The History of Us Read online

  For anyone who has fallen out and fallen back in again

  Contents

  BILLY: London, 2015: That Night

  KATHLEEN: London, 2015

  Liverpool, 1985

  London, 2015

  Liverpool, 1985

  London, 2015

  Liverpool, 1985

  Liverpool, 1986

  BILLY: London, 2015

  ADAM: London, 2015

  London, 1990

  London, 2015

  London, 1990

  BILLY: London, 2015

  JOCELYN: London, 2015

  London, 1995

  London, 2015

  Paris, 1999

  BILLY: London, 2015

  KATHLEEN AND ADAM: 2005

  JOCELYN: London, 2015

  KATHLEEN: London, 2010

  ADAM: London, 2015

  JOCELYN: London, 2015

  KATHLEEN: London, 2015

  JOCELYN: London, 2015

  ADAM: London, 2015: That Night

  BILLY: London, 2015: That Night

  ADAM: London, 2015: That Night

  BILLY: London, 2015: That Night

  ADAM

  All She Wants

  The Confusion of Karen Carpenter

  The Girl Who Just Appeared

  The Secrets We Keep

  BILLY

  London, 2015: That Night

  Dear God,

  It was only when I got home that I realized there was blood on the knee of my jeans. A circle of what looked like red tar that drooped a bit at the bottom, making it look almost like a heart. I took them off and put them in the washing machine, then sat in the kitchen eating tonight’s cold lasagne. It was very oily. Some of it dropped onto my dressing gown. I think the blood will be easier to get out than the oil.

  I don’t think I need forgiveness for what happened tonight. It happened. It must be your will. What a sublime coincidence. Or maybe divine intervention?

  Ellie Goulding is playing on the radio.

  I hate Ellie Goulding.

  I switch her off. Dead.

  I will go through to the bedroom and join her. I will sleep, I’m sure.

  Amen.

  KATHLEEN

  London, 2015

  Sky. And more sky. Such an expanse of it, pregnant with clouds yet somehow it looks hollow, something is missing. It feels so odd that it’s not there any more. How apt that today of all days I strain my neck up and the tower block that once obliterated the clouds has evaporated.

  Of course, it’s not really evaporated; it was knocked down in the mid-nineties, when it was found to be riddled with asbestos. We’d not known that before, though the council had been at pains to inform us that we shouldn’t hammer nails into the walls to hang pictures. But who hangs pictures at nineteen? It was just our home. We thought there was a quirky beauty in the fact that it looked like it had been cobbled together by a Seventies toddler, plastic brick by plastic brick. We found something charming in the notion that it always felt like even a moderate gust of wind might send it toppling onto the estate below.

  I lived here with my friends Adam and Jocelyn. We’d run away to London together. Or had we? Had we really run away? Were we really that brave? Or did it just feel like we had? A new beginning, a new life. And yet today I go to Jocelyn’s funeral. It’s like the flats have been erased from the picture. And now she has too.

  As I stand in this grubby corner of Paddington, almost choking on the fumes of fried chicken and petrol, I try to picture us up there in our bird’s nest. Planning, dreaming. What lives we thought we’d lead. Images and half-forgotten memories ping into my head from our days here: the Jamaican man in the corner shop assuming I was Scottish. Playing pool in the pub on the corner of the estate. The endless queue at the long-gone phone box, which was . . . just here. Right where I’m standing.

  It’s disorientating when things change so much.

  The corner shop with the laconic Jamaican guy is now a pretentious-looking restaurant. The grubby shack of a cafe where I first saw curried goat advertised, but didn’t dare eat, is now a betting shop. Our favourite pub has been rebranded from a down at heel spit-and-sawdust boozer to something called The Friendly Fox. I bet they do a nice Thai red curry. That sort of place always does. The whole area seems cleaner, sanitized, boring.

  Some kids zoom past me on those annoying little scooters, laughing.

  The laughter. I look up again. Oh yes, the belly laughter. The hours spent watching old Hollywood movies up there on a video player the size of a sideboard. It’s probably the benefit of nostalgia, but we really didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Other than working out where the next laugh was coming from. Or the next Hollywood rental.

  We certainly didn’t think it would end like this. With one of us falling from another high building. A calm bright day like this, I’d imagine. An advert-blue sky. Clouds like whispers. And down she fell. I wonder how long it took? I remember jumping from a high diving board as a child. The fear before doing it. The exhilaration during. The distortion of noise as I dropped. I wonder if it was like that.

  Poor Jocelyn.

  I look for evidence that the flats used to be here. In their place now are smarter low-rise blocks in tasteful beige brick. If beige can be said to be tasteful. So often that word is used to describe something as being dull. I don’t like that. Beige is almost interesting. I think grey is duller. Or a cross between the two. Greige. The windows of these flats are vertical oblongs, long and narrow. Who thought, twenty years ago, that narrow was a good idea for windows? Clearly some architect did. I keep looking. Jessica Fletcher’s got nothing on me.

  Bingo.

  As I walk along I finally see my evidence that our former life was here. In between two of the blocks is a sweeping helter-skelter of a concrete walkway that takes you to a further group of flats that are slightly higher up. That walkway used to lead to our block, Harmony Heights. The campest-sounding block of flats in London. There was a car park of sorts underneath. I experience a frisson of excitement as I recognize it. It feels like a bit of us is still there. I stare at it for so long, hoping that if I don’t blink, it will suddenly reappear: that carbuncle of white flats, soaring twenty-odd storeys high. I’m disappointed when it doesn’t.

  Ah, the confidence of youth. The hours I spent staring out of the window, onto the Lego set of London, all the sights. These days I’d be so scared of the height of the place I’d keep my distance, just sit on the bed, squeal if anyone went to open a curtain.

  And then I remember. I only came here for a nostalgic five minutes. I’ve probably been here for the best part of half an hour.

  I look at my phone. Shit. If I don’t hurry I’ll be late.

  I’d planned on walking. It’s about an hour from here. I don’t particularly like walking, but the claustrophobia of the tube is something I need to be anaesthetized in order to consider.

  But I could just have one in The Friendly Fox. For old times’ sake. My friend has died. It’s called Dutch courage.

  Yes, I will have that drink. Then I might be able to take the tube.

  Golders Green Crematorium is a small town of interconnecting red-brick chapels that looks like it’s been designed to accommodate all-comers. Any religion or faith, you’re welcome here, it seems to say. The arched windows and towers look like they could be Christian or Jewish; there might even be a touch of the mosque about them. Bring your dead here, basically, we’ll sort them out. The fact that it’s on Hoop Lane would make me titter like a schoolgirl, if I didn’t have my sombre face on for the funeral. And the word ‘Hoop’ reminds me of course of Adam, and as I walk along it I wonder if he will be here. I certainly hope he is. But will he speak to me? Will he even
acknowledge me? After everything that’s happened, I just don’t know.

  I’ve overdressed for the weather. It’s been so cold lately and I never think of funerals as particularly warm affairs, so I’m wearing my River Island check coat with the faux fur collar. When I bought it I thought it made me look quite moddy and Sixties, but as I catch my reflection in the parked cars I fancy I look more like a baby elephant with a car blanket chucked over it. And a dead cat hanging round its neck.

  Not that I’m down on my appearance or anything, at the moment.

  Oh God. And the hair. It still surprises me. What was I thinking? I recently saw an interview with Sharleen Spiteri in the Sunday Times and I was quite taken with her cropped, jet-black hair, so I got Nicola at my regular salon to copy it.

  I look like a desperate geography teacher. The sort you see in Mail Online who’s had a liaison with a Year Eleven girl and the shit’s hit the fan. She’s dressed up for court, but she’s kidding no-one.

  Oh well.

  I wish I’d worn something lighter. After a succession of freezing cold days the sun has finally deigned to appear, and now the baby elephant is sweating. Especially after the – actually it was an hour and ten, not an hour’s walk from Westbourne Park. The faux fur round my neck is wringing wet. Still. I should be grateful for small mercies. At least I’m alive. This makes me snigger. Then I stop and apologize to myself. I do, I actually do that. I do that quite a bit. Think something inappropriate, and then say aloud, ‘Sorry.’

  A therapist would have a field day.

  Actually, a therapist does. And at forty-five quid a pop.

  I’ve heard of feeling sorry for yourself, but apologizing to yourself? No wonder I’m a bloody basket case.

  There are a few paparazzi on the gate who look disappointed that I’m not famous. Still, it’s better than them thinking I’m ‘her off The Apprentice’. I was told in a bar by Colin from work’s flatmate, ‘God, you really look like . . . thingy . . . what’s her name?’

  ‘Sharleen Spiteri?’ I ventured, hopefully.

  He shook his head. Possibly thinking, ‘Yeah, right, on steroids maybe.’ And then he said, ‘Her off The Apprentice.’

  I don’t even know which one he meant. But seeing the cameras does make me worry for a second that someone’s going to shout out, ‘How’s Sir Alan?’ As I approach the gates, the cameras go up; then, when they realize I’m really nobody interesting, they’re dropped again quick smart.

  Some of the women on The Apprentice are really quite plain. I can just imagine the sort of woman that guy meant.

  Jeez. It was about five years ago. And I still let it irritate me.

  Mind you, some of them are quite gorgeous, aren’t they? Real dolly bird types. That new breed of businesswoman that looks like a porn star. Well, maybe not a porn star, but the sort of woman who has eighteen different vibrators in her bottom drawer, and no embarrassment about it.

  That reminds me of one of the last times I saw Jocelyn. So long ago now. She’d just got back from a trip to Edinburgh, I think she said it was. Anyway, it was somewhere far enough away for her to moan that whoever had paid for the trip hadn’t sent her by plane, but on an endless train journey. She had gone to use the loo, but when she’d pressed the button and the door had swung open she had been confronted by the sight of a tiny Chinese woman standing, wearing a Burberry puffa jacket and nothing on her bottom half, her denim skirt abandoned on the floor, staring at a row of four or five dildos in various sizes that she had lined up on the side. What a way to pass a journey.

  As I said at the time: she must have forgotten her Maeve Binchy.

  The conveyor-belt nature of funerals at crematoriums makes me anxious I’ll go into the wrong one and be saying a sad farewell to a complete stranger, too well behaved and worried about what others might think to not stand up again and walk back out of the door. But I locate the West Chapel, and check a framed list on the pillar outside.

  14:20. Jocelyn Jones.

  The doors are open, and I see that the service has already started. I can’t be that late, surely? The small chapel holds about fifty people, and it’s almost full. I slip in and take a seat on the back pew. An elderly Irish priest is droning on about how Jocelyn is with her maker, and what a jubilant faith she had.

  Now, I’m sorry, but the only faith she had was the album by George Michael.

  Quite a few people are fidgeting, and I understand why. Jocelyn did some horrible things during the past few years; she upset a lot of people. Every person who told her to ‘just die, bitch’ on Twitter has finally got what they want. And here she is, about to be burnt to a crisp. People are feeling uncomfortable with the priest lauding her as something approaching saintly. But I guess that’s what happens when someone dies. They rest in peace, safe in the knowledge that they were generous, selfless souls. All tarnishes and blemishes wiped away. Clean slate. Meeting their maker.

  The coffin sits raised up between some red drapes, like an odd set for a rather plush puppet show. A photo of Jocelyn rests against it, as if saying ‘Just in case you’d forgotten what she looked like, here she is. And yes, she was very photogenic.’

  Yes, she was. But there again, she looked amazing in the flesh too. Well, you know what they say. Black don’t crack.

  And as someone said to me recently, ‘Yeah, babe. But fat don’t crack either.’

  As if that was going to make me feel better about myself. I’m not even fat. I just look like a normal forty-five-year-old, thank you very much.

  Well, I try and convince myself that that’s the case.

  Elephant in a car blanket.

  Why do people even have blankets in cars? Why do people even have cars? Oh, actually, I know why people have cars. It’s so they can get from A to B. And drive places.

  I really should have studied philosophy.

  Maybe I could study philosophy? There’s a thought.

  Anyway. What was I thinking about? Looks. Black/fat not cracking.

  Of course, Jocelyn had help. Honestly. I don’t know who this man is I’m sitting next to, but it might very well be her cosmetic surgeon.

  But wait. What if it’s HIM? I’ve spent so much time fretting about whether I was going to see Adam, I’d almost forgotten about HIM.

  I don’t want to see HIM.

  I’ve not seen HIM for nigh on fifteen years. Would I recognize him? Is this HIM? He doesn’t appear to have recognized me. But then, we all change in that amount of time.

  Oh God. It might be HIM.

  It was the millennium. New Year’s Eve on the millennium. It was the last time I saw Jocelyn.

  So close. And then – fifteen years, gone in a puff of smoke.

  Is it HIM? But I can’t tell. The thought makes my skin crawl. I try to find Adam instead.

  I look around to see if I can see him, but it’s hard to tell who’s who when all you can see is the backs of heads. And I’ll be honest, I’m looking to see if I can spot anyone famous as well. Jocelyn moved in such circles. Though I also wonder whether some famous people might be distancing themselves from her of late.

  I wonder if Mark Reynolds is here, the other kid from our school who made it big. I wonder, if he’s here and he looks at me, whether he’ll think, ‘Oh look. A girl from school who just got big.’ Even though it’s a self-hating attack on my size, I still make myself smile. And then I feel guilty. You shouldn’t smile at a funeral. I immediately narrow my eyes as if the crease on my lips is one of pain, remembering something heartfelt from my time with Jocelyn. I then close my eyes, affecting a look of solemn prayer. That’s what today’s about, solemnity.

  People are standing, so I open my eyes and stand too. A recording of an organ is playing. We sing ‘The Lord is My Shepherd’, and it’s then that I see Adam. He’s about four rows from the front and he’s squeezed in the middle of a pew. It’s Adam all right, but he too has put on a bit of weight, and has he started dyeing his hair? I try to see if any of Jocelyn’s family are here. There are some b
lack women on the front row, but I don’t think any of them are her mum or the twins or Billy. I liked her mum when I was growing up, and I know she despaired at the route Jocelyn’s life took. Adam’s partner is next to him, I now realize. Me and Jocelyn always found him a bit brash, a bit flash, a bad influence on our Adam.

  But he’s not our Adam now, is he? Jocelyn’s gone. He’s not even my Adam any more, we so rarely see each other.

  I stare at the coffin, mouthing silent words to the psalm, willing myself to become upset. But instead I just feel numb. I thought I’d be all over the place. They say, don’t they, that if you have a difficult relationship with someone, that when they die you might feel worse than, say, someone who got on with them really well. But instead of Jocelyn I just think of all the other people I’ve lost along the way. That’s the worst thing about funerals, the older you get, it’s the cumulative effect of grief. I’m not just thinking of Jocelyn now, I’m thinking of everyone else I know who’s died. After a while some tears do come, and the man next to me, who may or may not be a plastic surgeon and who may or may not be HIM, hands me a paper tissue.

  Which is when I notice his fingernails are filthy, and it makes me pity the people who may or may not be his patients. And confirms to me that it’s definitely not HIM. He had impeccable hygiene. In fact, I remember him saying, ‘Imperial Leather before penetration!’ as he guided me into his en suite.

  Or was that his way of saying I was smelly? Jesus! I’m getting offended fifteen years after the event. That must be something of a record, surely?

  I calm down.

  We listen to the eulogy. It’s typical Jocelyn – hardly based at all in reality. Then we listen to a song she recorded in the early nineties. Now that’s more her: loving the sound of her own voice, and inflicting her God-awful record on people who can’t escape. She has the perfect captive audience today, and we have to pretend to be enchanted by its rumbling salsa Eurotrash beat. The lyrics are hideously inappropriate for a funeral. I’m amazed the priest has sanctioned them.

  ‘Do me. Do me. Do me in Ibiza Old Town.’