The Way It Never Was (19 page)
Read The Way It Never Was Online
Authors: Lucy Austin
Upon hearing that my friend is about to push the equivalent of a watermelon out of her private parts, I am suddenly wide-awake. You see, in a weak moment, I agreed to be her birth partner, thinking that the date was really far off and by then, I’d be used to the whole sight of blood thing. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t touched to be asked, but truth be told my game plan was to just stay firmly up the head end, encourage her to swear to her heart’s content and hope to God it didn’t get too gory. As I adopt the stance of a woman who potentially has the weight of the world on her prosecco-soaked shoulders, I follow Claire out to her car.
‘Excuse the mess,’ she says, a little embarrassed. ‘I wasn’t expecting visitors.’
No
Shit
Sherlock
. Claire has got every kind of rubbish in this rusty excuse for an automobile – half opened cans in the drink holders, dog-eared copies of magazines and bags of beauty samples – all spilling out onto the floor. This car doesn’t need to run on petrol, it could run on bacteria alone. All of this seems a little out of keeping with her persona as a hygienic beautician who flosses every five. Still, having taken public transport tonight what’s a bit of dirt? I sit down, instantly feeling something bulky and uncomfortable that I’m required to remove from between my buttocks – a hair-extension no less.
Since my birthday, our temporary truce has settled into something more permanent. Somehow, we have found a middle ground, an unsaid understanding, albeit a slightly uneasy one. I won’t lie though; I still find Claire beyond irritating most of the time. All the same, we’ve noticeably stopped being quite so argumentative with each other, as though we are both making a concerted effort to change the record. And now I’m on the receiving end of her niceness, I’m also noticing her positive qualities too. For, it turns out that Claire is far simpler than I ever imagined. Once she has decided she likes you, she’s kind and inclusive and makes you feel part of something. Still, given our rocky track record, I’m touching wood every day and am cautious about prodding these improved relations too much. This is a delicate cease-fire. One day at a time.
‘She wasn’t due for another two weeks!’ I groan, as Claire pulls out onto the road, with not so much as a Mirrors Signal Manoeuvre.
‘I know, but she started to get contractions halfway through karaoke with Linda, Wayne and me,’ she says. ‘Wayne’s gone with her.’
Karaoke
?
Who
what
why
when
? Then again, if I heard Scary Linda murder Bryan Adams like she did at my birthday last year, I think I would probably start dilating.
‘So how did this evening come about?’ I’m trying to sound casual but what I’m really thinking is that when on earth did Claire start socialising with Liv? She’s openly resented her ever since Liv started up with the ex-husband.
And as for Wayne, I had no idea Claire and he taken anything any further since my birthday. Last time I saw them, she was trying a little too hard to impress him and he was a bit bemused at the attention. The tide has clearly turned.
‘I had arranged to meet Wayne at the pub,’ says Claire, putting in a cassette that instantly makes that chewed up sound so she switches on the radio instead. ‘Don’t worry though. I’ve not been drinking. I’m fasting at the moment on just 500 calories a day. It’s left me a little light headed but I’m fine to drive.’
My anxiety about Liv is fast being overshadowed by my fear of Claire getting dizzy at any moment. I’m not sure whether it’s because she’s never been near a motorway, but when Claire is not going straight across roundabouts, she is feeding the wheel like a seventy-year old and driving in third-gear the whole time.
‘Okay, you know Wayne came over for your birthday. You’re right you know. He’s not actually as bad as I remember. He’s really quite nice. So yesterday, after my shellac nail boot camp, I went into the travel agency to enquire about flights for a girls holiday to Las Vegas – not that I’m going on one but I needed an excuse.’ Okay, I’m starting to get the picture. Finally, the daft cow is revising her options about the nice boy at school she never gave a chance. ‘Wayne was really helpful and one thing led to another. Before I knew it I had made arrangements to meet him after my waxing class. And then Linda joined us.’
At three in the morning, this story is not exactly gripping and with my attention span on the wane, I need Claire to either get to the point quicker, or at least make up some drama. I’m about to fall asleep. ‘So anyway, after the pub, we saw Liv walking really slowly in the same direction. In fact, she was going so slow we caught up with her in no time. What a lump.’ Claire says the last word
very
slowly, having been clearly dying to offer her opinion on Liv’s pregnant body shape for some time.
‘Anyhow,’ she continues, swerving the car like we’re in the
Dukes
of
Hazzard
. ‘We ended up going back to ours for karaoke. And Liv came with us.’ Now, while Claire may quibble the heating bill, her singing aspirations mean we are the owner of a very expensive, all singing, all dancing karaoke machine that gets a regular airing from her – and generally, a rather negative reception from the neighbours below. ‘Liv, she went nuts for karaoke,’ Claire continues. ‘In fact, it was really annoying as she hogged the machine for the next hour! Not as good as me mind but she wasn’t bad. Anyhow, halfway through a duet of ‘Love Shack’ with Wayne, she started breathing funny – around that bit in the song where they shout about a tin roof rusting.’ As I take in the evening’s developments, I’m holding onto the dashboard for dear life and trying not to yelp in fright as my life flashes before me. ‘So Liv went to the hospital with Wayne. He offered to go with her. He was really kind you know. Saying that, I hope he doesn’t turn back into the boy he was at school – you know, a wet blanket,’ laughs Claire.
I then take full advantage of her being a captive audience. ‘Claire, Wayne is no longer handing out chocolate bars to girls,’ I say. ‘He’s actually a really cool guy. You’re the one who needs to change.’ Here I am, in the dead of night, feeling strangely protective of an old friend, as though I’m representing a very large group of people, myself included, who still find themselves shaking off their school personas.
We sit in silence for a bit and then Claire changes stations on the radio, only to then turn the volume down. ‘Okay, Kate if he’s so great, why was he like that at school?’ she asks.
I laugh. ‘For the record, we were all strange at school – you included!’ Claire shrugs and swerves to miss a rabbit minding its own in the middle of the road. ‘I think you quite like Wayne, you know, more than you’re letting on,’ I say and to my horror, Claire looks at me intently and not on the road.
‘You know what Kate?’ she says. ‘You think I’m the same person as I was at school.’ I roll my eyes and lean over to correct some steering. ‘But guess what – so are you. You’re still the same girl too.’ I’m certainly not in the business of annoying a driver who can’t drive so decide to concentrate on finding a cat’s eye on the road and not on arguing back. ‘The difference is that you’re not willing to change and I am,’ she says. ‘That’s stupid if you ask me.’
Finally, pulling up in the parking lot of the maternity ward, it’s as busy as though it was midday with loads of people outside all having a fag. Given the hour, it’s all very convivial. After an excruciating fifteen-point turn to get into a space, we start looking for coins in the car, an enterprise that feels not too dissimilar from hunting in a skip. We then rush through to the brightly lit waiting room, where a bewildered Wayne is sitting there, looking like he’d rather be elsewhere.
‘Thank God, you’re here. I’m so bored. There’s nothing to read. No WiFi either.’ Looking around him at the large number of women with bumps, he then leans in. ‘And they keep asking me if I’m the father of the child.’
He then tells us that having been examined, Liv was found to be eight centimetres dilated and is now labouring on the floor above, with a yoga ball and Magic FM for company. I leave Wayne and Claire chatting in the hospital waiting room surrounded by men all downing Red Bull in panic. Still, for a first date, this sure beats going to the cinema – at least they’ll be able to chat.
Outside Liv’s hospital room, I brace myself for the worst and open the door with the clammiest of hands, only to stumble upon a very serene scene. Instead of Liv screaming and puffing like I’ve seen on TV, she is sitting on the bed looking positively glowing with Michael Bublé playing out in the background, wearing a posh silky robe.
‘Meet my little boy,’ she says, grinning at the quiet bundle in her arms. An iPad by the sink has her parents on screen drinking champagne, albeit four thousand miles away. ‘It happened so frigging fast. I went to the loo and all of a sudden, I felt a head come out.’ I wince, praying she won’t elaborate any further.
‘Trust they weren’t watching?’ I say under my breath and wave to her ecstatic looking parents on screen.
‘As if!’ she says, laughing. ‘I actually put on lip-gloss before I Skyped them – heck, I’m not stupid. I know they’re going to circulate a picture of their slutty daughter and illegitimate grandchild.’ The people on the screen toast us and I take the boy’s little hand and shake it. ‘Rory’ prompts Liv. ‘His name is Rory.’
‘Welcome to the world baby boy,’ I whisper and stroke his little arm.
The following day after practically no sleep, my mobile vibrates from somewhere in my bed – one withheld number and a text from Paolo asking if I’ll help out at the café today. It’s all go. Rushing into the shower trying to wake up, I stand under the water for a good few minutes thinking about what a crazy night it turned out to be, what with Joe, Mr Happy, Claire, Wayne – and the amazing arrival of Rory.
What Claire said to me in the car on the way to the hospital is playing round and round my head. I’m loathed to admit it but my intellectually challenged flatmate with a penchant for book clubs where no one reads the books has got me thinking. There I’ve been complaining to her that I’m still typecast from school, but yet I’ve not been willing to evolve much have I? I’ve just been choosing to stand still, the silent onlooker that’s content to watch everyone else. The fact that my reunion with Joe turned out to be a bit of a damp squib makes me realise that perhaps all this time it’s not been about missing
him
but who I was back in Australia – and the life that I’ve never bothered to try and choose. When I left Sydney, instead of making it about my story, I gave up and blamed my general apathy on him instead, as though by virtue of the fact he rejected me my dreams weren’t of any value after all. It would appear my heartbreak has assumed far greater importance than it ever should have. Turns out, it’s never been about getting over a man but getting a life, a life that I want.
However, I must park all this for the time being as I have to help Paolo out and don’t have the headspace to contemplate my navel and serve a cappuccino at the same time. With last night’s mascara
still
clinging to my lashes and wearing a dirty Globe t-shirt that shouldn’t see the light of day, I leave the flat to walk to the cafe.
Silly old me for thinking Paolo and Liv would have a contingency plan for the small matter of her maternity. I mean, what did they think Liv was going to do with Rory precisely – park the baby bouncer on the counter, next to the carrot cake and PJ’s manhandled cookies? No, they are a man down for the foreseeable future and haven’t quite thought it all through. They still haven’t worked out how to attract more customers either – the café’s all too quiet and I am now emotionally invested enough to desperately want that to change.
Unusually, Sam is not up for conversation as she’s in the kitchen with her tongue hanging out in concentration, icing out ‘Roreigh’ in big letters on the chocolate cake she’s made. I break it to her that it’s actually ‘Rory’ and she just giggles and proceeds to unpick the lettering off. Yes, even when getting handed lemons, that girl makes lemonade. She still can’t spell for toffee though.
The morning goes by quickly enough as I’m tackling each task at hand with half a brain. Picking up some stray fruit from the juicer that’s found its way to the floor, I look up to serve a customer who proceeds to request a really long coffee title that he’s obviously practised saying in the mirror.
‘No problem,’ I say and quietly get on with looking like I know what I’m doing.
Finally, I’m getting to make coffees like this all by myself, albeit under the watchful – and ever so slightly neurotic – eye of Paolo who is closely scrutinising my every move. Lately, I’m having the guts to entertain the idea of working here and am regularly weighing up the pros and the cons.
The Good
I get free coffee.
I like speaking to customers (the nice ones).
It feels like real life.
I’ll never have to organise a meeting about a meeting about a meeting ever again.
The Bad
Paolo is v. bossy.
Paula is here too often.
PJ is a walking health hazard.
The café is not busy enough.
Occasionally, a customer looks at you like you’re the hired help (because you are).
A little while later, I’m scrubbing splattered milk off the machine when Paolo stands at the counter. I’ve not seen him all morning. ‘Kate, I need some advice.’
Advice
,
who
me
? I slowly turn around in shock.
‘What do you think I need to do to get this café busier,’ he asks, slamming down a dirty plate, narrowly missing a water jug.
‘Well, erm, let’s see,’ I say, rinsing off the plate and putting it on the side ready for the next dishwasher load. ‘You could be a little, oh I don’t know, less grumpy perhaps?’ I volunteer, not sure if I will have a job at the end of this sentence.
‘Me? Grumpy?’ he shouts, looking incredulous and beckoning for Sam to come out of the kitchen. ‘Am I grumpy?’ he barks to Sam who has an icing bag in hand, to which she laughs much louder than normal.
‘Is this a wind up? You’re incredibly grumpy. That’s why you have barely enough custom to make your overheads.’ I’m standing there frozen to the spot, with my mouth opening and closing at Sam’s unfiltered response, all delivered with that smile of hers that now has an air of menace about it.
‘Oh,’ Paolo splutters in shock at her veracity. ‘Oh.’ Just as I’m wondering whether this might be a good time to go for a wee, Stan then walks through the door and over to the counter, looking so dejected my heart actually skips a beat.
‘What’s this in aid of?’ I ask in concern, to which Stan just shrugs.
‘I just wanted to talk to you. I tried to call you yesterday after I saw you.’
‘I saw your missed calls. Sorry, Liv had the baby,’ I reply and tell Stan far too much second-hand detail about the joys of labour, sneakily implying that I was there the whole time. A thoughtful looking Paolo who is clearly still processing Sam’s character assassination nods permission for me to take a break. I quickly make two cappuccinos and we take a seat by the window. ‘So what’s the matter?’ I ask Stan. ‘I only saw you yesterday. What’s up?’
‘It’s not anything really. Well it is, but…’ he trails off as Paolo comes over sporting an expression I’ve never seen before on him, a sort of a curling up at the ends of the mouth. Stan visibly jumps.
Paolo
is
going
to
have
to
practice
this
smiling
malarkey
.
‘Hello Stan, what’s new with you man?’ he asks in a monotone voice, making me cringe as he’s sounding like he’s reading from a handbook on modern day manners.
As Stan effortlessly goes into small talk mode, I think to myself that in sharp contrast to Paolo, he’s probably the most socially capable person I know. Just being around him, I always feel a bit more organised, a bit smarter perhaps, almost a bit lighter in myself. It’s always been that way. As Paolo then wanders off towards the kitchen, we continue chatting, only for him to come back and hand Stan a very large piece of carrot cake.
‘On the house,’ he says to Stan, who looks as surprised as I feel. Paolo walks back towards the kitchen and Stan looks quizzically at me.
‘Got to ask. What’s this in aid of? Has he eaten too many M&M’s?’ I sip my coffee and shrug, by way of saying ‘don’t ask me’. Paolo might have had an epiphany, but he’d better refine his delivery and find some sort of middle ground if it’s going to pay off. Right now, he’s at risk of coming across a little creepy and giving away his profits in the process.
‘Nice coffee,’ Stan says, complimenting my newly revived barista skills that make touch-typing look like a walk in the park. While he drinks and looks around him, I steal a glance over at my friend, noticing once again how handsome he is, sitting there in his navy blue t-shirt with trousers of the nice variety – not the shiny ones you play football in and untangle your balls from. Compared to Joe, my friend is a class act.
We’re carrying on talking about nothing in particular, when from over the other side of the room, Paolo starts clearing his throat. My time is up. Stan stands up with me to go.
‘You okay?’ I say, studying his face. ‘I returned your calls really late last night but I got Anna’.
Stan grabs his keys from the table and heads for the door. ‘Yeah, she had to borrow my phone yesterday for work as she said it was an emergency, so I’ve not actually been able to get hold of her to get it back,’ he says.
A little puzzled, I pat his arm, wondering whether to mention my bizarre conversation with her in the early hours. I then decide against it, as it will look like I’m stirring up trouble. ‘Oh, okay, no worries, see you soon,’ I say and he pulls me in for a hug, which lasts for a few seconds longer than normal, long enough to make me notice he’s wearing a rather nice aftershave and has gel in his hair.
Once upon a time, Stan and I lived together and I saw that aftershave of his on the bathroom shelf on a regular basis. After I left Australia with my tail between my legs and my heart in hand luggage, I became
that
girl. I was directionless, needy and melancholy – pining for something or someone, I wasn’t entirely sure what. Looking back, I was a real bore, banging onto for hours to anyone who’d listen, with anecdotes about Sydney and how great Joe was. My friends just sat there not saying very much, probably bored out of their minds, only to now and again offer the usual words of consolation that had little effect.
The one exception was Anna. ‘Kate, guys are pretty straightforward. He was just not that into you,’ she said matter-of-factly, having somehow gone from that boy-mad girl at the hostel to one of my best friends since we’d been home. ‘You’ve made it far more than it was.’
Unlike all the others who had been treading gently for fear of upsetting me further, she was always telling me off, saying I should just accept what he had been trying to tell me. Tough love, but I needed to hear it.
After a few more weeks of feeling sorry for myself, something had to give so I decided to move to London. I rented a room in a large house in St John’s Wood that hadn’t seen a bottle of bleach in decades, living with two girls who worked in investment banking. They never really talked to me except for Wednesdays, where they would come to my room to watch
Sex
&
the
City
on the only telly. What with the poor typing speed dictating the temping work I was getting, all this change of scene was doing was fuelling the urge to spend all my hard earned money at the pub with Anna, where I would succumb to those ‘buy a glass, get the bottle free’ deals and try and avoid eye contact with any man. In hindsight, this London house sharing experience did me a favour, as it reduced me to that level of unhappiness that gave me a kick up the backside.
On one of my regular weekend escapes to Stan’s mews house in Canterbury, he said something over breakfast, something that got me thinking. ‘I notice I’ve never seen a photo of that bloke you liked in Australia.’ Saying nothing, I took a large gulp of coffee as he joked. ‘For all I know, he never existed.’ I then thought about my life, about all the choices I’d been making since I’d been back in the UK, the water I’d been treading – all as a result of being rejected thousands of miles away. And for the first time, I felt positively ashamed. There I was on a daily basis saying ‘what ifs’ to the point where I was so caught up imagining Joe with me in my day-to-day life in the UK, I had stopped making any decisions to move my life forward. I was just saying yes to any old temping job, no to perfectly nice men asking me out, and not considering any other options in between. Stan had it so wrong as I hardly needed a photo to prove anything, as it was obvious from my lacklustre attitude that Joe had existed. My life on pause was evidence enough.
That morning in Canterbury, I stopped moaning about city life over coffee, and started looking at the property pages in the local rag. And there it was. A seaside flat in Broadstairs at a price I could afford. As soon as I walked in, despite a carpet that was swaying with fleas and a very damp wall that looked like it was going to start talking to me, it was love at first sight. It was almost as if the flat looked like I felt. It needed some TLC. Looking past all the flaws, all I saw was the sea view and a twelve-minute walk to the station. I was sold. Without a moment of hesitation, I got myself a mortgage and an offer on the flat accepted, only to promptly lose my latest secretarial job a day later. Still, I didn’t care as I had made a decision to move in a direction. Finally, the stars were coming into alignment.
Unfortunately, these stars were moving a little too slowly for my liking as the sale was taking a lifetime and I rather impulsively, had already handed my notice in to my London landlord. Now effectively homeless and jobless, the only other option I could think of to tide me over in the interim was to live with Stan, who as it so happened was between girlfriends and was living alone like a proper grown up. He readily agreed to my suggestion and said it would be fun. I think he was more excited at the prospect of having a girl to empty the dishwasher.
For the short time we lived together, Stan was right. It was fun. I loved every single minute of it, never anticipating the level of compatibility we would have. With shorthand born from years of friendship, it felt like we were in our element. Sure, we’d been through some dramas against the backdrop of summer camp, school and the pub, but there we were, fully-fledged adults and still as close as ever. We had not only come through all of it relatively unscathed, but we now were living together and enjoying it. I felt really lucky.