by Laura Kemp
All right, perhaps it hadn’t ended up as the world’s greatest love story. They’d last had sex a month ago and she’d put that down to his exhibition stress, and that wasn’t so bad if you’d been together seven years. But she’d been happy.
Vee’s brain would run through the two calls she'd made to Jez since she’d come home. Her brave ‘hellos’ soon buckled into desperate sobs of ‘why didn’t you say anything?’ and ‘we could’ve worked it out’, which led to deranged and repeated questions of ‘who is she?’.
Through his waffle, the bottom line was she'd come along at a time when Vee’s ‘marry me or else’ had felt like an ultimatum. They met at the studio - Vee had been right – and he couldn’t help falling in love with her. Then it rounded off with him saying he would always love Vee, but not in ‘that way’. The calls would dry out soon, she knew that, and it frightened her. As if her drug supply was going to be cut off. No girlfriend would stand for her bloke spending hours on the phone to his ex, which was all she was now. And he was just going through the motions, she knew, out of guilt. She’d done him the biggest favour, leaving Brighton like that, he could love again without the fear of an hysterical ex-girlfriend turning up. And he knew it – why else hadn’t he had a go at her for breaking up ‘The Angst of Man’ sculpture? She felt embarrassed about that now: it had been petty and pointless. It merely confirmed that there was nothing she could do to change his mind. Unless it all went wrong with the bitch who’d stolen her man and her life. Yet even then he wouldn’t come back to her: he was a propeller, always flying forward, looking for the next thing. She was starting to accept this: she couldn’t make him love her. Yet still she had waves of empty hope that he would come back.
She felt as if she was at the bottom of a canyon, trying to climb up but the rocks kept slipping underfoot. She needed a hand to pull her up. But there was no one.
Apart from Mum, who had been a comforting, non-judgmental ear, rubbing her back and cooing ‘there, there’ when the agony tore her in two. And Dad’s arms around her, telling her it wouldn’t be forever and perhaps she’d like to come to the club one night because there was one chap who’d just got divorced and while he didn’t have much hair he was an excellent golfer, which had made her howl with laughter rather than sorrow.
Mum had suggested getting back in touch with her old friends. ‘Times have changed, people grow up, the past is forgotten,’ she’d said. ‘There might be a school reunion coming up or a group who go out regularly for a coffee.’ But the words felt naive: ‘It’s not the 1950s, Mum,’ she’d said. ‘They’ll have moved away.’
The guilt came again: that was the trouble with being here. It was a refuge, dear God it was the safest place in the world, but it made her feel a child again with its soul-destroying reminders of how far she hadn’t actually come.
Gav’s room had been redecorated and stripped of all traces of him: there was no need to preserve anything because he was happily married with kids and a people carrier, commuting to Cardiff Bay for work from a new-build estate off the A470.
Why had Mum and Dad kept her room as it was? Had they always known her relationship with Jez was doomed? If so, how, because, in the nicest possible way, weren’t they the tamest and least insightful people on the planet? For God’s sake, they gave each other running commentaries on which birds were eating the fat balls in the garden.
Vee heaved herself up to switch on her lava lamp: the gloom was setting in and she couldn’t see the point of drawing open her curtains.
Her eyes took in the scrapbook of her room: a line of ancient Beanie Babies on her shelf beside her Judy Blume, Harry Potter and Flowers In The Attic books. Kat had secretly borrowed them because her mother only let her read the classics. Oh, Kat, Vee thought, aching for her, why did we let one row ruin years of friendship? If only Vee had known that proper mates were so hard to come by, but in those days you took it for granted that life would be full of opportunities, not dead ends.
She shivered, feeling haunted, as she looked at her American Beauty poster. It was a reminder of the yearning she’d had to escape middle-class suburbia when everyone else was into American Pie. Then Mikey came to her again. The one who had meant so much but had disappeared without a trace. Where was he now?
And where did she go from here? Brighton was a lifetime away and her job was gone. Maybe Mum was right about finding her friends. But why, if she was only going to be here for a bit until she’d pieced herself back together and decided where she would go next? Yet she needed allies. For the first time in days, she felt a quickening.
Her fingers began to tingle and they reached out for her craptop. This was an emotional risk – she remembered how she had checked her emails with apprehension and a bit of excitement in the days after Mikey would’ve read her letter in which had said she might feel more for him than she’d thought. Her confession hadn’t come from nowhere – he’d written how much he missed her, he was coming to visit her in Cambodia and he was feeling that something good was about to happen. But then the days of waiting to hear back from him stretched into weeks. His silence had made it obvious that she had freaked him out and he wasn’t feeling it. Despite the intense sadness, she was by herself in Thailand then, Kat had gone, and she’d had to survive. Believing enough time had passed for them to reconnect and forget the weirdness that had gone on, Vee had sent him a Facebook friend request when she had settled in Brighton. But it had never been accepted.
Over time, she’d come to terms with her loss: it just hadn’t been meant to be. Yet always there were moments which reminded her of him. Hearing a song they’d loved or an opinion they’d hated had reminded her he was no longer there to dance or do snorty laughs with. It was all water under the bridge yet that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be affected if she found him now in exactly the same dire straits. Because how would he have air-lifted himself out when everything was against him? She’d feel sorry for him. And what if she saw his face and her heart leapt? What if deep down she still had feelings for him?
It was unlikely though: people and music and books meant things at particular moments in your life, meeting whatever need you had at that time. Like, if she sat down now to read Sweet Valley High, it would only ring a very distant bell.
Then there was Kat, who was bound to be sharp-suited and into luxury handbags, her life organized on a spreadsheet. Kids in Mini Boden and a home straight out of an interiors mag. It would drag Vee down. But down to where? For fuck’s sake, she couldn’t fall any further.
With that, she flipped the lid, her heart fluttering to life. You couldn’t go back, people said, but what choice did she have…
On Facebook, she went for Kat first – her story would be easier to stomach. They might not have anything in common, but could the bond they’d had count for something?
Unless she’d got a taste for blood after what happened in Thailand… Vee was afraid now – she had sent Kat loads of emails after she’d gone home, all of which had gone unanswered. Clearly, she hadn’t wanted to know her.
But it was too late, curiosity had got the better of her as the returns of her search threw up plenty of Katherine Lloyds. Scrolling down, down, down, she saw her face: instantly, she recognized Kat. The profile picture was of her with a lovely looking man, of course he would be: they were opposites, his light curly hair against her dark swishy locks. Both smiling, they were outdoors somewhere, not abroad because they were in matching Christmas jumpers with a background of green hills, probably taken as a selfie judging by the close-up. Scanning down, she saw the words ‘engaged’, which set off a stab of self-pity.
And then the blood in her veins sped up because she was in Cowbridge, half an hour from Cardiff. And because she was an estate agent. And not an exclusive high-end one for Toffs but a company Vicky recognized from years ago, which was part of the area’s fabric. Maybe she was the boss? But it didn’t say so. It was as far away as you could get from banking or bonuses. It was ordinary. Spectacularly so.
&n
bsp; It completely blew Vee’s mind. She had to know more: how her life had turned out so… normal. It was bewildering. And yes, slightly comforting that Kat, now Kate, which sounded so ordinary, wasn’t a high-flyer, albeit at a higher altitude than Vee. She clicked on ‘message’.
But how did you make up for eight years of no contact when they’d fallen out on such bad terms? She needed to think a bit first. So she started looking for Michael Murphy.
Her beating pulse pounded with worry. He’d been intelligent and creative and smart enough to be anywhere but circumstances had conspired against him, what if he was trapped at the bottom of the heap in a bedsit? Even though he’d been the one who’d decided to drop her from his life, that would still be upsetting.
A fruitless list of Michael Murphys and no sign of him on Kat/Kate’s list of friends. And there were too many Michaels and Murphys to scroll through.
Just as she was beginning to give up and her legs were feeling stiff in the pre-heating chill of the afternoon, there was an entry for someone simply called Murphy. She almost clicked away when she saw the profile picture: a pumped-up hipster in neon pink shades lying on a sun lounger with a Las Vegas sign in the background.
It couldn’t be him, she thought. Then she took a second look, gasping aloud, knowing it absolutely was him. Those thick eyebrows, the defiant mouth, the jut of his chin – what the heck had happened to him? What had happened to his hair? His lush bob of brown waves had been shaved to his scalp. Her breathing galloped as she saw his location – everywhere – and job title of Pro Geek.
She was racing to take in all of this information about him – this person she thought she’d known better than anyone who had become someone she didn’t recognize.
He had hundreds, thousands, of friends. And his latest post, from two days ago, was astounding: he had been snapped mid-bomb, frozen in the air above an indoor pool, watched by a laughing leggy tattooed stunner in a yellow bandeau bikini. His girlfriend. It had to be – this was the profile of a man who had everything.
Shocked, thrilled and even a tad envious, she went down the rabbit hole, necking shots of him living it large all over the place. Drinks in New York, doing the samba at Rio carnival, a healthy shake lunch in LA, skateboarding in Rome, scuba diving in Cuba, bungee jumping in New Zealand, sailing in Hong Kong, clubbing it in Ibiza…
Deeper she went, drunk on his check-ins at a beard convention in London, a tech conference in Amsterdam and on and on.
Vee came up for air. Here was the most private introverted person she’d ever known hanging it all out on display.
‘Oh my good God,’ she said to the ceiling, as she held her cheeks. Mikey, the person who’d hidden behind his hair, who’d shunned anything trendy, who’d wanted to make the world a better place, had turned into a humble brag tosser. Actually, drop the humble, he was as flashy as a footballer’s wife’s jewellery box. A capitalist prick, in fact.
There’s no way he’d remember her at all. And if she got in touch with him, then he’d see her limp Facebook page with its dated entries from travelling. She’d let it lie dormant for years. ‘The me-me-me sore of celebrity culture,’ Jez had called Facebook, so she’d stopped looking. It wasn’t as if she had anything to update it with now, being thirty and dumped and living back at home with the parents.
Now though, having gorged on the detail, Vee was consumed by wanting to know how Mikey had ended up as Murphy who was dining out on his success. It had to be tech-related, but she’d always thought IT types were nerds. Clearly not, she thought.
And what did she have to lose? She was pared back to the bone now. There was nothing left of her to hurt. Nosiness, curiosity, and a strong sense of having a right to know pushed her. They’d been so close, so so close, that she felt he owed her an explanation for dropping her and moving on. Vee felt an overwhelming sense of injustice, on behalf of herself and no doubt the many he would’ve trampled over to get where he was.
Only then could she rebuild herself. How could she be frightened to ask someone why he'd ignored her when he’d promised to bloody marry her if they were both single at the age of thirty?
A bolt of madness came to her then, why the hell not message him? She’d never see him again. She was a crazy dumped woman and she seethed with a bitterness that life had dealt her lemons – she wanted to squeeze the juice in his eyes. Remind him of where he’d come from…
No. Her spine shrivelled. That wasn’t the way. She wasn’t like that.
Sighing, she faced up to it: she had come online because she was lonely. She had discovered she was still hurting too, eight years later.
The urge she had, the most basic desire, was wanting to reconnect with him and Kat. In her very soul, she felt a love for them both still. To correct the wrongs, to provide a bridge from then to now, to heal the damage she still felt when she thought of losing them both. If she heard back, she’d get some kind of closure – they’d been young when it had all gone pear-shaped: it was possible to get over that. If she didn’t hear from them, she’d know they weren’t worth it.
At this moment when she felt such a loser, when the music in her head was sad and melancholy, she needed to know if she still mattered. To prove that whatever had passed, you could go back and not feel only failure.
She scrolled through her photos to find a half-decent one – if she was going to make a comeback she needed to change her profile pic. But all of them were selfies with Jez. The only one she could post was of the two of them at a festival in Spain in the summer: she looked all right in it because the sun was behind her and, with a bit of a filter change and a crop, cutting out Jez, she looked okay. Her pinky bleached hair was lit up like a halo and she was laughing. She liked her teeth, they were straight and even, and her make-up hadn’t melted off yet.
She wrote the same light message to both: Hi, long time no see! I know it’s out of the blue but just wondering how you are. Would be great to catch up.
And she signed both as Vee – she wasn’t Vicky anymore.
Then she snapped the lid shut and got a waft of armpit.
It was time to have a bath and get her life back.
*
La Paz, Bolivia, September 2007
What the hell have I done? Kat panics, her chest heaving from the altitude.
On the ripped back seat of a dilapidated cab, she takes a sly look at Vicky because surely she’s thinking the same thing. Because she’s never been anywhere outside Europe. But Kat? She’s been to America, Canada and South Africa, where she even did tours of the Soweto township and Robben Island. That, though, means nothing to where she finds herself now.
Incredibly, though, Vicky’s face is actually illuminated with excitement. ‘This. Is. Mental,’ she mouths at Kat, her eyes wide and bright.
Desperate to contain her fear, not daring to speak in case she screams, alarmed that she is terrified about where she is but Vicky isn’t, Kat nods frantically which, thank God, doesn’t let her down: Vicky beams at her then turns back to the window to gawk at the view of La Paz.
How the heck is she so not frightened? She can’t be hiding it because Vicky lets it all out: the way she deals with stress is to reveal it immediately, as if she’s thrown it up. Kat really thought Vicky was going to be a wreck. But apart from a wobble when they said bye to their parents, Vicky seems to have left her scaredy-cat at home. Kat’s though has jumped up from her rucksack and is currently scratching her face off.
The ride to the city is bumpy – the gaudy Virgin Mary relic swinging from the rear-view mirror makes her feel sick. It’s just the comedown of the adrenalin rush, she tells herself, still stunned by their birth from the airport’s womb into a shoving and pushing crowd thick with hawkers crying ‘taxi’ and ‘hotel’, trying to hijack them en route to the official taxi rank. It’s bizarre how getting into a car with a strange man suddenly felt like the pinnacle of safety. Then there’s the tiredness of twenty-odd hours in transit on hardly any sleep and the fact her brain, which believes it to be
night-time, blanches at the severity of the afternoon sun.
The red digital numbers of the fare, accelerating wildly because there’s loads of Bolivianos to the pound, begin to jump around then bleed, leaving a trail as she looks away to take in La Paz.
She’d crammed the Lonely Planet, but nothing, nothing, prepares you for the sight of the highest city in the world at three thousand, six hundred and fifty metres above sea level. It is all laid out before them in a bowl of a valley, surrounded by snow-capped mountains even though it is technically spring. This place is challenging all her senses: the sky is the truest blue she’s ever seen and while the sun seared her cheeks the second she stepped out into its cruel rays, there’s a creeping coldness. But then she wore completely the wrong clothes – she’s in a cardie, flip-flops, vest top and jeans. She feels stupid now for laughing at Vicky’s fleece and utility trousers which zip off into shorts.
The landscape doesn’t seem real: millions of tiny makeshift buildings which look as if God has dropped brown sugar cubes from the sky. There are no neat lines, it’s haphazard, confusing. Roofs of blue, red and yellow chaotically break up the mass of the canyon, which is centred by old-fashioned white skyscrapers, none of which are the same height or size.
Disorientated, she feels a cold sweat now, wishing the taxi driver would slow down, stop beeping and turn off the radio which bellows pan pipes and a tongue she knows is Spanish but might as well be the national language of Mars.
She blinks hard, her contact lenses as dry as the air here. Her breathing still hasn’t recovered – she did think it was just the buzz of landing and having to think on her feet. But it’s the altitude and panic which is making her lungs strain.
