Dead Lovely (8 page)

It makes it worse somehow that I fell for Kyle on the night of his wedding anniversary. I don’t think I’d ever properly fallen in love before, because I had never experienced the physical discomfort of it. It felt the same as grieving – intense, agonising, all-consuming. Why would falling in love feel the same as grief? I suddenly couldn’t eat. It felt like I could hardly breathe.

That night with Kyle felt like it was the most wonderful night of my life. I found myself looking him directly in the eyes for longer than is socially acceptable. I noticed him noticing my bare arms and liking what he saw. I felt his body warm me like a heater even though he was several feet away. I knew he wanted to be closer. I touched his hand
accidentally
when I handed him a glass of wine and his hand lingered near mine several times after.

Kyle and I drank till the wee hours, rearranged the incredible number of ornaments in the dining room, collected magic mushrooms, and then dared each other to walk into the woods and stand still for five minutes in the pitch-black. I lasted one minute. Kyle lasted six. I thought he might be dead, so I started to walk towards the black trees to find him.

I heard a noise that put my post-pregnancy pelvic floor muscles to the test, turned around, and saw Matt in the distance, peering through a window into the hotel and then walking towards the field. I kept deadly still, but Kyle ‘booed’ me from behind, which made Matt turn around. I looked at Matt for a full four seconds – doesn’t sound long, but when you’re looking at someone who might want to rape and kill you it’s (cat dog) … a (cat dog) … long (cat dog) … time (cat dog).

I grabbed Kyle and ran with him back to the hotel, and we slammed the door shut and locked it with painstaking drunkenness. When we turned around, Sarah was there, and she scared us almost as much as Matt had. She looked mad – and was mad, as it turned out; so mad, in fact, that it took us ages to collect all the magic mushrooms she hurled across the foyer floor before turning on her heel and
stomping
off.

If Kyle follows her upstairs, I told myself, then I’m imagining things. If he stays, that’s it, I’m in trouble. We’re all in trouble.

A pause.

‘There’s some of that port left,’ said Kyle.

So that was it, we were in trouble.

We sat in the bar together and talked.

Topics covered: favourite song, what we would study if we had our time again, how I’d been feeling since the bub, how Kyle was coping with the
pressure
of his work and marriage.

How could it be that I’d suddenly fallen for a guy I’d known for years? How could it be that I hadn’t noticed how good he made me feel about myself? I just knew he liked me, and that he enjoyed my company.

I’d started to sober up a little when our talk turned (dangerously) to what unusual sexual experiences we had had. Turns out Kyle had quite a limited
repertoire
, so I sent him off to bed to try something new, and sat there by myself regretting it.

The next morning I was up first, after a two-hour headachy sleep. Matt’s tent was gone from the field, just like last time. I sat and ate breakfast by myself, jumping every time I heard a noise that might be Kyle – footsteps, a door opening, voices.

He finally appeared during my third coffee. What a weird thing. The day before I was unaware of the hairs on my arms, I knew how to go about eating food, and I was able to put two or more words
together in order to convey information. What had happened to me? My arm hairs were fully erect. My skin had flu-like tingles all over. I could only breathe in as far as my tonsils. And I had regressed to the speaking age of a toddler.

Mind you, I must have managed to say something while we drank our coffee, because I remember wishing Sarah hadn’t interrupted our conversation. She sat down to eat her fry-up and apologised for the night before. She was sorry. She’d just been tired. Today she would try really hard. She was determined to keep up with us and her feet were well bandaged and feeling fine.

We headed off towards Bridge of Orchy, leaving Loch Lomond behind us and venturing into
bleakness
. Sarah didn’t complain at all but she lagged behind a bit, and when she caught up with us at our first break she seemed to be walking barefoot.

‘My God, Sarah, what’s happened?’ I asked her, as she sat down beside me. Her feet were bleeding, and skin was hanging off where blisters had popped.

‘It’s the new walking shoes, I think,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I hitch a ride to the campsite?’

We both protested. How about we all hitch a ride? We couldn’t let her go off alone.

But she insisted, and seemed fine about it,
promising
to have a fire roaring for us at the campsite.

So we walked past a huge old deserted quarry and then waited with her beside a small road in the
middle of nowhere until a car came along – a Sainsbury’s delivery van to be precise. Before she got in I asked the driver if he was an axe murderer. He shook his head: ‘I prefer to use a shotgun.’ Sarah hopped into the seat beside him and smiled.

As the van disappeared into the distance, a wave of panic tingled through me. For miles and miles, there would be nothing and no-one but the two of us.

I don’t think I moved for a few seconds. I was too scared to. If I looked at Kyle, that would be it. So instead I formulated Plan A in my brain, which involved walking quickly, eyes down, and talking non-stop about safe, non-flirtatious topics.

‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it, how Chas turned out,’ I said, almost jogging, eyes determinedly down.

‘Remember how he used to feed the ants under the sink? With caramel shortcake, the classy bastard. Best-fed ants in Glasgow!’

‘He is the nicest man I’ve ever known,’ I said.

‘Nicer than me?’ said Kyle, looking into my eyes.

Shite. What was Plan B? I didn’t have one.

Shite.

‘Of course he is!’ I said. ‘You’re a pain in the arse.’

Just about the time Krissie and Kyle were waving goodbye to Sarah, their old friend Chas was sitting on the top bunk in his cell, holding his full
supermarket
bag, waiting.

The knock eventually came at one-thirty, just at the end of
Neighbours.
Although he’d been
anticipating
it all day – for every day of his sentence, in actual fact – when it came it scared the hell out of him.

Four years he’d spent in that cell in B Hall.
Forty-eight
months. Two hundred and eight weeks. One thousand, four hundred and sixty-one days. His crime had been to attack a man with a metal bar that he’d managed to dislodge from a trolley. His reason for doing it hadn’t come out during the trial.

When Chas was being sentenced at the Old Bailey, the judge had looked him in the eye and
asked him if he felt any remorse for what he had done.

Chas had held the judge’s gaze and replied, ‘No’.

If the judge was to look Chas in the eye now and ask him if he was sorry for what he’d done, if he was sorry that one thousand, four hundred and sixty-one days of his life had been spent in this hellhole because of what he had done, Chas would look him in the eye again and answer exactly the same. He would say no. He felt no remorse. None whatsoever.

Chas thought back now to his fear when he’d first heard his sentence and which prison he’d be going to. It had almost been a relief to be transferred to Sandhill, even though he’d heard about Sandhill’s hard men and was properly scared to death when he was taken north in a white van. A man in a uniform handcuffed him and took him through the metal door and then into Reception, where he was processed.

He saw pretty much straight away that he wouldn’t fit into either camp of prisoner at Sandhill. There were the criers, who were shocked to find
themselves
where they were, who had lost houses or jobs or wives because of where they were, and who sobbed uncontrollably for weeks. Then there were the ‘hiya-big-fella’ guys, who arrived as if they were at a school reunion – chatting to old mates in what must have felt a familiar, almost safe, place.

Chas was in a third category all of his own. No regulation scar on the face, no glint in the eye, no
drugs to sell or buy, no loss of family or job. He was the spacey middle-class guy. A little bit scrawny, but otherwise good-looking, well dressed and highly
articulate.
Chas recognised immediately that he would need to keep a low profile and hide his differences. So he’d put his head down, painted, refused to see visitors, and barely spoke to anyone for four years.

He’d been ‘dubbed’ up with five different men over his time there – a smoker who meowed and didn’t do it; an injector who did and would again; two men with mad-bitch wives who drove them to it; and young Kieran, who cried for the entirety of his eighty-day lie-down.

Chas changed into the white overalls the boss gave him, and held tight onto his bag as he followed him out of the hall. He thought he’d feel more as the keys dangled and the huge metal doors opened, but he didn’t feel much at all. The boss he liked had said goodbye the night before, and no-one else gave a damn about him.

The most important thing Chas had learnt in prison was from a ten-minute conversation with a nurse. He’d asked to see one, just because it was one of the few things that you could choose to do in prison. This girl came to see him, and listened to him rant about how he had failed to look after the person he loved. That was why he was in here, for
trying to look after the person he loved. But he had failed.

The nurse told him that he should stop blaming himself. He had tried his best and it wasn’t his fault. Instead, he should look after himself. He should let himself be loved.

Chas was dumbfounded. She was right. It had not been his fault and he did deserve to be loved. As the door locked Chas in again, he looked at the silver-white cell and knew who it was who should love him. It was Krissie.

As the taxi took Chas into town, he felt like he was on a rollercoaster – out of control, on the brink of death. Too much noise, too much speed, too many people. He put his hands over his ears and only lifted his eyes when the taxi driver shook him on the leg. ‘That’s you.’

Chas stepped out of the taxi and looked at the house in front of him. It was a nice wee terraced house in a nice wee suburb of Glasgow. He took a deep breath, checked his hair in the side mirror of a parked car, and walked up to the door.

Krissie’s dad, Dave, answered the door holding a crying baby boy and looking a little bit frazzled.

‘Chas! How are you? Are you okay? Come in! It’s so nice to see you. Anna’s just gone out to get Calpol for Robbie here, she’ll just be a sec. Come away in.’

‘No, no, I won’t. I was just wondering if Krissie’s about.’

‘She’s on holiday, camping. We’re minding the wee one. This is Robbie, Krissie’s son.’

Chas’s heart sank at the realisation that Krissie had hooked up with someone, but he did his best to hide it.

‘Oh, hello, Robbie! You’ve got your mummy’s
eyelashes
, haven’t you? So where have your mummy and daddy gone?’

‘His mummy is away with Kyle and Sarah.’

‘Oh, and Robbie’s daddy?’

Dave shook his head. ‘He’s not around. It’s a long story. Krissie’ll be back in a few days. Here’s her number … She’s still in Gardner Street. But listen, come in and wait for Anna. She’ll be sad if she misses you. And you’re welcome to stay with us until you get back on your feet.’

‘Thanks, but Mum and Dad have already ironed my Hibs duvet!’

But before Chas could head off to his parents Krissie’s mum arrived. She dropped her shopping bags at the front gate when she saw who was at the door. ‘Chas!’ she said, running to give him a hug.

Anna used to bring packets of food to the flat Chas shared with Krissie and Kyle – fantastic
meatballs
and cakes and even the odd bottle of wine. Chas had adored her – she always seemed to say the right thing if he was having a difficult time. She oozed happiness, had a wonderfully elegant face and was an amateur philosopher. She loved nothing
better than to sip coffee in the bay window,
people-watching,
and making observations like: ‘You know, Chas, I think there’s only so much happiness for each person. Like half a glass maybe, and you just can’t expect more. So what’s a person to do, sip or skol?’

Chas knew when he met Krissie’s mum that Krissie was only going to get better with age. She was like a good cabernet, softening and smoothing with time.

‘Come back in,’ Anna insisted, taking him by the arm and not giving him the opportunity to object. While Anna poured tea, Chas stood at the kitchen bench, marvelling at the abnormality of normality. The very act of placing eight custard creams on a plate seemed surreal to him.

‘It’s hard to explain,’ he said, when Anna asked him what his time had been like. ‘I guess it’s like being on an aeroplane with drunk football fans for four years … on Aeroflot!’

Dave gave Robbie some Calpol and then rocked him to sleep in his arms.

This was more comfortable to Chas than
anywhere
else in the world. Certainly it was more comfortable than his parents’ home, with its stiff antique furniture and tastefully appointed bedrooms (bar the Hibs duvet). This was the kind of home Chas had always wanted.

There were silences as they skirted around issues
– none of them wanting to talk about assaults or postnatal depression – but they were the kind of silences families have, not comfortable so much as just not uncomfortable; the kind where everyone knows everything there is to know.

As Chas left, Anna hugged him firmly. There was a tear in her eye as Chas smiled and walked off.

As he walked past the row of terraces, Chas felt like flying with happiness. She wasn’t married. She was alone. And he was going to find her.

In the Sainsbury’s delivery van, Sarah chatted happily to her shotgun killer. It had been quite some time since she’d had the old effect on men, and it was very clear that it was happening now. She was still blonde, still had huge boobs and white teeth, and could still flutter her eyebrows and giggle girlishly.

Paul was about forty, and it turned out that he was the manager of all the Sainsbury’s stores in the Highlands. Every so often, he explained, he spent a day in the life of one of his workers, so he could keep in touch. He lived in a castle near Perth, and spent his evenings drinking champagne and his weekends horse-riding and showing the kids a good time.

Sarah immediately felt she could trust Paul. There was something about him, something that saw the real her, understood the real her, and it was truly liberating to be listened to and respected.

‘What about you?’ he asked Sarah. ‘What’s your life like?’

Before Sarah knew it, she was crying. Her life, actually, was shit. She was lonely and her marriage was at breaking point. Her husband clearly preferred the company of her best friend. She felt fat and frumpy. Paul tutted and told her she was beautiful, that he didn’t understand the attraction of rake-thin women. It seemed no time at all before Paul stopped the van at the campsite, where he insisted on setting up the tent while she had a shower and bandaged her feet.

‘Feel like a beer?’ Paul asked after she returned from the shower.

They sat in the local pub and talked. Paul’s
marriage
had ended several years earlier. His wife, he confided, had left him in the end after hundreds of ultimatums about working less and spending more time kicking the football around with the kids. He didn’t listen, and she made good on her threats.

It was eight pm when Sarah next looked at the time. She was drunk, and so was Paul, and the pub had filled sufficiently with noise and smoke and people for Paul to try and kiss her. She almost let him, but decided not to.

‘Not just now,’ she said, tapping on the beer mat with his phone number on it.

While Sarah had spent a wonderful day being listened to and reassured by Paul, Krissie and Kyle
had walked as fast as they could to stop their
adrenalin
from being channelled into the wrong organs. They sped along the valleys, determined not to be distracted.

Krissie’s resolve had diminished along with the miles, and there were several moments in particular that had pushed them towards lunch.

First was the derelict house. It stood in the wilderness with stone walls and no roof, its five grassy windows lined up like a train. It was an unmissable photo opportunity.

‘Say “KYLE’S GORGEOUS!”’ Kyle had said as he pointed the camera.

‘Kyle’s gorgeous,’ Krissie said, trying not to mean it.

Another moment involved a steep hill that Krissie climbed ahead of Kyle, knowing full well that her upper thighs and new red knickers would be partly visible under her loose short shorts.

Then there was the tree trunk that crossed the path. ‘Here,’ Kyle had said, extending a hand. Krissie had taken it in hers, jumped down beside him and not let go for the count of three, she reckoned, as she recalled it with pleasure over the next leg of the journey.

These moments were the entree moments that led to the ham roll of lunch. They sat on the top of a small hill and overlooked the grey-brown cragginess of the surrounds. They laboured through the shared
roll, passing it back and forth more often than
necessary.
They could both hear the inner workings of mouth and throat and neither of them could finish.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Kyle said, as Krissie offered him another bite.

‘Me neither.’

‘How about these?’ Kyle took the magic
mushrooms
out of his pocket. They were wrapped in a hotel napkin.

‘No way!’ said Krissie.

‘I thought we could partake. Take a bite,’ said Kyle.

‘Do I just eat it raw? What will it do to me?’

‘Give you insights.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Maybe make you horny.’

‘Then it’s not a good idea, is it?’

‘So why did you just take a bite, Krissie?’