The Difference Between You and Me

by Celia Hayes

  Across my arms, there, in the doorway, is another woman wearing a simple blouse. Her eyes are fixed on us and from here I can almost hear the sound of her soul crumbling.

  “Enough!” I shout, getting up.

  What was I doing?

  A surge of disgust forces me back to reality, while on the other end of the phone line, Horace strives in vain to retrieve the intimacy that had arisen.

  “Trudy, don’t go away. Don’t leave me, please.” Disheartened. Panting.

  “Is this the best you can do? After what happened you call me and think you can solve everything with a bit of sleazy phone sex?”

  “But don’t you see that this is precisely the problem? It’s not about the sex. It’s about us, about our intimacy. Baby, we can still make it. We—”

  But I don’t hear the rest because I stand up and with a furious gesture fling my phone across the room.

  It takes me a good five minutes of breathing deeply to regain possession of my body. Five more to decide to get up from that damn bed. Another good twenty in the shower to get back to my normal self.

  Cold.

  Frozen.

  I put on a pair of black trousers, a red top and a cotton cardigan and I go out into the street. If I stay at home any longer I’ll go crazy. And I haven’t eaten anything for hours.

  The walk gives me a bit of relief, but the streets, as usual, are completely dead. Not a cinema. Not a theatre. I don’t even know anyone. I don’t know where to go.

  I decide to take a trip to the pub: at least they have beer and sandwiches which are almost edible.

  Unlike other nights, there’s loads of noise to welcome me. I’m almost tempted to go home, not feeling particularly at ease among all the check shirts and greasy vests, but my survival instinct prevails. I need to feed myself.

  Unfortunately, there are no free tables, so I take a seat at the bar and wait for the barmaid to bring me a menu. When I finally browse through it, I find I have a choice between:

  Cholesterol.

  Triglycerides.

  Indigestion.

  Nausea.

  Vomit.

  Death.

  I think I’ll choose the latter. It looks inviting, fast and painless.

  Ethan appears carrying a tray of empty glasses, which he begins to fill, keeping them tilted to prevent the foam overflowing. Breathing deeply, I watch his movements. I can’t help but notice his clothing.

  He’s done up to the nines.

  It must be hunting night.

  He’s wearing a pair of black jeans, a sleeveless shirt of the same colour, a bandana and a couple of leather bracelets. This time, his beard is trimmed, not like the first night. Just a trim, which is sufficient to make that pair of tits with a girl attached to them who helps him at the weekends, sigh.

  He’s changed aftershave too. Not that I care. I only noticed because there is a fan behind him and every time he moves I can’t help getting a waft of his perfume.

  “These at table three, these two at table six.” He hands her the now full glasses. She blows him a little kiss, wiggles her bottom and off she goes, obviously well trained in doing as she’s told.

  I don’t have much to do, so I stare at her with a raised eyebrow then bury my head in my palm. As soon as the show ends, I turn towards Ethan to examine his reaction, and… and I’m not at all amazed. He gives her an intense bad boy look, smirks and helps her lift the tray to show off his biceps while she, of course, eats him up with her eyes.

  Disgusted, I quickly retrieve the menu that I had abandoned and hide amongst the specials until the darling creature comes back to ask me cockily, “And what can I get you, Trudy dear?”

  I want to say something nasty to her but I bite my tongue. Ethan, though, winces at her words.

  “A hamburger and a salad.”

  “Do you want a bun with or without sesame seeds?”

  “Wha… what? Ah, Without.”

  “Lettuce or mixed?”

  “Lettuce,” I snort.

  “Well done, medium or rare?”

  “Do it however the hell you like!” I snarl, slamming the menu on the counter.

  “Okay,” she says, continuing to write in her notebook.

  What is she writing if the person who is going to make my hamburger is right in front of us? And he, who knows, says nothing. No. He lets her enjoy torturing me. As if I didn’t know that he’d turned to hide the laughter he can no longer hold back.

  “And what can I bring you to drink?” she carries on relentlessly.

  “Cyanide,” I hiss through clenched teeth.

  “Hmm… I don’t know if we have it.”

  “Huh?”

  I hope she’s joking, but no, she’s not joking at all. She grabs the menu and looks through the spirits until she gives up and asks me, “You don’t remember where it was, do you?”

  I open my mouth and am about to let out an atomic explosion when Ethan wisely returns to prevent me from throwing something at her. “Don’t worry, Allie, I’ll take care of her. Why don’t you go and take table thirteen’s order?”

  “Whatever you like,” she says, melting into treacle. “See you later, Trudy dear,” she says affectionately and goes off swaying through the crowd, all her hemispherical virtues on display.

  “So, would you like a beer?” he asks cheerfully.

  “Since you’ve run out of cyanide…”

  He swiftly takes a clean glass from the dishwasher and runs it under the cold tap. “For the burger just give me a couple of minutes. I have two other orders.”

  “Take your time. I have two or three things to do,” I reply, pulling my iPad out of my bag. I would like to read a bit, but Ethan observes my every move from behind the draught beer taps and I can’t concentrate.

  “What are you looking at?” I ask him rudely.

  “God, you’re touchy.”

  “Maybe I just don’t like being stared at,” I retort.

  “You look tired,” he says, putting a full glass of beer next to my hand.

  “I won’t deny that.”

  And I lose myself amongst my iBooks, looking for something to cheer me up.

  “Will you leave that damned thing alone?” he protests, snatching my iPad from me too quickly for me to be able to prevent him.

  “What, are we back at school. Will you give it back?”

  “No. It’s confiscated until further notice,” he says, hiding it under the counter.

  “Ethan, I’m not in the mood for games,” I say, losing my patience.

  “And I’m not playing,” he replies before turning to Lucas, the partner with whom he runs the pub. “Can you cover me for a minute here? I’m taking a break.”

  At first Lucas shakes his head, but when he sees me on the other side of the counter, he smiles and finally decides to nod, giving him the okay.

  What did I miss?

  I don’t really want to know. I’m just hungry. Deprived of my tablet, I sip at the beer in my hands. Ethan, however, disappears behind a small door to come back only a quarter of an hour later, holding a plate overflowing with chips in his hands. At the centre is my burger, with a couple of bits of salad. I stretch out my hands ready to clutch it to me like a child in my arms, but just as I’m about to take the tray, someone asks Ethan a question and he stops to answer them.

  “Nooo…” I moan. “Come back to me…”

  Cursing inwardly, my eyes raised heavenwards, I wait for them to finish blathering.

  Vulgar laughter.

  Stupid chatter.

  Two or three jokes I don’t understand about people I don’t know.

  If I don’t do something, he could go on for hours…

  “Ethan, damn you, will you bring me that bloody—” I start to say, but just at that moment he comes over and whispers, “Follow me,” then comes out from behind the bar and walks towards the bathrooms.

  Chapter 12

  Quack. Quack. Quack.

  “Okay, let’s try it again – but this time
, make sure you breathe while I kiss you.”

  “Do I really have to?”

  “Hey!” I complain. “Could you just give me my burger?”

  He doesn’t hear me. He’s too far away.

  Grumbling, I pick up my bag, snatch up my beer and join him towards the back, realizing too late that I am standing in front of the men’s toilets.

  “I hope you’re joking—”

  “Get a move on!” he says, checking behind him. “Hurry up! If I don’t get away now, they’ll never let me out.”

  “I am not going into the men’s bathroom! Give me my burger and then go wherever you like.”

  “God, you’re a pain.”

  Being careful not to drop anything, he puts a hand in the middle of my back and pushes me inside, closing the door behind him.

  “I hope you don’t think that I’m going to give myself to you for a hamburger?” I warn him, when I realize how compromising my position is at the moment.

  Locked in a bathroom with a muscular stranger on a Saturday night, all after hanging up on Horace, who certainly wasn’t twiddling just his thumbs.

  I’ve become a woman of ill repute!

  “Get in there.”

  He points to a second door next to a storage cupboard.

  “May I know where you’re trying to take me?”

  “To my secret cellar, where I cut the throats of all the women who have driven me mad with their stupid questions,” he says, then starts pushing me by the shoulder, tired of waiting.

  “Stop it, I’m going!”

  We find ourselves in a small courtyard surrounded by three storey houses with closed windows. In front of us there are only a street lamp and a swing, the rest of the small space mostly occupied by parked motorcycles.

  “Sit down,” orders Ethan, pointing to the swing.

  “Why?”

  “Just sit down and be quiet!”

  Tired of bickering, I sit down and wait, my expression still belligerent. He arranges the door so it doesn’t close completely, then joins me and finally passes me the plate.

  “There you are – enjoy!”

  “Will you tell me why we came here?”

  “You want to eat, I want to chat.” He pulls a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his jeans and lights one.

  “And what if I don’t want to have a conversation?”

  “The water tank’s on my balcony so I know what time you have a shower.”

  “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “I’m urging you to be accommodating…”

  “Hmm… This despotic side of yours surprises me,” I admit, looking at him sideways. He just smiles at me, studying my expression as I take a couple of bites of the burger.

  “Good?”

  “Edible.”

  “Coming from you, that’s a great compliment. I’m touched, I wasn’t expecting such praise.”

  “If I were you I wouldn’t get used to it.”

  “Why are you always so uptight?”

  “I’m not uptight. I’m emotionally constipated, sleepy, hungry and intolerant, but I’m not uptight,” I say.

  “And among all these adorable qualities, is there any little fault that might make you more human in my eyes?”

  “Why don’t you go and bother Judith?”

  “Who’s Judith?”

  “That pile of silicon you shag on Thursdays.”

  “Ah… You’re talking about Allie! How do you know I shag her on Thursdays?”

  “Well I don’t know, Ethan dear, what do you think?”

  “I should have thought about the thickness of the walls.”

  But as much as he tries to simulate contrition, he is totally indifferent to the discovery that I get to hear him having sex in Dolby Surround.

  “Speaking of which,” I take this opportunity,” I’d like you to stop keeping me awake until five in the morning. I have a life too, and it starts much earlier than yours, so I would like a bit of co-operation.”

  “What life are you talking about?” he asks, stealing a chip from my plate. “Because it seems to me that apart from killing yourself in front of your computer you don’t do much.”

  “I have responsibilities,” I say indignantly.

  He doesn’t reply, just sits in front of me with his legs crossed and his elbows resting on his knees nibbling a chip.

  “Stop staring at me immediately.”

  “Why, does it make you uncomfortable?”

  “What?”

  “That I look at you.”

  He takes a long drag on his cigarette, tilting his head.

  “Why should it?”

  “So what do you care if I stare at you?” He spells out each syllable, as though deliberately trying to annoy me.

  Welcome to kindergarten…

  “I’m not going to bed with you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  Are we… Are we arguing?

  He seems to want to.

  He gives me a very nasty look.

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot – today’s Saturday, it’s Cupcake’s shift.”

  “Whose shift?”

  “The girl who always calls you ‘Cupcake’. Do you like it? No, seriously, tell me – how do you stop your equipment from collapsing as soon as you hear it?” I ask sarcastically.

  “Do you listen to everything I do?”

  “My dear, I’d really rather not but I don’t have a choice, and she screams so loud that it’s like the house has been hit by an earthquake measuring eight on the Richter scale.”

  He’d like to. I know he’d like to carry on acting angry at me, but there’s a part of him that just cannot suppress a show of pride. He struggles to keep a straight face. He hesitates, but finally here it is, the triumphant smile appears.

  Realizing that he is under close observation, he scratches his head uncomfortably, but the grin is still there, the proof of a huge ego that, in spite of myself, I have helped to consolidate.

  “You’re shameless!”

  “Okay, okay…” he says, rubbing his chin, “I’ll try and make less noise. I realize it must be excruciating for you. To know you’re there, all alone, and not with me…”

  “Believe me, you wish.”

  “Is someone here insinuating something? I hope I haven’t misunderstood.”

  I laugh.

  “It’s not an insinuation, just the truth,” I confirm, wiping my hands with a napkin.

  Am I flirting?

  Perhaps it’s better to retreat, I wouldn’t want him to get any funny ideas.

  “You’re used to a different kind of girl. The ones who hear ‘Hey doll, I’m going to take you right here on the kitchen table’ and they think they’ve found the man of their dreams, but it doesn’t work with me. There has to be intensity, trust, harmony—”

  “And when does the part where you have sex begin?” he cuts in.

  “You see? We’re not really compatible,” I say. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go home. I’m exhausted and I want to have a bath and go to sleep.”

  “But it’s only eleven o’clock and it’s Saturday night,” he protests, taking the empty plate from my hands.

  “I know, but tomorrow I want to wake up early. I’m busy.”

  “You won’t reach thirty at this rate.”

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take. It’s for a good cause!”

  “What, let’s hear it?” he asks, helping me get to my feet.

  “Becoming outrageously rich,” I confess with a dreamy expression.

  “Aha… Very noble indeed!” he comments, moving closer. Too close. Just too close…

  The distance between us is suddenly gone.

  Taking the plate in one hand, and putting the other on my hip, he bends down in search of my face. As soon as I smell his odour, I turn into an icicle and instinctively step back in an attempt to escape.

  “Trudy, I’m just trying to say goodbye,” he whispers as if all this was normal, while my mouth dries up completely.r />
  “And can’t you do it from where you were?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.

  “No, I can’t. Will you relax for a second?”

  “No.”

  “At least try!”

  His hand runs up my back, pushing me into his arms.

  “Ethan, I don’t think you—”

  “Shh!” he whispers, leaning over me and, before I have time to do anything, he gives me a kiss on the cheek.

  Nooooo… Damn it, no! His lips are really, really, really soft …

  I need something to distract myself from this, urgently.

  One little duck

  Went out one day,

  Over the hill and far away.

  Mother duck said,

  “Quack, quack, quack.”

  But none of five little ducks came back.

  Sigh… It doesn’t work.

  Unaware of how much he has agitated my little mind, ravaged by embarrassment and a sudden flood of hormones, he pulls back gently and the warmth of his body abandons me, making space for the damp evening air. I seek refuge from the gusts of wind by crossing my arms and sincerely hope that this is not one of those scenes out of a Mills and Boon novel where the heroine’s nipples are magically transformed into two machine gun bullets.

  “See?” he asks, “It wasn’t that hard, right?”

  “In all honesty,” I comment half-heartedly, “I’d rather it didn’t happen again.” And I no longer have any desire to fool around. Psychologically, I’m in bits, I’ve got terrible sinusitis and, to be honest, even my hair isn’t what it was a few weeks ago. Exchanging effusions with a rocker in the poorly lit courtyard of a pub in the middle of nowhere is not one of my priorities, and it’s not much good for my mental and physical equilibrium either.

  Partly shocked, partly embarrassed and partly angry with myself, I take my bag and go back inside before Ethan has time to stop me. I pay his colleague for the burger, put on my coat, take back my tablet and I’m already out of the pub, on my way home. And the only company I can tolerate for the rest of the evening is my iPad.

  Chapter 13

  Epistolary Correspondence

  “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

  “Do I look like one of the Miss Wet T-shirt jury? If I were you, I’d worry more about that love bite on your neck.”