One Day in December(26)
‘Is he getting better?’
I press my lips into a tight line, because the truth is we’re not really sure. ‘A bit,’ I say. ‘He’s over the heart attack for the most part now, but looking back, that seems to have been just the beginning. He’s taking so many pills that he practically rattles, and my poor mum has had to take over everything, really. Therapy appointments, dieticians, consultants, not to mention getting a grip on all of the bills and household things. It just seems endless.’ I swallow a large slug of wine. You know how some events turn out to be the big stepping stones between one part of your life and the next? I don’t just mean the steps you intend to take, like leaving home or starting a new job or marrying the person you love on a summer’s afternoon. I mean the unexpected steps: the middle-of-the-night phone calls, the accidents, the risks that don’t pay off. My twenty-third birthday turned out to be one of my unexpected stepping stones; a step away from the solid foundations built by my indomitable parents towards quicksand where they are fragile and too human and need me as much as I need them. It’s knocked my world off-kilter; I’m sickly nervous every time the phone rings and there’s a permanent cesspool of fear sloshing around in the base of my stomach. If I had to sum it up in a sentence, I’d say I feel hunted. I’m caught in the crosshairs, waiting for the bullet that may or may not come, running, looking over my shoulder, braced for impact. I dream of my sister more nights than I don’t: Ginny cheering me on from my father’s shoulders at my primary school sports day, Ginny holding tight to his hand as they cross a busy road and leave me behind on the other side, Ginny sleeping on Dad’s shoulder in the pub garden we used to go to sometimes in the summer when we were kids, her blonde hair half covering her delicate face.
‘I just want my big strong dad back to normal, you know?’ I hate that I can hear the thickness of tears in my throat. And that Jack must be able to hear it too.
‘Oh, Laurie,’ he says, low and soothing, and then he slips round the booth and puts his arm round me. ‘Poor you, you look so knackered lately.’
I don’t even have the energy to act annoyed at that comment. I can’t deny it. I’m bone-tired. I don’t think I’ve even registered how low I’ve been because you have to keep on keeping on, don’t you? But right here, sitting in this pub feeling insulated from it all, it hits me like a shovel to the face. I’m so exhausted I feel like I’m disintegrating inside my clothes.
‘Life can be really shit sometimes,’ he says, his arm still warm and reassuring round my shoulders. ‘It’ll come good again. It always does.’
‘You think so? It sounds so stupid but I just feel like I’m failing at everything. Life here, no proper job. Perhaps I should just go back home. I should be with my parents, help my mum out.’
‘Don’t say that, Laurie. You’re down, but you’re not out. Your parents will be okay, and they’d want you to follow your dreams. You’ll get there, I know it.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Come on. Look at you. You’re clever and you’re funny; you won’t be stuck behind that hotel reception for ever. I’ve read some of your freelance stuff, remember? You’ll get your break soon, I’m sure of it.’
I appreciate the generosity of his praise, but I know that what he actually means is that he’s read the scant couple of articles I’ve had published because Sarah has pushed them under his nose. She’s worse than my mum whenever I place anything, which is barely ever.
Jack’s looking at me now, really studying me, as if what he’s about to say matters.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone in my life with as much … I don’t even know what it is that you have. Warmth, I guess, although that isn’t exactly it.’ He looks pissed off with himself for his inability to find the right words. ‘You just have a way about you, Laurie. Being around you makes people feel good.’
I’m surprised enough to stop feeling sorry for myself and look up. ‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Yes.’ His smile is slow, crooked. ‘Of course I do. Right from the first time we met.’
I catch my breath, trying to keep my thoughts inside my head, but they seep out, like water through my fingers. ‘The first time we met or the very first time?’
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
Jack
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. She remembers.
‘You mean … at Christmas?’
We’re sitting closer than we were, almost thigh to thigh, and close up I can clearly see the toll recent months have had on her. Those dark circles, the high set of her shoulders as if she’s always got her teeth clenched. She looks in need of a hot bath, chicken soup and her bed for a week.
‘On the bus?’ she breathes. Her cheeks are pink from the wine, and her eyes more animated than they have been since the summer. ‘Do you remember?’
I frown and arrange my features into what I hope suggests puzzlement. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that to acknowledge my memory of those few moments at the bus stop would be a monu-fucking-mental mistake. Our entire friendship is built on the dynamics of my position as her best friend’s boyfriend. I wait in silence and she withers in front of me. The jittery shimmer in her eyes dims and I know she wishes she could suck those words out of the air between us and back inside her body. If I could, I’d blow them back in there myself rather than have to hurt her with a lie.