The A-Z of Us (22 page)

‘To put it bluntly.'

‘Why don't I worry about my marriage, Neil?'

He looked away. I realized I was turning the ring on my finger, round and round, a newfound habit.

‘Yeah, sorry.'

I started to cry again, wiping my eyes. When he came closer I stood from the kitchen chair, trying to be strong.

‘I'm okay… thanks…'

I blew my nose on a piece of kitchen paper – not very sexy, I know, but I was beyond caring.

‘You're right, Neil. I'm sorry. This must be really weird for you. I had no right to turn up like that. I should have called, or emailed or something. I just don't really know what I'm doing at all at the moment.'

When he said goodnight on the landing between the two bedrooms, he leaned down and kissed my cheek. His lips were warm. I wondered, in that moment, if I could tell him everything. He was a vet, after all. But then he turned in to his room and shut the door softly behind him. The moment was gone.

I lie in the bed. The clock blinks 4.30 a.m. My head hurts. I stare at the tea-coloured 1970s woodchip on the ceiling, wondering why, if he's lived here for three years, he still hasn't managed to strip the horrible wallpaper?

Do I really know him? We went out with each other for just eleven months. I've always felt like he was special, that we'd had something unique, but maybe I've just been kidding myself. Maybe I look back at that year – 1994 – and merely put my own interpretation on what it meant
in the scheme of my life, like some colonial mapmaker travelling over the continent of Australia in a balloon and contriving what lay beneath.

Can you invent the past, just as you can imagine the future?

I turn to face the door, wondering if I'll hear the creak of floorboards and the door handle turning. I imagine Neil standing there in the doorway, naked, his erection already rising triumphantly in silhouetted profile. I imagine him climbing on me, thrusting deep inside me. The thought of him makes me wet, for the first time in months.

I want him to open the door. I want to feel desired, to feel dangerous, to feel electric. To feel alive. I want him to take my body and hurt it.

I listen once more.

Silence.

I don't want him to come. I want him to come. I don't. Do. Not. Do. Not.

I open the door to Neil's bedroom. I'm naked. I feel the frame of the door which is cold and damp. The light in the room is a dull ethereal orange from the streetlamp below his window, and the air is cold on my thighs and belly. He's lying on his side, a massive body covering three-quarters of the bed. My foot remains locked in the angle of streetlight, unable to move forward.

Suddenly, I find myself picturing Raj there, lying next to Neil on the bed, a dwarf against his bulk. I am shocked. In that instance I sense the memory of Raj's body against mine, my curves fitting his angles, female against male,
my pelvic bone curved around his small taut backside as if hewn to it.

‘Night, night, don't let the bastards bite.'

His refrain always makes me smile.

I wait for a sign. For a sound or a movement.

No cars pass, no gulls call. Neil doesn't move, his breathing deep and regular. When I can't sleep I lie up against Raj, my hand on his side feeling his lungs rise and fall like small tropical waves.

I walk quickly back to the spare room and pull on my knickers and T-shirt, and climb into bed, dragging the sheets over my head.

Staring into the dark cocoon, I recall my doctor's tired eyes as she tells me that I was right to make an appointment. There is a lump in my left breast, but she can't tell if it's malignant. I hear her measured voice inform me that I will require a biopsy.

She shows me examples of mammograms. They seem strangely beautiful. Like a chart of a river system, the fragile white veins snaking outwards from the source. I admire them, trying to feel reassured by the neat map of tissue, the illusion of order and control.

I see my watch on the day of my hospital appointment, showing the time I'm meant to be at the hospital, and I see the hands move on as I sit at my work desk. I hear the secretary leave the first answering machine message, then the following message, urging me to come in for another appointment. A note through the door from the GP Surgery Nurse: please will I come in to talk about the situation urgently.

The situation. Urgently.

A seagull cries out. As the dawn light seeps in slowly from the street, I think that here I am in Brighton and I haven't even seen the sea. It makes no sense. No sense at all.

I've called Molly seven times, leaving four messages. I'm beginning to wonder whether she wants to talk to me.

It's been three days since Brighton. I caught the train back to London with Gemma. I told her about the epi-pen fiasco, and she tried calling Molly, but her phone was switched off. Gemma refused to talk about her night, merely revealing that, ‘I slept in the spare room, nothing happened, I had fun, we'll talk on the phone,' in a tone that suggested there was nothing more to say on the matter.

Feigning sleep against the juddering train window, I was surprised to sense a flicker of satisfaction that things seemed not to have worked out so well between Gemma and Neil. I reproached myself for feeling it, finding it strange that Gemma's discomfort brought me a degree of gratification, since it was me that had suggested the whole Neil scenario.

Was I that mixed up? Was the idea to visit Neil in Brighton some sort of subconscious plan to take Gemma to the very depths so that I, Ian Thompson, could be the knight in shining Nikes once more, bringing her to salvation? I'm not that perverse, am I? I'm not that devious?

Then again, Gemma didn't seem too concerned that her sister had walked out on me. Maybe she too was relieved.

Despite Gemma's reiteration that I can stay at Raleigh Street as long as I want, I'm beginning to wonder if she's
growing tired of my presence in the half-finished house. I feel bad. I know it's difficult for her to ask me to leave. I should be the one to take the initiative. I just have one problem. I have nowhere else to go.

I lie down on the sofa and turn on the television.

It's depressing, when you think about it. I'm thirty-one, and I've nowhere to sleep, apart from my parents' house in Cambridge (which for obvious reasons would be even more sad than being homeless). In my twenties such an itinerant lifestyle, with its lack of ties, possessions and responsibilities, was exhilarating. But ever since turning thirty, I've been feeling increasingly unsettled by being unsettled.

I could call around my travel-writing colleagues and ask to sleep on someone's floor, but most of them are away writing again, now September has returned the summer tourist hoards to their jobs and schools. There's always Justin Wilson, my old footballing friend from Sheffield, but he and his wife have two small children. I met their girls once at a chaotic lunch party during which the oldest, Amy, screamed incessantly, and the youngest, Mary, smeared excrement on the cat. Even if Justin said yes to my request for a bed, I don't think I could last more than a single night in their hectic, toy-strewn house.

I consider booking into a cheap hotel. I could probably afford a week. But the thought of limping into a Travelodge makes me feel more miserable and alone. It's all my own fault. I have to take responsibility. That's what my father would say.

I turn back to the television. It's the
Antiques Roadshow
. An old lady is quivering gently as a man with a droopy
moustache appraises a china chamber pot. Her eyes light up when he informs her it's worth £250. For the first time today, I smile. The old lady seems so happy, as if the notional price of this vintage piss-pot has somehow increased her own worth.

The next hopeful, a slender middle-aged man with thinning hair, is carrying a mid-sized picture frame. The expert appears to stifle a yawn. The middle-aged man hesitates briefly, then turns up the picture as flamboyantly as a clue on a game show. It's a map. The camera zooms in. I sit up on the sofa. It's a map of the Middle East.

‘Well, well, well…' declares the expert, one hand absentmindedly caressing the left dangle of his moustache.

‘It was my great-grandfather's…' mutters the middle-aged man hopefully.

I lean closer to the television. The map is almost identical to the one I gave my father for his birthday. The same size, the same red, blue and brown shading.

‘May I take it out of the frame?' asks the droopy moustache. The middle-age man frowns, then acquiesces. The expert takes the map very delicately, I think, for a man with sausage fingers. He turns it over. I exhale.

‘Remarkable.'

‘Yes?'

The camera zooms in. On the back of the map are two signatures in expansive flowery styles.

‘Sir Mark Sykes and his French counterpart, Charles Georges Picot,' declares the expert in a resounding tone that suggests these two names should be as well known as Tom Cruise and Madonna.

‘In 1916 the Allies drew up a plan to divide the Middle
East between France, the blue area, Britain, the red area and a neutral International zone, the brown area. Sykes and Picot were the two diplomats involved. I believe there were only four copies of this map circulated, to the British, French, Russians and the Americans. This really is quite a find…'

I grasp my crutch tightly.

‘HOW MUCH!' I feel like shouting, but something in the expert's measured demeanour discourages such greed. I remain quiet, heart beating faster.

‘My great-grandfather worked for the Foreign Office…' whispers the little balding man. The droopy moustachioed expert nods, squinting closer at the map.

‘Fabulous detail… this really is very valuable.'

I turn up the volume on the TV set.

‘We keep it in the downstairs toilet,' admits the middle-aged man, with a hopeful laugh.

‘Ha, ha, ha… it might be a good idea to find another location for it. I would say, for insurance purposes, you should consider valuing this map at…' the expert pauses, with practised television dramatics, giving his moustache another fondle. The middle-aged man nods eagerly, like a dog waiting to be walked.

‘Come on!' I below.

‘… At least…'

Another moustache fondle.

‘Get on with it!'

‘… Thirty thousand pounds.'

The middle-aged man seems to crumple. The expert, evidently used to the powerful reaction his words create, catches the man's arm.

‘Well, I never…' mutters the middle-aged man, his eyes darting around him, as if thieves and kidnappers are already massing.

Bloody hell! I can't believe it. Thirty grand. At least. Did I imagine it? But the map looks the same. I picture my mother's face, tears of joy streaming. My father will smile gently, that smug look that suggests he was expecting this all along. I'll have to stop them giving it all to charity. I'll have to sit them down, convince them that retirement is expensive, that they could use the cash as part payment on a flat somewhere, a nice modern flat with a small garden for my mother.

I think about getting on a train to Cambridge. Instead I dial their number. My mother answers.

‘Hello dear. I'm sorry but we're in the middle of a coffee morning for the Romanian refugees…'

‘Just a quick question. You know the map I gave Dad? Is it okay? I mean, did he get it framed?'

‘I don't think so. Not yet. But it's safe in his drawer. You know how he cares about his maps. Sorry Ian, I really should get back to serving coffee…'

She puts down the phone. I breathe out and punch the air like a goal-scorer.

I sit on the unfinished concrete terrace holding a mug of cold tea, staring at the walnut tree. The sun has disappeared into a bank of clouds. It's chillier, a first breath of autumn. As I gaze at the tree, I wonder how far its roots descend. I think of the family tree my father carefully mapped out when I was a child, using a red and black fountain pen.

‘It's up to you to grow new branches,' he'd declared, patting my six-year-old head.

When Gemma returns at 6.30 p.m., I'm still sitting on the concrete terrace.

‘What are you doing out here?'

I gesture towards the bottom of the garden. ‘I like that tree. It's majestic.'

‘You and Raj. I wanted to cut it down to let in more light, but Raj said it was protected. Some preservation order or something. Bloody ridiculous if you ask me, preserving a tree, I mean it's not like we have a shortage of them in this country…'

‘I'd preserve it,' I mutter, more forlornly than I intended. I glance up to see her looking at me. When I meet her gaze, she looks away. Her eyes, I note, are just as beautiful as her sister's – a dark hazelnut that seems old and newborn at the same time.

‘What's the matter?' Gemma asks. I look up again, cursing her feminine intuition.

‘Molly won't speak to me.'

Gemma looks at me. I continue, stammering.

‘And I got my dad a map for his birthday, and on
Antiques Roadshow
they had one just like it that was worth thirty grand.'

Gemma looks puzzled.

‘What are you going to do?'

‘Sell it. Give my parents the money.'

‘About my sister.'

‘I don't know.'

Gemma squints against the sun which has just peeked out from behind the clouds. I remain silent. I realize I'm
hoping Gemma might provide an answer, like a UN resolution that enables everyone to feel less personally responsible.

Gemma is silent.

I am silent.

‘Can I ask you a difficult question, Ian?'

I nod. Her tone is direct, business-like. I am suddenly worried about what might be coming next.

‘Are you sure you want to be in a relationship?'

‘What? Yes. Of course. Everyone does.'

‘No they don't. And maybe you don't.'