Before She Was Mine (35 page)

‘What is it now?’ I asked wearily.

‘Someone wants to say hello.’ He grasped whatever it was he’d been after, drew it out and set it on the table. It was small and brown and knobbly, like an owl pellet balanced
on end. ‘I picked it up at the weekend. Early birthday present, if you like.’

When I squinted, I could make out little peaks all over the pellet’s surface, as though someone had snipped into the clay or resin or whatever it was with a pair of nail scissors. Nicky
reached across and poked it with her index finger. A snout came into view.

‘I think it’s meant to be a hedgehog,’ she said.

‘It’s Hogden,’ said Oggy.

I couldn’t bring myself to reply.

‘I’ve not seen him lately,’ he went on. ‘He’ll be going into thingy, hibernation, won’t he? Unless he’s nipped across the road to visit his flat
mate.’ He tossed his fringe aside and grinned.

‘I’m not speaking to you,’ I said.

‘’Course you are.’ He picked up the hedgehog and wiggled it, revealing the 75p price sticker on its base. ‘Now, come on, cheer up. Hoggy wants to know what you girls are
having to drink.’

Very slowly I lowered my head until my brow was resting on the table top. I felt utterly defeated. Would he
never
go away? Then again, why should he, when I always took him back? He
thought we were a match because, despite it all,
I
thought we were. Every time we tried elsewhere and failed, here was where we ended up, each other’s consolation prize. We’d
carry on this way until one of us lost our wits or died.

Nicky went, ‘Actually, can I have a word?’

‘You can have any word you like, gorgeous.’

There was the clunk of a chair as Oggy pushed it out of the way, and then I heard her say, in her brisk, pleasant solicitor voice:

‘Can we clear something up, Simon?
You’re not wanted
. Freya doesn’t want you here. You need to
go away, now
. Go right away, the further the better, we don’t
care where as long as it’s out of our sight. Because if you bother us again this evening I’m going to take that crappy hedgehog and ram it up your arse, spikes first.’

My eyes flew open with shock. What I saw was Oggy’s smile just in the process of sliding off his face, Nicky settling back with the air of a mission accomplished. She’d obviously had
him leaning over her to receive the message – maybe she’d beckoned him down, held his collar, even – but now he straightened up. For a second his expression was pure confusion.
Then his gaze met mine, and he scooped up the hedgehog and laughed.

‘P M fucking T, or what?’

Nicky swigged her drink without concern.

‘I think you forgot your evening primrose oil, love.’

‘Oggy,’ I began.

He simply waved his palm, a sort of
You’re welcome to her gesture, turned and sauntered out through the back door. I was left gaping at my best friend.

‘Nicky Steuer!’

‘Sorry, Frey. Was I very rude?’

‘Erm, yeah.’

‘I’ve just had it with tossers. I wanted this evening to be a tosser-free zone. And you looked so unhappy.’ She shrugged. ‘Sometimes you have to make a stand.’

‘You
never
use language like that.’

‘No, I don’t, do I?’ She gripped her bottle by the neck as though she meant to throttle it. ‘Maybe I’ll start.’

The girls at the next table were still flicking their hair and gesturing to the boys by the door. PVC-jacket was leaning against the bar, flipping coins onto a beer mat. The woman serving
slammed the drawer to the till unnecessarily hard. There was no one in this bar tonight I recognised, unless you counted lately released Tyler Dawes sitting by the hearth and waving his cigarette
lighter under his own outstretched palm. Where were the others I used to hang around with? At home holding grown-up dinner parties, putting kids to bed, rolling around on the sofa locked in the
naked arms of a new lover. I remembered Denny and Marie, the shock of her pregnancy. They’d have had their baby by now. Meanwhile I was turning twenty-four with no material change to my
existence except for a couple more work scars on my hands and a mashed-up heart.

‘Don’t think I don’t appreciate what you did. But I need a minute,’ I said to Nicky, and left the table. I didn’t dare look back.

I pushed past a couple kissing in the porch and came out into the beer garden. Oggy was loitering alone by the second row of picnic tables. I could tell he’d been waiting for me, which was
simultaneously infuriating and comforting.

‘Someone’s got a strop on.’

‘She was trying—’

‘It’s not my fault her boyfriend ran off. Can’t say I blame him, sarky cow.’

‘She thought you were going to start mucking about.’

‘Of course I was mucking about. It’s what I do. I muck about, therefore I am.’

‘She thought you were going to muck
me
about.’

He sighed patiently, a man wronged and wounded. ‘Freya.’

‘She’s right, you know, it can’t carry on. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m really not going out with you again. You hurt me. We never get anywhere.’

‘Where do you want to get?’

If there’d been an ashtray handy I’d have hurled it at his face, frisbee-style. ‘What she said. Please, bugger off.’

The back door banged and a crowd of teens came out. They milled around, swearing and shouting, before gathering under the smoking shelter. Fumbling, lighter flares, smoke, laughter. Oggy said,
‘I’ve got a boat.’

‘You what?’

‘I’m buying a house boat. Gonna moor it at Whixall, rent a garage off the farmer. It’s neat. Thirty grand.’

‘You’ve got thirty grand?’

‘My mum’s helping, and I’m getting a bank loan. It’s gonna be smart. Red, it is. Flat-screen TV, double bed, fridge.’

‘That’s all your needs catered for, then.’

He came forward cautiously. ‘Frey.’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Know what a boat means? A boat means freedom. You can go up and down the canals, wherever you want. You don’t get bogged down with clutter. The cabin’s small enough to heat
toasty warm in the winter, and the summer you can spend on deck in the sunshine. There’s shops and pubs all the way along, countryside’s on your doorstep. Like a holiday the whole year
round, fantastic.’

‘Bully for you.’

‘For us. If you want.’

My mouth went dry. At the edge of my vision I could see the youths jostling and play-fighting, high on nothing, full of energy they barely knew how to handle. I remembered feeling that way, long
ago.

‘Are you asking me to move in with you?’

‘Yeah.’

I had been on a narrowboat a couple of times with Liv, just a few miles up the Llangollen canal and back again. I knew where to pick up supplies, how to navigate a lock, empty a Thetford loo.
Knew the claims he was making were right, essentially.

‘Why, Oggy?’

‘Because I want you to.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t be so bloody awkward about it, woman. A simple yes or no’ll do.’

In my mind I was trying to see it from Oggy’s point of view. What was he really after? ‘You want me to go halves on the cost of the boat.’

‘No.’ He pulled an outraged face.

‘You want something.’

‘Look.’ He sat himself on the edge of the picnic table and spread his hands to show he’d nothing to hide. ‘If you wanted to put a few quid into the down payment, you
could do, I’m not saying it wouldn’t help. But I’d pay you back. You know I would. I don’t mess about where money’s concerned. We’d do it all proper – with
receipts, if you like, so much a month, on a given day.’

‘And there I was with this stupid idea that you wanted me for my own sake.’

‘I do!’

Walk away now
, my more sober half was telling me.
It’s cold out here and Nicky’s waiting and you’re making a fool of yourself even listening
.

‘Please, Frey. At least think it over. It’s killing me, us being apart. And I’ve never asked anyone to live with me before. It’s major, that. There’s no one else
I’d consider, either. If you say no, it’s not like there’s a back-up.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ I said drily, though inside I recognised the truth of what he was saying, and I couldn’t help but be flattered. It was a big deal, for both of us.

‘You don’t have to have any cash, it was only an option. Day-to-day we’d split the bills, but that’s only fair, yeah? You could share the garage I’m renting, cut
across to the A49 each morning from Steel Heath. Or we could look at getting a mooring round Grindley Brook, maybe. I’ve worked it out. It’s sound on all fronts. Think about
it.’

So I let myself. I thought of winter nights with the curtains drawn and the stove going, of sunny days on the towpath, passers-by waving, pots of flowers on the roof. I thought of the pleasure
I’d get from telling people
I live on a boat with my boyfriend
, how Bohemian I’d look, how cool. Side-stepping the whole ‘you need to get a foot on the property
ladder’ business, shedding at a stroke the embarrassment of admitting I still lived at home with my mum. Walking away from Geraint and his giant underpants.

‘Where would I store my books and clothes? Where would I dye my hair?’

‘At Liv’s. You can always pop back when you need to. But you’d be living on the boat.’

I could see it. Melody of course would be thrilled with the whole idea, cooing over the painted roses and wee curtains and fold-away furniture; I could tell Michael at last I was making some
sort of progression, watch his reaction. Geraint would be cheering. Liv would just go,
As long as you’re happy. Are you happy?
The move would mean she’d have her space but I
wouldn’t be too far away if she needed help or support.

Then I pictured Nicky pursing her mouth in disapproval, making the same hard Cupid’s bow with her lips that her mother favoured, though she’d be horrified to realise it.
Oh,
he’s not taken you in again? For God’s sake, I could write the script.
You
could write it. I can’t believe you’ve gone back to him. What the hell’s the matter
with you?

And I might say,
At least it’s a step towards this ‘independence’ everyone’s been nagging me about.

And she’d say,
You reckon? He wants a cook and a housemaid, is all.

And I’d say,
It’s not as if he’s asking for rent off me. I don’t mind housework, and anyway, there’s not a lot to maintain on a boat that size. Easier than
looking after Liv, actually.

And she’d say,
He – always – hurts – you. You – know – how – it’s – going – to – end.

I’d have no reply to that.

He sat before me, his big feet on the bench, waiting.

‘But you’re still you,’ I said hopelessly. ‘Which means you’d still drop me the minute someone else happened to catch your eye.’

Now he brought his fist forward and opened it, offering up the cruddy hedgehog once more as though its simple eloquence was enough to wipe out the failures of the past.

I darted forward, plucked up the ornament and flung it in a high and reckless arc across the yard.

There was an explosion of surprised abuse from the boys in the corner as it landed near their feet, then a scuffle as they picked it out of the gloom. (‘’S a fucking hedgehog.
They’ve thrown a fucking hedgehog at us.’)

‘Freya, I’m not that bad,’ Oggy wailed.

‘But I can do
better
,’ I said, and began to walk away.

‘Who fucking threw that? Was it you?’ one lad asked as I swept past him.

‘No. He did.’ I jerked my thumb over to the table where Oggy still perched.

‘Oi, you!’ another one called across. ‘What d’you think you’re fucking playing at? You got a point to make? You want to make a fucking point, do you?’

I opened the door into the warm, left them to it.

Back in the saloon, Tyler Dawes had stood up and was wiggling his hips at a girl sitting opposite. She glanced his way, then began picking the varnish off her nails. One of his mates laughed
loudly.

Nicky said, ‘Finished?’

‘Yep.’

‘All right?’

‘Never better.’

She pushed my drink across the table towards me. ‘I’ve an idea. Let’s get completely smashed tonight, totally off our faces. We haven’t done that for ages.’

I thought of an evening at Michael’s, just after I’d left college, where Melody had got so pickled on homebrew cider she’d decided to cut her own hair, great hanks of it sliced
off onto the carpet. Afterwards she wanted to start on ours too, but we wouldn’t let her and then she’d passed out anyway. And I remembered a party at John Jones’s house where
Nicky made a cocktail out of everything she could find in the drinks cabinet, then started on the contents of the fridge. The finished cocktail had looked impressive with its yoghurt topping,
except she couldn’t get anyone to drink it and after twenty minutes a sediment formed at the bottom. Later that same evening, Oggy had fallen down the stairs and fractured his wrist, and none
of us believed him. Happy times.

‘OK. Hey, do you remember when we crashed Neil Froggat’s twenty-first birthday party at Cinnamon, and Sasha Morris had us alternating vodka shots with alcoholic milkshakes? On the
way home you fell in a bin.’

‘Not in it, against it. And it was right on the footpath.’

‘Leaped out at you as you walked past.’

‘That’s right. Same as the night you came round and headbutted my mother’s wind chimes. Look, can I say something, Frey, without you getting rattled?’

‘Why not.’ I already felt as though I’d been at the booze for hours.

‘It’s just, I’m
bored witless
with the whole Simon Ogden cycle. I think, if you go back with him again, I’ll have to have you put away. Sign you up for ECT.
Because I’m not sure I can keep going through this. Sometimes you really do have to tell people to fuck off.’

I pictured Oggy in the beer garden being mauled by teens. It was a warming thought. ‘Yeah, I get that now.’

‘Good. Sorry. I’m a terrible friend, aren’t I?’

‘The worst. Come on, keep drinking. We’ve a lot to get through.’

From Liv’s diary
12/05

It’s been the very hardest part of being a mother, knowing when to step in & help & when to step away, leave her alone. I know you have to let go in the end.
That’s what mothers do. I know the theory. But the actual doing it, that’s something else.