The Art of Keeping Faith (11 page)

“Do not give that woman any more of my gin,” I shouted at Tristan, who was watching me with amusement.

“I brought my own,” she told me.

“Good, you can bloody take it with you when you leave in two minutes, and don’t bloody come back.”

Then I slammed into my room like the teenager that I am.

So that was Sunday. Afterwards Meredith and Tristan tiptoed around me like they were walking on eggshells. And well, now I pretty much hate everyone.

Meredith has hidden all the wedding stuff and she and Trist are sitting at opposite ends of the sofa in an effort to not make me uncomfortable. This in turn makes me even more uncomfortable.

To make matters worse, Ben did not call on the landline as he promised. I just got a text at midnight telling me he was tied up and he would talk to me later today.

Excellent.

30th October

No phone call.

Last night, while I sat there pathetically waiting for my non-existent phone call, I looked at the Facebook pictures. I wish I hadn’t. There were more of girls falling over Ben and there were even more of Mhiiraan—fucking—dah with him. I know I should not read too much into it. However it is off pissing, when your boyfriend is in a different country and every time you see a picture of him, a six-foot blonde, size zero, has a hand strategically placed on him.

I think I may be depressed, and the worse bit is the fact that knowing I am depressed is making me even more depressed.

I feel like getting completely lashed but all my ‘friends’ are busy, so I am in the library by myself like a sad fuck.

5.30 p.m.

“Hey,”

“Uh?”

“Lilah? I’m here behind you!”

It’s Richard. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, us meeting in the library is becoming too frequent. He gauges my reaction and a half smile lifts his mouth. “Blimey, Lilah, chill out. I am not stalking you.”

“Well, uh, yeah. I would never think that, that would be silly.”

Also, I am the stalking freak in the room
.

“I came up a few minutes ago and saw you asleep. So I popped down to the cafe and got you a coffee.”

He offers me the cardboard cup with a crooked smile.

“Thanks,” I reply taking the cup and placing it on my desk/sleep station.

“What are you doing here if you are just sleeping?” he asks. It’s a reasonable question.

Before I can stop myself I scrunch my face up, my expression giving away more than I want.

“Come on, Lilah. What is it? Are your legs still hurting because of that run? I can take it easier on you next time …”

“I never agreed to a next time!”

“True. So spill, what’s up?”

I sit there in silence working out what to say.

Deep breath.

“I guess I just feel a bit lonely, you know? Meredith and Tristan are doing their thing, Beth and Jayne are doing theirs, and well Ben is, um, gone. I don’t know anyone else here at Uni and I am not sure if I even fit in. Now I just feel old and like I am not really supposed to be here.”

Don’t hold back.

Richard looks at me with his warm brown eyes and I feel completely exposed. “Well, maybe you just need to get involved more. Everyone thinks you are fun to have around.”

I stick my tongue out. “Everyone just thinks I am a pisshead.”

“No, they don’t! And for the record no one thinks you are old.”

“I feel old right now.”

“Lilah, give it up. You are not old you fit in just fine.”

“Well I am older than you,” I retort.

“Lilah, I am only a little bit younger than you. You just never bothered to ask.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How much younger?”

“What to the exact day?”

“Exact minute.”

He pretends to think for a moment before shaking his head. “Nope, my shit math’s brain cannot do a sum of that size.”

I giggle, the sound feels strange coming out of my mouth.

“Fancy a drink?” Richard asks.

I should say, ‘no.’ So of course I say, ‘yes,’ and ask, “Vodka?”

“Vodka sounds perfect,” he tells me as he helps gather up my books/impromptu pillows.

“I find vodka fixes most things,” I say.

“Well, then. I am all for that.”

I have no idea what he needs to fix, but hey I am up for drinking vodka with anyone right now. The more problems they have the better. At least I won’t be the only sad bugger.

Later

Shrichard isss meyes news joggin’s shpartner.

November

1st November

Yes, that is right. Richard is my new jogging partner. It’s a bit weird. But after drinking our way through a litre of vodka the other night it seemed like a really good idea. I can’t really back out now, that would look strange.

Tristan is not very impressed. This morning he answered the door to Richard and then came banging along the hallway to my room. “Lilah, there is a dick at the front door dressed in Lycra asking for you.”

When I got to the front door to meet Richard for our arranged (and, yes, I did remember this time) run, Richard was quite adamant that he was not wearing Lycra at all. I was inclined to agree although I tried not to look too hard but from what I could work out he was just wearing football shorts and a T-shirt. Maybe it was the fluorescent headband that ticked Tristan off … only joking.

We went for another killer run from which it will probably take me bloody days to recover. As we went our separate ways and he jogged into his road and I limped toward mine he called over his shoulder. “Fancy coming to a match tomorrow?”

What I wanted to ask was whether he would actually be able to run again after our morning’s exercise. I will be lucky if I can walk. Instead I kept my integrity intact and just told him that I would be working.

“Maybe after, hey?” He winked.

“Yeah,” I replied but what I really meant was, “Yeah, maybe not. Because I will be nursing my poor, sore, bruised muscles at home and in peace.”

I have not spoken to Ben all week, we have had the odd sporadic text conversation but he has not been able to find five minutes to call. I can’t call him because I do not have a number to ring that does not cost a million pounds to dial, and I daren’t use my mobile again because our conversation in the pub garden the other week cost me the best part of thirty quid. I called O2 to make sure my bill was right. Apparently it was, it just costs a lot of money to apologise to your boyfriend long distance.

Right then, I am going to crawl to the bathroom and run a hot bath to ease my legs. I think I am going to have to tell Richard that if he wants me to be a regular jogging partner he is going to have to take it a bit easier.

It hurts now, which makes me think tomorrow is going to be a real bitch.

2nd November

7.30 a.m.

Oh it’s a bitch all right. But that may have more to do with the four bottles of wine Meredith and I consumed.

Oh God, don’t think about the wine.

It all started off so well, a civilised glass of wine along with our pizza and salad. I had a hot water bottle on my thighs to try and ease the intense muscle rupture I was experiencing. At about nine o’clock the doorbell started to ring like there was a person possessed standing on the other side.

Not possessed. Just drunk. It was Beth and Jayne; both two sheets to the wind.

“Shuure, soes shboring now,” declared Jayne with a theatrical wave of her hands, which sent her off balance and into the bookcase.

“Great,” Tristan muttered under his breath before grabbing his new best friend—his iPad—and stalking off to their bedroom.

Meredith watched him leave with an expression of conflict on her face. She clearly wanted to go after him and check that he was okay, but she did not want to be judged by the evil drunk twins who were making themselves at home grabbing pizza and pouring wine.

“Shboring, shmarried shpeoples,” Jayne added, lowering herself into Tristan’s place.

Beth at this point seemed to be maintaining a better control of her faculties and was at least able to put a coherent sentence together in response to my question when I asked where they had been.

“Bar.”

Very informative.

“No, really?”

Beth pulled a face and then delightfully showed me the food she was chewing in her mouth.

“Froebel, we are going to Fez next but we came to get you on the way.”

“Um, there is no way in hell I am going to Fez tonight!” I stated firmly.

“Name me one good reason?” challenged Beth.

“I am in my pyjamas and it is nine o’clock!”

“Oh my God. You are such a fucking granny.”

“I am not!”

“You are.”

“I’m bloody not. Give me my wine back, you cow.”

“Come to Fez then, Granny,” she taunted.

Meredith and I sat and stared at each other.

“It is Friday,” I said to her after a while.

“It is only nine o’ clock,” she agreed.

“Okay let’s do it, but girls I have one condition.”

“What’s that?” asked Beth

“You need to help me stand up first. I am stuck in this chair.”

Meredith gave a little giggle and helped pull me up. “It’ll do me good to have some fun, won’t it, Lil?” she whispered. I didn’t have time to wonder at the underlying message beneath her words because Beth interrupted us.

“Yes it sodding will if you get a bloody move on. Come on. You can’t go in your pyjama’s. No matter how sexy they are.”

It was fun. In fact it was probably the best fun I’ve had in a ridiculously long time. However it may have been fun for a lot of the wrong reasons and I do not want to think about that right now. Or perhaps ever.

Shit. I’ve got to get up for work—it’s going to be a very long, very painful day.

7.45 a.m.

Oh, it’s painful. I cannot bend my legs at all, so I have just walked to the bathroom and back like I’ve shit myself while trying not to get tripped up by Kit who was weaving in between my ankles.

It’s only as I mince my way back into my room I notice the yellow Post-it wrapped around his collar.

Tristan the shit.

Ben called … again.

Whoosh.

My stomach gives a little lurch.

All week I’ve been waiting for him to call and he does so the night I am out shit-faced, doing who knows what.

Excellent.

9.30 a.m.

Work

I’m late. Half an hour late.

Baz glares at me as I shuffle into the shop. I can’t move my legs or my head—it has been an interesting trip into work.

“Blimey! Are you all right, Lovey?” Baz takes a step toward me as if he is going to grab me and keep me upright, but then changes his mind when he sees me taking off my sunglasses and gauges the green colour I am underneath.

Yeah the puking started right about when my stomach did the whole whoosh thing in the hallway.

I think it was the wine.

I am going to kill Meredith when I see her.

“What happened?” asks Big Baz as he hands me a lukewarm over-stewed black coffee, which I gulp down gratefully.

First I point to my legs. “Jogging with a fit person,” I explain to Baz who nods understandingly.

“Meredith and white wine,” I add pointing to my head.

Baz gives me another understanding nod. “Figured as much.”

“Yeah, I hope she is suffering as well.”

“I’d guess so.”

I shrug out of my jacket and prop myself against the counter.

“Wake me up when it’s time to go home.”

“You really are the crappiest Saturday girl in history.”

I raise my head. “Are you going to sack me?”

“No,” he says. Nor does he sound overly-thrilled at the prospect of keeping me on.

“I’m sorry.” And I really am.

“Yeah, I know. So have you spoken to Ben while you’ve been lording about in full student mode this week? I bet he is tired, home sick and missing you.”

Whoosh.

There goes my stomach again. “I’m going to be sick,” I announce very loudly just as a mum walks in with her teenage son.

“Don’t ever drink too much alcohol,” I hear Baz tell the boy gruffly. I just about make it to the room out back, which has a sink in it, before I see the lukewarm over-brewed coffee again.

10.30 a.m.

The door chimes and I look up from the make-shift pillow I have made out of my jacket and a spare hoodie of Ben’s I found under the counter. I may have been drooling; the jumper smells of Ben’s unique scent of smoke and fabric softener and it has taken me to a very happy place.

It’s Meredith. She is shuffling toward me affecting the same Neanderthal walk I came in with an hour ago. “You, too?” she says as she sees me lifting my head off the counter.

I don’t bother with a greeting, I just put my head back down.

“Oh for fuck’s sake. Now I have two of you?” Baz exclaims before wandering off.

“So you’re alive then?” Meredith asks as she lowers her head down next to mine on the counter.

“What do you mean? We came home together didn’t we?”

I am sure we did. I walked home with someone. I distinctly remember re-enacting that “Singing in the Rain” scene and swinging around the lampposts and splashing in every puddle that I found while singing made-up lyrics at the top of my lungs.

“Um, nope not me, I woke up at Jayne and Beth’s an hour ago. Seriously. Tristan is going to kill me.”

”Yes, yes. But who the hell did I walk home with?”

“Richard probably …” Meredith trails off as she pops open one eye to cast a quick glance in my direction.

Rubbish.

“Well, shit, I don’t remember that at all.”

“Do you remember dancing with him the whole night, slap-bang in the middle of the dance floor?”

Yes, I do.
Unfortunately.

I have a bad feeling it may be contributing to the pukefest that is Saturday the 2nd November. “It’s not like we were doing a Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.”

Meredith giggles into the counter.

“Whatever,” I state with a heavy dose of teenage attitude.

“So you remember the dancing, you just don’t remember getting home?”

“No, I remember going home. I just thought I did the singing and dancing with you!”

“You sang?”

“Yep.”

“You danced?”

“Yep.”

Actually, now that I think about it this explains why my legs are so ridiculously sore. It must have been where I was pole dancing all the street lamps the entire two-mile walk home.

So kill me now.

We lapse into a comfortable silence where I screw my eyes shut and try to erase the dancing/singing/pole dancing memories from my mind. The comfortable silence soon slips into a comfortable dose until the doorbell rings again and I have to physically peel myself off the counter and do some actual work.

11.45 a.m.

I can’t believe I sang the whole way home. That is just so ridiculously embarrassing. Meredith has gone home to grovel to Tristan and sleep off her hangover horizontally, as opposed to vertically with her head on a counter. She made sure to tell Baz about my musical theatre moment before she left. He has been chuckling sporadically ever since, every so often whistling, “Singing in the Rain,” as he passes me by.

12.30 p.m.

“I’m bored,” Baz states purposefully in a loud voice, ensuring to jolt me out of my dose.

“You think?”

Baz has tuned every guitar in the place and is now twitching next to me, which is really bloody annoying when I am trying to sleep. “Fancy a Bud and a game of guitar karaoke?”

I pull a face. A Bud? Is this guy deranged, I only stopped throwing up an hour ago.

Although saying that, hair of the dog would undoubtedly lift the headache. He knows my decision is a sure thing and pings the till open with a chuckle before handing me a twenty. “You go grab, I’ll warm the old magic fingers up.”

“Why do I always have to go? They think I am an alcoholic in Waitrose.”

They do. I end up in there every week buying cases of beer. It’s normally always the same spotty teenager who serves me.

“Lovie, that is not a new thing.” Baz winks.

Ha bloody ha.

Purchases made I am walking back up the high-street to the shop when my phone vibrates in my pocket.

Ben.

I put the two boxes of Budweiser down on the pavement regardless of the pedestrian traffic weaving around me and grab my phone.

Not Ben.

My chest tightens as I register the non-Ben text.

Richard:
How’s the head?

Bugger.

Me:
Sore …

I pick up the box and complete the remaining few yards to the shop.

Baz is in full rock-mode as I walk in through the door. I have no idea what he is playing but it sounds heavy; very heavy.

He stops playing and I hand him a bottle. We gave up a long time ago on waiting for them to chill—figured we may as well embrace our English heritage and consume room temperature beer.

“Oooh, look what else I got,” I grin as I dip into the Waitrose bag and pull out two bumper size packs of Doritos.

“Now ya thinking.” Baz grabs the spicy bag and rips it open before shovelling a huge fistful into his mouth.

“That’s not very attractive.”

“I’m fifty-five. I’m overweight. I drink too much. I really don’t think I need to be concerned about a few Doritos.”

“True,” I confirm. “So what was that music?”

“My old band.” He says this in a way which makes me feel that I should probably know this. Obviously I don’t.

“You were in a band?” I shovel my own handful of crispy triangle goodness into my mouth.

“That’s not very attractive you know.” He smirks and I stick my tongue out in response.

“So?”

“I used to be in a rock band in the seventies. You are probably far too sheltered to have ever heard of them.”

“Probably,” I shrug.

“We had a few hits, quite a few actually, but then I decided I wanted to take a different path.”

“What, one that involved hanging out with alcoholic Saturday girls and eating too many Doritos?”

“Yes, that path exactly.”

“Does Ben know your band?”

“Of course,” he gives a smirk. “We were pretty famous.

“Cool, I work for a famous dude.” This is actually quite exciting. “That may have to be my claim to fame.”