Muscling Through (7 page)

So I did, but I didn’t enjoy it like I usually do.

When I got to bed, Larry looked like he was asleep, so I didn’t try to cuddle him or nothing. I knew he’d had a hard day. So I just got into bed, but I couldn’t get to sleep, and I didn’t want to wake him up by moving about when my legs got restless, so I went back downstairs and put the TV back on. That just made me more restless, so I went down to the basement and I punched the shit out of my punch bag, and after that I came back up and fell asleep on the sofa.

When I woke up next morning, I was still on the sofa. Larry was already dressed. He was rushing around and muttering like he was late for work, and the kitchen smelled of burnt toast.

I tried to grab him and give him a kiss, but he wouldn’t let me. “Sofa comfortable, was it?” he asked. His voice sounded a bit like it does when he talks about Dr. Hardwicke.

“Not really,” I said. “I got a stiff neck.” I yawned and rubbed it a bit. Usually when I get a stiff neck, Larry gives it a rub, but I guess he didn’t have time.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and then he was out the door. I felt sad, ’cause it was like we hadn’t really spoken or touched or fucked or nothing since he’d been at work yesterday. But I know he’s got a really important job, and he has to work hard.

I hoped he’d have a better day and be back to normal when he came home, but he was still really quiet when he got back for dinner. I cooked pasta, but he didn’t eat much. Then he said he had a meeting to go to, and I shouldn’t wait up.

I waited up anyway, but it’d been a really busy day on the punts, so I fell asleep on the sofa. I don’t know when Larry came home, ’cause he didn’t wake me. I woke up at six a.m. and went to bed, but Larry was fast asleep, so I didn’t like to wake him.

When he was still really quiet and wouldn’t let me touch him or nothing on Thursday, I knew something was really wrong. Something bad. I tried to think what it was, but I guess I’m not very good at thinking. I was going to ask Larry, but his mum rang. She always rings on Thursdays, ’cause that’s my night with Phil and Daz at the pub, but this Thursday I didn’t feel like going out or nothing.

I don’t know what they spoke about, ’cause he went into the kitchen and shut the door, but I don’t think she cheered him up or nothing. He was even quieter when he came out. I wanted to say something to make it better, but I’m no good at that. I can never think of what to say. So I tried to cuddle him, but he wouldn’t let me.

I couldn’t stand it, so I went out to the pub anyway. Phil was there with Leanne from Lidl, but they had a big fight and split up again. Daz said he found out she was cheating on him. I don’t know how people can do that. Either you want to be with someone or you don’t.

Then I thought, what if they don’t want to be with you?

I probably drank a bit too much after that, ’cause I felt a bit pissed when I got home. I knew Larry’d be asleep, so I just slept on the sofa again. I think I made a bit of noise when I got home, ’cause I think Larry came out in his dressing gown. But maybe I only dreamt that, ’cause if he’d really come out, he’d have asked me to go to bed, wouldn’t he? And he didn’t, he just frowned, so I think it was just a dream.

Friday morning Larry was gone before I woke up. I felt really bad. Not just hung over. I felt like I wanted to smash something, and it scared me, ’cause I never feel like that. Work helped a bit, ’cause I had stuff to do, but my boss kept telling me not to look so bloody scary ’cause it was bad for business.

When I got back home, I remembered Ren was due. I didn’t feel much like painting or sketching or nothing, but then I thought, maybe if I painted something really good, Larry would like me again. So I worked really hard on it. I was just putting away my stuff when Ren came over to me. I’d thought he was getting his kit back on, but he hadn’t. He was still in the nude.

“Can I see?” he asked.

“Nah,” I said. “I don’t want no one to see it till it’s finished.”

Ren smiled. “I could make it worth your while.”

I was thinking about that, ’cause I thought he meant he’d pay me to see it, and that was really weird ’cause I was paying him to pose for me, and I thought the sums were going to get really difficult, and then he kissed me again.

I hadn’t realised till then how much I’d missed being kissed. Larry and me used to kiss all the time, but just lately we hadn’t kissed hardly at all. It was nice, the kiss was, and I guess I started kissing him back.

And then I thought about Phil, all upset because Leanne from Lidl was cheating on him, and I thought about Larry being all upset, and I wanted to smash things again. I pushed Ren away. I did it gently, though, ’cause I didn’t want to hurt him.

That was when I saw Larry was there, at the top of the stairs. I don’t think he must’ve called out or nothing when he came home this time. He had this look on his face that made my throat feel all tight.

“Let me guess,” he said really quietly. It sounded like his throat was hurting too. “It’s not what it looks like.”

I thought about that. What it must’ve looked like was me kissing Ren without his kit on. So I didn’t say nothing, ’cause that was what it was.

“I’m… I’ve got to go,” Larry said, and then I heard him running down the stairs.

“Oops,” Ren said.

Something went
snap
in my head, and I took a step forward.

Ren’s eyes went really big, and he walked backwards a bit. “Hey, calm down, all right? Look, I’m going.” He grabbed his clothes and started putting them on. I don’t think he noticed his T-shirt was inside out. “No need to pay me, okay? On the house. I’ll see myself out.”

He grabbed his shoes and ran down the stairs with them. I heard the front door go so quick he must’ve still not got his shoes on when he went outside.

I sat on the floor and looked at my picture of Ren. For a moment, I wanted to throw it out the window, but I thought Larry might be cross. So I just went downstairs and waited for Larry to come home.

I waited a long time. It got way later than Larry normally comes home. I’m not sure how late it got, ’cause in the end I fell asleep on the sofa, but Larry still never came home.

I didn’t feel like going in to work next day. I called my boss and told him I was sick. I thought maybe if I waited around the house, Larry would come back. I didn’t know what to do, so I called my mum, but she was working.

I didn’t know where Larry could’ve been. I thought maybe he’d had an accident or something and was in hospital or dead, and that was why he never came home. I didn’t know how you found out about stuff like that. I thought maybe I should ring the hospital or the police or something, but Larry and me, we’re not family or nothing. I thought they probably wouldn’t tell me.

I thought maybe I should ring Larry’s family, because if something bad had happened to him, the police would have told them. So I looked up the number and called them, but it just went to Larry’s mum’s voice on the answerphone. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t leave a message. I thought if I left a message asking if Larry was okay, and he’d just stayed out at a mate’s or something, he’d be really mad at me for making his mum get all worried. I didn’t want him to have something else to be mad at me for.

So I just stayed in the house all day. I didn’t really feel like eating nothing, but I thought maybe I should, ’cause Mum always says it’s really important to get three meals a day, even though she’s always on a diet. But when I looked in the cupboard, we was all out of bread and stuff, so I didn’t bother.

I didn’t know what to do. I watched TV for a bit, but I kept forgetting what I was watching. Then I put on a Charlie Chaplin DVD, but it just made me sad. I didn’t feel much like painting or nothing, even, but I thought maybe if I drew Larry from memory it’d make me feel better, so I went up to the studio to get my stuff, but I forgot Ren’s picture would be there.

There was all kinds of stuff going round in my head. It wasn’t nice stuff. It made my chest hurt and my eyes go all funny. I think if Ren had been there, I’d have hit him. I don’t know what I’d have done if Larry had been there. I think I’d have wanted him to hit me, because it would have hurt less.

When it got dark I didn’t want to stay in the house on my own no more, so I called up Phil to ask if he’d go for a drink with me. Then I remembered it was Saturday night, so he’d be out anyway. I went up to the pub on my own, and he was there with Daz and some other blokes. I think I had a lot of beers. I don’t remember everything that happened, but there was this bloke what kept getting in my face, and I think we went outside, and then his mates were everywhere, and there was three of them on top of me, and I think I passed out.

When I woke up I was in A&E, and Phil was sitting by my bed. My head hurt. So did lots of other bits.

“Bloody hell, Al,” Phil said. “You look like shit.”

I thought that was fair enough, ’cause I felt like shit. “Am I in trouble?”

“Not sure. I swore blind to the fuzz it was them what started it. Think you might get a Drunk and Disorderly. Least nobody glassed no one. You hardly hit no one, anyway. It was like you couldn’t be arsed. If I get my hands on that posh tosser boyfriend of yours—bleedin’ hell, Al! Lie the fuck down!”

“You shouldn’t ought to say stuff about Larry,” I said, but it came out a bit funny ’cause my head felt like someone hit it with a sledgehammer, and I was trying not to be sick. I lay back down.

“All right, keep your hair on,” Phil said. “If you ask me, though, he’s being a—all right, all right, I’m not saying nothing more, right?”

The doctor said I didn’t have to stay in no more, so Phil took me home, back to Larry’s house. I thought maybe Larry might be there by then, but he wasn’t. “You want me to take you round your mum’s?” Phil asked.

I didn’t want my mum to know I’d been in a fight, so I said no. Phil hung around a bit and did some shopping. Then he made us beans on toast ’cause that’s all he can cook. He had to go shopping first. “You going to be all right if I leave you?” he asked afterwards. “’Cause I’m s’posed to be over at Leanne’s.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I said. I didn’t want him to get in trouble with Leanne from Lidl, ’cause they’d only just got back together last night. So he went, and I thought I’d be okay, but the house felt really empty with only me in it. Which is weird, ’cause Larry doesn’t take up a lot of space.

Then the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, and it was Larry’s sister Alicia. “Larry’s not here,” I said.

Her eyes went really big. “God, what happened to you?”

I shrugged. “Had a fight. Too many beers.”

She gave me a funny look. “Friday night?”

“Nah. Saturday. I waited in Friday night and all Saturday, ’cause I thought Larry might come back, and I didn’t want to miss him.”

She sort of pressed her lips together. “It was you I wanted to talk to, anyway. Going to let me in?”

I was wondering what Alicia would want to talk to me about. I didn’t think it was anything I’d want to hear. But she was Larry’s sister, so I let her in. “Can I get you a cup of tea?” I asked.

“No, I’m fine.” She took her coat off and slung it over the back of the sofa. “Are you cheating on my brother?”

That made sense that she’d want to talk to me about it. “No,” I said.

Alicia stuck her chin out. She’s got quite a big chin for such a little woman. “He thinks you are. He told Mum, and Mum told me.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I wouldn’t cheat on Larry. Even if he never kisses me again. Not unless he tells me it’s all over.”

“Do you love him?”

I smiled, ’cause thinking about how much I love Larry always makes me smile. Even when it hurts my chest too. “Yeah. I love him more than anything. Maybe not more than my mum, ’cause she’s great and she’s my mum, but the same. Only different.”

Alicia had a funny look on her face. Maybe she thought my smile was sinister too. “So what’s the story about this student, then?”

After she said that, I didn’t have to worry about my smile upsetting her no more. “You mean Ren?”

“Probably.”

“He kept trying to kiss me. And then he did kiss me. And that was when Larry saw us.”

“That’s all it was? Just a kiss?”

I sort of shrugged. “Yeah. But Ren still had his kit off from modeling.”

“But it was just him kissing you? You didn’t want to kiss him back?” Alicia was looking at me in this scary way like she could see right through me. I think maybe they teach them that in lawyer school.

I looked down at my feet. “I was kissing Ren. But only for a moment, ’cause Larry hadn’t kissed me for days, and I missed him. Then I pushed him away, and that’s when I saw Larry was there, and he said he had to go. I don’t know where he went. Then I told Ren to piss off, ’cause I’m with Larry.”

She sighed. “I think you two need to talk to one another. Come on, I’ll take you to him. My car’s outside—I think you’ll just about fit in.”

We got in Alicia’s car. It was a Volkswagen Golf. I fitted in easy, once I’d put the seat back a bit. It took a while to get out of Cambridge, ’cause of the one-way system, and then we went down towards Trumpington.

“Don’t talk much, do you?” Alicia said.

“Nah. I leave that to Larry. He’s better at it than I am.”

She just smiled then and didn’t say nothing. I got thinking again. I wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen, ’cause she was being nice, but I knew she didn’t like me. “You don’t like me, do you?” I said.

“What? Excuse me, but here I am, driving you up to my parents’ to meet him. You think I’d do this for someone I didn’t like?”

That confused me. “I thought you wanted us to split up. You said I was taking advantage of Larry.” I forgot she didn’t know I’d heard her when she was talking to Larry in our kitchen.

“What? Wait a minute.” She didn’t say nothing for a bit while she went round a roundabout. “I think you’ve misunderstood me.”

I nodded, ’cause I do that all the time with people.

“I admit, I didn’t think it was a good idea at first, you and Lawrence. But… Look, I think you make him happy. And he’s certainly not happy now. And I don’t think you are either.”