by Rosa Temple
In other words, a nightmare, as well as being scary, can be a rambling mess sometimes. You can’t control it, because, how can you? You’re asleep. Living nightmares are much the same. Only trouble is, no matter how bizarre, dreadful, frightening, or downright weird the living nightmare you find yourself in is, you have no control. You can’t wake up; you won’t be rescued from it by the alarm clock – you’re stuck there. So how do you eventually escape it? With great difficulty, I have to tell you. Especially when you are upset or angry, or a mixture of both.
There I was angry and upset as hell. I knew I should try to drag myself out of the nightmare but … I couldn’t. I’d lost control and I couldn’t help what came next.
I was at the kitchen table. It was my table and it was my kitchen. The front door opened and Anthony walked in. It was Anthony, not Tyrion Lannister and he was humming to himself. He didn’t come straight out to the kitchen to see if I was home, didn’t even call out for me. Instead, he went into the living room and put on some music.
Since being home I’d ripped off my red dress and the sexy underwear and replaced them with a T-shirt and stripy leggings. I sat fuming for several angry minutes listening to Foo Fighters seeping in from the living room. I hated that band. Anthony generally played their music when I was out of the house.
After several annoying bars of Best of You, its lyrics a telling sign of where Anthony’s mind was, I barged into the living room. Anthony was lying on my red sofa, feet on the arm and head on a silk cushion. He jumped when he noticed me and hit the remote to lower the volume.
‘Oh, hey!’ he said sitting up, arm over the back of the sofa. ‘You’re back home early. I thought you’d still be at work at this time.’
‘No, I was in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, don’t cook anything,’ he said. ‘Let’s just order something in and finish packing for Guadeloupe. Bet you’re looking forward to the wedding.’
I nodded and sat on the sofa opposite my red sofa. Anthony sat up properly and patted the seat next to him.
‘I won’t bite,’ he said.
Normally I couldn’t resist an invitation like that. Not one that meant cuddling up next to Anthony and having his arm around me. But I did that night.
‘You won’t believe the day I had,’ I said, not budging from my position in the middle of the sofa, leaning forward, arms on my knees.
‘What happened?’ He looked genuinely concerned.
‘I was almost hit by a taxi.’
‘Oh my God. No way.’ Anthony came over to sit next to me and started rubbing my upper back. ‘You’re okay though? I mean, Christ, if something happened to the wedding planner just before the trip …’
I shifted in my seat so that he had to move his hand. ‘It’s not a joke.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant –’
‘What about you?’ I asked turning to look at him. No – to inspect him. I’d never known Anthony to lie to me and I wanted to witness what he’d look like if he ever did lie. Somehow I was expecting him to do just that.
‘What about me?’ he asked.
‘Well anything unusual or out of the ordinary happen to you today?’
‘Um …’ He screwed up his brow, drawing out the gormless response and looking at the coffee table. A screwed-up brow. Was that his “tell”? ‘Oh, well, I had that interview thing today. You know the one I told you about? The director was there with a cameraperson, and there was the interviewer. The whole bit. I felt like a celebrity, or at least I would if it wasn’t airing on an internet channel.’
‘Oh yes, the interview.’ I nodded. ‘That was today was it?’
‘Mm-hmm.’ He nodded in the affirmative and didn’t elaborate.
‘And …?’ I pushed.
‘And what?’
‘And that’s it? I mean you’ve had an interview before so that’s not unusual or out of the ordinary.’
He leaned back against the sofa, hands behind his head. He still had the remote for the music player in one hand. He looked at it and tossed it into the corner of the sofa.
‘Nothing else happen?’ I asked, eyebrows raised.
‘Nope. Nothing.’
I got up out of my seat. ‘You can turn it up if you want. I’m going to run through my packing checklist.’ Most of that last sentence was said walking out of the living room. I ran up the stairs saying, “I knew it!” in my head with each step I took. It was a living nightmare so of course Anthony wouldn’t come clean. And if he couldn’t mention the fact that he was meeting his ex-fiancée for lunch then something extremely and most definitely suspicious was going on between them.
I flopped onto the bed, prodding the open suitcase with my toe. In no time at all I heard Anthony on the stairs, taking them two at a time in that juvenile way of his, the way I once thought of as adorable.
He put his head around the door, saw me with my arms so tightly crossed around my body I had cleavage in a high-neck T-shirt, and then he stepped into the room.
‘Magenta?’
I looked up at him.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry if I didn’t sound sympathetic about you almost being knocked down by a taxi.’
‘You just think I’m being overly dramatic don’t you? Well it did happen.’
‘Of course it did.’ He sat beside me and touched my arm. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Christ’s sake, Anthony, don’t treat me like some psychiatric patient. I coped with it, okay? What I can’t cope with is being lied to.’
‘Who’s lying? I am concerned about the accident. Don’t you want to talk about it? Normally you would have pounced on me before I got in the door and told me everything. But then, what’s normal around here these days?’
I drew in a loud breath. ‘You dare to ask me that?’ I hissed.
‘What did I do wrong this time?’
‘This time you blew it, Anthony. This time you lied.’
‘What? What did I lie about?’
‘You didn’t tell me you had lunch with Inez!’
Anthony’s mouth was stuck between an “Ah” and an “Oh” or maybe it was an “Oh shit”.
‘I was there,’ I said. ‘I came to meet you for lunch. I stood staring at the pair of you and neither of you were even aware of me. You-you looked like you did when you and her were … when she was …’
‘No, Magenta. No, you got that wrong.’
‘You mean she wasn’t there? That I’m making it up?’ I blasted.
‘No, I mean, I wasn’t looking at her like anything. We’re over. You know that. What you saw was two people, being friendly, having a light snack … in the middle of a busy restaurant. Don’t make it into something else.’
‘I don’t need to. By lying about seeing Inez, you’ve told me all I need to know.’
Anthony rose from the bed. He pointed at me. ‘You see, that’s why I wasn’t going to say anything. Not right on top of the wedding. I knew I’d have all this explaining to do and with things the way they are right now …’
‘What things? You keep saying there are things. The only thing I see going on is that I don’t trust you,’ I said. The words came rushing past my lips like a steam train, no time for editing.
With that, Anthony fell to his knees in front of me almost colliding with the open suitcase by the bed. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t say you don’t trust me.’
‘I don’t. How can I?’
‘Because we … because I didn’t do anything,’ he said, voice going up in pitch. Another “tell”?
‘So you didn’t do anything but she did?’ I asked.
‘No, no, no. Magenta, you’re just twisting everything I say. Just like you always do.’
‘Huh!’ I got up and stomped over to the window, almost sending him toppling over.
Anthony sat on the floor where he was, knees high, his arms balanced on them as he looked to the floor. I stared at him for a few seconds befor
e looking out onto the mews. Nothing was going on outside. As usual, our little mews was quiet. The only noise was coming from us.
In a while Anthony came and stood behind me, not daring to touch me.
‘Magenta, ever since we … ever since the miscarriage, you haven’t been the same with me. I don’t know where I am with you.’
‘So you having an affair is my fault?’
‘What affair? I’m not having an affair. Please, just look at me.’
I didn’t turn around.
‘Magenta, look, I’m not blaming you,’ he said. ‘I’m finding it hard to say or do the right things without you either giving me the silent treatment or talking so fast I can’t get a word in. I don’t understand what you want from me any more. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about Inez. The truth is I’ll probably never see her again.’
‘Probably?’
‘I won’t see her again. Inez moved offices when we broke up, went up to Manchester. She’d seen the exhibition up there and, just by chance, we bumped into each other. We spoke for about five minutes. Never saw her again. Didn’t even think it was worth mentioning. I was surprised when she turned up at Slater’s. She didn’t know I’d be there. She came down to London for a meeting.’
‘If she saw the exhibition in Manchester, why come again?’
‘People do that, Magenta. Go to an exhibition more than once … if they even come at all.’
That’s when I spun around. ‘I have a business to run,’ I practically shouted. ‘I said I was sorry for not coming to the exhibition when it first went up.’
‘You forgot.’
‘And I apologized. I came in the end. I was there a second time, but then so was your ex.’
‘Let’s not bring it round to that,’ said Anthony. ‘That’s not what this is about.’
‘You’re right.’ I brushed past him. ‘It’s about me not trusting you. It’s about me not wanting to even look at you. It’s about me wanting you to go and leave me alone.’
‘You what?’ he said it in a spluttered laugh but his eyes weren’t smiling.
‘I mean it, Anthony. What’s the point to us if I don’t trust you?’ I said.
‘You should trust me, Magenta. I messed up but I didn’t do anything wrong today. This –’ and here he pointed at the space between us ‘– is about a lot more than today. That’s what we need to talk about.’
‘You know what, Anthony?’ I threw up my hands. ‘I’ve had enough of talk. I don’t want to talk to you. I want you to go.’
He laughed again but again not with his eyes. It was a nervous laugh. He searched my face to see if I would budge but I wasn’t joking. I meant and felt every word.
‘You seriously want me to go?’ he said the words slowly, as if it would give me time to take it all back, say I got it wrong.
‘I want you to go,’ I said, as slow.
‘Magenta, your parents’ wedding trip is tomorrow morning. Don’t you think we should stop all this arguing and concentrate on that?’
‘That’s what I want to do. Concentrate on the wedding and not you. I don’t want you at the wedding and I don’t want you here when I get back.’
‘Just like that? Just like that you want to give up on us?’
‘I think we stopped being an “us” a long time ago.’
‘Now you really are being overly dramatic, Magenta. You can’t mean you want me to move out. Out of your life?’
I nodded and left the room. I went into the bathroom after stalling on the landing and wondering where on earth I could go in this little house that was far enough away from Anthony.
While I was in there I heard him storming about in the bedroom. I heard things being moved around and then I heard him on the stairs. He left the house and that was the end of our relationship. I planted my trembling body onto the floor next to the bath, leaned my arms onto it, and sobbed like a wounded animal … all night.
Chapter 25
The Flight
You can do this.
‘Whisky, please. A double.’
‘Magenta, are you sure? They’re about to serve breakfast.’ Amber was concerned. She and her family met me at Gatwick for our flight out to Guadeloupe. She wasn’t alarmed, first of all, when I strolled up to her, her husband, and two daughters, pushing my two suitcases on a trolley and wearing dark glasses. It was only after her youngest, Tallulah, jumped all over me, grabbed my glasses, and almost poked out her right eye trying to put them on that Amber acknowledged the Anthony gap in the airport – and my puffy, bloodshot eyes.
She craned her head around the busy hall.
‘Is Anthony buying some duty free or something?’ she asked. I was bouncing Tallulah on my hip.
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’ I said. ‘There was a massive panic at the gallery. One of his paintings went missing and he has to answer some police questions.’
‘You’re joking,’ she said. ‘How could that happen? Do they think it was an inside job?’
‘Probably.’
‘Definitely. I mean, they’ve got security cameras, right?’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘So I guess it was … an inside job.’ I plopped Tallulah to standing. ‘You guys are all checked in; I’d better do the same. I’ll meet you over by the chairs.’ I signalled with my head and pushed the trolley to check-in.
I joined the queue, which seemed to move at a steady speed. I was a good twenty minutes or so later arriving at the airport than we’d planned but I’d found it very hard to peel myself from the bed. Not that I was enjoying the sleep – I hadn’t slept much at all – but I was completely drained, bewildered, and feeling as if I was looking at CCTV footage of myself and not being a part of my own body.
Mother, Father, Indigo and her husband, and Ebony all had a later flight. The plan was that we’d meet for dinner at our hotel that evening when all the celebrating would begin. Most of the thirty-strong wedding party would be arriving later. Anya was due to arrive the day before the wedding.
‘I got you a coffee,’ said Amber’s husband, Dom, when I’d finally checked in.
‘Thanks, you’re a life-saver.’
He handed me the Starbucks cup. ‘Amber told me to get it. Said you looked really knackered.’
‘Oh, thanks a lot.’ I looked over at Amber who was doing a balancing act with her daughters. One on each leg: Sandrine, who was seven, and Tallulah, who was two.
‘So where did you say Anthony was?’ Dom asked.
‘He woke up with a really bad stomach bug. Crapping all over the place … well in the loo but, like, really a lot.’
‘Oh.’ Dom nodded up and down slowly. ‘I see.’
I tried to close my eyes on the plane. I needed to sleep because I was feeling exhausted but Amber wanted to talk. She was as chatty as little Tallulah who had made a drama of the seating arrangements. She wanted to be by the window, next to Aunty Magenta, and have Mummy nearby. After take-off I was sandwiched between a fidgeting two-year-old and a non-stop-talking big sister who sat staring at my double whisky as if it was a package of cocaine. She looked at Tallulah and then whispered to me that she was at an impressionable age.
‘I’ll tell her it’s apple juice,’ I said to Amber.
‘If you do, she’ll say she wants some.’ Amber rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, Tallulah, let’s go to the toilet.’
Tallulah made another fuss about not needing the toilet, wanting Aunty Magenta to take her, and wanting some apple juice. In the end Amber lifted her above my head, marched her along the aisle, and stayed away long enough for me to knock the whisky/apple juice back.
Arriving on such a beautiful island only made the regret I had for talking to Anthony the way I had worse. While I was quite sure that breaking up was the only thing we could have done, my heart was still breaking in two.
At our hotel we were shown up to our rooms. Amber had to wrestle Tallulah away from me because she insisted she wanted a room with Aunty Magenta.
I was enjoying the close cuddles in the taxi from the airport. I needed some physical comfort and Tallulah supplied that in spades as she buried her head of curly hair into my shoulder, sucked two of her fingers, and twiddled with my hair at the same time.
She smelled of sweet things like biscuits and fruity drinks. I would love to have carried on cuddling her if I hadn’t had this strong desire to throw open the hotel room door, fling myself onto the bed, and start crying like a baby.
Lying on the bed I checked my phone for the umpteenth time. There was no message from Anthony and no missed calls. It was all quiet from his end, though what I was expecting him to say after tossing him out of his own home, I have no idea. I wondered if he was as lost and bewildered as me.
After a few hours, I woke with a thick head but finally I’d had a much-needed, deep sleep. It was dark outside my window. I hadn’t even opened them when I arrived and the room, colourful in shades of blue and yellow, was hot and stuffy.
After throwing the patio doors open I stepped onto the balcony and heard voices and faint music from below. My room was above a large patio garden where fairy lights were lit and the sound of crickets at full volume was suddenly very noticeable. I thought I’d be able to see them hovering right by my head.
I went in to check the time. It was seven o’clock local time and I was supposed to be at dinner with the family. There was a missed call from Amber saying, “Tried knocking but you were out for the count. Whisky? We’re in the restaurant.”
As soon as she saw me enter the restaurant, Mother rushed in from the outside table the family occupied. She almost knocked me over, grabbing me by my upper arms and pulling me into a hug.
‘Darling, are you okay?’ she asked me.
‘Yes,’ I said and hugged her back. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You look a bit, I don’t know, foggy. Maybe you need a vitamin or something.’
‘I’m just tired.’
Mother looked over her shoulder at the others and then back to me. ‘Is Anthony too tired to come down?’ she asked.
