Game Over

12

Someone is holding his or her finger on my door buzzer. One of the inconveniences of my loft apartment is that it has nothing as old-fashioned as a spyhole. It is impossible to know who is at the door without talking to them, by which time it is impossible to pretend not to be in, if that is the desired course of action.

I long for the visitor to be Issie. Possibly Josh, but ideally Issie. And yet I am terrified it is. What will I tell her? What can I say? How can I possibly begin to explain my behaviour over the past two weeks?

Buuuuzzzzzzzz.

This persistence demands my attention. If I ignore whoever, I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon wondering who it was. I drag myself towards the intercom praying it’s not Bale or Fi.

‘It’s me,’ says Issie. ‘Where the hell have you been? Open up instantly.’

I’m relieved and press the release button. Within moments she is pushing open my door. She’s really pissed off with me, so much so that she doesn’t bother to kiss me. I’m aware that offence is the best form of defence so I demand, ‘Why didn’t you use your key?’

‘Lost it,’ she shrugs, immediately apologetic. I tut and start making noises about the security risk and the inconvenience of getting a replacement cut. Once she’s appropriately subdued I ask, ‘Have you looked in your dressing-table drawer?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I think it’s in there. With the socks.’

‘Why would I keep keys with my socks?’

‘Beats me, Issie, but you do.’

This exchange takes place whilst we move towards the kitchen. It’s four thirty on a Sunday afternoon. Which seems the perfect time to pour not just healthy but bionic G&Ts. I certainly need mine. My interlude with the key doesn’t throw Issie completely.

‘What’s been going on, Cas? It’s not so surprising that you disappear but normally it’s work-related. I called the studio and they said you had laryngitis. I called here but there was no reply. You weren’t hospitalized, were you?’

I take a proper look at Issie for the first time since she arrived, and I feel pretty dreadful. She is extremely drawn and nervous-looking. I realize I’m a worry to her. Then again so are lost puppies, the axeing of trees, and the absence of clean, running water in India. Considering the issues Issie involves herself with on an on-going basis, my going AWOL for over a week is small fry. We look at one another and she pauses, immediately suspicious.

‘You don’t look ill. You look really well.’

It’s true, to be direct – I’m a goddess. My hair, black and shiny as a matter of course, is positively glistening. My smile, previously used only for effect, is now a permanent fixture. My skin has always had a pale and interesting hue, but now I’m sporting rose-red cheeks.

‘Why didn’t you call me, or Josh, or your mum? We were demented. What the hell is going on?’

She’s going on and on and on. Question after question after question. Few of which I’m inclined to answer and those I am more willing to respond to are far too complicated. I’m relieved when she abruptly stops mid-conversation flow, but only momentarily, as I soon realize she is staring at the dirty crockery left over from this morning’s breakfast. Normally anally tidy, I have not cleared up. This and the fact that the assorted debris discloses that the breakfast was saturated fat endorsed (as opposed to freshly squeezed orange juice and an ounce of Bran Flakes – my usual) astounds Issie.

‘It’s not just the eggshells that have been broken, is it?’ Her tone is both suspicious and delighted. I shake my head and look at the slate tiles. I wonder if I can distract her by pointing to the grime under the fridge. I doubt it. ‘You’ve broken precedent, too, haven’t you? You never feed men breakfast. Who’s been privileged like this?’

‘Darren.’ Simply. Unusually I haven’t the energy or inclination to fudge. In fact, I want to talk about him.

‘Darren?!’ Uncomprehending. ‘The last time I spoke to you, you’d had a huge row. He was about to take you to the station. You were coming back to London alone. What happened?’

I thought I’d explained: Darren happened.

I tell Issie about the train ride to Darlington, the swimming baths, and the walks on the beach and in the graveyard. I know I’m giggling, blushing and gushing (even in this state of near-hysteria I’m gratified to note she also thinks a walk through gravestones is odd). I tell her about the pub, the restaurant and finally the hissing cappuccino machine. I tell her that suddenly (whilst sitting over an itchy, orange Formica table) it occurred to me. Suddenly I knew, more clearly than I’ve ever known anything in my life, that I wanted him. I wanted him beyond reason or rationale.

‘Whoa there.’ Issie holds her skinny hands in front of her, trying to block the overload of incomprehensible information. She used to do this when we studied Russian language at night classes. Although I am trying to be clear, it’s understandable that Issie feels she’s neck high in the sludgy waters of an unknown territory. She naturally assumes that when I say I wanted him, I mean sexually. Exclusively sexually. A fair assumption in light of my history.

Inaccurate.

She lights one of my cigarettes, without asking.

‘I thanked him for the coffee and tried to walk away but—’

‘But?’

‘He put his hand on mine and said, “You’re welcome. The pleasure really was mine, Cas.” ‘I repeat this conversation in a stupid drawling voice, which is actually nothing like Darren’s voice. It’s just that I am aware that what I’m saying is serious stuff. I hope the ridiculous voice will serve to make the story funnier, less intense.

‘Noooo.’ Issie latches on to the idiotic voice, hoping it’s a lifeboat. She assumes I’d find this action inane. Any man, trying to get inside my knickers, should know never, ever to appear sentimental once, never mind twice. I can’t stand it.

Usually.

‘And did he say your name like, Kez.’ She says my name as though she is a drunk David Niven impersonating Jimmy Tarbuck. Unaccountably, her mocking makes me ashamed. It’s always felt fine to be harsh and heinous; now it seems puerile. Darren deserves better.

‘Er, to be frank, no.’

‘But his hand was clammy.’ Issie, understandably disconcerted, is still holding out for the reassurance of one of my ‘scathing dismissal’ stories, as supplied on countless occasions. Scathing dismissal stories make Issie feel better about the fact that she is horribly needy and couldn’t be stinging to save her life. My cruelty to the opposite sex evens things up for her. It’s no use. I’d like to help but I can’t lie.

‘Actually, it was cool and smooth.’

Issie nearly spills her G&T on the floor as the shock makes her overestimate the size of my coffee table.

‘Careful,’ I grumble, thinking about the Purves and Purves carpet.

‘When you say you wanted him…?’

I take a deep breath. I force forward. ‘I just couldn’t leave him.’

As best as I can, I explain it to Issie. I tell her that the pots are still dirty because I can’t bear to wash him away. I even tell her that the sheets are rank for the same reason.

‘Sheets? When did we get to sheets?’ she squeals.

I could tell her about the first time. No sheets, just a filthy brick wall. Hurried and frenzied. My coat left damp and grubby, in need of a clean. My scarf sticky with dried love, because I used it to wipe his dick.

And I know that if I tell Issie this she’d think this is in character, it’s what she expects of me. It’s what I expect of me. But if I elucidate and add that whilst the act was undoubtedly basic and animalistic, it was also bashing against the surreal. We were wrapped in a pure light that made us us. Distinct and apart from anyone else, we floated in an individual time dimension that no one else knew about, or could ever visit. There was a secret, silent acceptance that hearts and flowers and all that they have come to symbolize were an option, even for me. I was there. I was involved.

He completed me.

Against an alley wall.

What would she make of that? Only one way to find out.

I tell her the stuff I’d vowed not to tell her. I can’t do otherwise; it bursts out. I’m overpouring with Darren. Thoughts of Darren. Memories of Darren. Imaginings about Darren. I’m not nervous exactly; it’s something different to nervous. I’m excited, I’m exhilarated.

I’m terrified.

Issie listens to my garbled account of events to date; she says nothing but is wearing a ridiculous smirk on her face. The smirk broadens to a grin and then it widens an unfeasible fraction more. She’s beaming as I tell her that I didn’t get on a train back to London that Thursday morning, or Friday, or Saturday for that matter. Instead we booked into a tiny country house. As I repeat these facts the image of Darren licking me out, which has been more or less permanently burned on my mind, becomes 3D again.

We are in bed; limbs, sheets and senses entangled and confused. Yet as he asks, ‘Here, do you like it here?’ I experience an unparalleled sense of clarity and certainty. I like it there, very much. I recall my fingers (which had never looked so slim and tapering) being swallowed into his thick, black hair. I’m lying on my back and looking down at my body and his head. It’s nodding slightly as he moves his tongue a fraction to send me beyond consciousness. That bit was slow. But then that was our fourth time. Or was it our fifth?

Issie is quite traditionally dumbfounded.

‘We stayed in bed for three days. In the end we were more or less evicted.’

I smile to myself as I think of the exasperated chambermaid begging us to leave our room so that she could clean it.

‘After that, after listening to each other’s breathing, dreams, thoughts, we became… necessary to each other.’ I struggle, then come clean. ‘I couldn’t let him go home alone.’

I’d have lost part of myself.

‘Instead I asked him back to my apartment.’

Because if not, I’d have missed his singing in the bathroom. I’d have missed him tracing kisses from the end of my hair, to my scalp, past my ears, to my jaw line, then up – finally – to my mouth. I’d have missed the sound of his pee hitting the loo.

‘He left this morning. He had to go to the Cotswolds – a tree with measles.’

Issie is quickly piecing together my story. She’s counting days on her fingers. She looks confused. She must have put two and two together and, quite unusually for Issie, she’s come up with four.

‘He stayed here for a week?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you never let men stay at your flat for more than twelve hours. That’s your rule. What did you do for a week?’

‘Well, besides the obvious, which took up a substantial amount of time, we went to the pub, I met his flatmate, Jock. We went for a curry, we watched vids.’

‘You dated.’

‘No.’ I think about it. ‘OK, well, yes, I suppose.’

‘What about work?’

‘Work?’ What an odd question.

‘What did you tell Bale?’

‘You know, I told him I had laryngitis.’ I’m irritated that she wants to talk about work.

‘But Cas, when you had an emergency appendicitis you discharged yourself early because the hospital staff wouldn’t let you use a mobile phone. Illness doesn’t stop you working. Bale won’t have believed your story about laryngitis. Why did you say laryngitis? You’ve never had it. Do you have any idea what it’s like? How long it lasts? How contagious it is?’

Issie’s panicking.

She moves towards my bookshelves and starts rooting around for a medical journal. She’s obviously going to look up laryngitis. Which is sweet of her, but why is she so concerned? I can hardly bring myself to be bothered.

‘You could lose your job. You are in deep do-do.’

I try not to giggle at the expression and instead I think about Darren. I smile, widely, remembering how he hesitated by the door. We’d both been trying, for a week, to get back to work. We’d both been trying, for a week, to stay glued together. Issie notes my serenity and yells, ‘Aren’t you worried?’

What can I say? If she doesn’t get it, it proves to me what I have long suspected: Issie has never been in… Issie’s never felt like this. It would be pointless to explain that he let me warm my (eternally) cold feet on his (eternally) hot shins, or bum, or bollocks. It would be futile to elaborate. The thing is, from that first kiss my head spun but my life stopped wobbling. I hadn’t even known it was wobbling before. I know what his hair smells like. I know where he is ticklish. I’ve licked the inside of his nostril. I had sex until I was raw, but for the first time ever, it was entirely to do with love. My body does not feel like a gambling chit, a bargaining tool or a funfair ride. The world is Technicolor.

All of this from me! The confirmed steel heart. Poor Issie, how could she possibly understand? I consider myself the more perceptive, intuitive, sagacious of the two of us and I have no clue how this happened.

I make a move towards the kitchen to pour us both two more gigantic G&Ts. I carelessly slosh gin into the glasses and splash some tonic on top. Issie stares. She’s incredulous.

‘No ice?’

‘It’s in the freezer,’ I reply, heading back to the settee.

‘And lemon?’ I ignore her altogether. Normally I insist on measuring the drink carefully. Pouring the gin over three ice cubes and adding a slice of lemon and lime (my own speciality). I prepare G&Ts with the same care and attention that most people reserve for cooking a three-course gourmet dinner. Today I can’t be fussed. To be honest, the preparation of G&T is not interesting. It’s not Darren.

I pat the settee and Issie joins me. We both curl up in front of the open fire. It isn’t real. It’s a very good natural gas impersonation, which is cleaner and easier. Admittedly they don’t give off quite the same aroma but the difference is minuscule and I’m prepared to sacrifice that small piece of authenticity for an easier life.

‘Since he left this morning I’ve tried to distract myself by watching videos but every one I selected was about love and stuff.’ I throw my arms in the air, exasperated. ‘Four different videos, I tried. I put on a selection of various CDs and read the first page of a bunch of novels; but every way I turned I bashed up against poignancy.’

Issie’s smirking again. ‘It surprises me that you have romantic books and vids.’

‘That’s the point, Issie. Before I met Darren they were just novels and films; now they are romantic novels and films. It’s weird. The very fact that I find them romantic shows that—’

‘That you’re in love.’

‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ I snap hastily. Issie doesn’t meet my eye but concentrates on sipping her gin. ‘I’m not in love.’ She doesn’t say anything. ‘I’m not,’ I insist. ‘Popular culture is so manipulative.’

We are silent, watching the flames flicker. I’m thinking of Darren and me rolling around in front of it, behaving like a couple of proverbial soap stars. I don’t care what Issie is thinking of.

‘What are you afraid of, Cas?’ Oh, she’s thinking of me.

‘I am in love.’ The words resonate around the room. Booming and thundering into our lives. Saying the words aloud is at once a relief, and also the most horrifyingly, scary moment of my life. ‘I am in love with him.’

‘Really! Reallyreallyreallyreally?!’ Issie jumps up and this time the G&T does go flying. I scowl as I stand up to get a cloth from the kitchen. I quietly sop up the G&T.

‘Yes,’ I sigh, overwhelmed for the umpteenth time today by my own emotion. We are both stunned and enjoy the confession. Issie is delirious. It’s as though I’ve just told her I’ve won the lottery or that she’d won the lottery.

‘How do you know? When did you know? Oh God, Cas, how amazing.’

I smile, making the most of my moment.

‘It was when we booked into the country hotel. Terrible place, floral carpets and cluttered reception, covered in flyers advertising darts matches and provincial craft shows. He had a bag with him.’

Issie looks uncertain. I clarify.

‘He’d packed condoms, toothbrush and clean boxers. So besides being mouthwateringly desirable, interesting, intelligent, moral and funny (all admirable qualities but not the ones that normally fly my kite) I realized he was presumptuous and cunning too.’

‘Jackpot,’ she smiles.

‘Exactly,’ I confirm, and I can’t help it – I actually clap my hands.

I luxuriate in the memories and Issie is bathing in possibility.

‘Did you know we’d end up here?’ I’d asked. He dribbled champagne (house, but who cares) into my mouth from his, silencing me momentarily.

‘I didn’t absolutely know.’ Mischievous.

‘But you expected it?’ Disgruntled.

He moved his lips from mine and attached them to my nipple, whilst he poured more champagne into my tummy button. He inched towards the alcohol lake, kissing and caressing my shoulder, my collarbone, my waist. He lapped up the champagne whilst I silently thanked my personal trainer – the two hundred sit-ups a day were worth it.

‘I didn’t expect it. I hoped for it. I told you, I’m an optimist,’ Darrengrinned.Hislipswerewetwithchampagneandmycum.

Artful audacity is the icing on the cake. Suddenly Darren seemed dangerous. When had he got ahead of me in our sexual chess game? Had he won? Had I? Could we both?

It seems unlikely.

Cold, steely fear puts a hand around my throat, the grip tightens, squeezing the happiness out of me. My heart, which has been residing in the roof of my mouth, plummets. What have I done? What have I done? This is the disaster I’ve spent twenty-six years trying to avoid. I am not prepared to throw caution to the wind after just two weeks.

It would be nonsense.

I won’t do it.

I can’t do it.

This is the worst thing that could have happened. Because now I believe in all the stuff on TV, radio, novels and cinema. It’s true. You do know when you meet the One.

Your muse, your purpose, your explanation of life.

And suddenly life is shiny and glossy and worthwhile. But if the films and songs are right about falling in love, the chances are they can offer some insight into the outcome of entertaining such emotions.

Pain.

Lots of it.

Isn’t my mother living proof?

Every second I was with Darren was exhilarating. Reliving it now, every second is heartbreaking as I’m plagued with thoughts of what could go wrong. When he said he loved me I was blissed out, ecstatic but now I’m petrified. When Darren was with me I believed it. I believed it all, the happily ever after, the possibility that everlasting love is an option. But my confidence is ebbing away. It’s unrealistic to expect Darren to stay with me every minute of every day but when he’s not with me I’m too small to fight my own demons. It was OK in Whitby when we were constantly with each other – of course he couldn’t be unfaithful or leave me. But now… where is he now? Maybe he’s not in the Cotswolds. Maybe he’s with another woman. The reality is that love never lasts; falling in love is asking to be hurt, deceived and betrayed. I feel naked. I look at Issie but she’s oblivious to the sudden cold chill in the air. I know she’s thinking that if this happened to me, absolutely anything is possible.

But it’s not.

‘Of course, it can’t go on,’ I state, making my mind up only in the seconds that the words form in my mouth.

‘What?’

Turns out Issie’s lottery ticket got thrown out with the garbage. Shame.

‘It’s impossible.’ My tone is more certain than my mind.

‘But you’ve just said you love him,’ Issie is spluttering.

‘I do,’ I snap. ‘At this moment I love him completely, utterly, desperately, clichédly. But if I carry on like this the next thing you’ll know is that I’ll be giving him a pet name and wanting his babies.’ I sound more harsh and resolute than I feel. I hope my voice convinces my heart.

‘And what’s so terrible about that?’

If I’m not mistaken she actually has tears in her eyes or perhaps her contacts are playing up. Poor Issie.

‘Well, let’s take it through to its logical conclusion, shall we? What if he doesn’t feel the same? What if I care for him more than he cares for me?’

‘But from what you said he sounds besotted.’

‘Well, men always are at first, aren’t they?’ Even Issie should know this. Especially Issie. ‘Then when the girl’s hooked they stop calling. The power in every relationship sits with the person who cares least.’

‘That’s where you go wrong, thinking that relationships are about power.’

‘I don’t go wrong, Issie.’ I lay a heavy emphasis on the ‘I’. ‘This would never have happened if I’d stayed in town. It’s just that Whitby was, I don’t know, beautiful, romantic.’ I continue to search for the correct word, ‘different’.

‘Cas, are you sure it’s the scenery and not him that you are talking about?’ I glare at her. ‘He sounds genuine,’ she pleads.

‘OK, well, scenario number two. Assuming he feels the same way that I do—’

‘He does, doesn’t he? I know you think he does,’ squeals Issie.

I hardly dare suggest it. I think of him nibbling my fingers, brushing my hair, and looking at baby photos of me.

‘Well, for the sake of this argument, let’s say he does. Then what?’

‘You could marry and live Happily Ever After.’

As though it really were that simple. How naive! Issie obviously hasn’t learnt anything from her years of being my friend. I explain it slowly and clearly, as I’m beginning to suspect she’s hard of hearing.

‘There. Is. No. Such. Thing. Yes, we could marry but sooner or later (and it probably would be sooner, as these intense affairs are always the first to burn out) he’d let me down. Or I’d let him down. And that would be hell. If he can make me feel this good’ – as though I was born the moment his dick delved into me – ‘imagine how foul he could make me feel if he left.’

Issie hides her face in her hands. ‘Who are you trying to convince?’

‘No one.’ Me. Me. I’m trying to convince myself, but at the same time I’d be more grateful than Issie could possibly know if she proved my argument is guff. But she can’t because I’m right. I’m certain I’m right. I have to stop this going any further.

‘Cas, you’re thirty-three now, not seven. And just because your parents’ relationship didn’t work it doesn’t mean there can’t be successful relationships.’

I glare at her. Although Issie knows everything about my mother and father’s divorce, we have an unwritten rule that we never discuss it. I am not the type to bleat on Oprah.

‘Issie, one in three households are single-people house-holds. Three in four couples who co-habit split up. Nearly one in two marriages end in divorce. Look at the facts.’ Now that ‘the facts’ have burst (uninvited) into my consciousness they won’t go away.

‘But think about Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. They’ve been married for ever and they are blissful.’

‘That’s one example, Issie.’

‘There’s the Queen and Prince Philip.’ I snort. She’s desperate.

‘There’s Mr and Mrs Brown in the baker’s on Teddington Crescent.’

‘They’re fictional.’

‘There’s my mum and dad.’

‘But your mum hates your dad.’

‘Not at all. She only pretends to. What about that couple on your show who didn’t fall into temptation?’

‘It’s only a matter of time.’

Issie raises her eyes skyward.

‘Oh, Cas, you poor thing.’

What can she mean? My mistake was allowing myself to become besotted by Darren. A mistake but not irrevocable. Not if I act swiftly and certainly now.

‘Issie, can I come and stay with you for tonight?’

‘Of course, if you want to. Why?’

‘Because I know if I see him I’ll weaken and I’m expecting him to pop by late tonight, when he gets back from the Cotswolds.’

‘Oh, see him, pleeeease.’

‘I can’t, Issie. I’m not playing games here. This isn’t a way to make him more interested. I have to sever all contact immediately. I can’t allow this to continue. I can’t make myself vulnerable.’

I simply can’t. Not won’t. Can’t.

I whizz around my bedroom and start throwing some clothes and cosmetics into a bag. I hardly pause to consider what I’m selecting, but I do stop to smell the sheets and to take him in one last time. He is why I was born a woman, but he can never, ever know because whilst I can only just bear walking away from him, I know I would be inconsolable if he ever left me.

This vulgar state of being ‘in love’ – it’s bound to be only temporary. The sooner I get back to my ordinary routine the better I’ll feel.

It will only be a matter of time.

Very little time at that, probably.

Probably.

I pull the sheets off the bed and push them into the washing basket.

Issie realizes that she’s not going to change my mind so instead settles for changing the subject. As I stuff a hairbrush and knickers in a bag she tells me that the sad loser guy from New Year has called. They’ve seen each other a few times. Issie’s excited because they play Connect 4 together. I can’t forgive him for letting his mother fix him up. Issie chatters on but I can’t keep track. I’m sure it’s delightful but I’m not sure I care. How has this terrible thing happened to me? How has this wonderful thing happened to me? How can it be both at once? I’ve seen enough to know that it is a messy, complex, filthy state of affairs at the best of times – i.e. when you want to be in love. This is by no means the best of times. I thought I was immune. I thought I was somehow better or different – certainly cleverer. Now I understand no one is immune.

As we put on our coats, Issie sighs, ‘You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve been saying, have you?’

‘I’m sorry, Issie. I’ve spent my entire evening forgetting about Darren,’ I smile sadly.

‘Why are you doing this? Don’t you think there’s a possibility that you are snuffing out a genuine chance of happiness?’ she coaxes.

‘No. It’s an exercise in damage limitation.’

‘I don’t understand you, Cas.’

‘Really? How odd. I thought I’d made myself crystal clear.’ Except of course I’m lying. I don’t understand me either. The bit I do understand, the fact that I am in love, only serves to confuse me further.

I lock the door behind me and Blu-tack an envelope to the door. It’s addressed to Darren and the letter inside simply says:

Don’t call.