Boyfriend in a Dress (20 page)

‘You’re right,’ I say.

‘I’m glad you called me,’ Dale says.

‘I’m glad too,’ I say. Dale leans over, lifts my slumped head up and pulls it onto his chest, and pushes his arm behind my shoulders. I stare ahead, as I recognize the starch and soap and aftershave mixture of smells on his shirt. He relaxes completely and leans back.

‘Look at us,’ I say after a while, without moving.

‘I know,’ he says, with a smile that I can’t see. I take his hand and hold it, wrapping his arm around me.

‘Can we just sit here for a while? I’ll go and see him then,’ I say.

‘Sure,’ he replies, and I think he may have closed his eyes.

‘Have you missed your flight yet?’ I ask.

‘Almost.’

‘Can we still sit here for a while?’ I ask again.

‘Sure,’ he says.

‘Can you still stay here, instead of Scotland?’ I ask.

‘Sure,’ he says.

I wake up when I realize Dale is gently stroking the hair away from my forehead, and I feel slightly uncomfortable. In fact, I feel terrible. I have to go and see Charlie, and I haven’t. I’m sitting here using a man who doesn’t deserve it, mucking him about.

I lurch up and Dale is startled.

‘I should go,’ I say quickly, and leap to my feet, grabbing my bag and coat. The sweat trickles down my back where it has been lurking for the last half an hour.

‘Of course.’ Dale jumps to his feet, looking a little confused, and I see a hurt in his eyes that I try and ignore.

I feel awful. I feel responsible for him, and Charlie, and this whole mess, as if they have no free will, no minds of
their own. As if they are not accountable for any of their actions, and I am directing their movements and scenes and monologues, and if the performances are bad, if things go awry as they have done, the buck stops with me. I feel like I should just tattoo my forehead with the words ‘sorry, for everything’. They are grown men, both of them, not retarded or incapable, and yet their letdowns are my fault. Somehow Dale’s divorce, that is my fault. They aren’t blaming me, and I’m not playing the martyr, believe me. I can just manage to trace everything back to me.

I wonder if it’s because I think I can make it right that I choose to accept the blame for all these things. If I can just help Charlie, love him enough, explain everything, he will be fine. If I can be more supportive, more communicative, he won’t need to look for his love elsewhere. Simultaneously, if I can just have a quick fling with Dale, and put an end to our drawn out international sexual chemistry and misplaced longing, show him that we are not meant to be, and send him back to America with self-confidence and renewed belief in love and life, then he will be able to start his life again.

‘Will you call me later, and tell me how it goes?’ Dale asks. I realize I have just been staring at the floor for about thirty seconds.

‘Of course,’ I say, and smile. I lean in and kiss him quickly goodbye on the cheek, and dart off towards the door again before he even has time to realize what has happened.

I hail a cab and check my watch – quarter past two. I head for the police station.

I feel like a criminal just walking in. I check my hair in the swing doors, as if having a hair out of place is itself a criminal offence. And my mind is whirring, thinking, ‘don’t swear, don’t touch anything, don’t look at anybody too long. Eyes down, hands in pockets.’

I head towards the desk and wait behind a teenage boy who is talking with the desk sergeant about parole. Don’t listen, don’t make judgements. You could be arrested for any of these things. I turn around and look at the noticeboard to distract myself from their conversation, and see Charlie sitting just around the corner, holding a cup of tea. He feels somebody looking at him and looks over, and smiles ever so slightly. He is indeed pleased to see me. I feel a rush of relief. I’m on my way. I can make this right.

I gesture to him, asking whether I can come over to him, and he beckons me over, nods his head and smiles again.

‘What are they doing? Is it over?’ I ask straight away, but three feet away from him, no physical contact, not in a police station. Indecency or something; they could get me on that.

‘Well, no. They’ve questioned me already, I haven’t been arrested. I can go home. But I can’t leave the country,’ he
says. Normally that remark would have seemed like a joke, but not when you are about to apply for visas to countries on the other side of the world.

‘Oh right. Well, let’s go home then.’ He offers me his hand and something stops me taking it, an impulse not to touch him surges through me. I am not afraid of him, I think.

We go back to his in a cab, and I make a cup of tea, and he slumps down on the sofa.

Explanations are required. I need to understand what exactly is going on, but he doesn’t look in any fit state to talk. He has a face full of stubble, and tired red eyes. His suit looks crumpled, and it occurs to me that they went and got him from his work. But I need to know what he has done. I want a confession, of guilt or innocence, something, and I want it now. I need to know how to feel about him now. I need to know if I can stay here tonight.

I say, ‘So?’

Charlie sighs heavily and turns to face me on the sofa. I stand gripping the side of the counter, watching the droplets form on the side of the kettle, and I realize I am digging my nails into the surface.

‘You have to believe I didn’t do this, Nix. I need to know that you know I’m innocent.’

‘So why did they fucking arrest you then?’ I surprise myself with the sound and the volume of my voice. There has been a scream waiting to come out, and now it has. But I can’t stop, even looking at the alarm and the hurt in his eyes. ‘They don’t arrest people without proof, Charlie; they don’t arrest people on a hunch, it’s not allowed. Why do they think you did it? And what exactly are you supposed to have done?’ I think this is what it must feel like to have your blood boil. Steam seeps from the kettle.

‘I didn’t do anything,’ is all he says.

‘Yes, but what do they think you’ve done? What are they accusing you of?’

‘Assault,’ he says.

‘What kind of assault? Spitting, slapping, punching? Fucking rape?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ he shouts and stands up, wide-eyed.

‘Should I be scared, Charlie?’

‘Of me? Of course not. Jesus, Nicola, I’m not a different person from this morning. They’ve made a mistake. I can’t believe you don’t believe me.’

‘Ouch!’ I flinch as I realize I have pushed my hand against the metallic side of the kettle, and my skin is starting to stick to it. Charlie rushes over but I put my other hand up.

‘No, don’t come over here yet,’ I say, and run my hand under the cold tap.

We both stand still and watch the water gushing, and Charlie loosens his tie. I flinch again slightly. My nerve endings are on red-alert.

‘So what now? It kind of disrupts your plans,’ I say quietly.

‘Our plans,’ Charlie replies, walking over and leaning on the other side of the counter, pouring hot water into a mug with no tea or coffee in it.

‘No, Charlie, your plans, you, running away. You using me to get away.’

Charlie slams the kettle down on the counter.

‘I didn’t fucking do anything!’

I just want to hit him.

How could I just throw my life away after a couple of days? It’s a problem when somebody you think you know suddenly turns on the charm, says they’ve changed – your guard is unintentionally dropped, familiarity draws you in, and almost without question you can be duped, or fooled. Charlie was at the bottom of my wish list last week, and then a bit of sun and the South Coast let me believe we could be
Romeo and Juliet after all. I was too easily fooled. I wanted him to be different. Six years of not being able to say goodbye, despite all the reasons in the world, proves, if nothing else, that I was having difficulty facing a life without him.

The thing is, I really was convinced that he had changed, that he cared again, and I let myself show that I cared. I let myself get swept along and this dream that I had only dared dream in the last few days now seemed just as impossible to give up. Charlie seemed right again.

The thought that is whizzing back and forth around my head, the thought that I have to acknowledge, is whether I can forgive him if he did do it? I loved Charlie before, I had just stopped liking him. Now, I like him again, and it’s hard to willingly give that up. If he made a mistake, was it a different him? Was it a final act, a last desperate measure to get my attention, to make me open up to him, that drove us back together? Was it the old Charlie, the one that I had created by blocking him out and driving him away, but refusing somehow to let him go? If I made him what he was, if my having sex with Dale resulted in me becoming pregnant and feeling guilty for terminating it, feeling guilty about not telling Dale, feeling guilty about not telling Charlie it wasn’t his, then am I responsible?

Had my hating Charlie for not being able to tell him pushed him to do something awful that shocked his whole system back to life? Did he do it partly so he could seek my forgiveness, for everything that he had done to me, all the unfaithfulness? If I had forced him to do something truly big, to make us even and let us forgive each other, then I should forgive him. We are as bad as each other: we deserve each other. Charlie forced an issue I wasn’t brave enough to force. Whether he did this or not, I should forgive him.

I turn to face him, and there are tears in his eyes.

The kettle has cooled and I notice beads of water that have
formed at its base on the counter. I reach out my hand to him. He looks at me, unsure, and his eyes widen, in disbelief. He reaches out and takes my hand. I let out the breath I have been holding, and he pulls me in. We stand in the kitchen and hold each other for a while, and I rest my face on his neck, and his hair. I smell him almost subconsciously, it is so familiar. We go to bed, and sleep curled tightly into each other, barely speaking, getting up occasionally for a glass of water, or to open a window. My phone goes a couple of times in the other room, and I ignore it, and snuggle back into Charlie. I know who it is.

Every now and then I am seized by the fact that I am stuck in my head. This is me, I can’t ever escape. Suddenly I feel claustrophobic. I want to scramble out of my head, out of my body. I want to be somebody else. I just don’t want to be me.

The world has got so shallow; being with somebody means so little now. If I could have anything, I’d have romance. But what is romance other than the atypical, and why would that be easy? Even when we get close, things slip through our fingers before we realize what’s happened. Living, insecurities, pride get in the way of the ideal we want our life to be. And we end up clinging onto people in vain as they pull and tug away, to get their head above our emotional water, and shrug off our neediness to concentrate on their own.

Everybody has an ordinary life. Even the people that we think have extraordinary lives just have more money. I am living in a dream world. Magic isn’t going to happen. I just have to learn to depend on somebody, and let somebody depend on me, instead of fighting off normality and wrecking myself and other people in the process. If I could photograph
my life, I’d realize how great things are, how good I have it. Maybe I’d be positive and optimistic. I get to mostly spend my life how I like. If I can’t really lose myself, it’s because there are so many people that are trying to tell me that they love me, and I don’t really let any of them say it, comfortably.

It’s very easy to look around to see what you don’t have, but it’s not so easy to see what you do have. You beat yourself up about things that really don’t matter. I don’t have to be perfect. I can’t be everything to everybody. Repeat that a hundred times. Write it on the blackboard until your wrist aches and your fingers are dry and bruised by chalk. I may not be what I thought I’d be, but that’s okay.

Charlie and I wake up to the sound of the phone ringing. We are entangled in each other and I pull my hair free as he leans over to answer. He answers a couple of questions curtly and hangs up. I pull the duvet up around my neck and lay my head on his chest. He kisses the top of my head and hugs me a little too tight.

‘Who was that?’ I ask, wide awake.

‘The police station – they want me down there again at eight-thirty,’ he says quietly, like just saying it might rock the boat we’re on too much, and send one of us overboard.

‘Well, that gives us time enough for breakfast. Let’s have it on the balcony.’ I crawl out of his grasp and sit on the side of the bed, pulling my hair up into a ponytail. I grab his dressing gown and pull it on.

‘Shall I do the coffee?’ he asks, stretching. He seems so fragile, it seems like his whole world depends on me.

‘No, hon, you stay there for a minute. I’ll do it.’ I lean over and, holding my weight on my arms, give him a soft kiss. He kisses me back, and I pull myself away. I leave him sitting up in bed, thinking.

I scramble some eggs, toast some bagels, pepper everything,
pour the juice and the coffee and head out to the balcony. The early morning summer chill hits me slightly as I lay everything out, and I feel Charlie come up behind me and put his arms around me.

‘Thank you,’ he says quietly, and I rub his forearms as they are wrapped around me, and just smile. We eat our breakfast like honeymooners, passing each other food, me sitting between his legs, our feet propped up, resting on a chair in front of us, leaning on his bare chest, looking out at the early morning sun. We both pretend everything is fine. I almost believe it. I pass a bagel over my shoulder and he takes a bite.

And as the sun warms us up I look down over the balcony at the street below, the street where the girl was hit, and where Charlie phoned the police. I look down at the newsagent’s where Charlie was evicted in his dress. I don’t say anything, but I wonder whether Charlie is thinking the same things as I am. A few cars go past, cabs mostly. I shiver for a moment, and Charlie hugs me tightly. I close my eyes as the sun begins to blaze, even this early I feel it burn into my skin. Yes, this is certainly a strange summer. The sun keeps coming back for more. The word ‘heatwave’ gets muttered and whispered during the spring months, as if to say it too loudly would scare it away. It never actually seemed to fulfil its promise. And yet here we are, slap bang in the middle of an unlikely season, an unfamiliar air lending itself to everybody’s actions. I can’t decide if the air is heavier or lighter with the heat, whether emotions are charged or relaxed. I feel myself warming up, and I can’t decide whether the sun is boiling my blood or warming my heart.

I look up and back at Charlie’s profile, so close to me, and I smile and moan a small sigh of agreement. Charlie’s dick grows harder against my lower back, and I take his hands and slip them gently inside my robe. I turn my head
and we kiss slowly and softly. Anybody glimpsing us would say we were in love. I get up and turn around, still wearing Charlie’s robe, undone now, and slide myself onto him. We kiss and rock and kiss as the sun steams up the sky. I hear the cars passing below us, and doors closing. I hear alarm radios clicking on and breakfast DJs announcing to the waking that it’s going to be another spectacular day. And as Charlie and I time ourselves, working against each other, each clinging to the other’s neck, looking into each other’s eyes the way we used to, we know we have forgiven each other – but it’s a small easy forgiveness, a sex forgiveness.