Non Pratt - Trouble

I don’t say anything, remembering him telling me I needed a friend.

“People who only give away bits of themselves are hiding something.”

“You do it too,” I say quietly.

“Well, you’re not the only one hiding things.”

I look up at him, studying his expression, taking in the seriousness of his gaze and noticing the “tch” of his teeth as he works his jaw slightly — something he only does when he’s about to wipe the floor with me at cards.

“You know I’m going to ask what things, don’t you?” I say and he nods. “And you’re going to tell me that I’ve got to tell you something about me in return.” Again, he nods, closing his eyes briefly as he dips his head ever-so slightly.

I like Neville. I have no idea why. He smells of alcohol and stale sweat. He’s a bad loser and a terrible winner. He hasn’t a kind word to say about anyone and every other thought he has is lewd. Yet he makes me laugh — at him, at the world and at myself. There’s a lot to be said for learning not to take yourself too seriously. Neville is more than the sum of his old wrinkled parts. He’s my friend.

He’s still watching me, then he adjusts his position, his hips clicking loud enough for me to hear and I see a flash of pain in his expression before he settles back in his chair. “You might be a pansy and you’re shite at cards, but you’re not so bad, I suppose. And I trust you.”

Which surprises me.

“So I’ll tell you mine. And then you can tell me yours.” He doesn’t wait for me to agree — he knows he doesn’t need to. “I have never forgiven meself for what I did to my wife.”

There are so many things that I could ask: What did you do? Why can’t you be forgiven? But I know what I’d like someone to ask me.

“What was her name?”

“Alison.” Neville reaches into his pocket and hands me a photo from inside his wallet. It’s of Neville — I can tell that right away. He’s a bit older than Dad and he looks kind of rakish. The woman next to him has her arms wrapped around him and is smiling, rolling her eyes at her husband.

I hand back the photo. “What happened?”

“I cheated on her.”

I wished this surprised me.

“Alison knew what I was like before she married me, but I promised I’d take our vows seriously. And I did, for a while, but I struggled once we had kids…”

Kids?

And so I learn about Neville, about his marriage and the strain he felt once he became a father. Parenthood’s not something I ever think about — this is a part of Hannah’s pregnancy neither she nor I can guess at. Either way, I can’t see anyone handling it as badly as Neville. It sounds like he slept with half the staff at his university and most of the students’ mums. It’s a miracle his marriage lasted as long as it did — twenty-four years. It came apart when one of the women he slept with took it upon herself to break up his marriage, not by telling his wife, but by telling his daughter. On her wedding day. To the woman’s son. Overnight his daughters switched their love for hate because of what he’d done to their mother — then, six weeks later, she died.

“What did she die of?”

“Broken heart.” Neville is staring at his slippers, so he can’t see my involuntary and insensitive eye roll.

“People don’t die of a broken heart, Neville.”

“What would you know?” he whispers as his shoulders start to shake. I move to sit closer and Neville refrains from calling me gay when my knee bumps his. He’s too busy crying. I sit there with him, staying close, letting him know that I’m there when he needs me and I’m thinking all the while that Neville cannot truly believe that he is responsible for his wife’s death.

Not the way I am for Chris’s.

It is not the right time for me to tell Neville that.

When I first found out that Katie had told Marcy about the baby, I’ll admit I freaked out. Not with anger and shouting. No. I’m above that. I rang up to find out her side of the story. I rang SEVEN TIMES before I was forced to leave a message. It was meant to be all mature and polite, like, “Marcy has put up this post on Facebook and I can’t see how she would know…” But it wasn’t. It was more like, “You [sob] are my best [sob] FRIEND [sniff, sniff, deep breath] and I TRUSTED [choke on own tears] you and why did you tell Marcy? [sob… goes quiet] I just want to talk to you. [small sniff] You’re my best friend. Katie. [little sob] So call me, yeah? [whispered]” And I never told anyone I’d left that message. Not my mum, not Aaron. Not Anj, not Gideon. I just waited for her to call me.

She never did.

It’s been two months, and when I see her standing by my locker I guess she’s waiting for Nicole, whose locker is two away from mine. I don’t say anything to her as I shove my bag inside, take out some money and slam it shut. I reckon I’ve got enough time to walk to the shop and buy an ice cream before next lesson if I go now. It’s not really ice-cream weather, but, hey, hormones don’t care about sunshine.

“Where you going?” Katie says, as I shrug on my too-small coat.

I’m so surprised that she’s speaking to me I answer by accident. “Corner shop.”

Katie looks at me through narrowed eyes, waiting for something. “I’ll come with.” She pushes herself away from the lockers and heads out of the door. I don’t want to go now, but I don’t want to look like a coward either. Besides, ice cream is enough to tempt me into danger.

“I know he’s not the father,” she says, as we pass the gates. “I did the maths.”

So this is what it’s about.

“Better check your workings, Katie. We both know it’s not your best subject,” I say mildly. I will not engage in battle. I must not. Katie isn’t as stupid as everyone likes to think.

“LOL. Not.”

We walk on a few paces.

“Why are you here, Katie?”

“Being friendly.”

“You wouldn’t know what that means.”

But she carries on as if she hasn’t heard. “…I thought you should know that I’ve worked it out.” I feel a flush of cold dread in case she names Jay, but she doesn’t. “The dates and stuff — four months along in January? It happened before Aaron. If I can work it out, it won’t be very long before someone else does.”

I stop in my tracks. “Is that a threat?”

She stops and looks at me, saying nothing. Which means it’s a threat.

A flood of rage forces itself through my body and I’m trembling as I fight the urge to launch myself at her and slap her and scrape my nails across her face. I want to destroy her with my hurt. I want not to be powerless. There’s actually a millisecond of red across my vision as I think about it and I feel my fingers curling into the palms of my hands as I ball them into fists.

I want to scream at her, as if the sound would blast into her bones and cause her to explode into a thousand tiny pieces and then catch every last one and grind it into the ground with my shoes.

I wish with all my heart that I could hurt her the way she did me.

But I can’t, because only someone you care about can hurt you, and Katie does not care about me.

I breathe and let the fury fade away. I feel so… useless.

“You’re wrong. Aaron’s the father. You can tell him what you like, it won’t change anything.”

She looks disappointed and I realize she’d been hoping that I would blow up in her face. I’d forgotten how much she likes a fight. She studies me for a moment before her lips curl into an unpleasant smile.

“It might change quite a lot when your baby comes out brown. When he sees it’s Tyrone’s.”

You can tell she thinks this will get a reaction. After our fight, Marcy nearly broke it off with Tyrone, but he’s a good liar and a good charmer and he’s good in bed. These things count. So she stayed with him. Katie’s desperate for me to rise to the bait. Desperate to find out the truth she always suspected. Desperate to give Marcy a reason to notice her again when Katie reveals what I got up to with Tyrone.

Which makes it very easy for me not to react at all. That and the fact that I couldn’t give a Rottweiler’s turd about anything to do with Tyrone.

“Just fucking admit it’s Tyrone’s.”

I stay silent.

“You won’t be able to lie for ever, you know!” She’s wound up, lashing out because she’s not getting what she wanted. “Aaron’s going to find out and then he’ll leave you, and you’ll be left holding a baby no one wants.”

I cover the distance between us in a heartbeat, my face right in hers.

“I ever hear you say no one wants my baby again then I will tell everyone everything about you. I will show them photos I have on my phone of you giving some loser a blow job by the toilets in a bar. I will send Marcy a screengrab of a message you sent me on Facebook when you told me how fat her arse was. I will look through my English notebook and I will find that shag/marry/kill conversation where you said you’d shag Mark Grey, marry Tyrone for regular cock and kill Rex to put him out of his misery.”

Katie isn’t looking so confident now. “You wouldn’t. I’ve got just as much shit on you.”

“Yeah. You have. You were my best friend.” There’s a flicker in her gaze and I wonder if she remembers my voicemail. “I trusted you, but you swallowed it all only to vomit it back in my face. And do you know what? The friends I have are the ones who know how much of a bitch I can be and still choose to hang out with me. No one else matters.”

I can see she’s thinking it through and that she’s about to say something about Aaron — again.

“Aaron won’t let me down, so don’t even bother trying. But if you want to push me…”

I leave it open before I hurry away towards the shop. I still want that ice cream. I hear Katie shouting after me, but I’m not going to listen.

I can feel her watching me as I walk out of English with Aaron. We pass her leaning on the wall by the door and I feel her eyes track us as we move towards, past and away down the corridor.

I wonder whether Aaron does too.

I wonder whether they’ll have hot dogs at the canteen for lunch today? I’ve been trying to work out a pattern to when they give you the good stuff and by my calculations there’s a fairly good chance of scoring high today. If not hot dogs, then perhaps something with pastry…

“Did you see her there?” Hannah says, out of the blue.

“See who where?” I look around the canteen as we walk in.

“Katie. Back there in English.”

I shrug in response. Ignore Katie and she’ll go away, like a particularly noxious fart.

“She was watching us,” Hannah says, sliding her tray angrily along the rails so it almost rockets off and I pin it down with the flat of my hand. She’s really worked up about this. Last night she called to tell me all about Katie’s failed confrontation. It was a long conversation — and a repetitive one. I say the same thing now as I said yesterday:

“So what? I’m not going anywhere — she can tell who she likes whatever she wants. You and me? This” — I gently prod the taut flesh of the bump — “we’re all good here. Katie can—”

He stops when he sees me crying and pulls me in for a hug, but I wave him away angrily.

“I don’t know why I’m crying, don’t give me any sympathy.” But I dive in to give him a squeeze anyway — not so quick that someone behind misses a chance to whistle. Tosser.

We sit with Anj and Gideon, who have saved us seats and Aaron’s just come back with pots of ketchup for the hot dogs when his phone goes. I nab a pregnant person’s share of the sauce (eating for two is the best excuse) when I notice he’s frowning at the message.

“You OK?” Gideon asks. Aaron seems to have zoned out and I nudge him.

He looks up, still frowning. “It’s from the home. It says I don’t need to go and see Neville tonight.”

“Bonus or bummer?”

“I’m just worried, that’s all — it says he’s not feeling well.”

“Why don’t you call?” Anj suggests. “Reassure yourself.”