bits of childbirth when I thought nothing could be as bad. Or the time when I lost Sam at the Natural History Museum for twenty whole minutes until there was an announcement calling for me. I’d thought then that it was the most intense terror I’d ever experienced, but it was nothing like the feeling that I was about to die.
For a moment, standing in that crummy restaurant, I really thought my life was over. I’ll never forget that hot panic and the desperate fight for air, not for the rest of my suddenly-precious life. Oh, here we go again. I swipe my nose with a piece of kitchen towel I find in my handbag. So humiliating too. For this intimate thing to happen, being reduced to my basest self, with all those strangers.
Carl … well, I hadn’t been wrong about him. After a lukewarm, ‘Alright now?’ he had lingered awkwardly as I sat down again and attempted to get myself together.
Perhaps he felt slighted. His bald offer of sex having, after all, almost killed me. Hopefully he’ll sharpen up his chat-up lines before his next date, unless I’ve frightened him off for life.
This, almost, is enough to make me smile inwardly.
The life-saving waitress had been monosyllabic, as if what she’d done was no big deal. Afterwards, she just asked me if I wanted a cab and, gratefully, I’d accepted, hoping there wouldn’t be a long wait. We’d quickly split the bill; Carl throwing down more than enough in his hurry to get away. After he had gone, I had sat there, deflated and wrung out, gazing out at the street and wishing I’d never come out tonight.
When the cabbie arrived, I asked him to wait a minute and hurried to the far end of the restaurant where the waitress was talking to another, older woman who had just arrived. They both regarded me curiously as I approached.
‘I’m sorry. Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I just want to thank you again. You saved my life!’
The waitress hadn’t replied. Flustered, I hurried on. ‘I wish I could repay you in some way. Look, let me give you something. An extra tip.’
I found myself thrusting a twenty-pound note at her. The waitress looked up sharply, a little suspicious, almost as though she was being tricked in some way.
She took it with only a small nod of thanks.
Just before I left, vowing to never come back to this restaurant, I reached out and touched her thin, pale wrist.
‘Your name is apt,’ I said. ‘I can never thank you enough.’
I sniff now and the taxi driver eyes me again.
Please don’t make conversation.
I hadn’t been able to face the bus. My car is in the garage and, even though it feels extravagant to get a taxi all the way out of town to mine, I just want to be home so I can close the door on this terrible evening.
More than anything, I want to grab hold of Sam and squeeze him for all he’s worth. But that’s not going to be possible.
What a disastrous day. I can’t wait for it to be over.
Angel’s phone buzzes like an angry insect against her thigh. Over and over again. Text after text. They just keep coming, each one a variation on the same pattern.
Im sorry babe. Can we talk l8r?
i luv u. u know that right???????
Pls?
Get bck here Ffs.
U R actually fcking with me now.
I luv u???
It’s embarrassing.
Even though she has always communicated with him in the same language, it isn’t a novelty any more. Pathetic, that he can’t write properly, or use punctuation. He’s not fourteen. He’s a thirty-year-old manager of a pub.
It used to be a strange kind of draw, that he hadn’t had the same sort of schooling as her – had any kind of schooling, probably. Once she teased him about his lack of education and he hadn’t liked it one bit.
She rubs her wrist and winces, thinking about earlier.
She didn’t know why she always did it. Picked fights. She simply couldn’t help it sometimes. Had always been that way. When she was small and The Bastard was in one of those volcanic moods, when you could see the fury building up heat inside him, she hadn’t made herself smaller and quieter, like her brother had. No, she had made herself even more of an irritant, added more friction to the situation, even though she knew what would follow.
They’d had a perfectly decent evening, by any normal person’s standards. But maybe that was the issue.
Time was, they’d party until six am then sleep into the afternoon, only waking to eat, fuck and smoke. Lately though, Leon had been saying stuff like ‘Maybe we should stay in and have a quiet night’ or complaining about being tired all the time, or too broke to go out.
Last night they’d spent the whole evening watching telly with ready meals on their laps. Angel could feel something bitter fermenting inside her. She’d barely spoken all evening and Leon had kept asking her if she was alright. Eventually, getting no real response, he’d gone into a sulk and slunk off to bed early. Angel had finished another bottle of wine, alone, barely taking in what she was watching on the television.
This morning she had woken with a feeling of clarity, despite her clanging head.
She’d looked around at the bedroom, and suddenly hated the smelly sheets and lack of proper curtains. The overflowing ashtray next to the bed and the sticky glasses and mugs crowding the bedside table. It had turned the dial on her hangover, making it more technicolour and nauseating.
Angel had watched Leon slide out of bed and pat his naked belly in a self-satisfied way. She’d hated him then. So, she’d picked a fight – hard to even remember what it was about, but it didn’t really matter because it had quickly escalated. She’d thrown some stuff and tried to scratch his face. He’d twisted her arm behind her back and called her a mad bitch. He’d looked like he wanted to cry as he said it. Idiot. Then he had stormed off to work.
She feels strangely cleansed now. It’s over. He can go ahead and burn her stuff if he wants to. She’s got what she needs right now in her rucksack.
Before she had left though, some strange impulse had driven her to do one last thing.
Leon was vain about his looks. He spent a lot of money on shirts, lining them up in the wardrobe by colour, so they ranged from white through the pinks and purples to blues and patterned varieties at the other end. Before she left the flat for good, she found herself with a pair of scissors in her hand.
Snip, snip, snip.
It felt good.
For a little while, anyway.
Angel pushes
