Boyfriend in a Dress (19 page)

I try and compose myself, and ignore the bitter bile feeling in my stomach that is rising up my throat. Every few seconds the nerve endings in my fingers tingle in unison, and then abate.

I press the speakerphone button, and try to push the redial button as calmly as possible. What is wrong? I know something is wrong. I sit with my head in my hands and listen
to the rings in the distance as I drift off into my head. Finally, after thirty rings, somebody answers, agitated:

‘Hello?’

It is Dan, one of the guys Charlie works with, sounding weird.

I try to stay composed although I want to scream. My heart is pumping dread-infused blood to every part of me.

‘Is Charlie there? It’s Nix,’ I say in the most controlled voice I can muster.

‘No, Nix, he’s not around. Hasn’t he called you?’

‘No, not since before lunch. Do you know where he is? Why isn’t he there?’

There is silence for a moment at the end of the phone. I mutter ‘Jesus’ under my breath, involuntarily, and in response Dan says,

‘I should let him tell you.’

‘No, tell me now. Please.’ My breath is coming in gasps.

‘He’s with the police.’ Dan sounds embarrassed.

‘Why?’

‘He’s been arrested.’

‘What for?’ Dan and I speak quickly, knowing the other’s question and answer before they say them.

‘Assault.’

‘Somebody in the office?’

‘No, it’s a girl.’

‘A girl?’

‘Look, Nix, you should really speak to him.’

I hang up.

After ten minutes of ignoring my phone ring and my computer bleep, I register a thought – get through the day. I know I should call him or his parents, or his brother. But I’m not going to. I’m going to get through the day.

When I was young I used to go to confession. I remember lying even then. Making things up to please a priest who wanted to hear the bad things I had done, when in truth I had done nothing – how much can an eight-year-old really do?

I remember saying things like ‘I was nasty to my sister’, or ‘I was rude to my parents’ when I wasn’t. But I knew that the priest wanted to hear something, I didn’t want to waste his time, or mine, so I made stuff up. Maybe I had been fighting with my sister, over dolls or games or sweets, but it was over before it began. It was absolutely and completely harmless. But I said it nonetheless. As soon as I said it however, I felt like it was right for me to confess it. It gave it a gravity it shouldn’t have had, a depth that didn’t previously exist. It made it worse than it was. I was a normal eight-year-old apologizing for things that didn’t need to be apologized for.

Who makes an eight-year-old go to confession? Who tells a child to be sorry for being a child, and forces them to rack their brains for some trace of naughtiness that previously they had been fine with, had not thought of as wrong? You can always be sorry was the lesson, you should always be feeling bad for something. You will never be perfect.

I went away and said my two Hail Marys, and my three Our Fathers, not really feeling absolved of anything, just knowing, now, that I had done something that needed punishing, even if I hadn’t realized it at the time.

I sat in a booth, at the age of eight, and made myself feel guilty just for being me.

What, in God’s name, were they thinking?

I go to the supermarket after work and wander round the aisles, picking up onions and tins of rice pudding and minutes later seeing them in my basket, realizing I don’t even eat them. A shelf-stacker spots me stuffing a pack of frozen sweetcorn among the fresh bread, and we do a ten-minute dance around the shop as he follows me and picks up a Battenberg cake that I try and stuff among the carrots, and a bottle of Special Brew I dump among the takeaway sandwiches.

I get to the tills and place my basket down in front of a middle-aged woman who obviously thinks she has better things to do than pack my shopping. She starts to empty my basket, and I wake up a bit. She runs a tin of fruit cocktail over her scanner.

‘I don’t want that,’ I say.

She puts it to one side and runs a loaf over her scanner. She picks up a tin of dog food, and it bleeps as she pushes it past the computer.

‘Oh I don’t want that either.’

‘Then why is it in your basket?’ she asks me, with a definite tone in her voice.

‘I made a mistake, alright?’ I say back. I don’t think much of her attitude.

‘What about this?’ she asks pointedly as she picks up a tub of crème fraiche.

‘That’s fine.’ I glare at her, and she codes it in.

She picks up a jar of pesto but maintains eye contact with me as she bleeps it in, and I raise my eyebrows at her. I definitely don’t like her attitude.

She picks up a bag of pecan nuts.

‘Not those,’ I yelp at her, just before she pushes them through.

‘Oh for God’s sake – are you taking the piss?’

‘No, I have a nut allergy, I can’t eat them.’

‘Then why the hell are they in your basket? There are people waiting here.’ She gestures to a young bloke standing behind me, but he looks away embarrassed.

‘I think you are being very rude. What ever happened to the customer is always right?’

I challenge her with my stare but she just mumbles something under her breath and takes a magazine out of my basket. I ignore her and look away. The magazine won’t bleep for her scanner, however, and she can’t seem to find the code.

I sigh heavily and she scowls at me.

‘First day?’ I ask her pointedly.

‘That’s it!’ She slams the magazine down and presses a bell by the side of her till.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask, knowing I have gone too far.

‘I’m calling my supervisor.’

‘Why – I haven’t done anything wrong.’

She just looks around, and then starts shouting ‘Bob’ at the top of her voice, as a young guy, no older than twenty, hurtles towards the till at breakneck speed, with his head leaning so far to the right that it would appear he is missing some necessary vertebrae.

Before she gets a chance to speak, I pipe up, ‘I don’t like …’ I lean in to read her name badge, ‘I don’t like Eileen’s attitude, Bob. She’s being very rude. Isn’t she being rude?’ I turn around to gain reinforcement from the guy behind me, but he has moved to the next queue.

‘What’s wrong here?’ Bob musters his most authoritative manner, which is pretty poor. His voice should definitely be lower than it is.

‘She doesn’t want to pay for half of this!’ Eileen gestures towards the pile of food next to her.

‘So? It’s not illegal is it, Bob? I’m distracted and I made a few mistakes, you can’t call the police about that!’

‘Eileen, just give the lady her bill.’

‘Thanks, Bob.’ I smile sweetly at Eileen who tuts loudly and finally locates the code on my magazine and stuffs it into my bag.

‘Sorry, madam. I hope everything is okay now.’ Bob practically curtsies.

‘Yes, it’s fine, thanks, Bob, although on a separate note I think Eileen’s rings –’ I gesture towards the fingers full of gold sovereigns on her hands, ‘– may have been adding money to my bill. I swear I heard the till beep a few extra times.’ I shrug my hands at him like it’s not my fault.

Bob, replies, very seriously,

‘They couldn’t activate the till, madam.’

‘Fair enough, if you say so. Thanks, Bob. How much do I owe?’

I pay my bill under both Bob and Eileen’s watchful glare, and make a meal of adjusting the products in my bag, and leave. As soon as I am out of the shop I feel like a spiteful kid. My forced smile drops from my face, and I walk slowly towards the tube station. My mind wanders back to Charlie, and I quickly shrug it off. I’ll think about it later.

I get home and make dinner, munching on an almost empty
bag of peanuts (Eileen would be cursing if she could see me now!) while the water boils for my pasta, and then watch a soap with my plate on my lap. Every time my mind starts to wander, I force it to go blank. And still I don’t call.

The thought that keeps creeping back into my head uninvited, the thought I keep trying to shove out again without acknowledgement, is: Oh dear God, what have I done?

Phil was pissed off at hearing of my resignation as José screamed it through the wall, when I had meant to take him out to lunch and tell him myself. But as usual, it took the form of a sulky two minutes, and then he was right as rain again – he had football training that evening. He did admit, unprompted, that I was the best boss he’d ever had, which was the nicest thing he’d ever said to me. I think I might be the only boss he’s ever had, but I didn’t feel like pointing that out.

Charlie has been arrested on assault charges, and I know I should go to him, I should do something, but I just want to go to bed. I’ll sort it out tomorrow. I fall asleep straight away.

The phone wakes me at two; I can hear it ringing in my sleep. I know who it is even before I wake up, as the noise reverberates around my dream world.

‘Nix, it’s me,’ Charlie says down the line, with a voice that sounds battered by a night’s worth of talking and the odd cigarette.

I just say, ‘Okay.’

He says, uncomfortably, ‘You won’t believe this,’ half-knowing that I will.

‘The problem is I kind of do,’ I say before he says anything else, and we both go silent.

I don’t know what route to take, so I just say,

‘You shouldn’t have called me.’

‘You have to help me,’ Charlie says dramatically, and I get
the impulse to hit him, punch him down the line somehow. He sounds so pathetic, so small.

‘I don’t know what you expect me to do.’

‘I don’t get to make any more phone calls now,’ he says quietly.

‘You shouldn’t have called me then,’ I say.

‘Nix,’ he says quietly.

‘I’ll come down tomorrow,’ I say, and hang up.

I get up the next day and call Phil at work to cancel my meetings.

‘Looks a bit funny,’ he says in an off-hand way, as he brings up my diary on his computer.

‘I don’t care what it looks like,’ I say sharply, and he shuts up.

We go through everything on the phone: José has seen the footage of our smoking old lady, and has decided it will only work with this particular old lady, and that the scriptwriter should meet her for inspiration. He has also seen all the boxes of cereal lying around my office, and told Phil that we should be pitching for Coke or Pepsi instead. Even Phil understands how ludicrous this is; José is only doing it to fill up poor Phil’s time with useless PowerPoint presentations for a pitch we won’t even get a chance to make, to ultimately piss me off. I give one-word answers to the last of Phil’s questions. I can tell he is beginning to feel nervous about the next month, my resignation month, and the fact that he is going to be lumbered with everything, cutting into his ‘pretending to play cricket with a ruler by his desk’ time.

‘What about my appraisal?’

‘Oh, Phil, I’m sorry I really am. We’ll definitely do it next week, Monday lunchtime. Put it in, you’re booked, it’s a date.’

Phil just sighs.

‘What if there’s something I can’t handle?’ he asks, and I feel a little sorry for him.

‘Tell them I’m sick. Completely sick,’ I say, and rather than ask what I’m going on about, he takes this as his cue to say goodbye.

I hang up, and just sit for a moment, staring ahead, before reaching for my address book.

I phone Charlie’s brother.

‘Hi Peter, it’s Nicola, how are you?’ I ask, trying to start off with some kind of pleasantry, instead of launching into ‘what police station are they holding your brother in?’

‘Yeah, I’m okay. How are you?’ Peter asks in a worried voice that I read as pity.

‘Great, thanks,’ I say with sarcasm, but realize that Peter doesn’t need it; it’s not his fault Charlie is his brother.

‘Do you know where Charlie is?’ I ask, before he can react.

‘Dad called, said he’s still at the station.’ Peter sighs heavily – I hear the sound of his kid’s music in the background – the little sod has just got into heavy metal.

‘Which one?’ I ask, and write down the name.

‘Charlie told Dad you guys were kind of, well, you were going to go away together. Back together, you know what I mean,’ he says almost apologetically.

‘Yep, I know what you mean. We’ll see.’ I say goodbye, and hang up again. After a few minutes I get up, put on my coat, stuff my keys and my wallet into my bag, grab my mobile, and head out.

I see him straight away. He walks over to me, and we don’t say anything. I just feel tears welling up in my eyes.

‘When’s your flight?’

‘At three. It’s fine, I’ve got time.’

I feel myself start to cry, and he guides me through to the
bar, and a big sofa in the corner. He motions to a barman and I don’t see what he orders, but he sits me down, takes my coat off me.

‘It’s too hot out for this,’ is all he says, and throws it onto the chair.

I lean forward and put my head in my hands. I don’t know why I am here, but it seemed like the only reasonable place to come. I had pulled up the numbers of all of my friends one after another, picturing them on the end of the line as I told them, and their reactions, every time in my head, were the same. Nim would ask me what the hell I was doing; Jules would try and be nice and say everything she could to discourage me without upsetting me; Jake would wonder where it had all come from, and hadn’t Charlie become a bit of a loser recently? I had stared at my sister’s number long and hard, and envisaged her answering the phone in her office, and trying to work out what to say. I knew every single response would be the same: ‘He’s an arsehole/twat/wanker/child/prick (that would be the boy’s answer), just finish it, he doesn’t deserve you etc …’ I couldn’t bear to hear it. And then it had come to me. I had searched madly through the receipts in my purse for a minute, and pulled out Dale’s hotel number. Even as I plugged it in to my phone on the bus, I knew he would be there. When he answered, and I heard his voice, it was like a weight off my shoulders, absolute and utter relief.

After a couple of minutes, I realize there are two scotches on the table in front of us, and Dale is sitting on a chair opposite me, contentedly, waiting for me to talk.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say and sit up, wiping my eyes, trying to gain my composure.

‘Why, what have you done?’ he says softly, and smiles.

‘No, this,’ I say, gesturing at my red eyes and puffy, tear- and mascara-stained face.

‘It’s fine,’ he says, and leans forward to take a sip of his drink. He holds it in his mouth, and then swallows it smoothly. I follow his lead and take a sip and try and knock it back just as cleanly. Unfortunately I cough most of it back up, and perform a couple of minor convulsions as it hits the back of my throat. Not quite as slick as Dale. It crosses my mind to pretend to be having an emotional outburst, but I just can’t be bothered. I regain my composure, sit back and sigh, and let my hands fall heavily at my side.

‘So,’ Dale says.

‘So,’ I say.

‘So,’ Dale says again.

‘Charlie’s at the police station,’ I say.

‘Why?’

‘You don’t want to know.’ I sigh.

‘Okay.’ He takes another sip of his drink.

‘Oh, it’s such a long story. I don’t know what to do.’

‘How is he?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say guiltily, ‘I haven’t seen him yet.’

‘Right.’ Dale looks down at his glass, then necks the final remnants of his drink.

‘He attacked somebody, a woman. Well, he might have. I think he’s claiming he didn’t do it. I don’t know! Some woman was attacked outside his house, not sexually, I mean she was punched or something.’ Like that makes it all right.

‘And he told me all about it, said that he saw somebody do it. Then we get back – we’d been away for a weekend, kind of – and he gets arrested for it. I don’t know what to think.’ A thousand thoughts rush in and out of my head and I bang it against the back of the sofa to try to get them to stop.

‘Hey, hey, stop.’ Dale gets up and walks over to the sofa, sits down next to me.

I look over at him, and he stares back.

‘Do you still love him?’ he asks quietly.

‘I don’t know,’ I say.

‘Well, I suppose that’s all you need to know.’