Authors: Anne-Marie Hart
'If you don't move this in five minutes, it'll be towed', the traffic warden said. Having walked a loop around the block and found the car still where it was, the ticket that he had issued moments ago still under the windscreen wiper where he left it, he wasn't happy.
'Do you want to drive?' Devizes said, holding out the key.
'You drive first', I said. 'I'll have a go later.'
We got into the car, and it was so low, I felt like I was sitting on the road.
'I can't believe you bought me a car', I said, as Devizes roared up the engine.
'See you later superstar', Sophia called from the flat window.
I looked up to her and waved. I felt happy again, for the first time in a week. Amazing what a present and an optimistic outlook can do.
'Are you ready?' Devizes said.
'Let's go', I said. 'Straight to your house first though. I feel like we've got a little bit of catching up to do.'
That's where we went, and that's where we stayed for the rest of the day. Devizes was even more apologetic at his palatial home, not to mention extremely attentive and affectionate. He made sure I was fully compensated for any of his wrong-doing, so much so that I began to feel bad that I'd made him feel bad in the first place for what he'd done. Between rigorous bouts of love making, which I have to say, felt absolutely incredible, Devizes confessed that he had fallen quite spectacularly for me, and felt ready to take our relationship to the next level, if, of course, I was ready for that too. He wanted us to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend, which didn't really change anything about what we meant to each other already, apart from allowing us to introduce each other with less awkwardness at parties. That, and he wanted me to move in.
'If you want', Devizes said, 'there is always a place here for you.'
'Here?' I said, not really quite believing what I'd heard.
'It's such a big house, just for one person', Devizes said.
'I can't move in here Devizes, I like living where I am. I think that might be rushing things a little too much.'
'Ok, just think about it', Devizes said. 'Don't say no straight away, you might hurt my feelings.'
I rolled my eyes at his mock hurt. 'I don't want to spoil what we've got by rushing things', I said, pulling him in to me. He was still hot and clammy, and I felt that heat transfer instantly to my body. I looped my leg over his and noticed the difference in skin colour, emphasised by the white sheets below us.
'It might be good for your writing', he said. 'I'd be working most days, and you'd have complete silence to concentrate on your books.'
'Silence would be good', I said, rolling onto my back, 'but I don't think that's the problem at the moment.'
Devizes began to smooth the skin just below my belly. When his hands diverted a little to either side, I felt a rush of adrenaline climb up my skin.
'Maybe you just haven't experienced the story that you want to write yet', Devizes said.
'Maybe', I said. 'I've felt kind of blocked for a while. I couldn't write a thing before we met, and now I've managed a paragraph in the last month and a half.'
'It's a good job I didn't tell Prometheus that', Devizes said.
'I'll work it out', I said, 'I'll get something written if it kills me.'
'Don't let it kill you', Devizes said, using his strength to pull me across the bed and into him. 'I kind of like you.'
Sophia was naked, stood in the middle of the living room, newspaper spread out underneath her as a notional attempt to catch any of the excess that may fall off, while Tad, and someone who identified themselves are RB1, painted her body with a huge tin of something that looked like melted gold bullion.
'So you've forgiven him then?' Sophia said.
'I guess', I said.
'Then try not to complicate things by peering through the looking glass', Sophia said. With her eyes closed, she looked like a kind of golden cherub, that restorers in Italy might have been working on in one of the dungeons of the Vatican.
'You know you ought to leave a gap somewhere so the skin can breath', I said.
Tad looked at me like I was crazy.
'She can breath through her eyes innit', RB1 said.
'What's this for anyway?' I asked.
'Naked bike ride', Sophia said.
'I didn't think that was until next Sunday', I said.
'It's not, but we're going to do a practice run tonight', Sophia said.
'Tonight?' I said. 'Soph, it's pretty cold outside.'
'Don't worry about that', Sophia said. 'RB1's got some 2CBs that make you think its summer. It'd be too hot if we wore clothes'
'Right', I said. 'Cool. Are you guys doing it too?'
'Tad's got a tiny dick, so we're going to have to paint it gold so everyone can see it', RB1 said.
'At least it works for longer than thirty seconds', Tad said in his defence.
RB1 looked sheepish.
'I'm only going to meet with him anyway, that's all.' I said. 'Nothing serious.'
'That's what Osama Bin Laden said about Saddam Hussain, and you know what happened there', RB1 said. 'The world nearly ended. It could have been world war two and a half.'
Sophia couldn't stop laughing.
'What?' RB1 said. 'I read the news too.'
'If you were doing this Alice', Tad said, 'I bet Devizes would paint you with real gold.'
'Yeah', RB1 said. 'Where's the Ferrari innit?'
'I've got to go', I said. 'Good luck with the 2HB bike ride thing. Don't stay up all night chewing your own faces off.'
'2CB', RB1 corrected me.
'Bye Alice', Sophia said. 'Say hello to the one for me.'
'He's not the one, not anymore', I said. 'For all I know he's married, with children, and very happy without me.'
'All the same, he'll still always be your number one', Sophia said. She knew me better than anyone else on earth.
As I was walking out the door, all the way down the stairs and from the street below the living room windows, I could hear RB1 and Tad talking about their ones. Tad said his one was Sophia, and I could hear the heartbreak in his voice because he knew that feeling wasn't reciprocated. There was nothing worse than loving someone with all of your heart, who didn't love you back. Back in the day, before I grew up and life was rosy and full of promise, Toby and I had that kind of love for each other. As I rode the bus into central London, I wondered how much of it had changed in both of us.
I was nervous. He'd called me the day I'd got back from Devizes's house, and the conversation was a short one. I held the phone in my hands for about six rings while I ran around the house screaming, not knowing what the hell to do.
'Sophia, you answer it, tell him I'm not here. No wait, tell him I'm here, fuck no, give it back to me, quick.'
Finally I took it, answered it with my heart beating, and then calmed immediately when I heard his soothing voice.
It was a generic pub. Generic in this situation we both thought was the best. It meant that nobody had to decide and nobody had to be embarrassed for picking something the other person disliked. In choosing something that we both hated, we already had something we agreed on as a starting point.
I worried all the way there about whether I should shake his hand, kiss him once on the cheek, hug him or just wave at him nervously and sit down. When I arrived, I kind of went for a combination of all four, only to find myself hugged, and kissing him affectionately on the ear, with my arm trapped up near his shoulder. It was very embarrassing.
While I settled myself in, which meant trying to make myself look much less awkward than I felt, Toby went to the bar. When he came back, he set the drinks on the table and sat back into his seat, a world of smiles.
'You look great', he said. 'Thank you for coming. I wasn't sure if you would or not, it's been a while.'
'Where have you been Toby?' I said, cutting straight to it. 'I looked for you, you know. I couldn't find you anywhere.'
'I've been around', Toby said. 'I went to art school and then university, the usual trajectory, and then travelling for a while and then I kind of roamed for a bit, trying to make sense of life, and then came to London, and I've been here ever since. About six years, coming up to seven all up.'
He took a sip of his beer and I noticed thick scars on his knuckles.
'What about you? Congratulations by the way, I didn't really say it the other night.'
'I came to London', I said. 'I went to college, and then University, graduated and got a job as a waitress. After that, I guess I just tried to write and suddenly here we are, several years later.'
'Here we are', Toby said.
'Why now Toby? I don't get it. It's been eighteen years.'
'I saw your face on the poster, and thought it was time I got in touch with you. I wanted to for a long time, but I was scared to, you know, after what happened.'
'Yeah', I said, turning my glass on the table and avoiding eye contact.
'You know it didn't happen like Lisa said', Toby said. 'You know me and her, we never, you know. She made all that shit up.'
'She made it up? Why would she do that?' I said.
'Lisa was a bit of a fucked up chick. I knew her for a while after school, in fact we went to the same college together. She always was back then, but she became even more manipulative as she got older. You remember she used to like booze? Well that took over her life in quite a serious way. Shame really, because she was a clever girl. Anyway, she made the whole thing up because she was jealous of you.'
'Jealous of me? Why?'
'Because you got me and she didn't', Toby said. 'Look, after you left, which I'm so sorry about by the way, I thought of a million different ways to apologise and make it up to you, but none of them seemed appropriate, and finally it was too late. So, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I lost it, and I puked all over you, but I was sad Alice. I was numbing myself with weed, and alcohol, because I couldn't cope with what was happening to me. I cut myself too. Yeah, I'm not very proud of that. Wait, do you still have it?'
Toby held up his finger where the faint scar resided from the day we cut ourselves, or really the day he cut us both.
'I still have it, I said, and held mine up too. 'Fuck Toby, you cut yourself?'
'Yeah', he said, looking down into his glass now. 'You've got to understand, Alice, my whole world was falling apart. You were everything I had. Nothing else, but fucking myself up, really mattered to me. I was devastated when you told me you were leaving. I had this whole future planned out for us, and then all of a sudden it was like somebody came along and said, do you know what Toby, fuck you, you don't deserve any of this. I was pretty low.'
'Tell me about what happened with Lisa', I said.
'Well that was it', Toby said. 'Nothing happened. I know she phoned you and told you that we fucked, Cal told me that but Lisa always denied it, well what actually happened was she came on to me and I knocked her back. I was in love with you, Alice, there was nothing I was going to do to ruin that. I didn't even sleep at Cal's like I was supposed to. I walked all the way home, most of it across the fields, and slept in that old hut by the lake. I fucked up, Alice, I shouldn't have got so drunk I couldn't walk. I ruined your night for you, and our last night together, but not in the way you think I did.'
I could tell he wasn't lying to me. I felt like someone was driving an eighteen year old pole through me, to burn me again on the fires of that night.
'I can't believe she lied to me. I thought you'd betrayed me. I've thought that for eighteen years. Eighteen years I've been guided by that lie. Why didn't you phone me and tell me the truth, why didn't you tell me?'
'I don't know', Toby said. 'I didn't come and see you before you went, the day after the prom, because I couldn't face up to the reality of it happening, you know. If I didn't say goodbye, a goodbye wasn't happening. I didn't call you because I didn't know for a long time what had happened until Cal told me. After that, it seemed like it was too late to make a difference anyway.'
'But now it's ok?'
'It seemed like the right time. I'm sorry Alice, I feel like I've been kind of lost for a lot of my adult life, wondering about the mistakes I'd made in the past and the people I'd hurt. When I saw the poster for your book, I figured it was time to grow up. I just want to be back in your life Alice, that's all. I miss you.'
'I miss you too', I said. 'I've missed you so much over the last eighteen years, you wouldn't believe it. I thought I'd never see you again.'
There was a moment of reflective silence, while Toby leaned back in his seat and I watched him, neither one of us really believing that this was happening. I was still trying to wrap my head around what he'd said to me, which meant that actually what I'd believed for more than half of my life wasn't true, and Toby didn't ever actually cheat on me. I could tell he wasn't lying about it either, because I knew Toby. It was weird looking at the thirty four year old version of him, because all of his mannerisms were exactly as I had remembered them. If anything, he'd got cuter as he'd got older, and seemed to be much more comfortable in his own skin than I was in mine.