Crazygirl Falls in Love (35 page)

I don’t have the physical strength to fight PJ off, and as we
inch ever closer to the door I feel my world caving in. The ground
is hard beneath my feet but it feels like it’s giving out as my
legs turn wobbly from the shock. I’m about to be dragged out into a
small, dark side street, and I’m petrified.

“
Don’t worry, luv,” my abductor barks as he continues to pull
me towards him through the door.

“No!” I manage to squeal, emerging from my shell shock, but
still not knowing what to do besides hold my ground for as long as
I can. I can’t believe I got myself into this situation. I can’t
believe this is happening to me.

Just as I’m about to scream for help a warm feeling approaches
from my left and I see it’s Blue. He steps between myself and PJ,
forcing my captor to release his grip. PJ takes a slight step
backwards as Blue faces him,

“That’s no way to treat a lady, mate.”

I see they are almost the same height. Blue has his arms
raised slightly, his voice low and calm. Everything about his body
language is saying ‘I don’t want a fight’. PJ fucking Staples
doesn’t pick up on those cues, or chooses to ignore
them,

“Nah bruv, she’s coming.”

“I do believe I have some say in this,” I interject shakily,
feeling marginally more confident now that I have protection and
wanting Blue to be safe before anything else. If he gets hurt
because of my stupidity I don’t think I could live with myself. But
my body is shacking like a plate of jelly, so I stay behind Blue
and step on my tippy toes. Peeking over his shoulder I shakily
quiver,

“I’m staying here.”

“Listen bruv,” PJ says, ignoring me and raising a hand to grip
Blue’s shoulder, “back off.”

“You’re touching me,” Blue says evenly.

“Yeah, what of it?” Staples starts posturing, leaving his hand
firmly clamped over Blue’s collarbone.

“Rather you asked first, old boy.”

“Is there a problem?” we hear a loud boom behind
us.

It’s Professor Buzzkill. The gruff middle aged barman has left
his refuge behind the draft beers and stein glasses and has
approached us.

“No problem guv, we was just leaving,” Staples says, releasing
his hold on Blue.

“No,” Blue says very slowly, moving his eyes from Buzzkill to
PJ, “I’m taking my friend home, and you’re to stay here. A chap
ought to respect when he’s not welcome.”

Blue puts his arm protectively around my shoulders. I lead him
to the corner of the pub where my bag and shoes are, then we shoot
out of there quick as we can. I pray Staples has the sense not to
follow us and cause trouble. Thank god, he doesn’t.

We begin the walk down Moscow road, Blue’s arm still hugging
me around my shoulders. I can feel that he’s trying to steady my
trembling body, but it’s not helping because the further I emerge
from the shock and fear that had paralysed my heart and body, the
more my muscles become gelatinous goo. I consider putting my shoes
on but my hands will probably be too shaky to tie the straps, and
the pain in my foot is so strong that I’m certain shoes would be
agony. So I limp along, the pain and muscle-goo getting worse with
every step.

“Blue... Thank you...” I eventually manage to
squeak.

He stays quiet but continues to hold me as we walk-limp to my
apartment. At about the halfway mark I let out a howl of banshee
proportions (side effect of stress hormone release perhaps), before
starting to cry in earnest. But we don’t stop, we continue until
we’re outside my building.

Blue takes both my shoulders in his, forcing me to face him. I
keep my gaze planted firmly on his shoes. My eyes feel sore and
red, my nose is in danger of dribbling a nasty snot stream and I
must look a state. I don’t want to meet his eyes with the shame and
guilt of it all, but he shakes my shoulders in the international
gesture of ‘look up at me’, so I do.

“What were you doing in there, Penny?” His eyes are furrowed
with concern and his voice is low and gentle.

“I don’t know,” I say through the sobs, “I didn’t have a very
good day today.”

And I tell him about Chloe, the Incident, He
Who Shall Not Be Named and my dramatic resignation. I even tell him
about the Terrible Thing, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt
from today it’s this – the truth
always
comes out. Blue looks a tad
taken aback when I go through that part, but as quick as his
expression of astonishment appears, it’s gone again, and he listens
patiently to the end,

“So that’s what happened. I was feeling like such a loser and
some company, any company, seemed an improvement to staying at
home.”

Blue interrupts, looking stern,

“You’re going to get yourself killed with
that sort of attitude. You
cannot
drink alone with strange guys, you of all people
know how untrustworthy men can be.”

“I know!” I wail, and the shame starts to spiral again and I’m
crying into his shoulder because I don’t want him to see my face
anymore.

“Hey,” he starts again, more softly now, “Hey, it’s
okay.”

He’s stroking my hair and cooing sweet words of comfort. I
know they’re just words, but they’re helping. I’m drenching Blue’s
shoulder with this avalanche of emotion that’s tearing me in two
from the inside out,

“No it’s not okay,” I sniff, “I’m a walking catastrophe. I
thought I wanted all these exotic, fancy things, like a brilliant
career and a fancy apartment and one day seeing Jerusalem, and
maybe I still want all that, but more than that I want the simple
things. Good friends, a decent boss, a boyfriend who stays loyal, a
job where I can leave at five or six. I want a house and a garden
and birthdays and anniversaries, and most of all I want this life
of utter disorganisation and chaos to stop. I want it to stop,
Blue.”

He’s nodding for me to continue. I don’t exactly want to tell
him the next part but I soldier on because being honest with him
and with myself is starting to feel very liberating
indeed,

“But you know what’s worse,” I begin again, “no matter what I
tell myself about how fabulous my life is, I hate being single. I
hate it I hate it I hate it! I hate it when people ask me if I’m
single, I hate it when people don’t ask me if I’m single. I hate
waking up every weekend knowing that every boring, mundane stupid
task I have to do I’ll have to do it alone. I hate having no one
who cares about me and I miss having someone to care about. And
most of all I hate having to socialise with single men, who are
even bigger losers than I am.”

“Hey!” Blue laughs gently, “I’m single!”

“Not you, I mean the others. The guys with selfie addictions
who you just want to slap they’re so annoying, the ones who whinge
about how they’re so nice but girls always screw them over, the
ones who steal my tips or stand me up. Or the guys like tonight,
the borderline-rapists with their, ‘hey I just bought you a drink
and paid you a compliment, so why aren’t you sleeping with me yet?’
attitudes. The players and the wankers and the thugs and the
depressives and the deviants and the ones that are a combination of
all of the above, I can’t stand them!”

I want to continue but my energy is sapped. Plus my foot is
killing me, I’m standing like a stork on one leg to relieve the
pain. I slump my shoulders in emotional overload defeat and finish
simply with,

“Tonight scared me.”

“I know,” Blue replies. He’s quiet for a
moment before continuing, “You’re not the only one who feels that
way, I mean, about being single. Most of us are feeling something
along those lines, perhaps not
quite
to that extent but at least
partially. It’s just that some put on a better face than others.
You’ve got a brave face, my little peanut.”

“Maybe, but it’s just that, a face. You saw what happened
tonight, with all my bravado I become putty when something
legitimately threatening happens.”

“But that’s normal. I panicked too when I saw that mug trying
to drag you out of there.”

I don’t respond for a minute. I want to forget the events of
the last half hour more than anything in the world. What I would do
for one of those Men in Black memory eraser thingies. I’d erase not
only tonight but the past eighteen months too.

“Hey, how did you know I would be at the pub tonight?” I
ask.

“You have much to learn, Young Peanut,” Blue
smiles.

“No seriously, how?”

“I didn’t, you forget we live in the same neighbourhood. I
love a pint at the Arms, the bartender there, he looks like
something straight out of an 80s cop show don’t you
think?”

So it was a fluke I was rescued
tonight.
As I absorb the information, that
I was a
fluke
away
from being subject to god knows what by a sexual molester, I have a
second of clarity, the first moment I’ve felt wholly lucid since I
don’t know when. Maybe there
is
someone looking after me upstairs? Maybe Dad was
right, and Grandma is having words with God on mine and Emma’s
behalf, giving us as much divine protection as she can
muster?

“Then I guess it was my lucky day,” I tell
Blue, whilst secretly thinking,
if you’re
out there Grandma, thank you, you little legend.

Blue nods and we stand quietly.

“Blue?” I venture.

“You know you’re going to have to start calling me by my real
name at some point?”

I ignore him,

“I am incredibly grateful for what you did tonight. I didn’t
deserve that chance, not after everything I’ve done.”

“You’re very welcome, just don’t ever do it again. Now let’s
get you out of the cold, and what’s going on with your foot, you’re
hobbling all over the place?”

I open the front door and we head up past
the General’s apartment and to mine, and I think over and over and
over and over again of how lucky I am that tonight finished as just
a near miss, nothing permanently scarring or worse. It was a very
close call, and probably my last chance to make a change
(
If you want to make the world a better
place, take a look at yourself and then make a change, hey,
yeah!
Na na
na, na na na, na na, nah...
)

I don’t remember Blue leaving last night. I wake to a ray of
sun peaking through the curtains of my sitting room. I’m lying on
the sofa, my duvet wrapped around me. Blue must have carried in the
cover from the bedroom after I nodded off.

Dear lord, I hope I wasn’t sleeping with my mouth open
again.

I yawn and stretch, replaying the events of yesterday evening.
Blue and I had tried scaling the stairs up to my apartment, but by
then I could barely hold any weight on my bad foot. Seeing my
distress Blue carried me over his shoulder to the
bathroom.

You know how I thought I’d reached rock
bottom yesterday afternoon? Turns out there’s another, deeper kind
of rock bottom, one where you’re sticking your dirty, smelly,
blackened foot under the eyes of a really nice and good looking guy
who has to tweezer bits of glass out from the shredded folds of
your foot flesh. It was mortifying. Utterly mortifying. It hurt
like a bitch too, and by the end my foot resembled dirty, scaly,
mashed up tomato puree. Gross, embarrassing, horrible. And excuse
me but just how dirty was the floor of that pub to have turned my
feet
black
? Wait a
minute, scratch that thought, I don’t want to
know.

After all the glass was out Blue helped me
rinse, dry and disinfect my foot, then carried me to the sofa.
After thanking him I don’t know how many times we had started
talking. Really talking, in that light, pleasant way he and I seem
to have fallen into, but with important themes cascading throughout
our verbal melting pot. It felt substantial. It felt real. You know
when you see a Disney movie as a kid and it seems all lovely and
fluffy and fun, then you watch it as an adult and you’re like
‘
Holy shit, what’s with all the blatant
racism and underage marriage and Pinocchio’s Road to Paedophilic
Catastrophe? How did I miss all that?
”
Well, that’s how I felt last night, but not in the negative
Disney-writers-are-perverts-and-need-to-be-investigated-by-a-taskforce
kinda way (especially the makers of Pinocchio) but in an
‘I-had-no-idea-I-was-living-in-a-state-of-delayed-puberty-and-it’s-time-to-grow-the-fuck-up’
kinda way.

So Blue and I talked. We talked about the future, what mark we
wanted to leave on the world, what we wanted to achieve. I had
tried to frame my incoherent single-is-shit ramblings from earlier
into something semi-apprehensible. I wanted to get healthy, start
eating right and drinking less, and maybe run a marathon. I needed
a job which wouldn’t take years off my life expectancy, with a
manager I respected and could learn from, and maybe go in-house,
because consulting was too competitive and nasty, filled with
Angrypants’ at every turn. It would be nice to get out into the
countryside more often, I’d lived in London for years and hadn’t
even seen the Cotswolds yet. I wanted to be brave and try new
things, like maybe this bog snorkelling thing he had mentioned on
Saturday. Then I told him a deep, dark secret that I’d never
admitted to anyone, least of all myself - that regarding his
question at the pub after the wedding, the answer was yes, I think
I did want a kid one day.