Authors: Mandy Baggot
‘
I know you’re not asleep so there’s no use pretending. We need to talk,’ Cleo spoke,
plonking
herself down on the edge of the bed.
Samantha didn’t respond, keeping her eyes as tightly shut as she could.
‘
Sam, come on, we’re worried about you. What happened?’ Cleo questioned and she stroked Samantha’s hair gently and tucked it behind her ear in a motherly fashion.
Samantha snapped her eyes open, sat up and moved away from Cleo’s touching, pulling the duvet cover right up to her neck defensively.
‘
What happened with Darren?’ Cleo continued.
‘
Nothing,’ Samantha replied with a sniff.
‘
Well something must have happened. You don’t go from leaving here telling me you probably wouldn’t be home, to passing out in the Metropole hotel without something having happened,’ Cleo stated.
‘
I don’t want to talk about it,’ Samantha answered and she lay back down and closed her eyes again.
‘
Maybe you don’t want to talk about it but
I
do! Your
behaviour
these last couple of days has been completely out of character. You’ve been like a different person and that’s got to be down to this Darren. I’d like to meet him and give him a piece of my mind. He’s turned my predictable sister into…’ Cleo began, the volume of her voice rising.
‘
Into what?’ Samantha wanted to know.
‘
Into someone out of control! Someone who gets arrested, someone who passes out in the best hotel in the borough - someone who’s stopped telling me the whole story,’ Cleo shrieked.
‘
I’m really tired,’ Samantha responded, turning her face away from Cleo.
‘
I’m not going to go away just because you don’t want to talk,’ Cleo carried on, unmoving.
‘
There’s nothing to say,’ Samantha replied sadly.
‘
Well, did you see Darren? What did he say to you to upset you so much?’ Cleo enquired.
‘
He’s gone,’ Samantha muttered under her breath not letting her sister see her devastated expression.
‘
What? I thought he wasn’t going until tomorrow,’ Cleo replied.
‘
Well he probably had a change of plan when I stood there and told him I didn’t care what he did,’ Samantha spoke as she replayed the scene in her head.
‘
Drink/don’t drink, I don’t care’. It was the worst possible thing she could have said.
‘
But I thought you went to see him to make up,’ Cleo said a puzzled look on her face.
‘
I thought he would be there after the show, like he’s always been. But he wasn’t, it was just Milo. So I went to find him, at his hotel,’ Samantha began to babble as the emotion she felt welled up in her chest.
‘
I think I’m losing the thread of this, his hotel? I thought he lived in one of those posh houses up West,’ Cleo remarked not understanding.
‘
And I went to his room and a woman answered the door. She looked like Robin Williams and she said he wasn’t there, it was
her
room. But it couldn’t be her room because I was there with him, last night. So then I went to reception and I asked Tiffany where he was and eventually, after going on a power trip about privacy laws, she told me he’d checked out that afternoon. He left, after we spoke, after I was so horrible to him - after I said I didn’t care,’ Samantha carried on, talking at full speed and becoming distressed as she recounted the tale.
‘
He was living at the hotel?’ Cleo questioned.
‘
And now he won’t be coming back. He thinks I don’t care. He left and I didn’t get a chance to tell him properly how I feel, to let him know that I support what he’s doing and that I understand,’ Samantha spoke as she began to cry.
‘
Well, won’t his mother have a contact number for him?’ Cleo asked her sister.
‘
What?’ Samantha queried as she reached for a tissue from the box beside her bed.
‘
Darren’s mother, the one he took to the skating show - you could get his number from her,’ Cleo suggested helpfully.
‘
You don’t understand, he doesn’t have a mother. Well I mean he probably does have a mother but not like you think. He doesn’t have a posh house up West either,’ Samantha stated with a sigh.
‘
What? But I thought…’ Cleo began, looking even more bewildered.
‘
There isn’t a Darren Jacobs Cleo, I made him up - along with his mother, the posh house and the camp red shirt and chinos,’ Samantha admitted, trying to stop the tears spilling from her eyes.
‘
What? Well why would you do that?’ Cleo wanted to know.
‘
Because you wouldn’t have believed the truth,’ Samantha answered, looking at her sister.
‘
For God’s sake Sam, stop talking in riddles. What’s been going on with you? Are you dating someone or not?’ Cleo wanted to know.
‘
Yes, I was dating someone and I’m in love with him,’ Samantha spoke her heart breaking as she thought about the last few weeks.
‘
But it isn’t Darren,’ Cleo spoke.
‘
Aren’t you listening?! Darren doesn’t exist! It’s Jimmy! Jimmy Lloyd! I’m in love with Jimmy Lloyd!’ Samantha exclaimed her voice breaking as she spoke his name.
‘
Good God,’ Cleo remarked, putting her hands to her mouth in shock.
‘
And he’s gone now and he won’t be coming back,’ Samantha added the lump in her throat almost choking her.
Cleo watched her sister crumple and cry and then she took a deep breath and spoke.
‘
Oh Sam, stop with the theatrics. I don’t believe you’re doing this! I thought this was something you’d grown out of!’
‘
What?’ Samantha questioned as she wiped the tears away from her eyes with her fingers.
‘
Making up stories. I mean Sam, how farfetched is this?! This out does anything else you’ve ever told me - even the story about Michael Jackson being booked for the Civic Hall,’ Cleo spoke, sounding annoyed.
‘
He
was
booked for the Civic Hall, not the real one, obviously, it was a joke. I didn’t think you’d take it seriously,’ Samantha responded.
‘
Just like
this
is a joke. You and Jimmy Lloyd. Am I really supposed to believe this? I mean, Jimmy Lloyd, who’s been out with models and film stars and could basically have any woman he wanted! Do you remember when you told me Aaron Watkins had asked you out on a date? Aaron Watkins, the head boy, the best looking boy at school. I believed you, I don’t know why really, but I believed you. And, lo and behold, of course it wasn’t true. He was dating Caroline Rodgers, the carnival queen and that is how the pecking order works,’ Cleo said accusingly.
‘
I was fourteen then, I’m not fourteen now. And he did speak to me at the tuck shop. Anyway
this
,
this
reaction is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew how you would be and that’s why I invented Darren,’ Samantha told her.
‘
Rather good at inventing things aren’t you? Well now I don’t know what to believe. Yesterday you told me you lost your virginity. Am I supposed to believe that was to Jimmy Lloyd! Ha! Jimmy Lloyd the serial
womaniser
, bedding my sister the virgin! I have to say Sam, it’s a sensational storyline and completely and utterly unbelievable!’ Cleo exclaimed with a laugh.
‘
Leave me alone,’ Samantha spoke as the tears welled up in her eyes again.
‘
With pleasure. I was feeling sorry for you, I really thought you’d found someone you cared about but no, now you come out with this
phoney
story about a famous ice skater. Someone who just happened to have a conversation with you when you were working the bar one time. I’m not saying another word to you until you’re ready to tell the truth about whatever’s made you like this,’ Cleo told her and she pointed her finger in an accusing way.
Samantha just pulled the duvet cover up around her again and stared blankly at the wall. Cleo let out a loud sigh of displeasure and left the room, banging the door behind her.
Samantha sniffed and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. And then, suddenly, she whipped the duvet cover off, leapt out of bed and bent down on the floor on her hands and knees. She pulled out the copies of
Star Life
magazine from under the bed and started leafing through them manically. She looked at one after another until she found what she was looking for. It was the picture of Jimmy, taken six months ago, coming out of rehab, looking how he had looked the day they had met. She ran her fingers over the photo, touching his cheek, his hair, his mouth. She would give anything to turn back the clock and say something different.
She hugged the magazine to her chest and began to cry
all over again. In the very same week she had lost her beloved Civic Hall and the only man she had ever loved.
Twenty Five
They were putting sold signs
across the estate agent’s boards. The boards had only been up for a week and already someone had purchased the hall. Samantha felt queasy as she watched the ‘SOLD’ banner being plastered across the board. She knew there was more than a strong possibility that a developer had bought it and within weeks the Civic Hall would be demolished to make way for flats for people on benefits. She shivered with the
realisation
that the very place she was sitting would soon be nothing but a pile of bricks. All that history and nostalgia gone.
The phone rang loudly, diverting Samantha’s attention away from the man fiddling with the estate agent’s board outside and back to the box office.
‘
Good afternoon, Woolston Civic Hall, Samantha speaking.’
Her greeting was lifeless, cold and uncaring. It was pointless, she may as well have been a robotic voice on an answering machine. To begin with, after the news of the closure had broken, the phone lines had been buzzing with customers demanding refunds. Then, there were those who hadn’t heard the news who rang up to book tickets for events Samantha had already cancelled. And finally, the calls went down to approximately a dozen a day that were from those who wanted last minute tickets to the ice show and ‘to drink in the nostalgia’.
The ice show, the wonderful ice show that Samantha had so enjoyed she could now hardly bear to watch. Every night she stood by the fire exit, eyes facing the ice yet unseeing. She didn’t see Dana and Andrei or the rest of the company, all she saw in her mind was Jimmy. The visions replayed in her memory over and over again. The way he had lit up the ice with his grace, his speed and his skill, how the crowd had reacted to him, the smile on his face as he saw the joy in theirs. But most of all she remembered how they had skated together, in the empty arena. They’d been all alone, sometimes laughing, sometimes bickering, holding each other, learning from each other - being with each other. Tears sprang to her eyes now as the woman caller asked about
Skating on Broadway
. She had to clear the lump in her throat before she could speak.
‘
Yes, erm, we do have some tickets left for the ice show, but they are quite near the back. Do you like Berry Fruits ice cream by the way? We’re doing a special offer - buy two get four free,’ Samantha spoke, wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her Civic Hall jumper.
She hadn’t spoken to Cleo for a week. Not one word. For the most part she had managed to avoid her completely. She went to her bedroom when Cleo was home and only came downstairs when she was sure the coast was clear. It was easy to know when to disappear again as it was impossible to miss the sound of Jeremy’s car when he pulled up outside the house.
While sitting in her room, avoiding Cleo, reading was all there was to occupy herself. Reading and thinking, thinking while reading, thinking and sleeping, sleeping while thinking and reading. She had read ‘Gobolino the Witch’s Cat’ about five times a day since he had left. She had even brought it into the hall and read it to Gobby.
It was a hopeless situation. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. In a few days the hall was going to close and she was going to be unemployed. But this prospect, the most awful prospect she could ever have imagined
, just didn’t register with her any more. She felt numb about everything that had happened over the past month, it was if it had all been a dream which had turned into a full-on nightmare, and now she didn’t even feel involved in that. It was like she was separated from everything, a spectator as life went on around her.
‘
Yes Madam, that’s fine. Call back when you’ve spoken to your friend,’ Samantha replied to her customer and ended the call.
She looked up at her monitor and realised she had been pressing the ‘J’ key over and over again. She pulled off her headset and put it down on the desk.
The cruel irony of the situation was the restaurant was doing really well. The simple, cheaper, more quickly prepared range of food had been well received. Takings had almost doubled in the evenings and lunchtimes were still popular with the OAPs. It made Samantha feel sick knowing that their ideas were working so well but that it had all been a fruitless exercise.