The Things We Learn When We're Dead

by Charlie Laidlaw

  ‘I’ve got the rest of my life to think of.’

  ‘So do we all, dear,’ said Maggie.

  Mike pushed his chair back and announced that he was off for a pee. With Mike gone, Maggie leaned in. ‘So what’s up? What’s brought this on, eh?’

  For a moment, Steph looked at the table, once again the shy girl that Lorna had always known. ‘I’m hoping for a place at university,’ she now said, looking up. ‘I went to a useless school, fucked everything up ... but I’ve been studying nights ... get to sit my Highers soon.’ She might have been a couple of years older than Lorna, who now saw that Steph’s eyes were gleaming with sudden ambition.

  ‘To get a degree in shopkeeping?’ asked Maggie. ‘Bugger all good that’s going to do.’

  ‘Politics,’ said Steph.

  ‘Excuse me,’ asked Vlad, ‘but you want to be MP? You go from shop, to college, to parliament?’

  Steph was again looking at the table, her cheeks red. ‘No, nothing stupid like that. Get a job as a researcher, or something.’ She looked up, meeting Lorna’s eye. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you?’

  Maggie laughed uproariously. ‘I told you she was mad, didn’t I? Fucking bonkers! Always knew there was something weird about you, girl!’

  Lorna now looked at the table, embarrassed by the gleam in Steph’s eyes, the same gleam that had once been in hers, and again Lorna wondered what had become of her, all that anger and energy and idealism. Mike then came back from the loo and, being senior management, tried to be authoritative, ordering for everybody as if he instinctively knew what they each liked, although the effect was rather ruined by the fact that he’d forgotten to zip up his flies. Meal ordered, and with bottles of beer and wine on the table, Mike leaned back. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a great name for a curry house...’

  * * *

  Lorna did her best to eat some of the curry, although Mike appeared to have ordered only the very hottest things on the menu and even Maggie, who was something of a curry fan, so she told everyone, had to order water and fan her face with her napkin, while black mascara tears rolled down her cheeks, making her seem like a sad clown.

  ‘How long you going to be staying?’ asked Maggie, eating a potato pakora, her mouth full and small bits scattering the table between them. It took Lorna a few moments to realise that the question had been aimed at her. On Lorna’s plate was mostly rice.

  ‘July, probably.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then I start work.’

  ‘What, you’ve got yourself a job already? You never said nothing.’ Maggie’s clown face registered disappointment, and again Lorna felt a pang of remorse at not having shared more of herself with them.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Lorna, ‘only just found out.’

  ‘Where?’ persisted Maggie.

  ‘You won’t have heard of it. Wilson, MacGraw & Hamilton.’

  ‘Fuck me! It’s the only law firm I have heard of! Everybody’s heard of that lot! How the hell did you manage that? Well, I suppose that joining them is a good enough reason to abandon the HappyMart, eh, Mike.’

  Mike did his best to look pleased for her. He was also sweating as profusely as Maggie and Lorna could smell him from two chairs away, and felt momentarily sorry for Gosia.

  ‘They’ll pay better than the pittance we get,’ said Maggie, looking sideways at Mike. ‘It’ll help you afford the petrol for that Ferrari of yours.’

  Lorna didn’t bother to correct her.

  * * *

  ‘Myself and Vlad are going to the cinema at the weekend,’ Gosia later said to Lorna, as more beers and bottles of wine mysteriously appeared on their table, not seemingly having been ordered. ‘We enjoy cinema very much.’

  Lorna had asked Gosia what they liked doing on their days off, realising how little she knew about any of them. Despite seeing them almost every day, they were also strangers, particularly Mad Steph who had proved a revelation.

  ‘We are planning to see School’s Out!’ said Vlad.

  ‘I’m going to see it tomorrow,’ said Lorna. ‘I’ll report back.’

  ‘But it is receiving bad comment in the newspaper,’ said Vlad, who was always reading a newspaper in his breaks, temporarily stolen from the newspaper rack, to improve his English. ‘They say it is not very funny. Not good jokes.’

  ‘I know someone who’s in it,’ admitted Lorna. This shut everyone up. ‘She’s a friend of mine.’ She looked at Mike. ‘You saw her, remember?’ she told him and, for no reason, felt her face flush. ‘Then you found a photo of her in the newspaper ... You showed it to me...’

  ‘The tarty blonde who dragged you away...’

  ‘Well, dipsy, maybe...’

  ‘...and it wasn’t even four o’clock!’ Mike was looking disappointed. ‘Look, I’m no thespian but I did think she had a bit of a strange accent.’

  ‘She was pretending to be Napoleon.’

  ‘Napoleon?’

  ‘Bonaparte,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Well, and you can tell her this from me, I could do a better Spanish accent than that,’ said Mike.

  ‘She’s also on the TV,’ said Lorna, feeling the need to stick up for her friend, dipsy or otherwise. ‘The toilet roll advert ... set on a spaceship?’

  Mad Steph picked up her beer glass and held it up as if to camera. ‘It’s toilet paper but not as we know it. I love that advert ... makes bog paper sound all romantic. I remember her now. I was stacking shelves on aisle three. Was that really her?’ Steph looked wistful. ‘Wait till I tell my Derek! I almost got to meet someone famous.’

  ‘She’s not exactly famous yet,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Here, Mike,’ Steph said, ‘couldn’t we get one of those blue plaque things stuck on the wall outside.’ She held up a hand and moved it slowly in a small arc. ‘Someone nearly famous was once in this shop.’

  ‘It’s an idea,’ he conceded, not looking happy. Mike didn’t like fun being poked at his empire, ‘but we don’t actually stock that brand of toilet paper.’ That Lorna did know: the HappyMart only stocked toilet rolls recycled from used toilet paper and other industrial effluent, and then labelled as ecologically responsible.

  Without warning, Maggie erupted into a dirty laugh, made louder by gin and tonic and several glasses of wine, and dabbed her eyes with her napkin, smudging her mascara still further and turning her from a sad clown into an enormous giant panda. ‘Christ, Little Miss Clever’s joining the only bloody law firm that I’ve ever heard of, drives a Ferrari, and mixes with the jet set. Fuck’s sake, girl, the HappyMart’s no place for the likes of you.’

  Decisions

  ‘Bollocks to critics,’ said Suzie and speared a radish. ‘Critics are paid to criticise. It’s their damnable job! What’s actually important is what the paying public think. That’s you, babe, despite the film being entirely set on Planet Earth. So, what did you think, sweetie? In a word, was I wonderful or just marvellous?’

  As always, Suzie’s volume control was set at loud, although it didn’t matter. They were in a favourite Italian restaurant, close to their flat, and equally loud opera was playing from the speakers.

  ‘It wasn’t exactly a big part, Suze.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ said Suzie, wolfing salad. ‘The point is whether or not you enjoyed it.’

  In the film, Kate Winslet was a harassed young mother. Hugh Grant, improbably, was the widowed father of a young daughter. Suzie was the daughter’s primary school teacher. She appeared in two scenes and said four lines. Clever make-up had toned down Suzie’s natural beauty and added years to her. Mostly, her task was to hand Hugh Grant’s daughter back to him, until he realised that he was in love with Kate Winslet and emigrated to New Zealand. The film had been almost completed and in post-production before Suzie was called upon. Things hadn’t gone well during filming, scriptwriters had been fired and new producers brought in. At the last minute, the new team felt that some additional London footage was called for to better ground the narrative angle
, before Hugh Grant chased across the world in search of love. Suzie’s primary school was therefore a last-minute idea, to suggest how much of his old life Hugh Grant would be leaving behind, and the sacrifices that true love entailed. The film had been mostly filmed in New Zealand, to a backdrop of mountains, and involved a series of misunderstandings about Maori culture. Privately Lorna agreed with the critics; it wasn’t very funny, despite the lead actors hamming it up in a vain attempt to rise to the poor script.

  ‘Of course I enjoyed it, Suze,’ said Lorna, ‘or what little I saw of it.’

  Suzie had barely stopped talking through the whole film. If it wasn’t a commentary on what a particular actor was like, it was about how a particular scene had been shot, what the weather was like, and how the bloody children never-fucking-ever kept quiet. On screen, Suzie’s primary teacher had been saccharine and honey, ruffling small heads with a pat of a hand. Off screen, the real Suzie could have murdered the lot of them several times over. On two occasions, other cinema-goers had turned round and asked her to shut up.

  Suzie was looking worried. ‘Actually, that’s not really an answer, Lorna.’

  ‘I thought you were great,’ said Lorna with more enthusiasm.

  ‘Better than Kate Winslet?’

  ‘She did have rather a bigger part, Suze.’

  ‘That’s not the point,’ grumbled Suzie, loudly.

  On the way out of the cinema, two teenagers had noticed Suzie and nudged one another. Suzie was oblivious; only Lorna had seen them. She was used to men nudging and pointing at her friend. Lorna didn’t begrudge Suzie her good looks, and Suzie didn’t pay much attention. Being beautiful was a passport, nothing more. Lorna was unsure whether the two teenagers had recognised Suzie the film actress or toilet-roll model. Perhaps both or neither. Maybe they were just gawping.

  ‘I know it’s had crap reviews but the public do seem to like it,’ Suzie was saying. ‘Not adults, obviously, not real people. Kids mostly.’ She chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. ‘You’re not eating.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry ... Christmas party last night.’

  Suzie stopped chewing for a moment. ‘But it’s not Christmas.’

  ‘Does it have to be Christmas to have a Christmas party?’

  ‘Well, usually ... Otherwise it’s just a party.’

  ‘Not at the HappyMart, Suze. Our Christmas bonuses came through late. My co-workers and I celebrated with a traditional Indian curry.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s why you’re not eating. May I...?’ and without waiting for a reply, Suzie helped herself to a slice of Lorna’s pizza. ‘Anyway, that’s enough about moi ... How about you, babe?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Have you heard from the bastard?’

  Lorna shook her head.

  ‘Maybe he’ll turn up with flowers and apologise.’

  ‘Doubt it, Suze.’

  ‘All men are bastards, sweetie. Take my word on it.’ She chewed on another slice of Lorna’s pizza. ‘Well, most of them. Not Austin, obviously.’ She looked dreamy for a moment, the way she’d looked at Hugh Grant at the start of School’s Out! before he decided to emigrate. ‘Anyway, what would you do if he did bring flowers and say sorry?’

  ‘Austin?’

  Suzie kicked her under the table. ‘Joe, you imbecile!’

  Lorna took a deep breath. ‘He’s a young guy on a gap year. He’s single, unattached and over here to sow his wild oats ... or whatever it is that men are supposed to sow.’

  ‘Men don’t think with their brains, that’s the trouble.’

  Lorna put down her knife and fork, having realised that what remained of her pizza was now on Suzie’s plate. ‘I’m not sure that we do either,’ she said.

  * * *

  But Joe didn’t try to contact her and, slowly, the question of her forgiveness became immaterial. Without Joe actually standing there, in person, apologising from his heart, there could be no forgiveness. Instead, she hardened her heart and threw herself at her studies, and even consented to further after-work drinks with Mike and the rest of the HappyMart family, which she again enjoyed, wondering if she shouldn’t tell Wilson’s to shove their job and instead aim for a third star. She got to know them all a little better – including Mad Steph, who wasn’t mad at all; they were on the same wavelength and shared the same political ideals, although Lorna seemed to be losing touch were hers. The whales seemed less important, Iraq a distant place not worth bothering about. Lorna was a little jealous of Steph. The bright light that had once shone from both of them, now burned brighter from Steph.

  Over the weeks that followed, Joe did not phone or text, and didn’t now seem likely to. Lorna was forever fearful of bumping into him in the street. Edinburgh wasn’t a big place, so it wasn’t easy not to meet someone accidentally. Making love, they’d fitted together like spoons in a drawer; she still couldn’t bear to think of him being with someone else.

  Suzie continued to flit between Edinburgh and London. Austin was mostly in Bristol, studying for his finals. After that first ghastly night at Christmas, Lorna had decided to bury the hatchet; Austin seemed happy with Suzie and he no longer had the capacity to make her feel guilty. When she next saw him, she would treat him with civility; as an old friend who had once meant more. Mostly, Lorna had the flat to herself and, lonely and a little broke after Greece, took on extra weekend shifts at the till, beeping through more sausages and chips.

  But then her doorbell rang. Suzie was in Edinburgh but out for dinner with some advertising people. There was talk of Suzie graduating from bathroom hygiene to Burberry. There was talk of other films, including a sequel to School’s Out! Provisional titles included School’s Back! and School Break! Lorna was in front of the TV, but was only half watching it. She had a law book open on her knee and was reading through paperwork.

  On the doorstep was Joe, remorse on his chiselled features. ‘Lorna, we have to talk.’ He was carrying flowers and a half-empty bottle of Greek brandy.

  She was astonished to see him and could barely speak. ‘Why?’ she managed after a few false starts.

  ‘Because I made a mistake, that’s why.’

  ‘That’s not an apology, Joe.’

  ‘Look, I just wasn’t thinking straight. Sometimes I wonder if I have a brain.’

  He was looking down, a lock of hair over one eye. ‘We all make mistakes, Lorna. I’m truly sorry for the one that I made.’

  She opened the door to him, which she shouldn’t have done. Having watched him walk backwards in her mind’s eye, becoming smaller and smaller, he was now back in her flat and, by simply turning up on her doorstep, hadn’t given her enough time to secure her defences. A phone call or text would have allowed her space to think; to rationalise what she felt, to rehearse things, to consider carefully what she would and wouldn’t do. Perhaps that’s how he planned it, a surprise assault because, when she opened the door, she didn’t know what to think or what not to do. He looked much the same, and even seemed apologetic. Lorna ushered him back in, remembering the good times, particularly Greece, before that last night and her dream of loss. Too late, as she allowed herself to be undressed and to lie on the floor beside the TV, did she remember why they were no longer together. On the screen was Clint Eastwood and, between her legs, a man who she could once have loved.

  But this time it was goodbye, tearing up her last photograph of Joe and chucking the pieces from the window, watching them turn and tumble across the night sky. He’d not come round to grovel or to beg. He’d come to see if, somehow, normal service could be resumed, as before, but without regard for her feelings. That’s what galled Lorna the most: he was happy enough to have sex with her, not happy to make love to her, and uncaring as to the effect it might have. Now that she knew that, she could move on; she might once have loved him, or thought that she did, but he wasn’t worth it. The incident on the floor had given her strength to put Joe into a box marked Mistakes and place him firmly on a shelf in her mind that she hoped would soon become
a distant shelf, and then dusty and eventually forgotten.

  * * *

  Some weeks later, she started to feel sick; sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. Once, during a tutorial, she had to excuse herself and rush to the toilet. This time, she was actually sick. Lorna sat in the loo wondering if anyone had heard her. Then she realised that she’d missed her period. Normally, her body ran like clockwork, and with trepidation she bought a pregnancy testing kit, then sat with shaken incredulity as it changed colour. It seemed as if more of her foundations were being bulldozed away, walls crashing down; certainties churned to sand. It had been the same with her father; she’d always believed him to be a magician, a kindly wizard able to do great things, if only he could properly reveal himself, or so he’d tell her, as she listened spellbound and believing every word. She’d felt the same answering Joe’s mobile, and realising that he didn’t love her; or, in Greece, saying yes to Toby Redmarsh, and realising that, perhaps, she wasn’t going to be a good lawyer after all. Her battlements no longer seemed impregnable; she no longer knew what certainties she still had left; she no longer quite knew who she was.

  ‘What the hell am I going to do?’ she asked Suzie.

  Lorna was in Edinburgh, Suzie in London. There were auditions to attend, a modelling job for a new face-cream. ‘That, sweetie, is a big question.’

  Lorna closed her eyes, not wanting to think about what might happen next. Sometimes, she thought, she could be either child or adult; the child not worrying about consequences, or if there were any, or not caring; the adult unwilling to face up to them, or what they might be, or caring too much. She’d always wanted children, but on her terms, with the right person. That could have been Joe, but now wasn’t. He’d had his chance, and blown it. She’d never thought too much about the distant future, or the entrapment of nappies. Lorna didn’t begrudge new mothers proudly pushing buggies; nor was she gooey over new babies: she simply saw motherhood as something that would happen, when the time was right. Now, it was neither right nor the right time.