The Date

by Louise Jensen

  It’s not like you see on TV, I can imagine PC Hunter saying. All cell searches and confiscating contraband while guards and prisoners form bonds and everyone gets rehabilitated in the end. But still, a slow and painful death is not what I’d wish on anyone and, as I think that, I picture Mum growing weaker each day, muscles wasting, speech slurring. Her dignity fading along with our childhood paintings stuck to the fridge and Ben’s toddler fingerprints on the walls. Time seemed so cruel back then. Speed-of-light fast and yet impossibly slow. I read on. The second name is more familiar to me – Wayne Lindsell. He visited the house more and more once Dad had lost his job. I vividly remember, one scorching hot summer’s day, they drank cheap beer in the garden, while Mum frowned out of the window as she wiped her hands on her apron.

  ‘Tell your dad I want him,’ she had said.

  I had relayed the message and stood awkwardly on our lawn that was yellowing with thirst, as Dad headed to the kitchen, and I began to follow, but Wayne called me back, asking how school was, in the way that adults do when they can’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Fine,’ I muttered as Mum’s urgent whisper floated out of the open window the way the butterflies were floating around our lavender bush.

  ‘I can’t make dinner stretch to feed another mouth. He’ll have to go. And it’s far too early to be drinking.’

  Wayne drained the last of his can before crushing it in one hand, his muscles bulging. I was mesmerised by the tattoo of a lion’s head glistening on his tanned arm.

  ‘It’s a reminder that I’m stronger and smarter and faster,’ Wayne had said. ‘King of the jungle. Invincible.’

  He was also dead. Ravaged by cancer. There’s a photo of him in the prison hospital, all sunken cheeks and jutting collarbones. His hands lying crossed over his chest. His lion tattoo small and shrivelled.

  Dad is the only one left. The only one free and, although I know I shouldn’t, I can’t help opening up the comments at the bottom of the article. The malevolence that spews from my screen snatches my breath. The numerous variations of ‘I hope they didn’t waste more taxpayers’ money giving Wayne pain relief’ and the ‘someone should set fire to Justin Crawford. Why should he get to live his life free?’ And something deep inside of me, a primal, protective instinct, begins to unfurl as I’m back at that funfair, begging Dad to win me a teddy bear on the shooting range. His awkwardness handling a gun, needing to be shown where to put the hard, tarnished pellets, told to close one eye before he squinted through the sight. He still missed the target. He’d hooked a duck instead, tongue poking out the corner of his mouth with concentration, and won me a grubby rabbit whose stuffing spilled out of its seams as he carried me high on his shoulders when my legs became tired.

  Branwell licks my hand, as though reminding me to focus, and I start a new search for ‘Sharon Marlow + children’.

  Tragedy strikes again for the Marlow family screams at me. I begin to read how Sharon’s eldest child, Lewis, was drowned while holidaying in Greece. Christine is the only surviving family member.

  No wonder she hates me.

  No wonder she wants revenge.

  But Lewis can’t be Ewan.

  * * *

  ‘I know,’ Is all I say as I push past Jules and stride into her lounge. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about?’ she says but, despite her protestations, she can’t meet my eye.

  ‘That night. In the bar. On the CCTV. There wasn’t any Ewan at all, was there?’

  Her eyes flicker to the ceiling, as though she might find the answer painted there against the awful swirls of Artex the previous occupant had left behind.

  ‘I know Chrissy was fucking my husband.’ The word is crude and sour on my tongue, but my smouldering anger is burning brighter and brighter. ‘I know you recognised the face on the CCTV, so I’ll ask you once again, Jules. Who was there that night? Who had so much to hide that they burned the bar down rather than risk the police viewing the footage?’

  Jules sinks onto the sofa. ‘You really don’t remember anything, do you?’

  I cross my arms. Waiting.

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’ Jules drops her head into her hands, fingertips pressing into her scalp.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Ali.’ Her voice is muffled but I can hear the regret. ‘It was Matt.’

  It’s one of those moments you think you’re prepared for. Expecting. Wanting. Longing for it to be over, almost – a dentist extracting a throbbing tooth – but on hearing Jules speak Matt’s name aloud my stomach cramps, saliva flooding my mouth. I bolt out of the lounge, my feet pounding the stairs, towards the bathroom. As I round the corner, my left hand pulling on the bannister for traction, I hit something solid and heavy.

  ‘Ali?’ James says, steadying me by the shoulders as he comes out of his bedroom. ‘Where’s the fire?’

  Flinching at his choice of words I shrug him off, squeeze past, my fingers stretching towards the bathroom door handle.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks again and the worry in his voice slows me.

  ‘I know.’ I turn to face him. ‘I know exactly who my date was that night.’

  He doesn’t ask who it was. He doesn’t ask how I found out. He doesn’t ask any of the things I thought he might. Instead he says: ‘Oh God. I hoped you’d never find out it was me.’

  He plants his feet wider, blocking off my exit down the stairs and, although I can’t read the expression on his face, I can read the clues that are now visible through his open door: the Star Wars poster on his bedroom wall. Ewan McGregor brandishing a lightsaber. The new green jacket he’s only worn that once hanging on the front of the wardrobe door. The long black case propped up in the corner of the room that I’m guessing, if I were to check, would contain fishing rods.

  Laughing. Dancing. Crying. Screaming. I don’t want to.

  Mouth agape I stare at James who is staring back at me. Waiting for my next move.

  Just as I am waiting for his.

  43

  James was my date that night. My head is spinning. Half-formed scraps of truth fluttering past my mind’s eye before I can snatch them, but I know, even if I could catch my splintered memories, lay them out before me, there would still be missing pieces of the puzzle.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I say, but, as I speak, I’m backing away, assessing my option, my escape, knowing it must be true.

  ‘Ali, please.’ His hand reaches towards me, and I take another step backwards, my heel hitting the skirting board. The door handle of the bathroom digging into my spine. Slowly I inch my hand behind my back, rooting around for the cool metal.

  ‘I won’t hurt you.’ James inches closer. ‘You don’t need to lock yourself in there.’

  ‘But you did hurt me.’

  He leans in.

  ‘Don’t. Come. Any. Closer.’ I spin and push open the door, but before I can step into safety, his hands are on my shoulders and I flash back to that night. The hands on my shoulders, shaking me hard. I scream and scream, and this time it is real and loud and deafening. My vision swimming in and out of focus. All the terror I felt that night comes gushing back, merging with the terror I feel right now. James’s fingertips loosen their grip and are replaced with different hands. Soothing hands. The floral scent of Jules’s perfume. Arms enveloping me. Stroking my hair.

  ‘Shhh. It’s okay,’ whispers Jules. But it’s not okay. It’s not okay at all.

  ‘It was him. James. That night. Not Ewan. James.’ I am babbling.

  ‘I know,’ Jules says quietly, and I shove her away from me, her betrayal freezing the sweat that had pooled in my armpits, the small of my back. We stand in silence, the three of us who were once friends. My eyes search for something, anything, that will tell me I am not going mad, because – standing in front of James and Jules who not only look like strangers, but now feel like strangers – it’s almost impossible to believe anything else in the world is
as it should be. I settle on the moon, high and round, outside the landing window. The indigo sky peppered with stars. The glow of the orange lamp post.

  ‘Before you do anything. Say anything. Please hear us out.’

  Without looking at her I say ‘Fine’, and it’s not because I want to hear anything they have to say, but because I know they won’t let me leave until I do.

  I am perched on the armchair nearest the front door. Holding a cushion on my lap as though it is a protective shield. My knees jiggle with nervous energy. I can’t stop shaking. With fear. With shock. With the horrible realisation that I really can’t trust anyone.

  James sits furthest away from me, legs pressed together, arms wrapped around his middle, as though he is trying to make himself as small as possible. As though he too wishes he could disappear.

  ‘You’ve five minutes before I call the police. Talk.’ I mean my tone to sound firm and in control, but my voice cracks.

  It is Jules who speaks first. ‘James has been in love with you for such a long time. And when you split up with Matt and moved next door, he thought… Well he hoped eventually you might come to see him as more than a friend, but you never did.’

  ‘I had no—’

  ‘He wasn’t brave enough to tell you directly.’ Jules talks quickly. Urgently. Knowing I am judging each and every word. Searching for the lie. ‘That night, with Chrissy, when she signed you up to the dating app, I texted James and told him your username and suggested he sign up too.’

  ‘You were the one who took my phone.’ I thought back. ‘You sent the reply to him knowing who it was.’

  ‘You liked him. Remember all those other messages that night? The cock shots? The demands for naked photos. You said James seemed kind, and I thought you might get to know a different side of him. Grow to like him. And you did.’

  We shouldn’t be out here. I want to go inside. I don’t want to do this. Please don’t make me.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ali, you were always messaging each other.’

  ‘I liked someone I thought was called Ewan. What’s kind about deceiving me? Letting me think you were someone else?’ I glare at James.

  ‘He felt terrible. That’s why he suggested a proper date that night. So you could see who you were talking to. You both had feelings for each other.’

  ‘You were like a brother to me.’

  ‘That was the problem.’ James speaks for himself now. ‘We’d fallen into the friendship zone. The games of Monopoly. The family Sunday lunches. I’d asked you along to gigs and you’d always said no.’

  I had thought it was because James had a spare ticket but that’s not important right now. I take a deep breath and stiffen my spine. Almost detach myself from my body for what I am about to ask.

  ‘Did you drug and rape me, James?’

  ‘No!’ He springs to his feet, and I mirror his actions, still holding the cushion, poised to strike out, as though it contains steel and not feathers.

  ‘But we had sex? I can’t have been in any state to consent…’

  ‘Ali, I didn’t touch you. I swear. Nothing happened.’

  Jules yanks his arm and he half falls back on the sofa, and as he raises his hands to rake them through his hair I can see them trembling. I sink back down onto the chair and cover my face with my palms. If I didn’t have sex with James, who did I have sex with that night? Closing my eyes I recall the details of the tape. The grainy image. The man staring into the camera. My blonde hair cascading down my back, emerald dress rolled down to the waist.

  No.

  Agitation drives me to my feet.

  ‘Ali?’ Jules tentatively asks but I’m pacing the room, picturing getting ready that night.

  ‘I love this one.’ Chrissy had held my green dress up under her chin, smoothing the fabric with one hand. ‘If you don’t want to wear it tonight, can I borrow it again?’ She’d worn it the week before when I’d had a night shift at work.

  ‘Don’t believe everything you see.’ Matt had said when we’d had breakfast together.

  It was him in the tape. Him and Chrissy. What sort of a man would send his wife a video of him having sex with another woman?

  The man who knew his wife would never recognise him. My fists furl and unfurl. You fucking. Fucking. Bastard.

  Fury is keeping my tears at bay as I spin around to face James. ‘Tell me exactly what you remember from that night and don’t leave anything out,’ I demand. As he falteringly begins to speak, I close my eyes, letting his words form pictures in my mind. My hazy recollection becoming clearer.

  Sitting on one of the high stools near the cocktail sign that winked pink and blue, I shift my weight, trying not to slip off the faux leather seat as I scan the crowd. I’d told my date I would be wearing an emerald green dress but now, under lights that strobe green, it looks as though everyone is wearing the same colour. Nervously I fiddle with my straw, pulling it out of my mocktail before pushing it back in, sinking the shiny red half cherry bobbing on the surface. I take a sip of the fruit juice, wishing I wasn’t driving: a vodka would calm the butterflies thronging around my belly. I still don’t know how I feel about being on a date. Part of me thinks it’s too soon. My separation with Matt still so raw.

  ‘You must meet Ewan.’ Chrissy and Jules had insisted whenever I had expressed my doubts. It was one of the first things they had ever agreed on. ‘He makes you smile.’

  And he did. The messages we exchanged became more and more frequent, my fingertips were flying over the keyboard, often for a whole evening, as our conversations flowed. Until eventually, tentatively, I had agreed we should meet.

  Now, as I sit watching the bodies in the corner that writhe together to the music pulsing like a heartbeat, I wonder whether it is too intimate, almost, to come here. Almost like a proper date.

  ‘Ali.’ I pull my eyes away from the dance floor. James leans against the bar, trying to look relaxed but appearing stiff and uncomfortable in a green tweed jacket I’ve never seen before, more formal than anything the other men here are wearing. His aftershave overpowering – obviously out to impress.

  ‘Hello.’ I peer over his shoulder. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m waiting for someone.’

  ‘Ewan,’ he says.

  ‘Jules told you?’ I try to keep the hint of irritation from my voice, hating the thought I’ve been gossiped about. I really don’t want Matt finding out until I am ready to tell him, if there is anything to tell.

  ‘No. It’s me. I mean.’ He inhales sharply. ‘I’m Ewan.’ He stretches out his hand for me to shake. Instead I slide off the stool and pick up my clutch bag.

  ‘I suppose you all think this is funny?’ Humiliation burns hot behind my eyes.

  ‘Wait.’ He places his hand on my arm. ‘It wasn’t a joke. I… I like you, Ali. I wanted you to get to know me without thinking of me as Jules’s younger cousin. Please stay.’

  I hesitate. All I have to rush back home to is a lonely Saturday night in front of the TV. But this is James. It all feels so weird.

  ‘One drink, Ali. A chance to explain?’

  We are being jostled, a hen party coveting our place at the bar. Chrissy is nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Five minutes.’ I don’t like being lied to. I’m not going to be a pushover.

  We have sat side by side before hundreds of times. At his house. At mine. At the pub, where we always come last in the quiz despite Chrissy flirting with the barman for answers. But this time electricity crackles between us as I sit upright and awkward, flinching when our thighs inadvertently touch, our hands brushing together as we lean in to hear each other speak over the throbbing bass, his hand resting transiently on my knee as he listens. As the DJ seamlessly melds one song into another the conversation begins to flow and the tension between us dissipates. One drink leads to two, to three.

  ‘I’ve a drinking problem,’ James admits, and I am shocked until he quickly adds, ‘I can’t bend my elbow properly in this jacket’, and feigns
struggling to reach his mouth with his glass.

  ‘It does look very… new.’ I laugh.

  ‘I bought it for tonight.’

  Confused by the emotions I am feeling I leap to my feet. ‘Another round?’ He follows me to the bar.

  ‘And I wasn’t drinking alcohol,’ I clarify with James now.

  ‘No. You were driving.’

  ‘And nobody spiked my drink?’ What I’m really asking was, did he?

  ‘No. We were having a really nice time.’

  ‘Were? What happened?’

  He speaks just one word. ‘Chrissy.’

  44

  After he says Chrissy’s name neither James nor Jules can meet my eye.

  ‘And then what?’ I strain for some recollection, but I am firmly back in this room with its flat-screen TV, squashy leather sofa and an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘I don’t know. She was upset. You were upset. I couldn’t hear above the music but you pushed her before you disappeared off together. You told me you’d see me later, but you never came back.’ His voice is quiet as he says: ‘I’ll never forgive myself for not following you, for assuming you weren’t interested in me after all and had gone home. I am so, so sorry.’

  ‘But…’ My fingertips flutter to the lump on my head, barely discernible anymore but there is still a tenderness when I press down. ‘What happened to me?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know. I finished my drink and when you didn’t return I came home. When Ben told us what happened I hated myself for not looking after you properly. Still do.’