End of the Line

As the queue moves steadily forwards and I stare at the bald patch on the back of Valerie’s head, I’m thinking back to Saturday night, when you asked if I was busy, said you could get me a pass. Valerie’s bald patch stops to examine a Golden Delicious and I come to a halt behind her. She takes a bite, then puts it back.

“I never buy apples without testing them first,” she tells me in her guttural voice. “That’s one thing I’ve learnt in this life. You can’t tell what a thing’s like until you bite into it.”

She gives me a knowing smile then because I’ve seen her over the last three months and there are plenty of things she hasn’t learned in this life. Like not to take a chunk out of somebody’s hand just because they ate the last cherry pie. I smile back anyway, because today is the day to end petty squabbles. The Valeries of this world will not concern me anymore.

I keep smiling, let one foot then the other pull me closer towards the end of the line where I know you’ll be standing with your red hair tied back. I glide towards you. My plastic tray slides gracefully past ham, then cheese, then egg salad sandwiches and I can hear the till beeping, can imagine your lovely bitten-down finger nails hitting each key, and I’m wondering what to put on my tray to show you my new confidence.

If this was a normal canteen, I’d choose a can of coke, shrug off social responsibility and say I just don’t care. I’m my own man. Or maybe two Mars Bars and a slice of cake to show I’m unconventional, impulsive. No balanced diet for me. But healthy is the only option in Carraway, and besides, healthy’s something you believe in. An ethos you’ve worked hard to establish. So I stop confidently at the jacket potatoes, ask for just a small one please, no butter. And okay, I will have a few beans but no cheese thanks, just lots of salad. But, whoa there Betty! Easy on the dressing. Then I swing past, towards the drinks, grab a mineral water like I don’t even have to think about it.

That night you drove me to your house, which smelt of incense, talking all the time like this was nothing extraordinary. Sheets of gold material hung on your bedroom walls, rippling slowly whenever the breeze blew in. We sat on your bed to play a game you learnt in India and you laughed at how long it took me to order my cards. Then bored, you lay down next to me, your red hair within kissing distance.

“I bet you were a real ladies man before,” you said, lifting my t shirt over my stomach. Then you lay on top of me, simply. Your elbows slotted into my naked arm pits and it was like the final piece in the puzzle. That Saturday night, we were just Toby and Gloria, no uniform or protocol, just your pointy elbows tucked into my clammy pits, and me thinking, I could do this more often.

I rolled you over then, shifted my weight so I could slide down your white body, thinking I can’t believe I am doing this again as my finger tips and lips drew lines down your sides. I inhaled the warmth of your skin from this close up and marvelled at the fact that I could just keep sliding down.

Then, the moment I keep going over. When my nose nestled into your pubic hair and my mouth hovered so the lightest breath could make you gasp. Bright evening sunlight filtered through your gold muslin sheets and I understood you properly for the first time. Your pubic hair was golden brown and soft, not red like I’d expected. The power you held over me flickered as I imagined you leaning over the sink, next to the toilet I’d now pissed in, rubbing Scarlet Flame into your scalp, hands sweating inside polythene gloves.

When I emerged, after those clammy, enlightening minutes, I was a different man, aware of my strength for the first time in months. I wrapped myself around you in a certain way, hoping you’d notice. I held your white body protectively and twirled your secret golden hair around my fingers.
You turned the bedside lamp on and went downstairs to make us ginger tea. I plucked a red hair from your side of the bed, peering at it, illuminated. There was a short dark stripe of something less original at the top and I held the hair up, marvelling at its sham brightness, then lay it down on your pillow gently, like it had feelings too.

When you came back you were surprised at my bounce.
“You seem different,” you said to me, and the way I replied “I am different,” made us both laugh, more than was necessary, and I wondered if we were even laughing at the same things.
“You’ve cured me!” I kept saying and you smiled like that was impossible.

The till’s beeping loudly now, close by, and there’s just Valerie’s bald patch between me and you. I’m trying to stay casual, thinking about red hair dye rushing down the side of your bath, swirling like blood through a kaleidoscope before crashing down your plughole. I can do this, I’m thinking. And then I’m at the end of the line, facing you. Your brilliant greens are looking at my watery blues and I’m not going to let mine flitter away this time.
“What a lovely healthy dinner,” you say to me and I smile and say, “No butter,” like it’s the wittiest line in the world.

I’m getting out, I think as you stamp my meal card, but I stay quiet, keeping something for myself. You tuck a red curl behind your ear and I hold your eye for as long as I can.