‘Not particularly. I just want to talk to you.’
I was whistling silently, checking my nails, running my tongue around my teeth because it made no difference if I was there or not.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ the guy asked.
‘Erm, Ceri, do you want a drink?’ Jess asked.
The guy looked at me, surprised. He really hadn’t noticed I was there, all he saw was Jess. ‘I’ll have a double vodka and coke,’ I said. If you’re going to ignore me, you’re going to pay for the pleasure.
‘I’ll have the same,’ Jess said.
‘Two double vodka and cokes,’ he said and toddled off.
I turned to say something to Jess and found another man had appeared. He was crouching down beside her, grinning, talking to her. God, it’s going to be one of those nights.
I glanced around the pub, drinking in the atmosphere. I liked the Black Bull. It had an old worldliness about it. Twee with its flowery curtains and matching flowery seats and flowery carpets. All worn with constant use. The bar, which was down the steps from where we were sat, was a big square overcrowded with its drinks and hanging glasses and peanut packets. At this time of a Monday evening, the pub was quite empty. A few people stood in groups, others stood alone.
Unexpectedly I was confronted by a pair of eyes. Eyes that were staring straight into mine.
I tore my eyes away, but too late. Too late. The damage was already done, the eye contact already made. And, from the corner of my eye I saw he was coming my way. Maybe if I just kept my eyes down and looked like I didn’t want company he’d just walk on by. Y’know out through the wall and window behind me.
‘Hi,’ a voice said beside me.
I looked up from my drink and found myself looking into deep, dark eyes.
‘Hi,’ I replied.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
A lot of words telling him to go away came out of the great big mouth in my head, but they didn’t come out of my mouth in reality. I glanced over at Jess, with her four men chatting away to her. ‘If you want,’ I said.
‘You looked so lonely sat here on your own.’
‘Me and the Lone Ranger, we’ve got a lot in common. Except I can’t ride horses. And, of course, I don’t do the mask thing.’
He laughed. ‘I know a lot about loneliness,’ he said.
‘Why, are you the real Lone Ranger?’ I asked facetiously.
‘In a way, I suppose.’ His tone was so serious I wondered for a moment if he was the Lone Ranger reincarnated. If the original one was dead, not that I knew. ‘I was just stood over there, watching you and thought, She looks like a woman who knows a thing or two about loneliness.’
This was true.
‘It hurts, doesn’t it? Being alone and lonely and not really knowing when it’s going to end.’
‘I suppose.’
‘I did find a way out of it, though, in the end.’
‘Really? How?’
‘I turned to God.’
So this is it, is it? Jess gets three, no, four good-looking men clambering over each other to get her attention while I get some kind of soldier of God, who goes out to pubs to recruit his victims.
‘I found a group of people who showed me the true way forward. They became my family. My salvation. The ones who I turned to in my hour of need.’
And, I’m sure they don’t ask you to give them lots of money, try to distance you from your family and brainwash you into doing whatever they decide The Bible says you should do.
‘Do you believe in God?’ he asked.
‘I was brought up a Catholic.’ Y’see, at this point, most people would be lying or saying get lost. Not me. Heaven forbid that of me.
‘And do you still go to church?’
Lie. Just lie. ‘Not as often as I should.’
‘Maybe you should give our group a try. We meet once a week down in Headingley. Maybe I can give you the address?’
‘Yeah, why not,’ I said.
He pulled a card out of his jacket pocket, started writing on the back.
‘My name’s Brad. Can I look forward to seeing you there?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Possibly.’
He grinned. Far too wide for someone who’d only secured a possible maybe out of me. Maybe because he’d got that far in his spiel. I’ll bet few people gave him that long. Certainly not in a pub.
‘Anyway, Brad, it’s been nice talking to you, but I think I should rescue my friend over there.’
Brad and I both looked over at Jess, who currently had four men around her. Each talking, trying to get her attention.
‘She might not need that much rescuing,’ Brad replied as Jess and her admirers laughed, quite heartily. ‘Why don’t we talk some more about loneliness.’
‘Yeah, sure, why not?’
‘It were you,’ Jess said, gesticulating at me with her half-smoked cigarette gripped between her forefinger and middle finger. ‘It were. That’s the only explanation for it. I was fine until you got here. No, actually, I wasn’t fine, I was perfectly happy. And, suddenly, we go out for a few drinks and I’m being chatted up left, right and centre.’
‘But—’ I began.
‘No.’
‘But—’
‘NO!’ She punctuated this with her cigarette.
Jess had spent the rest of the night fending off the advances of the four men; I sat sipping my drinks supplied by her admirers, talking to Brad The God Botherer about loneliness. Jess got to have her ego flattered by young good-looking men desperate for her to choose them; I got to hear all about his salvation. From being a lonely boy to a lonely man who thought he was homosexual but was saved from all that by the group.
Then, to add insult to injury, ten hours later, Jess had reassessed the situation and decided it was all my fault. MY fault. MY fault that I had to drag her out of the pub after last orders and pour her into a taxi while she was wailing, ‘Let’s go to their party. I’m sure it’ll be fun.’ And MY fault I’d also had to hold her hair while she threw up in the gutter outside her house. How, exactly, it was my fault I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t sent the men to come talk to her. I hadn’t forced alcohol down her neck. I’d been the one trying to go home at nine o’clock, only to be told no by a certain Dr Breakfield.
‘How—’ I began.
‘No,’ Jess said firmly, her finger silencing me. ‘It were you. I’m old and happily married. I don’t need you dragging me out and letting me drink too much, making men fancy me. You are a bad influence, Ceri D’Altroy.’
Jess drew long on her cigarette, expertly flicked ash into the ashtray. ‘You know, Ceri, you’re my best friend and all that, I love you and all that, but God, I’m not going out drinking with you again.’
‘Fine by me, Dr Breakfield,’ I said, lying back on the floor. ‘But just remember, it was your idea to go out in the first place. And there’s another two weeks left of the Easter holidays.’
summer term
chapter seventeen
Collision
I always leave it too long.
Always. Right to the point where I have to run the last bit while trying to cross my legs and think of deserts and dried earth and other things desiccated. In this spirit, I hit the door of the staff loos on the top floor with the speed and force of the London to Leeds Intercity Express at full speed, thereby causing somebody who was trying to leave the toilets to reel back. Luckily, she wasn’t knocked over, but her bag flew out of her hands, its contents exploding over the white tiled floor. We both stopped, startled still, for a second.
‘Ohhhhh, I’m sooooo sorry,’ I said, coming alive and going to her. She was the colour of new-fallen snow, her body trembling as she held onto the basin nearest the door. Her grip on the basin anchored her as she said, still shaken: ‘It’s all right.’
Clearly it wasn’t. I’d never seen someone the colour of new-fallen snow. So white, so pale she was almost luminescent. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ I repeated. ‘Are you OK?’
/> ‘I’m fine.’
My need to pee wasn’t gone, simply postponed. It pressed on my bladder, wanting to be let out. ‘Here, let me help,’ I said.
I bobbed down, gathering her belongings: battered diary, three blue pens, one red pen, black leather purse, four 2p coins, bulging make-up bag, No7 mascara, toothbrush, black mobile, Clear Blue pregnancy test. The usual stuff you found in a woman’s handbag. Apart from the pregnancy test, obviously. Or maybe it was just me. Maybe I was behind the times and every sexually-active woman carried pregnancy tests as well as condoms.
As I retrieved each item, I placed it on the side of the basin. She hadn’t moved, she still stood with both her hands behind her as she clung to the basin for dear life. ‘Um, is there anything else I can do? Can I get you a drink of water or something?’ I asked. The word ‘water’ instantly shrank my bladder and doubled its contents. I tried not to do a ‘gotta pee’ jig as I stood beside her, but I probably swayed a little.
‘I’m fine. Really.’ She turned to face me. ‘I’m fine. You go.’
‘Sure?’ I replied, not too keenly I hoped the second the word was out of my mouth.
She bent stiffly and picked up her bag. ‘Absolutely. I’m fine.’
‘OK.’
I ran to the nearest stall, almost ripped off my jeans. I probably even let out a sigh as I relieved myself.
When I finally left the stall she was still there. She’d put most of her belongings back in her bag, but was staring at the pregnancy test as though it’d threatened to kick her head in if she so much as moved. Now what do I do? Ask her if she’s OK again and embroil myself in someone’s drama? Or walk away, leave her to it? Not in my nature, obviously. But, I was already in the Mel and Claudine drama. It’d been more than two weeks since I listened to Mel’s tale after the party. And then there was Jake’s drama. (He was walking around putting a brave face on things. He’d even declared to Ed and me, ‘The Git is dead to me. We do not mention him in this house, we do not think about him in this house. He is gone from my life.’ I don’t know if Ed was convinced. Because I was. Not.)
Could I take any more? Should I take any more? Walk away, one part of me said. Just dry your hands and back away from that upset woman. Another part of me argued: Can’t just leave her here. She needs a friendly shoulder, someone who cares. Sickness speared my stomach unexpectedly, almost kicking the lunch out of me. The sickness pangs of someone who was so scared, lonely and damaged they could hardly breathe, gripped me. I reached out to the sink for support. This was the sickness of someone who was just about keeping things together. Every part of them was on the verge of cracking.
I’d only come in here to wee, I wasn’t meant to be feeling any of this.
As it was, fate took matters out of my hands because the mystery woman suddenly burst into tears. Silent sobs, with plump tears that rained down onto the pregnancy test box, her face crumpled in pain, her whole body quivered. She held onto the basin with both hands, her blonde hair swinging back and forth as she cried and cried and cried her heart out.
Without a second thought, I went to her, put my arms around her and gently pulled her into a close hug.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ she sobbed.
Trudy stopped crying after a couple of minutes. Her nose still ran and she trembled in a way that meant she was just about controlling the tears. She’d managed to tell me her name as I steered her into a cubicle.
She took the wad of loo roll I offered her.
‘I’m a bit upset,’ she offered in return for the loo roll. She dabbed at her wet eyes. ‘Just a bit upset.’
I was ‘just a bit upset’ when an Angel episode finished. This ain’t ‘a bit’ upset, baby. I didn’t say that, obviously. I leant back against the wall of the disabled cubicle, watched her sit hunched over on the loo.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I said. ‘I mean, you can if you want. I’m a good listener. I’ve actually got an honorary degree in listening from the International University Of Auralogy.’
She said nothing.
That was meant to make her at least smile.
‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to, of course. We can stand and sit here in silence for as long as you want. I haven’t got any more lectures today.’
Trudy ran a hand through her bobbed hair. ‘There’s nothing to talk about. I’m getting what I deserve.’ Then she ran her sleeve under her snotted nose, forgetting the loo roll in her hand.
‘What’s that then?’
Her eyes flashed with venom at something. ‘You reap as you sow, isn’t that what they teach you in school? You reap as you sow. You get what you deserve.’
I ransacked my memory but I couldn’t find the exact point in time when that phrase entered my repertoire. Or when I started using it, but I doubt it came from school. ‘I went to a convent school, but I don’t remember hearing that from there. I do know the phrase.’ It’s entered my mind a few times with the types of things I hear.
‘Well it’s what I’m living now.’ Trudy paused, balled the tissue up in her fist a bit tighter. She looked me up and down as though I was wearing a nun’s habit and I was about to start lecturing her on the Good Book. ‘I suppose you disapprove of me, you being a Catholic and me having this,’ she raised the pregnancy kit packet, ‘but no wedding ring on show.’
‘I’m not exactly a virgin . . . um, I’m in no way a virgin and I’m not married either, so let she who is without sin and all that.’
Trudy’s face turned. She suddenly became a vicious, poison-spitting demon. Her blue eyes narrowed to slits and her features became so contorted, they looked like they could actually reach out and punch me. ‘Do you sleep around? Do you sometimes wake up beside someone and not know his or her name? Do you hate yourself after every single time but can’t stop yourself doing it anyway? Do you have to use one of these,’ she lifted the box again, this time like a trophy, ‘and not know who the father might be?’
That would be no – to every single question. ‘Um . . .’
‘Didn’t think so! So you can drop the “I’m down with your pain, sister” bit because you have no clue how I feel.’
Not exactly true. I had some clue how she felt. And I was only trying to help. I meant no harm. I was offering her an ear in a time of need. There was also, of course, that saying, something about hell and its lovely path constructed with good intentions.
‘In fact, why the fuck am I in here with you? Who the fuck are you? Just piss off, will you! PISS OFF!!’
I stood my ground. Not because I knew she didn’t mean it; not because I wanted to reason with her. I was too shocked by her change in mood to do much else. Not the humour, so much as the suddenness of it; the severity. She’d gone from upset to brutal in 0.21 seconds. Naturally, I’d been told to ‘get lost’ before. But never so forcefully – not by someone who didn’t know me a lot better, anyway.
‘DIDN’T YOU HEAR ME?’ Trudy bawled. ‘PISS OFF!’
I attempted a smile, to show her there were no hard feelings. There really were no hard feelings, on my part anyway. I was only doing what came naturally, and it wasn’t me who was crying in the work loos. All right, that’s not true. There were some hard feelings. Outrage pumped in my chest as I fumbled to slide back the lock and exited.
Outside, a woman with wet hands stood staring at the disabled loo. She double took as I came scurrying out, then she jumped as Trudy slammed and locked the loo door behind me.
I stood, frozen in time, immobilised by embarrassment. No one was meant to hear me being ordered to leave a cubicle. Ever. In the probability of life, the grand scheme of things, no one should hear you being ordered to leave anywhere, let alone a staff loo cubicle. The woman stared at me. I stared at the woman.
In a moment that Dali would’ve been proud of, I reached out, pulled a couple of blue tissues from the wall dispenser and handed them to her. Still staring me straight in the eye, she accepted the towels, said thank you and proceeded to dry
her hands.
I wandered away, my work here was done.
chapter eighteen
Don’t Listen
The thing with Trudy bothered me for days. No matter how hard I tried to forget it, it niggled at me. Not just in my quiet moments when I had nothing else to occupy my mind, even in my manic moments, like running for the bus; trying to find the right green olives in the supermarket; teaching. Even when I was sat in the library, reading journals, concentrating really hard, I was besieged by her.
It’d been a week, as well. A week when I should have been able to get her out of my head. And this wasn’t a week to be trifled with. Seven short days in the future I had a meeting with my research supervisor. The professor who would assess how well I was doing, if my non-lecturing work was up to scratch, or if I was on a wild goose chase. And, ultimately, if I’d have to go back to London to pick up my life where I left off.
All the same, Trudy invaded my thoughts. It wasn’t simply the ‘piss off’ thing that replayed itself and replayed itself in my mind – that naturally smarted my pride – but, two Twix, one Crunchie and a packet of Doritos later, I was calm enough to see the funny side of it.
What kept drawing me back to Trudy, what made her a persistent ghost in my mind was the way she’d cried. How in an instant she’d fallen to pieces in the arms of a stranger. What she’d said about herself upset me too. What she did. How hard it must be for her to know what she was doing wasn’t making her happy, but to keep doing it. To keep on keeping on, even when it was making her so unhappy she hated herself. She might’ve thrown it in my face, but I really was down with her pain. It hurt me as well. I’d experienced what she’d experienced as she wiped snot off her face with her sleeve; as she gripped the basin. I’d literally been tangled up in her aura of misery as sure as if I’d been her. Trudy was alone. And terrified. I’d felt that through her and it’d almost knocked me off my feet.
That was nothing new.
Feeling through others, others feeling through me was nothing new. My version of that thing called empathy went beyond simple understanding. It was the actual feeling. The actual emotion. Like the time with Ed when I understood how he felt about Robyn. Like the night when I felt Mel was suicidal. Like the moment I understood how that dodgy man in the bar felt about Jess. And now this thing with Trudy. I understood how these people really felt because I felt it too. Their emotions jerked through me just as they jerked through them. Their emotions crushed or consumed or energised me as sure as they did to them. I felt others in a cloying cloud that seemed to descend then transport me to the midst of their souls, the very core of their hearts.