‘I don’t get you. What do you mean by history?’
‘You wish she’d been a part of your childhood. But if she’s right for you then that doesn’t matter.’
‘Yeah, I know. It just feels like I’ve always known her. I’m just a romantic sod…’
‘Do you think she’s the one?’ Michael tossed the menu over his shoulder and took a gulp from his pint.
‘To be perfectly honest, mate, yes I do. I know that sounds foolish, because we’re so young. But we’re really perfect together.’
‘Wasn’t Lisa perfect?’
‘Why do you keep mentioning Lisa?’ I edged my chair closer to the table.
‘Because you’re obviously thinking about her. She’s the basis of this conversation.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You knew Lisa all of your life. And for some reason you thought you were destined to be together as a result. But you split up.’
‘It just felt like we’d been on a journey together. We were like Cathy and Heathcliff in
Wuthering Heights
!’ I laughed awkwardly.
Michael raised an eyebrow.
‘Childhood companions, they hold some kind of power over our minds,’ I said. ‘Maybe that’s why I found it so hard to get over Lisa. I’ve got so many memories of her. We watched each other grow up, we saw each other change. But she’s not a part of my life anymore.’
‘Are you having uncertainties about Lauren? I mean, you haven’t been together for that long.’
‘No. I know she’s perfect for me. I don’t really know why I brought this up. She just seems so familiar, like she
belonged
in my childhood.’
‘I guess fate has an air of familiarity about it, as strange as that sounds.’
‘I’m just trying to understand it all.’
‘Understand what?’
‘Life.’ I finished my drink. ‘Does it really go the way we plan it?’
‘Our elders tell us it doesn’t.’
‘Take my mother as an example. She’s always wondering if there’s more to life.’
‘But she’s a manic depressive.’
‘Yeah, but maybe she has a point. She’s not happy. I’m all she has, and my dad abandoned her. Is that her destiny, to be unhappy? Everything just seems so perfect for me right now. But what if we just get regular jobs, and settle down with kids?’
‘Sounds dull.’
‘But that’s just life,’ I said.
‘What, work and procreation?’
‘Imponderableness. We can’t predict our futures.’
‘This sort of talk will get you nowhere.’ Michael’s eyes became fierce slits.
‘I can’t help questioning. It’s just the way I am.’
‘Well, it’s not a good way to be. Lauren wasn’t a part of your childhood, but you’re still in love with her. And she’s perfect for you. She doesn’t need to be part of your past like Lisa was. Fuck, next you’ll tell me you can only date a Leo…’
‘Actually, Lauren was born on the sixteenth of…’
‘I’ve been thinking of getting a girlfriend.’
I choked.
‘What’s so funny about that?’ he snapped.
‘You!’
‘I could have a girlfriend!’
‘Yeah, and you’d cheat on her all the time.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. I’ve been thinking, Dan. Maybe there’s more to student life than shagging everything that moves…’
‘This is a revelation.’
‘I’ve shunned a lot of really nice girls. Maybe I should take the time to talk to some of them. I see you with Lauren and, I’ve gotta be honest, I sometimes wish I could have what you have.’
‘Coming from you, that’s a massive compliment!’ I sniggered.
‘I’m not saying I’m gonna jump into a relationship with any random girl.’
‘But you’ll jump into bed with any random girl.’
‘I’m being serious.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I tried to suppress my laughter.
‘I’ll see what happens. But it’s something I’m gonna have to try.’ He looked over my shoulder.
‘A relationship?’
‘Yeah. I’m good with relationship advice, but I’ve never had a real one myself!’
‘You
are
good with relationship advice,’ I admitted.
‘I always thought a girlfriend would be a burden and distract me from being myself. But life’s too short for meaningless pursuits. It’s a sad fact, but even the old die too young.’
‘Yeah, I guess it
is
all too short.’
‘I’ve got lessons to learn. I dunno, I just feel like things are changing around me and the time has come to, well, grow up. Anyway, I don’t want you questioning everything, dude. Where are you gonna get in life if you question every relationship you get yourself into? And it’s best not to doubt your dreams either. I’m sure we’ll go far. I know we’re good enough.’
‘Yeah, I know. And anyway, I wasn’t questioning my relationship with Lauren…’
‘I think you were.’
‘I was thinking, that’s all.’
‘If Lauren’s right for you then that’s all there is to it. It wouldn’t matter if you were from opposite sides of the globe. You’ve learned lessons from your previous relationship. You’ll carry them with you into this one.’
‘Cheers, Mike. I’m glad we talked about this.’
‘But I’ve had enough of this soppy talk. Next you’ll have me ordering a martini and waxing my legs!’ He chuckled and then looked over my shoulder again. ‘Hmm, look at that hotty over there.’
A girl was sitting at the other side of the room. She was blonde and voluptuous. Just Michael’s type.
‘I’m gonna get her number.’ He adjusted his shirt collar.
‘I thought you were looking for a relationship?’
‘Yeah, maybe tomorrow. Tonight, a sexual relationship will do. I’m gonna chat to her now. When I come back we’ll go to a club.’
‘Typical Michael,’ I mumbled to myself as he strutted towards her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Recollections on the Banks
I was woken by a phone call, early the next morning. I crawled out of bed, my head pounding after the heavy night I’d had with Michael. I picked up the receiver, adjusted my eyes to the beams of sunshine streaming through the windows. Thickened light had grown thin again. A new day. A new start. But not for everybody. That was the worst phone call I’ve ever received. The caller was a police officer, and he had a message to give me.
Michael was dead.
At the end of that unruly night, I’d caught a taxi and left Michael with a girl he’d pulled. The police officer informed me that Michael had become involved in a drunken brawl outside
The Marcade Tavern
near Castle Street, while hailing a taxi back to the girl’s house. He’d been stabbed and spent his last moments lying in a puddle of his own blood on the cold pavement. The bastard responsible had been apprehended.
I didn’t believe the officer. It must have been someone else. Michael couldn’t be dead. Tears burned my eyes and anger scorched my veins. I fell to the floor and banged my temples with my knuckles.
I still couldn’t believe it when I visited his body and gazed at his youthful face for the last time. All of his energy had been drained away, and his looks had been spoiled by an unconcealed scratch above his right eye. An empty shell. An occluded shadow of his living self. All those laughs, the banter, the sophisticated debates, they were all gone. No more trips to the theatre. No more sessions down the gym. We’d had our last pint together. Death had taken him from me like a thief in the night. We should have been stars. We should have shared the red carpet together. He had so much more to do, so much more to accomplish.
Els stirbt als Knabe, wen die Gotter lieben
.
Lauren gave my hand a gentle squeeze as we walked towards the church on that bitter, remorseless day. The day of Michael’s funeral. Drizzle flecked the stained glass windows and the wind blew icily through the many-tiered branches of forlorn, skeletal trees. I wasn’t sure if I could handle the service.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Lauren said.
The church steeple stretched into a grey abyss as people shuffled into the crammed building. A Welsh flag had been draped over Michael’s coffin; the red dragon raised its clawed hand, swiping away all justice. The priest spoke, filling the silence with words of comfort to Michael’s family and friends. But words wouldn’t do. The moments we’d spent stumbling around town on drunken nights out flashed in my mind. The times we’d shared on stage. The advice he’d given me. Those moments drowned out the priest’s talk. I wanted to transport myself away from there, back to the previous week when Michael had been living and breathing and dreaming of fame and fortune.
Michael’s mother called for her baby boy, splintering the brief silence after the priest concluded. The sobs grew louder. I knew Michael wouldn’t give a shit about the flowers and the hymns and all that funereal stuff. He’d have been happy with the attendance, but he’d never know how many people missed him.
The church shook with the thunder of prayer. I couldn’t make out the words. They sounded like waves lapping against the shore, and the final ‘Amen’ marked the end of that storm.
The priest didn’t say Michael’s death might have been God’s choice. He just lamented everybody’s loss. He said the attendance was a true testament to my friend, and the church had never been so full. But what did it matter? Michael had lost out on an entire lifetime because of some stupid cunt with a blade. A drunken night had ended his life, had ended every hope and dream he’d ever had. He wasn’t around for the one day that people celebrated him. I was glad the priest didn’t say his death had been God’s choice, because I’d have resented God forever. I hoped Michael would watch over me, but my faith had been stripped away. His death had been so unjustified that such things as heaven and fate suddenly sounded ridiculous to me. Michael had always believed he’d become a star, but he hadn’t lived long enough to prove himself.
After the funeral, a crowd of us took a walk along the Taff Trail. We decided to have a drink for Michael, to protest against the hurtful thoughts and recollections bombarding our minds. We bought cans of cider and smoked joints, hoping alcohol and tetrahydrocannabinol would relieve the pain for a moment. We sat on a sedgy embankment and listened to the gentle rhythm of the water flowing under us. Frost clung to the lichen-studded rocks. Tears became shards of ice cutting our cheeks. Lost in melancholic thoughts, we didn’t feel the cold wind and the razors in the air.
On that day, we learned that nobody was invincible. As youths we drank, smoked, socialized, partied, fucked, and nothing could stop us living how we wanted. And then a friend had been killed and everything became flesh and bones and prospective death any day. A crisis hit us, like a train over a track, when we discovered that someone as kind and sincere as Michael could die so unjustifiably. His death became a fatal vision played repeatedly in my head. A life full of apathy would never be enough. I wanted to do something special, to reach beyond the very boundaries of existence. Those muddled thoughts, brought about by grief, stayed with me. I wanted to live forever, to realize my dreams and do it in memory of Michael. In many respects, I matured as a result of my friend’s death. I look at the chapters I’ve written so far and laugh at how naïve I was about life. How sickeningly romantic and idealistic I could be. The nonsensical bullshit I used to spout while sitting in pubs, thinking I could change the world after a pint. That funeral enveloped me with cynicism, which would, oddly, make me more practical and help me realize my goals. I became another person on that day, a second Daniel if you will.