We both laugh. He’s nice when he laughs – he’s nice when he doesn’t laugh, too. He seems genuine. I have seen so many sides of people over the years. They reveal themselves in so many different and seemingly insignificant ways, and most of the time, they don’t even realise they are doing it. Do they double-park? Do they spit in the street? Do they interrupt other people? Do they say thank you to someone who lets them go in their car even if the other person won’t hear? All little indicators of the soul of a person. Cliff seems to have a sincere soul, there have been no little tells so far with him that he isn’t who he seems to be. ‘No, I’m not a Blues Brother, thank you, Clifford.’
‘Hey, you’re the one who made it sound like that’s what it was.’
‘I suppose I did.’
The train rolls into the station, slower this time. Maybe because there are longer pauses between stations the further away from central London we move, the driver doesn’t feel the need to speed up quickly and then brake as though trying to avoid hitting an animal on the track.
‘What was it like, being a nun?’ Cliff asks. ‘Did you have to sit and talk about God all the time?’
‘No, not really. We didn’t talk much, we spent a lot of time in silence, but when we weren’t in silence we had a lot of fun. We’re just normal people, who happen to devote our lives to God and doing His work.’
‘That’s just it: do normal people do that?’
‘I like to think I’m normal,’ I say. ‘All the nuns and Sisters I ever met were normal. We simply have God at the heart of everything we do. We try to be kind, to show the love and beauty of God to others if we meet them, but also to pray for the love of our Lord to surround and protect the people of the world. Being a nun or a Sister isn’t like a job, it’s a vocation, it’s part of who you are. You don’t simply switch it off at the end of the day, you don’t ever stop trying to put God at the centre of everything you do, just like you don’t switch off being married at the end of the day. You are a normal person when you’re married, and you’re a normal person when you devote your life to God.’
‘I suppose I have issues with the awful things that people do in God’s name,’ Cliff replies.
‘Me, too,’ I admit. ‘I also have issues with the atrocities committed by elected officials in my name, your name, and the names of everyone who did and didn’t vote for them.’
Cliff looks me over like he is impressed by me, his gaze lingering on my lips. He’s attracted to me but he also seems quite taken by who I am as a person as well.
‘Why did you stop being a nun?’ he asks and eventually draws his gaze up from my mouth to my eyes.
‘I told you, I have something to do and I couldn’t do it while being a nun. I couldn’t do it and put God at the heart of everything I do. At the heart of most of it, but not everything.’
‘It’s not because you missed things, like, say, physical contact?’ Cliff is trying hard not to look at my mouth; I think he’s trying hard not to imagine what it’d be like to kiss me.
I am finding it hard not to think about what it’d be like to kiss him. I can’t remember the last time I kissed someone, or someone kissed me. During my wild time there wasn’t very much kissing at all. The last person I can remember kissing with any clarity is Big T when I was fifteen, just before Nika asked me to go to the police with her. That was over twenty years ago. After that, it is hazy because I stopped going out as much. And the men from the clubs rarely wanted to kiss when they realised that they didn’t need to. When they gathered by how drunk and compliant I was that simply getting me alone was enough to get what they wanted, they rarely bothered with much of anything except the stuff that got them to orgasm.
‘I sometimes missed physical contact,’ I say. Sometimes I would have liked to have curled up in someone’s arms, been held by them, felt safe and protected. Emotionally, I felt like that with God, but not physically. Sometimes I missed the physicality of sex, the closeness it brought between two people. Only sometimes, though. Mostly sex had been complicated and muddled and sullied by what else had been going on at the same time, so I didn’t miss it, I simply missed what it represented, how close it brought me sometimes to the silence and how far away it took me from the screeching inside my head. ‘I really missed being hugged.’
‘Right,’ Cliff says. ‘Being hugged.’
He stares into my eyes, his gaze unwavering.
‘Is there something you’d like to ask me, Cliff?’ I query.
He’s wondering if he’d dare. The train pulls into the next station – I must be nearly there at West Chiselwick, the closest Tube station to my parents’ house. I don’t want to look away, though, to check, to break eye contact when Cliff and I have got to this point.
‘Yes,’ he replies, still gazing directly into my eyes.
‘Ask away.’
‘Can I kiss you?’ His voice is barely above a whisper, even though we are the only ones in this part of the carriage. There are only three other people at the far end of the carriage, too. We are practically alone, but he is still whispering.
I shake my head. ‘Not until you ask me that question you’ve been dying to ask since we first met,’ I respond in the same low voice.
From the corner of my eye I spot the station we are pulling into: West Chiselwick.
‘This is my stop, Cliff, sorry.’ I gather my bag and stand up. ‘I’ll see you.’ I make for the door and he sits, stunned that he’s been thwarted at such a crucial moment.
‘I’ll call you,’ he shouts after me as I step out of the doors.
I stand on the platform while the doors beep shut. I raise my hand and wave. He makes the ‘call me’ sign in between waving at me. I’m not going to call him. I want to, I’d love to, but I can’t. Not until I’ve done this thing that I need to do.
Nika
Brighton, 2016
Most of the time, we don’t make it to the bedroom. I barely make it through Marshall’s front door and he is all over me, I am all over him: we’re tugging at each other’s clothes; kissing each other’s lips, necks, faces, any bare skin; we’re touching each other, pulling each other near, he’s entering me, I’m holding him as close as I can; we’re orgasming; and then we’re laughing at ourselves for being so needy and craven and desperate.
This evening has been intense: he was loud as he orgasmed with his face against my neck; I had to close my eyes tight to stop myself dissolving into uncontrollable tears as the waves of what felt like ecstasy flowed through my body. We did it again on the sofa, screwing instead of him cooking me noodle stir-fry like he’d promised. Now it’s late and a lazy fug has settled over us. We sit on the sofa, me in my vest top and knickers, him topless with his jeans undone. This is what it was meant to feel like with Todd, but it never did. Whenever we cuddled up, there was always the sense that it was fake, forced; I was always on edge, waiting for that moment when he’d let me know I’d upset him, that I’d cracked one of those eggshells I constantly walked on and I would need to spend the evening apologising and trying to make things right.
‘These are good noodles,’ I say to Marshall.
‘I have to agree with you that they are indeed fine noodles.’
I dig my toe in his bare side and he laughs while twisting away. ‘Nothing like a spot of modesty to keep you on an even keel, eh, Mr Marshall?’
‘What? Why deny it if you’re good at something?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Come on then, Ms Nika, we really should at least attempt to get to know each other. If only so we’ve got something to talk about between sessions.’
‘I suppose you’re right. How long have you been divorced?’
‘Three years, four months and … um … five days.’
‘You know the exact amount of time?’
‘Yeah. Not really my choice – she didn’t love me any more and wanted out. So, I moved over here from Worthing way and we worked hard not to get bitter about splitting up and we’re sort of friends now and we are almost always
on the same page when it comes to parenting our child.’
‘How old’s your son?’
‘Nine. Nearly nine. I miss him, a lot. That’s the hardest bit about being divorced; everything else I can deal with, but being away from him is not easy. I see him every other weekend, and sometimes during the week if he wants to because he has all these after-school activities I’d never get in the way of. He calls me when he wants to come over. He’s got his room here and sometimes he comes to stay for a couple of weeks. But it’s hard. And, don’t get offended, but I don’t ever involve anyone in my relationship with him. It has to be a long-term thing before I think about introducing him to anyone.’
‘That’s very sensible,’ I say.
‘Me, sensible. Wow, that’s something I never thought I’d hear. Your turn: when was your last significant relationship?’
‘Erm … the last person I called a boyfriend and lived with was about five years ago? I think? Yeah, five years ago. Wow, I keep forgetting how old I am now. Five years. OK, now you: what’s your favourite flavour jelly bean?’
‘Whoa, what is this, an interrogation? That’s a very personal question. I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Your turn: why did you freak out in the restaurant the first night we went out?’
I sigh. It is easy to be honest with Marshall, but how much honesty can he take before he starts to wonder if being connected to me is actually a good idea? ‘Because I often feel I don’t fit in and I don’t belong in nice places. I panicked that night that everyone would see that I was a fraud and they’d laugh at me, or worse, I’d be asked to leave. I know, I know it’s irrational, but I can’t help it sometimes.’
‘You’re no fraud, Nika.’
‘Why, thank you. Your turn: what is the one song that you’re most embarrassed about listening to over and over and over?’
‘I don’t get embarrassed about my musical tastes. I’m a rap man at heart, but I like a bit soul, a bit of Motown, tiny bit of rare groove. Nothing to be embarrassed about there.’
‘Don’t believe you. Everyone has that one song they’re embarrassed about – what’s yours? Be honest.’
‘Right, well, you must tell no one this: Paul McCartney’s “No More Lonely Nights”.’
I was not expecting that. I smirk at him, almost spitting noodles as I do so.
‘Hey, come on, not fair. You mustn’t do that. I was being honest, you told me to be honest.’
I smirk again. ‘There is such a thing as too much honesty. And don’t worry, I will never, ever tell anyone about that.’
‘Right, what’s yours?’
‘I have loads. A few years back, I didn’t have a computer but I had a music player and this woman I knew would put her music on it for me. Loads of stuff from the 1980s. And, intellectually, I know most of it is pretty terrible, but you know, I loved all that music. Apart from that “No More Lonely Nights” mess you were talking about right there … So there’s loads of stuff that should be embarrassing that I’ve listened to over and over, but I’m kinda not. However, if I was to choose one, it’d be Toto’s “Africa”. I love the music, the relentlessness of the beat, but some of the lyrics … No matter how hard I try, I can’t square the way they’ve managed to crowbar the word “Serengeti” into a song. I just can’t. So it’s that one.’
‘Serengeti? As in the wide open space?’
‘Yes, Serengeti. I mean, I can almost overlook how the song suggests that Africa is a country and not a continent, just, but the whole Serengeti—’
Knock-knock, ring-ring.
Marshall’s fork stops on its journey to his mouth and the happy fug we’ve been chatting in starts to leak out of the room, chased away by the return of the person we haven’t really talked about at all in the last three weeks. When she extended her trip by a week, then another, I guessed that she had probably lost her job and was at her parents’ trying to hit them up for money, while she told Marshall she was trying to get help. (No one can extend their annual leave for that long so last-minute, but I kept my counsel in case I was wrong.)
‘I’d forgotten she’d be back,’ he murmurs. ‘I mean, she rings me several times a day, but I’d kind of put her to the back of my mind. I thought we had a few more days at least.’
Knock-knock, ring-ring.
‘I’m guessing she’s not going to take finding out about us very well,’ I say to him.
‘No, she will not take this very well,’ he says. ‘She’s sounded so together on the phone – what if it derails her recovery? I kept wondering if I should tell her on the phone before she came back. Now I’m convinced I should have.’
Knock-knock, ring-ring.
‘Do you want me to go hide in the bedroom?’
Marshall inhales, steels his nerve. ‘No. She’s going to find out at some point, this is as good a time as any.’
He puts down his plate on the low coffee table in front of us, then gets up slowly, like a man approaching his execution. After leaving the room, he comes back, snatches up his T-shirt and puts it on, does up his trousers. I put down my plate, too. Pick up my shorts and struggle into them. Quickly, I roll on my socks, wrap my scarf around my neck, pull on my cardigan. I’m about to settle back when I notice my bra is on the floor, and I snatch it up. In the background I can hear the door opening, I can hear Eliza’s hellos, the warmth of Marshall’s reply. I don’t have time to put it back on; if I hide it behind a cushion, she’s bound to find it. I stare at the black lace bra like the time bomb it is, then shove it down the sleeve of my cardigan, fold my arms across my chest to hide the bulge it makes and to obscure the fact I’m not wearing the thing up my sleeve.
‘Come in, stay for a drink,’ he says loudly to warn me. ‘Nika’s here, we’re having noodle stir-fry for dinner. I didn’t know you’d be back today, otherwise I’d have made some for you, too.’
‘Hi,’ I say to her brightly when they appear in the doorway. ‘Marshall mentioned you’d been away. Did you have a nice time?’
Eliza stares at me. She does not speak for thirty very long seconds, she simply stares, probably running through how she’d had ‘the talk’ with me, wondering why it didn’t work as well as it had on the others. ‘Nika,’ she states. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
Marshall moves across to the kitchen area of his living room, glugs white wine into a large glass for Eliza and brings it to her. She sits on the armchair opposite where I am sitting on the sofa, holding the wine glass in one hand, the other hand gripped tightly on to the arm of the chair. When she is settled into place, she stares at me.
‘You all right?’ Marshall asks, tapping her on the shoulder, before he moves across the room. ‘You’re giving Nika some pretty heavy-duty death stares there.’
‘Was I?’ she says, and glances affectionately at him as he comes to sit on the sofa. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to. My mind was elsewhere.’ A few seconds later the green glare is back on me.
Marshall glances at me, before saying, ‘Actually, Nika—’
‘Was just leaving.’ I edge forwards on my seat, and stand up without uncrossing my arms. ‘I’m just leaving. It looks like you’ve got a lot to talk about, and I’ve got some stuff to do, so I’ll see you both. I’ll see you both soon.’
‘Stay,’ Marshall implores. ‘Finish your noodles at least. You were just saying how good they were.’
‘They are good, but I really should be going.’
‘Bye. Then,’ Eliza says.
I can’t help but smile at her: she thinks a glare has intimidated me, that in my life I have been so sheltered something as simple as a glare from her will send me out of Marshall’s life. It doesn’t occur to her that I might be doing it for Marshall. He can’t see it, but there is a new level of instability to her that makes her unpredictable and dangerous. How dangerous is something I can’t yet gauge so better to withdraw until I can be prepared for her.
‘Good to see you, Eliza, hope to see you again soon.’
‘I’ll see you out, Nika,’ Mar
shall says.
When I am in the corridor, hidden from the main flat by the door, I run my fingers across my throat and shake my head at him. Don’t tell her, I mouth at him.
He opens his hands. Why?
I shake my head. Just don’t.
Open hands again. Why?
I wave my hands and shake my head. Trust me, just don’t do it.
He shrugs. OK.
I press my fingers to my lips, loading them up with a kiss, then move my hands to him. He does the same to me.
I like him so much. It’s not simply the sex, and the intensity, it’s being connected to him. Being connected to him makes me feel like I’m connected to the world, that I can speak to people and I can try to sleep the whole night through. Being connected helps me believe there is more good than bad in the world, and that I will find my way through somehow. For the first time in so long, I have more than momentary, fleeting wisps of hope floating around me. I have a way to be connected to the world; I have the hope that, through this, I can stay connected.
Birmingham, 2016
‘Do you hate me?’ I asked Reese four days after Judge had him hurt. He’d been out cold for two of those days, drifting in out of consciousness for the other two. He’d had surgery on his left knee, had needed almost every finger to be set in splints ready for a cast in a few days, and his torso was wrapped up in bandages to help support his cracked ribs and bruised internal organs. The bruising on his face was minimal – they had wanted to hurt him, to make him scream, and he did that more when they hurt his body, not so much on his face. He was a mess, would probably be in hospital for a while because his injuries were severe and he had nowhere suitable to stay outside of hospital. I asked him if he hated me because since I had arrived today he had said nothing, absolutely nothing, to me. I had talked a little, but he had just stared at me as though he didn’t know who I was, and I wasn’t sure if he was pretending for the audience of the other patients in here, or if he genuinely didn’t know who I was. Or, as was most likely, if he hated me.