of tower blocks and maisonettes, all linked by a network of walkways and footbridges. He knows her building but he cannot point out her door. She never invites him to her home and he knows better than to ask. When they are not in his bedroo
m they are in the nearby park where all the bikers and skaters assemble. They are fascinated by the teenagers who come to the park to smoke; bewitched by their casual airs, the shrug they give the world – and impressed by the size of the tongues on their Adidas.

  That Saturday in the park, she wants him to ignore the green-eyes and auburn hair and focus on the nose she pushes down with her wrinkled index finger. She tells him she has been told that there is black in her family bloodline and asks if he can see it in her features.

  He thinks about the weeks gone by, how he hasn’t dared to call her his “girl”. But they have been beside each other, roaming the neighbourhood together and he believes that has to count for something. He studies her now: her nails are broken, her nose is Greek and her lips are thin. She is the whitest girl he knows. He thinks it is enough, for now, to paper over her troubles with the nickname “Black”.

  “Black. I see it,” he says. “I can definitely see it.”

  She doesn’t believe him, but his lie is enough. She looks away, breathes in, and squints in the sun. She turns back to him. “Open your mouth and close your eyes,” she says and he does as instructed.

  2. The Saturday without the rehearsal.

  He watches her through the side windows of the Datsun he hides behind as she emerges from the entrance of her building. She is in an apricot tube dress he hasn’t seen before and it makes everything else she has ever worn seem droll and conservative. He tries to keep a safe distance as she makes her way, first to the newsagents, then to the bus stop. It’s here that he wants to confront her, but he waits.

  He waits for her to board the bus, climbing the steps to the upper deck as he knew she would. He jumps on after her and finds a seat at the rear of the bus, on the bottom deck. He brings his cap over his face. As the bus rolls over Westminster Bridge towards the tourist crowds that move beneath the shadow of monuments, he feels a sense of vindication. For three consecutive weeks she has spoken of Saturday rehearsals at her performing arts college in Croydon. And now, for him, “circuitous” doesn’t begin to explain why they are on a bus heading toward the West End.