The Guardian Angel

by Liam Livings

  My hands shook. I took a photo of the paper with my phone, then replaced everything in the bag, putting the bag where it had been.

  I waited on the sofa for Bobby to return from the pub.

  Both of them lurched through the door, holding one another upright, but only just.

  “Have a good time, did you?” I asked from the sofa. “I said we needed to talk, so why’s he here?” I glared at Alex.

  “Let’s have some more,” Alex replied. “What have we got in?”

  “I don’t know about you, but Bobby and I have some wine and beer. I don’t know if you’ve bought anything to drink. Or have you?”

  Alex replied, “What’s up with you? Come on, relax, have a drink. It’ll be fine.”

  Bobby continued, “What’s wrong? Relax. Have a glass of wine. I’ll get you a beer. Look, I can open it for you.” He reached into the drawer and brought out a bottle opener, holding it proudly in the air. “Have it, and you’ll get in the mood.”

  “You two must have been having a right laugh behind my back. Silly old Richard. He’ll never know. Did you think you’d got away with it, eh?”

  “What you on about?” Bobby cocked his head to one side and gave me the little-boy-lost look that so often worked with me. But not this time.

  “I can’t believe you would lie to me.” I looked at Bobby.

  “What about, babe? What have I done? Tell me.” He put on the cheesy advert voice. “And all because the man loves Milk Tray….”

  “We’re a bit beyond that this time. I know you met him at work.” I stared at Alex, then returned to glaring at Bobby. “I know you used to work together. A complete stranger, you said. Someone from the Internet, you said. We’ll never have to see him again, you said. And look at us now—inviting him round like besties, asking him back for a replay.”

  They both looked at one another, then me.

  I was starting to enjoy myself now. I glared at Alex. “You’re dismissed. We don’t want you.” I looked at Bobby.

  “Well….” Bobby was still standing next to Alex.

  “Aren’t you going to back me up?” I screeched. “Okay, you’ve had your fun. The game’s up. He was completely against the rules we set before we started. The fact that you lied to me is a whole separate conversation, but at the moment I’m just concentrating on getting him out of our home. Bobby? Yes?”

  Alex walked to the door, kissing Bobby on the way. “I’m going. This is waaay too heavy for me.” He waved behind himself. “This is between you two.” He closed the door quietly.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Okay, it’s a fair cop.” Bobby put his hands up and smiled. “We worked together, but we don’t anymore. We got on with each other, and he said he was up for it—a bit of a laugh. We were friends. That’s what friends do for each other.”

  “And do friends also fuck each other? Oh, sorry, not fucking, but everything but fuck each other? Is that what nice friends do?”

  “Come on.” He walked towards me and tried to hug me.

  I pushed him away.

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. “I knew you wouldn’t want him if I told you I knew him from work. I knew that would be it, fallen at the first hurdle. But I really wanted to try it. And after some of the people I saw online, you’d be grateful I picked Alex.’

  “I’m not sure about that. So we’ve established you worked together. Did you sleep with him before we both did?” My mind flitted to the view up Sky’s man skirt. But that’s nowhere near the same. I never touched him; we couldn’t do anything. It was all perfectly innocent.

  “No.” He looked into my eyes. He was only an arm’s length away.

  “Say it. I want you to say the words, looking at me.” I stared at him.

  “No. I did not sleep with Alex before we both slept with him. Happy?”

  “I don’t think ‘happy’ really does it justice, to be honest. In fact, I think of all the emotions I’m feeling at the moment, happy is probably farthest away. In the scale of the UK, me being in London, here now, I’d say happy was somewhere in the Shetland Isles.”

  “Okay, I get it. I’m sorry. I really am sorry. That’s the thing about lies, once you tell one, you’ve got to tell another, and another….”

  “You told me to trust you, and I did. And now you’ve lied. Did it hurt your little head, remembering what you’d told me? Oh, I’m so sorry for you. Oh, and ‘sorry’ is in the Shetlands too, in case you needed directions to it.”

  “I’d better call Alex.” He took his phone from his pocket and started to dial, swaying slightly as he did.

  “What about? I’m your boyfriend—he was just the trade.”

  “Actually, about that.” He paused, looked at the phone, and left a message calling Alex ‘babe’ about three times, then hung up.

  I felt a knot in my stomach. Fuck Kylie and her non-existent handover notes. Fuck Luke and his sorcerer’s apprentice ways. What I really needed now was a decent guardian angel, someone who could sort this all out for me. Not some role-playing, dice-obsessed geek in skinny white jeans or a disinterested, large-bosomed Australian temp. What I needed now was Sky, striding in with his chest puffed out, sorting out what was about to happen. Still sticking to the rules, obviously. I mean, I had given him quite a lot to use, quite a lot of material to go with, so it would definitely not be magic. Destiny, luck, yes. But not magic.

  Bobby opened his mouth, and as he said the words that I had prepared myself for, I still couldn’t believe they were coming out. The whole world paused and tilted on its axis. My entire belief system, everything I knew to be true, solid, and dependable, was washed away in one sentence from Bobby’s mouth: “I don’t want to stop seeing Alex. I love him. I want him to be my second boyfriend, on his own. It’s over. We’re over.”

  “We were over when you lied to me. Trust me, you said, and I did, and look where it’s got me.” I took a breath, trying to assess what to do next. I’d expected to be the one doing the dumping and telling him to leave, but somehow that wasn’t what happened. “Why did he lose his job? Are you going to tell me that much, as a courtesy, or is that all woven among your layers of lies?”

  Bobby’s eyes didn’t meet mine. He leant against the bookcase in the hall, arms folded across his chest.

  “I can’t even look at you anymore. I don’t know who you are, but you’re not my boyfriend. I can’t be around you anymore.” I left the flat and closed the door, quietly, like Alex had a few minutes before.

  Before everything changed.

  I don’t remember the next few hours. All I remember is being at Amy’s flat, crying on her sofa, rocking gently. I kept repeating the last words Bobby had said to me, over and over and over.

  I later found out that she had arrived in a taxi to collect me from where I was slumped in a dirty phone box on the road outside my flat. Somehow I had remembered her number and reversed the charges. All I could say on the phone was that he loved Alex, followed by quiet sobbing.

  “You can’t go to work tomorrow,” she said, now hugging me on the sofa. “I’m sure they’ll understand if you’re off for a few days. I can ring.”

  That sent me into a blind panic as I mumbled about Mum’s illness and losing the other job and how I couldn’t do the same again. I stood up and started looking all over Amy’s flat for my suit and shirt and work bag. “Where are they? I need them for work. I can’t go like this.” I searched in her wardrobe, then pulled my hair and scratched my arms until they were red.

  Amy took hold of me and steadied me as I stood in front of her wardrobe. She slowly explained we were at her flat and none of my stuff was there, but it could be.

  “‘I’ve got to go in tomorrow. I’ve got to!” My eyes were wide and red from crying.

  “Let’s see, shall we?”

  Chapter 28

  The next few days passed in a daze as Amy brought me food and drink, which I refused almost all of.

  She turned up with a few bags of my thi
ngs and made a point of showing me my suit and shirts for work. “I spoke to John, and you’re fine to stay away for a bit, but he wants someone to call him each week with an update. Oh, and he said there’s some music in the post for you. Something about some manoeuvres in the dark, or something. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.” I’d mentioned that I hadn’t got their new one. I only had the originals, before Andy McCluskey had gone and written some songs for Atomic Kitten. We’d had a long debate about the musical merit of that group. John had said, “They’re not a band, Richard. You can’t call them that.” And he said he’d give me the latest album for me to listen to.

  Every couple of days I would wake in the middle of a night’s fitful sleep and grab Amy’s arm, shouting about the bank and what should we tell John now.

  Amy would look at me and say, “I’ve called him. Said you’re still not right in the head, sweetie. Still signed off. Go back to sleep.”

  Amy kept saying it was all her fault and she’d never forgive herself, which I told her I didn’t understand. “If it weren’t for the bloody Pat-stroke-Purple woman and her crystals and tarot cards, and her friend Bobby, none of this would have happened.” She put her head in her hands and leant forward on the sofa.

  “Pat could never have known this would happen. She’s not a psychic, is she?” Of this, I wasn’t completely sure.

  “No. Just a bit of dabbling in tarot cards, crystals, dreamcatchers, auras”

  “Besides, it was all doomed because of who was in charge upstairs.” I pointed to the ceiling.

  “Your neighbour upstairs? What’s that got to do with this mess?”

  “No, I mean the guardian angel who was looking after me. It wasn’t Sky—it was that bloody temp, Kylie. And then it was Luke, and he didn’t know his arse from his elbow. It was all doomed from the start. If I’d have known she was in charge, doing as little as possible, I’d never have seen Bobby again after the first night. It was a fun first night, though.” I remembered the athletic first night of sex together and blushed slightly.

  “Guardian angels, tarot cards, crystals, whatever—it was all destined to go wrong. And it was me who brought you and Bobby together.”

  “No, it wasn’t. And you know it. Sometimes the universe deals you a shitty hand—it doesn’t matter where it comes from. And it’s down to you to deal with it. You’ve been nothing except perfect since it all went wrong. So don’t feel guilty. Please.”

  I vaguely remembered a man coming to visit me and asking how I felt. I thought he was just passing the time of day until he left, handing Amy a small piece of green paper, which I thought might be something medical.

  I couldn’t bear to go back. I couldn’t cope with seeing Bobby in my flat. I asked Amy what it was like, back in the flat after she’d returned for a second time.

  “What do you mean? He’s not moved the furniture or anything.”

  “Not that. I mean, were they there? Did they talk to you? At least, was Bobby there?”

  “He left a note, saying he’d be back in an hour, after I said I was coming to collect your stuff. Thought it was best that way.”

  “So, you didn’t see him? Bobby?”

  “I bumped into him as I was leaving. Why?”

  “How did he look? Did he look sad, happy, well? ” I was desperate to know, but I couldn’t have coped with seeing him in the flesh.

  “He looked the same. Like he always does. I don’t know what you want me to say, Richard. He looked awful, really sad, like he hadn’t been eating? I could, but it’d be a lie. He looked normal. Fine. Happy even?”

  The word punctured me, right through my core. “So he got what he wanted. And I was the stupid twat who let him have it, step by step. What an absolute idiot I am. Did you go into the bedroom?”

  “You know I did. I got your underwear and clothes. Where else are they gonna be?”

  “What did it look like? The bedroom?”

  “There weren’t any toys or whips left out, if that’s what you’re getting at. Can we stop this now? Aren’t you hurt enough already?”

  “Did you look in Bobby’s bedside drawer?” Where he kept our condoms and such. I wondered if they were running out, from all the fucking they were busy with.

  “Do you keep your underwear in it?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, didn’t think so. Then why would I go in there? I know what you’re getting at, and it’s a road you don’t need to go down. It leads to nothing but more hurt. It’s over. What they do in bed together is nothing to do with you anymore.”

  “His bed, in my flat,” I spat.

  “I’ve said this before: you can’t stay here forever. You’ve got to go back and ask him to leave. It’s your name on the mortgage deed, isn’t it?”

  “You know it is. Glad we never bothered changing that, or I’d be really fucked. Or not.” I put my face in my hands and closed my eyes as they filled up. “How did I end up here, when a few months ago, it all looked so perfect? When he first moved in, once I had got used to sharing the space, I was so happy. We had this period when I was used to him being there, before he met Alex. Or at least before I met him.”

  “Come on, this isn’t helping. You’re just getting yourself upset. We can sort out the flat when you’re feeling better. Don’t think about it now. It’s my fault. I was rushing you.” Amy hugged me and told me it would all be all right.

  “When?”

  “What?”

  “When did I make the decision that led us down this road? What one thing did I say that meant I’m here while my ex-boyfriend has dumped me for our one-night-only fuck buddy and he’s still living in my flat?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  I nodded, thinking of the Australian temp, filing her nails, looking the other way, while I made one of the worst decisions in my relationship with Bobby.

  Eventually I began to get back to a new routine, and I started back at work. John was amazing. He didn’t ask anything unless I started the conversation. He kept it all about the CDs he’d sent me. Did I think they were a patch on the earlier stuff? “How are you feeling?” he asked at my first one-to-one.

  “Yeah,” I replied, not really keen to get into the ins and outs of my disastrous love life. So we quickly moved on to more comfortable work discussions.

  “She rang me every day,” he added at the end of the meeting about the special project team, which he still wanted me on.

  “Who?”

  “Your friend. She called me every day. Said you wanted me to know how you were and when you were coming back. She said it was very important to you that I knew what was happening and that you wanted to come back when you were ready.”

  “She didn’t tell me anything about that.”

  And that was the end of that part of my life. Until I went and did something really stupid. Again.

  Chapter 29

  After I had woken, day after day, with that unexplained feeling of dread, dread about everything, at the same time. I knew where I had to go.

  I had been drinking alone in a pub near the A40 for a couple of hours. “Double whiskey” was all I’d said to the barman about five or six times. When I felt suitably soused, I assembled all my brain cells and walked to the nearby stretch of the A40: the nearest stretch of dual carriageway, with fast-moving cars and lorries, to my house. I’d checked on a map. Somehow it had seemed easier than getting a train to somewhere with a proper motorway. Dual carriageway, motorway, I didn’t think it would make much difference—not for my purposes.

  I wobbled my way out of the pub, just off Edgware Road, and turned down the side street that I knew would lead me to the A40. Again, more map research. I was proud of my skills. I walked along the dual carriageway where it rose from street and pub level to the elevated stretch twenty feet above the rest of the city below. This was where I needed to be, this was what I was going to do.

  A couple of cars whooshed by, honking th
eir horns as I wobbled into the road. I felt a warmth over my whole body and noticed how the sky in the distance and the road stretching out in front of me reminded me of the sea stretching into the distance to meet the sky.

  Then I thought of Sky: how he’d wanted to feel water on his skin, but that wasn’t possible because he couldn’t feel anything physical. And then I knew. I knew what I had to do. I watched cars rushing towards me as I stood on the edge of the elevated road. The wind was much stronger there than down at street level. I sniffed the air and brushed a tear from my eye.

  Shall I walk into the oncoming traffic now I’m at a fast section of the road? Or jump into the road below? That would be quicker, more certain to work.

  I leant over the edge of the road and saw the drop below. I started to climb the edge to find somewhere to stand ready to jump, but I kept slipping off. These sides weren’t really meant for this type of thing. I struggled, my front now covered in road dirt. After a few attempts—each one resulting in me falling of—I knew it had to be the walk-into-the-road option. Much easier.

  So, I stepped into the road, my eyes closed. I couldn’t bear to see if a car was coming—it scared me too much. There was still a part of me that knew this could kill me and was resisting. My natural instincts tried to save me, but the whole of my being knew this was the only way to get what I wanted and to end the pain.

  A horn sounded, and I felt the wind from a car as it swerved around me. I continued walking: another car horn, more swerving. Still walking, my eyes shut… still walking… until I reached the other side of the road.

  Hang on, I was meant to be gone by now. Obliterated into a thousand pieces. But instead, here I was, standing next to the right-hand barrier on an elevated stretch of the A40. I felt the edge and opened my eyes slightly. The sun was shaded, and I didn’t feel much wind on my face.