Game Over

20

I run to the tube, my feet thudding on the pavement, my blood thundering to my heart, my heart pounding. I run all the way to Tower Hill station. I pass the happy crowds drinking pints in the street; they leer and jeer at me as I’m sweaty and not wearing a sports bra. I keep running. Although I usually run eight miles in the gym every day, I haven’t been since ‘the show’. Not that I’ve been afraid of the inevitable pointing fingers (they like notoriety better than celebrity at our gym – the receptionist nearly orgasms every time she spots Jeffrey Archer using the treadmill); it’s just I’ve had no motivation. Every moment has been consumed with finding Darren. So now I’m panting heavily. Then again, the shortness of breath isn’t just to do with the rapidly decreasing levels of fitness. It’s also excitement. Hope. Possibility. A long shot. But a shot.

At the tube station I realize that I left the house in such a hurry that I didn’t pick up my purse. When did I become so disorganized?

‘Please can you let me have a ticket?’ I smile sweetly; it really is my most dazzling.

‘Where to?’

‘To South Kensington.’

‘£1.80.’

‘I have no money.’ The smile is frozen and stuck to my face.

The ticket officer snorts. ‘We’re not operating a charity.’

‘Pleeeease. It’s an emergency. I have to get to South Ken.’

I have abandoned my tone of pleasant authority and I’m begging. He’s impervious.

‘Mind along. There are other customers. Ones with money.’

I stay still.

‘Pleeeeease.’ I think I might cry. Tears that I’ve managed to hold back for years are now constantly threatening and erupting. The officer doesn’t even look at me.

‘No money, no ticket. Bugger off.’

That’s the proverbial straw. Huge, ugly overwhelming sobs storm out of me. I’m not sure where they come from – certainly not just my mouth, but my nose too and perhaps my ears.

‘I’ve got to get there. He’s there. He’s there,’ I sob, which is ridiculous on many counts. For a start, the Underground officer doesn’t know who I am or ‘he’ is, and anyway, he cares less. Secondly, I don’t know if I’ll find Darren there. There’s snot on my arm and days-old mascara on my cheeks. I’m blind with tears, bogies, regret, frustration, pain and loss. I slump to the floor. It’s too much. I can’t act any more. Years of acting as though I don’t care, then I care, and now I’ve hurtled past caring, straight, slap bang into despair. It’s too much. Life without Darren is not enough.

‘I’ll pay her fare.’ I hear the lazy, warm drawl of an American accent. ‘She sounds kinda desperate.’ I daren’t believe someone is being kind to me. The recent, constant volley of abuse has left me bereft of hope. I can only assume this guy has just arrived in England or that he doesn’t read any newspapers. My Good Samaritan kneels down next to me and the crushed cans and cigarette stubs. This isn’t easy for him, because he’s obviously a man who enjoys a good breakfast, and lunch and dinner too by the look of it.

‘Hey, ain’t you that girl on the TV?’ he whispers as he hands me the ticket.

‘It wasn’t how it looked,’ I defend through my tears.

‘Nothing ever is.’ He staggers to his feet and offers me his hand. I let him pull me up.

‘You’re not a journalist, are you?’ I ask nervously. He shakes his head and then melts back into the throng of people busy sightseeing.

I consider it. I look up and see a security camera. It is just possible that this is another set-up. That guy could be a plant.

Get a grip. Only Linda knows I’m coming here. She would never be part of a set-up.

But I could have been followed. I’m still breathing shallowly and quickly. The guy looked honest. Unlikely though it seems, I think he was just doing a good thing. I don’t waste any more time thinking about it. I push my ticket through the machine and dash to the platform.

The sand and grey building creates a swell in my heart and I allow myself to hope, because, maybe, just maybe, he’s in there, the Natural History Museum. I realize I have the money problem to face again. At the desk I lie and say I’ve had my bag stolen. The staff are far too polite to laugh outright at my claims.

‘Have you reported the theft, miss?’ asks the huge, sauf London bird.

‘No,’ I admit. ‘I am planning to.’

‘What, after you’ve visited the Tyrannosaurus rex?’

‘Yes.’

‘Naturally.’

I’m very short on patience, a life trait exasperated by recent events, but somehow I hold it together long enough to persuade the staff at the museum to let me ring Issie. She gives them a credit card number and they give me a ticket.

I burst through the turnstiles and then run directly to the galleries. I charge up and down the three flights of stairs, constantly looking to my left and right. I can’t see him. I rush through the huge corridors, popping my head into all the exhibitions and restaurants as I pass by. I see innumerable creepy crawlies with their wings fettered; I see fossils, stuffed eagles and tigers. A taxidermist’s dream. But no Darren. I check the exhibitions on crystals, mammals and dinosaurs. I see every animal, vegetable and mineral in every state of growth, maturity and decay, except for Darren. I do all this twice. After an hour and a half of frenetic and futile searching I find myself back in the main lobby. Other than attracting numerous odd looks and lots of unwanted attention, my wild goose chase hasn’t achieved anything.

Of course it hasn’t.

I sit under skeletons of dinosaurs, surrounded by Gothic arches and earnest foreign voices reading to each other from the guidebooks. It’s pretty spooky. I’ve searched the entire building; he’s not here. It was ridiculously far-fetched to hope he would be. Why didn’t I ask Linda some more searching questions? Like what time had he planned to visit? Was it a definite plan? I’d been so delighted to get even a sniff of a lead that I hadn’t followed it properly. I can’t call Linda back. She’ll get into trouble if her mother knows she’s been in touch with me. I feel dumb and hopeless. The gargoyles obviously knew this all along because they look as though they are laughing at me.

I need to get some perspective.

I go to the cloakrooms. As usual there is a massive queue of women with bladders the size of peanuts. I stand listlessly, too exhausted to fidget impatiently or terrify anyone into peeing more rapidly. I catch sight of myself in a mirror and I’m shocked. I look like a down and out. My new crop requires minimum attention, a quick comb through, some gloss and then a ruffle to erase the effects of the combing. However, I haven’t thought to carry out this simple operation, so my hair is tangled and snarled at the back of my head. Nor have I thought to change my clothes, apply any make-up or eat since the show. Normally slim, I know I look emaciated. Up until now, I’ve been with Wallis Simpson, but now I see – a woman can be too thin. I’ve smoked to abate hunger, to distract and comfort myself. The smell of stale fags lingers in my hair and clothes. My skin is grey and my eyes have sunk to the back of my head. I am a human ashtray. I splash cold water on my face and then decide to revisit the dinosaur collection; at least they look rougher than I do.

For three hours I slowly amble around the galleries and whilst I admit that fishes, amphibians and reptiles are interesting in their own way, they can’t compete with Darren for mind share. Whilst I learn that dinosaurs lived between 230 million and 65 million years ago, I can’t imagine it. I’ve been without Darren for a week and it seems like an eternity. I also learn that they lived on land and could not fly but walked on straight legs tucked beneath their bodies. I consider writing to the consistency editor in charge of film at the studio, because I’m sure I’ve seen blockbusters with flying dinosaurs, but I don’t have the energy. I visit the human biology gallery and watch a film on reproduction and the growth of babies, which makes me feel squeamish. Not just because of the blood but because it’s proof, if I needed it, that love and life and living that life are special and miraculous. I sigh and check my watch. Four thirty. I’m hungry. I decide to visit the Life Galleries one more time and then, reluctantly, I’ll call it a day. Go home, have some pasta.

The Life Galleries are really spectacular. A series of exhibits demonstrating that each individual animal, plant and person is just one component in a complex system. There are some cool special-effects holograms of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere. There’s a reproduction of a bit of the rainforest, with sound effects of pouring rain and screeching birds. There’s a bit about oceans and coastlines. The sound effects change to crashing waves and seagulls.

Whitby.

Him.

It could be my imagination but I think I can smell the sea.

Less romantically there is a stuffed rattlesnake and a decomposing rabbit.

I walk through howling gales and head towards the funky bell music, which puts me in mind of the stuff that’s played in Camden market or in flotation tanks. I head along a dark corridor towards a series of mirrors that are arranged to reflect and refract light to create the impression that you are standing outside the earth and you are watching the hydrosphere. Water recycles endlessly, in all its many guises, water, steam, ice. I don’t quite understand it. But the scale and silver holograms are awesome.

Darren.

Suddenly there are hundreds of him. I can see Darren. He’s right next to me. He’s left, next to me. I reach to touch him but my hand plummets through space. I can see him. He’s in front of me, and he’s behind me too. I look up, he’s above me. Then he’s gone.

My breath surges out of my body, creating a vacuum. I can’t breathe. It gushes back in again, nearly knocking me over.

He was here. It was him. I try to work out where he must have been standing, and which were mere shadows and visions of him created by the mirrors. I can’t calculate it. But he can only have gone one of two ways: back through the rainforest to the Waterhouse Way corridor or forward towards the Visions of Earth exhibitions.

Creepy crawlies or lost in space?

I pelt towards the Visions of Earth exhibitions. A series of six statues, representing different aspects of life on earth, are dominated by a dramatic sculpture of earth, which revolves between two giant walls. The walls depict the solar system and the night sky. I collide with a party of overseas schoolkids, universally noisy, happy and overexcited. They’re all dressed in blue and merge into one homogenous mass of rucksacks, acne and ponytails.

He’s in front of the party.

He’s ascending the giant escalator that takes you up through the solar system.

I have no time to consider English tradition. I shove and barge and push my way through the queues of schoolchildren. They object noisily.

‘There’s a queue, you know, madam.’

They try and elbow me back, but their attempts are pathetic in the face of my love and panic-induced strength.

‘Excuse me. You are going the wrong way.’

But I’m not. I’m finally going in the right direction. I fasten my eyes on Darren’s head and don’t drop the link. He isn’t aware of me and I don’t call out. The schoolchildren dividing us may prove to be too much of an obstacle if he decides to run. The escalator rises through sheets of beaten copper, which represents the core of the earth, and we are accompanied by Indie music, which represents the poor taste of the curator. I pass the stars Ursa Major, Draco and Ophiuchus at an achingly slow speed. I want to stamp my feet and although I’ve squeezed past a number of other gallery visitors, by intimidating them with my sense of urgency, I’m stumped now I’ve reached a woman with a double buggy. Short of climbing over her, I’m stuck.

At the top of the escalators I turn right and follow Darren through volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

‘Darren,’ I scream. ‘Darren!’

But my voice, usually powerful, doesn’t cut through the natural disasters or the fourth-form chatter.

‘Darren.’

He turns.

For a moment he doesn’t recognize me because of the haircut and the unfashionable grunge look.

‘Cas?’ As the word edges from his brain to his vocal cords I see his face flicker in surprise, disbelief, pleasure and then settle in irritation.

‘This is a coincidence.’ Darren puts his rucksack on the floor and folds his arms across his chest. My brain computes that he’s saying don’t come near. My stomach is oblivious; it becomes gymnastic as I see the muscles in his arms flex.

‘Not really. I’ve been looking for you.’ I don’t mention Linda’s tip-off. I don’t want to get her into trouble. ‘I’ve been here for hours,’ I stutter. He looks surprised. I push uphill. ‘I tried everywhere I could think of in the last week.’ I scratch my nose and pause. I’m looking for a credible place to start our conversation. He looks around too. I wonder what he’s looking for.

‘So where are the cameras?’

Ah, I see.

‘There are no cameras – well, none that I know of,’ I add nervously. He makes a sound, a mix between a snort of contempt and disbelief, which forces me to assert, ‘I had nothing to do with the show.’

‘Really?’ It’s just one word but I don’t think a half-hour soliloquy could have communicated his disgust and sarcasm quite so clearly.

‘I know it looks bad—’

‘Bad,’ he yells, attracting a number of curious stares from the wild children. ‘Bad isn’t how I’d describe it. I’d describe it as vile, corrupt, damning. You’ve made an arse of me, Cas, you’ve – ‘He’s shouting and stuttering. ‘You’ve fucking hurt me. I can’t believe you, even you, would sink so low. You slept with me for TV entertainment. You accepted my proposal for TV entertainment. What sort of animal are you? I can’t believe it!’ He’s spraying angry spittle and his face is contorted with pain.

He’s magnificent.

‘Well, don’t believe it, because it’s not true. I didn’t know that we were being filmed.’ I try to grab hold of his arm. He violently jerks away from me as though I’m insanitary.

‘You were engaged to Josh!’ he fumes.

‘Yes,’ I confirm simply, dropping my arms to my side again.

‘You were engaged and you didn’t think to mention it?’

He’s still shouting and we are now collecting a small crowd of onlookers. I don’t think he’s noticed. The teacher tries, but fails, to move the children along. She’s right – this may be a PG-certificate viewing; bad language and violence threaten.

‘Well, yes, I thought of it. But—’

‘And you accepted my proposal?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t lie to you. I was going to tell you—’ It sounds faulty, even to me.

‘When? Before or after you married Josh?’

He’s really furious. He is spitting, not blood, but pain and tension. His face is splintered into trillions of anxious particles and I can’t look at him and see the whole face. I can only see a hurt mouth, an angry nostril or a ferocious eyebrow. Desperate eyes.

‘I wasn’t going to marry Josh. Not after I’d met you again. I didn’t have anything to do with the show.’ I’m trying to sound reasonable and in control. It’s a tough act. ‘I love you. Just you. I’m in love with you and I have been since we were in Whitby.’

It’s a relief saying the big words.

‘So why were you engaged to Josh?’ Darren asks the floor this question. For the moment the anger has subsided and lapsed into a sadness. I like it even less. Deep breath. I know this is my last chance. And chance is probably far too generous a description. I choose each word carefully.

‘I was scared I’d end up like my mother. Or at least how I thought my mother was. Falling in love was too risky. I knew that I’d be safe with Josh. He loved me more than I could ever love him, so he’d never be able to hurt me.’

‘Didn’t you think how unfair that was on him?’

‘Not really,’ I sigh. There’s no option, other than to be honest. But the truth is so unflattering. I can’t imagine my looking more unsightly.

‘Jesus, Cas, do you know what you’ve just said?’ Darren suddenly looks up and his gaze punches me. ‘Josh is one of the few people I thought you truly loved. I had been heartened by your relationship with him because I thought it was indelible proof that you were capable of loving and the hard-bitch act was just that, an act. But you’ve just admitted you didn’t even think about him. He was just another piece in your game.’

‘It was what he wanted.’

‘I doubt he wanted a wife who didn’t love him.’

‘It wasn’t like that. I don’t think I knew how to love then.’ I try to wave the thought away.

‘I heard you, Cas. I saw the programme. You said sex with me, and I quote, was “risky, dirty, cheeky and above all fun”. I didn’t hear you tell the world you loved me. Why not?’ He doesn’t let me answer but gives in to his anger again. ‘Because you don’t. You’ve made all this up because Josh has dumped you, and the studio has dumped you, and all Britain hates you. I’m nothing more to you than your only option.’

‘You’re wrong.’

‘How many kick-backs am I supposed to take, Cas? What’s an acceptable number? First I’m “too serious and homely”. Then you fuck my brains out. Then you disappear. You ignored my calls, threatened to call the police. Then you’re back and then you fuck my heart out and this time we get engaged and then that turns out to be for the titillation and edification of your audience.’

Put like this it sounds bad.

‘You act like a psycho. How do I know that this latest declaration isn’t just another publicity stunt? How can I trust you?’

‘I just know you have it in you, Darren. Some people have and you are one of them.’

I concentrate on the slight cleft in his chin, and on the exact colour of his eyes. I note the way he moves his hands and the precise shape of his wristbone. I consume it all because there is a real possibility that I’ll never see any of it again. If he walks away I’ll live in a permanent eclipse. I look at the group of schoolchildren, who are all but splitting with laughter and jeering. ‘Can we go somewhere more private to discuss this?’ I hiss through clenched teeth.

‘What’s the bloody point, Cas? Our relationship is public property. Posh and Beckham have more privacy.’

I get the feeling I’m being tested, but I’m unsure of the nature of the exam. I certainly haven’t prepared. I navigate through with as much sincerity as I can. I am conscious that behind me there is a reconstruction of an earthquake. Every fifteen seconds the world shudders and cracks up. I wonder if Darren also thinks this is ironic.

‘I was very scared, Darren. Loving you so much left me petrified. Ecology is your thing, isn’t it? Piecing things together for the whole picture? Come on, Darren, think about it. Think about where I was coming from. I’d never seen any good come out of loving. My father didn’t love either my mother or me enough to stay. He left her, us, brokenhearted. My mother did her best but it wasn’t just the money that was limited after he disappeared. She reined in her affection, or at least her displays of it. She was awash with caution and distrust. I wasn’t taught to love. I was taught to be wary.’

‘Wary, Cas, not wicked!’

I ignore his interruption. ‘I know it’s not an excuse, only an explanation. Before I hit puberty, I was certain sex and love were incompatible. And then the endless stream of lovers seemed to confirm my theory. There was man after man who was prepared to betray me or use me to betray someone else. I didn’t want to be a victim. I wouldn’t allow myself to love. I didn’t even think I was capable of it.’

There’s lead stuck in the pit of my stomach, but at least I have Darren’s attention and that of every member of year four, l’école de Sprogsville. Where is this going? How can I tell him that loving him seemed like the worst thing that could have happened to me, but at the same time the best? That I miscalculated lots of things when I was young. Now I see that to have a figure like Barbie’s I’d have to have an eighteen-inch waist, a forty-inch leg and a head the size of a beach ball. Spaghetti hoops are not the world’s most exquisite culinary delight and Donny Osmond isn’t sexy.

Being made happy by love is an option.

I notice that the neck of my T-shirt is wet. I touch my face and discover that I am sobbing. Fat, globular tears are falling at such a rate that I’m soaked.

‘I’m sorry it took me so long to get here but I’ve learnt I am capable of loving. I did not set you up. I know how you feel about the programme. And for what it’s worth, I see now that you were right. You have to believe me, Darren.’ I wonder if there is any point in telling him that I’ve left TV6. I doubt it. He’ll probably believe the papers and think I was sacked. My face is aflame. My heart literally aches, a filthy agony. I try to read his thoughts. I know he’ll be trying to understand, but will he be able to? And even if he does, will he care? He leans back against a glass display case. The fact that he needs propping up can’t be good for me.

Can it?

He rubs his eyes with the balls of his fists.

‘Believe me,’ I plead.

He shakes his head. Very quietly, almost inaudibly, he whispers, ‘I don’t think I can. I’m sorry.’ And he looks it. He looks devastated. Wounded. ‘I wish I could.’ He bends down and picks up his rucksack and starts to walk out of my life.

For a week I have vacillated between regret, fear and desperation. I’ve howled and cried privately. I’ve fought to appear collected and not too indulgent in public. I’ve been dogged and exposed. Discussed and dismissed at a micro and macro level. The experience has left me weak. The small amount of residual energy I had left was consumed whilst reasoning with Darren.

Wham.

Suddenly I’m whacked with an emotion that is struggling between passion and ire. Anger refuels my body and the resurgence explodes in torrents of undefined fury. Not the premenstrual monster that inhibits my body for three days every twenty-eight. Not the spitting anger that I used to feel when the ratings weren’t robust or a production assistant had made some duff decision. Not the intense irritation I feel when Issie throws herself at some worthless oink. Or the scornful vexation that I’ve felt when Josh mistreated some bimbo. My anger is much more… painful than that. The storm of irritation and hurt begins to climb the Richter scale. Swelling up through my stomach, into my chest and heart, exploding – a veritable whirlwind – in my head.

‘Is that it then, Darren?’ I scream. ‘That was your crack at being in love?’

He turns back to face me. ‘Well, I think it was pretty crap actually!’

Being unreasonable is all I’m capable of again. I’m so bloody desperate. I don’t know how to stop this inevitable, needless disaster.

‘You’ve been loved and adored all your life. Swaddled. Protected. Encouraged to believe the best in people and here you are falling at the first serious hurdle. I thought you were better than that. You are better than that. Don’t you dare walk away from me.’ I stamp my right foot. ‘Don’t you dare stop trusting me.’ Then my left. ‘You said you loved me. Easy fucking words.’ He’s right in front of me. I spray some spittle into his face.

‘OK, so I came to it a bit late in the day but I do believe in love and I do think that out of the billions of people in this world you’re the one I should be with.’ I jab my finger at him accusingly and I want to stamp again and flay my arms. There’s so much anger inside me and it doesn’t know how to get out.

‘I’ve stopped being terrified by the “what ifs”. And I know you’re not my father. And I know that I shouldn’t judge everyone by his iniquitous standards.’ The hairs on the back of my neck stand viciously erect. Tears poke mercilessly at my eyes. ‘And I’m sorry that I’ve hurt so many people in the past before I came to this understanding. I am so sorry. But trust me now. I did not do this for the bloody, fucking, crapping, pissing ratings.’

I think that even if I’d gone to a posh school, I’d have been struggling to come up with more appropriate vocabulary, under the circumstances. I give in and stamp my feet, harder and harder and harder and faster and faster and faster. The tears explode from my eyes and fall harder and harder and harder and faster and faster and faster. Eventually I am worn out.

Exhausted.

Defeated.

I stop stamping and try to find some equilibrium. My breathing is fast and desperate, my feet are throbbing with the violence of my stamping and my head is sore with shaking. I cannot look at Darren or the schoolkids. It is so intensely embarrassing. Over the last few days I’ve lost everything: both my fiancés – one my love, the other my best friend, my job, my privacy and now my reason. I’ve been cheated, deceived and humiliated. I’ve felt despair and loneliness and regret.

I take stock.

All that and I still believe in love.

Which means that just when I thought I’d lost track of the game, I’ve won.

I have Mum.

I have Issie.

I have learnt a lot.

I force myself to look up at Darren. My heart cartwheels. I rub the back of my hand across my face, cleaning up the excess of smudged mascara and tears. I pick up my museum map from the floor, where I’d thrown it.

‘Do you know something, Darren? The irony is, I never stopped believing in you. I never thought you’d betrayed me. Not for a minute.’

We are both breathing deeply. Staring at one another. Our faces are a potent cocktail of anger and forgiveness, love and lust, trust and fear, potential and endings. Hope.

It’s all been so intense, right from the beginning. Euphoric, desolate, euphoric again, desolate plus. What now?

Minutes go by. Neither of us says anything. Neither of us moves.

‘Do you know the Camarasaurus weighs twenty-five tons?’ asks Darren.

‘Yes,’ I say carefully, and then add, ‘It’s a plant eater, so I suggest the grapefruit diet.’ It’s a weak joke but Darren’s face hints at a smile. He takes my arm and starts to lead me through the galleries. His fingers singe.

‘So you’ve seen the dinosaur exhibition?’

‘Yes.’ I’m shaking.

‘Have you seen the blue whale?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’ve seen enough of the Natural History Museum for one day?’ I feel as though I’m behind a number of veils but as he asks each question a veil drops and instead of feeling exposed, I feel more confident. I can see more clearly.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think you’d like to go for a beer?’

This time I nod. I’m incapable of finding my voice. We leave the museum and go out into the London sun. We stop on the steps of the museum and squint at the brightness and crowds. Darren turns to me.

‘Do you still believe in me, Cas?’ he asks. His voice is patchy with emotion but it is still velvety and I recognize possibility and opportunity glimmering there.

‘Yes.’

‘Will you give me another chance?’

‘Yes. I will. A huge, fat, full YES.’

I’m home.