The A-Z of Us (29 page)

I push my right foot down gingerly on to the pavement. It hurts, I can't put too much pressure on it, but the ankle seems to hold. I wriggle my toes once more as I push off, curling them round as my foot steps down again.

I stare ahead, the shimmering tail-lights of the cars clear and brilliant in front of me.

Justin is right. How can I have been so stupid? All those years of friendship, of banter, of help and solace, of comfort and joy. Of course it was desire. Of course it was love.

Champagne courses through my veins, electricity sparking, my heart hammering my ribcage. I gulp in air, which on this London September night tastes sweeter than any I can remember. I see Gemma's face, her gentle smile; she has the prettiest smile, the loveliest laugh. Her beautiful breasts, I can't believe I've never imagined them before, her legs, a little chunky but powerful, they could wrap round you, and the dark place of pubic hair that I saw that night on her roof terrace, the centre of her.

The older you get, the fewer people you meet whom you really connect with. Gemma is great. Gemma is precious. Gemma is unique.

I want her. I want to kiss her, to feel her lips, her skin, her hair. I want to be inside her. I want her to be mine. This is my plan. The greatest plan of all.

I reach Hoxton and hobble across the road just as the lights change, the cars screeching their horns at me as I reach the other side, victorious, righteous, a man changed for ever.

The house is dark. The builders have finished the plastering, added the rail to the top floor balcony, repaired the stairways and banisters. The concrete garden has been cleaned up, the watery holes filled in. £3,000 has cleaned up the mess. In the house at least.

It's a long way from the finished vision I planned so meticulously all those months, all those years ago. It's unrecognizable from the dream I luxuriated in, too excited to sleep, lying on the double inflatable mattress on our first night in the house of my dreams.

But it is presentable. We will be able to sell it. Raj will be able to move out and move on.

I cried, in the taxi on the way back east through Shoreditch, turning my face to the window so the driver couldn't see me. I hadn't meant to be so nasty towards Raj. It wasn't my plan. I reacted well to his appearance at the party, I tried to be light and superficial, and then I lost it.

Oh well.

Fuck it.

He seemed so physical when he swore at me. So unlike my husband. Remembering his snarling mouth, his glaring frown, his gruff deep voice, his clenched fist, I sense a pang of something strange that confuses me further. It feels like desire.

I smile, unexpectedly, despite myself.

God, I am a mess.

I climb up the ladder into the attic and crawl out to stand on the top floor balcony. The moon is full above the orange glow of London. I breathe in the night air. It's cooler now, a mid-September chill. I place my hand on the metal rail. It's pleasantly cold against my palm. Suddenly, I want to feel my cheek against the cold smooth metal. I kneel down and lean my head against the railing.

Tomorrow. I have to call the hospital tomorrow.

The hum of the nocturnal traffic. The beat of my heart.

‘Help me, Dad.'

The doorbell rings somewhere deep below in the bowels of the house. I don't move. I can't move. It rings again. Suddenly, I'm scared. It's nearly midnight. Who could it be? Raj? I haven't the energy to have another slanging match. The police? Perhaps they've been carrying out surveillance on John Major, the drug-dealing ex-Prime Minister? But they have no proof I bought cocaine from him. Unless he told them. Perhaps it's John Major himself, wanting to sell me more drugs? I'll tell him, politely, to go away. I'll be firm, but friendly.

I decide not to answer.

The bell rings again, louder and longer.

I climb down the ladder, slowly. Hopefully by the time I get to the stairs, whoever it is will have gone away. I pause on the landing.

Silence. A creak from somewhere that makes me jump. Then the bell rings again, shrilly. The neighbours will be woken. I could shout at the person to go away. I could threaten to call the police.

I step down the stairs noiselessly and hurry into the kitchen. The bell rings once more. I open the drawer and take out a large kitchen knife. Again the bell rings, a long hard insolent buzz. I pause for a moment, in front of the front door, wondering what the hell I am doing with the knife.

‘Go away!'

A muffled voice, possibly male. I can't make out the words.

‘I'll call the police.'

Silence.

The bell rings again.

‘Piss off!'

The bell rings once more.

‘Go away!'

The bell rings three times, short bursts.

Holding the knife firmly, I open the door to the length of the short chain. I smell aftershave and sweat and wine. Somehow I recognize the smell.

‘Ian?'

‘Please, Gemma, I need to talk to you.'

I cannot deny that I am pleased to see him. Pleased, and worried, and angry and unsure. And, above all these other emotions, there flutters a strange excitement that I cannot categorize. It feels like a dream.

‘What happened, Ian?'

‘Molly. She's a fucking bitch.'

He's furious, that is obvious, his face red, the vein descending the left-hand side of his neck pulsating like an angry insect. But the interesting thing is, he doesn't
seem sad, he doesn't seem hurt. He seems angry – an energetic, muscular, confident male anger. What is the word for it?

Righteous. His anger seems righteous. It is, I have to admit, very attractive.

‘Molly was fucking Will Masterson. They were screwing in the doorway. Everyone saw them, my dad even saw them… I tried to punch him, but I missed, I knocked down this waitress…'

‘You punched a waitress?'

‘No, I sort of broke my fall…'

I notice his feet.

‘Jesus, Ian. Where's your cast?'

‘I cut it off. With a knife.' He looks up at me. ‘Like that one. What the hell are you doing, Gemma?'

I look down at my hand. The fingers and the kitchen knife they clasp do not seem to belong to me.

‘Protection.'

‘Fuck me. Samurai Gem.'

I place the knife carefully on the countertop.

‘Oh Ian…' I say, and it strikes me that I sound just like my mother, admonishing my father all those years ago.

‘So that's it. Fuck Molly.'

He seems resolute. But it could be a front, hiding the real fear and panic. I decide to probe gently.

‘You seem… I don't know… relieved?' I say, softly.

He looks at me, eyes narrowing, a small frown lining his forehead.

‘Relieved? Yeah. I don't know. I feel fucking stupid.'

I nod. I have to admit that discovering I've been right
all along about Molly makes me feel awkward. I am glad in a selfish evil way, but sorry for Ian.

He shakes his head.

‘I'm sorry to pitch up like this. I didn't really have anyone else to turn to…'

‘Don't worry. What are friends for?'

Could it be like the old days? The two of us telling each other our problems, our fears, our hopes? Our plans? Our future? Can we be open and honest, about everything?

As I think this, the words form in my head, clear and bold, and I can hear them approaching my lips. I can tell him, can't I, about my lump, about the thing that is lodged within me, the terrible parasite. I can tell my best friend, my oldest friend. Ian will know what to do. Ian will sort it all out.

Even the worst case scenario, the scenario I am dreading with stark terror, will be better if Ian is here.

‘Ian… I might…'

‘Molly is such a bitch.'

I can't tell him. He's too caught up himself, in my sister, he's still under her evil spell. I glare at him.

‘How does this work, Ian?'

‘What… what do you mean? With Molly? We're finished…'

‘Not with Molly! With me! With Gemma!'

It feels good to shout. It feels vital to shout. He looks at me blankly.

‘What do you mean?'

‘How are we, Ian? To each other?'

‘We're friends, Gem…'

My heart is racing, my hands hot and damp.

‘I mean… that thing we always talked about, what are we to each other? What do you want from me, what do you get from me, how does the whole fucking thing work?'

‘Work?'

‘“When Harry met fucking Sally!” Can a man and woman ever just be friends?'

‘Gem…'

‘Can they help each other, hang out with each other, hug each other, confide the truth to each other, and not slip into that horrible shitty trap of having to fancy each other, having to fuck it all up by wanting to go further?'

‘It's okay, Gemma…'

‘WHY DID YOU NEVER WANT TO SLEEP WITH ME?'

At architecture school, we went to Doncaster to watch the demolition of a 1960s housing block. When the building was dynamited, there was a moment after the explosives had detonated when nothing happened. Time was frozen. Perhaps, I thought, watching with my hands over my ears, it had all been a sham. Perhaps nothing would happen. Nothing would change.

Ian's mouth opens but no sound comes out. I cannot breathe. My muscles have locked. The words remain in the air, like the imprint of lightning on the eye.

This is it. The moment before the building falls.

Then, all at once, there is a rushing in my ears, and I take a snatched breath, and when I speak my voice is small and meek and dazed.

‘I'm sorry… I don't know what I'm saying…'

He takes my face in his hands, and kisses me.

His fingers are cold. His nose is wet. He stinks of booze. His lips are flesh, not fire.

The kiss stops.

His hands drop to his side. I step back. I flick a strand of hair from my face.

‘Wow.'

His word, but it's not joyful, not thrilled.

‘No,' I whisper.

We stand, unable to move. At that moment, I remember my grandmother's funeral, my sickening sense of grief that something would be no more.

‘Shit.'

His word again.

‘Ian…'

‘I should go.'

‘No…' My voice possesses no conviction. ‘Yes…'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be.'

‘I'm really sorry, Gemma.'

‘Me too.'

‘I should really go.'

‘Okay.'

I take his bag of clothes from the second bedroom and hand it to him. It feels like helping a stranger on to a bus. He says thank you, puts the bag over his shoulder and opens the front door.

‘Bye.'

‘Bye.'

I close the door slowly behind me. My hands are shaking. The building has fallen, and there is nothing left but dust.

I do not know where I am going, but this in itself is my plan. I don't want to know where I'm going. The city is mine – all I have to do is to possess it, to walk down its streets and claim them for myself. I am a travel writer. I am an explorer. Anything might happen.

‘Don't look back,' the voice in my head tells me. ‘Keep going.'

I keep going westwards. I get to St John Street, where I try to remember who St John was, whether he was John the Baptist, or John the disciple. I sense I am trying to think of anything but the evening I've just been through. Perhaps it's the way the human brain copes with trauma, by stuffing the synapses full of irrelevant, unrelated thoughts.

St John was a disciple of Jesus. He wrote the last of the gospels, the only one to wholeheartedly push the idea that Jesus was the Son of God, that God dwelled in man and man in God. His was the last epistle, written many years after Jesus' death, when John could sit back and look at everything that had happened, and piece it together, point by point, place by place, to draw up the first map for the Christian church.

My father's name is John.

A sob swells in my throat, but I fight it back, speeding up my pace. The strap of the bag cuts into my shoulder, but I don't care. It feels like a fitting punishment.

Now I am into Clerkenwell, and the streets are full of Thursday-night drinkers who have been forced to vacate their pleasure-holes, but who seem reluctant to head home, aware perhaps that this is one of the last warm nights of the year.

I look at my watch. 1.30 a.m. I am three streets away from Molly's apartment, the scene of my first humiliation. The apartment I'd spent so long decorating, where I'd spent so much money to hire caterers, a DJ, a barman and a pretty waitress. I wonder if I have the strength to go back there and confront the birthday girl, to demand the money, in cash. But I can't. The shame would be too great.

I carry on, head down, walking faster and faster, to try and beat out the pain with each painful step.

I reach the looming arches of Smithfield Meat Market, which is alive with the barking cheerful voices of the butchers, small burly men in white coats stained with blood. The huge refrigeration trucks hum along the flanks, back doors open to reveal ethereal mists, lit by yellow lamps, in which large pale carcasses hang like fatty ghosts. I shudder. The air is thick with the curling stench of dead flesh, decay held at bay by ice and frozen air.

I wonder if I can climb into one of the trucks without being seen. They say freezing to death is the easiest way to end your life. After the first creeping pain, you feel nothing at all.

But I'm not brave enough. I realize now, I'm a coward. In so many ways.

I start to walk even faster, the bag thumping against my side, out of the market, along the side of St Bart's Hospital,
down Little Britain. Suddenly, above me soars the huge white dome of St Paul's Cathedral, as spectral as the moon. I stop, breathing heavily.

Looking up at the great bone-white cathedral, I remember my first trip to London. I couldn't have been more than eight or nine, and we'd taken the train from Cambridge to the capital.