Pear-shaped
I don’t know, I just don’t know. Everything I do seems to be wrong, and even when I think I’ve cracked it that goes wonky too. So here’s me keeping up with college more or less and tiptoeing round Marz in the hour or so that we cross paths, except when she gives me a poke with one of her stubby red-clawed fingers or winds me up with a dig and sets me snarling and snapping. We’re like two animals that choose to come back to our cage to sleep cos there’s no place else to go. I don’t know why I bother. Sometimes I just feel like sleeping and not waking up, staying in some weird dream where time means nothing at all. And it’s as if I don’t know how I feel anymore – Danny, Andy, Marz – I’m in a sort of limbo just waiting for something to happen, something out of my control, some asteroid to collide with my life and change everything cos one thing’s for sure and that’s that things have to change soon as I feel like I’m sat on the edge of a precipice to scared to twitch.
Yesterday in English Lit I thought of me in Andy’s flat, in Andy’s bed, waiting for him, then falling asleep like that. I spurted sweat like a bloody fountain and had to rush out and be sick in the loos. Ms Garner sent Ali after me to see if I was okay and I ended up blubbing like a two-year-old who’s lost its dummy or maybe its mummy, tho I wouldn’t know what that’s like as Marz has never been a proper mum. It was the sympathy that did it – I’d have been alright without that, but Ali’s good at sympathy, which is maybe why Ms. Garner sent her. It was like someone had pulled the plug out and emptied me, or like the dyke before the Dutch kid stuck his finger in the hole and all that water was flooding in faster and faster as the hole got bigger except that Ali’d not so much stuck her finger in as pulled it out, not that it was ever there. Ignore all that, it sounds bad. I'm not a lessie, at least I don't think so.
So I told her stuff I should’ve kept quiet about, and that’s not like me at all, and now I’m thinking that maybe the asteroid I was waiting for is Ali telling the others that I’m still a virgin and too scared to lose it, and everyone knowing and all this sniggering everywhere I go and I’ll have to leave, to give up the idea of making something of myself and getting away. I told her about Danny too, and wearing Binita’s sari and dark make-up to visit him in the hospital, and her face – it was like I’d slapped it with a kipper or something. I went home after that. I’m not going in today. Perhaps she won’t say anything. Who am I trying to kid? Of course she will – it’s too juicy to keep quiet about. Maybe I’ll rest up, get a bit stronger then bite my tongue off, go back and get on with it.
Getting it wrong
What a long time it is since I wrote here. Been trying to work and maybe I’m getting somewhere, or at least keeping up. Haven’t seen Danny but I think about him a lot. One day he’ll be out of there and then we’ll see. I imagine us getting a place together somewhere – it’d be okay if I had to be his sister and dye my skin and wear a sari – whatever it took, I could do that. It’d be a new life. I know there’s something odd in my feelings for him, some connection beyond attraction – it’s not like the boy/girl thing at all, although I think it may have been before he fucked Marz. In a way it’s better now, I don’t have to think about that, and he doesn’t fancy me so it’s fine.
As for Andy, I came out of college yesterday – lost in some sort of dream as usual – and suddenly he was walking beside me. ‘You never rang, Jazz,’ was all he said. I didn’t answer – what could I say? No point in making excuses – that’d set him thinking he was justified in expecting me to do as he says – and I’m not getting into that. So there we were just walking and not speaking, but when we got to his flat, which is on the way home, he took my hand and tried to get me to come in for a coffee. ‘Shouldn’t you be on duty?’ I said – although he wasn’t in uniform – and he sighed and said he’d been off sick for a few days but was going in to get ready, but wasn’t due on for another couple of hours. He was still holding my hand and pulling gently towards the door, and suddenly I felt so tired so I said ‘Okay, just for a minute, but I have to get home to Marz,’ which was a total lie, but sometimes you need one of those as a let out.
I sat on one of the big chairs so’s when he brought the coffee in he wouldn’t be able to sit next to me, although I almost regretted that while I was waiting, remembering how good it felt when he held me that time and wondering what was the matter with me because I don’t ever seem to know what I want and the longer I put it off the harder it seems to get to even imagine something happening, and maybe I should just let him do it to me if that’s what he wants, but then he’s back, and the coffee smells great and he’s talking but I’m not really listening, just sinking into the chair, which seems to have grown suddenly and is enveloping me like a huge duvet or maybe I’m sitting in an elephant’s lap and then Andy’s getting up and his mouth is moving but I can’t hear what he’s saying, and I feel as tho I’m drugged although I haven’t even touched the coffee so it can’t be that. And then I’m going – I don’t want to but there’s no choice – I’m just sliding into darkness.
I wake up in bed, look around, wonder where the hell I am. The walls are this pale blue-green colour like a blackbird’s egg and the blinds are white. There’s a rug on the wall opposite and somehow Andy’s part of the patterns on it, until I sort out that he’s sitting on the bed. He’s wearing his uniform and saying that he has to go soon but I’m to stay a while until I feel better, and that I passed out and have I been eating enough and he’s made me some scrambled eggs on toast to go with the coffee and I’m to eat something now, before he goes and if I want I can stay and rest till he comes back.
When he’s gone I check my clothes – I’m still dressed except for my shoes. Everything seems to be okay. I’m sure I’d know if he’d done anything – I’d feel different – and I don’t, I’m just the same. I finish the food and drink the coffee and feel better for it, then I just lie there thinking, but must’ve fallen asleep because I wake up to darkness. And it’s good, being there in the dark and the quiet, knowing he’s coming back after his shift and that he’ll sleep in this bed – has slept in this bed, under the blue duvet with his head on the pillow and maybe I’ll wait until he comes back and see what happens, if he wants me. So I get out of the bed and take everything off and slip back into bed and lie awake thinking This is it, no going back, no changing your mind, Jazz, and that maybe he’ll do it while I’m asleep and I’ll wake up and that’ll be that.
But that’s not what happened. The sun woke me this morning poking through the white blind and striping the duvet light and dark. It took a while to remember, but when I did I turned my head to see if he was there. He wasn’t – empty pillow, uncreased, untouched, just like me. I put on the white dressing gown hanging on the door and went into the sitting room. There he was, asleep on the settee under the red throw. I didn’t wake him – just got dressed and slipped out. I must’ve been wrong – his interest is just a Mr. Plod protective thing. Will I ever get it right?
