The Pen Lid
He was silent for a moment, then.
‘It’s all quite ordinary, in the sense that it happens a lot, but I always struggle with the word, because if I say “accident”, it suggests it wasn’t deliberate, which it really was, and if I say “fight” it suggests there was some back and forth, combat, which there wasn’t, and if you say, “Oh, I got my head kicked in”, it’s a bit pathetic.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, anyway. We were coming back from town, Friday night, Nat and me, and there were some kids on the bus, seventeen, eighteen years old, and they were hassling people, you know, throwing chips, trying to get a reaction. Daft kids’ stuff but vicious too, sexual, to these girls, not just banter, upsetting. So, ever the teacher, I went up and said something and they stopped for a bit.’
‘Well, that was the right thing to do.’
‘In theory. And there was this murmur of approval from the passengers and I sat down, all pleased with myself, and Nat squeezed my hand and my heart was racing but, you know, community hero. I could see them watching me, watching us, and I thought, Well, even if we ride all the way to the depot, we’re getting off this thing eventually. And I could see them, hear them, laughing, whispering, five of them. We left it to the last minute, ran for the doors, and I thought we’d got away with it but sure enough they’d got off too and started following us, walking just a bit behind, waiting for it to get quiet. That was the worst bit, walking with Nat and she’s brave, you know, she doesn’t take any shit, but she was really frightened. She’d heard what they’d been saying to the girls and she was gripping my arm and I was saying, “Listen, don’t worry, it’s me not you. We’ll wait till we see someone or you run to someone’s door and knock, call the police, let them know you’ve called the police.” It seemed to go on for ages, this conversation, should we both run, could she run in her shoes, should we call the police now, look for a shop or a pub to go in? I could see how frightened they’d made her and I was so … angry, full of this rage, frightened of it, of what I might be capable of, thinking, should I bunch my keys, what if I take an eye out, will I go to prison? What about a pen, have I got a pen, can I stab someone with a pen, have I got that in me? A pen, fuck’s sake. Anyway, we decided we’d knock on someone’s door and just as we turned the corner there was this rush, feet slapping on the pavement.
‘I let go of Nat. I was holding her hand and then I wasn’t. She ran up someone’s front drive, they left her alone, thank God. I suppose I thought, I’ll draw them away, that’s the generous interpretation. Anyway, they’re young and I’m not and they tripped me up and I went down, bang, on my knees, elbows, face, and all that fury I’d been saving, all that anger … Didn’t even get the lid off my pen. By the time it was over I had a broken collar bone, lost these teeth – these are implants – broken fingers, deep cuts here and here and inside my mouth, scar on the top of my head, you can see me worry at it sometimes, very charming. And this big cut here on my jaw, from this kid’s shoe.’
‘Oh, God, Michael …’
‘And it went on for a long time, that was the strangest thing, I mean ages, so long that I actually had time to think, Well, this is interesting, an experience, I’m getting beaten up. I can feel my collar bone, there it goes.’
‘Shall we talk about something else?’
‘No. Anyway. Nat was knocking on doors and eventually there were enough people for it to get embarrassing, watching and filming and so they ran off.’
‘And were they ever caught?’
‘No. In that sense, it was the perfect crime.’
‘And you went to hospital.’
‘For a couple of weeks, then home again on sick leave and that became lockdown, which, you can imagine, made for a very relaxed atmosphere. Then when I went back to work there was this whole exciting new adventure, panic attacks, breathlessness, crying jags in the car park, anxiety with noise and crowds, and at school, well, it’s all noise and crowds. I loved teaching the kids, always had, and they give you a hard time sometimes but I always thought there was something fundamentally decent and good in them. But I’d be in class, especially with the older lads and there’d be a flash of something, a sneer from some little … and I’d … fall apart. So I was off sick again. Depression. Spent a lot of time in bed. For a while I couldn’t even ride a bike, didn’t believe the physics any more, kept imagining catastrophes, feeling guilty about everything, and with the pandemic happening, I thought – see?’
‘Can I just reassure you,’ said Marnie, ‘that the pandemic was almost certainly not your fault.’
‘Well, you say that.’
‘You were traumatised.’
‘I wonder if people use that word too much.’
‘It’s the right word for something traumatic.’
‘But it wasn’t war. People get beaten up every Friday night.’
‘And are traumatised by it.’
‘Maybe.’
‘And do you think …?’
‘What?’
‘D’you think it had anything to do with your break-up?’
‘With Nat? I don’t know. I don’t think she thought, What a wimp, it’s over. And if I’m honest, it wasn’t great before, what with all the stress and tests and working out what to do, IUI, IVF. When something like that happens, you’re very aware of your dignity being taken away, quite methodically, with every minute you’re down there, and it was definitely – daft word – emasculating, which it’s meant to be, and you do feel ashamed and even if the person you love says, “Don’t be ridiculous, I don’t think less of you,” you still carry it with you. So I did push her away for a while and eventually she pushed back.
‘And it hurt to be touched, physically I mean, and even when it stopped hurting … I was in the spare bedroom because of insomnia and nightmares, and even if you don’t know a lot about infertility, you know it’s a good idea to be in the same room.
‘And suddenly there were kids, babies everywhere, all the teachers off on parental leave. It was in the air, not in the air, in our faces. And the house felt so sad. We were either snapping at each other or not talking at all or talking in that weird, formal voice, the flatmate voice, I wonder if it might rain, we need more milk. That’s no way to live, is it? So we talked about it. She went to her parents’. It’s fine now.’