by Emlyn Rees
‘It’s perfect,’ I said, sitting down cross-legged on the sheets and watching her walk to the door and collect her bag from where she’d left it. She pulled the door closed and turned back to face me.
As she walked towards me, it struck me how long we’d known one another and how far we’d come. Seeing her here in these strange surroundings made me look on her as if I were seeing her for the first time.
Prior to this moment, Mickey had always been as much a bundle of memories to me as a creature of flesh and blood. Thinking of her had always reminded me of a miracle story I’d read out in a reading competition at Rushton Primary School. In the story, Jesus had helped save a man called Legion, who’d been possessed by many devils, and Jesus had cast the devils from him into a herd of swine.
It wasn’t that I’d thought there’d been devils inside Mickey, more that I’d always seen her as being a composite of the many versions of herself that I’d grown up with. Her laughter had been the laughter of a friend, who’d sat on a swing as I’d pushed her higher and higher up into the sky. Her tears had been those of a partner in crime, who’d saved me from drowning in the River Elo when I’d been nine years old. Her touch had been the touch of the first girl I’d ever kissed.
Now, though, now it was different: I saw only her. Gone was the child I’d grown up with. As Miles’s death had signified the end of my childhood, so Mickey’s continued involvement in my life had, to me, signified the end of hers. It was something I should probably have noticed earlier. She had changed … in so many ways. Her boyish hips, once as straight as rulers, had flexed outwards into a set of matching curves. My clumsy fumblings around her breasts in her back garden now struck me as the acts of someone who hadn’t really known what he was meant to have been doing. Her eyes had taken on wisdom and confidence. Her stare was no longer one of defiance in the face of authority, but of self-assurance.
While all these alterations had been happening to her – even over these last six months that we’d been seeing one another – I’d never really taken time to step back and see quite how amazing she’d become. She was no longer just the girl next door, but the girl I loved. ‘You’re beautiful,’ I said. I realised I was whispering, even though I knew we were safe.
She shrugged, embarrassed, her mouth breaking into a confused half-smile. ‘You sound surprised,’ she whispered back.
Joining me on the sheets, she emptied out her bag’s contents. There were a V-neck jumper, a long T-shirt, a four-pack of lager, a packet of cigarettes and some sandwiches. On top of these a toothbrush and tube of toothpaste fell out.
‘Sorry about the lack of running water,’ I commented and she smiled, offering me her jumper to wear, then putting it on herself when I shook my head.
She passed me a can of beer and lit us both a cigarette.
‘You didn’t have any trouble,’ I said, raising my beer and taking a sip, ‘getting hold of this …’
‘Girls always look older than they are,’ she told me; and she was right: she did.
She leant up against me, her head on my shoulder, her hair against my cheek, and we drank and smoked in silence, warm against each other. Sitting there, just the two of us, in that strange and wondrous place, I felt as though we were astronauts in a capsule, orbiting high above the world.
But then, as had happened with almost every cigarette I’d smoked since Miles’s death, as if the very scent I was inhaling formed a direct link to him, the knowledge of his death returned and I found myself plummeting straight back down to earth. ‘Were you there?’ I asked.
Her mouth opened, but I saved her the trouble of having to broach the subject fully herself.
‘When it happened …’ I said. ‘Were you there when Miles died?’
Again, I saw the struggle in her eyes.
‘Please,’ I implored. ‘Mum won’t – can’t talk about it. I need to know.’
Mickey told me the story of what had happened, about how she’d seen Miles as she’d been walking up the Avenue after the school bus had dropped her off, and about hearing him and Mum argue, and about the police, and about what had happened next, back on the Avenue once more, and finally about how Miles had attempted to swerve around the police car but had hit the tree instead.
‘Do you think he died as quickly as they say?’ I asked.
Her cigarette trembled in her mouth as she took a drag. ‘Don’t, Fred,’ she said, putting the cigarette out and taking mine from me and doing the same. She wrapped her arms round me. ‘I’m sorry it had to happen. I’m sorry Miles isn’t alive and I’m sorry it’s making you so unhappy.’
I looked down at my interlocked fingers and remembered that this was how my mother’s had been, day after day in Scotland as we’d waited for news. ‘I’m not unhappy,’ I started to say, but already, my voice was quavering. I attempted to continue, hoping that speaking would stop me from feeling inside. ‘These things happen. I can deal with it. You don’t need to worry …’
But I was lying. I couldn’t deal with it. Tears flowed once more and I felt Mickey’s hand stroking my head. This time, though, my tears were different from the ones I’d shed as I’d sobbed into Mickey’s arms by the school gate. Like blood flowing from a wound, they were painless, symptomatic only of the depth of the cut beneath.
‘We can do this,’ Mickey told me. ‘Together we can get through this.’
Gradually the heaving in my chest subsided and I pulled myself together enough to speak. ‘Miles came to see me,’ I said. ‘He came here … to tell me that something was wrong. I didn’t listen to him. I sent him away …’
Mickey’s voice came soothingly to me. ‘You didn’t know what was going to happen,’ she said. ‘No one did.’
I shook my head and pulled back from her. ‘Miles did,’ I told her. ‘He knew he was in trouble. He knew they were going to come looking for him. That someone was … that someone would … I should’ve listened to him. I should’ve been there when he needed me.’
Mickey’s eyes seemed gigantic. ‘No,’ she told me. ‘There’s nothing you could have done that would have made things any different.’
My mind dredged up another fear. ‘Do you think it’s –’ I started. ‘What the newspapers said he did … Do you think it’s true?’
A tear trailed down her cheek and dropped on to her jumper.
‘Do you think he … do you think Miles could have …?’
Light danced in Mickey’s eyes. I could see she was frightened, scared for me.
The temple air prickled like static around us, and I heaved breath into me and sighed it back out again. Mickey had no answers for me. No one did. I rubbed at my face with my hands. ‘Let’s not talk about it any more,’ I said.
Her hands were on my shoulders. ‘But if you –’
‘No.’
I was determined. I picked up my can of beer and drained it. Closing my eyes, I squeezed away the remaining tears and wiped them from my face with the back of my hand. I pushed a lopsided smile on to my face. ‘Catharsis …’ I said. ‘I learnt about it in English. It means –’
‘I know,’ Mickey said. ‘It means what we’re doing now. And before you say it, you’re right: it’s good for you … for us …’
I gazed at her face, statuelike and burnished in the candlelight. As quickly as he’d arrived, Miles faded back into the darkness, almost as if her brightness had driven him away. ‘What you said …’ I asked her, ‘… on the phone. Did you mean it?’
She nodded her head. ‘Yes,’ she said, unsmiling.
I swallowed, searching for any trace of doubt in her face, but I found none. Her eyes were bright in the candlelight. They reminded me of … I tried to push the image away, but it kept flickering back. They reminded me of Miles’s eyes when he’d come to visit me at school a month before, when he’d searched for words to tell me how he’d felt. It was only now that I recognised what it was that had burnt behind them: love. This was love I saw before me now in Mickey’s eyes, that thing that Miles had been
unable to express, but which I was now determined that I would.
‘I love you,’ I told her.
I’d never said this to anyone else, but here it was, coming so easily to me now. These were only words, after all, and the well of emotions they contained had been deepening inside me for months. Voicing them had been as natural as saying, ‘I am’, because that was how it truly was. Mickey was alive in me. We were joined. I never wanted us to die. I never wanted us to be broken in two and I never wanted to leave her side again.
‘Come here,’ she said, lying down on the sheets and reaching out her arms.
Chapter VIII
Mickey
It’s Friday night and Joe wants to go to the cinema with Tyler. We’ve had a fractious week since we came back from Rushton and I guess he deserves a break, but I’m not in the best of moods. I’m also feeling wary of Tyler, and of his parents, Judith and Mike. They live in a big house up near the park and razz about in a large Mercedes people carrier and, while they’re very nice people, in a gung-ho, bouffant sort of way, I’m worried that their mere presence in our lives is making Joe question his own lifestyle.
I know it’s a great thing that Joe has a social life and that he gets on so well with Tyler, but I’m not equipped to deal with how out of control it’s making me feel. When there was just Joe and me we made all our decisions together and what Joe did with his time was never questioned. Now his horizons seem to be changing. Already, this week, the subject of the impending school holidays has caused a row. Tyler and his parents are going on a fun-packed trip to America and Joe, understandably, is jealous. My worst fear is that Tyler’s family, out of sympathy, are going to ask Joe along on the trip and it’ll be up to me to decide whether he can go. I’m not sure I can make that kind of parental decision on my own, let alone afford it.
Adding to my stress levels is the fact that we’ve had a terrible week in the shop. It’s been pouring with rain and there have been hardly any customers. I’ve paid Lisa and Marge, my other assistant, and given Lisa a cash loan, which doesn’t exactly leave very much for me.
Joe stands in the shop, kicking his school bag, as we discuss his trip to the cinema, which will involve me handing over my last ten-pound note, not that I’ve told Joe this.
‘But it’s a twelve certificate,’ I protest.
‘So?’ he counters.
‘So, you’re nine,’ I remind him.
‘Tyler’s mum doesn’t have a problem,’ he says petulantly.
‘Joe, I don’t care what Tyler’s mother says.’ I suddenly feel very weary. ‘It’s you I’m concerned about.’
‘But I’ve watched loads of fifteen certificates and a bit of an eighteen once.’
‘Well, that’s not the point,’ I mumble, knowing that it is. ‘It’s about parental guidance.’
‘So parentally guide me,’ says Joe, fixing me with a beady stare.
I sigh, exasperated.
‘It’s not as if it’s really bad,’ Joe continues. He knows me well enough to see a chink in my armour and he goes for the kill. ‘It’s only a cartoon and everyone else at school has seen it. I’m going to look really stupid if I tell Tyler I can’t go.’
He doesn’t add ‘because of you’ to the end of his sentence, but it’s implicit nevertheless. I look at him, seeing my own defiant stare in his face. There’s a part of me that longs to find the words to explain to Joe that I don’t want him to grow up, but it’s pointless. He wouldn’t understand, and it would make me a horrible old curmudgeon if I told him that being a grown-up is not all it’s cracked up to be and he should, if he has any sense, hang in there being a child for as long as possible. Besides, it would make me the biggest hypocrite on the planet. I always wanted to grow up faster, to be older than my age, to defy the age labels set by governments and parents, so I can’t tell Joe to be any different. Anyway, I suppose these things aren’t about age, but maturity and if Joe is mature enough to run rings round me then he can probably handle a twelve-certificate film without being scarred for life.
‘OK, OK, you can go,’ I relent finally. ‘But don’t come running to me for sympathy when they won’t let you in.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that.’ Joe smiles. ‘Tyler’s mum has already pre-booked the tickets.’
I watch him swing his school bag over his shoulder, and walk to the door and up to the flat. When he’s out of sight, I rub my hands over my face and try to control my frustration.
A minute later Lisa walks through the door and shakes out her umbrella.
I breathe out deeply and find a smile for her. ‘Any joy?’ I ask. She’s going on a date tonight and I let her have a few hours off to go shopping this afternoon.
‘Barkers came up trumps,’ she says, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘I’m going to knock his socks off, even though I say so myself.’
The lucky gentleman in question is Spike, who works in the reggae record shop down the road. He’s had his eye on Lisa for a while, but he’s so laid-back that she hasn’t twigged that their accidental meetings have not been entirely the amazing coincidences she thinks they have. Tonight’s date is at a reggae club and sent Lisa into a frenzy about finding just the right image. I did point out that she’d look great in a bin bag, but she didn’t agree.
She bustles over to me and opens the large carrier bag. ‘These,’ she says, pulling out a pair of black trousers and holding them against her. Her corkscrew curls fall across her face.
‘Lovely,’ I confirm.
‘And this,’ she goes on, pulling out a tight-fitting top, which she holds under her chin so that I see the overall effect. ‘Far too expensive, but what the hell.’
‘Well done.’ I say, smiling encouragingly, trying not to mind that my cash advance has been so well spent.
Lisa folds her new clothes carefully and puts them back in the bag. ‘Got any plans for tonight?’ she asks.
‘Joe’s going to the cinema, so I’ll probably just have a bath, or something.’
‘Use some of my rose oil. It works wonders.’
‘Thanks.’
There’s a pause and Lisa looks at me. ‘Are you OK?’ she asks.
I shrug wearily. ‘Just tired.’
She nods and cocks her head sympathetically. ‘No word?’ she asks gently.
I told Lisa edited highlights of Fred’s trip to Rushton late last Sunday night when Joe and I got back. Her advice was that Fred would be bound to get in touch this week and she gave me a reassuring hug and told me to have faith, but I felt uptight and drew our conversation to a close. I was too confused either to tell her how I was feeling or to take her advice on board. There was so much I hadn’t told her, too much history that had become tangled into the present, that making sense of it all in order to recount it to her was impossible.
As a result, we’ve barely mentioned Fred all week, but I know Lisa’s been watching me, sensing, correctly, that I’ve been counting down the days until tomorrow when Fred gets married.
I shake my head. ‘I guess that’s that.’
She touches my arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says and I know she means it.
‘Don’t be. I’m fine, honestly,’ I lie. I walk over to the door, not trusting myself to be brave. ‘You go up and get ready,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll finish up down here.’
When she’s gone, I lean against the door for a moment, looking at the bus drawing up outside. The doors hiss open and I watch the queue of people getting in. It seems as if the whole world is moving on. It’s only me who’s stuck.
I can’t bear that Fred might be near. It makes me feel crowded in and trapped. He’s here, behind every car window, in every shop, living in my telephone receiver. Without knowing it, seeing Fred in my world has attached mine to his. I feel as if he’s hooked tendrils around everything that’s precious to me, and lifted me out of the safe world I’ve built and left me dangling, looking down at a deep, dark void. I watch the tired faces of the passengers on the bus and feel the weight of their exhaustion.
/> I close my eyes for a second, reliving the conversation I had with Fred in Rushton. I’ve gone over and over it all week, trying to find just a tiny bit of the resolve I had when I told Fred that I couldn’t see him again. I was right. I know I was right, but somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better. Maybe I should have slept with him and got it all over and done with. Maybe if we’d finally made love I’d feel better, as if we’d rounded off the past properly.
I knew at the time I was protecting myself and Joe, but now I can’t find any pay-off in my bravery. I gave Fred all the reasons why it wouldn’t work between us and none of the reasons why it would. I backed myself into a corner and instead of being strong, I gave Fred all my power. Since the moment I woke up last Sunday and crept downstairs to find the blankets on my parents’ sofa folded, with no sign of Fred, I’ve been feeling empty, as if something has been ripped out of me.
It’s my fault. I left it up to him to change things and despite everything I said to him, I’ve half expected him to turn up, or at least call. But there’s been nothing. I’ve rejected him and he’s gone: it’s as simple as that. In less than twenty-four hours’ time he’ll be married to Rebecca who, as I pointed out (stupidly), loves him very much and will make him very happy. And that will be that. I take a deep breath, turn the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ and pull down the shutters. By the time I’ve cleared up the shop and made my way upstairs, Joe’s ready to go out.
He’s changed into the T-shirt he won at Fred’s games launch, which I know for a fact smells, but I don’t have the energy to make an issue of it. He’s standing in the kitchen cutting up a banana with the penknife Fred gave him. ‘Can we have Fred over tomorrow?’ he asks.
‘No, darling.’ I sigh. ‘He’s busy.’
‘We could ring him,’ Joe says hopefully. ‘Get him to come over and fly the kite.’
