Boyfriend in a Dress

by Louise Kean

  ‘Nicola?’ he comes back onto the phone.

  ‘Phil,’ I say.

  ‘Dave called.’

  ‘Phil, I don’t know anybody called Dave.’

  ‘Sorry no, Dale, Dale called, American guy. He left a number, do you want it? Nicola – are you there?’

  A thousand images flash through my mind.

  ‘Nicola, are you there?’ Phil asks loudly.

  ‘Yes, Phil, I’m here. Have you got the number?’

  The doorbell rings suddenly, and I jump out of my skin.

  ‘Hold on, Phil, I’ve got to answer the door …’ I walk, dazed, to the door, holding the phone by my side. I answer it, bewildered. I look at the policeman.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I ask. I remember where I am, and who I am with. I look past the policeman into his car, and see Charlie, sitting in the front seat, wrapped in a blanket, looking guilty.

  I can hear Phil shouting my name from the phone.

  ‘Just one second,’ I say to the policeman, and put the phone back to my ear. ‘Phil, keep the number, give it to me on Monday, I can’t take it now. But don’t lose it. Phil, you mustn’t lose it, okay?’ I plead with him to be responsible.

  ‘Alright! I won’t.’ He gets annoyed when I expect him to fuck up.

  ‘No, Phil, this one is important, you mustn’t lose that number.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he says, a little calmer, realizing how serious I am.

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you on Monday.’

  Turning back to the policeman, I see a second officer escorting Charlie out of the back of the squad car.

  ‘Are you Nicola Ellis?’ the first policeman asks, looking at his notebook, and then back at me.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘What has he done?’

  The second officer brings Charlie over.

  ‘Again?!’ I shout at Charlie. ‘Why can’t you keep your bloody clothes on?’

  Two Inspectors Call

  ‘Can we come in?’ the policeman asks me, to break the silence, and stop my death glares at Charlie’s head. Charlie stares at the floor and refuses to look me in the eye.

  ‘Sure, come in.’ I step back and hold open the door, and the policeman ushers Charlie in, while I growl at him. Charlie walks quickly into his parents’ bedroom, and closes the door behind him.

  The policemen stand expectantly by the sofa.

  ‘Please, sit down,’ I say. ‘Can I get you a drink? We have wine, beer, whisky, gin, I think there’s some port …’ Silence.

  ‘Water?’ I ask.

  ‘Two glasses of water would be great,’ the first officer says, and they both position themselves on the sofas, sitting forwards, on duty.

  ‘I’ll be two seconds,’ I say, and move towards the kitchen, but instead duck quickly into Charlie’s parents’ room. Charlie has got dressed, and is lying on the bed with a pillow over his head.

  ‘Charlie, you are not staying in here. Bloody come out.’ I seethe under my breath.

  ‘I’m too tired. They want to talk to you anyway. I’ve already spoken to them,’ he replies. Muffled by the pillow, he is barely audible.

  ‘Ahhhgggg,’ I growl at him, and then storm back out of the room into the kitchen. I get the policemen their water, and sit on the chair opposite them.

  ‘So, what do you need to talk to me about?’ I ask, as they look at me expectantly.

  ‘Well,’ the first policeman pipe up again.

  ‘Charlie didn’t exactly do anything wrong. He was causing a bit of a disturbance, but nobody wants to press any charges. We just thought you might be able to shed some light on … why he was … doing what he was … doing.’ The policemen both seem mightily embarrassed.

  ‘So he’s not really in trouble?’ I ask.

  ‘We just gave him a caution,’ the second policeman says, apologetically, sipping his water.

  ‘Are you sure a night in the cells isn’t called for?’ I ask.

  The policemen look at each other quickly.

  ‘I’m just kidding,’ I say quickly, although quite obviously I wasn’t.

  ‘Look,’ I sigh, ‘what exactly has he done?’

  The first policeman flips open his notebook, and just as quickly flips it shut again.

  ‘There was a minor … assault,’ he says, again apologetically. These guys feel really sorry for me, I can tell. I hate that.

  ‘Oh my God, he hit somebody?’ I ask, shocked.

  ‘Well, not exactly,’ they say in unison.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand – did he … kick somebody? I don’t understand.’ I am completely bewildered. I notice it is very dark in the room suddenly, and we are all talking to shadows. I reach over and turn on the lamp. Both of the policemen seem to relax a little. Charlie has obviously made them nervous.

  ‘It was with a loaf,’ the first one says.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘And a fish,’ the other one remarks.

  ‘That’s right, once with a loaf, and once with a fish,’ the first one says.

  ‘A crusty bloomer, and a small haddock.’ The second policeman refers to his notes.

  I stare at them. My mouth is moving, trying to say something, but I don’t know what. I take a breath. ‘What? Sorry? He hit somebody with a small haddock?’

  ‘Well,’ the policeman puts his water down on the coffee table, ‘it wasn’t at close range. That’s mostly why we aren’t having to press any kind of charges.’ He says this like it should make all the sense in the world. Which is ironic because I don’t have a fucking clue what is going on.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry if I’m being dense, but I don’t know what you are talking about. What exactly did he do?’

  ‘In total, he threw four loaves, and maybe, what, half a dozen fishes?’

  ‘Yeah, about half a dozen,’ the second one agrees with him, nodding his head.

  ‘He threw four loaves and half a dozen fishes, and a couple of them struck some passers-by. From about thirty feet. No injuries, but you will have a dry cleaning bill, I believe.’ He smiles at me slightly, as my head twitches from one to the other, trying to make sense of what they are saying. We all sit in silence for a couple of minutes. The policemen sip their water and put it down, rearrange the cushions behind them, tap tunes out on their legs. Eventually one of them coughs, and I look up, nodding my head.

  ‘So he threw some bread, and some fish. Like a biblical thing? Where was this exactly; in town?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, in the square.’

  ‘Right,’ I carry on nodding my head. ‘Right.’

  ‘So nobody is pressing any charges then,’ I say.

  ‘No, but we thought we should bring him back, because he seemed a little …’ The policemen look at each other again, to try and find the right word, and not offend anybody.

  ‘Insane?’ I ask.

  ‘No, no, no,’ they both laugh, uncertainly.

  ‘Sad?’ the first one says.

  ‘Yes that’s it, sad,’ the second one says.

  ‘He seemed sad, did he?’ I ask, nodding my head again. The policemen look at me with anxiety. They know I’m not happy. ‘Is there anything you need me to do, officers? Do I need to sign anything?’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine, we just wanted to bring him home. He’s a good kid is Charlie, I’ve played cricket with his father,’ the first one says.

  ‘Yeah, he’s just great,’ I say, sarcastically.

  ‘Seriously, do you think he’s okay?’ he asks me, like I know.

  ‘You know what? I don’t know. I thought maybe he was just tired … but now, now I don’t know,’ I say quietly.

  ‘And the bible thing – the fishes and loaves thing – I don’t know what that’s all about. He’s not religious. He was singing earlier …’ I stop myself. I don’t think the bowling green incident, coupled with this, will look good. I don’t know why I am protecting him.

  ‘At what point did he start taking his clothes off?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh no, he was just in his shorts when we found h
im. He was using his top to carry the fish.’ The policeman reaches down and picks up Charlie’s top, which is next to him, and offers it to me.

  ‘No thanks. You can just leave it there for now,’ I say, all of a sudden smelling fish.

  ‘Of course.’ He drops it on the floor again.

  The first policeman gets up, and the second one follows him to the door.

  I follow them, and hold the door as they walk out.

  ‘Thanks a lot, guys, I’ll speak to him, calm him down,’ I say, trying to sound calm myself.

  ‘Look, don’t be too hard on him,’ one of the policemen says. ‘I know how much stress these young boys are under, with these high-flying jobs – sometimes they just need to let off some steam. There’s no real harm done.’ He smiles at me weakly.

  ‘Aha,’ I say, and smile back, jaw set, anger flashing in my eyes. They climb into their squad car, and I wait at the door as they sit and chat for a minute, looking anxiously at me. I think they are worried about a case of domestic violence blowing up as soon as they drive off. I do really want to smack him, but that won’t solve anything. And in the back of my mind, I’m worried. Maybe he really is having some kind of breakdown. Up until now I thought it was just a mini-crisis, an emotional outpouring, a little depression and a little shock. But it’s getting out of hand. How easy is it to get somebody committed anyway?

  Gone but not Forgotten

  All our lectures finished the week before we left the States. We spent the last few days packing up, saying goodbye to people, playing tennis, going to the pub. I hadn’t seen Dale for a while. The last couple of times I had run into him things had been awkward – if he was in the room when I got back, he would make an excuse and leave. I figured that would be it, and we wouldn’t even say goodbye. Things had gone a little strange between us, we weren’t comfortable with each other, but it wasn’t mutual dislike any more.

  Joleen packed up her stuff and cleared out the day after lectures finished, and it ended pretty much as it started, with an argument.

  ‘I’m leaving now.’ Joleen was loaded down with bags and coats, so I’d kind of guessed.

  ‘Okay, well, bye then.’ I looked up from my book.

  ‘Dale won’t come anywhere near the room now, you know that, right?’

  Joleen followed this with a sly smile, as if somehow she had won a battle. I didn’t even realize we were fighting.

  ‘Okay, well, bye then.’ I carried on reading this time.

  ‘And if you do see him around campus, don’t talk to him, okay? His silly bitch of a girlfriend has slashed her wrists after Dale finally ended it. It was no fucking surprise, she’s pathetic.’ She followed this with another twisted smile that implied she had won that one too.

  ‘Yeah, well, whatever.’ I didn’t look up, but Joleen didn’t seem inclined to leave.

  ‘I’m serious, Nicola, he won’t have time for your shit.’

  I snapped. ‘What shit, Joleen? What actual shit is that?’

  Joleen seemed to back down straight away. ‘Whatever, I’m going.’ Joleen swung open the door.

  ‘Okay, Joleen. Fine. Bye.’

  She stormed down the hall, leaving the door wide open.

  No hugs, thank God. We weren’t that shallow, we weren’t going to pretend that both our years wouldn’t have been a hell of a lot more bearable if the other hadn’t been there. As soon as she left, I filled her side of the room with my suitcase and boxes in which I began to pack a year’s worth of purchases.

  Joleen had been oblivious to the shifts in my relationship with Dale – she hadn’t noticed that somewhere during the year, and somehow, we had actually started to like each other, maybe even understand each other. I honestly didn’t think I would see him, which made me want to say goodbye to him even more, and made me dwell on his absence more than I should have. I wondered how he was taking his girlfriend’s drastic actions – whether he was, in fact, the evil little bastard I had him pegged for at the start and he actually didn’t care. Somewhere in the back of my mind I didn’t believe it, but I wasn’t sure. He was, to all intents and purposes, a mystery to most people.

  I was going straight home, as was Charlie, and we had agreed that we would work for a month, staying with our respective parents, and use the money we earned to bugger off to Greece or Italy for a couple of weeks and chill out together. It was all quite exciting, and yet terrifying, taking this relationship back home with me. I had never met his family, or friends in England, and yet we had practically lived together for most of the year. What daunted me most was the prospect of making it work at home, slipping back into old routines but with a new variable. I wondered how long we would last. Not that I wanted it to end, I was just nervous.

  I had to return my last pile of unread books to the library and decided to get a coffee to warm myself up on a particularly breezy May day, and stopped off in the cafe behind our halls. As I walked in, I spotted Dale sitting in the corner, staring off into space, with a barely touched cup of coffee and a muffin in front of him. As soon as I saw him I knew that I had to say goodbye to him. I liked the idea that now, my leaving might actually mean something to him, might blip on his emotional radar somehow. He didn’t notice me, as I ordered my coffee, but looked up as the door swung open with the force of the wind – you could hear the massive elms that lined the street struggling with their leaves outside. He looked over and saw me then, and he smiled. I paid for my coffee and went to join him at the back. The place was empty.

  ‘Dale, I was hoping I’d run into you. I wanted to say goodbye. I’m leaving in a couple of days.’ I felt flushed with the wind, and suddenly hot in my coat indoors.

  Dale just smiled at me, intense and vacant at the same time. I sat down opposite him, and blew on my coffee.

  ‘How’s Marie?’ I asked, knowing that if Joleen were there, she’d be screaming obscenities at me just for asking him.

  ‘Joleen told you.’ Dale shifted forward in his chair, ran a hand through his hair, which was wet for some reason, no sign of any gel at all, the quiff strangely absent today. It made him look younger, his hair falling at the sides of his eyes. I nodded, and blew on my coffee again.

  We sat there for a minute, and he didn’t say anything and just stared down at the plastic table, and his muffin. Eventually I coughed, and stood up, as he showed no sign of moving.

  ‘Dale, you probably want to be alone …’ I started.

  ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’ he blurted out, suddenly imploring me with tear-filled eyes, curtained by his hair.

  ‘Sure, of course,’ I said, and as he followed me out of the coffee shop, I felt a strange sense of pride, that after everything, he wanted to talk to me about … whatever he wanted to talk about. Joleen would be spitting chips.

  We walked in silence for a minute, I kept blowing on my coffee, trying to cool it down, and so when I eventually sipped it, I wouldn’t burn my tongue. I should have blown on myself. Dale gestured with his hands, as we walked, having a conversation in his head, without actually saying a word.

  ‘I bet you wish Joleen was still here, to talk to,’ I ventured finally.

  ‘Yeah, I do actually,’ he said. ‘She means … a lot. You guys never really saw the best in each other.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘Joleen and I will end up together eventually. I just need to find her physically attractive first, but I’m working on it.’ He gave me a wry smile.

  ‘She loves you.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said, like it was a burden he just couldn’t shake off.

  ‘Is your girlfriend going to be okay?’ I asked, as we turned in towards my block, my room, subconsciously.

  ‘She’s going to be okay. She’ll be in hospital for a while. I don’t know … what to do really.’

  ‘About her?’ I asked.

  ‘Her, me, everything. I can’t believe she did it. You know me, Nicola, I’m a shit. Why did she do it?’

  ‘Probably because you aren’t a shit. Yo
u aren’t the shit you want to be. It just takes people time to realize it. She obviously has. But to do something like that, to try and kill yourself, it’s more about her than you, Dale. You were just her reason, she needed a reason. A completely stable, non-suicidal person wouldn’t have done it, even if you did break up with them.’

  Dale nodded his head. My key was in the door, he leaned on the door frame beside me. I realized suddenly what was happening. But I turned the key without saying a word.

  I opened the door and he followed me in, and shut the door behind him. I didn’t turn the light on, even though the sun was almost down. He moved up behind me, and brushed the hair away from the back of my neck, and pulled my coat off from behind. It fell on the floor. He ran his hands down my arms to my hands, and kissed my neck, and the top of my back, and I felt myself let go, and let it happen. I turned around, and he kissed his way up my neck to the side of my mouth, and then stopped. So close I could taste the coffee on his breath, and a couple of strands of his limp fringe touched the skin by my eyes. I looked at him, and I knew he needed this, and he needed me. And then we were kissing, his tongue moving quickly and sharply in and out of my mouth, the way he smoked a cigarette, the way he spoke, the way he did everything. He kept stopping and taking deep breaths, and then kissing my shoulders, pulling my top off over my head, kissing the skin he found beneath it. I didn’t try and slow him down, or guide him, I just leaned back and let him push me onto Joleen’s bed. We pulled each other’s clothes off, until I was wearing nothing but my knickers, and he was naked. He rolled me over on top of him, and laid back eyes closed. I moved down his body, and kissed him like a wife. I slipped his erection into my mouth, and stroked him softly. I crept back up his body, and took his face in my hands, peculiarly aware of his eyes now staring into mine. I kissed him harder on the mouth, so close that he couldn’t focus on who I was, just my body next to his, moving with his, just a mouth kissing his, a tongue licking his, hands holding his. He rolled me back over on the bed, and he slipped a hand between my legs, under my knickers, and into me, gently stroking, and then pushing his fingers in slowly, and then quicker, as I felt his dick ready against me. But he kept tickling, trickling his fingers just inside me, working around my last item of clothing, refusing to take it off. I reached down and slid my knickers down my legs, and he breathed heavily, as if I had just said ‘yes’. He parted my legs with the weight of his thighs, as he guided his dick inside me, slowly, and stopped, as we both lay for a second, aware. Then he pulled back, and slowly, forcefully, pushed himself into me again, and then again, and I began to feel his need creeping, growing. I pulled his head into my neck and ground against him, faster, speeding him up. Dale pushed his hand into the small of my back, and arched me into him, and with no space between us, we urged each other on and on, and I felt an urgency inside me trawling through my body, a sweeping dread. Dale pulled back suddenly, but not quick enough. I closed my eyes, and brought my hand up to cover them.