staying with me and Eric, aren’t you?’ said Lola. ‘But you’re not borrowing my pants like you did at university.’
‘I had an excuse then,’ Esme replied. ‘I didn’t know how to do washing.’ But suddenly her face clouded in concern. ‘There is one thing.’
‘What?’ asked Mark, pausing on his way to get more drinks. ‘After everything you’ve been though today, I can’t believe there’s anything worse to deal with.’
‘Oh yes there is,’ replied Esme, resting her head on the table and speaking from under her arms. ‘I still have to tell my mother.’
‘Well, you’re on your own there, love,’ said Helena, smiling. ‘I’ve met your mum and she is batshit crazy.’
Sandchester
Joe Holloway made a Herculean effort to laugh at his friend Danny’s joke. It wasn’t that the joke wasn’t funny – Danny’s jokes were always funny – but laughing felt unnatural to Joe and had done for a long time.
He stared into his pint glass and swilled the liquid around, then drained it in one big gulp. Even though it was only a normal Wednesday night, the pub was full of his friends and the people he’d known all his life, laughing and chatting. He’d been back for a few years now and everyone in the small town had welcomed him with soothing noises, but it was the pity he couldn’t stand. It still came out in the nervous glances directed his way and the gentle, careful conversation.
Their usual pub hadn’t changed since he was a teenager, drinking underage. The only thing that was different was the music. The Britpop of the Nineties had been replaced by warbling women singing with fake husky voices, or middle-aged rock pop that made him want to grab the controls and turn it over. Danny’s hand hit his shoulder and squeezed. A squeeze that signified he was becoming morbid again. Introverted and, as Danny so kindly put it, a killjoy.
Joe glanced up from his stool and studied the scratched wooden bar before giving a weak smile. Danny nodded towards the two grinning ladies with a cheeky wink and Joe made an effort to smile at the taller woman. He recognised the signs. Her glances from under long eyelashes, eye contact that lingered a little too long. It was getting late, almost ten-thirty, and he should be thinking of heading off. He had work tomorrow, but that hadn’t stopped him before and wouldn’t now. That ‘one quick drink’ had ended up being two or three, then four or five, and now he couldn’t remember how many he’d had. The two women Danny was chatting up were smiling and laughing, caressing wine glasses in long slim fingers. The tall blonde glanced at Joe again, cocking her head to the side so her hair fanned out. She swept it all back over one shoulder. What was her name again? She’d told him when Danny invited them over but for the life of him he couldn’t remember. Did it start with an A? Annie? Amelia? Something like that. He frowned, trying to remember as she came closer and leaned against the bar. She wasn’t dressed in a short skirt or dress, or covered in make-up – the usual Saturday night get-ups. She wore jeans and a tight jumper. She was cute.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself much?’
Joe glanced up and studied her face. She was pretty. At least, she was pretty after the few too many he’d had. Almond-shaped eyes, nice figure. Danny nudged him again and gave him a knowing look. Joe shook his head and returned to his drink. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’
He didn’t feel like saying anything else right now so tapped his finger in time with the music playing in the background. The trouble was women often took his lack of chit chat as him playing the strong and silent type. It wasn’t. He wasn’t brooding either. He was just so bloody depressed he often didn’t speak at all, for hours, days if he could help it. From the corner of his eye he saw Angela, or whatever her name was, shuffling uncomfortably.
‘Do you still work at the estate agent’s in town?’ she asked, running her fingers down the stem of her empty wine glass.
Joe nodded at the barman and nudged his glass forward. Fred refilled it. He scratched his stubbled cheek. ‘Um, yeah. Do you want a drink?’He didn’t really want to buy her one, but he had that longing again. A longing to be held, a longing for physical contact, for intimacy. For sex.
A slow smile spread over her face. ‘I thought you’d never ask. Dry white wine please,’ she said to Fred. Her hair was just like Clara’s, the colour of straw. Joe turned away at the familiar surge of nausea that arose whenever he thought of her. His throat tightened. If only things had been different.
Fred delivered his drink and one for … Amy? Joe took his and gulped, numbing the pain. If he kept it locked away, he was able to make it through the day pretty much intact and in the evenings threw himself into video games. It was soothing entering another world where he didn’t have to be himself.
‘You’re not very talkative, are you? Just like when you were at school.’
‘We were at school together?’ he asked, not looking up.
That was the other shitty thing about coming back. He saw all these people he’d gone to school with. All those who’d thought he was cool. Joe scoffed to himself and felt Amanda glance at him. He wasn’t cool anymore. He was a loser, the biggest loser he knew, with a giant, steaming turd of a life.
The song had changed and the husky singer sang, ‘In the arms of the angels.’ Bollocks, thought Joe. Every song was about heartbreak or death these days, or something worse. He felt a sudden desire to leave but then that familiar urge for human contact pulled at him, sticking his butt to the seat. He didn’t want to talk though. He hated all the questions these women had, like they could fix him if they could just have a little chat about it all.
She giggled. ‘Danny remembered me, he told you when we came over. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten me already?’ She wrapped her hair around her finger.
Joe tried to picture what she might have been like when they were at school but he soon gave up. It was so hard to concentrate sometimes. Somehow his mind always wandered back to Clara, as if she was sneaking around in his head, trying to make him deal with it all. He knew she wouldn’t want him to be like this, but he couldn’t break out of the deep, dark black hole he’d fallen into.
‘I’m Annabelle Crawley. I was three years below you at school.’
He nodded. ‘Oh yeah, I remember.’ He didn’t remember. Who remembered kids three years below you at school? You just ignored them, you didn’t acknowledge them, or worse, become friends with them.
Annabelle snuggled in closer. ‘It’s okay. I know you don’t have a clue who I am, but I forgive you. You can get to know me now.’
Joe glanced at his watch, knowing exactly how this night would end and, from the gleam in her eye, so did she. The feel of her body pressed into his arm was enough to convince them that another one-night stand was just what he wanted, even though he’d feel empty again in the morning. But swallowing his pint he knew it was pointless thinking any further ahead than the next day, and that was pushing it sometimes. He felt like his soul was lost, roaming somewhere outside his body, out there in the world. It would come back fleetingly during the reprieve of company, only to go missing again. He knew it wouldn’t stay this time, but he’d like to feel like himself again, even if it was only for a short while. Turning
