Chapter 23 One Disagreement, Two Sorry People
That night, Karim and I have our first-ever argument.
I avoided telling him much about my conversation with my long-lost matriarch while we did the pub quiz—I had to concentrate on remembering the answers to every subject that didn’t involve a ball or a bat or an athletics field. Though, to be fair, he did get a very tricky Eurovision question (1971—Monaco—Séverine taking the country’s only ever win with the forgotten classic “Un Banc, Un Arbre, Une Rue”).
After the quiz has finished, we walk back to my place, enjoying a night that has taken an unexpectedly warm turn. The drizzle has cleared and the temperature has climbed, and we both end up carrying our jackets instead of wearing them.
As we walk toward the coastal path, he says: “So. Tell me more about it. How did she sound?”
“She sounded . . . good. Better than I remember. Better than I hoped for, I suppose. I think I expected the worst; it was way too believable to accept that she was just another druggie who died young. I suppose maybe one step up from that would be alive but just as messed up as she always was.”
“And this was a few steps up from that, was it?”
“It was,” I reply, smiling in the darkness. We are holding hands as we walk, finding an easy rhythm, paces matched. “She seemed really clearheaded. Maybe it was the move that did it. Or maybe she moved because she wanted to get more clearheaded . . . or maybe it was a blip, and I’ll turn up at the weekend and she’ll be running around naked hitting people with a frying pan.”
There is a brief hitch in his step, and I know that I have surprised him.
“You’re going to see her this weekend?” he asks.
“Yes—is that a problem? Had we arranged to do something that I’ve forgotten? I thought you were going home for your niece’s birthday party?”
He laughs, squeezes my fingers, and says, “I think we both know that it’s extremely unlikely that you’d have forgotten something, Gemma. Yeah, I was planning on popping back to deliver presents and be the favorite uncle. The only uncle, actually. So I won’t be around after you see her. Will you be all right?”
He is concerned for me, and it is still a strange sensation. Still something that doesn’t sit entirely right with me.
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” I say, throwing as much confidence into it as I can.
He is quiet for a moment, then continues: “So . . . random idea, but it occurs to me . . . Stoke is kind of on the way to Birmingham—just a little detour off the M6, almost Alton Towers . . .” I know this now, of course. I have looked it up.
Planned my route. Learned way more about the history of the pottery industry than I ever needed to.
“I don’t think it’s going to be as much fun as Alton Towers,” I reply, wondering what he is getting at and feeling tense when I begin to suspect what it is.
“Few things are as much fun as Alton Towers,” he answers. “I love theme parks, by the way. That’s probably something you should know about me. But no, I wasn’t thinking we’d call in for a quick go on the Runaway Mine Train or anything.”
“The Runaway Mine Train? Isn’t that for kids?”
“No! Well, okay, it’s not as big as some, but it’s my favorite, all right? Don’t hold it against me. Anyhow, forget Alton Towers—what I was thinking is that we could maybe go together? Down the M6?”
“Down the M6” sounds so innocent, I think. Just a drive on a busy motorway. What’s a few miles between friends?
But the reality is that what he is suggesting is much more complicated than that. In our case, “down the M6” leads to a world of family, and a world of complexity, and a world of unspoken commitment.
“I’m not sure,” I say as we reach my flat and I get my keys out. I hear Bill’s welcome woof as we lurk outside. “I mean, I haven’t seen my mum for so long. I don’t know how it’s going to go. There’s every chance I might just chicken out and turn into a Runaway Gemma Train myself. I don’t think it’d be . . . comfortable for you?”
He takes my keys out of my hands, as I’m making a god-awful job of talking, thinking, and door-opening at the same time.
“I wasn’t saying I should come to your mum’s with you,” he explains as we walk up the stairs and go into the flat. “That would be inappropriate right now. Though obviously, if you wanted me to, if you thought it would help for me to be there, then I would.”
I sit on the chair instead of the sofa, not knowing why. We usually get back here and curl up together on the couch while we talk rubbish, holding a casual postmortem of our days. He notices—of course he does—and looks confused when he finds himself on the sofa alone.
“Thanks, Karim,” I say, “I appreciate that, but I think I need to see her by myself.”
He nods and replies, “I agree, that’s probably for the best. What I’m thinking is this—we could drive there together. I could drop you at your mum’s and maybe hang out in Stoke for a bit.”
“What would you do there?” I ask, although it really is irrelevant. “Do you know the place?”
“I’ve been there. Well, to be more precise, I’ve been to the football stadium . . . but you know, it’s a city. There’ll be cafés and shops and fleshpots of earthly delights.”
I frown. From what I read when I googled my mum’s new hometown, I’m not 100 percent sure about the fleshpots.
“But why?” I ask eventually. “Are you worried in case I become such an emotional wreck it’s not safe for me to drive?”
He puffs out a slightly exasperated breath, and I realize that I am annoying him and that he is trying to remain calm. He thinks I am being deliberately obtuse, and he might, of course, be right. I think what I am actually doing is stalling for time.
“I would never worry about such a thing,” he answers. “I know you’d be able to handle it. But as I’m planning to go home as well, maybe it might make sense? Maybe you could see your mum, and then we could . . . go to Birmingham. Together. See my dad and my sisters. Eat birthday cake and stuff.”
He is leaning back, trying to appear casual, but I can tell that I have made him feel edgy. This is probably not going how he imagined it would. I am probably not reacting like a normal girlfriend should. He runs his fingers through his thick hair and looks around the room while I consider what he has said.
“You want me to meet your family?” I ask dumbly.
“Yes. I do. Why wouldn’t I? Though I’m kind of getting the vibe right now that I’ve made a mistake. That the timing isn’t right. That I’ve loaded too much into one weekend. I didn’t think it through properly. I just thought it’d work for both of us, but now I see that meeting your mum again and meeting my lot for the first time would be . . . excessive.”
It would, I think, nodding. Excessive is the right word. It would be a lot to deal with, and there are too many variables. I have no idea how I will feel after visiting my own mother. I might be upset, I might be sad, I might be hurt. I might end up creeping into Karim’s family home like a wounded animal escaping a trap, and that would not be a good start. It would be too much tension for one day.
All of that makes sense. All of that is logical; all of that could be reasonably explained. But beneath the sense and the logic and the reason there lies something more instinctive, more deeply ingrained: I am terrified at the prospect of meeting his sisters and his father.
Not because I won’t like them—I have already met Asha, and I am sure the others are wonderful too. But because it is a big step, isn’t it? Meeting the parents. I mean, they’ve even made films about it.
I am happy with Karim. I enjoy his company, and I have made space for him in my world as well as I can while still being me. I also fancy him rotten, and am relishing our love life. I do not want this to end, this precious thing we have—but I also do not feel ready for this. For this entirely next-level shit.
I realize that I have not answered him. That I have sat here quietly, hands folded on my knees, probably looking calm while my mind raced through all of the various scenarios and failed to find one I feel comfortable with. He is looking increasingly less calm himself, and I know I need to open my mouth. I know I need to say some reassuring words, explain myself, get us over this awkward moment. I need to communicate.
“Do you want a glass of milk?” I say.
The look on his face is priceless. Under other circumstances I might have laughed.
“No, Gemma, I don’t want a glass of milk, thank you. Maybe I should just go?”
Don’t go, I think. Please don’t go. Hold me in your arms and take me to bed and tell me everything will be all right. Shout at me, scream at me, call me names. But please, don’t go.
“Okay, if that’s what you want,” I reply.
He stares at me and shakes his head sadly. I am frozen, immobile, incapable of speech. I am not good with needing people, and this has made me realize how much I need him. I stay silent as he stands up, grabs his jacket, and leaves.
I hear the door slam shut behind him, and Bill lets out a howl downstairs. I feel like howling myself.
I stay where I am, jacket and bag on my lap, and feel a rising tide of panic. I know I have broken something, and I am not sure how to fix it.
I automatically start to take some deep breaths, counting them in, counting them out. I think of this day in history. Christopher Columbus first sights Cuba and claims it for the Spanish, 1492. Gulliver’s Travels is published in London, 1726. The Volstead Act is passed in the US, bringing in Prohibition, 1919. Donnie Darko comes out, and I go to see it at the cinema with my friend Cally, passing as fifteen with a full face of slap and a pushup bra. None of it is helping. None of it is soothing me. I am sad, and I don’t want to be sad. More frustratingly, I think perhaps I don’t even need to be sad. It has all been a horrible mistake, and it came out of nowhere. I was ambushed, and so was he. He only meant well, and I reacted badly—my stupid, stupid mind told me I was in danger, when in reality I wasn’t. In reality I am lucky to have a man who cares about me, who is proud of me, who wants me to be in his family’s life as well as his.
I have never had any family to introduce a boyfriend to, and I never went home with any of my previous partners—though I now see that partner isn’t even close to the right word. I avoided it, always had things to do, was always too busy. I made excuses until they gave up asking. This stuff—family that matters, family that cares—is all new to me, like something I’ve seen from the outside but never really experienced.
He didn’t know how much it would throw me off course. He miscalculated, which I can forgive—not everybody counts as precisely as I do. He miscalculated, but he did it for the best of reasons.
I pick up my phone, start typing a message. I am going too fast, and I keep making spelling mistakes or triggering weird words on autofill. My fingers are flying, but not fast enough. I need to tell him that I didn’t mean to hurt him. That I am just made weird, that I am not built like other humans. That I am an idiot. That he needs to be patient with me. Above all, that I am sorry.
I am interrupted in my frenzied mistexting by a quiet knock at the door. I jump up, run down the hallway, and open it.
He is standing there, looking half angry and half amused. His hair is in tufts where he has been shoving his hands through it. I have driven him to dishevelment with my magic touch.
“I’m not happy with the way we left that,” he says simply. “Plus, I want a glass of milk.”
I stand back, and he comes inside. Before he can take another step, I throw my arms around him and kiss him as thoroughly as a man can be kissed. When we finally pull apart, we are both less interested in talking, and more interested in doing.
I lead him to the bedroom, and we show each other in the simplest way possible that we are sorry.