To Be Someone (23 page)

NOT SUCH A COINCIDENCE

H
OW DID PEOPLE WHO LOST LIFELONG SPOUSES HANDLE THE PAIN?
Sam had “only” been a friend, not a lover or partner, but I couldn’t cope with knowing that I’d never see her again. As I sat at the kitchen table staring glumly into the middle distance, something inside my stomach snarled at me, loudly enough to be heard above the moaning of my depression and the dolorous bass of “Shipbuilding.” After a moment’s consideration I realized, with some surprise, that it was hunger.

Suddenly I knew that I had to get out of the house and get some food. I was absolutely, overwhelmingly ravenous. If I stayed indoors for even one minute longer, I would start gnawing the kitchen counters.

Mum had stocked up for me before she went home, but now the freezer was empty except for half a packet of broad beans. I was down to chocolate spread and capers in the cupboard, and my fruit bowl contained four shriveled grapes and a fossilized lime. I’d been living on noodle soup for the past four days, and I was craving fresh juice, hot bread, colorful salads.

I usually got Sainsburys to home-deliver my groceries, but such was my frame of mind that I hadn’t been able to face the hassle of trying to order over the telephone, let alone exchange small talk with a delivery man. My snap decision to get in the car and go there myself was probably borne from a combination of physical need and mental exhaustion—I needed food, quickly, and I needed to do something to take my mind off my terrible sense of loss.

My daring plan to venture into the outside world filled me with a sudden sense of wild recklessness. Donning shades and a floppy sun hat, I picked up the car keys and left the house, glancing constantly around me as I locked up and got in the car. Still no sign of the stalker, thank God.

I drove to Sainsburys with the roof open and a fresh summer wind flapping the brim of my sun hat, congratulating myself on my positive decision, and beginning to feel a tiny bit less miserable. It was fantastic to be back behind the wheel of my car after so long.

Everything was going much better than expected—until I reached the supermarket. I hadn’t realized it was Saturday. The car park was full to capacity, and row upon row of hot metal chassis glinted at me, taunting me with the knowledge that each car equaled one or more people banging up and down the aisles inside. If I went in, I’d be face-to-face with them all. There would be no security men or velvet ropes or limos to keep us apart, not even the soundproofed cocoon of a DJ’s studio and the coziness of headphones. Just me and the great, ordinary unwashed.

I drove right around the perimeter of the car park and straight out onto the road again, just about managing to avoid a huge wobbly line of pushed-together trolleys being coraled into a pen by two bored employees.

Change of plan. I
could
go home and phone Home Shopping, but then I’d have to wait for them to deliver, and I was too hungry. I took a detour past my favorite deli, but in the three months since I’d last been there, the windows had been whitewashed and the door locked.
CLOSED DOWN DUE TO DEATH
, read a shakily lettered sign in the window. I know how that feels, I thought, and carried on into Richmond.

There was a Tesco Metro in the town center—still a supermarket, but a smaller, less intimidating one. I’d be in and out much more quickly, I reasoned, hunger forcing me to try again. Eventually I found a parking space by the river and made my way back toward Tesco’s, realizing with rising panic that there were probably even more people jostling around on the sunny town center pavements than there had been in Sainsburys. My legs were already beginning to quiver with the unaccustomed effort of walking, and I was so tense that my jaw and nose were aching. I felt a pang of longing for my mother, wishing that she would materialize at my side and proffer a plump elbow for me to hang on to.

But I made it. As soon as I got through the door of Tesco’s, I grabbed a carton of cherry-flavored milk from the shelf and chugged it straight down. This gave me the energy to continue, and in five minutes flat I was queuing, blissfully unnoticed, at the checkout with a basket full of prepackaged salad, milk, bread, croissants, a bag full of individually wrapped cheeses, bananas, oranges, and the empty carton. I promised myself that I’d order all other nonessentials by phone when I got home.

The checkout girl barely even glanced at me as I paid. Too preoccupied with trying to hike her bra strap back onto her skinny shoulder, she shortchanged me, but I was too eager to escape unrecognized to point it out to her.

Flushed with success, I even dared to sidle into HMV on my way back to the car, where I purchased a copy of The Jam’s
All Mod Cons
on CD. I’d only ever owned it on vinyl, and I needed to start thinking about collecting CDs together for the show. This would be a start.

By now I was really beginning to feel unwell. My legs still felt wobbly, and the hunger and the cherry milk had collided in my stomach to form a queasy compromise. I needed a sit-down, and possibly a croissant. I took a right turn down toward the river, and my car, but instead of emerging in a quiet side street, I came out in a large riverside area next to Richmond Bridge. This, too, was crowded with people.

The Richmond riverfront in summer had a definite beach-resort, Club 18–30 feel to it: sweaty people queued at ice-cream van windows, clutching their plastic cups of European lager in one hand and their small change in the other. The bars were packed, there were boats for hire, and half-stripped bodies lay sprawled on the grassy terraced area above the river. An extremely high tide was just receding, water still lapping over the edge of the bank, a wash of dark cooling the hot pavement. A few lads were standing in this puddle, shoes off, trousers rolled up, glugging their pints and looking around self-consciously to see who was watching them. A dog leaped into the river, scaring away a scattering of ducks and making a group of implausibly tanned girls scream as the splash sent drops of murky Thames water into their vodka and limes.

I was about to turn in the direction of my mislaid car when I felt another hot stab of panic. I was in the middle of this huge crowd of strangers, vulnerable, exhausted, and sick, and my only protection against recognition was shades and a sun hat. I raised a hand to my head to check that both were still in place.

Deep breath, I thought. These people are your listeners and—some of the older ones—your fans. Just sit down and have a rest. No one will bother you.

Finding a space on the patchy town-center grass, I brushed away a few fag ends and a rusty bottle top, and lowered myself gingerly. It felt nice, actually. The sun was warm on my thighs, and scratchy stems tickled the backs of my legs. I rolled up the tops of my shorts, scoffed a croissant, and tried to relax.

Not wanting to appear unoccupied, I delved into my bag for my new CD and began to wrestle with the shrink wrap. As usual, the sticky top-spine bearing band name and album title didn’t peel off in one go, but broke away in irritating little slivers, behaving in the way that Sellotape does when you’re tired. I jabbed at it with my thumbnail and eventually managed to unwrap it.

I opened the jewel case and extracted the booklet, reading snatches of lyrics while trying to recover my energy and courage. A couple near me in matching Stussy T-shirts and denim shorts suddenly nudged each other, jerked their eyebrows in my direction, and laughed.

I froze with horror, as color flamed across my cheeks. Ramming the CD back into my bag, I stood up, brushing grass off the seat of my shorts, and moved away through the throng to find somewhere else to sit.

“Check her out,” I heard another man say to his companion, and he pointed at me, sniggering.

Why, oh why, hadn’t I worn a wig as well? Obviously hat and shades were nowhere near enough. I was still recognizable as me, but because I was no longer beautiful, all my musical achievements had ebbed muddily away in people’s memories. It was a cruel realization, to discover how quickly disfigurement could transform me from a respected rock star into a laughingstock. I had no idea that people could be so mean.

My queasiness had escalated into a full-blown green wave of nausea, and I blundered toward the nearest pub to try to find a quiet loo in which to puke. A bottleneck of drinkers were jostling one another in front of the doorway, however, and I couldn’t get in. As I stood, jiggling desperately from foot to foot, I realized what the problem was.

A man was holding everyone up, planted firmly in the narrow entrance to the pub, and clutching a pint in each hand.

“Come on, mate, get a move on,” someone shouted at him from behind.

“Oh, for God’s sake, someone get him out,” yelled a woman next to me, waving her lipstick-printed empty glass. “I’m dying of thirst here!”

Eventually a large burly person in an unbecoming sports vest and rugby shorts gave the man a shove, and he flew out of the porch, spilling his pints and apologizing profusely to the doorframe as his shoulder connected with it en route.

Suddenly we were face-to-face. The man looked exactly like Toby, if Toby’s body had been occupied by somebody else, someone loose and miserable.

I stared incredulously for a moment longer. It
was
Toby.

Lager dripped off his hands and wrists, dampening down the whorls of blond hair on his arms. I looked down and saw his legs in combat shorts, warm with fuzzy golden hair, and it gave me a tiny thrill, as if I was seeing him naked for the first time. I had an urge to hang on to one of those knees as if it was the only thing that would anchor me down. I suddenly felt like crying, realizing how much I’d missed him.

Then I noticed that the legs were swaying, and it sunk in that Toby was absolutely, horrendously, and disgustingly drunk.

He looked at me without focusing, looked away, and then did a slow-motion double take. I waited for his face to light up, to say hello. Instead he grinned vaguely, as if something had amused him.

My hand shot out and grabbed his soggy arm. “Toby? What are you doing here? This is such a coincidence!”

He stared at me as directly as he could and burst out laughing. “Helena, ohGodit’syou! YouhavenoideahowmuchIwannedtoseeyou,” he slurred, handing me one of his half-empty pints and stretching his free hand toward my face. I waited to feel his warm palm cup my cheek, but instead I felt him peel something off each side of my chin.

“Why’veyougotthesestucktoyourface?” he asked, squinting at the two little strips of CD top-spine that had somehow adhered to either side of my mouth, like goaty whiskers.

I groaned. For fuck’s sake.
That
was why people had been staring at me and tittering.

Without waiting for an answer, Toby gave me an enthusiastic hug. He smelled of stale beer and sweat, faint aftershave, garlic. A very different smell from the one I remembered as his.

“Listen,” he said. “Bitpissedatmoment. Reallywannaseeya, though. Missedcha, man, somuch.”

He hugged me again, nearly toppling us both, sending lager cascading down the front of my favorite dry-clean-only Betsey Johnson top.

I pulled away. “What’s going on, Toby? What are you doing here?” I wanted to add, “Drunk, in the middle of the afternoon.”

Just then a man appeared at his shoulder. He was thin and balding, but with great big dark eyes and chimney-brush eyelashes, like a little boy’s. He didn’t seem to be quite as drunk as Toby.

“Where’s my pint?” he said to Toby, glancing at me. The lack of interest in his gaze was a refreshing relief.

Toby pointed at the glass in my hand. “She’sholdingitforyou,” he said.

She? I was beginning to feel a tense, choking sensation in my gut, driving out the previous nausea and filling it with something much more painful: disappointment.

“I’m Helena,” I said pompously, handing him his pint. Since half of it had been spilled, it looked as if I’d had several hefty swigs out of the glass, but I decided it was beneath me to try to justify myself.

“Loveofmylife,” said Toby dreamily, and put his arm around my shoulders. I shrugged him off crossly.

The man’s eyelashes stood at attention. “I’m Toby’s friend Bill,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Tight-lipped, I shook his hand. “Listen, I should really get going. I was just passing through.”

Bill touched my elbow briefly and bent to whisper in my ear—my good ear, fortunately.

“Ignore him—he’s not himself. I expect you know he’s never usually like this, drunk and stuff. It’s just that—”

Toby caught the word
drunk
and shoved his head in between ours. “Noneedtomakeexcuses,” he said. And then with supreme concentration he managed to separate his words:
“I’m not as thunk as drinkle peep I am
, you know.”

He roared with laughter and then sank into a miserable silence, morosely sucking the beer off each of his arms in turn. “Sorry, Ellna,” he said eventually, sounding like Ruby in disgrace.

I badly wanted to ask how Ruby was doing but didn’t think I’d get a comprehensible reply.

“I’ll call you, okay?” he added, obviously making a colossal effort to hold it all together.

“You don’t have my number,” I said.

“C’n I have it?”

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to see him again. Toby’s imploring look suddenly turned to one of horror, and his face went a nasty shade of mustard. “Aaargh,” he said, putting a hand over his mouth and shoving his pint back into my hand once more. “Gonnabesick.” And he dashed unsteadily off into the pub.

There was a sound of popping in my head, as all my romantic bubbles burst.

“Give him a chance,” muttered Bill again. “He really needs to talk to you.”

I was about to say,
He’s married, what is there to talk about?
, when I had a terrible thought. “Um, Kate … Kate hasn’t
died
, has she?”

Bill almost grinned, but not quite. “No. But Toby’s left her. As soon as she came out of hospital, she told him that she was having an affair. He and Ruby have gone to stay with his sister Lulu.”