by Chris Killen
‘Really sorry about that,’ I say.
(The Philippines, I think.)
‘Wow,’ Dalisay says. ‘You saved us.’
I know she’s only joking, but I still feel kind of proud of myself.
‘People here drink a lot,’ she says.
Again, I’m not sure if she means in Wetherspoon’s or England.
‘Yeah, they do.’
I take a sip of my half.
A long pause.
‘What’s it like,’ I ask, ‘in the Philippines?’
‘You heard about the . . . the typhoon? Last year?’
‘Shit, yeah,’ I say.
(I think I saw something online.)
A long pause.
I try to think of something else to say, something positive.
‘What’s it like, apart from that?’
(I really don’t know what I’m saying.)
‘You know it’s a third world country, right?’
I nod.
(I didn’t know that.)
‘Things cost so much here, by comparison. Back home, for instance, you could buy a whole meal with how much it cost us for just these two drinks.’
‘No way.’
‘It’s pretty screwed.’
‘I should move there,’ I say, before I’ve even thought about what I’m saying. ‘I’m completely broke.’
‘Okay,’ Dalisay says quietly.
I know I should just shut up, but for some reason I don’t.
‘I mean it,’ I hear myself say. ‘Recently I’ve just been eating things out of tins. And I had to sell my guitar, and the bloke in the guitar shop ripped me off, I know he did. He only gave me four hundred quid for it. Fuck’s sake. I’m sick of having no money.’
I look down at our almost empty glasses.
I’ve said the wrong thing, haven’t I?
Dalisay’s gone quiet.
She’s not smiling any more.
‘Do you have any family over there?’ I say.
‘All my family are back there except my tita . . . Sorry, my aunt. I’m staying with her at the moment and just sending most of the money I make back home to my family. I have two brothers in college.’
‘How old are you?’
‘I’m thirty-six.’
She looks mid twenties at the most. Her skin is very smooth and there are no wrinkles round her eyes or mouth. She’s wearing her pink top again. She’s not smiling at me. Something’s changed between us. I’m suddenly extremely aware that I’ve fucked this up and I wish I knew what the right thing to do or say was: the magic combination of words that would make Dalisay Rivera instantly like me again.
‘I’d better go,’ she says, standing up and pulling on her coat.
‘I can walk you out, if you like,’ I say, downing my last inch of Fosters.
‘It’s fine. Really,’ she says. ‘Thanks for the drink. See you in work.’
Before I can get up, she’s gone.
PAUL
2014
On the way to his seminar, Paul sits on the top deck of the 42, fiddling nervously with his phone, refreshing his emails every few seconds. Australia, he thinks. Jonathan Franzen. Doctor’s appointment. NaNoWriMo.
Almost at the Precinct Centre, a new email arrives.
It’s from Julian:
Why haven’t you been replying to my emails?
I could just tell him, Paul thinks. Tell him that I’ve written nothing at all. That I think I’m going to just give up writing completely, actually.
Meanwhile, the NaNoWriMo people have broken the 41,000-word barrier on their novels.
Or maybe do a Jack Kerouac, Paul tells himself, dinging the bell. Just clear your head of all this extraneous shit and write it all in one go, over the course of a weekend.
In the silent, airless corridor of the first floor of the New Writing Centre, Paul walks past a framed picture of Martin Amis, past an office room where the admin people sit, past a large stationery cupboard, and pauses outside his seminar room. It’s gone five-past. He peers in through the thin rectangular window in the door and they’re all in there, everyone except Alison. Rachel Steed sits on her side of the desk, next to Alison’s empty place, fiddling with a pale blue iPhone.
Before anyone spots him, Paul dashes on down the corridor, past the staff room, past his office, past Greg’s office, and out through the double doors at the far end.
In the toilets, he locks himself in the corner cubicle, drops his trousers, lowers himself onto the ice-cold seat and takes a few deep breaths. As he shits, he slips his phone out of his pocket and starts composing a group email.
Dear all, he types. Sorry for any confusion re today’s class. Due to unexpected circumstances I am no longer able to attend our seminar group. A reminder: everyone who’s had their stories critiqued already should now be working on their second drafts. For reference and guidance, perhaps look back over the Lish/Carver example we covered in Wk 4 (photocopies can be found in your course handbook).
We will critique two stories next week instead.
Sorry again and see you all next week,
Paul
What a mess, he thinks, tearing off a wad of toilet paper with one hand, hitting send with the thumb of his other.
Just then, his phone buzzes and chirps in his hand.
One new Twitter notification, from @jfgkdfjdlsjf at 1:11 p.m.:
i can see what youre doing
Paul hears a shuffling sound above him, looks up, and from a circular hole in the ceiling directly above his cubicle, a bloodshot eye winks down at him.
‘Fuck!’ Paul cries, dropping his phone on the tiles as he stands and gathers his trousers, fumbling his way out of the cubicle. He buckles his belt, retrieves his phone – the glass has shattered, the cracks flowering up the touchscreen like tiny petals from the bottom left corner – and looks up at the ceiling, which is now just a normal square of ceiling again.
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 01:34:12 +0000
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Argh
Ian,
Sorry i’ve taken a while to get back to you too. A girl at the cafe left and I’ve gone up to almost-full-time which, weirdly, I’m enjoying more than I thought I would. (If I’m honest, I’ve still been feeling a bit wobbly occasionally, just panicking, generally, about almost everything – What am I going to do when I get home? What am I going to do with my life in general? Etc. Etc. – and working a lot is taking my mind off it.)
In answer to your question: yep, my birthday was a few days ago (the 15th) but I purposefully didn’t tell anyone (including you). For some reason I’ve never really had that great a time on my birthday, it always makes me feel a bit superstitious and precarious and so I decided this year not to tell anyone until it was over. (Every year I tell my mum not to get me anything, but every year she does anyway.)
Thank you for the recommendations by the way. I found a ‘hip’ record shop and went in and bought XO and that Stars album as a birthday treat. I love them both. New music! Hooray!
I’m going to have to keep this short as I’m really, really tired, but I just wanted to say a massive thank you for how much you’ve been here for me recently even though, you know, you’re on the other side of the world, and to let you know how much it’s meant and kind of kept me sane.
It’s especially nice and comforting for me sometimes just to think that you are a person, moving around, somewhere in the world, doing whatever it is you’re doing.
I hope you’re feeling happy and that things work out for you with the band soon. I really think they will. You’re very talented.
Your friend,
L
LAUREN
2014
‘Sorry, how much is this?’ a girl asked, holding up a small, pale blue typewriter, her top lip curled. The way she was dressed, she looked like she probably ran her own style blog, and each day she’d take a new photo of hers
elf and upload it with a name for the style she’d created: Nautical Biker Gypsy from the Future or whatever. Today her look seemed to be Ungrateful Typewriter Wanker.
‘Twenty pounds,’ I said, pointing out the stuck-on, handwritten price label.
‘Oh, right, so is that the actual price then?’
I nodded, and she huffed and put the typewriter back on the shelf. As I carried on hanging out an armful of shirts and blouses, I watched from the corner of my eye as she took out her phone and typed something into it.
‘They’ve got them on eBay for a tenner,’ she called across the shop a moment later, approaching me with her held-out iPhone. ‘And that includes postage.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, that one’s twenty, I’m afraid.’
‘Think I’ll leave it then.’
She left the shop and I finished hanging out the blouses and walked back to the counter.
‘Your phone made a noise,’ Peter said, nodding at my phone, which I’d left, face down, by the till.
I turned it over. It was a text from Dad: Happy Birthday sweetheart. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like this year x, which was, I suspected, almost word for word the message I got last year. I wondered what the time was, wherever he was in the world currently, and whether he’d just woken up when he sent it, or whether he’d been awake for hours already and only just remembered, and whether there really was ‘anything I’d like’ from him.
I put my phone back by the till, face down.
‘Are you on the internet?’ Peter said, out of nowhere.
‘What, like Twitter and Facebook and things?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Me personally or the shop?’
‘The shop.’
It was a thing that Jenny, the area manager, had been hammering recently at all our regional meetings: about making sure we used social networks to promote our branches as much as possible. But I’d just never quite got round to it.
‘Not really,’ I said.
‘Do you ever put things on eBay?’
‘No. We use it sometimes to price things, but I don’t know. I’m not much of an internet person.’
‘I could do it, if you like? You know, set it up and things?’
‘Really? You wouldn’t mind?’
‘I’d like to help,’ he said, smiling.
‘That’d be great,’ I said, feeling a hot sharpness at the corner of my eyes. His kindness had caught me off guard. Why wasn’t he more self-absorbed? Why wasn’t he busy taking selfies or downing goldfish or whatever it was the kids were doing these days?
‘How about you?’ he said. ‘Are you on Facebook?’
‘No.’
‘Twitter?’
‘Nope.’
‘Instagram?’
I laughed.
‘Why not?’
I thought about it. It wasn’t anything I’d ever had to explain to anyone before, but I knew it had to do with my mum. With how – even at the toughest, most horrible moments – she’d been so quiet and dignified about everything. She hadn’t complained, at all, while all that was going on inside her. And yet every time I used the internet, there seemed to be this chorus of voices, this sort of deafening waterfall of misery, everyone complaining about everything, all the time: about the weather being a bit shit, or their coffee not being quite what they’d ordered, or their job being ever so slightly annoying, or not having enough money to buy new earrings, or whatever, and it seemed like that was just what you did now, you complained about everything, and that that was what social networks were for, and I’d decided I didn’t want to take part.
And then I thought about how worthy and over the top all that sounded, itself like some sort of complaint, and I gave up on explaining it, before I’d even tried to formulate it into a sentence.
‘I don’t know,’ I said instead.
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 01:34:12 +0000
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Argh
merry christmas (AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! did you get my silly e-card thing?) to you too. hope you had a nice Christmas day.
mine was kind of awful: got in a big argument with my dad about how i should be putting my energies into something ‘more realistic’ than music (i.e. accountancy like Carol). also, Martin, her boyfriend, was there again, and he tried joining in and i had to go and pace around the garden for a bit to stop myself from shouting at him.
i like thinking about you out there, moving around in the world, too. i kind of wish you lived a bit nearer though. we should definitely hang out when you get back, if you want . . .
the gig went well i think, but no industry people turned up in the end. and still no news about the single yet. feels like band things are drifting slightly. if i’m 100% honest, i’m panicking and your email has helped, so thank you.
Andrew (nice Canadian man who has come in a few times now) said i should tell you to check out a bar called The Railway Club (if you haven’t been already?). apparently there’s this little toy train that runs round the ceiling.
i wish i had more good news. i don’t know. guess i feel a bit flat today. i wish we were hanging out somewhere.
IAN
2014
On Thursday afternoon, about half an hour before home time, Martin tells us to finish off whatever call we’re on, then come through to the break room. We’ve hit the basic target a day early, and, true to his word, he’s sent out for pizzas.
‘One slice each, yeah.’
I log out of the dialler and take off my headset and shut down my computer. Then I stand and stretch, trying to make the deep ache in my spine go away. Dalisay’s head pops up from behind the partition wall.
‘Hey,’ she says, taking off her headset, shaking out her hair.
‘Pizza,’ I say.
‘Pizza,’ she says.
‘Sorry about the other night. If it sounded like I was just complaining.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she says, gathering her bits and pieces.
To my right, Dean’s finishing up the end of his call. He removes his headset, rubs his face and groans loudly into his palms.
‘Are you having pizza?’ he asks.
‘I guess so,’ I say.
I want to follow Dalisay, but Dean grabs my elbow.
‘Here you go, lad,’ he whispers, slipping a small shiny object from his rucksack and fumbling it into my hand. ‘This might help wash it down.’
It’s a hip flask.
‘Cheers, Dean,’ I say, unscrewing the lid. I take a swig, much bigger than I’d planned. I was expecting whisky, but it’s vodka. It makes me shudder. I pass it back and Dean glances around the room, then takes a big swig, too, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his thin grey throat.
‘Ah,’ he says, smacking his lips.
Down the corridor, Martin’s laid out three large margaritas on the break room tables and he’s getting everyone to walk past him, one by one, with paper plates.
‘One slice only,’ he shouts across the chatter.
Dean and I join the back of the queue. I swear I can feel the vodka working inside me already. My cheeks are tingling and my ears are buzzing. Dalisay’s only a few people ahead of us in the queue. She’s talking to Tall Boy again. He’s moving his hands around and leaning into her and she’s gazing up at him and moving the hair from her ear and smiling.
‘Want a bit more?’ Dean whispers, nudging me in the ribs.
I look around. We’re right at the back. Everyone’s focusing on the pizza.
‘Cheers, yeah,’ I say, ducking my head a little as I take another, even bigger swig from the flask. I pass it back to Dean and he does the same. By the time we reach the front of the queue, we’ve emptied it.
‘One slice each, yeah,’ Martin says to us.
‘Cheers, Martin,’ I say.
Then everyone stands around in twos or threes, nibbling their pizza, not really sayin
g very much. Some people are doing things on their phones. Dalisay is still talking and laughing with Tall Boy. Meanwhile Dean is leaning into me, going on about how rubbish the internet is. Something has shifted inside him now. He’s become sweary and narrow-eyed. I feel worried. I look around the room for a way out.
‘All this fucking Facetube business,’ he hisses. ‘What’s it all for?’
‘I don’t really go online that much, to be honest,’ I say.
‘I mean, look at that muppet over there,’ he continues, nodding towards Danny, who’s leaning against the wall, tapping at his phone. ‘Fuckin’ bragging in here the other day, he was, about how he’d got over a thousand friends online, right? Right? And then he just stands over there on his own, stroking his electronic penis. I mean, how does that even work?’
‘I really don’t know what to say,’ I say.
‘Fuckin’ idiots, the lot of you.’
‘Are you drunk?’ Carol asks when I get in.
I’m trying to stand normally but my knees keep buckling. She’s over by the oven, stirring a big pan of pasta sauce.
‘Can I have some of your dinner?’ I say.
‘You are,’ she says. ‘You’re rat-arsed.’
‘It’s Friday night.’
‘It’s Thursday evening.’
‘I’m going to my room.’
I close my door and sit on the end of my bed and pick Ways of Happiness up off the floor. I throw it hard at the wall. Then I go and get my laptop down from the top of the wardrobe and sit with it on the edge of the bed. Once it’s booted up, I click the wifi pop-up and, before I can change my mind, I quickly select Rosemary’s Wireless.
Back online, the first thing I do is log into Facebook. The little red dots at the top of the screen tell me I have forty-six unread messages and six hundred and twenty-three other notifications.
