Chapter 35
They have moved on to Pub. A proper one that’s packed and noisy, decorated with red and gold tinsel. The kind of pub I would have loved to drink beer in all night long. I can barely get through the suited pint-holding penguins with my bashed bags (I’m just carrying broken glass at this point), to Jackson, at the bar.
‘Hey,’ I say. My face is stung from the outside air.
‘You made it.’ He wraps me in for a hug. I need it. He’s pissed. He smells savoury, yeasty like beer. I say hi to those I know and Jackson begins to introduce me to those I don’t, giving up halfway as he gets distracted. They’re all drunk. The whole building is drunk. I’m left out of a big drunk joke. I try and squeeze through the elbows at the bar to order a drink but don’t seem to get noticed.
Now that he’s an exec, Jackson has to talk to everyone. I watch him pull out the same old stories of his childhood from his back pocket – to make him look human, relatable, like his co-workers are being let in on a revealing side of him. Those animated hands, those excitable eyes, like when I first met him. Pats on the back keep coming – ‘well done, mate,’ they say, ‘you deserve it’ – about the success of his Christmas advert, his promotion. Drinks line up on the bar behind him, like offerings. He’s drinking like he’s good at it, which is news to me.
‘Do you do non-alcoholic beer?’ I shout to the bar staff over the room. They don’t. ‘Do you do anything non-alcoholic?’
They shout back the word, ‘Coke.’
I take my Coke and stand under the shadow of Jackson. Zahra, teeth stained with red wine, says to me, ‘You must be so happy?’ I assume she’s referring to our engagement but it’s about ‘Jackie’s’ promotion.
I reply, ‘Of course I am – he’s the best.’ He really is. ‘I’m so happy seeing him happy.’
She adds, ‘Oh, and the Christmas advert is great by the way – good job.’
Jackson says, ‘Sorry, I’d have said not to come down if I’d have known it would be so busy.’ My head cranes upwards, trying to hear what he’s saying. ‘Why don’t you go on home and I’ll see you there? I reckon it’s going to be a lot of … ’ He castanets his hand to imply networking.
‘No, I want to stay with you.’
‘I’m still kind of working … ’
I can tell I’m cramping his style, he just wants to hang out with his friends.
I take the hint. ‘OK, if you’re sure?’ We kiss. ‘I’m very proud of you, Jackson.’
You’ll find there are rooms in your life, special rooms in special times when you’re a Very Important Person – it’s your birthday, your best friend’s birthday, or you’re just simply on fire that night – and the room needs your heat. But most of the time you can walk away from a room and the room will be OK. It will stand just fine without you. In fact, it might not know you’ve gone. Or that you were even there at all.
Wandering back through the lit city at night, I begin to catastrophize: what if I am alone forever? The trope hag at the top of the hill, with the garden gates all locked and overgrown with my pubes? Will all my future Christmas dinners be leftovers underneath some sweaty clingfilm from a golden-hearted next-door neighbour? What if I never love again?
I call Vi. I call Aoife. I call Bianca. Ronks and Dom too. I say the same thing in all its variations – ‘I have to leave Jackson,’ I say. ‘I can’t marry him. I love him but I don’t. It’s not fair any more; he deserves better’ – until it becomes a narrative, until that narrative reinforces itself and becomes a plan. And this time not one of them tries to stop me. Not because Jackson’s not great. Because maybe I’m not as great as I could be.
It’s me. I’m not great.
Mum rings. Violet’s obviously told her. Even though I specifically asked her not to yet until I could get my thoughts straight.
‘Alright?’ she asks like she’s just calling for a chinwag.
‘Not really.’
‘Adam’s out; I was just about to decorate the Christmas tree if you want to help?’
The same mammoth tree that normally lives potted in the garden, Mum’s already hoisted inside, naked and plump. She shouldn’t have carried it herself but she won’t be told. Opening a box of family Christmas decorations can be more emotional than looking at photographs of the past. Each one precious, sentimental or humorous, wrapped individually in newspaper over the years, in faded faces, old stories. The cardboard snowman Violet made from the toilet paper holder and pipe-cleaner arms. Sonny’s painted star with the red ribbon from nursery. The glittery green garden trowel I got Mum as a present. Then there are younger additions to the collection. Colourful pound-shop baubles Vi and I got to bulk the tree out one year to replace all the smashed glass ones. The expensive gold Cherub that Mum treated herself to. The haggard angel, with wooden peg legs, to clip on top of the tree with the cotton wool hair and the painted face. And the tangle of broken fairy lights, which look like my scrambled brain.
But it’s peaceful. The smell of pine, the fragrant mixed spice pouches that Mum’s made to hang on the tree: clove, cinnamon, orange, star anise. Mum makes a log fire and it meditatively crackles with comfort, throwing off hissing hot rocks into the charcoaled guard, heating us from the inside out, the living room a sauna. Spy snores happily in front of it. Mum and I quietly work in harmony as we wrap lights and hang ornaments. Mum hums. It’s soothing to do a focused activity that takes my mind off things. Calmly navigating, changing positions – arms up and down, bums squeezing past each other to get around the waist of the tree. Pausing to ask what do you think? Or to share a memory, to catch each other’s eyes.
She says without looking at me, ‘You know, I used to suffer with the worst anxiety as a teenager and in my twenties. Nobody spoke about it back then like they do now. I used to think I was having heart attacks and all sorts of crazy shit. But it all calmed down once I understood that those flare-ups, those “attacks” were my body’s way of warning me, keeping me safe – guiding me. They calmed down once I practised not being upset by them but listening to what they have to say. They weren’t always right, but I listened all the same. Now, I’m grateful for those warnings; they’re like my body’s alarm system.
‘You have a good instinct, Ella – you get that from me.’ Of course I do. ‘My advice to you, if you even care what I think, is trust your gut. You were never one of those kids who threw themselves into dangerous situations, not because you were boring – because you were smart. If something doesn’t feel right, Elliebellie, it usually isn’t.’
Once the tree is up, glistening (and wonky) as it should be, Mum and I sit down on the sofa to admire our work. The tree gleams. ‘Well, we’ve made Christmas,’ Mum says. ‘Mulled wine?’ Before I can impatiently remind her that I’m trying not to drink, she says, ‘It’s non-alcoholic; it might taste like shit but I got it for you.’ And that warms my heart more than any fire or Christmas tree could.
Lowe texts to say: Did you get back OK? x. He’s obviously testing the water; it’s hours after I would have arrived home and he knew today was scratchy. I can only imagine it took him quite a lot to send; he’s reserved like that. I write back: yep, thanks, call you soon x, but I’ll never make that call.
I hear Jackson tumble in drunk around 3 a.m. – maybe even 4? They went back to Zahra’s; I got a text. I’ve slept in patches. A lucid dream where I felt broken glass shards in the bed. I wake to see actual scratches on my calves, although I think they’re from my big toenail and anxious itching. My jaw clenched so hard I’ve made a tiny hole in the gumshield. Jackson falls into the bed and begins to snore within seconds. I hold his back tightly and cry into his t-shirt. I wish I was in love with you.
The next morning, I’m sitting on his side of the bed, trying to be assertive but I know I’m more Annie Wilkes in Misery. He stirs awake with a ‘What the—’ and I say, really calmly, ‘Jackson, I love you so much.’
He’s bewildered. ‘OK? I love you too.’
And I begin to cry.
‘Ella?’ He sits up. Looking frowzy, smelling like a wolf den.
I cry more and he wraps his arms around me and I say, so quiet it’s a whisper, ‘ … I can’t marry you, I’m so sorry.’
He tuts, like silly, how a parent might comfort a child for believing there’s a monster under the bed. He puts his warm hand on mine and says, ‘My hours have been crazy but it won’t be like this forever.’
And I shake my head. ‘I could quite easily live like this with you forever – and that’s what frightens me.’
‘Is it me?’
‘No, you’re amazing. I love everything about you.’ I stroke his hair but my hand is shaking so I stop. ‘I don’t even mind that you just sit there and pick your nose in front of me, even when I watch you twiddling your bogies and I know they’re going to fall to the floor and stick to my socks. I find your cauliflower fart comforting. I honestly hate every other cup of tea I drink that isn’t made by you – I even didn’t mind that time you blow-dried your balls—’
‘—that was one time!’ He manages a laugh.
‘—but I didn’t mind, did I? I liked that you felt comfortable and secure with me. Staying here with you is for me and my comfort, not for you. You’ve always said I need to grow up and you’re right.’
‘No, you don’t, Ella. I didn’t mean that. I love the way you are.’
‘Jackson, I think I have to break up with you.’
‘OK, well, please don’t do that?’ He laughs again but his brows are pinched. ‘Is it the engagement? It’s just a ring! I don’t even really like weddings! I thought you were the one that wanted to get married. Let’s just call it off?’
He brings me round and holds me tight. I feel his heart pounding through his t-shirt into my chest. I cry down his shoulder. My whole face steams up.
‘I’m so sorry, Jackson.’
I take off my ring and tuck it into his hand. He shakes his head, and puts the ring on the bedside table, hoping, I guess, that it will be back on my finger in an hour. Then he pulls me back and we lie together in silence.
Maybe that’s the kind of maturity that only comes when you reach mid-thirties?
Is that it? Have I done it? Have we broken up?
Of course, it doesn’t end that simply. We tripwire ourselves into an argument. He’s pissed off. Annoyed. Hurt. He talks about the mortgage; he’s rattled at me and my ‘impeccable timing’. He blames Aoife and Bianca for ‘making my decisions’ for me; he says, ‘They’re jealous, they just want you to be single with them!’ I say, ‘Aoife wanted me to stay with you!’ The fact that we’ve discussed him hurts him more. I shouldn’t have said it. I call his colleagues workaholic money-obsessed privileged snobs. I go off about Zahra. You answer the phone to her at 11 p.m. I say we’ve got nothing in common. This makes him mad and sad. He tries to kiss me; I don’t kiss back. I say, ‘I love you.’ He tells me to ‘fuck off’. He sits on his phone whilst I lie in bed with the covers pulled over my head. He comes to talk to me and I flop the covers off, only to see him clip a hangnail on the cabinet and shout like I’ve never seen him do before. I shush him. ‘The neighbours!’ He goes for a walk, slamming the door. I make tea. He returns crying. He begs. We cry. We hug. We’re exhausted, red-faced and hungry. We eat beans on toast, in silence, heads in our hands.
It’s as though Lowe has exposed my capacity to love. Unlocked some kind of forgotten door. It was never Lowe’s or Jackson’s responsibility to feed and water my self-esteem. Finding Lowe again after all these years was not a waste; it’s given me the courage to kick that door open wide and here it is, swinging off the hinges and I am walking through it, alone, whether I wanted to or not. Into the complete unknown.
I imagine myself ducking out of my life like the woman in the Scottish Widows advert, but I just take the 137 bus back to Streatham, scraping a wholesale multipack crisp box full of books down the road towards 251, muttering promises to myself that I’m going to love myself better than anybody else can.
I get a buzz on my phone – my agent: We’ve got a nice offer in, Ella! Your novel is going to be published! Merry Christmas! x
If only she knew.