I filled the kettle, plugged it in.
He was angry. So angry he couldn’t even turn his gaze in my direction. I was such a coward; had a yellow streak a mile wide when it came to him leaving me. To anyone leaving me. But, right now, I was dealing with only one imminent departure.
I leant forward over the counter, stared into my Gary Larson cartoon mug. In its belly nestled a tea bag. Things could be worse, I reasoned, I could be a tea bag, minding me own business, blissfully unaware that I was about to be drowned in boiling water.
This wasn’t fair. It was on par with being told I was allergic to chocolate. That the one substance I loved more than any other would kill me the next time I slipped it into my mouth. I went cold at that thought. No Greg, no chocolate. They’d be scraping my body off the M1 about ten minutes after I made that hideous discovery.
The kettle boiled, billowing steam up at me. ‘Sorry,’ I said to the tea bag, then doused it in water. We were both going the same way but the tea bag was going on to a higher purpose: it was about to offer refreshment. When my relationship met its demise, there’d be nowt purposeful about it.
I put one sugar in Greg’s tea. Picked up the cup, stopped, scooped in another heaped teaspoon of sugar. Good for shock.
‘Here we go,’ I said, and handed him the mug.
He moved his face in thank you, took the cup, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge me.
‘I, erm, haven’t got any biccies, sorry.’
He nodded slightly.
My head was throbbing, each temple pounding out its own ache; my eyes were heavy; gravity seemed to tug at each part of me as I sobered up. My mind had been frightened into clarity but my body was struggling to catch up.
I took my place beside him on the sofa.
What was I supposed to do? Leave him to start? Or start explaining why I hadn’t told him? Not as easy as it sounded because I couldn’t for the life of me remember why it seemed a good idea not to tell him.
This waiting, this was what it was like when I was younger. Waiting for my parents to flip out about something. Waiting for one of them to say something slightly off-key to the other and then for the shouting and smashing and sadistic silence to start. The arguing was never as bad as the waiting for the arguing. Because at least with the fighting it was tangible, something to be afraid of. With the waiting I could imagine myself up a lot more bad scenarios than the actual row. I could never relax, either, because I knew the second I did that’s when the first angry word would be lobbed into the atmosphere and it would start. Waiting was hideous.
Greg drank his tea.
Sip.
Sip. Pause.
Sip.
Sip. Pause.
Pause. Sip.
Sip. Sip.
Is he deliberately torturing me? Is he trying to drive me mad? Does he get off on making me wait for my punishment?
He hoisted himself off the sofa and spun to me. ‘So, Amber almost got married but forgot to tell me,’ he accused.
I stared up at him.
‘It’s understandable really. We all forget about our plans to get married, don’t we?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ I protested in a small voice.
‘Oh? What was it like?’
I opened my mouth, made a few hand gestures in a genuine attempt to explain, but found I was mute. No words would come out. Eventually I shrugged, defeated.
‘DON’T FUCK WITH ME!’ he screamed and hurled the cup. It flew across the room, its contents spilling through the air until it slammed against the wall and exploded, sending pieces across the room.
I’m eight. I’m sitting in the back room, my pencil pressing hard into the page of my exercise book as I write my twelve times table. The pencil makes black-grey grooves in the page, and my mind concentrates really hard. Really hard. So hard I can’t hear something hitting the wall of the living room and smashing into a million pieces I’ll have to sweep up later. I can’t hear voices screaming at each other. I can’t hear hand pounding flesh, cries being choked back. All I can hear is twelve times four equals . . .
I stared at Greg, wide-eyed, breath caught in my chest, muscles rigid, waiting for what came next. More smashing. Overturning furniture. A punch in the face. A kick in the stomach. Holding me down as he pummelled my features flat . . .
He stopped. Startled still by something. ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said.
I nodded.
He stepped forwards, I flinched back.
‘No, really, Amber, I’m not going to hurt you.’ He looked confused, concerned, and probably loads of other things beginning with C. ‘I’m pissed off, but I won’t hurt you.’
I nodded.
He moved back and perched himself on the edge of the armchair. ‘I wouldn’t ever hurt you. Not like that. I just got so crazy. Why didn’t you tell me about Sean? Were you going to marry him? Is that why you didn’t tell me? Because you still love him and you want to be with him?’
I shook my head. Still staring at him, waiting for it. Waiting for him to punch me. I never thought this would happen with him. But here it was. Here we were.
‘I’m sorry,’ Greg was saying. ‘I’m sorry. I just hate feeling like a twat. You were engaged and you didn’t tell me. Not as a friend, not as my girlfriend. And then Jen starts bleating on about it like it’s common knowledge. You made a commitment to spend your life with someone and you didn’t tell me.’
‘I didn’t get engaged,’ I said. I redirected my gaze to my feet. My chest moved in heavy, laboured breaths. ‘When he asked me, I thought about it. I really thought about it. I loved Sean. We got on well, he was kind, generous, funny, attractive, the sex was good. And I knew that even though I don’t believe in marriage, I couldn’t just say no, because very few relationships survive a refused marriage proposal and I didn’t want things to end just like that with him. But it kept coming back to one thing. Could I say yes to being with a man who loved Jackie Brown? It sounds silly, but could I be with forever a man who could sit there and listen to all that racist language and then have the temerity to tell me that I shouldn’t be so sensitive about it? When he’d never had to deal with it? To him it’s something cool Tarantino drops into his films, not something I have a right to be offended by if I so choose.’ With each word my voice became stronger. Surer. I even looked up.
‘And if a man I consider spending the rest of my life with can’t see that, well, then, we’re not suited. It was an underlying difference that I couldn’t assimilate. So there, we broke up because of Jackie Brown, like I said.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this from the start?’ Greg asked.
‘I had this suspicion you’d freak if I said I’d thought about marrying someone else.’ I dipped my head towards the tea-stained wall.
Greg flushed. ‘Point taken. I am trying not to be Mr Jealousy but it’s so hard. I keep panicking that you’re going to think, “What’s in it for me?” one day and leave. And that terrifies me.
‘You’ve been so odd since I met your family, slightly distant. I keep wondering if you’re just dragging it out ’til you finish with me. There were signs with Kristy, you know. She’d be off with me, distant, avoid me, sometimes we’d spend the whole night together and not talk. I’ve been panicking that it’s happening with you. Every morning I wake up wondering if this is it, the day you tell me it’s over.
‘I’ve been smothering you, I know. But I can’t stop it. The more distant you become, the more clingy I become, which I know makes you more distant. I hate myself for it . . . I’ve never been like this before. I never thought I could be like this. But I keep thinking that if I can let you know how much you mean to me, you won’t leave me. Earlier . . . Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘I know,’ I whispered. He probably was, but that wasn’t the point, was it? I couldn’t be with a man who might blow up like that. I’d be waiting for it to happen again. And I hated that kind of waiting.
‘I’m such a fuck-wit sometimes. I didn’t mean
to scare you but that’s no excuse. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I won’t do that to you ever again.’
That’s what they all say. Violent men don’t mean it, do they? They never start off meaning it. But it happens once, it happens twice, then they progress to smacking you around regularly for every little slight – imagined or real – and saying, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it, it won’t happen again.’
‘Anyway, I’d better get on with clearing up,’ he said quietly.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.’ How many times have I heard that?
‘You know I’d never hit you or anything like that, don’t you?’ Greg asked in the middle of the night. We’d gone to bed a couple of hours earlier and since neither of us were up for anything physical, I’d put on my pyjamas and he’d put on his jogging bottoms.
I’d watched him clean up and, as with all his cleaning, he’d left the place spotless. He’d found all the pieces of cup and put them in the bin. He even found some carpet shampoo – I have carpet shampoo? I thought – and cleaned away the tea stain.
After the clean, I’d said I was tired and was going to bed. I’d been taken aback when Greg had asked if it was OK for him to stay over. ‘I’ll understand if you want to sleep alone.’ I’d expected him to walk out as per usual.
‘Whatever you want,’ I’d replied.
He’d glanced down at his feet. I braced myself. Was that the wrong answer? Is he going to smash something else? Smash me? ‘I think I’ll go home then. It’s probably best?’ A question, not a statement of intent, a question.
I’d rubbed my hands over my face. ‘If you want to stay, stay. If you want to go, go. It’s up to you. I’m off to bed. Night.’
He’d stayed. And we’d lain awake in a pit of silence for what felt like forever, until his question about whether I knew he’d never hurt me.
My chest tightened in anticipation of a row, my stomach started churning. I’d been promoted today. I’d been promoted and had thought the day couldn’t get any better. I was right. It couldn’t, it simply got worse and worse.
‘I’d never hit you or lay a finger on you in that way. I might get angry and smash things, but I’d never hurt you.’
‘Then don’t,’ I whispered through my tight chest.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t smash things. I don’t like it. It scares me.’
‘OK. I promise. I won’t smash things. I’ve only done it three times in my life. When Kristy left me. Another time when I was so angry with myself I had to break something or drive my car into a wall. And earlier on. I’ll never do it again.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘Please believe me, I won’t.’
‘Do you promise?’ I said.
‘I promise.’ Greg shifted across the bed and folded his arms around me.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked, some time later.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Were you beaten as a child, in an abusive relationship or what?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said abruptly. We weren’t going to talk about this. Not now. Not ever.
‘When I went off on one earlier you were terrified. It stopped me in my tracks. I’ve seen you do some brave things, like that time when you stared down the woman in that pub whose boyfriend wanted to batter me, and I’ve heard through Jen how scary you can be. You watch violent films, but earlier you were so scared, terrified, then you went into one of those trances you often go into. What happened to you?’
‘Even Rambo would’ve been scared – my favourite mug didn’t survive, did it?’ I joked.
‘You can trust me,’ Greg reassured, ‘with whatever it is.’
‘My parents. Not Dad2, my mum and my dad. They rowed a lot. And, erm, sometimes my dad got physical. And, erm, I did a lot of clearing up. I . . . Anything like that scares me. I don’t know where it’ll lead. Or how it’ll end . . . I . . . can’t deal with . . . I get . . . Never tell anyone that, OK? Please.’
‘OK.’
‘No, really, please,’ I said, clinging to his arm, searching his face for understanding. He had to realise how important not telling anyone was. ‘I haven’t told anyone. Not Jen. Not even Eric knows. So, please, don’t tell a soul. Not ever.’
‘I won’t,’ Greg said gently. He brushed my hair out of my eyes. Looked into my eyes. Looked into my soul. His face had never been so earnest and open as it was then. ‘Thank you for trusting me. I promise, on my life, I won’t tell a soul.’
My hero. He was the hero. In the movie of my life, Greg Walterson was the hero. My hero. He’d always be with me. How did I know? Because I’d never said that to anyone. Not Jen, not even Eric. It happened before he was born; reborn as my brother. Greg had made me break my silence. It wasn’t intentional. I’d opened my mouth to tell him I knew I could trust him and I’d found myself saying that. Each word had to be dragged into existence, but it’d been done.
And he didn’t think I was weird because of it. This part of my crazy, the part I’d hidden from him – the part I’d hidden from everyone – had been freed and he hadn’t run away. He might walk out a bit more regularly than I liked, but he always came back. We always sorted things out.
I didn’t have to keep holding back, worried that he’d find something out that would make him leave. I didn’t have to keep editing myself and my story. This secret, this part of my life, had weighed down heavily on me. I was always restricting myself, secreting away big parts of myself, knowing that nobody would understand why I didn’t trust people. Didn’t trust men not to cheat, not to hurt you physically and emotionally. I knew you had to be good, constantly, or people wouldn’t love you. I didn’t think about the future because the past was what I mainly remembered. What I mainly feared. Fear of the past meant I didn’t think about the future. Fear of the past, which was always pressing down on my chest, infecting my mind, had finally been lightened. Shared. I’d told Greg. So simple but so complicated. Easy, but difficult. Now he knew all of me. I could tell him anything. I was free.
‘I don’t want all the secrets and half-truths any more, Greg. I think we should agree, no more secrets, except birthday presents and the like. I’ve told you my biggest secret. It’s not something I want to talk about again, ever, but you know, let’s move on from here with total honesty.’
In response, Greg treated me to one of his infamous pauses. One of those pauses when he was going to say something I didn’t want to hear.
‘No more secrets, right?’ he reiterated.
‘Right.’
‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’
Holy shit. ‘Go on then.’ It was all very well asking for total honesty.
‘I’ve been wanting to tell you for ages but it never seemed the right time.’
But do I want total honesty with Greg? What was the worst with him?
‘I was terrified of your reaction; what it’d do to us.’
Taking nude photos of me whilst I was asleep and putting them on the Net? Bestiality?
‘Thing is . . .’
What was the worst with Greg? I’d never really thought about it. Maybe I should have before I made my declaration of honesty.
He paused, took a deep, deep breath. ‘I, erm, well . . . I love you.’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ I breathed.
‘Thank goodness?’
‘You sounded so serious . . . I thought you were going to say you’d had sex with a cow or something.’
Greg laughed. ‘Non-sex with a cow aside, I do love you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he giggled. ‘You’re so welcome.’
‘love? it’s only chocolate without the calories’
chapter twenty-eight
coming out
We’re going to tell Jen and Matt tonight. The thought cheeped around my head like fluttering bluebirds. (That showed my state of mind, bluebirds indeed.) We were going to go public tonight.
It�
��d been seven months and we were still together. It was only seven months, but, sometimes, even after seven months, you knew. And I knew. Even in a year with Sean I hadn’t felt this. It wasn’t only lust. We’d progressed from lust a long time ago. We still had sex virtually every night we saw each other, but it was more than that now. We didn’t use sex as our main way to communicate, we also talked to communicate. It seemed easy, natural, now Greg knew all of me. He knew something even my brother didn’t know, he’d been given a piece of me nobody else had. My dysfunctional trio had moved into a dysfunctional quartet and I didn’t feel so alone. So burdened by it any more. I could talk to him about almost anything. Also, now that he knew I trusted him 100 per cent, he had a part of me only two other people knew about, he’d stopped being so clingy. He relaxed, accepted I wasn’t going to leave him and even went back to occasionally eyeing up other women. Probably even flirted with a few. Obviously not when I was around, but he was back to being the Greg I knew and fell in love with so it was fine . . . All right, it wasn’t fine, but I preferred that to how needy he’d started to become. The lesser of two evils, as it were.
We only had to take one more step, to go public to Matt and Jen, and then everything would be perfect. So, we were going to tell them tonight. Tonight. The last night of the Festival.
The Festival had gone fantastically well so far with only a few minor hiccups. Plus, Martha and Renée had only two throw-down moments – a Festival miracle – and I’d sent Martha out to get chocolate before they came to blows. Tonight was the fancy dress gala ball, where all the best films would be awarded prizes and I got to dress up as the movie icon of my choice. I glanced at my dress hanging up behind the wardrobe door of my hotel room, still in its black dress cover.
Martha, Renée and I always had rooms in the hotel where our guests stayed and where our press office was, for the first and final nights of the Festival. The last fortnight, as always, I’d virtually lived in the press room because of my duties taking care of the directors, producers and screenwriters who came to the Festival.
The Chocolate Run Page 27
