I sigh.
‘You know
today was only the second real decision I’ve ever made in my life?’
I say, wrenching my neck backwards again, this time to look at the
ceiling. ‘The first one was walking back over to you and asking if
you wanted a drink. Remember the night we met, back in first
year?’
A small
movement in that takes place in my peripheral vision suggests that
she’s nodding.
‘I guess I
wanted to make another decision. Even if it was a stupid one,’ I
finish. I try to shrug, but my shoulders have gone on strike. My
head rolls forward as my neck suddenly throws in the towel, as
well. Liz is taking a moment to compose herself. Her chest swells,
like Freddy’s does when he’s about to give a particularly
self-important speech.
‘So what
you’re saying is, now that you’ve got other options, spending time
with me was becoming an inconvenience, and instead of being a man
about it and breaking up with me, you lashed out…’ Her lip curls,
despite her obvious anger. ‘…by heroically standing up to a mugger.
Or – alternatively – by having sex with that slutty-looking girl
that Johnny says you’re always hanging out with these days. And
since Johnny also told me she’s been sleeping with Charlie too, it
wouldn’t a wild conjecture to say that you two had a little fight –
or, more accurately, that he punched you a couple of times – so now
that your housemates don’t want to talk to you you’ve had a
convenient attack of conscience and come running back to me.’
‘Liz, I-’ I
start, but she waves the protest away with her hand and turns her
back on me.
‘…Or maybe you
were one of the terrorists in Haymarket today,’ she says, tossing
her hair to the side and giving a snort of incredulity. ‘How the
fuck should I know?’ I’m aware that she's joking, but I can’t help
the involuntary jolt in my ribcage. My legs are unsteady as I climb
off the bed and creep up to her.
‘Elizabeth,’ I
whisper. ‘I swear I haven’t touched anyone else. You
are
what I want; just let me prove it. I know I’ve been distant lately.
I just – I don’t know – I just thought, me and you…’
‘The problem’s
not with us,’ she interrupts. ‘The problem’s with you, looking for
something to blame for all the bits of yourself you don’t like and
landing on us. You feel like a coward for studying statistics,
because it’s what your parents told you to, instead of film
studies, because you find it interesting.’
Huh. Guess she
had that worked out, after all.
‘So you lash
out at me, because I’m the easiest thing to blame. Then you’re
scared about growing up and getting a job because Hollywood told
you that it would steal your soul, and you don’t know whether to
get rid of me because you think I’m going to drag you down the
aisle and through the maternity ward, or whether to stay with me
because you’re afraid of going back to what your first year
would’ve been if you hadn’t had me to cling to. So you lash out
with some stupid half-measure, like cheating on me or ditching me
to play videogames with your
other
girlfriend.’
She doesn’t
know how right she is. Shit, I’m not sure I knew it myself, until
she spelled it out for me. The only thing she missed was quite how
stupid my outward lash was. Liz suddenly whips around to face
me.
‘And just so
you’re aware,’ she continues, her cheeks an indignant red, ‘while
you’ve been doing that,
I’ve
spent the last two years
busting my arse doing work experience, freelancing and studying so
I can get a job as a journalist after I graduate, and before that
I’m not planning a wedding, I’m planning to go to South America for
six months with Sophia and Olivia, if you even know who they
are?’
The last
clause spits violent, angry tears into her eyes. There’s nothing I
can say back; she’s psychologically split me open, hung me up for
all the world to see, and there are no words with which I can zip
myself up again. Just like how there are no words which can bring
back that person in the Marks & Spencer staff room back to
life. Intellectually, I know all of this, and I know I should look
contrite, but for some reason I can’t untangle my face from a
snarl.
I feel the
snarl gathering momentum in my chest as we stare at each other
through the thick fog of silence, drowning the shame that Liz has
inflicted on me. Just as the wave gets ready to break, just as I
open my mouth to say something I’ll never be able to take back,
Liz’ phone starts to vibrate. As it does, something odd clicks in
my brain; a fact I always knew at a subconscious level suddenly
hopping over the boundary and into the sentient part of my
mind.
‘Hello?’ Liz
says. Her face screws up slightly. ‘Sorry; who is this?’ She
glances at me. ‘Oh, right. Yes, he’s here; I’ll hand him over.’ She
offers me the phone, with a
tut
in her gesture. Before I put
it to my ear, I check the name on the screen. Johnny. A twisting
feeling seizes at my insides, and cold, clammy hands squeeze at my
lungs.
Did he look inside the bag?
The coward in me wants to
double over in response to these sensations, but the part that came
alive when I pulled the balaclava over my face this morning, the
part that is snarling at Liz, tingles with a new sense of bold,
dark purpose.
‘Hello?’ I
ask. The voice on the other end is Freddy’s, not Johnny’s.
‘Alright,
mate?’ he chirps back. The chirpiness is obviously forced, but he
masks this lack of enthusiasm with an excess of volume. ‘You’re
supposed to be coming back for the
Star Wars
marathon! Me,
Charlie and Johnny have been sat here for an hour waiting for you!
I think Charlie’s scared you’re trying to break up with him!’
My eyes flick
towards Liz. The
tut
has made its way to her eyebrows. A
shuffling of movement and the creak of a door opening and then
slamming comes out of the phone, then Freddy comes back on the
line. His voice is much quieter now, so that neither Liz nor - I’m
assuming - Johnny can hear. The strain of accusation, which had
been masked by the chirpiness, now cuts through every syllable he
utters:
‘Where the
fuck have you been?’ he hisses. ‘I’m sat here with Sherlock fucking
Holmes on one side and Crime and fucking Punishment on the other,
and for all I know you’ve either been arrested or gone on the
lam.’
‘Pipe down,’ I
say, with forced calm and unconvincing colloquialism. ‘I came to
Liz’ for a bit. I’ll be home in about half an hour.’
‘Half an
hour’s too fucking long!’ Freddy seethes. He’s clearly struggling
to keep his voice down. ‘Seeing you on the train has got Johnny
suspicious; he knows something’s up. He keeps trying to look in
your bag.’
‘So put it in
my room.’
‘That would
make him
more
suspicious! You’re just lucky curiosity didn’t
get the better of him when he was carrying it home! Charlie’s not
helping. He’s – well – I think he’s lost it, to be honest. When I
told him what that
cunt
did back there… He’s been on the
edge for a while, I guess. Maybe we shouldn’t have brought him
along. Maybe we shouldn’t have-’
I hear a
muffled yelp in the background.
‘Shit,’ Freddy
says. ‘Look, I can’t leave him alone for much longer. Just get the
fuck back here. We need to get rid of all this evidence –
tonight
– and we need to work out what we’re going to do
about the Phoebe situation. You’re a part of this, too; you can’t
just run off without helping tie up the loose ends.’
‘What
situation?’ I ask.
‘What to do
when she comes round here and kills us, you fucking idiot!’ Freddy
retorts. A fire alarm suddenly erupts out of the receiver. I hold
it away from my ear and look up at Liz, attempting to apologise
with just my eyes. She rolls her own. I can make out some panicked
voices on Freddy’s end before the line goes dead. I wonder what
Charlie’s done now.
‘Got somewhere
better to be?’ Liz asks, her eyebrows raised. There’s even a hint
of amusement about her now. I hand her the phone back.
‘Not better,’
I reply. I’m wary of lying to her, knowing that Johnny will always
be there to contradict me. ‘I might have to get going, though.
Freddy sounds pissed off about something. My best guess is that the
something in question is Charlie.’
‘So all that
connerie
you were just talking about, proving to me that I’m
what you want, was just that, then?’
‘Depends what
“Connery” means.’
‘It means
“bullshit”. Note the fucking context.’
The calmness,
the sense of purpose implanted in me by Elizabeth’s ringing phone
must be visible behind my eyes and buried in my voice, because the
anger seems to die in her the very moment I start speaking.
‘Believe that
it’s all bullshit if you want. Believe that I cheated on you if you
want to be that fucking paranoid. Just promise that you’ll meet
with me tomorrow. I’ll get us a table at that Italian place. If you
still believe I’m full of shit afterwards, I’ll never bother you
again.’
‘Dorian,
I-’
‘Although, in
the interests of openness, please note that I didn’t say anything
about stalking.’
She smiles,
despite herself. I smile back at her.
‘Don’t worry;
I’ll let myself out,’ I tell her. ‘Remember, Liz; the future starts
tomorrow.’
I swirl my
shoulders away and saunter off. It’s not until I’m out of sight of
the streetlights that I allow myself the briefest backwards glance
towards her bedroom window. The light’s still on. It’s only from a
distance that I can admit the dark reciprocal of my last words to
Liz: If the future’s starting tomorrow, tonight the past has to
die.
Thankfully,
there aren’t any police on the train going back. Not that I need a
police officer to make me a twitchy, sweaty wreck any more. Even if
Liz does take me back into her warm embrace, I’ve accepted the fact
that I’ll never again be more than a sudden noise away from mental
breakdown. Maybe even on our wedding night I’ll be fucking with one
eye on the door, waiting for Interpol to come bursting through
it.
Speaking of
things that are going to give me a mental breakdown, I still
haven’t worked out what’s going to greet me when I wade through the
door of number thirty-four, Ilford Road, Newcastle. Might Freddy
have gagged and bound Johnny in order to keep him quiet, after he
opened my bag to find the gun and the money and threatened to phone
the police? Might Charlie have experienced an attack of conscience,
and called the police over himself? Might Phoebe have shown up and
murdered the lot of them? Might I come back to a house where
corpses start falling out of the cupboards and wardrobes like the
last ten minutes of a
Halloween
movie?
I sigh as the
train rattles to a halt and I step back out into the north-England
chill. There’s a nugget of anger hidden behind the nerves and
exhaustion. Whatever situation those idiots have got themselves
into, it’s going to be me who has to sort it all out. I’ve accepted
that fact, as well. If Johnny finds out what we’ve been up to,
it’ll be me who has to convince him to keep quiet. If Charlie and
Freddy get dragged into prison, it’ll be me who has to get them
back over the fence. If Phoebe shows up, well, I guess I’ll just
have to kill her, before she kills us.
The commotion,
alas, seems to have petered down at some point between Freddy
hanging up on me and me walking through the front door, but the
acrid tension characteristic of a place where an argument has
recently occurred still lingers in the air.
‘Genetlemen?’
I inquire as I enter the living room, raising my eyebrows as if to
add, ‘well, well, well; what’s going on here, then?’
All three of
them look up and left in unison, as though they’re manual labourers
past whom an attractive girl has just walked. Sitting in a line on
the sofa as they are, the synchronised movement initially makes
them look like meerkats, but then I see the expressions on their
faces and I realise that they’re more like men on the way to the
gallows. Johnny included, strangely enough.
‘God, that
mugger did a right number on you,’ Freddy remarks. He was forced to
acknowledge the bruises, despite having no interest in where they
came from, just as I’m obligated to make a comment on the air of
tension that lurks above the three of them. The quotation marks
around the word ‘mugger’ are subtle, making it difficult to tell if
they’re really there, or if I’m only hearing them because I expect
them to be.
‘He did
indeed. Desecrated a masterpiece,’ I reply, turning to inspect my
battered reflection in the window. I could care less about the
desecration, personally, but it’s the stage direction which
accompanies my words. I then turn back to survey the three of them
- again, not because I have any interest in doing so, but because
it simply needs to be done. ‘So,’ I say, ‘what’s been going on
here, then?’
‘Nowt,’
mutters Freddy, though his eyes dart from Charlie, on his left, to
Johnny, on his right, as he says it. There’s an almost negative
value of curiosity behind Charlie’s eyes as he slouches, half-dead,
against the arm of the sofa. His foot is propped lazily up on the
coffee table, coming dangerously close to knocking a little plate
off the table as he waggles it. The plate, I notice, has four spent
fag-ends on it. He looks as though he can barely see his
surroundings.
Knowing that
I’m not going to get any more than tenacious denial from Fred, and
nothing better than blank incomprehension from Charlie, I direct my
next question to the other end of the sofa:
‘You agree
with that assessment?’
Johnny scowls.
Such an expression looks so foreign on his usually meek little
features that it provokes the first unforced expression on my own
since walking in here.