Don't Get Me Wrong

by Marianne Kavanagh

  “There’s nothing wrong with high standards.”

  Damaris looked woebegone. “But it’s almost like I feel someone has to be perfect before I’ll even go out for a drink with him. And perfect people don’t exist.”

  Jake’s pretty perfect, thought Kim, leaning back on her hands, feeling the warmth of the late September sun on her face. Busy, obviously. Sometimes I feel I have to make an appointment to see him. But this is what happens when you choose a partner whose career is a vocation. “What about that tall one? The one I met in the pub on your friend’s birthday?”

  Damaris pulled a face. “He’s got hairy earlobes. I keep wondering if all his other smooth bits are hairy, too. And nobody wants pictures like that in their head.”

  “You just haven’t met the right person yet.”

  “Or maybe I have and I didn’t realize it. You know, some people end up with boys they were at school with.”

  Kim pulled a face. “Not the boys we were at school with.”

  “Just imagine—your ideal man right under your nose but you’re too stupid to see it.” Damaris sighed and lay down, closing her eyes. “There’s only one solution. Lonely hearts online.”

  “Or you could go to the South of France,” said Kim, “and trail up and down the promenade looking for anyone who looks rich enough to take you out to lunch.”

  Damaris laughed. Kim lay down next to her, and for a while they were silent, listening to the sounds of Sunday on the Rye. Damaris said, “What about Eva?”

  “What about her?”

  “Is she going out with anyone?”

  Kim frowned. “She doesn’t seem to need anyone. She’s got a lot of friends, but no one special. She says she’s got Otis now. He’s the love of her life.”

  “Do you think she misses Harry?”

  Kim felt a little tug of guilt. It seemed all wrong, Eva and Otis in a flat in south London, Harry on the other side of the world in an apartment in Manhattan. He’d been gone for six months now. A snap decision, Eva had said. A good career move. But sometimes Kim wondered if it was all her fault. Perhaps, in the end, all her carping and criticism had driven him away. And while she was still convinced that Eva was too good for Harry, did she really have the right to control her sister’s life? “She never mentions him.”

  Damaris turned her head and opened her eyes. “Really?”

  Kim nodded.

  “I always thought they’d end up together.”

  I know, thought Kim. We all did.

  Damaris turned back to the sun. “This is fatal, lying here. I’m going to end up falling asleep.”

  “I think you’re allowed to, the hours you work.”

  Damaris smiled. “Why don’t we go and visit him in New York? See what he’s getting up to?”

  Kim screwed up her eyes very tight. No, she thought. I don’t want to do that at all.

  • • •

  “One minute you’re enjoying Saturday night with your girlfriend—someone you’ve known for years, and you’ve always had a laugh, told each other everything, felt exactly the same way about Eat, Pray, Love, and talked about whether you can ever be truly comfortable in a thong. And then suddenly there he is. Her new boyfriend. He’s what my nan would call a gowk. A dork. A complete idiot. You know what I mean, don’t you, pet? The woman in the front row. I bet your best friend’s going out with someone just like that. She is? The woman sitting next to you? But you hadn’t told her. Ah. Oh dear. You’re in for a fun night. So she introduces you to this man, and he’s not even good-looking—hair sticking out all over his head and mad, staring eyes like a trendy owl—and you’re meant to simper and say, Oh, how nice to meet you. But inside you’re thinking, He looks like Gollum in a wig. Have you no standards? The weeks pass. He’s still there on a Saturday night. But it gets worse. Now she’s ringing you all times of the day and night so she can go on and on about how wonderful he is. And you think, My friend has turned into an alien. Then it hits you. She thinks he’s the One. Oh shit. You can’t let that happen. You just can’t. So you do what anyone does in a crisis. You google it. And there it is. ‘Twenty ways to get rid of your best friend’s boyfriend.’ One to five are quite straightforward. Lying about her past. Herpes. That kind of thing. But number six is extraordinary. And you think, Why not? Why not have a go? All you need is a chopstick and a maraschino cherry . . .”

  • • •

  At ten months, Otis had a huge enthusiasm for food. He always grabbed the spoon. Because of this, mealtimes usually ended up in a sticky chaos of puréed carrot and mashed banana halfway up the walls.

  But Otis never looked round and cuddly, like other babies. He had long limbs, like a sprinter.

  “I suppose he’s going to be tall like your father,” said Grace to Eva on one of her brief, unwilling visits from the South of France. “He was always banging into chandeliers.”

  No one mentioned Harry’s height.

  Otis had light brown skin, dark hair, and serious brown eyes. He seemed to analyze every new experience with the same thoughtful care. You could sit him on the floor with a toy he hadn’t seen before, and he would turn it round and round in his hands, looking at it from different angles before testing its capabilities on the carpet. He seemed to experience the world as interesting but excessive. Loud noises, extreme weather, and extravagant displays of affection all made him frown, like an elderly colonel who catches sight of a young woman in a very short skirt and isn’t sure whether to complain or applaud.

  He very rarely cried. Most of the time, if there was something he wanted, he just looked at Eva. They talked with their eyes.

  “How did you know he was thirsty?” said Kim.

  “I don’t know. I just did.”

  The atmosphere in the flat in Peckham Rye was calm and purposeful. Sunlight flooded through the great big windows. Kim, now living with Jake in the appalling chaos of his junk-shop flat, would visit at weekends and feel as if she’d blundered into a country church halfway through a service. She was welcome, of course. But she didn’t quite fit in. She was the idiot in the wrong pew with the hymn book upside down.

  But she loved spending time with her nephew. One Saturday afternoon in October, while Eva went out shopping, Kim and Izzie took Otis to a children’s party—the first birthday of his little friend Ruby. In the street outside, they hesitated. Noise rushed out from behind the closed front door like a howling wind—screaming, crying, bashing and banging, squeaking toys, singing frogs, and battery-operated sirens. Ushered in by a harassed woman with a dribble of sick on her shoulder, they stood in the hallway, stunned. It was like all seven floors of a West End toy shop crammed into one tiny space.

  Otis, still in his buggy, stared. When he looked up, Kim burst out laughing. You could see it, written all over his face. WTF?

  “I didn’t realize babies were so funny,” said Kim later as she and Izzie waited at the bus stop. Kim was heading for Stockwell. Izzie was going back to the dingy bedsit in New Cross. Kim, as usual, felt guilty. Izzie had been lured to London under false pretenses. She had imagined Friends—Rachel and Monica in Manhattan. What she’d got instead was solitude in south London.

  “I don’t think all babies are funny,” said Izzie. “I think Otis is a star.”

  Kim beamed. “Eva always says that babies are complete souls. You guide them through life, but you can’t change their characters. I used to think it was all hippie nonsense.” Or, she thought, a way of making sure that no one spent too much time thinking about Otis’s father. “But now I wonder if she’s right. Otis has always been analytical. It’s just the way he’s made.” She was about to explain that she thought Otis was probably very musical, too, which explained his sensitivity to anything being played out of tune, when she realized that Izzie was staring into the middle distance with an expression of extreme anxiety. For a moment, she wondered if Izzie was transfixed by the Rottweiler with a studded collar that was leering at them from the opposite side of the road. But Izzie wasn’t looking at anyt
hing in particular. She was lost in thought. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Kim was shocked. “You’re pregnant?”

  Izzie looked at her as if she was insane. “Pregnant?”

  No secret lover, then.

  “I wasn’t sure if it would work out. But it sort of has. After a lot of trial and error. And failing miserably quite a few times.”

  Kim waited.

  Izzie took a deep breath. “I’m doing stand-up.”

  “What?”

  “Stand-up comedy.”

  Kim frowned. “You can’t be.”

  Izzie looked defeated.

  “You mean, doing an act? Onstage? Making people laugh?” Kim couldn’t believe her ears. “When? Where?”

  “You just sign up,” said Izzie. “It’s going on all over London. I used to watch it all the time. And go through all the clips on YouTube. And one day I just went along and did it. And people quite liked it. So I did some more. So that’s what I’ve been doing. Cleaning during the day and performing at night. With more and more people in the audience. And that’s why I’m telling you. Because I’m doing ten minutes in Deptford next Saturday. A nice fifty-seater above the pub. And I wondered if you’d come. If you’d come along and watch me.”

  A rush of thoughts battled for first place in Kim’s head. This was impossible! Izzie hated people looking at her! She was always worried about her thighs! She would never perform in public! She never told jokes either! Why didn’t I know? I’ve been a terrible friend! On top of all this, like a fat ugly toad, was the angry thought that Izzie, by keeping her in the dark, had been lying to her.

  “I mean, not if you’re busy, obviously. Just if you’re free. If you haven’t already got plans.”

  Kim swallowed. “On Saturday night?”

  Izzie nodded, her eyes lit up. “It’s all new material. Nothing I’ve performed before. The kind of stuff I really want to do. More political. I’ve been going over it again and again. And I’d really like to know what you think. I want to see if it makes you laugh.”

  Kim still had the glassy expression of someone who’d just sat on a patch of thistles.

  “Only if you’d like to,” said Izzie in a small voice.

  Kim pulled herself together. “Of course I would. I’d love to come.”

  “Really?”

  “Can I bring Jake?”

  Izzie blinked. “That would be lovely.”

  • • •

  It was a Sunday towards the end of November when Eva dropped her bombshell. “I’m going to do a bit of traveling.”

  Kim looked up. “Traveling?”

  “In the New Year.”

  They were lolling at opposite ends of the sofa in the flat in Peckham Rye, watching TV. Otis was fast asleep in his cot in Eva’s room. Kim leant forward, grabbed the remote, and turned the volume down.

  “What do you mean?”

  Eva looked nervous. “Just that, really. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Visit a few ecovillages as a volunteer. Start off in Sieben Linden in Germany, and then go to Denmark and Lithuania. If all goes well, I should be able to hook up with some of the musicians I met in Wales years ago, and then we’ll head off to Spain, Portugal, and Italy for the summer.”

  “And Otis?” Kim’s voice was icy.

  “It’s the time to do it, really. Before Otis starts nursery school. And there will be lots of other little children around. These are very community-based projects. Lots of families living together.”

  “But you’ll be moving from place to place.”

  “Yes.” For a moment it seemed as if Eva was going to qualify this. But under Kim’s steely gaze, she said nothing.

  “Do you want my opinion?”

  “Of course.” Although, looking at Eva’s face, it seemed more likely that she’d rather be buried up to her neck in a pit of scorpions.

  “I think you’re being completely irresponsible. You’ve got a child to consider.”

  “But I am considering him. I think he’ll have a good time.”

  “Being dragged from place to place, surrounded by people he doesn’t know—strange food, strange beds, different weather, different languages . . .”

  “I’ll be there. I’m not abandoning him.”

  “You’re putting yourself first. You’re doing what you want and making him fit in.”

  “Like our own mother did you mean.”

  Kim shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not saying that.”

  “But it’s what you’re thinking.”

  As usual, Kim was growing hot with indignation while Eva stayed perfectly calm. It made her even angrier. “Well, maybe there’s some truth in it. Maybe you think that having a child shouldn’t make any difference to your life. That Otis doesn’t need stability and security. That it’s OK to swan off and expect him to put up with whatever happens.”

  “He’s happy with any kind of change as long as I’m there. You know that. He’s really easygoing.”

  Kim glared at her. She wanted to cry.

  “He’s fine as long as I’m with him. And I will be with him. All the time.”

  In her mind, Kim saw Otis packed into a rucksack, his little soft head sticking out from the drawstring at the top.

  Eva said, “Can’t you see? There’s a crucial difference between taking Otis traveling with me and doing what our mother did. She left us. It wasn’t right. And I would never do that to my son.”

  A little voice inside Kim’s head was shouting, But what about me? You’re abandoning me, too.

  “It won’t be forever. A year. Maybe two. And then we’ll be back.” Eva smiled. “A bit older. A bit wiser. But otherwise just the same.”

  Kim found her voice. “I won’t see Otis for months.”

  “You can come and see us whenever you want. It’s only Europe. And there’s emails and Skype and Facebook—”

  “But you’re going to ecovillages.”

  Eva was puzzled. “But they all have Internet connections. I can show you the websites.” Realization dawned. “You didn’t actually believe all Harry’s propaganda, did you? About them being stuck in the Middle Ages?”

  Harry, thought Kim, with a tug of grief. If Harry were here, he’d stop her. He’d make her see that this is mad and dangerous and wrong. “Have you told him?”

  “Harry?” Eva nodded. “Yes, he knows.”

  The surprise was so sharp that it felt like a shard of ice in her stomach. “So you’re still in touch with him?”

  “Of course.”

  “I thought you didn’t speak to him anymore.”

  “Did you?”

  Kim stared at her. There was something that Eva wasn’t saying. Kim knew from experience that it would be pointless to try to worm it out of her. But she gave it one last try. “I thought it was a clean break.”

  “Oh no,” said Eva. “I’ll always have Harry.”

  Which was so ambiguous as to be utterly useless.

  2010

  So you’re back.” Leon swung his leg over the back of the chair and sat down. He looked just the same. But Harry was surprised to see the depth of the slashed scar on Leon’s cheek. In his mind, it had faded to nothing. “For good?”

  “Who knows?” Harry smiled. “It’s a different world.”

  “I thought of you. Each time I saw the news. All those bankers on TV.”

  “It was a mess. Complete meltdown.”

  “You know everybody hates you? People talk about bankers and spit.”

  “Don’t hold back. Tell it like it is.”

  Leon laughed. “So why did you come back?”

  An offer I couldn’t refuse, thought Harry. Top investment bank. Bigger salary. Bigger bonus. Bigger team. “I missed you.”

  Leon laughed again, running his hand over his smooth, shaved head. “Been doing any training?”

  “Some.” In New York, Harry’s boxing gloves had stayed zipped up in his sports bag under the bed for the first year. But he’d carved out time eventually—
found a good gym and a friendly coach. No one like Leon, though. Harry leant back against the painted brick wall. “So what’s been happening here?”

  “How long were you away?”

  “Nearly three years.”

  “Rent went up. Roof fell in.”

  Harry smiled. “It’s like I never left.”

  Leon gave him a long, steady look. “So we’ll be seeing a lot more of you.”

  “As often as I can make it.”

  You could hazard a guess that Leon was pleased.

  Harry picked up his sports bag and swung it over his shoulder. “Happy New Year.”

  “Have a good one.”

  Talking to Leon was like texting—communication reduced to essentials.

  Outside, the streets were hard with frost. It had been a strange Christmas. Harry had come home, but he felt displaced, a stranger in alien surroundings. His new employers had rented him a temporary flat in Mile End, an area of London east of the City that he didn’t know well. Eva was still away traveling—he’d spent several weeks with her and Otis in Portugal after leaving New York—and wasn’t planning to come back to the UK for at least another year. And Harry hadn’t known how to contact Kim. Even if he’d wanted to.

  London had subtly changed while he’d been away, like a friend who’d had a haircut or a colleague who’d lost weight. Some of the streets had grown shabby as businesses went under, the windows boarded up and covered with peeling flyers. Woolworths had disappeared. But there was new building, too. Glass and steel architecture had shot up in the City like random stalagmites. By London Bridge, the cranes were beginning construction of the Shard. At the Elephant and Castle, a strange and spectacularly ugly tower block had risen up near the Walworth Road, ruining the skyline for miles around.