Page 21 of What It's Like in Words
I’m not!
So, you bite them down? Like a monkey?
I told him that I used nail clippers. He told me that I must be the only woman he knew who used nail clippers. I told him that was sexist and that he only knew one woman. What are Steph’s nails like? I asked (hoping that her name might prompt an introduction). But he put my finger in his mouth. I told him that we should stop getting distracted. We still haven’t booked a holiday!
Fine. He took my laptop—Hey! I protested—and started typing in destinations: Mexico, Tokyo, Jamaica. I told him I was thinking of somewhere closer but he wanted sun. When is the last time you had a proper holiday?
Good question,I thought. Ruth and I went to Lisbon, two, three years ago? Thinking of Ruth, I made a mental note to text her back. She had asked if I wanted to see all three Lord of the Rings films and have a shot each time it looked like Legolas forgot a line. We had been seeing less and less of each other lately.
I told him that I hadn’t had a proper holiday since I was a child. Ruth was always in between jobs, and it was hard to find time and money. He told me that I didn’t always have to go with Ruth. It would doyougood to go on holiday by yourself, honey.
The way he said that bothered me. I didn’t want him to think that I was boring or unadventurous or codependent or any of the things that I worried about, so I began talking about Kenya. But as soon as the words came out, I realized how much I wanted to say them. We knew so little about each other outside of these few months, andthe more time we spent together, the odder that felt. Like forgetting someone’s name and it becoming too late to ask.
He stared as I rambled about camping trips to the Maasai Mara. He told me that my childhood sounded like Animal Planet. I asked him what his family used to do for holidays. Caravan park, he said with a lilt to make me laugh. Didn’t you ever just lie on a beach?
We used to go to the coast.
What coast?
Watamu. Turtle Bay. The airport is Malindi, I think.
He started typing. I asked him what he was doing, and he said that he was seeing how much flights to Malindi were. My throat turned dry. I told him that it had been nearly twenty years since I had been there. He said that he was confident the Indian Ocean hadn’t changed. I told him that it would be really hot. He said that hot was perfect. I told him that it would take ages, you’d have to fly to Nairobi and change. He said it would be an adventure. I said that it would be expensive, but then the prices appeared. That’s doable, he said. Where did you stay? I scratched the back of my head, which was suddenly itching.
This beach house by the sea. I think a friend of Dad’s owned it? I wouldn’t know where to begin now. Although my aunt might. She moved to Kilifi, I think. But I’m not sure if she’s even there anymore. I haven’t seen her since, well, since I was eight or nine. Aunt Louise was pretty eccentric.
He shut the laptop. Honey…
He was looking at me as if I had something that could make him happy, so I agreed to contact her. He asked why I looked terrified, and I made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh and did an action that wasn’t quite a shrug. He told me that I was a strange creature.
You’re all ice queen by day and sparrow by night.
I didn’t recognize myself, but I still felt seen.
ILIFT UP FROMthe bed; a man and a woman are shouting in the alley on the street below. Sometimes they smoke crack in the stairwell. They are harmless, I think. At least to me, not to themselves. Their faces are scabbed and their bodies are thin. I can’t hear what they are shouting, but the noises are the same, recognizable ones, shocking, like when you first hear foxes, but then you realize what the sound is.
I don’t know whose idea it was to go on holiday to Kenya. I don’t remember if I wanted it or if I just wanted to make him happy. I feel like he pushed me into it, but he said that I had gone on about how much I wanted to go and so he had no choice. And if he was right about that, then what else was I wrong about?
I touch the bruise on my collarbone.
THE BAR WAS PINKand red, and the music was early 2000s pop. Amy was standing in front of a semicircle of women all drinking prosecco rosé through penis straws. She had aBRIDE TO BEsash over her white playsuit and wore a veil decorated with pictures of David’s face. I had stopped drinking after the wreath-making workshop, because I was working in the morning. Being sober made listening to Amy describe her favorite sexual position in front of her mother even more uncomfortable.
I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him all day. It had been nearly three months since he first called me his girlfriend, but it still felt new. Being anywhere that he wasn’t was exhausting. These other women had probably met their partner’s friends and told each other that they loved each other. But I felt sorry for them, because they didn’t have what I had.
And I have to lift one leg up like this so that he can then—
Amy continued like she was reading the instructions for a microwave.
Oh yes, your dad likes that, said Amy’s mother, and Amy flung her head forward so that David’s faces turned inside out.Mum!she squealed as everyone laughed.
I waited until the game was over and then went outside to call him. He didn’t answer, and so I called Ruth. Ruth always answered,and I always felt honored, because when I was with her and someone called, she ignored them.
Hey, Laa, what’s up?
I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she was eating edibles and listening to records. I told her that she was so cool. She laughed and said that her face was covered in Sudocrem. How’s Amy’s hen?
I just find hen dos so weird.
Oh god, me too. Still up for coffee in the morning?
