SEVEN DAYS (13 page)

But Mark?

When she looked at him, she saw them together, their futures happily entwined. She didn’t want that to end before it really began.

“I'm sorry to get serious, but it’s better that I say this now,” he said. He lifted her and she swung her leg off him. At least he had the decency not to get her hopes up any further and not to dump her while still inside her.

“What?” she snapped, still hoping that they might be able to salvage the situation.

“I need to explain something,” he said.

He was stalling and looked so serious then that he could only be intending to say one thing. She didn't want to hear it, couldn’t bear it.

“You don't need to explain,” she said. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

“Maybe not,” he said and then he seemed to search for the words. She'd never seen him unable to speak before. “This is delicate.” He was struggling to let her down gently without lying to her or giving her false hopes. His kindness was no match for his cruelty though.

“Shhh,” she said. “You don't want to say it and I don't want to hear it. It's okay. Let’s just not go there.”

He protested, but she was already up and crossing the room, pulling her dressing gown back on and wrapping it tightly around her waist, not caring about showing off her shapely hips anymore, but wanting to be as covered up as possible.

She almost screamed at him to get out, but instead she strode across the room and opened the door to the stairs that led down to the exit.

“What are you doing?” Mark said.

“I have a busy morning,” Judy said. “You can get out now.”

He looked confused and then his frown disappeared and an air of levity came over him.

“Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned him, barely controlling her rage now.

He went back to looking perplexed, as if this hadn’t gone the way he intended and he didn’t know how to fix it, but all the while he pulled on his clothes and she waited as patiently as possible until he joined her at the exit.

“At least let me tell you why I came round in the first place,” Mark insisted.

So he hadn’t come round to see her after all. The little lies went on and on. They mounted up. Judy had no place for them in her life. She’d rather be alone.

“Go,” Judy said, incredulous. “Don’t make this any worse than it needs to be.” She could feel hot tears rising to the surface. She had to get him out before it was too late. “I'm sure we'll see each other around,” she lied. She was no less liberal with white lies than he was. That was fine. That was her choice tonight. Just as it was her choice who stayed in her flat and who had to leave, right now, right this second.

“If you give me a minute to explain,” he said, “I'm sure it's not as bad as you think.”

“Please,” she said. “I’m begging you. Leave me alone.”

She didn't follow him down the stairs. Instead, she waited until he was about halfway down and then closed, locked and bolted the door.

The tears came quickly.

That had been hellish.

She sat on the floor and let it out, thinking it would be over quickly, but long after she heard the door go click she was still sobbing. She wasn't crying for blowing it with Mark. That was only what started her off. She was crying for lots of reasons, all of them oblique, obliterated by the racking sobs themselves.

She was crying for all the times she had been strong, for all the times she had denied herself and for all the times her own desires had been denied by others. She cried for all the times she had helped others when she herself had had nothing. She cried, because her mother had once slapped her legs for answering with 'what now?' instead of 'right away' and she could still feel the sting, a shock that went much deeper than the skin, like all the worst pains. She cried until she thought she couldn't cry any more.

She wasn't empty after all, because the tears must have come from somewhere.

Her face had become a mess and she was both relieved and distraught that there was nobody here to see it.

“Get yourself together,” she gasped. Her hands were shaking. Her entire body was trembling.

Hers wasn't the only voice in the silence though. At the window, she saw Mark in the street below. His shirt was still unbuttoned, flapping in the breeze, revealing his beautiful body, as if she needed reminding that he belonged to the world and not to her. The second voice she recognised as that of her neighbour, Lisa. Of course. She had evidently timed her exit so that she just happened to be outside as he left.

They talked down there for a long time. She heard both of them laugh. Red with jealousy, Judy retired to the bedroom, so she heard when the front door below clicked shut some minutes later, but she didn’t know whether Mark had left or entered.

* * * *

A terrible hour passed, before Judy’s doorbell rang.

It would be Lisa, asking Judy why she had thrown him out this time and apologising for taking advantage of Mark’s exit, but wanting to give her the details nonetheless. Judy didn’t mean to be cruel, but sometimes Lisa was like a shark, able to smell a dying relationship from miles away and swooping in for the kill. Judy’s loss would be Lisa’s gain. First she had had Jules. Now she would have had Mark.

Maybe Mark had come to see Lisa in the first place, not her, and had only come upstairs to tell her that this was the case; not so much to ask permission as to tell her that this was so. He hadn’t been expecting Judy to jump him, but being a guy he wasn’t exactly going to fight her off either.

That would explain why he had been so cool to begin with and why he had been so insistent on having his say.

She imagined him skipping home thinking ‘two birds and one stone’ or something equally vulgar.

She made herself a strong coffee and turned on her laptop, with the intention of burying herself in her work. She could access work emails from home and get ahead for the following week. The only danger with that, of course, was that she was too good at her job and once she was up to date she'd have to look elsewhere for something to occupy her mind, but that was a problem for later.

Sitting in her pyjamas but too wired to sleep, she performed a cursory check of her personal email while waiting to be logged on to her system at work. She had eighty-four new emails since the last time she had looked. Many of them were notifications from social networking sites that she no longer used, including a dating site that had yielded some online flirtation, but nobody authentic. The men had been like her. Pretending to be something that they were not.

Unlike her, however, they lied about their ages and then referred to things that they couldn't have possibly experienced if they had been children of the 90s as she was. They used stock photographs for their profile pictures. They said that they were single and then showed up with pale rings of flesh on their wedding fingers.

Between emails from such sites as these and subscriptions to ezines, there was very little actual correspondence. She was about to close the window, when she spotted a recent email from a French address.

It was from the art retreat. The subject was: “Application for Trignac Art Retreat: 7 Days Art and Awareness, Awareness and Art”.

The first line went:
Dear Judy, thank you for your interest in this year's Trignac Art Retreat. We have ...”

Her finger hovered over the left mouse button, but then tapped the table instead.

She couldn't really take any more bad news right now. She didn't know why it was so important to her, but she did feel that if she didn't get on the course then her life would be over before it had even begun in earnest.

“It's not the end of the world,” her mother had said when she dropped art at college, but in some way it had been. Here was a chance to begin making up for that ill-taken decision.

Here she was, quivering over the opening of an email, summoning her mother for strength. Part of her would always be a little girl, no different at twelve than in her twenties. Part of her would always be afraid.

“Let's get it over with,” she said and clicked the button.

“Dear Judy, thank you for your interest in this year's Trignac Art Retreat,”
the first line went.
“We have the great pleasure of informing you that we'd like to offer you a place on the retreat. Competition was particularly high this year and your application has been chosen from among hundreds...”

She shuddered as she exhaled, not realising that she had been holding her breath.

A new fear overtook her. Now that she was on the course, she had to live up to the expectations. Her acceptance on the course had meant that hundreds of others had been denied a place. The weight of this responsibility became heavy on her.

She was packing experimentally when the doorbell rang yet again. And again.

Finally, Judy descended the stairs to tell Lisa to go away, because she didn't want her marginally good mood ruined.

Her neighbour didn't look at all happy, however, so Judy hesitated.

“I think he's gay,” Lisa said.

Judy knew not to ask who this time. This time she said:

“Why?”

Lisa indicated her dress, a white, Barbie doll, party dress that looked ridiculous, because it was so short and so fluffy and so over the top, and yet perfect and enticing, because the clothes and their wearer were in harmony.

“I think he prefers boys,” Lisa said.

“I know what gay means,” Judy said.

So, she didn't sleep with him then. And not for lack of trying.

“And he’s not gay,” Judy said. “Definitively.”

“I knew it!” Lisa said. “I wasn’t listening or anything, of course, but I just knew. And how was he?”

“Do you want to come up?” Judy muttered.

“Of course,” Lisa replied. “You got laid and I'm having a crisis. I don’t have a date tonight and you’ve made me horny like hell.”

Judy gave Lisa a truncated version of events as they climbed the stairs. By the time they reached the top, she was already explaining how she kicked Mark out and telling Lisa that she didn’t really want to talk about details.

“No way!” Lisa said. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s over,” Judy said. “Let’s talk about you.”

“See him again. What’s the harm? Until something serious comes along.”

Lisa didn’t understand that Judy was serious about him. It wasn’t like her to make snap decisions like that, but when it came to Mark she was sure. A taste wasn’t enough. Remaining friends with him would drive her mad.

“It wouldn’t work,” Judy insisted.

“You could try,” Lisa suggested.

“Enough,” Judy said. “I told you, it’s over.”

Judy attempted to shut the bedroom door, because the room was once again in a state of flux, but she didn't move quickly enough and Lisa saw the clothes thrown over the bed and a large, black case, open on the floor.

“Wow,” Lisa said. “You have sex once and now you’re going on the run?”

“I've been accepted on the art retreat,” Judy said triumphantly. “I'm going to France for seven days.”

“And seven nights,” Lisa added. She plodded into the room. “There was a lot of competition?”

“They seem to think I'm good enough,” Judy said, bristling, though she was less sure of herself than she had ever been. Only Mark made her feel strong. It was a shame that he hadn't wanted to take things further. What was it with her and men who just wanted to be friends?