I realised what it was I’d done. He was gay. And I, Charlie, had jumped him and then screamed a million things at him to cover up my embarrassment at being rejected. When really what he had been trying to do was tell me something.
He was gay.
Oh, God.
I put my head in my hands then and stared blankly at the TV. There was a sitcom on and I suddenly wished that all my problems could be solved in the final five minutes of every half-hour too. A tall blonde had chosen that precise moment to walk into the kitchen on the show and I was suddenly reminded of something. Those girls. Over that month. In the Magnolia Lodge kitchen. The ones with the smiles. What about them? That was the one piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit.
I sat and thought about it for ages. I tried to work back through the whole thing. Tried to see it from an impartial point of view, rather than that of the lovesick cow.
Moo.
First there were no girls. There weren’t even any friends. Then, for a short period of time, there were lots of friends and lots of girls. Then there were no friends and no girls again. So most of the time there were no friends and no girls. It just didn’t make sense. But maybe…
Maybe that was the whole point? That it didn’t make sense. Perhaps that was where I was going wrong in trying to sort this all out. After all, he was at uni, he dressed nicely and he’d bought us both tickets to The Sound of Music. Oh, no. That was it. No wonder it didn’t make sense to me. It hadn’t even made sense to him. Because that was what he’d been doing—he’d been working it all out, the sexuality thing. Like you’re supposed to do at uni. And now he’d worked it out. He was gay.
Charlie, my girl, you’re a genius.
Just three months and a very embarrassing incident in Jas’s bedroom too late.
I really couldn’t call Jas back after that, and when he phoned again, around a month later, it was at a bad time. Mum had been really sick for a few days and had finally let Kath and I take her to the hospital. She hated the hospital, so we tried to stay with her for as many hours of the day as the staff would let us. To make matters worse, it was hard for me, being at Mum’s—seeing her sculpture and realising I was getting nothing done. Going nowhere fast. Then there was skipping around the subject of uni every time someone asked when my results were coming out.
I was preoccupied.
And by the time Mum was home again I’d conveniently lost Jas’s number. So I didn’t call him back that time either. Yes, I know it’s a poor excuse, but I had other things on my mind. Mum, taking care of the house, catching up on sleep…plenty of things that seemed far more important at the time.
Life went on without Jas, until eventually it was time for me to move back out of my mum’s and get on with my life. It felt like an eternity since the days of Magnolia Lodge, but in reality it had only been six months. Six months since I’d seen Jas. Well, that’s not entirely true, because since the night that Kath and I had seen him on TV, Zamiel was suddenly everywhere. The media had gone Spawn mad, and I couldn’t turn on the TV or buy a newspaper or magazine without some piece of scandal in it about him.
Packing my bags, I came across Jas’s phone number—in my undies drawer, of all places. I held it in my hand for a few seconds, entertaining the thought of picking up the phone and actually calling him. Having a laugh like the old days. Giving him some well-deserved grief about his long hair and leatherwear. But only for a few seconds. Then I shoved the piece of paper in my jeans pocket—out of sight, out of mind.
I found it again the next day, when I was in the kitchen. Once more I held it in my hand. I think I might have even reached out for the phone this time. But if I did I wrenched my hand back smartly and then busied myself pouring a tall glass of water, because the next thing I remember is taking the glass outside with me to sit in Mum’s sculpture courtyard.
As it happened, I chose to sit on Jas’s favourite piece of hers—a full-size table and four chairs. Some people thought it was weird when they saw it, but what they didn’t know was that it was our kitchen table and our chairs. Mum’s and mine before I’d moved out of home the first time. I’d watched her photograph it from every angle one day when it was at its messiest, complete with the Sunday paper, leftover bits of crusty bread, a tub of butter, a jar of honey, the chairs we’d been sitting in pulled out and left at angles. And that was the sculpture, the scene frozen in time.
I smoothed the phone number out on the table, eyed it until I’d finished my glass of water, and then systematically tore it into the smallest shreds I could. As I tore I went about convincing myself that everything really was different now. Not just between the two of us, because of what had happened at the apartment, but truly everything. The small world we’d built together was no more, just like the apartment block we’d lived in. There was no point in calling him. I wasn’t part of his new life and I didn’t want to look like a desperate groupie, wanting to be remembered now he was famous.
It would be almost another year and a half before I saw Jas in person again.
Chapter Five
‘Flight 624. Flight 624 to London via Singapore is now boarding. At this time we would like to ask that first and business class passengers, and passengers in rows 50 and higher please board first. Other rows will be called shortly.’
I stop thinking about Jas and Magnolia Lodge and wake up to myself. That’s me. My flight. I check my boarding pass, see that I’m in row 55, and get up hurriedly to board. As I leave I notice my coffee. I haven’t drunk a drop of that second cup.
I wait in line to swipe my boarding pass and collect my headphones, wait my turn for the flight attendant to tell me which side of the plane I’m on, wait for people to stow their bags. Finally I make it to my seat. An aisle seat, just like I’d asked for…but right next to the toilets.
Well, I think, I didn’t see that coming.
And, even better, I’ve been lumped with the oldest plane in the world. No personal TV screen for me, and the nearest communal one is miles away.
When I’m settled in, I check the in-flight magazine to see what movies I’ll be missing out on. Seen it, seen it, seen it and don’t want to see it anyway, so I’m fine. I try not to move on to thinking about the other downsides to flying on the oldest plane in the world—the fact that it might not stay in the sky. I ditch the in-flight magazine then, and memorise the safety card.
When I’m done, I crane my neck, looking out of the window to see if I can spot the viewing lounge, wondering if Kath and her husband Mark and my two favourite people in the world—their newborn twins, Annie and Daisy—have stayed to watch the plane leave. I’d offered to catch a cab out to the airport, but Kath had insisted that they take me—they were hunting for an excuse to go on their first big outing as a family and I was it. I squint, scanning the airport windows. They might still be here. I don’t think they’ll be rushing home after all the effort it had taken to get to the airport in the first place.
In order to see me off they’d had to get up early and practise assembling and disassembling what we’d come to call the mega-stroller of death and destruction. They’d been trying to reach the record time of a five-minute set-up, but so far couldn’t break the seven-minute barrier.
Frankly, crossing the carpeted airport floor, we’d looked as if the five of us were about to make a trek through the Himalayas rather than one of us was flying to London.
I still
