Page 50 of People In Love
It is not raining, but there is white noise all around, traffic and footfall and a roaring in his ears. She doesn’t even pause, or soften her words. Just holds her phone up, shows him a blur of messages from Robin.
They had a cancellation, she says. For the end of April.
Insides spinning, blurring, like the reflectors on a bike that goes by.
That’s so soon, Bren says, and she says she knows; sounds taken aback, like him. But she is looking back down at her phone, already. Tells him Robin’s paid the deposit.
And despite what she’d said before, she begins to walk away from the dress shop, down the street. Bren follows, the movement helping, like it always does, so he can at least form a full sentence.
So, he says, how do you … feel, about that?
Great, she says, too quickly, he thinks – that word, again.Great!I’ve not seen the place, obviously. I was hoping we’d have that planning day, before we … locked in. It is stunning, though. And Robin loves it.
But is this what you want, he says, and it comes out of him like that kettle water, scalding, but she either doesn’t hear it, or doesn’t want to. Doesn’t answer, as she taps back a message to Robin. And that scald starts to blister, now, all the way down.
We’ve got to get the legal bit done separately, she says, reading Robin’s message aloud. Before, or afterwards. It’s not licensed, is the only thing.
The only thing?
Bren stops walking, pulls out his own phone. Starts searching for the nearest tube station. Jabbing the app that won’t respond, like it’s frozen, got some kind of damn bug.
Hey, Nora says, doubling back. What’s wrong?
I’m just trying to find the route home, he says.
Iknowthe route home, she says. I was going to stop back at the café, first, though. D’you want to come?
Not now, he says. That damn app. He swipes up, shuts it down, reopens it.
Are you all right, Nora asks, frowning now, and that question dampens the heat and the hurt, inside him, like sand thrown on a fire. Because it’s the sort of question his mother would ask, without really caring. Without knowing how to deal with the answer.
I’m fine, he says. Just conscious of the time.
Four thirty? Nora says, glancing at the clock on her own phone.
I said I’d be back for dinner.
All right. Let me just give Robin a ring, and I’ll come with you.
No need, Bren says, but she’s shaking her head, says she should tell Freya and Josie about April, but Bren says no, he can tell them. Why doesn’t she just head home.
Walking again, after he’s said it. Along the kerb, past the potholes filled with rain. More cars in the road, another bike. He wishes he had a bike right now. Like he did in Oaxaca. An aluminium frame, two wheels, covering miles without any effort, so much distance, all that space, new views to wipe all other thoughts away.
His feet will have to do, though, but he isn’t tall enough to outstrip Nora’s stride. She keeps pace easily enough, trotting by his elbow. Bren, she says, then again: what’s wrong?
Nothing, he tells her.
It doesn’t seem like nothing, she says.
It seems like you should go home to your fiancé, Bren says, rather than getting on the train home with me, don’t you think?
She does stop walking, at this. He hears thewhat, in her mouth, even though she does not say it, knows it’s what she’s thinking as he reaches the end of the street and turns onto the main road. There are more cars here, rainwater sprayed by fast-moving tyres, sundown seeping to the grey-blue of night. City lights, like noise. Like the rushing, cold wind. Things he tries to outstrip, as he strides on, leaving Nora somewhere behind.
_
What happened, some girl asked him once, on a beach in Bali. It was dark, like now, but there were no traffic lights or headlights or gold-lit shopfronts: just the moon, as big as her pupils. There were a few people not far from them, smoking and shouting, enjoying themselves, board shorts, braids in their hair. Bren had got his first tattoo, that day. He was not sure how he felt about it, but he was fine with that; fine with her, this girl; fine with her question that was meant to show an interest and make him feel seen but instead washed over him, like the sea on the sand at their feet.
Life, he replied, because he would not say death, and because her question was so huge, he could make his answer the same.
