This is my life, is it? My talent, my gift, my search for the holy grail. My huge, throbbing, pus-filled curse.
This so wasn’t fair. I know I’d said this to Jess, but now it screamed in my brain: WHAT ABOUT ME?! When do I get that love and sex and settledness?
It wasn’t as though my life was purely focused on finding a man. It wasn’t. Part of me expected love. Not a man, but love, companionship, someone to pull around me like a person-shaped duvet at night. Someone to share and share alike with. Love in its purest sense.
It wasn’t like I was asking to win a few trillion pounds on the lottery, was it? Or to walk along the Pacific Ocean floor. Or win a gold medal. I just wanted love. I’d waited patiently for years for that. What I got, what I was rewarded with was everyone else’s life.
I was modern-day Cupid.
Jess was right, of course. That’s what was so awful about it. As soon as she said it, the scales fell from my eyes, the barbed wire screens lifted from my brain.
The world suddenly stopped being like those old-fashioned photos I’d seen of the world – all black and white; monochrome. As all of Jess’s words hit home, I stopped seeing the world as three-dimensional. Everything became colour. The world had more substance, it was multidimensional. I couldn’t simply see things any more, I experienced them with all my senses. Everything had its own frequency that it reverberated on, and now I knew my raison d’être I was attuned to these frequencies. Every frequency. Life became more than a three-dimensional experience, it became a multidimensional experience. It was so hard to explain when the only way I had to explain it were words and they and their meanings were firmly lodged in the reality of three dimensions.
I was plugged into the world, for real. And I didn’t like it. Not one bit. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Whoever coined that term wasn’t wrong. Now I knew this, I couldn’t unknow it. I couldn’t deny it.
Right now, I was so unconfused. This was how it felt when I first put on my accursed glasses. I’d turned to the optician and said, very loudly, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe how much I couldn’t see before.’ And they gave me headaches for ages after I started wearing them because, I guess, my brain was seeing more than it had in a while; too much information was entering my head. I could see far too clearly. And, hey, now I could live too clearly. I had no more confusion. No more veils and fuzziness. No more drifting aimlessly wherever life was going to take me. That was why I felt others’ emotions. Why I’d start crying for no reason; why I felt morning sickness when I’d never been pregnant; why I felt everyone else’s confusion, hurt, hate, humiliation, joy, love, lust, ecstasy. Because I was cursed to. I was modern-day Cupid.
I’d always felt a tad different to everyone else. It wasn’t the feeling that I was unique, tortured, misunderstood; not that no one understood me, it was that I understood everyone else. I knew too much about how everyone else could find what their heart was sickening for; fix their relationship; speak their mind; follow their dream; get a life, etc., etc., etc., even though I had relatively no experience of most of those things myself, I could talk and advise on them as though I’d been there, done that – several times.
I remember when all this started. The first event when I put my big mouth and need to interfere and need to help to proper use.
I’d gone on a walking holiday in the Lake District with a couple of friends. Post O-levels, pre-results, almost my birthday. I was sixteen and the three of us had our reasons for going: mine, to get away from my parents; Kathleen, to do what she wanted; Marian, to walk.
We spent most evenings and lunchtimes in the central lodge, me not drinking, just eating. I’d been dragged out walking a couple of times and it’d tripled my appetite. But, wherever we were, walking, eating, sitting, there also seemed to be this desperately unhappy couple nearby. I say desperately unhappy couple, but it was her who was miserable, under constant fire as she was from her husband. He constantly called her stupid, ugly, fat, pathetic, etc., etc. . . . in a voice that reverberated around the lodge or rang out through the hills. He never seemed to stop criticising her clothes, her walking abilities, the way she ate, the way she breathed at one point.
Everyone focused on their food when he started taking potshots at her in the central lodge. Everyone listened to his abuse; feeling embarrassed for her, feeling embarrassed for themselves but no one wanting to get involved. I wasn’t embarrassed, I never felt embarrassment, all I experienced was rage. Deep rage and shame. Every word, every insult went through me as though directed at me. Meant for me. My rage, indignation and humiliation built up, day after day until day four.
By then, I’d forgotten that the rage I felt was irrational considering I’d never had a boyfriend in my life, I’d never experienced this type of constant abuse and, for all I knew, he was right. Maybe he did look at her and feel physically sick because of her body. Or her face. Or the way she breathed.
On that day, I felt how she felt. Not felt for her, felt through her. It was as if she was projecting her emotions straight into my brain and heart and I could feel her hurt, her humiliation. She also loved this man, that was apparent, she had a bond with him. All of this was being broadcast straight into me. I found it harder and harder to push food into my mouth because of what he was saying and the effect it was having on me. The pain, the anger, the resignation.
‘Look at you, how am I supposed to even want to touch you when you sit there with that look on your face and all that blubber melting onto your seat and the way you eat, the way you drink. You’ve got . . .’ his staccato voice shot across the room, ricocheting off the embarrassed silence.
Before I knew what was happening, I was on my feet, my friends had faces of horror, Marian went to grab me but it was too late, I’d spun to face the couple. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ I shouted at him.
The pair of them stopped, stared at me in abject shock.
‘I asked you a question,’ I shouted, ‘who do you think you are to sit there talking to anyone, let alone your wife, like that?’
Like the bully he was, rather than say anything to someone who challenged him, he simply sat there and stared at me.
‘I mean, we have to sit here, night after night and listen to you abusing someone constantly, and for what? For killing someone? For mutilating someone? No, for her size. For the way she eats. For the expression on her face. How dare you. How dare you.
‘I mean, you can dish it out, but can you take it?’
He stared at me. No hint whatsoever of pummelling my face into silence. ‘I asked you, you can dish it out, but can you take it? Hmmm?’
Miraculously, he just shook his head at me.
‘No, thought not. Well, let me tell you, Mr Loud And Rude, you’re not Mel Gibson yourself. In fact, you make David Hasselhoff look rather appealing. And, even though your looks aren’t all that, you don’t even have a nice personality to compensate for it. So, do the world and us a favour and SHUT UP.’
I turned to the woman. ‘And you, have you no self-respect? I mean, I can understand that you put up with this in your own home, because at least then you can ignore him, or put rat poison in his food or drop the odd cup of tea in his lap, but in public? How dare you sit there and let him abuse you in front of everybody. I know, I know, you love him, but there’s one person you should love more and that’s yourself and . . . and, the fact you can sit there and let him abuse you night after night means you need, you need . . . I don’t know, you need to think about how much you mean to yourself.’
The silence after my storm frightened me. It was pure silence. Everyone in the room was probably holding their breath cos not even the sound of respiration could be heard.
Then the room suddenly erupted into applause. Everyone around me was clapping and congratulating me for doing what no one else would. I came down from the head rush that had pushed me into action, giddy, unsteady on my feet. And, mortified. Who did I think I was? I was worse than him, at least he knew the person he was insu
lting, I’d never met them before.
I turned on my heels and marched out of there, shame burning in my ears and on my face. Ironically, I went for a long walk around the lake not far from the hostel.
I was shaking for most of that walk, I still couldn’t understand what I’d just done and why. I sat by the edge of the lake, staring into it.
‘Hello,’ a voice said, some time later.
I turned around. It was the woman. She looked older close up, her blond hair streaked with white, her face lined and her eyes puffy and reddened, probably from crying. She stared at me, I stared at her. She sat down and we sat in silence for a while.
‘He wasn’t always like that,’ she said eventually. Sadness and frustration were like a shroud around her. A shroud that encompassed me.
‘Well that’s all right then,’ I snapped. ‘He wasn’t always like that so that gives him a good excuse to behave like that now.’ This really wasn’t me talking.
‘It’s not like that,’ she said.
I gave her a hard look. Shrugged. ‘Why do you care what I think, anyway? I’m just some sixteen-year-old, what do I know about life, right?’
‘I . . .’ she began. Stopped. ‘You stood up for me and I feel I owe you an explanation.’
‘I also insulted you, or have you conveniently forgotten that?’ Why couldn’t I shut up? I’d been known to go without speaking for days and now I had a cross between verbal diarrhoea and abusive Tourette’s Syndrome.
‘Yes, but you were trying to help me.’
‘Two wrongs don’t make a right. Or make it all right.’
This seemed to go over her head. ‘It was like you were reading my mind back in the lodge. Like everything I was thinking was coming out of your mouth. Even down to the David Hasselhoff thing.’
I knew that wasn’t me speaking, I quite fancied David Hasselhoff in Knight Rider at that point, not that I’d ever tell anyone that.
‘But, you’re going to stay with him and carry on letting him treat you like that, aren’t you?’
Her face contracted in pain.
I sighed. ‘I just said that out loud, didn’t I?’ I said.
She nodded.
‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, then stared out across the lake, everything seemed green up here. Green and wet. Haze hung over the lake, moisture oozed out of the air. You could feel the wetness in the atmosphere as you inhaled and exhaled. Except I couldn’t because her emotions were choking the life out of me, making it hard to even breathe. I didn’t want to be around her much longer, but I couldn’t get up and walk away. I’d started this.
‘How long have you been married?’ I asked.
‘Fifteen years,’ she said in a small, small voice. She married him a year after I’d been born. I’d barely have been walking when she said ‘I do’ to him.
Her expression was taut across her face, each facial muscle tensed while she tried to control herself, then she crumpled, giving in to tears.
Now look what you’ve done. ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘It’s not you,’ she said through her tears. She wiped her sleeve across her eyes; I would’ve offered her a tissue but decided she probably didn’t want the dried-up snot rag that had been squatting in my jacket pocket since last winter.
‘You just . . . when I thought about marriage it wasn’t meant to be like this. You don’t think it’ll turn out like this. And I don’t know how to get out. I just don’t know.’
I put my arm around her shoulder, it was expected, and who had started her blubbing? Moi. She leant in to me and started sobbing for real. I thought I’d seen crying before, but I hadn’t. She wailed and talked and explained her predicament. All the while talking like she expected me to have some answers. I had no answers, I was sixteen for heaven’s sake. I hadn’t kissed a boy, much less gone out with one, got married and worked out how to leave him if he started to destroy my soul.
We sat at the lakeside for a long time. And then she got up, dried her eyes, dried her nose and wandered off into the mist that had settled over the path leading to the lodge. I sat waiting, counting seconds, waiting until she got far enough away so that I could get up and run back to the lodge. It was creepy out there and I’d seen a horror film or two in my time. In fact, by the time I went speed walking back to the dormitory we were staying in, I’d convinced myself a monster lived at the bottom of the lake and Jason from Friday the 13th or Halloween or whatever was lurking in the bushes with his carving knife and hockey mask. But that was a hyperactive imagination for you.
I never saw her again. The woman. I never knew her name, I just knew her ailment. And, while she constantly came to mind, while I hoped it’d been all right in the end and that she worked out how to pack a bag and walk away for ever, I never did find out what happened.
Things had continued from there. Since that holiday, my life had never been uncomplicated or uncoupled from the intimate lives of others.
I shut the front door a little too loudly as I dripped and squelched into the house. The anger in the slam brought Jake to the living room door.
His eyes doubled in size when he saw me.
‘Cezza! Look at the state of you! Are you all right?’ He came to me, obviously ready to offer comfort.
‘I’m fine,’ I snapped. ‘Perfectly fine, thank you very much.’
I hadn’t forgotten his role in my current predicament. I didn’t want his help or affection or a hug. Especially not when I knew how cross he was with me about Ed. I trailed a wet patch up to my bedroom.
I cried as I took off my sodden clothes. Not as big a cry as I did at Jess’s place. More a constant cry. For one who didn’t cry very often, I was certainly making up for it. I trembled and cried during the whole disrobing and showering and putting on my pyjamas process.
It was like I’d just been chucked by my first love, my big love and my dream love at the same time. Except, this was worse. More painful. This wasn’t merely the loss of love, the loss of grand amour, this was the loss of the idea of love. This was accepting that it’d never happen to me, that I would shuffle off this mortal coil without ever knowing what really being in love feels like. Without knowing I could be myself, my nasty self, my nice self, my manic self, my depressive self, my hopeful self, my totally fucking loony shouldn’t someone lock me up self with someone and still find they loved me. Still find they were there in the morning.
Getting to the end of my life and finding it’d never happened would be one thing; knowing at this stage of the game it’d never happen just made me want to take my ball home and never play again.
What was the point? I’d never win. Not when I had this Cupid thing oozing out of my skin.
I remember reading this quote once that went something like: ‘A poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy. Because the poor person has hope. He thinks money would help.’ Much like myself. I thought love will help.
After two days in bed, feeling soooo sorry for myself I could-n’t even bear to put on Angel because the pain of knowing he’d never love me was too great, I realised something. All I had to do was break the curse. If I wasn’t so loving, so caring, so open to callers twenty-four/seven, how the hell could I be Cupid?
All I had to do was not be Cupid.
So simple, it was scary.
All I really had to do was be cold. Be a cow. Start secreting negative hormones like the rest of the population.
How hard could that be?
chapter thirty-two
No Life Contact
Claudine knocked on my office door the very next day. I knew it was her because she’d rung my mobile earlier and left a message asking if I was coming to college. I hadn’t called her back. And when she knocked and turned the handle, I froze. Sat very still and held my breath in case she put her ear to the door, listening for signs of life.
The door was locked. I’d come in to surf the Net on my time and college money and prepare for the next
day’s lecture and tutorials. I had the time to talk to Claudine, but not the inclination.
My time was my own now. It’d do no good to start off on the wrong foot by talking to Claudine. Even though I wanted someone else to run all this Cupid Effect stuff by, I didn’t want to be in a position where I might have to listen to any more of their traumas. That was part of the problem, wasn’t it? I felt it, I dealt it.
She knocked again for luck, in case I’d fallen asleep and hadn’t heard her the first time. This was unnatural, not jumping up and running to the door to open it. Not being ready to listen and offer advice, but I’d get over it. I’d have to. I was doing this for the good of my health and for the good of my love life. It was for their own good, too. I wouldn’t always be around, would I? I might go back to London in February when my contract came to an end – who would they whinge at then? Who would they blame their mess on? They had to stand on their own two feet. Accept that what ailed them was of their own doing. I didn’t ask them to shag their friends or to hate their students or to give up college.
Yeah, Ceri, say it a few more times and you’ll believe it.
Claudine wandered off and I ignored the urge to leap up and sprint after her, check she was all right. I turned to my computer screen, got back to reading movie scripts.
‘Hi, Ceri,’ Claudine called down the corridor later that week as I left the office.
I’d been doing the locking-the-door thing whenever I was alone in the office, I didn’t go to the common room or to the library, not the library in college, anyway. I hid in a variety of pubs within walking distance of the college. Sometimes I’d go to the main university library, careful not to run into Jake or Ed. If I went to a pub down in Horsforth, I made sure it was different to the one I’d been to the day before – I wanted to ensure that if someone saw me somewhere one day, they wouldn’t be able to ‘accidentally’ find me there the next day.
It was like being on the run, I felt like a modern-day David Banner at the end of each episode of the Incredible Hulk, slinging his bag on his shoulder and wandering off to another town where no one had heard of the Hulk. I also felt like the original Fugitive, with one eye over his shoulder on the police and one eye in front, searching for the one-armed man who’d offed his wife. I was constantly moving, constantly aware that I might be spotted by someone who knew me and wanted to talk to me.