She looked at him coldly, feeling a moment of triumph as she realised he cared enough to be upset by her. When he turned to walk away, she panicked and called him back. “Paul…” She reached out her hand and placed it on his arm, but it slipped off.
“Paul!” she shouted over the music. He turned back round and she threw her arms around his neck, kissing him, her tongue catching the side of his cheek. She could feel the saliva sticky against her chin. She kept going in desperation until she felt him gently push her away, wiping his face.
She could feel her cheeks flush. Walk away, she told herself. Do it now because if you stay a second longer you’ll never be able to leave. Walk away before the last of your defences come down and you are laid bare. Humiliated worse than you already have been.
She hated herself for not being able to stop herself falling in love with him. She’d never felt so vulnerable; frayed, her head and her heart pulling differently.
In the end her head won. Her body followed. Not caring who she pushed into, she headed at speed for the door. Some angry voices yelled out as drinks spilled, but she kept going. Let them try and stop her. She ran past the bouncers into the street and could feel their eyes on her, laughing. People were still trying to get in, even though the night was almost over. She barged past them in a blind rage, finding comfort in her anger, power in her resistance. Angry at him although she knew she had no reason to be.
She kept going until she reached the tall pillars of GoMA. She threw herself onto the museum’s cold stone steps, her head in her hands, doing all she could to hold back the tears. The streets were busy around her, but on the steps she was alone, shaded in the echoing silence, cold in the shadows of the museum’s cavernous entrance. She wished she had her coat, which was still hanging in the cloakroom of the club. In front of her loomed the statue of some soldier on his horse, black cast iron, an orange traffic cone on his head like a cheap crown. Crown it all with stupidity, she thought, that’s what you do. She hoped it burned, all of it and everyone, to the ground. Her foot shot out in anger, sending her shoe arcing through the air and onto the pavement below. It made a satisfying bang as it hit the ground. A few people stopped to stare.
Paul appeared from nowhere and reached down to pick it up. She hadn’t seen him following her out. He walked towards her, shoe in hand, and held it up. “Lose something?”
She took it from him sullenly and awkwardly placed it back on her foot. She could feel herself shaking, but it wasn’t from the cold. He hovered a second and then sat on the step beside her. He felt warm beside her but she turned her head away.
“You’re hard as nails, Lena,” he sighed and rested his elbows on his knees.
She ignored him and stared off into the distance, feeling more and more stupid, knowing she was digging a deeper and deeper hole. Tears welled in her eyes as she waited for him to get up and walk away, unable to bring herself to ask him to stay.
After a long pause he said, “I tried too hard, didn’t I?”
Lena looked round at him and heaved a sigh, her anger dissipating.
“The big fancy dinner, the clothes, the furniture today,” he went on. “It was all too much. I frightened you off.” The expression on his face pained her. His heavy eyes looked downwards. She wanted to stop him talking but she didn’t. “I only did it because I care about you.” He bumped his shoulder into hers, affectionately. She wanted to tell him to hide some of that emotion, that if he left himself wide open, people would trample on him. “I only did it because I love you.”
She stared at him and wanted more than anything to say the words back. Words she had said so many times before but which now failed her. They caught in her throat because for the first time she meant them, for the first time she understood what they meant.
“I—”
He cut her off. His fingers stroked her bare, goose-pimpled arm. “I know you do,” he said and moved closer, putting his arm around her.
She didn’t pull away but let herself sink into him. Four years of living on and off with Jason, her mum’s volatile boyfriend, had taught her how to measure the temperature of a room, how to read others’ facial expressions and gauge their emotions without exposing her own. But with Paul that didn’t work. The feelings were too strong, they exhausted her. Putting her head on his shoulder, she let him carry the burden for a while because she knew he could.
Their hands knitted together and they sat there for some time, not wanting to break the moment.
In the taxi on their way home they sat in silence but comfortably. They were still holding hands as they walked to their front door. They went into the living room and christened their ugly rug. The fibres felt smooth and silky beneath their skin.
Over the next few weeks she found that when she goaded him, he walked away. But he was always there waiting, ready to forgive her. He killed the drama. When she was needy, selfish, showed him her worst qualities, he still came back, and loved her a little more each time.
It wasn’t easy but over time she began to think that maybe, just maybe, he had her best interests at heart.
Chapter Fifteen
“Have you got a passport?” he asked her a few weeks later, after he’d come home from work and sat down on his side of the couch.
She had resumed her position on what had now become her patch, where she’d been sitting cross-legged, doodling a picture of the table in front of her on what was supposed to be a job application. She had got up to meet him at the door, which had become a kind of ritual for them: greeting him on the doorstep with an enormous, over-exaggerated hug and a kiss, like he was a soldier returning from war. Maybe too much, but she was always pleased to see him and she did feel happier knowing he was home safe and sound, even if it was just from the other side of Glasgow.
“Why do you ask? Yeah, I do. I got it for a school trip to Disneyland Paris.”
She laid the form aside, leaving the tricky referee section for later.
His eyes fell on the defaced application. He reached out and lifted it up. “Did you draw this?”
“Yeah,” she said, squinting at the loosely sketched still life in his hand.
“It’s good. It’s really good. You’ve got the perspective and everything.”
“But you were saying?” she pressed, wondering why Paul looked like he was about to burst out laughing.
“I booked us a holiday.”
“Where?” she asked excitedly, slapping the side of his shoulder. The application dropped to the floor.
“Spain. Next Friday. For a week.”
She did an impromptu celebration dance, still cross-legged on the couch, which she knew would make Paul laugh.
“You said you wanted to travel…”
Their flight was from Manchester Airport so the holiday began with a road trip. They started out from Glasgow in the middle of the night, Paul driving and Lena in her sun cap with her bare feet on the dashboard. They sang along to summer songs on the radio as rain obscured the windscreen.
On the plane, Lena sat by the window, Paul in the middle seat. As soon as she stepped on, Lena had an overwhelming urge to get back off again. She had no idea how tightly packed the cabin would be. At take-off she squashed Paul’s hand until his knuckles were bruised, her palms slick with sweat. She was petrified by the sensation of being hurled into the atmosphere at two hundred miles an hour and spent the whole flight sipping vodka, watching the sky.
The temperature gauge at Malaga Airport read thirty-seven degrees. It was scorching. They got ever hotter and sweatier as they moved slowly through Spanish Customs and waited ages for the luggage to come through on the carousel. Paul became increasingly tense. When their bags finally turned up, he kissed her on the forehead. “I was worried they’d lost them,” he said. He looked like a weight had been lifted.
Their hotel was on the beach in a typical Spanish tourist trap. The place was filled
with expats and Scottish, English and German tourists, and the seafront was a maze of tapas bars, pizzerias and Irish theme pubs.
The first thing they did was strip off and jump in the pool. That night they went for dinner and drank caipirinhas, then went back to the room and had first-night sex under the cool white sheets. Next day they went into town and hired a moped. Paul gunned it shakily along the coastal road, the tar soft in the sun, a haze from the heat making it look slick with water. After midnight, the pair met for a secret rendezvous in the hotel swimming pool.
The next day they got up and did it all again.
After lunchtime on the last day, fuelled by alcohol and a general sense of merriment, they went to a tattoo parlour. Paul sat in the chair while the two of them laughed hysterically. The tattoo artist, who spoke no English, inked for hours. First the outline, then the shading of two thorned roses. In a banner underneath, Paul got her name written in elegant lettering. Lena had never seen anything so beautiful and the tears welled in her eyes. Afterwards, they decided to go for a nap in preparation for the big night ahead of them. They drew the curtains, shut the balcony door and pulled the thin white sheets over themselves. Lena drifted off quickly, into a deep, groggy sleep. She was still fuzzy-headed when Paul’s phone went off, but he sat up on the bed.
“Hi. Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Good.”
She listened to his monosyllabic answers with her eyes closed. He got off the bed and went out onto the balcony. “Yeah, yeah, I know the one,” she heard him say before he slid the door shut.
She turned and lay face up in bed, half awake, half asleep, waiting for him to finish and come back and lie beside her, hoping that they would still be able to get back to sleep.
The balcony door soon opened, bringing soft evening light streaming into their bedroom. The blast of cool air was refreshing. Paul left the door open as he went over to his suitcase and began rummaging around.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve got to head out for a bit,” he said abruptly.
“What?” she asked, sitting up in bed, fully awake now.
“I won’t be long.” Paul stuffed a plastic bag into his backpack then came over to the bed and kissed her on the head. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be back by the time you wake up.”
He left in a hurry, before she could say anything else. The last things he lifted from the bedside table were his passport and the keys to the scooter.
She didn’t go back to sleep. Instead, she put on her bikini and sarong and went down to the hotel pool. It was always empty at that time of the evening; most people were already out for the night. So she was able to swim back and forth uninterrupted, concentrating on the movement of her limbs, the water on her skin, trying to think of anything but where he was and what he was doing.
The air was nippy when she got out of the pool and she quickly wrapped herself in her towel. Music and laughter were coming from the hotel bar as she headed back to her room, her hair dripping pools of water behind her. She went straight to the bathroom and had a long, hot shower. Afterwards, she took her time brushing her hair, drying and straightening it. She made extra effort with her make-up, taking eye shadows from the bottom of her vanity case, ones she’d forgotten she even had, umming and ahhing over which would be right for that night. Looking in the mirror, she made a point of loosening her jaw, aware of how tight the skin was pulled between nose and lip. She scrunched her mouth around like she was chewing a large piece of food and massaged her cheeks with her fingers. Taking her dress from the wardrobe, she inspected every inch of it before putting it on, admiring the pattern of the material. She didn’t usually wear maxis but thought it would be nice for a romantic night-time walk down the beach. She’d been saving it for their last evening.
Then she went out onto the balcony and waited, sipping the wine they’d bought in earlier. She sipped it until the sky grew dark and most of the bottle was gone. Tapping her foot, drumming her nails on the glass. She had no way of contacting him; her phone company wouldn’t let her make calls abroad. No way of finding out where he was. She watched the moonlight ripple on the swimming pool and wished she could submerge herself beneath the black and silver water, lie on the bottom observing the bubbles float to the top, feel her body weightless.
She keyed in some texts in the hope that one would get through, but her phone always beeped angrily, “SMS Barred”. She huffed in frustration and threw the thing on the table. She waited and waited, until lights from the rooms around her began switching off. Until most of the restaurants had closed their doors for the night.
Then she heard his key card in the door.
She got up to go to the door like she always did. She held her breath, not ready to be convinced it was him until she saw his fair hair come round the door, his sunburned face, half expecting it to be the hotel manager or the police. She didn’t give him a hug or a kiss.
“You’re back,” she said curtly and went to sit on the bed, not wanting her relief at seeing him to cancel out her annoyance.
“Lena, I’m sorry,” he said, following her in.
“Where have you been?” She watched him go to the sideboard and waited for an answer. She didn’t want to let it drop.
“I had to meet someone and it took a little longer than I thought.” He rustled around for the bottle opener and flicked the top off a bottle of warm San Miguel. He took a swig.
“Who?” she pressed, measuring his answer, trying not to let herself be appeased.
“A friend of a friend lives near here, in town,” he said, leaning back against the counter. “I was doing my friend a favour. Said I’d drop off some home comforts for him. No big deal.”
“What kind of home comforts?”
She thought about the last time he’d got a phone call and had disappeared late into the night, a few days before they’d left. He’d refused to be drawn, just produced two designer bags he’d got off some guy who’d been selling them round the pub.
“A care package. HP Sauce. Potato scones. That kind of thing,” he said breezily.
“I don’t believe you.”
The bottle came down from his lips, the smile gone from his face. He flashed her an accusatory look. A look that said: I thought we had a deal; we both pretend we don’t know what’s going on and that way we’re both happy.
But she’d been worried. Really worried. “Was what you did today dangerous?”
“No,” he said sharply, crossing his arms.
“Illegal? What was in the bag?”
“I gave money to someone. It was money.”
“Money from crime?” She glanced at her expensive bracelet, pictured her new bikini and summer clothes. He didn’t answer. “Are we in danger? Could we get arrested?”
“No. They could have confiscated it if they’d found it at Customs, but they didn’t.”
She couldn’t be sure if he was telling the truth. He uncrossed his arms and swung them by his side, his head cocked impatiently. He wanted the conversation to be over.
“Is that the reason for this holiday?”
Again he said nothing. Avoiding confrontation as he always did. Instead, he lifted the bottle of Grey Goose they’d got in to celebrate the last night and walked out onto the balcony, shaking his head to himself as he went. He disappeared behind the curtain and she heard him pull the door shut, leaving her alone in the room.
She went to bed, throwing her new dress carelessly on the floor, dropping her shoes beside it. She turned off the lights and wrestled with sleep. She must have dozed, because a few hours later she woke up, alone in the bed and with the feeling that time had passed. She reached for her phone and saw that it read 4 a.m. She wrapped the sheets around herself and got up, sliding the balcony door open.
Paul was still out there, sitting on the chair in the corner in the moonlight, the bottle of vodka almost empty on the table in fr
ont of him. He smiled at her when she came over, a sad, melancholy smile.
“Paul.” She sat on the chair beside him, the sheet trailing along the floor of the balcony, picking up dust. She put her hand on his arm and it was freezing. “Paul, c’mon inside, it’s too cold out here.”
He looked at her with drunken eyes, then looked away, unable to maintain focus.
“Paul, c’mon to bed.” Worried that he might topple over the balcony when he stood up, she took his hands to lead him in, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he pulled her hand close, bringing her back onto her chair. His eyes were red and swollen.
“It’s all shit for me now, Lena.” The words hung in the air, biting. He shook his head drunkenly, then buried it in his hands. “I’ve done something. Something bad and I can never undo it…” His words trailed off and he squeezed her hand tight.
Her heart felt like lead in her chest. The hotel complex around them was deathly quiet. She listened for movement from close by but there was none. No one to hear what he was saying but her.
“I didn’t want to, but I had to,” he mumbled into his hands.
There had been times before that night when she’d wanted to ask the question. Times it seemed he’d wanted to unburden. When she’d been curious about the haunted look that sometimes crossed his face. Times he’d been morose like this. Not often but sometimes. He locked himself away and all was dark until he emerged the next day and everything was fine again. But she never did ask. Terrified what the answer might be. Terrified it would change everything.
“I didn’t want to but I did. And now it’s all shit. I’m shit. You shouldn’t be with me. You don’t belong in my world.” He stopped for a moment and then said, “It was me or him.”
That was as far as he went. He looked up at her and she watched the contortions in his face smooth as he regained himself. His eyes flicked like he had just woken up.
“I need to go to bed,” he slurred.
With effort, he began to get to his feet, on autopilot. She let him go past her, too numb to speak or even move. She listened to him stumble into the bedroom, crash down on the bed. Part of her wanted to run out of the room. Leave and never come back. Her first instinct was for her own safety. She pictured herself packing her bags in the dark while he slept. Going to the airport. Getting on a flight. Being back in Scotland before he even woke up. Clearing out her stuff and leaving without looking back. She pictured it but somehow couldn’t quite do it.
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