What You Make It Read online

  A means of attempting that occurred to me on the way to work the next morning. What I would do was ring Nick and ask him, applying pressure if necessary, to play pool with me that evening. If she was there, and saw me playing with him again, she'd have proof that Jo didn't mean anything to me, was just another person I played pool with. We'd be free to recommence the progression that the meeting of our eyes on Wednesday night had started.

  I didn't get round to calling Nick until the afternoon, because of a long and extremely acrimonious row with the chief graphic designer.

  What happened was this. I walked into the office, feeling almost cheerful now that I'd thought of a way of making things up with the girl, to find that someone had been at my desk. Not only that: the person had taken the photo of Siobhan out of the frame and had torn it up. They had also taken my parents' photo out and cut the half with my mother in to pieces.

  I stared at the fragments for a long time, unable to move, unable to think. It was only when I noticed that I had tears running down my face that I pulled myself up. I looked at the pieces strewn across the desk and realized that there could only be one possible culprit. The graphic designer must have found out that it was me who had spoiled his personal work, which he should on no account have been doing in office time, and this was his revenge. For slightly messing up some piece of rubbish he had taken the photos of the two people who mattered most to me in the world and cut them up with a scalpel.

  I immediately confronted him, and was so worked up by then that I almost punched him in the face when he denied it. He denied even knowing it was me who had messed up his work. The argument spread into unrelated areas and within ten minutes we were standing shouting at each other. In the end he stormed out to lunch. Ignoring the covert glances of some of the other staff I sat heavily back at my desk, and tried to piece the photo of my mother back together again. I couldn't stop myself from crying, and soon I was left alone in the room. My mother died five years ago, and I still miss her every day. I loved her very much.

  Nick professed himself able and willing to go out that evening, which was good. After the morning I'd had I didn't feel up to applying any pressure, and certainly didn't want to cite the real reason for my escalating interest in pool. During the day I had to try not to think too hard about the girl. In daylight the image of what I felt about her wavered, was dissolved by the vestiges of pride. I couldn't believe that I was getting myself into this state over some seventeen-year-old I'd still not spoken to. It wasn't reasonable, it wasn't normal. Only at night could I believe what I had seen in her eyes, know that a bond was forming between us, a special link.

  I went home early, walked straight into the sitting room and dozed off on the sofa for a couple of hours. I hadn't been sleeping too well for the last couple of weeks, and coupled with the morning's furore it had just got too much for me.

  As I struggled back towards wakefulness, aware that it had become dark outside and that I should shower and eat before Nick came, I felt the shards of a dream fade around me. I had once more been looking out of my window in the old house, the house we lived in before my mother went away. My mother was standing out in the garden again, and this time I ran downstairs and rushed outside, feeling the damp grass beneath my feet in the darkness. As I got closer she turned and I saw that again she was crying. My mother had some minor emotional problems, and seeing her crying is one of my earliest memories of her. But as I looked at her I felt my skin begin to crawl, because although it looked exactly like her, though every line, every bone was in the right place, it wasn't her. It looked as though someone of the right general shape and build had been given the world's most perfect plastic surgery until there was no surface difference, none at all. As I stood looking at her the wind whipped the hair across her face and a dog barked somewhere nearby. She was tall and very slim, my mother, and as she bent down towards me I had plenty of time to turn and run. But I didn't. I never did. I loved her. The hair cleared from her face, thrown backwards by another gust, and I saw that it wasn't my mother after all. It was her. It was the girl.

  The last thing I saw as I woke up was that she wasn't crying any more. She was smiling, a hard, tight smile that I recognized from somewhere.

  I stood up slowly and wandered clumsily across the room, rubbing my face with my hands. I knew I should remember that smile, but couldn't. I looked groggily over at the clock, and saw that I still had an hour before Nick was due to arrive. Shaking my head against the heavy residue of afternoon sleep I walked into the bedroom.

  At first I couldn't tell what was different. After a moment I realized it was that I could see the whole of my face in the dresser mirror. And then I saw. The picture of Siobhan had been shredded, and my mother's half of the other picture was a slashed and tangled mess. The chief graphic designer passed through my mind for an instant, but I knew that it wasn't him who had done this.

  On impulse I flung open the doors to the wardrobe and dropped to my knees, flinging things out behind me as I dug for the box I kept in the back. When I'd found it I sat back cross-legged and opened it on my lap, trembling.

  Every photo in the box had been slashed. Every photo had either Siobhan or my mother in it, and every one had been reduced to small strips of meaningless colour. My graduation photo, with Siobhan on my arm back in the days when she loved me, was in pieces. The photo of me on my fifth birthday, sitting on my mother's lap with the bandages still round my right eye, was little more than confetti.

  Spilling the petals of colour out onto the floor I lunged and stuck my hand under the bed. In a box within a box within a box I found my special photos. Nobody knew I kept them there, nobody. I opened the cigar box that should have held my favourite three photos of my mother and the best two of Siobhan, and inside was nothing but a tangle of photographic paper. They'd not been cut calmly, neatly, but mangled, ripped and gouged apart, slashed and shredded with utter hatred.

  I got the message, as I sat there surrounded by ruin. I understood. There are no compromises, there is no middle ground. You are with someone, or you are without them. You either have them or you don't, and if you have them, you have them and them alone. There can be no one else, ever. This was a warning, a message, a sign of the way things would stand. This was no normal girl, and if I was to have her, it was to the exclusion of anyone else, past, present or future.

  The phone rang. Without thinking, out of pure reaction to the jangling sound, I snatched the bedroom extension. It was Nick. He couldn't make it. He was doing something else. He'd forgotten. He was sorry. Monday?

  I put the phone down, and stood up, grabbing my coat from the wardrobe. I had to turn up, to show that the message was received and understood. If I had to do it alone, so be it. I called a cab and waited outside for it, swinging my cue case impatiently. It was full dark by then, and a dog barked somewhere nearby.

  It was crowded in the Archway Tavern. By the time I got there it was after nine, and on a Friday it's just swinging into its busiest period by then. All the tables were taken, the air was laden with smoke, and the twins were nowhere to be seen. I bought a beer and waited, sitting near one of the tables at the far end of the bar.

  They came in half an hour later, surrounded by their friends. The blonde pool-playing girl was there, as were the two lads from the previous night. I fought down the urge to get straight up and go across. That wasn't the way to do it. There is a right way to do everything, and everything must be done in the right way. I hadn't eaten all day, and the beer was going straight to my head. It was very noisy and hot and smoky and there were people all around shouting happily at each other and I sat there with my cue case on my lap waiting for the right time, waiting for the sign.

  Then suddenly a ray of quiet cut across the bar as the song on the juke box ended. After a moment of relative silence I heard a distinctive piano riff, and then smiled as a familiar guitar chord scythed through the smoke. It was ‘Secret’. That was it.

  That was the sign.

  I st
ood up and walked down towards the other end of the bar. The twins were standing in a gaggle round a pool table there. I worked my way round the back of the group, feeling my heart swell. I would let her know that I understood. When I was behind her I tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and looked at me. For a second, I thought I read something in her eyes, and then all I saw was distaste.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  The others in the group were staring at me. I smiled at them and then turned back to her.

  ‘I got your message. I understand.’

  ‘What message? What the fuck are you talking about?’

  I saw the others' faces again. Some of them were looking embarrassed. The blonde pool player was giggling behind her hand. The twin sister was looking at the girl, eyebrows raised, shaking her head. I began to feel very bad.

  ‘You know what I mean. The photos.’

  She gave an angry and embarrassed laugh, and shook her head.

  ‘I don't know what you're talking about. Now piss off.’

  ‘Yeah. Piss off.’ This was from one of the lads. Maybe he fancied her. He reached out and shoved my chest. I wasn't ready for it, and fell backwards, banging into a table. The group turned its back on me and laughed. The blonde girl kept giggling, giggling.

  I staggered upright, feeling the chorus of ‘secret’ reverberating through my bones. The barman looked at me sternly, but it was okay. I was going.

  In the car park I smoked some cigarettes and waited for an hour. Just after ten the group came out, and the girl separated from the rest of them and headed down the Holloway Road. I followed her, pausing for a moment to pick something up from outside a house.

  I understood. I had made a mistake. I had brought it into the open in front of her friends, in front of people who knew nothing about it, who didn't know that she was special, that she was capable of unusual things. When I saw which house she was going into I went round the back and carefully climbed up the drainpipe to the balcony.

  I understand things, you see. I learn very quickly. When I was four I dropped a bottle of milk on the kitchen floor. When my mother saw what I had done she got out my father's cue and calmly screwed the two halves together. Then she swung the cue with all her strength and smashed me round the face with it. That's how I got one of the scars round my eye. I told you I could remember. When I was six, I said something wrong and she grabbed my hair and banged my head into the corner of the kitchen table six times, once for each year. I had to go into hospital that time, with concussion. I didn't tell anyone what had happened. It was our secret.

  I never dropped the milk again, and I never said anything wrong. I learn.

  A light went on inside as the girl went into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and there was milk inside. She drank some and then put the bottle back. I eased the latch on the balcony door open and stepped soundlessly into the flat. As she came out of the kitchen I could see her face, and she was smiling a tight, hard smile. I remembered it now. It was the smile my mother had when she picked up the piece of broken glass from the milk bottle to run it across my stomach. It was the smile she had when she pulled my head up from banging it on the table and pushed her fingernail into the new gash by my right eye. It was the smile she had the first and last time she met my first girlfriend.

  The girl walked into the living room and sat on the sofa without turning the light on. She was waiting for me. She knew I was coming.

  The only girlfriend I had before Siobhan was called Sally. She went to the same school as me, and we went to the films a couple of times. Then I brought her home to meet Mum and Dad. Dad was in the garden so we went into the kitchen first to meet Mum. She was sitting at the kitchen table. There was a milk bottle on the table. When she saw us she gave that tight hard smile and stood up. I introduced them to each other, but I don't think I did it very well. I was distracted. I thought I could see blood on the corner of the kitchen table.

  ‘So this is Sally,’ said Mother, leaning back against the table, arms folded.

  ‘Yes. Hello,’ said Sally, smiling sweetly.

  Moving carefully, I edged closer to the living room. I could hear the girl humming, and the tune was ‘I'm on Fire’. She had sent her twin off with the others so she could be here alone.

  Mother smiled at Sally for a moment, and then gestured me to come and stand next to her.

  ‘She's a bit fat, isn't she?’ Mother said, putting her arm round my waist. ‘He normally prefers slimmer girls, don't you?’ She turned to me, smiling, and ran a finger along the biggest scar by my eye. ‘Tall and slim with long brown hair.’ Then she pulled my head towards hers. Sally backed out of the kitchen as my mother pushed her tongue into my mouth, sucking my lips and sliding her hand up under my shirt. She pushed herself up against me and laughed as Sally ran out of the house. I never spoke to Sally again. Then Mother bit my face and shoved me away from her. Off-balance, I fell and banged my face on the side of the fridge. That's how I got my final scar. I learnt. I understood. I couldn't have her, but I couldn't have anyone else either.

  I walked into the living room. The girl pretended to be surprised to see me, even screamed a little, but I wasn't embarrassed any more. I knew how things worked, knew that this had to remain a secret between us. I pulled my cue out from behind me and belted her across the face with it. She went down onto the floor. She tried to speak but her nose was broken and blood was running into her mouth. I couldn't hear what she was saying, but it didn't matter, because I knew what the score was, and I was doing what I was supposed to. I didn't need instructions. I smashed the milk bottle I'd picked up on the Holloway Road across her forehead, and pushed the broken neck into her right eye. Now she had some scars, and I pushed my fingers deep into them, feeling the bone beneath, feeling what Mum had felt. I pushed my tongue into her mouth, sucking her lips, and slid my hand up her shirt. She struggled as I pushed the bottle into her stomach, and screamed as best she could as the soft skin there punctured and my hand fell in. I knew there wasn't that much time so I pulled my hand back out and linked it with the other one round her throat. I put my face as close to hers as I could as I squeezed, watching the blood from her scars trickle into her eyes and down her cheek.

  As she gasped I looked up for a moment, looked at the room, the chairs, the carpet. This was our place now, somewhere only she and I had been. Blood and saliva ran out of her nose and mouth as she choked and I put my cheek right next to her mouth, waiting to see if I could tell.

  And I could. I knew which was the last breath, I could feel it on my face, and I sucked it up into my body. I held her for a while, rocking her close, and we shared a happiness that I cannot describe, that is impossible to explain. She'd needed to be the only one, to have me completely, and she did. As we sat there we were the only two people in the world, and I thanked God she'd had the ingenuity and the magic to give me a message I could understand. This place would never stop being ours, and its power would never fade. I felt her slimness against me, and pushed my hands through her long brown hair, looking at the scars we shared.

  DIET HELL

  Jeans, is how it started.

  About a year ago, I'm having problems buying a simple pair of blue jeans. For years I'd been a Gap man, then I discovered Calvin Klein, which frankly are a better cut. I'd been buying CKs for about three years when suddenly they stopped working for me. Didn't fit as well as they should.

  I keep buying new pairs, hoping I'll find some that do, but I don't. Then one day I'm in a store, still searching for that elusive batch which have been cut the way they used to be, but they don't have my size. I'm looking for 30 waist, 30 leg, but all they have is 32 waist. So I think shit, I really need some new jeans, I'll try them on anyway. And guess what – they fit.

  In other words, I'm now a 32 waist, is what the jeans are saying.

  Now I don't mind this too much. Hell, I've been a 30 waist since I was twenty, and that's twelve years; figure sooner or later I'm goi
ng to go up a size. It's in the nature of things.

  I go home with my new jeans, take the others back to the stores if I've still got the receipts, or throw them away if I haven't, and everything's cool again jean-wise.

  Then nine months later, Calvin Klein start cutting the jeans weird again. Don't fit the way they should.

  I muse on this for a while. Couple months, in fact.

  Then one dread afternoon I go back to the store, stand in front of the 34 waist pile for a while. I grab a pair, put them back. This is a big step here, and I don't want to make it. But I pick ’em up again, buy ’em, take ’em home.

  Guess what? Heart-in-elevator time. They fit.

  Not perfectly: truth be told I'm probably more of a 33 and a half than a 34. But the cut is back again, and I have to face facts. Basically, from here on in, if I want my jeans to fit I'm going to be walking up to that 34-inch pile.

  Now this I'm not too happy about. Like I say, after ten years, you expect a change, especially if you like to eat and drink like I do. And fail to exercise, like I do. Exercise? Excuse me? Screw that. The thought of exercise makes me feel so tired I just flop right down on the couch and turn on the TV. So I can see there's going to be a trade-off. But another two inches in less than a year? This is not good. A 34 waist is a bad thing. It's in the Bible.

  I try to find a mental workaround. Maybe, I think, this is just my body settling into its next phase. Maybe I'm going to be 34 for the next ten years. 34 at forty? That's not too shabby.

  It nearly works. But there's a nagging voice in the back of my head. Maybe this is just the start of it, it says – and at this rate of progress, it's not going to be long before you're going to be moving along another pile.

  That made me really stop and think a moment. I've never bought jeans – or any other type of trouser, for that matter – at a waist size with a 6 in it. Last time there was a 6 in the number was when I was a 26, and back then the sizes came in small, medium and large and my mother was doing the buying. I've never bought no 6-suffixed trouser, and I wasn't going to start now.