Nick
Nick
He watches as she climbs into the passenger seat beside him. The air feels thick with something. The hope of change.
He’s been a fool this past year. Pretending he could just carry on living in his safe little bubble. Pretending he wasn’t in love with Beth, that he didn’t want to be with her with every fibre of his being.
‘Do you remember that drive all those years ago?’ Beth asks, taking him by surprise. ‘When you took me down to visit my grandad? And you played me ‘Romeo and Juliet’?’
‘Of course I remember.’
‘It feels like a lifetime ago.’
He considers this.
‘But also, like yesterday.’
He shifts in his seat, one hand resting lightly on the bottom of the steering wheel.
‘I still love Dire Straits,’ she says, and he smiles. ‘Vaughan didn’t get it. He was too old to think they were cool.’
He’s surprised to hear her bring Vaughan up. She rarely talks about him.
‘I know it’s been nearly four years but sometimes it still doesn’t feel real,’ she replies, after a pause. ‘We spent so much time apart that sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s not just over in LA working. It still feels surreal that he’s really gone for good.’
‘I’m so sorry Beth,’ Nick says. ‘He was a great guy.’
‘Yeah. He was.’
They fall into silence.
‘Has there been anyone since Kate?’
‘No,’ he says, shortly.
‘I’m sorry you broke up.’
‘It’s OK, it wasn’t meant to be. She got engaged to her ex a few months ago. I’m happy for her.’
He glances sideways at Beth.
‘What about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘Have you… met anyone?’
He feels sick. She shakes her head.
‘No.’ She swallows. ‘I feel like… after Vaughan… I’ll never find anyone like him. I’ll never find anyone so suited to me.’
He considers this comment in silence. Is it a dig? At him? If it is, he deserves it.
‘But at the same time, I don’t have anything concrete left from our relationship. We didn’t even own a home together – I lived in his place in LA for a bit, I had my old flat in London, but that was always mine. We didn’t have any children. We weren’t married. We spent more than eight months of every year apart. We never had time to go on a proper holiday together. Sometimes it’s as though our relationship only existed in my head.’
‘That must be hard.’
‘His daughter got everything in his will, which of course is fine, but because she’s only seventeen his ex-wife gets to control it all. It’s funny. Throughout our whole relationship, I always felt completely integrated with his life. He never excluded me from anything. But after his death, I felt on the outside of everything. I didn’t even get to do a reading at his funeral.’
She pauses. This is the most they’ve ever talked about Vaughan’s death, and she seems almost winded by it.
‘You know, I sometimes wonder if… it was deliberate, on some level. On my part. The fact that we never truly welded our lives together. Not in any meaningful, legal, sense.’
He pulls into the driveway of his mum’s house. What is she trying to say?
‘Is that because…’
‘God,’ she says, cutting him off. ‘I’m sorry.’
He switches off the engine and turns to look at her.
‘What are you sorry for?’
‘Moaning, when you must be so worried about your mum.’
He swallows. He’s worried. But right now, it’s not about his mum. He gazes up at the house. Since he’s been living there, the front garden and driveway are no longer the tangle of weeds and rubbish they once were. He mows the front lawn regularly, has even planted a line of shrubs against the path. The house blends in with all the others on the street: neat, well-kept suburbia. But inside is a very different story.
He’s surprised with the ease at which he’s driven her back here. He’s never let anyone come inside his mum’s home before. But he knows he can trust Beth. Knows she won’t judge them.
Knows, somehow, that she’ll understand.
‘Listen,’ he says, seizing some courage from somewhere. ‘There’s something I need to tell you about my mum’s house. Before we go in.’
*
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ Beth says, sitting on the bottom step on the staircase, gazing around at the piles of things stacked up in the hallway.
He blinks slowly.
‘I was ashamed. Even Maggie never came here.’
The instant he says her name he regrets it. Maggie and Beth aren’t comparable. He shouldn’t have compared them. And the way he said it makes it sound as though Maggie was somehow more important to him than Beth.
‘But… why?’ Beth presses. ‘Why were you ashamed?’
‘Because…’
‘None of this is your fault,’ she says, her voice rising. ‘God, Nick. How long? How long has she been like this?’
Why is she so angry?
‘For as long as I can remember,’ he says. ‘My whole life. When I was about nine, I went to stay with my grandparents for a bit, because I couldn’t cope with the hoarding. Well, I was there for about four years in the end. Then I came back, because she was getting worse without me. She missed me. I felt guilty for leaving her.’
Beth shakes her head. Her eyes are blazing with confusion.
‘Is this why… you were so desperate to get back home after the fire?’
He nods, looks down at his feet.
‘Partly,’ he says. ‘You can see what a death trap it is. I couldn’t sleep for worrying that there’d be a fire here too, and I wouldn’t be able to save her either.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she says, speaking slowly. ‘Why you never said anything about this before.’
‘Christ, Beth, isn’t it obvious?’ he says. ‘I was too ashamed.’
She bites her lip, looks away.
‘Why can’t you just get a big skip and clear it all? While she’s in hospital? I’ll help.’
He takes a deep breath.
‘It doesn’t work like that. It would feel like a terrible violation. These are her belongings. I know they look worthless to us but to her they all have value. It would be like stealing from her – or worse still, it would be like someone coming into your house while you’re gone and throwing away all your precious things.’
She holds his stare.
‘And it wouldn’t work anyway. Short-term solution to a long-term problem. She’d fill it back up in no time.’
He looks around at the stained wallpaper hanging from the ceiling in the hall. The ominous damp patch which seems to grow larger every day. Something is leaking upstairs, but he can’t get into the room above to see what it is.
She stares at him. He can tell she’s shocked, that she’s trying to retain her composure.
‘Is this why you never had anything much in your room at uni?’
He shrugs.
‘I never had anything much of value to bring. We’ve always been skint. This house, and all the stuff inside it, is all she has. But I guess… I don’t know. Yeah. Living like this has made me phobic of clutter, I guess.’
‘What’s your room like?’
‘She’s not allowed in.’
‘Am I?’
‘Yes of course, come on up.’
She squeezes through the sliver of bare carpet up the stairs. The upstairs landing is in a worse state than normal.
‘Sorry,’ he says, pushing a dolls pram away, which simply bounces off the rocking horse that’s been balanced sideways against the landing wall for as long as he can remember, and returns to its original position. He picks it up. ‘Go on through. That’s my room.’
He’s not sure why he’s doing this. Letting her in. Because he can’t take it anymore? Because keeping this secret for thirty-three years has nearly killed him?
Because he knows Beth won’t judge him?
Because his mum nearly dying has been the wake-up call he really needed?
Or because he wants Beth to understand? If she understands, perhaps then she can forgive him. For last year. For everything.
‘Oh,’ Beth says, as she sits on his bed. ‘It’s like a different world in here.’
‘I know,’ he says, looking around. The walls are painted pale green. In his teenage years he went through a phase of redecorating every few months. As a way of feeling he had control.
During his brief emo phase, the walls were black. It took four coats of cobalt blue to cover it.
Apart from his bed, wardrobe and a chest of drawers, there’s nothing in the room. Just a single poster, taped up on the wall facing the bed.
He had forgotten that was there.
It’s a No Fear poster, of a man surfing a wave. The same one Beth had in her room at university.
‘What…’ she says. ‘Is that… Oh my God.’
He smiles. He’s embarrassed, but he’s also glad she’s seen it.
‘My mum found it at one of her jumble sales about a month ago. I couldn’t believe it when she brought it home. The coincidence. It’s a reminder to myself. To stop being afraid.’
They both look at the words imprinted across the giant blue wave.
What if your fears and dreams existed in the same place?
The moment hangs heavy in the air. This should be the time. This is when he should go for it.
He thinks back to last year, their fight in the park. She was right, of course. He was a coward. It was his fear talking that night. But today, something feels different.
Being cowardly hasn’t got him anywhere, has it? The last year has been more miserable than ever.
He needs to be brave. He can make it work. They can make it work, together. If they are open and honest with one another about things, then surely they can make it work?
Beth was right. She’d worked it all out way before him, of course, because she was always ahead of him. Smarter. Braver. Finally he knows that he has to try, at the very least. Otherwise he’s going to spend the rest of his life wondering ‘what if’.
He doesn’t deserve her. But she’s here, now, isn’t she? Despite everything, she still loves him.
He shuffles closer towards her, a hand creeping across his white duvet cover towards hers. He stares at it for a few seconds.
‘Beth…’
He places his hand on top of hers, leans in towards her.
But her face twists into a frown and she stands up.
‘What are you doing?’
The anger in her voice cuts him to the bone.
‘I…’
‘No!’ she says, and he sees with alarm that, from absolutely nowhere, her eyes are full of tears and he wonders if he’s missed something, like when you leave the room during a film and miss the crucial five seconds during which the plot moves up a gear, because he can’t understand why she’s – God, she’s actually crying – or why she’s looking at him now with absolute fury in her eyes.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Nick?’
‘What?’ he says, and he feels crushed. Absolutely crushed by his utter misjudgement.
‘You threw me away remember?’ She’s almost choking on her sobs now, and he feels the pain in her eyes as though someone is stabbing him. ‘Twice! Once after the fire, then again last year… I loved you so much, Nick. You had me right there, and you threw me away.’
‘No, Beth, wait… I didn’t…’
‘Do you have any idea what it was like?’ she shouts. ‘That year after you left uni? I was so alone. I had no one, literally no one. All these years, Nick! All these years I’ve loved you, and last year you made me feel like that was a bad thing. That we were somehow toxic. That Anna’s death was our fault!’
‘No, it wasn’t like that!’ Nick says, desperate now. ‘I just didn’t trust myself…’
‘What the hell is wrong with you? Is this some twisted game? Do you even remember what you said to me?’
His cheeks burn.
‘I’m sorry… Beth, I’m so sorry. But you were right… what you said. I was a coward. I just feel so guilty about what happened. What I didn’t do. You see, I’ve never been able to move past the thought that I might have saved her… I let her down, and I didn’t want to ever let you down. I didn’t want either of us to get hurt any more than we already have. I’m sorry.’
‘So what’s changed now?’ she says. ‘I was always there for you. Always. But you never opened up to me. You never wanted to talk to me properly… You never told me about your mother. And now… what? Are you bored? Why bring me here now, Nick? Why finally show me this, now?’
‘I don’t…’ He’s struggling to catch up but he’s still behind, so far behind her. As always. She was the thinker. He was the doer. And he’s done everything wrong. He never thinks! ‘I just…’
‘It’s taken all year for me to put myself back together after what you said that night in the park,’ she says. ‘I’ve moved on. I’ve accepted that we’re better as friends. I’ve even written a fucking play about it! And now what? Now you can see that I’m finally getting my shit together, you want to fuck with my head all over again?’
‘No,’ he says, raking his hands through his hair. ‘Please, Beth. No. Of course not! That’s not what I’m trying to do at all. I’m sorry…’
She shakes her head.
‘No. I won’t let you do this to me again! You’ve never been straight with me. You’ve always kept me at arm’s length, running away from me when I need you most, hiding things from me…’
‘What? That’s not true, I’ve never hidden things from you…’
She takes a great gasp of air.
‘Yes you have!’ she shouts. ‘What about Rosa?’
‘What?’
‘Rosa? I saw a picture of you two together a few years ago. On Instagram. Cuddled up together like you were best friends. Did something happen between you? After uni?’
‘What? Rosa? No!’ he says, standing up. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Why was she at your wedding, Nick? After the fire, she didn’t want to know me. She used to run away if she saw me on campus. I tried so hard to be friends with her but she didn’t want anything to do with me. Have you any idea how isolated, how miserable, I felt, when you both turned your backs on me? But the whole time… she stayed in touch with you. Do you know how much that hurts? Why, why did she do that?’
‘I don’t…’ Why is she talking about Rosa? ‘I haven’t heard from her in ages! I only invited her to the wedding to make up the numbers, Maggie said she wanted the same number of people on each side of the aisle and I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t have too many friends back then… I mean, what the fuck Beth? I never did anything with Rosa. Seriously. Seriously, how could you think that?’
She won’t look at him. Instead, she stares out of the window, tears streaming down her face.
That fucking poster taunts him from the corner of his eye. He wants to rip it off the wall, tear it into pieces.
‘Beth,’ he says, softly. ‘Please… I’m sorry, I didn’t…’
She folds her arms in front of her chest.
‘Fuck,’ she says, eventually, frantically wiping the tears away with her hands. ‘I really can’t… I really can’t do this. Not now. Not again. No, Nick. No . I won’t let you do this to me again.’
He understands. Of course she can’t. He’s let her down too many times.
‘My show opens in four days. I can’t… I just can’t deal with this now. I have to go. Please can you take me back to the station?’