7. I HAVE BEEN rootling about for ages within the dark recesses of my filing system/wardrobe through a couple of tired, damaged cardboard boxes sunk beneath an even bigger mass of clothes earmarked for the charity shop in search of that CD Trent wants back. If I’m honest, it’s more likely to be in the car but it’s raining again and I can’t be bothered to walk to it and have a looksee. So I’m doing what I seem to do best - apart from getting hideously drunk and hungover during a working week – never again but watch this space and procrastinating. Too much of this will make me go blind. In fact, the longer I take in finding Trent’s CD, the longer my mind can spend in the delicious idealistic world of make-believe and imagine that once I do find it, all kinds of monumental things will start to happen. Like to begin with, it will stop raining. Then the birds will start singing, the sun will start shining, a rainbow will appear over the house of course, my confidence will begin to soar and I will glide, Flake-girl-like, through the house clutching the CD in my winsome hands then sink into the arms of my true love, Trent, whereupon he will spin me - again, Flake-girl-like - in his muscular arms and decree his undying returned affection (not love – that’s far too unbelievable – and anyway we can work on that at a slower pace later on). We will spin and spin in a state of dreamy dizziness until we either a) fall to the daisy-ed grass beneath our bare feet in romantic merriment or b) throw up.
Actually, it’s more likely to be the latter.
If any of that happens at all. Which it won’t. And the movies and adverts should stop trying to convince us that this kind of stuff can – it’s so misleading – it could start making a sensible human believe in all sorts of realms of fantasy – no, seriously, it could!
Okay. Point in fact. What parent-child in its right mind really does that thing with the working out which grain of cereal goodness Spits, Snackles or Rocks?! No, really. How much serious entertainment could one family at breakfast get out of such an event? It’s misleading. And couples might actually start to consider having children on the strength of that advert alone – and then where would they be, once they realise they’ve been hoodwinked into believing that children love to do this over breakfast when in reality all they want to do with their cereal is drop it on the floor, smear it over the walls or fling it at their siblings/parents/pets? Misinformed, disenchanted parents should sue.
I hear the front door slam and peals of giggles wend their way up the stairs from the hallway below. Sounds like Jude’s had a good day. And it’s still only six thirty – it can only get better.
Just as I’m about to reposition all my ‘files’ back from whence they came and launch myself full-throttle into Jude’s happy-space, I am halted suddenly by a masculine laugh I don’t recognise and my mind splits.
Don’t. I could interrupt something.
Do. I live here, after all. Ergo I have every right to stand at the top of the stairs and yell down ‘Hey what’s so funny? Here, let me join you!’
Don’t.
Be. An idiot.
What is it my mother’s always saying? “If in doubt, don’t.” Wise words. Strangely. From her anyway.
So I don’t. I hear the giggles and the deep laughs drift across the hallway and away into the kitchen. Ah, what the heck – Jude’s due a bloke. I can’t remember the last time she brought one back here. Oh, apart from that drunken fling she had the other week after we’d all been out. But then that was just a quick grope by the fridge and then he’d been escorted off the premises by a very sober Anton getting quite territorial about his Bud in the fridge which was being forcibly denied him by said grope. In fact he’d looked quite fierce.
Wo/man cannot stand between Anton and his Beer.
So I decide to just Go About My Business as if I’ve heard nothing and Play It By Ear. That always works out handsomely, after all. I’ll just trip down the stairs and … Be. Me. Brilliant plan.
But just as I’m about to close the wardrobe doors on my fruitless voyage of exploration, my eyes fall upon something stuffed between a pair of incredibly ambitious drainpipe jeans and an old macramé waistcoat. It’s a scrappy piece of paper. I pick it up and stare at it with a degree of apprehension because I do actually know full well what it is and I don’t want to look. But I do want to look. Scrawled almost illegibly across an old Tesco receipt is a phone number and a kiss in green felt tip and my heart does a stupid double-flip right up to my ears and back.
It’s Trent’s mobile number. He’d scribbled down for me after our second date when we were standing in the kitchen sipping coffee at one in the morning. He’d said at the time he thought I should have it as he’d decided I wasn’t a crazed nymphomaniac and he could see only a future of laughter and happiness with me – ‘no bunnies or knives involved’. I remember how I’d giggled and curled my arms around his big strong neck and sink-plunged my lips onto his in delight (with a tinge of relief it has to be said). We’d kissed for another nineteen minutes following this emotionally charged junction in our fledgling relationship. And I remember that when he went home I almost cried with happiness. As if I knew that this was going to be something special, something to be nurtured and cherished and I couldn’t believe my bloody good luck. Pretty boys after all, don’t happen very often. At least not to me, and they especially don’t generally come with the wickedest sense of humour and sensitivity to shame a saint. Oh … God.
How did I let this happen?
I am kind of holding my breath because I don’t want this memory to dissolve from my mind and I’m worried that if I let any air escape, then the memory will liquefy with my exhalation. I can feel something large begin to bubble up from my diaphragm and as the pressure builds to an agonising crescendo, the tears begin and I exhale into a slump at the base of my bed.
Even if this were in widescreen HD, glorious Technicolour with total surround sound and a supporting cast of gazillions, then this moment would not hold any more sensation than it already does. Oh, unless the soundtrack to Beaches or Love Story were to whisper apologetically in the background for disturbing such a scene.
It sounds like a cliché, but I am sobbing like I have never sobbed before. Big fat, globby sobs of gut-wrenching proportions and I can’t stop. No sooner has one tissue been soaked with a mere two or three globules of saltiness, than another is brought fast up the rear to substitute his waterlogged warrior friend.
In less than an hour my pokey little excuse for a bedroom does not so much resemble that of the first five minutes of Saving Private Ryan but more the first sighting of a low-budget Narnia from beyond the land of Ward Robe. All I need now is a kind of plough and snow shoes and I could possibly see my way clear to the bathroom to plunge my red raw face into a sink of welcoming cold water.
And it suddenly strikes me with the force of a caber that I must be missing Trent. So how come I wasn’t quite so cut up about it when ‘it’ happened - the great dumping I mean? Why was it that all I felt at the time was irritation? It almost feels now as though, after I’ve spent a huge amount of time arranging something (flowers, trophies, books, ornaments, I don’t know – this is a metaphor after all) that without warning, somebody has just upped and taken one away, or toppled one over and smashed it so that the others didn’t quite ‘fit’ again – I’m finding this a hard analogy to work with. But all I do know is that unexpectedly I am feeling lost, lonely, miserable and out of order. And I didn’t want these emotions to be because of a mere mortal. I thought I was made of tougher stuff than this. I damned well should be – after all my parents taught me. In fact I’m so disappointed with myself I think it will be a while before I can think well of me again.
‘Lise!’ Jude’s voice suddenly bellows from below stairs.
I actually inhale a sharp, shocked gasp. Shit. Was I loud? Did she hear me? Ooh then I remember Jude’s male visitor and his laughter. Did they hear me? Have they been standing outside my bedroom door listening to my body being wracked with heaving emotional sobs? Have they? Did they? Would they be that sick in the head?! How dare they? How bloody…..
‘Lise?!’ her voice is louder now. Does that mean she’s on her way up?
I can hear her mumble something to her man. He mumbles something back and then it’s quiet again.
‘Lise, are you there?’
Of course I’m bloody well here. Would my car be outside if I weren’t?
Now I can hear footpads coming up the stairs and I immediately, like some fatally wounded, terrified animal, start to scan my box of a room for somewhere to hide so she can’t see that a) I’m here and haven’t made my presence known – which is a dense thing to have done in retrospect, b) I’m here and I’ve been turning my bedroom into something akin to the Andrex Puppy’s ideal home or c) I’ve made such a wet, hot mess of my face without requiring any outside intervention. Whichever of the three, I’m in no position for small talk, that’s for sure.
Jude knocks on my door and then pushes it open gingerly. Her face must appear around the crack - I can only assume this for I now have my wardrobe door open which thankfully (brilliant decoy) entirely hides my bedroom door from my sight and my sight from Jude’s face at said bedroom door. I know, cunning.
‘You okay Lise?’ she asks.
‘Hmm?’ I trill, innocently from within the wardrobe.
‘You okay… only I didn’t know you were up here. Crikey, what’ve you been up to Lise?’
She’s probably spotted a tissue or two. Can’t be helped. Couldn’t sweep the room quick enough. Should have got the CSI guys in.
‘Oh that – um… couldn’t find any dusters – been cleaning a bit.’ I hug my ingenuity.
‘Oh. Okay. Hey – listen, we’re going out. If you’re interested?’
‘Hmm?’ I repeat my trilling. She must think that either I’m totally absorbed in my ‘cleaning’ or question whether I’m freakishly ill-mannered.
‘Me and Craig. You know… out for a bit. Just down to the Kent. Want to join us?’
Realising there is a full length mirror on the inside of my wardrobe, I do a quick scan of my face and decide there is no way on Gods earth I am letting this phizzog loose on the streets of Carwick this evening. Oh no, there is not enough time to get a warning of any description to the residents and pub-goers and there is definitely not enough time to cool, soothe, refresh and make up this hideous sight that stares back at me, especially in light of the fact that Jude’s nerdy older brother is also included. Being puffed of face and broken of heart whilst in the company of Craig is possibly the worst recipe for protracted misery anyone could imagine.
‘Nar. You’re ok, Jude,’ I sigh as despairingly as possible ‘I’ve still got a load to do here – you and Craig have a good time. Say hi to him for me!’
‘Kay then,’ Jude trills and closes the door shut. My, but we’re a household of seasoned Trillers tonight!
As I hear the front door pull to, my body relaxes its reined-in emotions and I finally give in and flop back to my previous position of abject wretchedness. Minus the wetness, of course. But still with the supreme belief that a part of my well-ordered (or at least I’d like to think so) life is now resembling damaged goods.