You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (10 page)

“No
point going to bed, either,” Mel said. “It’s even colder in my room. Besides, I
want to watch the video of the Balachine
Swan Lake
before tomorrow.”

“God,
do you have to? We’ve watched that bloody thing about a hundred times. Go to
bed – you look terrible.”

“Cheers
for that, Florence Nightingale,” Mel said. “Anyway, last time I checked, I live
here too and I’m allowed to watch stuff on telly, aren’t I?”

“Oh,
watch what you fucking want,” I said. “You always get your own way, there’s no
point me arguing about it.”

The
atmosphere in the room had suddenly changed, from a reasonably good natured, if
narky, Sunday night quarrel to something more serious.

“Grow
up, Laura,” Mel said. “You’re such a child sometimes. There’s no need to be a
brat just because you’re jealous about my part.”

It
hurt because it was true. There was no denying it, no way for her to take it
back now that it was said. I felt tears of anger and self-pity sting my eyes,
and Mel looked like she was about to cry too.

“Sorry,”
she muttered.

“Yeah,
that really helps,” I said. “Nice one. Say whatever bitchy shit you want and
then come out with some half-arsed apology and I’ll forget all about it, and
you can go back to thinking you’re Miss Perfect. Or rather, First Artist
Perfect.”

I
stood up, picked up my fags and lighter, and prepared to flounce out to the
balcony, already planning to leave the door open so Mel would have to get up
and close it if she didn’t want to be surrounded by smoky, freezing air. Then
we both paused, hearing voices and laughter on the stairs outside.

“…Not
sure if the girls are in,” Roddy said, flinging the door open so it bounced
back against the wall. “Oh, yes, they are.”

He
burst into the room, followed by a blast of cold, a smell of beer, smoke and
pizza, and Felix.

“God,
there’s an atmosphere in here you could cut with a knife,” Roddy said. “Have
you two been having a row? We’ve been to the pub, and we’ve brought fuckloads
of dirty Domino’s. An entire week’s worth of calories, right here.”

He
dumped the boxes on the sofa next to Mel, who queasily averted her eyes.

“And
I brought Lawsonski back too,” Roddy went on. “He’s extra hot but he doesn’t
have a stuffed crust.”

“And
more booze,” Felix held aloft a blue carrier bag jangling with bottles.
“There’s cheap, shit red and cheap, shit white – that covers all the bases,
right?”

He
smiled at me, and I felt myself blushing and wished I’d bothered to wash my
hair that morning. Still, he looked pretty dishevelled himself, I realised – clearly
the session in the pub had been a long one. His hair was messier than ever and
there were dark shadows under his bloodshot blue eyes.

“It’s
Sunday, right?” he said. “I haven’t been to bed since…” he counted on his
fingers. “Friday. Well, Thursday night, strictly speaking.”

“You
need to pace yourself, my son,” Roddy twisted the cap off a bottle of wine and
sloshed it into four coffee mugs. “Here, get this down you. Hair of the dog
that’s going to bite you tomorrow.”

“A
placebo,” Felix said. “No, that’s not what I mean. Something else beginning
with P.”

“Precaution?”
Roddy said.

“Prophylactic,”
I said.

“That’s
a condom, isn’t it?” said Felix, and I blushed again, taking a gulp of wine.

“What’s
up with you, Melancholy?” Roddy said. “Come on, have a drink.”

“I
don’t think I should,” Mel said. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

“Oh,
come on,” I said. “Take another of those tablets you bought and have a glass of
wine. You’ll be fine.”

Mel
sipped reluctantly. Roddy and Felix sat on the carpet, opened the pizza boxes
and tore in. My mouth watered and I realised I hadn’t eaten anything since my
breakfast croissant hours before, and I was starving.

“Help
yourselves,” Felix gestured towards the boxes.

I
took a slice and bit the end off, feeling the grease coating my lips. I’d pay
for this tomorrow, I thought, but it was worth it.

“What’s
this then?” Roddy pointed at the telly.

“
Friends
,”
Mel said. “We were just going to put on the video of the Balachine
Swan Lake
,
though.”

“Bollocks
to that,” Felix said. “It’s the weekend. Let’s have some proper music.”

He
rummaged through our CDs, which were a pitiful mixture of Mel’s
classical stuff, my embarrassing girl band collection and Roddy’s country and
western. I watched Roddy squirm – he never let anyone look at his CDs.

“I
thought,” Felix pointed an accusing finger at me, “you were into Metallica.
You’ve brought me here under false pretences, Roderigo. ‘Come and meet my
flatmate,’ you said, ‘you like the same music,’ you said. And what do I get?
The fucking Spice Girls. It’s a poor show, mate.”

He
ate another slice of pizza. Even with cheese on his chin, he was the most
desirable man I’d ever seen.

“I
have Metallica,” I said shyly, “but it’s on tape. Hold on.” I went to my room
and rummaged around in the pile of clutter on my bedside table until I found
what I was looking for. Thank God for the man at the stall in Camden, who, when
I bought the T-shirt, had dropped a cassette box into the carrier bag, saying,
“Here you go, love, I’ll throw this in for a quid.” And thank God for me being
too polite to say that I couldn’t actually spare a whole pound on some horrible
music I didn’t even like.

“Here,”
I handed it over to Felix. “I got this the other day. I haven’t had a chance to
listen to it yet.”

He
squinted at the blurry photocopied sleeve. “Holy shit. That’s the Death
Magnetic demo. I’ve been looking for this forever. Where’d you get it?”

For
once in my life, I managed to act nonchalant. I shrugged and lied, “A friend of
mine in LA sent it to me. We often exchange music, it’s our thing.” And I
smiled in a sad, secret sort of way that I hoped Felix would interpret as
evidence of a deep and passionate long-distance relationship with someone whose
knowledge of heavy metal far exceeded Felix’s own.

“Rad,”
he said. “What are we waiting for?”

He
slotted the tape into our ancient stereo, and seconds later a loud whine of
feedback filled the room, followed by a crashing guitar riff. Roddy and Mel
winced; I tried to look enthusiastic.

“Come
on! We can’t not dance to this. Ever had a mosh pit in your living room,
Roderigo?” Felix pulled me to my feet, snapped off the light and started to
dance. Well – if it was dancing, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. His
body moved like the flame from a Zippo lighter when you’re trying to spark up
your fag on a windy day. He leaped and darted, seeming to be boneless and
weightless. His hair flew around his head in a wild halo of shining darkness.

I
tried my best to copy him, gasping with exertion and laughter after a few
minutes. Roddy and Mel watched us from the sofa, providing a running critique.

“Your
turnout sucks, Laura,” Roddy said.

“Give
us a pas de chat, Felix,” said Mel.

When
the track ended, we collapsed on the floor, panting for breath and giggling
helplessly.

“For
Christ’s sake, no one ever, ever tell Anna I did that,” I said.

“But
you must headbang all the time,” Felix said. “It looks that way, at least.”

“Yeah,”
I lied, “But, you know, not in front of work people.” I ducked my head, hiding
my flushed face behind my hair.

“So,
do you go to Hobgoblin?” Felix asked me. “My mates in Moscow all reckoned
that’s the best. What’s it like? We should head over after work one Saturday.”

“Um…
yeah, that would be amazing,” I said. How the hell was I going to maintain the
rock-chick image I seemed to have inadvertently acquired? I was desperate to
carry on impressing Felix – if impressing him I was – but conscious that I was
on extremely shaky ground. If only I had a bit more time, I could go online and
research this stuff, buy a few CDs, pick Sadie’s brain – she’d always been the
cool rebel one of us, she’d know about this stuff for sure. But I needed to
make an impression, and make it now.

I
was saved by my phone trilling urgently from the depths of my handbag. It would
be Sadie, I knew, making her regular Sunday evening call to find out whether I
was okay, eating properly, keeping warm, and all the other annoying, trivial
things she worried about. But right now her call wasn’t an annoyance – it was a
lifeline.

“’Scuse
me a second,” I said, “This might be important.”

And
I grabbed my phone and headed out on to the balcony, where I spent ten freezing
minutes with my back to the room, trying to look like I was talking to my
mystery lover while patiently answering my sister’s anxious queries.

When
I turned around again, the room was empty. I felt utterly bereft – I’d played
it wrong. They’d all gone out somewhere, or Felix had gone home, having got my
pretend message only too strongly. Yet again, I’d fucked up, I’d blown my
chance. I realised, standing in the dark, silent living room, that in those few
frenzied moments of dancing together, Felix had given me a glimpse into another
world – a world where letting go was fun, where music didn’t mean Tchaikovsky,
where it was possible to want to kiss someone even though you both smelled of
pizza. But it was too late now.

I
washed my face and cleaned my teeth in the freezing bathroom, then poured a
glass of water and took it and my phone through to my bedroom. The door was
shut – I didn’t remember closing it, but I must have done, when I went to find
the tape. I pushed it open, turned on the light, and gasped. There, on my
narrow single bed, under my duvet, was Felix, fast asleep, his dark hair spread
out over my pillow and his impossibly long eyelashes fanned out over his
cheeks.

As
quietly as I could, I put down my glass of water and squeezed in next to him,
pulling the covers over us, breathing in the smell of him, relishing the heat
of his body in the chilly room but not daring to touch him. Seconds later, I
was asleep.

“So
how was your thing? You must have got in really late, I didn’t hear you at
all.” Jonathan’s voice and the smell of coffee made me open my eyes, which felt
sore and scratchy. For a moment I was barely sure where I was, or who he was – then
Owen came running into the room and jumped on the bed, demanding a cuddle.

“Come
on then,” I moved over and lifted the duvet, and he squirmed in next to me and
snuggled up, his hands leaving muddy smears on the white pillowcase.

“Where’ve
you been?” I said. “Playing in the garden with Daddy?”

“We
were playing dinosaurs,” Jonathan said. “It’s a bog out there. Sorry he’s a bit
grubby. He was being a T-rex in the flowerbed.”

“That’s
okay,” I said. “Thanks for the lie-in. I didn’t get to sleep for ages, I’m
knackered.”

Owen
gave a fearsome growl and pushed his face up against mine. “I’m a T-rex,” he
said.

“You’re
the squidgiest T-rex I’ve ever seen,” I said, pulling him against me and going,
“Grrrr!” into his tummy.

I’d
dreamed of Owen, I remembered – dreamed that I’d been back in the forest, on
the set, and Owen was there, somewhere, lost. I remembered chasing his voice
through the trees, hearing him calling, “Mummy, Mummy,” but whenever I got
close to where I thought he was, his cries faded away again. That must have been
when Jonathan took him downstairs so I could sleep.

There
had been no Felix in my dream, only the endless, dark woods and the sense of
futile searching. But now he was back in my thoughts, filling me with longing
so fierce it shocked me.

“Where’s
Darcey?” I forced my mind away, on to other things.

“Downstairs,
on her tablet,” Jonathan said. “What the hell is unboxing? She’s obsessed with
watching clips of it on YouTube. I was worried it was something dodgy but when
I had a look it’s just some weird Brazilian teenager opening Disney eggs.”

“That’s
pretty much it,” I said. “I think Zé’s daughter got her into it. It’s a Thing,
evidently. They open one of those plastic egg things and tell you what’s
inside.”

“Then
what?” Jonathan said.

I
sipped my coffee. “Then nothing. Then they open another one. And another, and
so on and on.”

“But…why?”
Jonathan asked, bemused.

“Search
me. She’s watched dozens of the things in the past week. We need to enforce her
screen time limit. Go and tell her to stop, and watch telly or something. Or we
could go out, I suppose. Go to the park.”

“It’s
a nice day,” Jonathan said, opening the curtains and filling the bedroom with
sunlight.

“What
time is it, anyway?” With Owen pinning down my arm, I couldn’t see my watch or
reach my phone. Suddenly, it seemed very important to look at my phone, see
whether I had any texts or any messages on Facebook. Not that I would – Felix
didn’t know my number. He didn’t even, as far as I was aware, know my married
name.