I Hadn't Even Started

I took half steps. I passed neat lawns, and tiny conifers. I stopped at a fishpond, and then I was alongside her. I couldn’t believe anyone could walk so slowly. She had her head down. She didn’t say a thing. She just carried on with her head down as though I wasn’t there. We reached her house. I coughed, and I looked up.

“Not bad.”

“What’s the point? I’m not taking any more. I’m not going to pass.”

I held up my arms.

“There’s always next year.”

“Go to hell.”

She slammed the front door. I hadn’t even started.

***

I stood in the doorway of her room, and held two suitcases.

“Where do you want these?”

She dropped her student information pack on the cushion, and picked up a coffee. She leaned back on the bed, and nodded towards the sink. I put the suitcases down. A couple started hitting it off on the tiny bed next door. She thumped the wall.

“What kind of a place is this?”

I shrugged. I could hear her travel clock.

“It’s a just an ordinary sort of place. So what happened?”

“About what?”

“Exams?"

She pulled the bedspread into tiny peaks, and looked out of the window.

“I did retakes. My mother got your number. She wants me to be a doctor, and then we can all be doctors. A whole family of doctors.”

“No surprise there. Do you want to be a doctor?”

“What do you think?”

I looked out of the window. We were three floors up. I could see people drifting in and out of the cars below.

“I think you should do want you want.”

“How can I do what I want with them breathing down my neck?”

I looked into my coffee cup. She had a point.

“My parents lost hope. My mother took me to audition for Oliver with just a copy of the People’s Companion to read out loud.”

She looked up.

“Nothing to sing in Oliver?”

“I was supposed to float through on pure talent.”

“What did you do?”

“I improvised, ‘Ya gotta pick a pocket or two, ya’ll.’ The director berated me in front of everyone. I cried. I was eleven.”

“Was your mother sorry?”

“Sorry? She told everyone what happened. Killed my confidence stone dead.”

“Forever?”

“Put it this way, she stamped on the last embers of family duty.”

I stared at the floor. She rotated the cup, tipping it until the coffee hit the lip.

“They wanted my brother to be a doctor too.”

“I know.”

“He cut up eyeballs, sliced up frogs, blew up a sheep’s lung in his bedroom, covered the ceiling with gore, mad on anything medical, always experimenting. Right in the middle of my exams he had to go and try something like that. That’s what they say isn’t it? Try everything once. Some joke.”

She stared into the cup.

“Sing me something from Oliver.”

“I don’t have my People’s Companion.”

She laughed and we were face-to-face.

***

Her parents met with my parents. They came up for a weekend. They all crammed onto her bed. There was no space so we stood in the doorway. The couple next door were slamming the headboard against the wall. Her father looked up at me, searching my face.

“So how are you two getting along in a place like this? You’re both enjoying yourselves aren’t you?”

I smiled.

“We talk a lot about death.”

He coughed into his clenched fist.

“Well, it’s good to see you young people getting along.”

“You used your medical connections to cover it up didn’t you?”

He leaned his chin on his clenched fist, and smiled.

“Now why would I pull a trick like that?”

“Because he got the pethadrine that killed him off you.”

“That’s not how the inquest saw it.”

I left, and slammed the door. I started walking. I reached the dog leg in the corridor. She grabbed my arm, and pulled me back so I faced her with my eyes closed.

“Why did you say that?”

“Why do you think?”

She stared at me.

“Make a bad situation worse, why don’t you?”

She turned away, and walked back to her room. She stopped, and gave me the finger. She went into her room with her parents, my parents, and my brother.

***

There was a knock at my door. I put my guitar down, and opened the door. She stood with my brother.

“What?”

They smiled. They held hands. They lifted their hands so I could see. It was as though they thought I couldn’t see.

***

Convention says there has to be a best man, and the best man had to be me. The ceremony took place. We went to the Gordonstoun suite in a hotel in Preston. Both sets of relatives assembled. Someone tapped a fork, and prayed for silence. I stood. A horseshoe table full of people stared at me. I looked at each of them, and then silence took over. I held my piece of paper.

“The best man’s speech is where jokes are like marriages. They start off well, and end in silence.”

I waited for laughter. Laughter was not my forte.
Someone said, ‘Get off’.

My father stood up. He wanted to remove the heckler. Her father stopped him. I picked up a glass of wine, and swallowed the lot.

“You’re supposed to laugh.”

“You’re supposed to be funny.”

I looked down at my speech. My hands looked immense. My father came alongside.

“Give it up, son.”

“No.”

He grabbed my speech. I pulled it away.

“I thank the cook who prepared the excellent meal. She’s a friend of the bride. Works in catering. Makes for a cheap meal.”

“Who’s the comedian?”

“Stop now, son.”

“I’ve been told she’ll sing, ‘New York, New York’ with high kicks, the lot. So don’t say I didn’t warn you. That’s something to look forward to.”

“Siddown.”

“Where does he get that stuff?”

Her father stood alongside me.

“I said sit down.”

I looked at the bare table, the plates all cleared away, oysters of fat seeping into the tablecloth.

“Why should I sit down? I haven’t even started.”