A rap on my window. I jump and open my eyes, scrabbling for the keys in the ignition, but the car door opens and a man’s head leans inside.
‘It’s all right, love,’ he says, holding his palm up to face me, ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
He squats down on his haunches next to the open door. The stonewashed denim of his jeans stretches across his knees and thighs, and his face is large, hair short, clean and spiky. He places both
hands on opposite sides of the door frame for support and shuffles in closer. Cigarettes and beer on his breath, his body odour strong but not unpleasant. A distant trace of aftershave.
‘I was wondering,’ he says, ‘if I could help you?’ He looks at my face but hasn’t noticed my cut, so I slide my hands between my legs as he shifts his position,
spreading his own legs wider. ‘We got a message that someone new was turning up tonight. So I came over, to see if you need a hand. You know, getting started.’
Words evolve in my throat and spit from my mouth, staccato and high-pitched.
‘No. I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I was only stopping off before going home. I’m perfectly OK.’
‘It’s just that if you need an introduction, you know, I’d be happy to show you the way.’ He sweeps one hand in an antique gesture towards the cluster of parked cars, and
smiles, keeping his eyes on me, his etiquette belying the threat of his body which blocks my exit. On his forehead, a collection of busy lines hold moisture in their grooves. I try to smile. No
other expression will come. Manners override my impulse to run. The man offers me his hand through the open car door – rough skin, scrubbed nails, palm facing upwards – as if he’s
asking for a waltz. ‘It’s often like this,’ he says. ‘You know, if it’s your first time. Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you.’
He shifts his weight on to his other leg and I catch his eye. We size each other up, then I look across the car park. It’s difficult to pick out details, but the vehicle at the centre of
focus has its internal light on, and it contains forms, limbs, something awkward.
Saliva sticks in my throat. My breath is short and sharp.
‘You have got to be joking!’ I say. I reach for the handle of the car door and swing it towards me. It thuds on the man’s back.
‘All right, all right,’ he says, standing, rubbing his back with one hand while still attempting to hold the door open with the other, ‘no need to freak out.’ He lets go
of the door and brushes down his trousers, turns and walks back to the opposite side of the car park. ‘Stuck-up bitch.’ He doesn’t shout but it’s loud enough for me to
hear.
I slam the door and start the car, looping the vehicle round to the narrow exit. My headlights blanch over the group of people and their faces light up like a clutch of neon balloons. The man
walks towards them at speed with both his hands held out in front of him, gesturing a semaphore of ‘no go’.
Out on the open road, I sling through the gears, only then remembering the cut on my hand. I press down on the steering wheel, stabbing at the pain like scissors.
Bessie’s been sick on the bed. Will’s flat is equipped with an ancient washing machine into which he stuffs the duvet cover and sheet, but the quilt itself is too
big.
‘Have to take a trip to the launderette,’ he says, bagging the grey material into a bin liner.
I gather my things and search for my car keys. My bag is empty compared to how full it’s been this past week, stuffed with Seamus’s letters and the newspaper articles I found at his
caravan. It’s been a challenge keeping everything hidden from David, and I’ve had to seek out new and obscure hiding places, the best one being the box in the garage where my
dad’s old clothes used to be, which now holds the spare tyre from my car. I’ve realized that David would never look in there; old things are dirty, they are infected with a past that
existed before I met him and in which he has no interest.
On one occasion when I knew I wasn’t going to be disturbed, I shut the garage door and used a torch to flick through Seamus’s documents. Even though the newspaper articles were
difficult to read, it was possible to glean that Seamus spent some time in hospital after an on-site accident on the old Richard development, and there was a battle for compensation, although
it’s not clear if he received any money. Perhaps Alex’s family didn’t pay Seamus off, and Seamus decided to get the unions involved, which in a roundabout way led to him staying
on the land he’d grown to love. I put these articles back in the box and took out the drawings of the trees – Olden Head and Greenscale. Up close the penmanship revealed intricate
details of bark and leaves.
Last night when Will was asleep I stashed all the papers at the bottom of a trunk of his gran’s old keepsakes – he never looks in there, he says it makes him sad. If ever Will does
find them they’ll mean nothing to him.
I keep the little girl’s – Claire’s – photo in my back pocket, the watch zipped in my bag until I get home, and all that’s left in my handbag apart from my keys,
phone and medication is a small brown envelope. The packet has a rudimentary graph printed on the front. It’s the type of envelope in which I used to receive my wages when I worked part-time
as a teenager. This time though it’s been put there by David. Inside are two five-pound notes and some change. He’s called the money ‘housekeeping’ and he wants me to fill
out the totals on the front, then transfer the expenses to our notebook at home. So far I’ve spent a little over £40 of this week’s money, some on petrol but mostly in the pub
last night – I’ll need to find dummy receipts to cover the deficit.
‘Give us a lift will you?’ Will’s eyes follow my hand movements. ‘My van’s up the creek.’
Last night was my third night away from David and only two weeks since my last stay, but I’d missed Will more than I thought possible. Plus he begged me to stay. Being wanted made the
choice irresistible. I told Will it was a big risk for both of us, but more for him, and that I thought David was already looking for him. Will said, ‘I’m a grown-up, Rachel, you
don’t need to worry about me.’ When he was asleep I imagined whispering in his ear all the things I wanted to say.
The sun shines a square on the carpet through the window. Will clears his throat. ‘We could go for a coffee or something while the wash is on.’
Nausea rises, telling me I need to get home – my working persona is fracturing, and there are no more excuses. I don’t know what I was thinking by staying away again last night; or
maybe I do. Something’s got to give. I know no other way to make it happen.
I pull out the keys and put on my jacket. ‘I have to get back.’
He moves closer, watching the floor, downtrodden. He looks like Bessie in the way some owners take on the manner of their animals.
‘Look, if I really have to,’ I say, my voice catching. ‘I could drop you off, but you’ll need to be quick getting your stuff together.’
‘Come in with me for a bit. Please.’
I button up my jacket with shaky fingers. Will lifts my hands and kisses them.
‘Spend some time,’ he says. ‘Let me look after you for once. I need to talk to you.’
David’s anger will be as acute if I get home now or in an hour. It’s more rational to spend the time with Will. Or maybe David will be out like last time and won’t even know
when I get home. Unusually I’ve had no texts from him overnight. Perhaps he’s finally given up on me.
‘OK,’ I say, ‘but I can’t stay long.’
Will slips on his denim jacket and grabs the laundry bag, putting his arm across my shoulder as we walk out. I cough and move away. Bessie tries to follow but Will uses his foot to push her
muzzle back through the gap in the door. ‘You wait till later, girl,’ he says to her. ‘I’m not leaving you for another woman just yet.’ He laughs and looks at me but I
find myself turning the other way. He puts the bag of dirties in the boot next to the sack of dog biscuits I’ve brought from home.
Every time I’ve tried to return to the caravan to feed the stray dog, David has demanded a minute-by-minute itinerary of my movements – this listing of events the kind of
conversation we can handle. I’ve hoped that perhaps the dog has smelt the camp fire by now and found its way to the group of activists. Last night, when the pressure of David’s focus
became too much, I caved in and came to Will’s, though by the time I’d made my decision it was already too late to go via the woods. I knew I’d be able to pass by the caravan this
morning on my way home and give the dog some food.
Will’s road is in the suburban outreaches of town. The houses here are a mixture of styles and eras, ranging from pre-war bungalows like Will’s, to 1960s purpose-built flats, plus a
few modern terraces tacked on wherever land was available. Some of the more recent blocks are uniform bunkers with small windows, built for people with too little cash to complain, and the homes
are connected by a helter-skelter of roads. Will is an incongruous presence among the families and elderly here, and if it weren’t for him stepping into his gran’s house – somehow
winging it with the council to pass the place on to him after she died – then he would be based elsewhere; probably down in the valley among the pubs he inhabits most evenings, without the
curse of the steep and drunken walk home.
Above the rooftops white clouds collage a blue sky. For once there is little wind. Hard winter light ricochets from the windows of the flats and, when touched by the sun, these drab buildings
take on an air of calm and hope. I sit in my car next to Will and wait a beat before I start the ignition, allowing the moment to be the moment, and not the future or the past.
As I pull out, the sun sits low and cuts into our eyes through the windscreen. I squint and angle my head to see past the glare as we go round a corner. Will is watching me. I pretend not to
notice even though I feel the prickle of his gaze on my neck. My expression is taut and I turn the wheel with a flourish, aware of his adoration but angry at myself for making it matter.
The launderette isn’t far and we park directly in front of the window. Two large panes form an exterior wall on either side of a glass door, and the huge window displays
money-off posters, some new, some old and bleached. Scraps of paper dangle from crusty Sellotape. Christmas lights edge the frame of the window, and at the centre of each one is a dot of lit
colour, barely visible in the bright light. If it wasn’t for this reminder I would have forgotten that the season of goodwill is beginning. There’ll be bonuses to pay at the office, and
David’s displeasure will be signalled to those who go without.
Will hops on to the pavement from the small elevation of my 4×4, his movement practised but with a touch of cumbersome confidence, and he whistles, collecting the bag from the back seat.
As he shuts the door, he spins on his heels to face the shop and we walk inside to a force field of thick steamed air; a chemical heat swelling to escape the building. Rows of tired machines edge
the room, and a few customers stand beside them. Other people sit on a wooden bench that runs along the middle of the floor, and every one of them turns and stares. Will rests his arm on my
shoulders and looks straight ahead, swaggering. We reach the back of the shop and sit on plastic garden chairs, where Will takes a phone call and swivels away from me to talk in whispers. His chair
wobbles back and forth. The heat in the room weighs like a drift of tiredness, and my eyes lose focus as I stare at the industrial floor tiles. I’m reminded of the university laundry years
ago where the floor tiles were exactly the same and where I first saw David.
My university was in the Midlands, and the campus launderette was where students brought card games and drinks to hang out and chat, like tourists in a club of domesticity; a world in which I
was already a fully paid-up member. I was at uni to work hard, I had no choice, but most students were in it for the social life, and the launderette was just more recreation, test-running
adulthood with tasks still too new to have become mundane. Posters of gigs and demos arranged by politics students plastered the walls and windows, and the room hovered in a permanent twilight
– a happy arrangement for our nocturnal lifestyles. Everyone enjoyed washing their jeans, pretending to be that boxer-short boy from the advert.
A few weeks into the first term of my second year I was in the launderette doing my weekly wash when David came in with some friends. This was the closest I’d ever been to him, and I was
intrigued by campus whispers about the cool new bloke who’d taken a gap year in America. He was dressed differently to the rest of us: he wore colourful T-shirts with big logos, baggy shorts
and puffy trainers with the tongue sticking out. My shopping habits were built round limited funds, and I bought the bulk of my clothes from charity shops out of necessity, but for many others this
impoverished style was merely an ironic nod towards the tasteless – anything new or sensible, especially bought by a student’s parents, was distressed to hide the love invested. David
and his posse – a group of five young men who tripped around him attempting to emulate his surfing-shirted, golden-haired style – were like a series of pastel-toned flares set off
against the Oxfam-smelling greys and blacks of the rest of us. He was an apparition from an alternate universe, his clothing sending the subliminal message that there were places in the world about
which we could only fantasize, where sunshine and positivity reigned free.
I caught fragments of his conversation across the buzz of the machines: the upward lilt he tacked on to the end of all his sentences, dropping in the occasional ‘do the math’. I
shook out my clothes with snaps of aggression, thinking David to be one of those backpacking trustafarians who received weekly food parcels from home and drove their gran’s duffed-up Fiat. As
David continued his chat, I could tell he was checking me out – the only girl on her own in the room – and I was struck by the continuity and persistence of his American dialect, and
the sure and easy way he held himself: one foot up on the bench exposing a tanned calf, arms loose at his sides. If it had been anyone else I would have sneered at this impostor and his attempts to
invigorate our sodden university with some transatlantic cool, but he was so unaware of his displacement, so convinced by his demeanour, that he actually carried it off.