Girl 99

by Andy Jones

  We walk to my flat hand in hand, and despite the warm night I find myself shivering gently. It feels good – intimate somehow. When we arrive it’s dark behind the glass panels of Doug’s front door. I hold a finger to my lips.

  ‘Secret woman?’ whispers Verity.

  ‘Secret man,’ I say, carefully shutting the porch door. ‘I’ll introduce you tomorrow, if you like.’

  Verity inclines her head. ‘A little presumptuous, aren’t we?’

  Still whispering: ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

  Verity widens her eyes and purses her lips in an expression of indulgent cynicism. I place my hands on her shoulders, push her, gently, against the wall, kiss her. Verity presses her face into me and there’s something different in this kiss, something that incites me to hook my fingers into the waistband of her jeans and pull her hips hard against mine. My fingertips brush what might be an embroidered bow on the front of her underwear and her belly is cold and tight against the backs of my fingers. My free hand drifts up the side of Verity’s body and before I get where I intend to go, she puts a hand on my chest and pushes me a step backwards.

  ‘I don’t want to say I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but . . .’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I don’t mean to . . . I’m in no hurry.’

  ‘Sometimes, it takes a while to see a person,’ Verity says. ‘The real person. That’s all. I like to know who I’m with before I . . . before I’m with them. If you follow.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Sure. I didn’t mean to be pushy.’

  Verity takes hold of both my hands in hers. ‘People are weird on dates. They say what they think you want to hear. Chew with their mouths closed. Pretend to be interested.’ Verity shrugs. ‘Thing is . . . we haven’t been on any dates.’

  ‘We could?’

  Verity shakes her head, but she’s smiling. ‘I’ve seen you with your sister, though. With Ben, with the kids at the casting. And . . . well, I feel like I do know you. Getting to, anyway.’

  ‘And you’re still here?’ I say.

  Verity kisses me. She presses her hips forward into mine. She whispers in my ear: ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  I open the door at the foot of the stairs. ‘They creak,’ I whisper, tiptoeing upwards. ‘Especially the fourth one up.’

  ‘Déjà vu,’ says Verity as we walk into the flat.

  I kick off my trainers and drop my keys into the glass bowl. ‘Drink?’

  ‘Would tea be terribly unromantic?’

  ‘Depends how you drink it,’ I say, leading Verity through the living room and into the kitchen.

  I click on the kettle.

  And something is . . . wrong.

  ‘Julie Andrews,’ says Verity.

  ‘Did you just say “Julie Andrews”?’

  ‘Milk no sugar,’ says Verity, pointing at the mug in my hand. ‘White nun.’

  ‘Funny,’ I say distractedly.

  Because something . . . is not quite right.

  I open the fridge and remove the milk. Verity pushes herself up to sit on the countertop. Beside the sink is a corkscrew and an open bottle of red wine, half drunk.

  Last night we drank white . . .

  ‘Something the matter?’ asks Verity.

  ‘Just tired,’ I say, opening a cupboard to get teabags.

  ‘This is a bit embarrassing,’ says a voice behind me.

  The voice isn’t Verity’s and I turn around so fast that I crack my head on the cupboard door.

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Mind your head,’ says Yvette from the kitchen doorway. She is holding an empty wine glass, one of my T-shirts hanging halfway down her bare thighs. ‘Are you going to introduce us?’ she says.

  My mind reels as it tries to process what’s happening. My heart rate spikes as if at a violent threat, my balance feels precarious, I feel like I’m going to throw up. And at the same time a rational part of me is saying, You did this, you caused this, you deserve this.

  I look from Yvette to Verity, who is holding one hand to her mouth and the other across her belly, a gesture of incomprehension and alarm. She looks at me as if I am a complete stranger.

  ‘What is this?’ she says. ‘What’s going on here?’

  I turn on Yvette. ‘What are you doing here? What the hell are you doing here?!’

  ‘Me?’ asks Yvette. ‘What about her!’

  ‘She’s . . . she’s my . . .’

  ‘She’s Verity,’ says Verity, sliding off the countertop. She walks straight at Yvette, who shrinks back against the door frame to let her past.

  ‘Verity,’ I call after her. ‘Verity, wait. Just give me a second.’ I go to follow Verity but she halts me with an outstretched palm, and her eyes reflect the absolute depth of my own self-loathing.

  ‘You two have a lovely night,’ Verity says, and walks out of the kitchen.

  I wait, braced, for the door to bang, but the sound doesn’t come.

  Yvette touches my arm. ‘Tom, I th—’

  I jerk my arm away from her. ‘Put some clothes on,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘And get the fuck out of my flat.’

  Yvette winces. ‘I thought we could talk. I thought we were going to talk.’

  ‘I mean it,’ I say, pushing past her. ‘If you’re here when I get back I’m calling the police.’

  I snatch up my keys and thunder down the stairs.

  There’s no sign of Verity. My first thought is that she must have jumped into a cab, or run, but then I check behind me and see her heading the wrong way down the road. I shout after her but she doesn’t stop or turn. Just shrinks further and smaller away from me.

  Running in my stocking feet, I never take my eyes from Verity, regardless of what I might step in or on. I call her name twice more before I catch up.

  ‘Verity,’ I say, drawing level with her, ‘please.’

  Verity doesn’t look at me, doesn’t acknowledge my existence.

  ‘Verity. Can we please talk?’

  She turns left – the way you’d go if you were looking for drugs or for trouble.

  ‘Verity, let me at least explain.’

  The air has become chilly and the pavement is cold and hard beneath my socks.

  ‘You said you weren’t seeing anyone,’ Verity says, and her voice is hard and hurt. ‘You stood there and crossed your heart. You’re just a selfish, manipulative liar.’

  ‘She’s my estate agent,’ I say.

  Verity laughs, a short exhalation without any trace of humour. An expression of disdain.

  ‘I slept with her. Once. But it was weeks ag—’

  Verity stops, turns to face me. ‘Lucky her.’

  ‘It was j—’

  ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me,’ says Verity. ‘I just wanted someone to . . . to take me to bed, okay? And you seemed the easiest option.’

  ‘Verity, pl—’

  ‘But it looks like I got you wrong, after all. Doesn’t it?’

  She starts walking and I follow.

  ‘Verity, it’s not safe out here,’ I say.

  ‘Thank you for your concern. Now will you leave me alone, please.’

  ‘I’ll walk you to the tube.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t. I’d rather you weren’t anywhere near me.’

  ‘Verity—’

  ‘Tom,’ she spits the word and it stops me like a steel trap. ‘Leave me alone right now, or I’ll scream.’

  I watch her walk away until she turns the corner. I don’t call her name again but follow at a distance until she reaches the station, and Verity doesn’t look back once.

  Traipsing back to the flat, I’m just approaching Chaucer Road when the silence is shattered by the violent bang of a slamming door. I trot the last few paces, turning the corner just in time to see a small figure scurrying into the distance. Dread lurches through me, and I pat frantically at my jeans before locating the lump of keys in my pocket. It does little to stem the surge of adrenalin pumping through me, though, and I jog the rest of t
he way to the flat.

  Yvette has left the porch unlocked and there is a light on inside Doug’s flat now. I hear him curse and a door bangs. I stand rooted to the spot, waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. A toilet flushes inside Doug’s flat, a door bangs again and the light is turned off.

  In the darkened porch I find the key to my door, and I know, even before I attempt to push it into the lock, that it’s wrong. That part of my brain that recognised something was rotten just ten very long minutes ago, now that same lobe covers its eyes and shakes its head. The key doesn’t fit. I try to force it into the keyhole nevertheless, but it won’t go. Of course it won’t go; I’ve picked up Sadie’s old set of keys. The keys she gave me when I gave her the Mini. Keys that fit the old lock – the lock I had changed a month ago.

  Doug has a spare. I stand in front of his door, fist raised, ready to knock, frozen like a dummy. He would give me hell, but he would give me my key. Whatever else I do tonight, though, I’m not getting Doug out of bed again.

  Yvette, of course, has a key. But my mobile is in the flat along with my keys and my wallet. The door at the bottom of the stairs is a heavy-duty fire door. It’s unlikely I could knock it off its hinges. But even if I could, I’d make so much noise I might just as well knock on Doug’s door. I could walk to El’s house, six miles in my socks, throw stones at his window, sleep on his sofa. It’s eleven forty-three, I’d be there by, what, one thirty a.m.? Two?

  Verity will be on the tube now, accelerating away from me.

  And I’ve caused enough of a disturbance for one evening.

  Short of risking my life and climbing the drainpipe in my socks, I’m out of options. If I extend my arms left and right I can touch the walls on either side with my fingertips. Front to back the porch is smaller, maybe four feet deep. A cell. I lie down on the floor, curl up in a tight ball and fold the doormat double into a pillow. It’s cold but it’s not freezing; I’ll most likely live.

  I count to one hundred, forwards and back. I count in French and then in Roman numerals. And then I start all over again until I slip into something approaching sleep.

  I wake as the porch door slams closed.

  I feel like I’ve been clubbed across the temples; the right side of my body – the side I’m lying on – is six feet of bruise; my spine is twisted junk. Even if I wanted to jump up and run after Doug, I couldn’t do it. It takes me several minutes and failed attempts to get upright and crack myself into something like a straight line. I bend at the knees and my joints creak and pop. I reach for my toes but they’re too far away. I stretch my thighs. I kick the fire door at the bottom of the stairs and I think I break my toes.

  I don’t wear a watch and it could be anything o’clock as I limp to the high street. It must be early – not all the shops are open, not all the tramps have crawled from beneath their hedges – somewhere between eight and nine a.m.

  I’m sitting on his doorstep when the locksmith turns up to open shop.

  ‘Locked out?’ he says, glancing at my filthy socks.

  ‘How did you guess?’

  It takes him less than ten seconds to pick my lock, and five minutes to write an invoice for eighty quid.

  ‘You have to see the funny side,’ he says.

  I shut the door on him, and I’ve almost made it to the toilet when I step on a jag of broken glass.

  Yvette has been busy. The wine bottle, the wine glass and two mugs float in a billion shards in a pool of milk and red wine. I limp bloody footprints through the living room to the bathroom, run a bath and lie in it until long after the water has lost its heat. I keep my phone beside me at all times, but it doesn’t ring, no one calls. My big toe has turned purple and I should probably get an X-ray, but what difference would it make?

  My old diary is in the bedside drawer, where it’s been since Sadie found it six months ago and added her own pithy entry: Eighty-six, fuck your sad self. It was good advice and I should have taken it. I tear the diary into pieces and throw them into the bin with the mess of broken glass and blood-soaked kitchen roll.

  I don’t call Verity. Because what would I say? Surely the truth is worse than any conclusion she might have already come to.

  I phone Dad, and he goes straight into: ‘Who’s this Verity I’ve been hearing about?’ Just someone, I tell him. No, she’s not my girlfriend. When I say I’m thinking of coming home for the weekend, Dad says Bianca is staying at a friend’s and he has plans for tonight – something at the church. He offers to cancel, but I tell him not to.

  Maybe it’s best that no one’s around tonight – I’m not in a particularly gregarious frame of mind – but I do feel the need to be far away from here, so I pack a bag and head out the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I still have Doug’s car keys, but I was too embarrassed to face him, not shameless enough to ask if I can borrow his car again. Besides, I can drink coffee on the train, stare out of the window, think. As the scenery rolls past I listen to the Supersuckers on my iPhone, the Pixies, the Ramones, Smashing Pumpkins. It’s not really my thing, but then again, it would seem neither is Verity. Or at any rate, I’m not hers.

  Henry Miller has been riding beside me, not saying much, but I sense his disapproval wafting up through the pages of Tropic of Capricorn. Perhaps he still resents me for allowing my father to discover and subsequently burn him two decades ago. Or perhaps his contempt stems from my utter ineptitude as a debaucher. Well, I hear ya, Henry. I guess my heart wasn’t in it, after all. Another lump of flesh, for sure, but not my heart.

  I pick up the book and start reading.

  No sex happens in the first twenty pages. The language is pretty ripe, particularly considering the book was written eighty years ago, but other than that there’s not much to get excited about. On page twenty-eight, in a casual aside, the author mentions his prolific and indiscriminate sexual appetite, but there’s no detail, no titillation, no satisfaction. I’m determined, however, to see this through to the bitter three-hundred-and-seventeen-page end. It’s my only link to Verity – maybe it contains answers, clues, redemption, an epiphany, I don’t know. A family-sized packet of Opal Fruits and litre of coffee later, Henry Miller has fucked six women (one of them his wife) and practically fisted another. But it’s not as romantic or as enlightening as it sounds.

  Dad is excited to see me and offers again to cancel his arrangements, but I tell him I’m exhausted and planning on having an early night. He opens a bottle of wine anyway, and we drink a glass in the garden before he leaves for a fundraiser at the church hall. Bianca, he says, has talked non-stop about the shoot, and is now considering applying for courses in media studies, and film production and cinematography. I apologise for this, but Dad is in fact delighted. He says that Bianca was also ‘particularly taken with a certain . . . Verity?’ But I don’t take the bait and Dad lets it be. Bianca is going clubbing tonight, with her father’s consent, and will be staying overnight with a friend, so neither of us will have to witness or deal with the aftermath.

  Dad leaves a little after seven, and I take the wine through to the living room and open a box of unsorted photographs.

  There is a snap of me at a family farm in Brittany. I’m twelve years old, sitting on an upturned box, milking a goat with matted brown fur. I’m clearly terrified, milking at fully extended arm’s length, leaning so far back that it looks as if I’m about to fall off my crate. But I didn’t. I remember it vividly. Mum laughed in that infectious way she had – biting her bottom lip; her hands clasped, palms together, between her thighs. What was I afraid of, she asked. After all, wasn’t I a Capricorn? She called me Goat Boy and made little horns with her fingers. A real memory, not just a reimagining of the photograph.

  I put the photo back in the box, pour myself another glass of wine and flick on the TV. A game show, a panel show, a hospital drama, a talent contest, a canned-laughter sitcom, repeats from the ’80s, repeats from last week, the hundred-best somethings, celebrities making arse
s of themselves, a romantic fucking comedy. I turn off the TV with one hand and empty my glass with the other. Dad buys crap wine and I’m nowhere near done for the night, so I pull on my trainers and limp off in the direction of the Old Bull.

  From my table in the corner, I count fourteen people including Susan Chambers and Steve, the proprietor. They’re all in groups of two and three and four. And then there’s me. Tonight I could have been with Verity. Maybe we spent the day sunbathing in Brockwell Park. Or rowing a boat in Putney. Ice creams and cold beers, that kind of thing. Or maybe just stayed in bed. Tonight we could have gone out for cocktails. Dressed up for a posh meal. Ordered a pizza and rented a movie. But no, none of that. I fucked it all well and truly up, and now I’m drinking on my own like little Jack no mates. I check my phone for messages, and it’s no big surprise to find there aren’t any. Yvette called earlier, twice, and I let it go through to voicemail each time. I sent a text saying we’d talk next week and in the meantime to post my keys through the letter box.

  I open a blank message, key in Verity, Hi, and immediately delete it.

  I’m sorry

  Delete.

  I’d like to explain

  Delete.

  I’m a fucking idiot

  True, but delete.

  I order a second pint from the bar and ask Susan for a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Not going to give her your number, are you?’ jokes Steve. ‘Declan won’t be happy.’ Steve laughs at his own joke, while Susan tears a sheet of paper from an order pad and passes it across the bar along with a chewed biro.

  At my table I write the numbers 1 to 98 in four columns, two on each side of the page. Number 1 – Trudi Roberts. Could Trudi have been the one for me? I run a horizontal line through her name. Number 2 – Lisa McAllister. Was Lisa my soulmate? Another crossed-out name. Number 3 – Samantha Fawcett, score her out. After Dad told me I was an accident, it occurred to me how lucky we are to have the time we have, and it irritated me that I’d wasted half a year on a puerile pursuit. But as I fill in names on my list, it occurs to me that I’ve wasted a good deal more than six months. I’m up to Number 49 – Gale ??? when Susan appears at my table and asks if I’d like another.