Page 57 of What It's Like in Words
I turned to see a woman with a red umbrella, looking at me with a concerned expression. He raised his hands then slapped them to his thighs. She repeated the question. I nodded that I was fine, but she gave me thislookbefore she left.
Great, now I look like the bastard! he shouted after her.
I hushed him and said that she was just being nice.
She wasbeinga cunt.
She wasn’t. She really wasn’t. Please just leave it!
Because every man is the villain, right? You could never be the problem. He lit a cigarette.
Don’t, I said gently, because he had been trying to quit again.
But he told me to fuck off.Just fuck off, Enola.He walked away, flicking the unsmoked cigarette behind him.
I stood, numb, as he turned the corner, then started to walk home. The rain had lessened. It wasn’t invigorating anymore; it was just wet and I was a joke. I thought about calling Ruth, but she would just hate him even more than she already did. Amy was on her mini-moon. I obviously couldn’t call Mum. Would Dad have been someone I could have called? Oh god, I missed my dad. He wasn’t even a person anymore, he was just slices of grief. Cord slippers. Bottle opener. Reading glasses. I wanted to be in our old house in Nairobi.I wanted to run into the ocean. I wanted to be a child again, but I also wantedhimto be there. Bigger than my pride was my desire to keep trying.
I called him three times but he didn’t pick up, so I sent a message telling him that I was sorry. I hadn’t meant to ruin the evening. I hadn’t meant to do anything wrong. He replied quicker than I was expecting:
Sorry. I’ll be there in ten just had to deal with Enola… x
I moved into the middle of the road.
When I was at school, I was in a toilet cubicle when two girls were at the sink. I heard one of them say that I was weird because I was a white girl from Africa. Then the other said that I was weird because my dad had died.That’s why she was kicked out of Africa.
Third person stings.
The headlights from a bus.
But another message would follow.
The bus got closer.
That message would allow me to forgive him.
The driver beeped.
That message would buy us another few weeks.
My phone vibrated:
Fuck, Enola, that wasn’t meant for you and it also wasn’t meant the way that I know you’re taking it. I’ll have a quick drink then come over to yours? Sorry for being a drunk twat. I’m just struggling with things at the moment.
That message was a lifeline.
I stepped back onto the pavement.
IT WAS HIS BIRTHDAY, and I was making him a card. I had drawn him as a superhero, and his superpower was his laptop. He said thathe wasn’t a birthday person, but I pushed, and so he said that I could meet him for a drink after his shift. I needed the card to be perfect. This was his first birthday since we had been together, and he had made me that beautiful CD for mine.
Ruth rang and asked how I was feeling. She did that a lot at the moment, and I kept saying the same thing:I’m fine. Why?She said that she was just checking. But if I told her the problems we were having she would try to fix them, and her solution was absolute:End it.
I laid my clothes out on the bed. A denim skirt, crop top, and Ruth’s vintage leather jacket that she kept forgetting to collect. I would tell him that I had been out with a friend for dinner so that he didn’t think I had made the effort just for him.
I checked the time: I had a hair appointment at four. I put my elastic band around my wrist, grabbed my bag, and headed out.
THE HAIRDRESSER WASGLASWEGIANwith a platinum shag. I tried to look happier, because she was looking at me with pity. I told her that I just wanted a trim. You’d look great with a pixie cut, she said. It will lift everything and make you look younger.
Ruth was always changing her hair or getting a tattoo or a piercing, but I always looked the same. I wore the same neutral makeup, and my hair was always mid-length. I wanted to turn up to the bar tonight a different person. Someone stronger and sexier and funnier. Someone he had never seen cry or shout or run into the rain.
