‘Ah, he’s graduated to boyfriend status, now.’ Mr CS took a step closer, our eyes still linked. I had an urge. An urge to . . . ‘Go on, come for a coffee. You can tell me about your boyfriend.’
An urge to . . . ‘No.’ If there was anything I didn’t need, it was to make my life any more complicated. Good Amber knew that. But then, wasn’t it Good Amber who was going to have sex in an alley and was keeping her relationship from Jen? Stop it. Stop thinking like that. I put down the chocolate packet I was holding. ‘I’d better go. It was nice talking to you.’
‘You too, gorgeous. At least give me your phone number?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘You might use it.’
‘There’s no might about it,’ he smiled. ‘You’ve got my numbers now, so you could call me.’
‘I could.’
He shook his head. ‘Even if you don’t call, I have a feeling we’re going to meet again.’
‘Why, are you going to start stalking me?’
He laughed. ‘No. We’re fated to be together.’
‘When they say that kind of thing in the movies it generally precedes stalking, court orders and kidnapping and/or being pushed off a building. You should know that, Mr Film Director.’
He laughed again. ‘I guess there’s no way of saying that we’re written in the stars without me sounding like a psycho, is there, gorgeous?’
‘Maybe that’s because you’re not supposed to say it. Bye.’
I didn’t even take my coat or cap off before I turned on my iMac and hurried it to boot up. I logged onto the Internet, typed the name on his business card into a search engine. Hundreds of pages came up. I logged onto the first site – it gave a list of the films he’d done.
The ones I’d seen were mentioned. No photo, though. I scrolled down. Logged onto another site. No photo. I scrolled down some more. Then there was a mention of the course. I opened the site. And there he was. A picture of him beside an outline of the course. It was him. Really and truly. I’d been chatted up by a film director. He’d directed two of my favourite films. And he chatted me up. Called me gorgeous.
I looked down at the business card he’d given me, ran my thumb over the raised lettering.
How he’d smiled, the way his chestnut eyes held mine, came to mind. How I’d giggled came to mind too. The man directed films, taught film directing, sniffed chocolate. Where had he been during my months and months of celibacy? When I would’ve pounced on him like a hungry woman offered a cream bun? Oh yes, I was celibate because I was insane in relationships, but not even I would have turned away someone as suitable as him.
He was ridiculously suitable. If he and Greg were in a competition, I wouldn’t have looked twice at Greg with his long hair and roam-a-cock. Whilst Mr Chocolate Sniffer . . . I couldn’t see him climbing naked out of a bedroom window because some woman’s husband had come home early from a business trip.
When you looked at Greg, you knew he was trouble. That he was capable of making a pass at his best mate’s girlfriend. I’m not saying he did make a pass at Jen. But it was there. He had the potential to do it. Which is why I’d been so willing to believe it when Jen told me. Which was why I’d gone on a bona fide chocolate run. It was niggling away at me. I’d dismissed it the other day, when Greg was there in front of me. It kept coming back, though. Not in a big way, not even in a little way . . . it was simply there. Greg potentially making a pass at Jen. Reinforcing my belief that he was an enigma I’d never decipher. I’d needed to get back to something that was calming, normalising. Like Mr Chocolate Sniffer, I only went on real chocolate runs when I was feeling lost. Or insecure. Or in need of comfort.
I couldn’t talk to anyone about my worries about Greg and Jen. I couldn’t explain to Jen, obviously. Neither could I explain it to the next person on the list I’d call because that person was Greg. I couldn’t tell the third person on the list because he, my brother, Eric, didn’t know about me and Greg. The only people I could tell about my mainly formless worries were Martha and Renée. Their thoughts on him were very clear if they got a hint that he’d done me wrong, his body would be found floating face down in the River Aire less than a week later. So, despite my couple status, I’d gone out on a chocolate run to do something that was deeply soothing. Amidst it, I’d met Mr CS. Was that Fate telling me something again? He seemed the sane, sensible option. The option I’d go for if I wasn’t with someone else. The option I might still go for even though I’m with someone else. I wouldn’t cheat on Greg. I’d finish with him . . . because that would be easy, wouldn’t it?
I looked at the card again.
I’d never wanted to call a man as much as I did right then. Ever. I wanted to talk to him. Hear all about his films. Get his opinion on my idea for a screenplay. The screenplay Greg was jealous of. Not that I was doing it, Greg simply wanted to be with me all the time. All the time. If I was sat at my computer trying to get down ideas, he’d sweat it out for twenty minutes, sometimes forty minutes, before he lured me away from it with sex. We often had sex in my spare room/office these days. The only way I could work was to sit with him on the sofa with a pen and paper. It’d be all right then. He’d happily watch TV or read if he could anchor me somewhere. He was like a child who needed constant attention – and my screenplay was a rival child. I could play with the other child as long as he was there too. I couldn’t imagine Mr CS doing that. He’d understand about shutting myself away for hours to work on it. Even though it wasn’t going to go anywhere, I still liked working on it. Imagining who’d play who. How it’d translate onto the big screen.
I looked up to the heavens, to the powers that controlled these things. ‘This isn’t funny!’ I shouted, shaking the business card at them. ‘It’s not funny at all!’
‘there’s nothing more satisfying than opening a box of chocolates knowing no one has been there before’
chapter twenty
the weekenders
‘What are we doing this weekend?’ Greg asked.
Wednesday night. It was always Wednesday night that he brought up the weekend even though he spent most weekends at my place. I think he liked to fool himself that we were still taking it slowly; that we had separate lives.
This weekend, though, I had plans. And they didn’t involve him. I hadn’t got around to telling him that yet. I’d been putting it off and putting it off because I didn’t need the grief. Like you saw a dark, cloudy sky and knew it would bring rain, I could look at my dark, brooding boyfriend and tell he’d not like my plans.
‘I’ve got, erm, something to, erm, do,’ I said, hoping he wouldn’t say . . .
‘Oh? What?’
I tried not to sound guilty or suspicious as I squeaked, ‘Just something.’
Not that I had owt to feel guilty for. Mid-game Greg looked up from his Gameboy. (I say his Gameboy, but it was mine – he’d just adopted it. He rescued it from its place beside the TV, cleaned it up and it went everywhere with him. He fed it batteries, he played with it, bought it new games. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he wanted children.) ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, really.’
‘But I can’t get involved in this nothing?’
‘No.’
‘And it’s going to take all weekend?’
‘Yes.’
Greg laid the Gameboy beside him on the sofa, pursed his pink Jelly Baby lips, tilted his head to one side and regarded me with cool uncertainty. ‘Are you seeing someone else? Just tell me. I’d rather know than not know.’
‘Yes, because between work and seeing you almost every night and going to screenings, and pretending to work on my screenplay, I’ve had time to start another affair. You’ve caught me out, it’s a fair cop, guv’nor.’ I put my hands up in surrender. ‘I meet him on the train, we shag on the train – everyone looks at us, but we don’t mind because that’s the only time we get together. Then I get off at Horsforth and he carries on to Poppleton.’
Greg floundered. Beca
me a drowning man in a sea of ignorance. I couldn’t tell him, though, because he’d want to involve himself in it and I didn’t want that.
Much as I liked being with Gregory, a part of me still felt overwhelmed – suffocated, almost. I’d catch myself sometimes wondering why I was serious about someone again. It wasn’t my life any more, it was our life. I was no longer free to please myself. To spend Sunday in bed with telly, chocolate and the little bean bags I hurled at the screen to show my outrage. I was no longer free to not wait for the phone to ring if he hadn’t come round. To not think twice before I spoke in case I upset him. I enjoyed being with Greg, but did he have to bleed into every area of my life? Sean didn’t. He stayed where he meant to; he wasn’t constantly opening doors in the hope they’d lead to my soul. Which was another reason why I went out to sniff chocolate the other day. I was on a quest to have something separate from Gregory ‘Peck’ Walterson, to get some breathing space, to have this pillow of a relationship shifted off my face.
Meeting Mr Chocolate Sniffer also reminded me that Greg and I had little common ground beyond our friendship. He wasn’t into films; he didn’t understand about chocolate; he was far too good-looking for his or my good.
Greg put his head to one side and his dark eyes held mine as though trying to read me. ‘At least tell me what it is,’ he said.
I said nowt. Stared back at him with a blank expression on my face.
He sharpened his look, trying to break down my defences. What he was unintentionally doing was signing up for a crash course in Amber Visagology. When it came to expressions of stone, nobody could outdo me. Eventually, his face sagged in resignation.
‘Amber, I’ll only work myself into a jealous frenzy if you don’t tell me.’
Couldn’t say I was a fan of frenzies, jealous or otherwise. And this was going to go that way if I didn’t ’fess up. ‘My family is coming to stay. The parents from London, the brother from Edinburgh,’ I stuttered.
Picture a child holding a huge double-layer, double-chocolate ice cream. On top, strawberry sauce, wedged into that, a Flake. Now picture this child leaning forwards to take its first lick – and the ice cream toppling out of its cone cradle to land on the ground in one huge splodge. Now picture the expression that child has, right before it opens its mouth to wail. That countenance of pure incomprehension; deep injustice and ultimate pain. Greg wore that expression.
‘It’s our six-monthly reunion,’ I said with the voice of a woman desperately scooping ice cream off the ground. ‘It’s always only the four of us.’
Greg’s expression stayed in place, begging me to explain why I had kicked his perfect ice cream out of his hands.
‘It’s always Mum, my stepfather, my brother and . . .’ I cleared guilt from my throat with a lame cough ‘. . . me. Not even Eric’s wife comes.’
Greg’s mouth twisted itself into a thin, straight line, which theoretically should’ve been impossible considering the juiciness of his lips; his eyes openly searched my face for clues as to why I was doing this.
Every other woman he’d been with had been gagging to introduce him to her parents. Not me. Not his Amber.
‘When do they arrive?’ Greg said. Each word was a struggle to sound normal; light, interested, nothing more. He was hurt, he masked it well but not that well.
‘Friday. They leave Sunday night. Sometimes Eric gets the train up Monday morning.’
‘Should be fun.’
‘It is. Two days is all I can stand, usually.’
‘Don’t I know it. With my parents, I mean.’ Greg smiled suddenly. A proper, charming smile. ‘Come here,’ he said, opening his arms to me. I shifted along the sofa to him.
We often sat like that as we watched telly or read. He’d be reclining on the sofa, his leg hanging lazily over the side, me on top of him. And he’d slip his hand down the waistband of my trousers, resting it on my abdomen. Sometimes, when he was reading and I was watching telly, he’d stroke my abdomen with his thumb, and I’d turn the page for him so he wouldn’t have to move . . . We really were a disgustingly coupley couple behind closed doors.
‘You still think I’m a tart, don’t you?’ he said.
Hey?! I tipped my head back, the top of my head resting against his chest so I could see him. ‘No. Not at all.’ Not really. The thing with Jen hadn’t done him any favours but I didn’t think he went out looking for sex elsewhere.
‘Because I’m not like that any more, you know that, don’t you?’
Ah, I see. ‘Our family only gets together like this twice a year. Sometimes Eric and his wife come down for Christmas, sometimes we all go to London, but in case we don’t see each other then, we always get together twice a year.’
‘I thought you might be ashamed of me.’
‘Never. I’m not prone to saying this kind of thing but I like being with you.’ Mostly.
‘Really?’ Even though that wasn’t exactly a resounding endorsement of my feelings, he was ecstatic. I suppose when you’re with someone who rarely said that kind of thing, any positive words were snatched up and treasured.
‘Of course.’
He allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction, then said, ‘OK, babe, better get going,’ in an ‘up ’n’ at ’em’ tone.
‘Going?’ I replied. ‘Going where?’
‘Home.’
‘Home?’
‘Rocky was complaining the other day that he hardly sees me and he’s right, I have abandoned him.’
‘But—’ I began.
‘I wish I could stay here all the time,’ he cut in, ‘but I’ve been spending too much time here. And it’s mad me paying rent there but practically living here.’
He untangled himself from me, left the living room, came back a few seconds later wearing his jacket with his bag slung across his body, pecked a kiss on my mouth and left. He left. He’d done it again. He’d bloody well walked out on me. Leaving me with acres and acres of breathing space.
My upbringing was pretty normal, pretty weird, in equal measures. I knew it wasn’t ideal, but thought everyone had a life like mine. It wasn’t until I got to university that the weird part became clear. When I got there I discovered that people thought of their mums as their best friends and their dads as their heroes. I thought of my parents as two people who couldn’t spend more than three minutes in the same room without an argument kicking off. It was like living in a war zone. Always waiting for the next round of all-out fighting to start. That’s why Jen’s family trauma had attracted me to her. We were shaped in similar moulds, we understood what we’d be willing to do to keep someone in our lives. What you needed to do to make someone love you.
As I got older and both my parents settled with other people, I realised what their marriage, what the War Zone was all about. Adult stuff. It was about marrying someone you don’t know very well. So, as you grew, got older, got to know this person, you found cracks in your relationship. And, soon, those cracks become craters and those craters become valleys and those valleys became expanses that were unbridgeable. By that point, you only saw negative things when that person wandered into your line of sight. Everything they did irritated you: the way they put food into their mouth nauseated you; their expression as they watched TV riled you; their voice was white noise to your ears; the way they existed in your life was a red rag to the bull of your unfulfilled dreams. Adult stuff.
I don’t know who started to blame who first, but my parents couldn’t communicate without one of them taking something the wrong way, without the red rag being flapped and twisted in front of that bull. And then, flamenco dancing into their lives, in a whirl of skirts and make-up and hair, came Mrs H. Even though she and my dad have been married for nearly twenty years, I call her Mrs H. Mrs H – who I’d met too many times in my life – met my dad at work. She became his confidante, the person who understood him when his wife didn’t. The phone would ring, I’d answer it, someone would hang up. Then it’d ring again, my dad would answer and would be on t
he phone for ages, talking in hushed tones, not saying much except, ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Of course, of course’, ‘Soon’.
The first affair I knew about but didn’t know about. I was only seven. Mum was a nurse, she used to work three nights a week, including one weekend night. She used to come home from work as I was leaving for school. I’d say ‘Bye’ and she would raise an exhausted hand before bed. She’d try to be up when I came home from school but sometimes, she was too tired. So I’d come home, wander upstairs, stick my head around their bedroom door, see if she was awake. If not, I’d go back downstairs, have a couple of biscuits and watch television until she woke up. Everything changed the summer holidays before I was going to be eight.
I came home and the house was quiet, as always, but there was something different. I felt it, it seeped into me but I didn’t understand it. I dumped my bag by the door, then crossed the short walk from the corridor to the stairs and went upstairs to see if Mum was awake. She was. Their bedroom door was wide open and Mum was folding clothes into her suitcase that was lying open on the blanket-covered double bed.
I didn’t, no matter how much I wanted to, ask her what she was doing. Anyway, it was obvious – she was giving clothes to charity. They were her best clothes, but my mum was generous like that.
‘Don’t try to stop me, don’t try to stop me,’ she said, not looking at me. ‘I have to go. I have to go.’
I nodded at her, even though she wasn’t looking at me and said, ‘Yes, Mummy.’ I returned downstairs to the living room, turned on the black and white television and sat watching something. I was advanced for my years, mentally. You grow up quickly when you hear your parents shouting each other’s faults at each other; when you hear hand slamming into flesh. So, while part of me was thinking: Where’s Mummy going? Why would I try to stop her? most of me instinctively knew it was because of the phone calls and the rows. I also knew she was going and she wasn’t coming back. My mother was going and she wasn’t coming back.