Weightless (8 page)

Sometimes the life you walk away from
doesn’t let you walk away

Prologue

‘Are you in love with me?’ I asked again as
the appetizing comfort of our usual Friday night takeaway turned
sour in my mouth.

The question hung between us. He laughed, a
short burst, as if diffusing dust that clouded his view. Diffusing
the question.

‘I mean it, Mattias. Are you?’ I felt
sick.

‘Of course I love you,’ he said from his end
of the sofa. He could have reached me if he’d put his hand out.
‘Why would you even ask that?’

I hadn’t, not really. I’d only mimicked the
on-screen heroine who filled our living room with romcom angst. A
life-altering question, and I’d nicked it as I absentmindedly
helped myself to more chicken korma.

‘I didn’t ask if you love me,’ I said. ‘I
asked if you’re in love with me.’

Now that the genie had emerged from the
bottle, the little bugger refused to be stuffed back in. I wondered
if he could hear my heart thudding. On the TV the hero and heroine
prattled on, rediscovering their true feelings for one another.
Scene fade, musical crescendo. My films always had happy
endings.

‘It’s a silly question, B., after ten years
together. That feeling doesn’t last beyond the first flush of a
relationship.’ He smiled. It was a beautiful smile, easy and open.
‘You know I love you.’

‘But were you?’ I pushed. ‘At the beginning?
In love
with me?’ My tummy was churning in the uncharted
waters. I didn’t like the look of the horizon.

‘I don’t remember,’ he said, not smiling
anymore.

The wind picked up and my boat rocked.
Wouldn’t you remember a thing like being in love? I knew I
would.

But I didn’t. Not once in all our years
together did I remember having those feelings that people describe.
Never as we sat on the sofa watching films, never when I looked at
him over the table at a wedding, not once when anticipating his
return from a weekend away. Not even when he said ‘I love you’. And
not on that rainy October night, as I realized what the consequence
of such an absence of feeling must be. ‘I’m not in love with you
either,’ I said, tears forming. ‘I wasn’t ever, either.’

He finally reached over and gathered me to
him. ‘Come here.’ He began stroking my hair. ‘I’m sorry. I do love
you. I always have.’

‘I know. I love you too.’

He hesitated, started to say something, fell
silent. Then, ‘It’s not the same thing, is it?’

He searched my face, seeing my answer there.
I said it out loud anyway. ‘No.’

‘Isn’t it enough, though?’

‘I thought it was. But now I don’t
know.’

‘You don’t know? Or you don’t think it
is?’

I knew our future hinged on my words. ‘I
don’t think it is.’

The comfortable, nice life I had with this
perfectly lovely man wasn’t enough. Not for me. I struggled with
the idea that this realization had come out of the blue. Didn’t I
know it before? A film cannot cause the end of a decade-long
relationship. It just poured water into the cracks that, when the
temperature plunged and the ice formed, split it apart. There was
no going back.

Chapter 1

… Three months later

‘Can I suck you?’ A balding man shouted from
just in front of the stage.

Suck this, I wanted to tell him, smiling
instead through the last lines of the song. It was official: my
musical aspirations were a joke. Heckle-worthy. I’d have checked my
watch to see how much more humiliation my two hundred quid fee
would buy the audience, but it was trapped beneath the red
Lycra.

My heart had shuddered when the organizer
asked me to front the band at their company conference. Corporate
gigs were crosses to be borne by freshies, not seasoned veterans.
But then she mentioned that it was a ‘theme’ party (vampires) and
that I might need to dress for the part. A step backwards maybe,
but I could
so
do vampire. Sexy black dress, red shoes and
lipstick. Perhaps a single crimson droplet to suggest I’d been a
bit naughty.

I looked naughty, all right. I had a meter
of red spongy cloth between my legs, as if I’d had an enormous
bowel movement in a very large, ill-fitting nappy. I was meant to
be a drop of blood. I looked like a bloody pear. That didn’t mean,
bloody hell, I looked like a pear. It meant I looked like a piece
of fruit that was bleeding to death.

The only saving grace was that most of the
crowd was too drunk to focus beyond their drinks. I’d be nothing
but a fuzzy memory by morning. ‘Thank you very much. We’ll take a
break now, and be back in about half an hour.’ I waddled off the
stage.

I did once have a singing career of sorts,
back in Chicago. What big plans I had, in a city where music venues
were more common than honest politicians (by a wide margin).
Hundreds of hopefuls plied their trade to live audiences every
week. In that atmosphere, it was no wonder we all thought we could
be singing legends. And the fact that my mum actually
was
a
bit of a singing legend just fanned my creative fire. I even had a
manager to book my gigs. I sang as often as my day job allowed, and
my day job kept me from living in my parents’ spare room. Not that
they’d have minded. They knew what it was like trying to make it in
music.

My foot must have slipped off the gas pedal
when I came to London. I told myself it was the move, though after
a decade, that was a bit like blaming the baby weight on your
nine-year-old.

The band I was fronting was as delighted by
our gig as I was. The bassist used every break to argue into his
phone with increasing agitation. The pianist too, was hissing down
the phone at her husband, telling him what a lazy so-and-so he was,
as the clarinet/sax player stared morosely into his umpteenth
whisky of the night. We were totally rock and roll.

My phone bzzzzd with a text from within the
costume’s depths.

Hope your night is going well
.
Sending you good vibes. xx

I smiled before I could stop myself.
Mattias. That man was ten times more attentive now than he’d ever
been when we were together. Funny how a break-up sharpens a man’s
game.

‘Ready?’ The piano player asked a little
while later as a rowdy group of face-painted businessmen pounded
shots beside us. ‘We may as well play some more. It beats sitting
here.’

‘Maybe music will soothe the savage
beast.’

She looked around. ‘Not these beasts.’

Mattias called just as I emerged from the
Tube near my flat. Juggling my overstuffed bag, my phone, my gloves
and my broken umbrella against the blustery wet January night
didn’t lighten my mood.

‘Hello, darling,’ he said, his smile buoying
his voice. ‘How was the gig?’

‘Mattias, please, I’ve asked you not to call
me that. The gig was exactly like every other corporate gig I’ve
done. I don’t know why I keep putting myself through this.’ At
least I didn’t have to wear the costume home.

‘You do it because you want to be
successful. You’ll get there. It just takes time.’

‘How much time? Jesus, it’s been almost
twenty years. When does it get to be my turn? I’m sorry, ignore me.
I’m just tired. How are you?’

‘Better for hearing you. I’m actually a bit
tired myself. Can I call you tomorrow?’

‘It’s fine, you don’t need to call
back.’

‘It’s just that I’m tired, B.’

‘I meant– Okay, call if you like.’

I opened the front door to find Frederick
sitting in his favorite chair, rhythmically flashing his
boxer-covered bollocks at me. His devotion to his thigh-master was
admirable, if bewildering. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon,’ he
said.

‘It’s midnight. And please, must you do that
in the living room?’ My flatmate was inappropriate in public. He
could be positively feral at home.

‘Sorry, sweetheart, must keep fit. My lovers
expect coconut-cracking thighs. Here, feel.’

‘No, thanks. Why don’t you run or lift
weights or something like a regular man? You know that only girls
ever use the thigh machine in the gym, right?’

‘Untrue. All the men in my gym use it.’

‘Your gym is gay, Frederick.’

‘Don’t remind me. If only I’d known that
when I joined.’ He rolled his eyes like he couldn’t believe his
silly old bad luck. His gym was called Paris. As in Gay Payree.
‘Anyway, why back so early, love? I thought the gig would go late
into the night.’

‘Luckily not. I’m exhausted.’ I flopped on
the sofa. ‘I don’t know how much more humiliation I can take.’

‘It couldn’t have been that bad.’

I showed him the photo one of the band
members took with my phone.

‘Eesh. You look like an apple.’

‘Thank you very much.’

‘Was the crowd nice at least? Any
studs?’

‘Did you say duds?’

‘You know, B., that acerbic tongue will do
you no favors in the romance stakes. A man wants a soft girl, not
one dripping with acid.’

‘Am I really taking dating advice from you?
And I’m not dripping with anything.’

‘You may feast at the master’s table. And
maybe that’s your problem. No dripping. How long has it been?’

‘None of your business.’ Six months and two
days, or exactly since Mattias’ and my ten-year anniversary. Given
that that was almost three months before we broke up, perhaps alarm
bells should have rung a bit sooner.

‘I thought so. Speaking of the noble Swede,
he called earlier. He wants you to call him.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But you won’t, right? We agreed. It’s not
healthy.’

‘I know we did, but he’s really having a
hard time. There’s nothing going on between us. We just talk.’

‘And that’s not healthy! You’ve broken up.
You’re not even getting sex out of the deal. You need to move on.
At this rate, I fear for you. In fact, just to show how much I
care, I’d be willing to help. You say the word, kitten, and I’ll
end your dry spell.’

‘That’s very kind of you, thanks, but I’m
not really your type. What with no penis and all.’

‘I do wish you’d stop with that. I’m as
straight as George Bush.’

‘Okay, I believe you.’ He was more like
George Michael.

My remarks might have sounded harsh (or
homophobic), but actually Frederick and I got on quite well. In
fact, this
was
me tempering my disbelief that he had any
interest in a vagina. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff he
came out with. He once walked gingerly into the flat because he’d
been waxed – back, sack and crack. He became gayer by the day. I
just wished he’d be himself instead of delivering Clint Eastwood’s
lines in high camp.

It was easy to forget that ours was only a
months-long friendship. Though thrown together in the great London
housing lottery, we were shaping up to be lifetime friends. He was
a godsend when I had to find a flat, a real homo with a heart of
gold, my fairy godmother.

After I’d had ‘the talk’ with Mattias, our
flat developed a bit of an undertone. Oh, we stayed civil in the
weeks it took to finally realize that the patient couldn’t be
resuscitated. We even planned dates, something we hadn’t done in a
long time. But the fear that the condition was terminal gave those
evenings an air of desperation. We tried too hard to be jolly,
wanting to believe we’d found a cure. It was no use. We couldn’t
resurrect feelings that were never there in the first place.
Forcing ourselves to try only widened the chasm between what we
felt and what we wanted to feel. Even so, I was completely sick to
my stomach when we finally agreed it would be most humane to stop
life support. It became real then, when I had to contemplate
change-of-address cards.

Of course I didn’t think that quitting a
decade-long relationship would simply mean moving into the second
bedroom, splitting the bills and the occasional pizza. By the time
we were finished we’d rubbed our conversation raw. It was painful
to the touch and I knew I’d have to leave. But I knew it like one
knows one’s body will eventually get old. It’s only a theoretical
inevitability until the first incontinent sneeze. Then it hits
home.

I was in a bit of a daze when I met Fred to
see his flat. As I trailed after him through the rooms, he recited
the usual litany of rental requirements. They were the things you
didn’t worry about when living with your boyfriend, like sharing
fridge shelves and dedicated cupboards, telephone tallies and
scheduled morning bathroom time. I was about to relearn how to be a
flatmate.

When he asked me what my situation was I
burst into tears. I could have made Mattias move out, but as the
instigator of our break up, it seemed unfair to make him homeless
as well. Instead I took the high road, and crashed head-on into the
barrier when the reality of what I’d done bubbled up as I
hyperventilated my ‘situation’. A wild-eyed woman in a trouser
suit, I must have scared the hell out of poor Fred. But instead of
shuffling me towards the door he strode over, said, ‘You did the
right thing, girlfriend’ and squeezed me till I could breathe
again. I moved in at the weekend.