Signs of Life (4 page)

One day, I arrived at work to find Carl’s three teammates around his desk discussing something in whispers. Carl himself was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t want to
seem too interested so I ignored the fuss and started work. A few minutes later the chief executive came up to our floor with a visiting dignitary. Carl’s friends immediately formed a row
along the front of Carl’s desk. The chief executive and her guest stopped to talk to them and they remained standing in a row as if for some kind of military parade. Afterwards, Carl’s
friends were jubilant. They called us all over to have a look: Carl was curled up fast asleep under his desk and they had been hiding him with their legs. His friends loved these small acts of
rebellion. And so did I. We worked in a charity dedicated to young people and we travelled around the country raising money, setting up events to instil leadership, determination, team-work, things
like that. Many of these young people had had a tough time, seen and done things way beyond my experience – one told me that before stealing a really expensive car, he would steal a suit
first, so that the police would be less likely to stop him as he drove around. I was impressed by his creativity. I got used to confiscating knives but was shocked once when I was cooking with a
group and a girl asked, What’s that fucking green thing? It was a courgette.

Although Carl liked the young people at least as much as I did, and had more in common with them, his job seemed to be of no importance to him. He started to care when I managed, after several
attempts, to break up with him. By then he had lost me, long since lost Katie, was about to lose his flat, and so his job was all he had left. But he was so angry with me for leaving him that he
couldn’t help using work as a way of punishing me and he behaved so badly so often that he also lost his job.

Today, when I sat down to write, I noticed scaffolding on the flat opposite. Now that I work from home I look at it every day. It is in a late stage of disintegration. The grey
metal framework looks like it is propping up the building, but maybe it is too far gone and they are here to demolish it.

There were three visits to the seaside with Carl. On the first, we walked along the promenade with a giant cloud of candyfloss. I remember soft pink wraiths coming away from
the ball, turning granular in my mouth, feeling thirsty afterwards.

In the arcade he exchanged banknotes for heavy bags of coins that we used quickly. He won and was pleased. I lost every time. While we were eating chips from grease-spotted bags a seagull
swooped low and crapped on my head. I yelled out in surprise – the worst thing about it was the warmth! I had a mouthful of hot vinegary chip, which I spat onto the promenade. Carl laughed,
but then he went to the van where we had bought our chips and got a big pile of rough blue paper towels and pulled the shit out of my hair as best he could and picked up the greasy bag and spilled
chips from the ground, even the one I spat out, and put them all in the bin and offered to buy me more. I didn’t want any more. I noticed the two fat ladies in the chip van laughing into
their hands and did then see the slapstick side of it. One of the ladies came out of the van and gave me a polystyrene cup of hot, bitter tea. She told me it was lucky to have a bird shit on your
head and on the train back to the city when I was picking out dried stiff bits Carl reminded me of this and I objected: You won a tenner, I got shat on – how does that make me lucky?

Accepting the perfume was a mistake. It was allowing him in. It made the second time we kissed possible. If I had said no to the perfume, then maybe the first time would have
been the only time and I could have cut it off and set it adrift.

On another holiday with Johnny we followed a path along a river one day. I remember luxurious heat, baked earth and a warm, sweet scent that I think was fig trees. I walked
behind Johnny because the path was narrow. There was a quietness between us. I could see sweat breaking out on his back. His hips bulged slightly at the waistband of his shorts and the white flesh
beneath the line of his suntan kept peeking out. I remember this picture of him because it was one of those moments when I was aware of loving him.

There were plenty of other people around, tourists and locals, sitting in the sun and in the shade, reading, talking, eating, and swimming in pools in the river. At one pool, a waterfall dropped
about twenty-five feet into the water. A group of lanky boys were climbing up the rock to the right of the waterfall, jumping in, climbing up again. Johnny joined them. I watched him climb up and
move out to the jumping ledge. Before he jumped, he retied the cord of his trunks, caught my eye and grinned, and then he dropped into the deep green water, and resurfaced within seconds, seemingly
with the same smile. After watching him a few more times, I wanted a go. Johnny climbed up the rock behind me, coaching me on handholds and footholds, but there was only room for one on the jumping
ledge. You go first, I said, thinking it would be easier to jump if he weren’t just over my shoulder. Sure? OK, see you down there, and he made his way to the ledge and jumped off again, easy
as anything. The younger, browner, thinner boys hung back, waiting for me to make my jump. I followed the route Johnny had taken to the ledge. The ledge was tiny, there wasn’t even room to
stand properly; you had to have both feet facing in the same direction, towards the waterfall, and lean into the cliff for support. The rock below swelled out like a belly: I would have to jump out
quite far to miss it. Johnny was treading water in the pool, smiling up encouragement. He looked a lot further away than I expected.

No way was I going to jump. Cautiously, I made my way back from the ledge to where the queue was, scared and embarrassed. Johnny scrambled up to meet me.

What happened? Are you all right? It must have been harder to get back from that ledge than it would have been to jump!

Maybe, I said. But you can’t jump slowly.

A few months before my sister’s accident, Johnny and I started arguing more and the arguments didn’t die down as quickly as they used to. I went shopping with
Delilah and bought a pair of designer shoes made of silver grey satin. They were beautiful, like frosted glass. The shoes had high heels and I knew they looked good because they made me feel
fantastic. I had never worn shoes with high heels before because I was already tall, at school it was undesirable to be any taller, at university I spent all my time in trainers, so by the time I
was in my early twenties I had no idea how to walk in heels and somehow thought I wasn’t allowed to wear them. Delilah encouraged me to buy the shoes and I was grateful to her for opening
that door. Johnny objected to the price I had paid and I resented this because it was my money. I wanted him to be bowled over by the new me in my glassy satin shoes and he wasn’t, which
robbed me of the elation I had come home with.

It bothered me that I wasn’t brave enough to make that jump from the waterfall. I told Johnny I wanted to go back. The next morning the pool was in shade and the water
looked as black and solid as tarmac. All I had to do was jump. But I couldn’t make myself do it. I tried several times to gather up my courage into a jump but I simply couldn’t do it.
Something inside me had already made the choice to stay put and I couldn’t override it.

Just let yourself fall, shouted Johnny.

Don’t be stupid, I said, but he was right because once you are whistling through the air falling and jumping are the same thing.

It was easy for Johnny; he knew he could do it. His self-belief was so strong it was almost an aura. Now I see how he used it as padding between him and the world, but back then I thought he was
wonderfully secure. Even when he danced badly to his African music, he did it with such conviction that it seemed fitting. Twice while we were driving on a motorway, Johnny thought he recognized
people in other cars: There’s my old maths teacher! he shouted, and waved at a car as it overtook, and, another time, I went to school with her! The first time I was impressed by the
coincidence and tried to get a glimpse of his old maths teacher as the other car sped past, but the second time we quarrelled because I laughed. He insisted he was right and sulked until I conceded
it was possible that he had again correctly identified an old school mate in high-speed traffic.

On a beach holiday with Delilah I brought one bikini and she brought four.

Four
bikinis! We’re only here for a week! I said. She laughed.

I thought you were only allowed one, I said, quietly dismayed as I realized I wasn’t joking and that this was, in fact, what I believed.

No, said Delilah, kindly – you are allowed as many as you like. We went shopping and I bought two more,
and
a new pair of sandals, and I know it was only bikinis and shoes, but I
really did feel the world had opened up a little.

But Johnny disapproved of Delilah, he thought her frivolous because she cared about clothes and liked parties and occasionally took drugs and, perhaps feeling this, Delilah was not impressed by
Johnny, finding him judgemental. Johnny’s bluster may have been covering unease, but he really did seem to think he had the right to disapprove and to have the last word, and I let him.

Our director organized a team-building day for the whole department. We all sat round in a circle in the briefing room on the top floor while a woman of mid-height with
mid-brown hair made us introduce ourselves to each other as if we’d never met before. She lost half of us right there. When it came to her turn she said, I’m a lucky lady. I have a
wonderful husband and twin girls, aged three, they’re beautiful but a bit of a handful! We all laughed obligingly except Carl. She went on to describe the prize-winning village where she
lived, her pets, and how she did team-building work because she loved helping people. Carl took the piss out of Lucky Lady all day long and although I felt sorry for her as she struggled to stay on
top of his heckling mainly I was glad because her dreariness was choking.

That night I took Johnny to the pub. I wanted to tell him about Lucky Lady and I needed him to get it. I told him about the life she’d described and he thought it sounded attractive so I
tried to explain the way she didn’t understand that not everyone would want her kind of life: neat and tucked in, and how she put all her energy into shoring up her pocket of reality. But
that’s what everyone does, said Johnny, and I see now that he was right, but because the conversation wasn’t going the way I wanted, and because of the mood I was in, I bummed a
cigarette off someone and smoked it in front of him, and so we ended up arguing about that.

I suggested to Carl that we play Russian Roulette, with eggs. I hard-boiled eleven of the dozen, wiped off the water sediment and placed them back in the carton. I let Carl
move the eggs around without me looking, but I made him do it quickly so he couldn’t weigh or examine them. We played it with cards; when you lost a hand, you selected an egg and smashed it
on your head. Carl got the raw egg, which evened out the seagull incident, though he took it better than I had.

I see how easily I recall moments when things were taut and full of promise, and forget much of what happened in between. For example, the perfume Carl gave me: I can still see
the sparkly new bottle filled with clear amber and I remember placing it among the other bottles and tubes on the bathroom shelf, feeling a pang because Johnny had made that shelf and here I was
polluting our home with scent from another man. But when half the perfume had gone and the bottle had gathered dust on its little glass shoulders, what then? Even if I had worn it every day I
couldn’t have finished it by the end of the affair because the affair didn’t last that long. I know I didn’t keep it, because I made a point of dumping everything Carl had given
me, but I also don’t remember throwing it away.

What am I supposed to save? What am I supposed to remember? What am I supposed to tell? Am I supposed to hold anything back?

The scaffolding has been up for days. I think the building will be coming down soon. I find myself wishing they would restore it, I am not sure why – I have no special
attachment to this flat, I just happen to live opposite.

Johnny and I were invited to a party in a new bar in Soho. I planned to wear the glass-satin shoes we’d argued about. Johnny didn’t want to go to the party; I
persuaded him by asking Juan to come too. The club was small with steps leading down to the dance floor where people were standing to talk. It was like an empty swimming pool. Soon the steps were
jammed and everyone was dancing. I picked Juan because he was Johnny’s best friend, and I thought his presence would help Johnny enjoy himself or at least give him someone to talk to other
than me, but Johnny hated it. Juan danced very well. We danced. Johnny stood at the bar, looking down on everyone. After an hour or so, he wanted to leave. They’re all posers, talking crap,
he said. I looked around the room: They’re just people having a good time. But Johnny was already in gear. He wanted us to go back with him to a pub near our flat and looked crestfallen when
first I said I was staying, and then Juan said he would stay too. Johnny made his way to the door. I watched until I could no longer see his yellow curls bobbing above the sea of other heads.

Even though I was sad to see Johnny go, I enjoyed the party more without him. That same weekend we had a row about fashion, although I can’t remember whether this was caused by me staying
at the party or something else. Johnny took the moral high ground: the shallowness, the sweatshops; I defended the right to care about how one looked and pointed out to him that he too followed
fashion in his own small way, otherwise why didn’t he dress entirely from charity shops? We ended up in the only two separate rooms in the flat. While I sat and pretended to work in the
bedroom, I thought of a way to laugh it off whilst at the same time making a point. I unearthed some tatty old clothes, kept for the spring cleaning or gardening I never did, and dressed up in
them. I tucked the top into the trousers and pulled them right up above my waist, like Tweedledum or Tweedledee. When I showed myself to him we did laugh and he took a photo of me.