Jules. Jules. Jules. She’s astounding. Just being able to hold her is enough. Last night I was shaking like a leaf at being close to her. I wanted to kiss her so badly but it wasn’t happening. I wanted to lick under her small top lip and then nibble her plump bottom one. My head is in bits.
Getting back to her flat yesterday, I decided immediately she’s a bit eccentric, shall we say. There are women’s magazines stacked up everywhere, so many of them, they are the furniture. She has numerous shelves of books. Sitting in her living room is like… being in a disorganised library. A wrong move might dislodge a sea of books or magazines over our heads and drown us. I am too polite to mention it; too nice to bring it up when I recognise the reason for the hoarding.
At least it’s clean. She dusts.
Then, she’s got glow in the dark stars on her ceiling! Hmm. Are they hers? Previous tenant’s perhaps? Nah they must be hers. She’s also got candles, candles, everywhere. On top of every book. Her TV has books stacked on top, with candles on top of those. I thought I was strange. Then, the plants. Don’t get me started on the bloody horticulture that seems to have no particular home, plonked in any tiny space it’ll fit. It’s like Day of the friggin’ Triffids in here!
Then there’s the flowery tat. None of it goes together. She isn’t flowery. In fact the first day I saw her she was in flowery wellies and a practical raincoat and I wondered. She’s more comfortable in her jeans and sweater.
Beneath my cheek, her hair is soft and warm. I rub my skin in the stuff and smile to myself. Her hair falls to her waist and is so chuffing gorgeous! How has this woman not been snapped up?
When I saw the sadness as she told me the truth about herself, I felt a desperate urge to protect her and stop the pain. I couldn’t bear to see it. Couldn’t understand why a girl as lovely as her has been dealt such a vicious hand in life. I knew there was something about her the first day I noticed her stood at that street corner. She may have seemed to be just any other local lass waiting around for her mates, waiting for a cab or some boyfriend to pick her up in his car. What told me that none of those things were true was that this beautiful woman, as lovely as she is, has absolutely no concept of her beauty. There’s a perpetual scowl on her face and her demeanour gives off vibes of you can’t touch this, in more ways than one.
She’s a loner because she cannot bear any more loss. I also sense she was betrayed. I have Dad at least and he doesn’t ask questions, which works. But poor Jules has nobody and it makes me sadder than I have ever felt. I want to put a smile on her face.
I realise I won’t be able to escape without waking her. My right arm is wrapped around her shoulders and the other around her waist. The thought enters my head that maybe I could just kiss her neck, just a little, but even as my mouth inches its way there, I struggle. If I kiss her there, I will want to kiss her everywhere.
She stirs with a jolt and I stay still. She needs a moment or two to recognise where she is too.
“Morning.”
“Hi,” she says in a croaky voice.
“If you’re okay, I am gonna get going. I have to attend church this morning. It’s part of my voluntary community work. Keeps me out of trouble.”
I sound like my words are excuses and that is because I don’t want to leave her.
“I’m fine. Go.”
She doesn’t realise and it is probably innocent but every time she shifts and rubs her bottom against my crotch, she’s arousing me just that bit more.
I slide out of bed and jiggle up and down. It’s not working. This thing has renewed life all of a sudden.
Grandma.
Goats.
Dad and his little friend Wendy…
That has me deflating. Yuck.
“Next Saturday?”
“Sure,” she replies.
“See you then.”
She still has her face turned away from me and I wait to see if she will say goodbye or give me a look into those grey eyes. Nope, she won’t. She’s hiding herself again.
I am determined to get her to open up even if it means sacrificing myself, I will do it. I can help Jules and I know it. I turn back before heading for the door.
“Jules, don’t… you know. Don’t do it anymore. You’ve been lucky really. Any of those blokes could have turned out to be a wrong ’un, you know. Anytime you need a hug, I am here. You understand? Night or day.”
She only wanted a hug from those men and that sweetness I now recognise in her has me… you know. I can’t say it.
“Yeah,” she says in a small voice.
“Promise?”
“Yeah. Thanks Warrick. Thank you,” she says, her voice still barely a whisper.
Maybe she’s crying. I don’t want to leave but I sense if I don’t, the wicked part of me might try to pin her down and screw her senseless. She has no idea what she’s doing to me.
I am about to let myself out of the door when she bounds towards me. Arms are around me and she kisses my cheek. I fold her into my body and cannot help but smell her hair. My cheek burns where her lips touched me. It feels right when I hold her. She feels so good.
“I meant it, thank you. Thank you so much,” she says gratefully. She waves me out in an awkward fashion and I see a tear or two forced behind the barricade again. She’s holding up a wall of ice but I think if I can thaw it, holy Moses…
That thought alone has me running home to get in the shower, though I doubt even an Arctic winter could diminish what I feel right now.
Chapter Nine
Jules
I am taking a shower. I don’t really need one but I am having one anyway. Warrick just left and I feel a bit strange. I haven’t had a panic attack like that take me in a while and it felt weird to have him there while I endured it. It was the look in his eyes that told me what I already know.
I avoid getting close to anyone because then I will see the reality on their faces when I tell them my story. Warrick’s face told me all I needed to know: you shouldn’t be avoiding life because of just one day.
It has been more than a year. Yet every day, I still think of Laurie and how he made me feel. I sometimes lie in bed just thinking of him and run things over and over in my mind.
Laurie lit my world and then, I don’t know. Betrayal seems too harsh a term. Did he betray me? Is there an explanation for what he did? I feel sure he could have loved me and sometimes, if I am feeling low or have had a bad day at work, the thought of how different my life could have been knocks me for six. I could be married and starting a family by now if he hadn’t have betrayed me.
You don’t have to tell me, I already know… the reasoning is just hard to face. All the coulda woulda shouldas might have driven me to despair if I had let them. I know that the sad fact of the matter is ‒ he is the first person I really liked, and then…
I shake off my escalating thoughts. I have been dealing with them for too long but they still haunt me, especially with people like Warrick around, reminding me what it is I am missing.
I know for certain Warrick fancies me. He had a massive boner in bed this morning. I didn’t realise what I was pressing up against until it was too late. Oops. I could put it down to early morning glory but it felt a bit more than that. Despite this, I recognise he is just as lonely as me so I will keep him in my life and we shall see if we can help one another. He’s a bit older than me but well, I am older than my years anyway. He seems to be a good man…
I trail off with thoughts of that scar of his again and I wonder whether he has other scars he’s hiding, ones like mine. Ones worse than his divorce, even. It is bizarre how easily we get along. There is some similarity there, I know it.
***
Saturday again. A coffee shop this time. I am wearing a grey woollen dress today, black tights and my docs, plus the trusty red coat that has seen better days. The fabric is bobbly and raggedy but I love it. I bought it with my very first pay cheque as a teacher.
This morning I didn’t do much except put on m
y customary bit of make-up and drag a brush through my hair. However, Warrick looks like he has got a whole new wardrobe. Today it is a roll-down brown polo neck, a black corduroy jacket, a hair-cut that has drawn the hair off his face and some smart jeans teamed with plush leather loafers.
He looks… dare I say, adult. Not like the person I first saw. A man drenched in the rain with his hood drawn round his head like a child on a camping trip. Bless him.
“How’s work?” he asks, sipping his gingerbread latte, like he’s never tasted anything so good before or ever will again.
It was most bizarre at the counter. He struggled to make a selection so I ordered for him. I sense he’s been living a simple life these past few years and is struggling to allow himself a few pleasures. Instead, I said for him, “He’ll have a gingerbread latte, I’ll have a mocha, a slice of fudge cake and a white cookie for the road.”
“Thanks,” he’d mumbled, like I’d saved him a job.
We’re in the posh place I once visited with Laurie. (Warrick’s choice, not mine.) He might be trying to impress me. The decoration must have changed because it was once all gold damask wallpaper, chandeliers and artwork everywhere. Now it’s lighter, with white painted walls and several mirrors that cover entire sections. A hand waves in front of my face and I realise my features are frozen. I was lost in thought.
“Jules, earth to Jules, are you there?”
“Oh shit, sorry…”
He sits waiting for me to spit it out. I don’t know. It’s work, isn’t it?
“New headmaster is shaking things up. I usually teach all the top sets but I am going to be given a lot of the more, um, challenging ones now. He’s implementing his changes sooner than we imagined.”
“Hmm, I see.”
“See what?”
“You are a really good teacher then?”
He licks foam from his top lip but he misses a bit on his ’tache. I shake my head to tell myself to stop staring.
“I suppose. I mean,” I nod, shrugging, “yeah, I know I am. I am… but listen, teaching’s not all I thought it would be. Sometimes I wonder how I got here even. When I started out at twenty-two, I was full of it. I jumped out of bed everyday, scuttled down the streets, and arrived with bright clothes and a smile. I got kids interested in words through my own passion. Then the reality of working life and the culture set in and took some of the gloss away. Some of my elders took me to one side and warned something similar, each of them imparting, ‘Just do what you can. Don’t push yourself too hard, you know?’ I kind of gave up my true self after hearing that for so long.”
“Hardly inspirational…” He swigs and flicks some hair from his face.
“I know. People say it’s one of the most admirable, respectable professions. But you know, I got here by fluke in some respects. I…”
“Why are you putting yourself down still?”
Why he persists I do not know but it is infuriating. It is forcing me to think and I don’t like it. I sit back and look away, taking my time to muse.
“H of Y came to me easily because Mrs Schultz was leaving and that had been a successful year for me in terms of results already, because I’d had an extraordinary class. Then, after Laurie…” I clear my throat because we still haven’t properly addressed that yet, “…I suppose I was determined to work myself silly. I became an invigilator on the exam board so I learnt all the tricks of the trade, so to speak. I keep my class well-informed of what the examiners will be looking out for. I write essays and photocopy them out so they can see exactly what will be picked up on. It’s a tactic that gets the results. The mocks in January predicted twenty-five A stars this summer. I might spend hours doing it, nitpicking, making entirely sure the children are as well prepared as they can be, but when you think about it, it’s not dignified. It’s not grass roots teaching. I do it because then I don’t have to exert myself, my real self, y’know?”
He looks up at me beneath hooded eyes and says not a word. I am literally letting the flood gates open and I am spilling as much as the dam will let me. I feel ten tonnes lighter.
“I spend two full weeks before their GCSEs going over it all, again and again, drumming it into them. I am like a paratrooper preparing her outfit for the landing. I do it with military precision!”
“I take it that’s an analogy, though I profess to be nothing of a wordsmith!” He chuckles.
I smile nervously. “If we can adhere to The Man, well, what more is there to do? Get the results. Everybody is happy.”
“So, this fella, Jack? He doesn’t adhere to The Man and that’s your beef, is it?”
“Correctamundo.”
“Hmm.”
“You know, all my colleagues hate me. Think I am trying to outdo them. Maths and science get about eight to ten A stars a piece. But they don’t know that I don’t have a life, so I have plenty of extracurricular hours to give to marking and making red blots on white paper.”
He is still sipping like it’s the chalice of the Holy Grail he’s holding, but my drink is hardly touched. When I put the cup to my lips, it tastes of sick. It’s too much of a reminder. I am just saying all sorts to forget about what this place reminds me of.
I continue, “With a mind like mine, the thrill of that blank canvass of naïve, pliable teenage intellect just waiting for my assessment, is really something. It really is. Shaping words and seeing a mind come alive through them. That’s my heroin! So it isn’t all doom and gloom. But if only these teenagers knew that life doesn’t really begin until you get out into the real world.”
“Just sounds like you are a young teacher to me, still learning, but with quite a gift for words. I’d let this Jack character pick up whatever slack he wants to take if I were you.”
Warrick is trying to help me but his change in appearance is worrying me. Who is he trying to impress? He looks really attractive, I have to admit!
I just spit it out, “I am used to doing things a certain way. The former H of Y who had the post before me taught me everything I know.”
“Taught you what?”
“Well, stick to the routine and you’ll fly through.”
“Routine?”
His incessant questioning annoys me.
“Yeah, routine. Just whatever it takes to get them through their exams, you know. Get them the results the school needs and keep me in my position.”
“Always do what people say, do you?” he says under his breath.
“Okay, I admit, I am the best there and there are kids worse off that need me. My staff are… not much. Well, one is good, the others are just, I don’t know, ill-equipped and poorly managed… and yeah, maybe I feel guilty. But I prop up the department this way.”
“Will you come to this community thing I have tomorrow?” he asks out of the blue.
He has a sly look about him. He’s deceptive. Cunning, even. He’s no fool. He looks anywhere but directly at me and drums his fingers on his knee, avoiding my squinting eye assessing him.
“What thing?”
“Bake sale. Come on, you’ll be helping me out.”
I raise my eyebrows. His cheeky grin disarms me and I huff, “Fine.”
Pleased as punch, he clinks his cup against mine, which is still almost full.
“Can we please leave this place?”
I stare around the room and grimace. My chest now feels really tight and I have been talking my way through it to try and combat this feeling.
“What’s wrong?” he demands. “I thought, well, you’d like it here?”
“I’d have preferred that pub to this place.”
He seems offended and bows his head.
Silence.
I owe him some explanation so I blurt, “Laurie and I came here.”
I vie to hold my emotions in but it isn’t working. I sigh and shudder. I smile when he looks up but it’s strained and hiding what’s beneath. He stands and holds out his hand and helps me up. He wraps my cake and biscuit in a napkin and puts them in his
pocket. We leave our drinks and head outside and he knows to just walk with me and say nothing.
“I need to do some shopping,” I say, and he nods.
I dive into some shops and he stands silent by my side while I make my purchases and talk to the sales women. He’s my guardian, never leaving my side, just being there. Guiding me at my elbow or nodding when I smile. He’s pensive. I yearn for the daft, cheeky Warrick to return, not this person who feels he needs to impress me with clothes or speciality coffees.
When we get to the park and stride along the grass, going the long, scenic way round to my place, I say, “Do you play Scrabble?”
“Scrabble?” He arches an eyebrow.
“Yep.”
“Only the best Scrabble player in the area.”
“Good. I hate people who let me win.”
We get back to the flat and over several cups of tea and three mars bars, I get thrashed by a stroke of luck. He had a Z and a K, the bugger.
After that I do some marking while he happily lays on my couch, snoozing after complaining about the long week he’s had. I don’t mind. I just hope he sticks around long enough to give me another hug.
This evening it is kebabs and my mouth is on fire. I can barely breathe and I am trying to mouth, milk… milk. I just swallowed about three chillies in one go. He laughs like the devil while he rummages in the kitchen and brings me a tumbler full. I drain the whole thing and chuck my takeaway carton on the table.
“You can have the rest of that,” I tell him. He can. I don’t want it. Vile stuff designed only to kill me. I don’t know why I listened to him.
“I haven’t had a ’bab in pigging ages,” he snorts, shovelling.
Annoyingly, he eats his and then mine too. He is still grinning when he goes into the kitchen to stuff the empty cartons in the bin. He brings me another glass of milk and I swear I see him gazing at my boobs. I blink to get the thought out of my mind and he returns to the couch while I stay seated at my solitary table. I refuse to remove any crap from it and he seems happy enough to take the sofa anyway.
Angel Avenue Page 6
