Page 99 of What It's Like in Words
You pushed me. Aren’t you going to say sorry?
What the fuck is your problem?
You smashed my phone, you fucking arsehole. You should say sorry.
He grabbed me by the shoulders, and his thumb dug in below my collarbone. The other two men tried to calm him down: She’s not worth it, mate, leave her. Bitch. He said that I was asking for it. But before he could give me what I was apparently asking for, the train doors started beeping. One of the men prized them apart, and they pushed into the swollen carriage, somewhere in the middle of which, on his way to Patrick’s birthday party, he was.
Two women approached from the other side of the platform. One had flower beading in her blond curls. Come with us. They led me through the barriers. They were going to a hen do in Spitalfields and walked me home first. They told me familiar stories. One, about a man who followed her home. The other, about a man who threw a stone at her head. I forgot to ask their names.
I took my clothes off and left them by the wardrobe.
THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE.
I crouched in the shower until the water ran cold.
I put on myMario KartT-shirt and got into bed. The next timemy eyes opened, light was seeping through the blinds. I reached for my phone and saw the cracked screen. There were three missed calls and four messages. I sat upright.
You coming?
We’re going to that pub by the canal. Call me if you’re coming
You could have let me know, Enola
Look, you should know that I had a long chat with Pat tonight… I’ll be over tomorrow at about 10 p.m. after I’ve moved house. We should talk. x
CHAPTER 35
THURSDAY
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
10:00 P.M.
He is standing on the welcome mat with tulips in his hand. I gesture for him to come into the living room, and he walks past me to the sofa. I put the tulips on the counter and wonder which of us should speak first. It’s him, of course.
“So… you never showed last night,” he says, like a police officer.
Somewhere, I am in bed with him talking about how much fun Patrick’s birthday was. Somewhere else, I am alone wondering how Patrick’s birthday went so wrong. He thinks that I chose not to meet him last night. He doesn’t know that the choice was taken from me. He also doesn’t know that, in another draft, he is a dead body on the tracks.
“Why, Enola?”
There is a gentleness in how he says my name, and my throat tightens. There he is: a blood shadow stuffing a turkey with an onion because a lemon would be overpowering.This is our first Christmas,I say, wrapping my arms around the torn ligaments in his neck.It’s not actually Christmas, honey. We’ve got mistletoe,I say.That’s sage,he replies. We laugh until the turkey is golden, and his corpse is scraped from the tracks like gum.
I wonder what it felt like.
“Enola?”
“Okay, so look—” I start to speak, but he stands up and advances, cautiously, like he’s asking for consent to be closer. I don’t give it but I don’t refuse it either and so now he is holding me. His breathis coffee, and his eyes are red. He is wearing the same gray T-shirt. He is hungover and tired from moving house. (Somewhere, I am flattered that he made it over tonight.)
“Honey, yesterday you said that if we were going to be a couple, then we had to be honest with each other and, well, Pat said the same thing.”
Honey.It’s jarring, like hearing it whispered in an empty room.
“So, here’s the thing,” he continues, looking down, “you asked me about Steph, and the truth is”—he pauses—“that something did happen.”
I go to move, but he locks his hands behind my back.
“Butit’s not what I want.”
