Boyfriend in a Dress (10 page)

The memories slap me in the face as I leave Smith’s and force Charlie out in front of me. He has gone strangely quiet, but I’m not complaining.

By the time we board the train, Charlie hasn’t said anything for half an hour. The train is almost empty, at eleven on a Thursday night, and I find the smoking carriage practically
deserted with only two people sitting at the other end. Charlie slumps into his seat, staring down at the Formica table in front of him. I position myself opposite him, and offer him a cigarette, sticking the pack under his eyes, but he just shakes his head. I inhale before we have even left the platform.

I wake up with my head against the train window, my mouth pressed awkwardly on one side; half of my face clings to the glass, while the other hangs out into the carriage for everybody to see. I focus on the outside, and try and look past the darkness and see the houses and trees and parks and offices and lives that are slipping past me by the second, never to be seen again. My eyes slide with the occasional lights that appear and disappear just as quickly. I close my eyes again.

I can feel my contact lenses stuck to my eyeballs, only slightly uncomfortable now: they’ll be ok if I just keep my eyes shut. I want to go back to sleep and pretend I’m somewhere else. I don’t want to open my eyes and admit I am in the middle of the smoking carriage, on the middle of a train, in the middle of the West Country, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Charlie’s breakdown, in the middle of a situation I am not equipped to deal with, mentally or physically. In the middle of Charlie’s nightmare. I want to drift back into sleep with the gentle rocking of the 120mph train, and be back in my old school hall, in uniform, except it’s the McDonald’s uniform now, during assembly, but with all my new friends, not my school friends, bar one for no reason whatsoever, and
then be ushered to the front of the hall and climb up the ladder and fly the trapeze to be caught by the priest who gave me my first holy communion, and then land and run over the bridge and go to the dentist’s and begin kissing the dentist who becomes the sexy internet guy I met at a work party not so long ago, and who I didn’t end up going home with, didn’t even kiss goodnight, because I had to leave to go to another work thing, pissed in a cab on dry Martinis and bottles of beer, and the whole time wishing I’d stayed at the last work thing, because that guy was really sexy, and has occupied my thoughts a little since, although he wasn’t really into me, but he could have been convinced, he just wasn’t playing along, but I could have coerced him with a little more time and a fresh coat of lipstick, although I was talking shit by that time, randomly thinking up questions in my head while he answered the last one I’d posed, so he probably thought I was an idiot, but I should have stayed because, judging by our current action in the dentist’s chair, he is a bloody good kisser and he is convincing me it is real, that I am feeling the feelings, kissing him when I am not. And now I realize I have slipped into that dream, and out of it again, and I’m back, looking into the darkness, with dry eyes, dry lenses, a dry mouth. And an idiot for company.

I am covered by something, a makeshift duvet, and I focus on the flimsy brown arms of the mac I had made Charlie wear before we left my flat which is now making a half-hearted attempt to cover my shoulders and torso, and which Charlie has obviously placed over me. With a resolve I know will be tested to the limit in the next few minutes, no doubt the next few days, I look up and over at Charlie. He is looking out of the window, still in the dress, shivering slightly, with his hands flat on the Formica train table in front of him. He looks calm, less wild than before. His eyes look big and tired, reflected in the train window, and I stare at his reflection. He
seems to be studying himself, intently, and using the fleeting countryside as some weird transvestite backdrop, framing his Lycra, his sad eyes, his flattened hair. He can’t see past himself right now.

I sit up sleepily and as Charlie realizes I am awake, his reflection gives me a sad smile.

‘Charlie, take back your coat, you’re freezing.’ My mouth is so dry I can barely get the words out, they scratch at my throat as they form, and come out sounding strange and lazy. ‘Look at you, you’re shivering, have the coat.’

I unwrap the arms and belt from my limbs and hold it above the table so as not to dip it in the coffee or makeshift plastic coffee-cup-lid-ashtrays, and Charlie accepts it with another smile.

‘You looked cold, and I thought one of us might as well be comfortable,’ he says. ‘You were asleep at least. Do you feel ok?’ Charlie speaks to me quietly, and I notice that the lights have somehow dipped in our carriage, and yet he seems to be radiating with heat. His face is bright red, and he’s sweating.

‘Oh I’m fine, but, Charlie, are you hot or cold? You look really warm,’ and I reach across to touch his forehead, like a child, or my little sister Charlotte when she’s been drinking and I’m scared she’ll fall into some kind of liver-collapsed coma. I’m behaving like his mother, and he doesn’t flinch, but offers his head to be felt, glad for the comfort, and the care.

‘I am a little hot … and a little cold as well,’ he says with a confused laugh, while trying to put on the coat and pull it away from his burning skin at the same time. My palm is damp with the sweat of Charlie’s head and I wipe it sleepily on my jeans. I breathe in deeply before speaking again, preparing myself for the madness to begin once more, (and also to at least try and project an air of knowing what I am going to say next). But I am winging it, and we both know it. I am
doing my damnedest to be the one in control here, the one I always am with everyone but Charlie.

I am the strong one. I am the one doing a near-perfect impression of Atlas, the independent, the impassable, the uncrushable. Charlie is the only one I’ve stopped bothering with, the one I haven’t tried to save for a while, leaving him to his own devices; he doesn’t need me to do it any more.

‘How are
you
feeling?’ I ask, not wanting the answer at all.

‘I’m alright,’ he says, but quietly, not confidently, and we both know it’s not true. His voice breaks slightly as he says it, the way it always does with me when I am feeling bad, mixed-up, confused, wanting to cry, just waiting for somebody to trigger it off by asking me how I am, and then repaying their feigned sincerity with a bucketful of tears.

‘Okay, well, that’s obviously not the whole truth,’ I say, ‘but are you semi-okay? Are you okay enough to go back to London okay? Or …’ I don’t want to sound like I am desperate to get off this train, and get back to town, and my flat and a big bed, and lie star-shaped as a single in a double, and sleep. But of course I am desperate for all of those things. I’m trying to convince him this train ride was all it would take to make him feel better, and a couple of hours of scenic Intercity action would make him calm down, and long for his job, and his lads, and the drink, and the drugs, and his London.

‘I’m … not great.’ Charlie’s voice breaks again as he says it, and I sit watching his eyes welling up, seeing them go red, wanting to hold his hand and make them stop, but feeling a thousand miles away from him. I don’t know what is going on inside his head, and I don’t know if I’m going to find out. Charlie is speeding further away from me, and I feel like I have been left behind in London.

The interlinking carriage door opens behind us automatically with a vacuumed swish, and a youngish student stumbles
up the aisle in battered denim, an army shirt, and a year-old haircut. He spots Charlie in his dress and smirks. We both turn our heads towards him and catch the smile he seems unable to hide. But I don’t say anything; I don’t have the energy or the words to defend us right now. And Charlie just looks down, embarrassed. Charlie who, these days at least, doesn’t need an invitation to start a fight. When I first met him, he was the last person to throw a punch, always breaking up fights with a smile, blocking attackers, calming things down. People listened to him, they still do. He’s just saying different things now. And his fists are a lot more ready to do the talking for him. Not with me, he’s never raised a fist to me.

‘Charlie, don’t get me wrong, I think we should stay in Devon, just for a couple of days, and just sleep, you know? I don’t want to go back to London yet.’ I backtrack quickly.

‘Just get some rest, get some perspective, and I promise you’ll feel a thousand times better. And you know I could do with the sleep as well.
Evil Ghost
has been keeping me awake at night! We might even get some sun. Besides, it’s Friday tomorrow.’ I check my watch. ‘Well, it’s Friday today. I’ll just take a day off and then it’s the weekend and we can come back up on Sunday, how does that sound?’

‘That sounds good, if that’s okay with you,’ he says.

‘Of course. Jesus, it’s only a couple of days; let’s get you okay, but for God’s sake, remind me to phone work tomorrow morning.’ I can’t believe the words are coming out of my mouth, even as I say them. I can’t believe I am agreeing to three days of this, but I do know that I want him, even now, to see me in a good light. I want to reflect well in his confused eyes, want to believe I am a good person. I don’t know who I’m trying to convince. I do want to get him better, get him through this baby breakdown. He thinks he’s having a breakdown, but it’s not real. He’d be frothing or rocking, not showing himself off in a jaunty thigh-exposing number.
But I don’t want to come away from this with any guilt. Any more guilt.

It will be fine. I’m sure it will be fine. Or maybe it won’t.

In a cab on the way to the cottage in the middle of the night, we bump along roads that have seen better days – probably World War One – and bounce up and down in the back while the cabbie chats to me and ignores Charlie, who is still conspicuously silent. The cabbie is somebody’s grandfather, with shirt sleeves rolled up in the twenty degree heat of the night, and a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. A faint odour of sweat and the country and old car hang in the air, and scramble up my nose. I put the back of my hand up against my nostrils to stop it. Gerry and the Pacemakers are playing quietly on the radio and I start to feel depressed, sticky and, ultimately, fucked off. I pay the taxi driver – Charlie doesn’t appear to have a penny on him. It costs me two pounds thirty – we’re not in London any more, Toto. The cottage is one of about ten dotted along a stretch of grass that separates them from the beach, surrounded by trees, and flowers, just overgrown enough to look romantic, not quite out of hand. Paint flakes off in places, and inside none of the sofas match.

I scramble around behind a row of potted geraniums to find the spare key, while Charlie sits on my overnight bag, squashing everything in it.

‘Careful, Charlie, my decanter is in there,’ I joke, but he doesn’t even look up. I sigh and picture his parents’ drinks cabinet on the other side of the door.

After a
Krypton Factor
struggle with the key, I eventually get us in. I remember that I’ve always wanted to know how to pick a lock, a minor nod to a wilder side of life that I’ll never know.

I dump the bags, and make straight for the kitchen. I don’t even bother to rinse out a glass that has been sitting in the cupboard untouched for four months. I find the ice trays, mercifully full to the brim, and dump two in my glass and one in my hand, which I run up and down my neck, around my hairline, as I unscrew the whisky bottle with one hand. Resisting the urge just to neck it from the bottle, I pour myself a large double, and finish it off in two gulps. I breathe out heavily, pour myself another large double, and slump onto the sofa, kicking my shoes off. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck, and another line escapes down my breastbone. My legs feel damp in my jeans. I will literally be peeling my clothes off tonight. Somewhere in the back of the cottage, I can hear Charlie retching, but the compulsion to go and help loses out to my compulsion to not move and not smell vomit.

‘Charlie, hon, are you okay?’ I shout out as a compromise. ‘Do you need me to do anything?’

A muffled reply comes back.

‘What?’ I ask, but still don’t move.

‘I’m okay.’ His mouth sounds full of something, and I hear him throw up again. I grimace and take another sip of my drink. I try to turn the TV on with the remote, but the batteries must have gone, so I leave it off. My head lolls back against the cushion, and my eyes close, my head swaying slightly with the effects of the whisky.

‘Shout if you need anything,’ I call out to Charlie, and continue to doze and sip my drink.

I wake up about half an hour later with a wet sensation on my thighs, the effects of falling asleep with a half-f glass in my hand. Charlie is sitting opposite me on his dad’s big armchair, with a beach towel wrapped around his waist.

‘Shit,’ I say and pull at my wet jeans, but then give up. ‘Nice towel; did you throw up on my dress?’

Charlie doesn’t answer, just looks intently at me.

‘What are you looking at?’ I ask him.

‘You drink too much’, he says sadly.

‘Well, it’s been a long day.’ I sigh, playing with my empty glass, pushing my hair off my damp forehead.

‘You should cut down, it’s not good for you, physically and emotionally,’ Charlie says in a monotone.

‘Charlie, you drink more than I do.’

‘Not any more,’ he says, and gets up. ‘I’m going to bed.’

I haven’t thought about the sleeping situation since we’ve arrived, but now it occurs to me. ‘Charlie, where are you sleeping?’ My awkwardness projects across the room to him. I don’t think we should be in the same bed, and I want to make sure all his declarations of innocence before we left have held fast. I don’t want this to turn into some bizarre pity- and angst-ridden dirty weekend, one for the road and all that. Besides which, he might be sick again …

‘I’ll sleep in my parents’ bed, and you can take our … my room.’

‘Okay, thanks. Are you going to be ok, I mean, tonight?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ he says, sadly again. He turns and heads towards the room.

‘Charlie?’ I shout out, as he reaches the bedroom door.

‘Yes?’ he says, expectantly, and turns to face me. I pause.

‘Do you need a bucket?’

‘I’ve got one.’ His shoulders drop and with his head down, he goes in and shuts the door behind him.

I hear him shuffling around his parents’ room for a moment or two, and then the light goes out.

My eyes close, my head nods, and I just don’t seem able to move. My legs feel like whisky-soaked, denim-clad tree trunks, and even moving my fingers requires too much concentration and effort. My head nods back again.

You do what you do, right? No rules, no judgements, just fun. But thinking about it now, I acknowledge my life hasn’t been like that for a while. I thought I was still carefree, living it up, but I haven’t been recently, not since I started work, not since university. Not since America. I thought I was putting up with Charlie because we were still twenty-one at heart. That was the last time I can truly remember the honest pursuit of a good time. I had hardly any money, a stranger in a bloody strange land, but God, I had fun. We wanted the same things. Now we think about what time we have to get up, our mortgages, the fact we are being shafted by a boss who is taking all the credit for work that’s ours. We just think too much.

I remember one night back in the States, a couple of months before I left. Joleen had gone home because her dog had died. Dale and I were sitting in the room watching a film,
The Jerk,
on TV. He was ok now, if Joleen wasn’t there, almost courteous. I think maybe he felt exposed, or lonely, in her absence. I was tired from playing tennis all afternoon, and Charlie was coming over with a takeaway. I assumed Dale would leave when he arrived, so I wasn’t too bothered by him being there. I had a bit of a tidy up on my side of the room during the ad breaks and Dale, without my asking, emptied the bin, the ever-overflowing ashtray, and made Joleen’s bed that was a pile of sheets and green scratchy blankets. I said thanks, he said no problem. We sat down on opposite sides of the room to carry on
watching the film. We laughed in the same places, and relaxed.

‘I wish I was British,’ he said, out of the blue, while more adverts played.

‘Sorry, Dale?’ I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. He didn’t answer.

He was two different people by then. The sleazy innuendoes and come ons stopped as soon as Joleen left. When she returned, he would start back up again, but almost as if it were obligatory, and even with an apologetic look to me if she turned her back.

It was March by then, and the weather was getting only slightly better. Charlie had gone home for two weeks for his brother’s wedding, and I had missed him quite stupidly, especially as we had agreed that we were just having fun really, no major ties, no unnecessary commitment. We had both cottoned on, however, during the time we spent apart, that we liked each other more than we had admitted.

Whenever Charlie came over, Dale would make his apologies and leave. It wasn’t rude, it was almost chivalrous, acknowledging that we wanted to be alone. Joleen would generally follow him, for a couple of hours at least. Dale and I had come to some kind of undeclared understanding. I think Dale actually liked me, had some small amount of respect for my consistent rebuffs of his advances.

One afternoon, as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail for a game of tennis with Jake in the new spring sunshine, I noticed Dale’s eyes rise from a battered second-hand copy of
A Hero of Our Time,
and caught his smile as I applied lipgloss.

‘You’re about to play tennis,’ he said as I stared back at him in the mirror.

‘Hey, perceptive boy!’

He let his book rest on his chest, taking care not to crumple
his piano key tie, adjusted his feet on Joleen’s desk, and lit a Marlboro.

‘Why in God’s name do you need lipstick for sports?’

‘It’s lipgloss, Dale – you have so much to learn about women.’

‘Oh is that right?’

‘Hell yes!’

Joleen coughed loudly and scowled from the corner of her bed, and Dale raised his eyes in exasperation.

But that was his sport.

‘Nicola, tell me again, why we can’t be together?’

I bent down to do up my trainers.

‘Because, Dale, as I have explained already, I’m in love with Joleen. I’ve been trying to mount her for weeks, but she’s got wicked sleep reflexes!’

‘Damn those sleep reflexes!’ Dale laughed out loud.

‘Tell me about it.’ I grabbed my tennis racquet.

‘Just fuck off,’ Joleen spat from the corner.

‘My pleasure.’ I smiled at Dale as I left, and he winked back.

It was almost a challenge, coming up with new putdowns for his requests. It kept me on my toes, like waiting for a fast serve. I also noticed that Dale was never anything but polite to Charlie. He shook his hand whenever he came into the room, made up some excuse and left, with Joleen hurtling behind him.

That night, when Charlie arrived, Dale had just opened a beer, and the film was two-thirds of the way through.

But as I kissed Charlie hello, still weakened at the sight of him, and he settled down next to me on the bed, putting the cartons of Chinese on the newspaper I had put down over my sheets, Dale stood up.

‘Well, I’ve got to see a woman about some sex,’ he said.

‘Dale,’ I said, ‘you haven’t eaten, have you? Do you want
some Chinese – Charlie has, as per usual,’ I poked him in the stomach, ‘bought far too much.’

Dale looked a little taken aback.

‘No, no, I never eat that stuff – too little grease for me. Far too healthy.’ He seemed almost shy.

‘Honestly, mate, at least finish your beer – you don’t have to leave just because I’m here.’ Charlie smiled, and I think it won Dale over. Everybody wanted to be Charlie’s friend, and he knew it, with a sadness that he only told me about. I was the first person he said, who hadn’t just taken him at face value, who had listened when he explained how hard it was to have people forgive anything you did because they just liked you too much. Charlie added. ‘Besides which, how interesting is female conversation, really?’ and squeezed my hand in apology. He was making Dale feel important, better.

‘He is right, Dale, I do bore him. Stay and finish your drink at least. Have a slice of prawn toast.’

Dale looked a little awkward, but then he smiled at us both, and without a word, nodded his head and sat back down, put his feet up on the table, and continued watching the film.

As the credits finally rolled, I said to Charlie, ‘Dale wishes he was British, you know. Can you believe that, the American poet wishing he was part of the mother race?!’

I smiled at Dale to let him know I wasn’t being nasty.

‘I can understand it, mate,’ Charlie said. ‘You don’t even play cricket over here, do you? Best reason for being British there is!’

‘My God, you’re deep,’ I said, and wiped sweet and sour sauce off his cheek.

Charlie gave me a sudden hurtful look, and I smiled quickly back, squeezed his hand, a little scared. Just as quickly he regained his composure.

‘Damn right I’m deep!’ and opened his mouth and showed me half-eaten beef in black bean sauce and egg fried rice.

‘Charming!’ I said, and looked straight at him. He smiled. I was forgiven.

Dale laughed. ‘You guys just seem to have the good stuff. You have the history, the culture. We have turkey in November and American Football!’ Dale sighed, pretending to be depressed.

‘You’ve got a bigger nuclear arsenal, mate.’ Charlie talked with his mouth full of Chinese.

‘I know, I know,’ Dale smiled, ‘and aren’t you scared! The British, you have an arrogance, a confidence to you. You honestly believe you are better than the rest of the world. It’s not right, of course, but it makes you comfortable in your own skin. You skip around the world with your stiff upper lips, and you just seem … like you can handle it, you can handle the world. We just shout at the world like idiots, feeling inferior, no matter how great we are supposed to be.’ Dale trailed off, his last words almost whispered, and he seemed to remember himself suddenly, and leapt up from his chair, startling Charlie, who dropped his fork. I stared at him in confusion. I wanted him to stay. I wanted him to tell us what was wrong. He stared back at me for a moment, and his eyes seemed so massively hurt, it made me want to cry. It felt like he only needed one right word from me, but I didn’t have a clue what the word was.

‘Fuck me, I’m stuffed!’ Charlie announced, rubbing his stomach, stretching out his legs. ‘Give me ten minutes, my love, and we’ll burn it off!’

He tried to tickle me, but I pushed him off, and muttered ‘For fuck’s sake’ under my breath. I was annoyed with him, my fear of upsetting him gone. Dale was trying to tell us something, and Charlie’s claimed depths weren’t showing their face now. Dale saw how effortless Charlie’s life was, and it was alien to him, the little guy in the suits who tried too hard at everything.