What about us? (2 page)

The real magic though, was at night
or during a storm.  Then my eyes and dreams were drawn upwards as I travelled
through the sky to the stars, or the home of the thunder god.  I’d liked the
sound of him from the moment I learnt about him.  He didn’t seem to ask for
much and he didn’t promise us lesser mortals anything in return, which was fine
by me.  In my experience, promises are made only to be broken.

I don’t remember what I was
thinking about as I walked and anyway, Mum always says I have my head in the
clouds.  Well, there wasn’t much going on for me on the ground to make me
happy, so I guess she was right.  But I do remember being deep in thought.  Mum
and I had had another bad row, bad enough for her to tell me again that I was
the accident that ruined her life.  I didn’t believe her, but it still hurt,
even after all this time.

I’m her only child, or only
accident of that kind, although her life, as far as I could see at any rate,
was a drunken lurch from one mistake to another.  Most of her mistakes came in
the shape of the many and varied ‘uncles’ that had filled my childhood, most of
whose names I could no longer remember and who in all fairness, probably
wouldn’t be able to remember mine either.  Many of them, if not all, had been
as careless about the basic and the emotional needs of a child as my Mum was,
but she had never been intentionally cruel, while some of them had.

At far as mistakes went, at
least I took care of her.  I made sure she ate and that the bills were paid and
as often as not, I went looking for her when she’d been gone too long, just to
make sure she got home safely.  Now I was working at the old people’s home, we
were a little better off too.  It wasn’t anything fancy; I’d missed too much
school to get anything like that, but I enjoyed it and as far as I could tell I
was good at it.  I’d had plenty of practice looking after Mum, so taking care
of the elderly was second nature to me.  They were always crying out for people,
so they took me on and trained me, despite my lack of qualifications or
experience.  As it turned out, I was a quick learner.

Maybe I’d been thinking about
work, but anyway, whatever it was, I didn’t look as I stepped off the pavement
to cross the road and I didn’t hear the car; I only saw it when it was too late. 
Someone screamed and I heard the sound of wheels locking up.  I looked up and
froze in horror, realising that I had no chance of getting out of the way.

Funny, the things you see in
those moments.  I saw the panic on the driver’s face; etched deep into his eyes
and around his mouth, but I couldn’t tell you what colour the car was.  Then
just before it hit me, I was pushed down and roughly rolled out of the way.  It
missed me by inches, if that.

My elbow hurt and I rubbed it
as I sat up and looked into the face of my knight in shining armour.

He looked anything but pleased.

“What the hell did you do that
for?” he demanded angrily.

“D... do what for?” I asked,
genuinely puzzled and a bit shaken.

“If you want to kill yourself,
if life is so meaningless for you, why pile the guilt of your death on some
poor innocent person?” he said, jumping to his feet.

Almost despite himself, he held
out his hand to help me up.

I was shocked.  “Kill
myself...?” I said, astounded at the very thought.

While life might not have been
great, it wasn’t so bad that I didn’t still want plenty more of it.  I mean, I
needed time for things to get better, to turn out right and doing myself in at
the age of nineteen was definitely not part of my plan.

I’m not sure I said any of
this, but maybe I did.  Either way, something made him see that he’d offended
me.

“Oh...” he said, a little
contritely, “I’m sorry.  It looked to me as though you stepped out on purpose.”

“Well you looked at it wrongly,
that’s all I can say.  But thank you for saving me anyway.”

I’d never had my life saved
before and it seemed to deserve some kind of mention.  Then the realisation of
what had so nearly happened struck me and I wobbled, literally and emotionally.

“I could’ve died!” I shrieked.

He grabbed me again before I
went over.  “Hey, steady, just get your breath back and let’s get out of the
road before we cause a real accident.”

He put his arm around my
shoulders and gently guided me to the other side of the street.  There’s a
small cafe just there and without asking, or saying anything else, he steered
me into it and plonked me into a seat.

The waitress had seen
everything and quickly brought over two mugs of hot sweet tea.  I held onto
mine as if my life depended on it and at his gentle insistence, sipped it
slowly.  After a while, some colour must have returned to my face and the panic
must have left my eyes, because he stopped looking at me in that anxious sort
of way and sat back in his chair.  He picked up his own mug and started looking
at me in a different way, a way that made me want to blush.

“So...” he said.  “My name’s
Jack.  What’s yours?”

“Grace,” I said quietly.  “And
don’t laugh...”

I’ve always hated my name.  I
mean who in this day and age calls their kid Grace? Giving a child a name like
that is guaranteed to ensure that what she turns into is anything but graceful. 
It’s like calling some poor unsuspecting baby ‘Ferrari’, they’re bound to be
thick and slow on the uptake, or ‘Harmony’; she’s going to be a born
trouble-maker, if ever there was one.  So it was with me.  I am clumsy, awkward
in company and too large for my name.

“I, err, wasn’t going to
laugh.” he said, clearly trying to suppress a grin.

“It’s ok, everyone does.” I
said truthfully.

I peered over the rim of my mug
to get a proper look at him and he looked nice.  His hair was deep auburn with
red and gold natural highlights, or at least they looked natural to me and his
eyes were the colour that in books are always called periwinkle blue.  Being an
inner city girl, I had no idea what a periwinkle was or what sort of blue it
might have been, but the idea sat well with me.  His face was pale, but all his
features were nicely arranged, as were a few freckles.  He had broad shoulders
too and I already knew that he was taller than me.  What a pity, I thought,
that in five minutes or so he would walk out of my life forever.  I must have
sighed.

“Why so sad all of a sudden?”
he asked.

Perceptive too, I thought.  I
tried to lie, but funnily enough the truth came out before I could stop it...

 “Well, maybe in ten minutes,”
he said, smiling.  “First we could have something to eat.  I’m starving and
although I’m not a doctor, I think when you are in shock, food is a good
thing.”

In actual fact we sat there for
several hours.  I can’t remember what we ate, probably sausage, egg and chips
and we didn’t drink fine wine, probably just more tea, but it was dark when we
came out and we were laughing.  It’s funny, I don’t really remember what we
talked about, I just know it had been easy to talk to him.  He listened, he didn’t
ask too many questions and he had a good sense of humour.

He walked with me to the estate
and then all the way to the entrance to the tower before saying goodbye.  It
was a definite goodbye, not ‘see you’ or ‘cheerio’, but goodbye, with that tone
of finality that comes with the word when it’s meant.

I watched him through the
reinforced glass of the lobby as he turned and went away into the night,
realising that I knew very little about him; just his name and that he was
kind, funny, sweet and probably the nicest person I’d ever met, or was ever
likely to.  I went up to an empty flat.  Being Friday, it meant that Mum would
be out, possibly until Monday.  I had a shower, got ready for bed and sat at
the window looking up at the stars, dreaming of maybes and what ifs.  I never
expected to see him again and I felt that I’d lost something important, but I
didn’t know what it was.

While I didn’t forget Jack, I
was used to just getting on with things.  I got up, went to work and went out
looking for Mum when she hadn’t put in an appearance by Tuesday.  I did the
shopping, I cooked, I cleaned the flat and I watched the soaps on the telly.  But
I also thought about him.  He crept into my mind when I wasn’t looking, so to
speak and I became more certain that he really had been the nicest person I’d
ever met.  He’d saved my life, he’d made me laugh and in his company I’d felt
relaxed, which was unusual for me.  I’d felt safe with him and that was new too. 
I didn’t think for a moment that he would give me a second thought, but that
was life; I was used to it.  All the same, I missed him, even though I hardly
knew him.

So about a month later, it was
a complete surprise to come out of the entrance lobby one morning to find him
there.  It was just before dawn and he was standing in the shadows, but I knew
it was him before he spoke.

“Hello, remember me?”

He sounded unsure, as though he
thought my life might have been filled with good looking young men constantly
saving me, who I instantly forgot as each one was replaced by the next.

“You do look familiar...” I
said, smiling as I walked over to him.

But there was something
different about him.  He looked so sad and in that strange light, or maybe
because of it, he looked even paler than the last time we’d met; sickly even.  I
was actually quite worried.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

He nodded, but then he turned
away and retched violently.  I knew Mum wasn’t home.  In fact she hadn’t been
home for a few days, probably on one of her binges, so I took his hand and led
him to the lift; it just seemed like the right thing to do.

He didn’t look at me, he was
kind of hunched and there was a heaviness about him.  His hands were clammy too
and I thought he was really ill.  I owed him; something was haunting him, I
could see it in his eyes and it was my turn to do something for him.  I took
him to my bedroom and told him to get undressed and under the covers.  He was
shaking badly and I went into the kitchen to make some tea.  When I brought it
back, he was in the bed and despite the warmth of the flat and all the covers,
he was still shaking.

“Should I call the doctor?” I
asked.

“No, please.  Just don’t leave
me,” he said really quickly, between violent bouts of shuddering.  “Sit with
me, talk to me for a while, I’ll be fine soon.  I’m sorry Grace.”

 “Do you live near here then?”
I asked, as I sat on the edge of the bed and handed him the mug.

“No, I err, wanted to see you
again, so I waited in the one place I knew you would have to come back to.”

I must have blushed, because
for a moment he smiled and the sadness seemed to lift, but then with the next
wave of shivering it came back.  I knew I couldn’t leave him.  If Mum came home
while I was at work... well, I didn’t even want to think about that.  I’d never
brought friends home; after years of trying to hide her, it became easier just
not to have friends.  She could be charming of course and she loved to flirt,
but if she’d had a bad time... well, it would be better not to introduce her to
someone, especially someone I liked.

Suddenly a thought struck me.  “I
need to phone work!”

I leapt up and went into the
living room, hoping they’d understand; after all, I’d never taken a day off for
anything before.  Mrs Garratt sounded a little concerned as I told her I was
looking after a sick friend, but she asked me to phone back later and let her
know if I’d be able to do my next shift, which I agreed to do.  On the way back
I took a couple of paracetamols from the cabinet in the bathroom.  They were
always good for a temperature and while he washed them down with the tea I told
him that work had been ok about me not going in.

“Try and sleep for a bit.” I
suggested.

“Please don’t go.” he said, as
he settled down.

He fell asleep almost
immediately, but I did as he’d asked and sat on the floor with my back against
the bed, watching the sky getting lighter, listening to his uneven breathing
and feeling just a bit pleased with life for a change.

He talked in his sleep, but
what he said didn’t make much sense to me.  It was and yet wasn’t like a
different language and the words were all jumbled up.  Despite not understanding
much of what he was saying, it was obvious that the dream was terrifying for
him.  I scrambled to my knees and turned so that I was facing him and held his
hand.  I don’t remember what I said, I probably just made soothing noises, but
he gripped my hand tightly and after a while the nightmare seemed to leave him.

I stayed there, just watching
him sleep.  I liked having my hand held by him, but I couldn’t help but wonder
about him.  Was he in some sort of trouble? After all, why else would he have
wanted to find me again? Of course I felt a little foolish; I mean there I was,
holding hands with a virtual stranger who was asleep in my bed.  I know it
sounds ridiculous, but he didn’t feel like a stranger to me and in a funny way
I was quite happy that he was there.

He must have slept for an hour
or so and when he woke up he was confused, but when he saw me he smiled, as if
it made some kind of sense to him, too.  He sat up without letting my hand go
and patted the space beside him.