"We were never alone"
"We were never alone"
I've dumped Jay. I know we're so different. Maybe, maybe, we can be friends?
A reminder: In the last (chronological) newsletter, I’d dumped Jay. I’d dreamt about diving through vines and nettles.
Since I broke up with Jay of course now the phone rang for me, now he was calling me.
From 7pm till 10pm, Monday to Thursday, I tried and failed to write essays. Every report says something like, “Ann will never succeed if she cannot tame her thoughts”. Or if I can’t stop talking or think more critically. I know I KNOW.
Every night, I try to tame the words. After supper and before the 10 o’clock news, I sit at my long white desk. It stretches 3 feet to the left of me and 3 feet to the right. I click on my desk light, dusty and covered with stickers.
Wednesday night, Thursday night. Jay’s on the phone again again.
On Friday, it’s his birthday. There’s a pub crawl. He has my mascara, my scarf and he owes me a tenner, half my pocket money.
I know – I tell him – I know he won’t bother to tell me where they’re meeting.
“Probably not”, he says.
-
In the heat of the pub all six foot five of him legs and arms spiking out from behind lacquered tables, heading up steep stairs to the smoking section, clowns and pierrots static and grimacing on the walls.
I watch. Bodies weave above towards the bar his fingers holding tight onto the pale pint glass jiggling jiggling his legs wide stance always at 120 degrees almost bouncing bouncing stretch of his arms Jay’s green eyes close in delight as another birthday pint comes his way, another cadet instructor in an ironed polo shirt steals a Benson from the dull gold packet in his hand.
The crease of his frown under the point of his hair, the hard gel shines a little from the high-up lights. His fringe curled up away from his skin. Stretch of his smile, sparkle in his eyes, the men pantomiming outrage, all wide arms and back claps before Jay reaches into his back pocket for a lighter.
I wait. Try to say, “Happy Birthday”.
It doesn’t occur to me to leave.
-
I swear, I’m done. I know I’m consigned to the heap of shags, another body for his count.
-
On Sunday, Jay calls. I click mum and dad’s door shut, walk the phone to their bed, shake the tangled cord loose. I sit, crush the feathers in their new duvet, kick the divan. I should move the duvet I know, but, it just feels strange, touching the sheet where their toes and ankles stay humid, their legs hairs brush.
We talk and talk. Education, religion, the world. Sitting on the windowsill, the evenings creeping lighter, it’s early March. The roll of his laugh.
“It’s so stupid, we didn’t speak when we were together”, he says.
“Mmmm”
“Ahhhhh shit, that was my fault”, he says.
-
Jay tells I use a lot of long words when I speak. When kids who came from private schools said “bilious” or “bloated”, that was bullshit. When we were 14, I laughed at Freya. When she explained what “bilous” meant, I said she should just say, “fat” if that’s what she fucking well meant.
And, though, I love words. I can’t wait to get out of here and off to uni, to read English (mum told me to say, “read”, not “study”). To spend three years just reading and thinking about and being in books and words. That’s all I want. Away from here and into words.
I love words.
I know we’re different people. That’s okay.
-
Voices rise. The thin glass rattles. The oak of the front door slams again.
Through my keyhole I can see over the landing down the stairs into the hallway, the porch.
Muffled shouts rise through the sitting room floor through the cracks between my floorboards that dad sanded and varnished. My rag rugs slide over the thick orange gloss.
Maybe, maybe, things might change. This is the chance, maybe, to make things better. To learn to start afresh. I pull out the useless key from my keyhole and look down the stairs through the bannisters, the front door, the telephone table, the mirror. I keep my door clicked shut.
At night, I pull up the thick blue polyester blanket, and my silver fish presses into my chest. Its glass eye is heavy and black. I leave a tape playing in my clock radio.
My bed is held together with iron struts. The striped, ripped divan is older than my grannie. Its brass casters screwed in by granddad decades ago, everything in their house was on shepherd casters.
My bed is so high and tall that the valance hangs awkward. I cross myself, say the Our Father and a Hail Mary and pray that this time, this time things will get better.
-
Another night another day. The shouts and slams have turned to murmurs. At my desk I listen.
With my pen in my hand, the white page ahead. So much happening. I can’t let myself, can’t let the words flow from my brain out through my hand. I’m scared. Too scared to let my words come real in my diary. Because words are like magic and sometimes you don’t know what’s going to come out when you’re not paying attention and then they’re there. Real. Undeniable. Alive.
I look through the keyhole.
-
Jay says, “If you drag me out shopping, I’ll buy you your Valentine’s present”. Presents are still a key to my heart. In my 30s, one man always showed up with books of Paul Muldoon, Frank O’Hara, Anne Enright. We sat in old London pubs and I hugged him tight.
It’s harder, of course, for men to say “sorry”. Actions, not words. A brother never utters the word. Gives a perfect gift, but looks away. I learn to accept the silence.
“That’d be nice”, I say.
In school, in my homework, all day his name and his face thrums my brain. I stop myself from writing his name on my thin-lined paper.
I know everything about him is wrong: he is a right-wing South African who doesn’t value what I value. He is a bigot. He fucked me around. He fucked me. I know deserve more.
But. The de-já vu, the evening after the first time he was inside me. That moment. It had to mean something. There had to be more to our time than just fucking.
Harry tells me that she’s sure Jay was cheating, Liam isn’t speaking to Jay, dad is furious. Sophie isn’t around, Sam tells me he’s a liar.
I know.
But, he’s there over and over and over. My hand wants to draw out his name. Brand him on my paper, bring him into my words my world.
When he walked behind me pulled me into his chest the thickness of his arms around me the warmth
We were never alone.
-
The house is quiet. The shouts have stopped, the glass rests in the door.
I listen.
-
Jay says that, now we’re apart, he’s realised how much he wants to be alone with me. Just me.
He’s sorry.
I just need time to think.
Next time on Ann’s newsletter:
Using my trusty diaries as my guide, we’ll explore what happened, next.
What I’m exploring:
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