Authors: Charlotte Oliver
I first encountered Mum in the doorway of the kitchen, holding a sobbing Sharon against her chest. So, she was alright—that was a start. Next, I saw Randy, quivering in the dark of the passage, peering into the sitting room, where a circle of people had formed. Someone had moved one of the sofas off to one side.
The main attraction—I realised in amazement—was Tam and Peter. Beating the crap out of each other.
The crowd roared as they staggered backwards and forwards, hanging onto one another like punch-drunk boxers. Which is what they were, of course: Peter was as white as wax, a grim expression marring his sweet face, and Tam’s eyebrow had been split open—a tiny cut, but it was pouring. He kept wiping his face in a distracted way, seeming not to understand that it was his own blood that was getting in his eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded of Randy, still quaking in the doorway.
His eyes were like saucers. “I—well—I only heard Tam tell Peter not to—not to fuck you over. And then he said something else. And Tam shoved him.”
“What?” I had to get them to stop—get between them somehow. “Why on earth would Tam tell Peter not to . . ?”
My words evaporated. I’d been scanning the room, looking for a gap, and my eyes had caught on Sairi. She was cleaning up the sitting room—taking the cake away, gathering up paper cups—ignoring the fight, but with a look of poisonous rage on her face.
Something was going on here. Someone had planted a seed.
Lightning-fast, I reviewed my conversation with Tam. Was it possible that we’d misunderstood each other? That he had thought . . .
Then I looked back over at Sairi. She was glancing at Peter every few seconds, trying not to make it obvious—but she couldn’t keep the scowl from her face.
“Tam!” I shouted, pushing through the crowd towards them. “Nothing happened between Peter and me!”
Tam stopped, snapped his head around towards me, swayed a little. Peter had barely heard me: he still had his arms up to block the punch that Tam was about to throw. I rushed forwards, placing myself between the two of them: nice and dramatic, of course. The circle of people let out a moan of disappointment, and a few started to shrink off back to the kitchen to refill their drinks. “Fuck off, all of you!” I heard Mia bellow. “I go off to the loo for one bloody minute and look what I come back to!”
That was enough to encourage the stragglers to disperse completely. Peter, realising it was all over, staggered off to the side and collapsed onto the sofa, looking dazed but grateful. Tam was still swaying in the centre of the room, looking disoriented. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“It was Sairi, wasn’t it,” Peter said dully, staring blankly at the ceiling and holding the side of his quickly bruising face. “I should’ve known she was going to do something like this.”
I glanced up. She’d disappeared along with everyone else. Randy, however, still hovered in the hallway.
“So you didn’t—” Tam started to say to me, but he couldn’t get the words out.
I knew what he was going to ask. “I’d had too much to drink and I’d started crying about Jack. Peter found me and put me into bed. I wouldn’t let him leave, so he ended up sleeping next to me that night. And he didn’t try anything. Really, that’s all there is to it,” I blurted, feeling ashamed even though I knew it had been an innocent thing. It sounded so dodgy.
But Tam was visibly bristling. “You expect me to believe that?”
“You don’t have to,” I said, humbly. “Only don’t be angry with Peter. He didn’t do anything wrong, he was only trying to be nice to me.”
He wavered, but in a moment he was resolute as ever. “He wasn’t very nice about you a moment ago. So if you’re thinking you might have a chance with him, you need to know he doesn’t respect you the way he should.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Peter said abruptly, making Tam and I jump with his uncharacteristic use of the f-word. “When I said ‘she’s definitely not what I’m looking for’, I meant I’m fucking
gay.
”
The room took a collective intake of breath.
Peter stared up at us, his beautiful face smouldering with resentment. Then, suddenly mild again, he looked down. “I told Sairi that too, by the way. I just don’t think she wanted to hear it.”
Tam crumpled. “Peter, I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice cracking a little. “I’m so sorry, and now I’ve gone and given you a black eye. I’m so sorry,” and so he carried on, until Peter got up and gave him a hug and said he was sorry too, because he’d thought Tam was laying into him for being a queer so he’d also got carried away himself, and he was sorry for swearing at him a minute ago, and it was over now, so no worries, but he should really go and get his eyebrow seen to.
He didn’t know what Peter was talking about until I took him to the hallway mirror. “Fuck me,” he yelped.
Moments later, the brouhaha was all forgotten. Mia was teaching Mum (and an assortment of male admirers) how to make jelly shots, Sharon had been put to bed in the chalet along with an exhausted Declan (who she’d refused to allow to sleep the night before), Randy was handing out pieces of cake while he got Peter to explain this whole gay thing to him, and everyone else was draining the bar. (Sairi, let it be noted, was nowhere to be found.) That left me and Tam in the downstairs bathroom, perched on the side of the bath with the First Aid kit on the floor between us.
I’d just finished telling him about what had happened at the airport, hoping it would distract him while I cleaned his cuts.
“Wow.” He was beaming at me, smiling wider than I’d ever seen him smile before—except for that time with the magic mushrooms. “I wish I’d been there to see it.”
“It was pretty exhilarating,” I agreed, proudly. “And it felt good. But it was hard to do.”
We sat in silence for a while. I didn’t need to clean his cut
quite
that much, but I didn’t want to stop. There was too much electricity in the air between us; I could almost feel it crackling and hissing, pulling me towards him.
“Why was it hard to do?” he asked.
Good question
. I thought about it for a minute or so. “I’d put him on a pedestal, you know? It was hard to see him for what he was.”
I picked up the pack of butterfly sutures and read the instructions. “I should be able to put these on myself. Or do you want to go to the hospital instead?”
He shook his head. “You do it, rather.”
When I pressed the adhesive bits onto his forehead and browbone, I was shocked by the sensation of his skin, so alive under my fingertips. I remembered how horribly I’d treated him the night before.
It’s too early
, I reasoned with myself.
You’ll only hurt him. And yourself.
When I was finished, I didn’t want to leave. We sat on the bath, the air thick with unspoken things. I could still feel his body heat but I tried not to think about it. “So what’s going to happen now? Are you going to go back to England?”
He sighed, smiling wryly. “I’ve got to go back. But I don’t know what I’m going to do for work.”
I flinched. Of course—Jack had said he was fired. “I’m so sorry you got so embroiled in this, Tam. It was the last thing I wanted.”
“No, don’t feel bad. It’s for the best.” He turned to face me. “You were right about me leeching off Jack.”
I was crestfallen. “Oh, Tam—please forget that I ever said that.”
“Why? It’s true.”
“But—you can’t say that. You were in an impossible position.”
“Oh, I could have struck out on my own. Of course I could have. I just decided it was too scary, so I took the easy way out and kept working for him.” He looked all broody and thoughtful.
I didn’t say anything for a while. What was there to say? ‘Thanks for completely ruining your life for me’? Somehow that sounded a little thin.
“I’m sorry.” It was hard to get the words out; I was choked with regret.
He paused. “I’m sorry too.”
We stared glumly at the floor.
Then he said, “Ava. Would you—have married Jack if he was poor? I mean, if he wasn’t wealthy. If he was just normal.”
“I think so,” I said. “Although, to be fair, if Jack was normal I might never have even met him. And he certainly wouldn’t have swept me off my feet and tried to use me to push money out of some poor old man’s will.”
“Point taken. But you’re saying you don’t measure a man by his money?”
I could feel colour rising in my cheeks, but I didn’t know why. Maybe it was how intently he was looking at me? “Of course not. It’s not important at all. I mean, obviously you don’t
want
to starve to death in a garret, but within reason it’s not an issue.”
He laughed. “What if he still lived with his parents, or something like that?”
“Well, I was still living with my mum before I met Jack. Most people do, until they can move out with someone.”
“True.” He looked thoughtful.
More silence.
“Imagine we had just met in a pub somewhere.” His eyes flashed at me, but then he looked away again. “Like normal people.”
I knew I had gone properly pink now, but I kept my voice steady. “Yeah. Through friends. Or maybe we just got talking at the bar. Do you think we would have got on, if we’d met like that?”
Eyes again. That cool colour of a raindrop on a leaf—so different from Jack—but I wasn’t even comparing. This was Tam and there was no comparison. “I reckon we would have. But I can’t speak for anyone but myself.”
For a moment, I thought he might kiss me. It was torture waiting for it, not knowing how to hold my face, hyperalert for a signal that would tell me what to do. But then he looked away. “How did you get that?” I asked eventually, knowing that he must have seen me staring at his mouth, and wanting to have an excuse for it.
“Fighting.”
“So you’re always picking fights, then? This wasn’t the first time?” I smiled, but it felt watery. I felt watery.
He smiled back faintly, now looking at me sideways. “Only at school.”
“Oh.”
More silence. I realised the moment had passed. There was to be no more kissing, apparently. Clearly I’d blown the only chance I’d had.
He mumbled that he should be going. I rang him a cab. While I packed away the First Aid box, he said his goodbyes, asking Peter to pass them on to Sharon and Declan. When I showed him out, there was an excruciating moment where we lingered within arm’s reach of one another, both of us wondering whether we were going to shake hands, hug, peck on the cheek, or go for an all-out grope (although that last one may just have been me).
Finally we settled on a hug. It was awful—like always, I didn’t know which arm to put on top and how close he wanted to come. In the end, I had both arms around his neck, and it was a long squeeze. My legs felt weak for a long time after that.
“Will you ring me in a few weeks and let me know how things go?” I asked, desperate. “Like, if you’ve found a job?”
His expression was indecipherable. “OK. I’ve got your number.”
“Yeah. Maybe we can meet up sometime. Just for a chat.”
“Yeah.” He sounded so noncommittal.
I watched the cab disappear towards the seafront and despaired of ever seeing him again.
Mum and Mia had a lovely week’s holiday in Cape Town while I sulked on a pool lounger for most of the time—but at least I tried to look cheerful while I did it.
It was hard sometimes. When we were back in Ickenham, Mum took me to a solicitor, so I could start the ball rolling with the initial paperwork; it was the same man who had helped us after Dad died, and for some reason that upset me even more. It was like someone had died all over again, except this time it wasn’t a person—it was all the hope I’d put into the marriage.
Of course, Jack’s total refusal to cooperate quickly brought me back to reality. He threatened me with everything—dragging it through court over years and years, going to the press with horrible stories. I told him to do whatever he wanted and that I was happy to be bankrupted and have my name ruined if it meant I got rid of him. And that he should carefully explain to his own solicitor about his plans; was he sure that kicking up such a fuss would help him in the quest for his inheritance?
That shut him up. He also stopped ringing in the middle of the night when I threatened to apply for an injunction against him—but I refused to change my number in case Tam tried to get hold of me.
I got the decree nisi six weeks later, and I cried, but that was the last time I shed tears over it. Mia, Mum and I celebrated with a girls’ trip to Brighton—cheesy, tacky, wonderful—and when we got back, I met up with Sharon and Declan who were in London for a city break. She’d moved to Dublin with him and they were talking about saving up some money and going travelling together. “Declan’s been to a country for each year he’s been alive!” Sharon enthused. “I’ve only ever been to Tenerife. And Cape Town. Obviously!”
They looked so happy together. I throbbed with longing, with a painful hope that I would one day feel that way too. I missed Sharon, too, but I wanted her to be happy.
In the interim, I got another reception job, this time at Sharon’s Mum’s hairdresser’s. (I didn’t dare go back to Victor.) It paid less than I’d made at the dealership, but it was something to keep me in handbags and going-out money, and at least I got my hair done for free once a month.