‘Something he had coming for a long time. So, empowered woman who does as she wishes whilst causing no harm, are you not going to the quiz night cos you’re worried you’ll be judged by or upset a man who has ghosted you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I guessthat’sthe wrong answer. Just be you. Tell Alison the truth, say you’d love to go but you think it could be a bit weird. If she doesn’t respond then you know where her shonky-assed son gets it from and if she does and says it’s cool, then it’s cool. Belle it. You’ve always worked that way, just been straight with people. Sometimes too straight with people. Be straight with her and see what she says. Fuck Rory.’
Yeah, I agree with the sentiment. I do. Sod him. I never want to go out and now I have an invite to somewhere I’d like to go. But deep inside I know it’s not that simple.
The course of true love never did run smooth
December Twenty-ninth.
Rory.
Iknow it will do me some good to get out but I have been struggling to find the motivation. I have been struggling full stop to be honest. Since taking Belle to seeThe Winter’s TaleI have been plunged into a really low mood. It’s been a long time since I found my emotions to be this overwhelming, this incapacitating. What started out as guilt towards Jessica has morphed into guilt towards Belle, so now I am paralysed with self-loathing over the both of them.
This afternoon I had resolved to dig deep and find the strength to stop prevaricating and message her to say I need space. I have to push her away. I care so much for this woman and I’m beginning to suspect it’s reciprocated. But it’s because I care so much that I know she deserves better. She needs to be kept away from me, my trajectory. She needs to find someone without my damage, have a full and normal loving life with someone who is able to meet her needs, not with someone who has so much to work out. I need to be a better man to deserve her and I’m not there yet. This plunging into depression after seeing a play is the perfect illustration of why. It’s not a rational, normal response and yet for me it is the only one I can manage.
I care for Belle, there’s no getting around that. I suspect I’m in those very first stages of falling in love. The attraction has always been there. I remember the first time I caught a glimpse of her in Freshers Week. It was the welcome rave and I saw her as I entered the club, and the breath swooshed out of my body. She had been on a podium and I stood there for a minute or two, entranced as her arms and hair flew around, captivated by her movements, her confidence. I know now that the confidence was a sham; that she was as young and desperately insecure as the rest of us.
As Belle had caught my eye, I had caught Jessica’s and she had pursued me with an intent and a determination that turned my head. And I was glad of it. I had fallen in love with Jessica, the love deepening over time. I had been bowled over by her then; she was blonde and polished, articulate and intelligent, and she had wanted me.
Me!
With Jessica I learnt what it was to fall truly in love. Not an attraction from a distance. Not an adolescent school-based crush, proper everyday love where I loved her because of the realities, the flaws, the everyday living with each other, loving each other. The freedom to see her flaws and to be vulnerable and expose mine. Two humans that went on to determinedly build a life for ourselves, together. With every passing day I fell more in love with her, every day I thought it was impossible to love her more and yet every day I did. She had been The One, she really had.
We rarely bickered or argued, not until the few weeks leading up to the accident. I had started to notice and then worry that she was behaving oddly, staying out late claiming it was for work, coming back with the smell of cocktails on her breath, a high in her eyes, showering before she left the house and again the minute she would get home, going to yoga classes twice a week when before she had always said she liked to do it on the bedroom floor with me, watch me watching as she stretched and bent and flexed. I began to fear I was losing her, that she was looking elsewhere. There was such an overwhelming sense of something I did not know. The night of the party I had become so jealous I had accused her of cheating, I lost my temper and I ranted, I became a man I hadn’t ever seen before, and she had left. Eyes bleary, vision further impaired by the driving rain on that furious New Year’s Eve night. To this day I do not know where she was going.
And now with Belle, if I accept my attraction, accept I am not cheating Jessica and that she is gone, has been for five years and would want me to move on and not grieve for ever, I can’t shake the feeling that if I pursue my feelings then I’ll be cheating Belle. She lifts me up and helps me see myself through her eyes. She brings out the lighter side of me. The side that laughs, makes stupid jokes, hurtles down a hill on an old tin tray. I try to do the right thing, to move through life with honour, and Belle gets that. She’s the same. I like who she sees, the whole man that she pictures. I want to be him. I wish that was all of me. But what she doesn’t see so clearly is the dark. The side that I saw, was reminded of, the minute I sat with her in a darkened theatre and watchedThe Winter’s Tale; when I saw myself as Leontes.
Was it not my jealousy that had sent Jessica sobbing out into the night? Was I not guilty of the last few years of grasping the control of my environment even more than I had before? Of shaping everything the way I want it to be, need it to be, to allow me to get through life as unhurt and unscarred as is possible? Belle thinks that I am the shining opposite of her dad. But what if I’m not? What if I am very, very similar? The saying about girls falling in love with a man who represents their father is not a cliché for nothing, it is rooted in truth.
I need to put distance between us. No matter how many circles I spin in, I always come back to this same point. Belle may make me feel great about myself but the only thing I know for sure is that I am bound to disappoint her.
Belle.
It’s the night of the quiz. I have picked my outfit carefully, washed every single tiny millimetre of me and then spent the afternoon talking myself silly, convincing myself that I am doing the right thing. I have veered back and forth, back and forth, but have come to the conclusion that this decision is the right one.
But now, as I stand outside the pub, I wonder: what the hell am I doing here? I mean really. This is so awkward. I remind myself that Rory hasn’t called me for a reason, I can’t force my company on him. On his family.
A noisy group of people, all about my age, are laughing and jostling each other across the cobbles. They reach the front doors of the pub and push past me into the warm. As they all pass by me one stops, smiles and holds the door open.
‘Here you go, sorry. You were here before us. After you.’ He makes a swooshing forward motion with his hands and now I really am stuck.
‘I don’t know if I want to,’ I say. Of course I do, because that’s not at all weird. He smiles.
‘Ahh, it’s toasty in there, look!’ And he gestures towards the fire burning in the long narrow pub, chucking out warmth. ‘It’s brass-balls cold out here. You know you’re going to have fun, come on.’ He cocks his head and like some conditioned woman of decades past, I smile meekly in thanks and walk through the door. He grins, pleased with himself for ‘helping’ me and leaps off to join his friends at the bar. He was well-intentioned.
I stand in the doorway of this pub, the smell of mulled wine arising from a great big warmed copper pan on the bar, which runs along most of the narrow room, with a fire blazing in the grate at the very end of the pub, its flames licking the inside of the fireplace. As welcoming as it is, I know I shouldn’t be here.
Now I’m inside the door my realisation is even more intense. This is a shit idea. I’ve got it wrong again. Just because I like the thought of what this evening could bring doesn’t mean it is a good idea.
‘Belle! Belle! Over here!’ Alison stands up from where she is seated three tables down. ‘Look, everyone, it’s Belle! You’re going toloveher.’
I smile, at least I hope it’s a smile but I would bet money that it may have been a grimace, and walk towards her table. I grudgingly acknowledge that half of me has been hoping that Rory would be here and see me and that grin would cross his face, reassuring every part of me that he hasn’t gone off the idea of spending time with me. Yet at the same time a little part of me is relieved to see he is not at the table.
‘Hello, love, get that coat and scarf off before you bake, it’s crazy warm. Budge up, Dave, Belle is going to sit right here.’ She pats the banquette cushion next to her.
‘That’s all right. I really only nipped in to say hi but I really…’
