Chapter 17
Awake. So I open my eyes. But it’s hard to open my eyes.
It’s all just very . . . difficult, isn’t it?
Easier to stay asleep. I’ll stay asleep.
Let’s get comfy . . . I rearrange myself and bury my face in the pillow when I’m suddenly hit with the strange and compelling thought that my pillow smells wrong.
It’s not that it smells bad, it just smells different, like a different kind of washing powder.
The thought hits me so instantly that I open my eyes instinctively, and what I see is not only not my ceiling, but a ceiling I’ve never seen before in my life.
A red lampshade is hanging above me that I do not know.
The only thing I do know is that I’m not in my flat.
That feeling that I got when the cable came loose at my first club night?
That ice-cold horror? It turns out I had no idea what ice-cold horror really felt like.
For a second I just lie there, too scared to sit up, too scared to turn my head and see who’s in the bed next to me.
But I know I have to start somewhere. Slowly, making as little noise as possible even though I feel like my heart is pounding so loudly you can hear it outside my body, I turn my head.
But there’s no one there. The bed is empty.
That’s something, right? That’s a start.
That’s something, I tell myself. That’s something.
My whole body is shaking with . . . fear? Adrenaline? I make myself sit up.
And the first thing I see is Laurie O’Donnell, asleep on an armchair under two coats.
‘Fuck!’ I gasp.
‘Shit!’ he says, his eyes suddenly open, blinking, staring. He holds his hand against his chest and tries to catch his breath. ‘You scared me.’
‘Me?! I scared you?! Imagine how I felt waking up in a strange room! In a strange bed!’ I say, feeling slightly on the verge of tears because the whole thing is so bewildering but simultaneously reassured to actually know where I am.
I can’t have slept with Laurie, can I? Why would I do that?
Why would that ever happen? And why wouldn’t I have any memory of it?
Unlessssss . . . Did I . . . get really, really drunk last night?
Is that possible? And even if I did get really drunk, and even if for some reason we did .
. . you know . . . have sex, why would he be sleeping on a chair?
‘It’s . . . it’s OK,’ he says, holding his hands out like I’m a wild animal that he’s scared of. He swallows. ‘I didn’t know what else to do . . . I couldn’t figure out what to do with you . . .’
‘What? Why?’ I ask. ‘Why . . . am I here?’ When I hear myself say the words out loud I sound like a child.
It’s such a stupid question – how can I not know?
But I don’t. I just don’t. ‘All I remember is . . . starting to pack up at the end of the night . . .’ I look at him, and my desperation to understand must be palpable.
‘Yeah, the newspaper lot had just left, and I was about to head home but I thought I’d come and say bye, but you were acting really . . . weird, I guess?’
‘Weird how?’
‘Like, really drunk. Or just very tired, like you couldn’t stand up.
Which seemed weird because you were fine when I’d spoken to you a couple of hours earlier, not even on your way to a bit tipsy.
’ We just look at each other for a second, me waiting for him to say more, him waiting for me to ask something.
Finally, he continues, ‘And then I realised . . . you probably weren’t drunk at all,’ he says, swallowing again.
‘I mean, I might be wrong, but it seems likely that someone spiked your drink.’
He says it so gently, but it’s like being hit over the head. My night. My fucking night. What was meant to be fun and silly and flirty . . . being invaded like that by someone who wanted to . . . to . . . I can’t even make myself finish the thought.
‘Fuck,’ I say.
‘And I didn’t want to leave you on your own, you know?
I mean, I just couldn’t, not with you seeming as .
. . out of it as you did. And if I was right and someone had spiked your drink, then I figured they were probably around somewhere waiting to swoop in when you were on your own.
So I didn’t want you to be on your own.’
I nod.
‘I couldn’t really get any information out of you about where you lived so I thought the easiest thing to do was just bring you back here where I could keep an eye on you, I guess. If that doesn’t sound too creepy.’
I shake my head. ‘Not creepy.’
‘Good . . .’ he says, looking down at his hands.
‘I really couldn’t figure out what the right thing to do was.
I didn’t get to sleep for ages because I worried that there was some other option I hadn’t thought of and that was what I should have done, but .
. . whatever way I looked at it, I always ended up with bringing you back here being the safest thing. ’
He looks up at me, his thick, dark hair falling across his forehead.
‘Thank you,’ I try to say, but it only comes out as a whisper. Not because I don’t want him to hear it, but because I feel like if I exert too much effort then the floodgates will open and I’ll be a weeping mess.
He shakes his head. ‘It’s what anyone would have done.’
‘Not anyone. We know at least one person would have . . .’ I begin, but then it’s like the shutters come down and I can’t make the thought go anywhere, can’t make myself think, let alone say what the logical conclusion of spiking my drink would have been.
‘Can I get you anything? Water? Tea? Something to eat?’ he asks, standing up and wincing.
‘God, Laurie, I can’t believe you spent the night on that chair – you must feel like a pretzel.’
‘There was no way I was going to sleep in the bed,’ he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
‘But you’re, like . . . six foot four; I’m surprised you even fit. No wonder you needed two coats to cover you.’
He shrugs. ‘Tall-people problems. Nothing new there. I’m going to make a coffee, but I actually only have instant so you probably don’t want that.’
‘Wrong,’ I say, trying to summon a smile. ‘That’s exactly what I want.’
‘Excellent, and I think I have some bagels, if that sounds OK to you?’
I nod quickly. ‘That sounds OK to me. I just have milk in my coffee and a lot of butter on my bagels.’
He touches his right index finger to his head. ‘I’ll remember that,’ he says, before padding off down the stairs.
Alone for a moment, I take in my surroundings. It’s a small room, but tidy, and when I kneel on the bed to look out of the window I see we’re in a low-rise ex-council estate surrounding a patch of scraggly grass on four sides where a group of children are playing football.
Laurie returns, somehow juggling two mugs of coffee and two plates with a bagel on each.
‘What a skill!’ I say, wanting to sound upbeat.
‘Saturday jobs teach you a thing or two, I suppose.’
I take a sip of the coffee. ‘Aaah,’ I say, ‘lovely, horrible instant coffee.’
Laurie smiles. ‘I know what you mean. It’s not fancy, but it’s reassuringly itself.’
‘Precisely,’ I say.
We sit in silence for a moment, eating our bagels, both of us probably wondering what to say next, how to break the silence.
At least, I definitely am. I swallow down my mouthful of bagel and realise there’s only one thing I want to say.
‘Why were you so nice to me? I’ve only ever been .
. .’ I pause, trying to phrase it as favourably as possible, ‘a little bit rude to you.’
‘I’d have done it for anyone,’ he says without meeting my eyes.
I smile, for real this time. ‘Glad to know you weren’t being nice to me in particular.’
‘Course not.’ He pauses for a second. Sips his coffee.
‘I also feel a bit bad about our first meeting. I have this . . .’ He clears his throat, looks down at his feet.
‘This bad habit of being on the defensive when I meet new people. I know it’s not .
. . not a good way to be . . . and I’m trying to work on it.
Not always being on my guard. Not always trying to assert that I, you know, deserve to be somewhere or have something useful to offer. Sometimes it comes out a bit wrong.’
I don’t know what to say to that. I mean, he was kind of obnoxious when we first met, but maybe I’m a little bit obnoxious too?
‘Is your phone charged enough?’ he asks, drawing the ‘feelings’ portion of the conversation to an abrupt close.
‘Oh, yeah . . . my phone . . .’ I say, looking around for it, feeling in the bed to see if it’s there.
‘I plugged it in for you; it’s on the floor by the side of the bed.’ He nods down to the carpet.
‘Thanks,’ I say, blushing at all the various efforts he’s ended up making on my behalf. Him, of all people!
I lean down and feel on the floor for my phone. As soon as my fingers touch the screen I can feel it’s all in one piece, mercifully uncracked, and when I lift it there are a couple of messages from my flatmates.
Morgan: U gone to Felix’s?
Aleesha: Could be some other mystery man.
Morgan: Let us know when you get this bc Aleesha is threatening to call the police and report you missing xx
Aleesha: Been listening to too many true crime podcasts init.
I type a quick message, and as I watch my glossy red nails tap out the letters, I realise my hands are shaking. I have nothing to be scared of. Stop shaking. Everything is OK.
All good! Will be home in a bit, girlies, no need to call the cops xx
Another panicked thought enters my brain. ‘Do you know where my laptop is? I did bring it with me, didn’t I?’
Laurie nods to a little desk piled with books. Underneath is, blessings upon blessings, the bag I stash my laptop in for my DJing. I go over and unzip it, just to make sure, but he’s right, it’s there. Relief floods my body.
‘Thank God,’ I say, pressing a hand to my chest and feeling for my letter ‘M’ necklace. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d . . . left that somewhere.’ I’m talking about the laptop, but I’m equally talking about the necklace.
‘It’s OK, I made sure all your stuff got rounded up,’ he says, with a small, gentle smile, like it’s all nothing, like he didn’t save me from various calamities in several different ways.
I return to my perch on the edge of the bed. ‘Thanks . . . once again . . . for doing that . . .’ I say, looking around, not quite able to meet his eyes.
An awkward pause. ‘Can I make you another coffee?’
‘No, I should be heading off,’ I say, mortified at the idea of outstaying my welcome in a place I shouldn’t even be in to begin with.
When I turn back to say goodbye on the doorstep, it’s like he fills the whole doorframe. A quite monumental person.
‘Well . . .’ I say, twitching my nose awkwardly. ‘I suppose I’ll see you around.’
Laurie nods.
‘Thanks again . . . for . . .’ I’m about to say ‘rescuing me’, but I realise it gives everything a veil of dashing and romance, and that’s not the vibe really, is it? ‘For everything. For the coffee.’
‘It was nothing, really,’ he says, his hand on the doorknob like he can’t wait for me to get out of there.
‘And if you ever find me in need of taking home again,’ I say, though the thought is too horrible to contemplate, ‘I live at Flat 2, Boston House, 247 Junction Road.’
‘I’ll . . . I’ll remember that,’ he says, as if he can’t tell if I’m joking or not.
I give him one last look before turning away.
I set off for home, and instinctively I walk to the main road in search of the bus stop.
But I need to breathe outdoor air, need to buy myself some time just to think.
So I start walking north, to the safe little cocoon of my flat in Tufnell Park, back to Morgan and Aleesha to tell them about the whole sorry ordeal (was it actually an ordeal, though?
If nothing happened?). It’s not long after I start walking that I realise the roads are familiar, and that I’m near Felix’s flat.
It wouldn’t be such a bad thing for me to see him now, would it?
I’m just passing by – there’s nothing weird about that, right?
I feel like a moth being drawn to a flame in search of comfort and familiarity.
I wonder if I left Laurie’s too quickly.
Maybe I should have stayed for another cup of coffee.
I’m sure Felix can make me one, can’t he?