Writing: January 2008 Archives
'It's just that it's delicate.' - Damien Rice, Delicate
First the train station, and now the cafe...
'It's been how long?' she says, '3 weeks or so.'
'21 days?' he answers as he picks up his coffee cup. She picks at her food.
'Since?' She crosses her legs, sits tight, back straight, her body tensed.
'Since I first kissed you'.
'Oh.'
Head down in her cup of coffee she hunches her shoulders, avoids his face. The urge to run. Almost as strong as the urge to stay. His left hand, thin wristed, picks at the cuff of his sweater.
'Don't you have anything to say?'
'No, not really,' she says. 'I just never thought it would get this far. I usually run away before it gets this far.'
'Oh.'
'Does it scare you?' she asks, lifting her head for a minute and looking at his face, 'that I usually run?'
'I think,' his hand moves across the table to take hers, 'that it means maybe you don't know what to expect.'
'Now this applies both equally to you and I, the only thing we share is the same sky' - Bell X1, Eve, Apple of My Eye
Kids in the car.
‘Yes mama!’ chiming in unison.
She reverses the car out of its parking. It cuts out twice. Bloody battery. Then they're moving and she turns the radio up. They’re playing a favourite song, but she catches just the end of it. Pity.
‘Are you looking forward to being at the farm, guys?’ she
asks.
She thinks she knows the answer.
The little one is all yes yes yes.
‘Well, they’re all on vacation right now, so you’ll have to
use your charm and make friends with some of the other kids there instead.’
She's nervous of making new friends too. Still everyone wants a new friend, right?
Someone to shoot the shit with, drink overpriced coffee with, look at the people passing by and say 'god, she shouldn't be wearing that!' and then mutually appreciate each other's much better put together look.
Someone to play with.
Then they're there. Get out the car.
‘Careful not to open your door too wide!’ The parking spaces
are very small here.
The farm is idyllic. Typical Dutch for all the tourists, but
still a great place to visit.
Organic goats.
Finally a coffee. Never mind the slight underarm flavour. She can sit in the sun with her book. Watching the world happening.
There's a line of trees surrounding the meadow that holds the farm. In winter it's always cold here. The sun is low and the trees keep it from ever really reaching the playground. In summer, the longer daylight hours trap the sun here and it's a sunbowl. A dusty sunbowl. Full of children.
She looks at her book again. Hmm. Maybe
Lolita was not the best choice to bring to a playground. Good thing she isn’t a
man.
‘Mama!’
‘He hit me! And I don’t want to play with him!’
‘Ok, baby, go and play with that little girl then.’
‘But I don’t want to!’
Defiant and standing between her and her coffee.
She bribes him with sweets (bad mommy) and then when he's gone, she gets back to her book. It's so warm today. She can feel her face start to colour. Her sandal swings from her foot as she tries to immerse herself in the story. Lolita is sunbathing and Humbert Humbert is watching her.
Three pages later.
‘But we can’t go home now. We’ve only been here half an
hour’ she says, annoyed. 'What exactly do you think you will do at home?’
He goes back to play.
Finally, she abandons Nabokov and sits, quietly, watching
the people at play.
Suddenly she feels alone and reflexively
reaches for her mobile phone to call someone, anyone, to sit with her
and talk about nothing.
So it's just Lolita, Humbert Humbert and her.
The one who I lost my virginity to? The one who was dating my girlfriend? The one who I slept with for a year before she found out?'When the feeling's right, I'm gonna stay all night, I'm gonna run to you.' - Bryan Adams, Run to You.
Yes, that one. I think it's time to tell you more.
He's called Jono. Sexy name huh? And he is sexy.
Not over the top sexy like some of the other boys. Blond, a drinker, a smoker. He drinks too much and gets depressed and stubs out cigarettes on his palms. His hair flips forward over his face. He has a way of saying 'Ash?' in this husky, smoke-coloured voice and my knees shake. He has a history. He's a bit of a bad boy. His ex is called Carolyn and I hear they did kinky things but I'm not sure what that means.
He smokes about 40 a day. He's 19. He has a little roll of fat on his tummy, just below the belly button, with little blond hairs on it. The little roll is from all the booze I guess. Not that I really notice. I'm too busy looking into his blue-grey eyes.
He dates Juliet. A tiny framed girl with dark hair and doe-eyes. A goth-chick waiting to happen. Complete contrast to me. Maybe that was the thrill. Or just easy sex, who knows.
The night I lose it is strange. We're in my cousin's room which is outside the house in an outbuilding and we're drinking vodka and cooldrink (like squash if you're English or limonade if you're Dutch). It would be vodka and Coke, but all the Coke is finished. He sits behind me while we listen to music and talk shit.
Bryan Adams is playing. We've got a Bryan Adams thing going on that year. He loves it. Every time he can he blasts the Bryan Adams. Especially Summer of '69 and One Night Love Affair. He tells me that this is my summer of '69. Reckless gets played over and over, and when we're drunk our teenage voices sing along to Heaven.
He drives a pale blue (or is it white?) Anglia with brown leather seats that go all the way back. He rolls it one night driving drunk on a straight road. Everyone laughs.
So we're sitting there on the bed and the room is full of people and then I feel a hand go down the back of my shorts. I keep drinking and I'm all the time I'm thinking. Then I feel him behind me and it's not his hand anymore. My shorts come down at the back and then suddenly I'm not a naive little girl anymore. In a room full of people so quietly. Just a gasp and ...
Then my uncle walks in and the cigarettes go out and the booze gets shuffled under the bed and my shorts are pulled up and the lights go off and there's no time to talk, just 'oh shit, we're not meant to be this drunk'.
Later that night I creep, quiet as a mouse, into his room and we finish it. I feel strange and new and I can't tell anyone.
This is my secret life.
In my secret life I'm fucking him in the car outside nightclubs while Juliet is inside dancing. At parties. In the dark in the street. Outside on the grass in the rain during a thunderstorm. In the pool, in the gazebo. On the couch watching stuffy British TV about lawyers. Does anyone really think we were staying up late at night to watch that? I'm 15!
For a good long while he just stays at my aunt's house, which is where I also live. His house is the other side of town and he works for my uncle so it's easier for him to sleep over.
He drinks too much vodka and falls asleep in the bath. My aunt sends me to knock on the door and wake him up. I can't go in, because this is not my secret life. I stand outside the door and talk to him. He comes out with his towel wrapped around him. I have to pretend I'm shy and I've never seen him naked. He bums smokes from my aunt and walks around in his towel for hours.
A year later I start working and just before my interview we have sex for pretty much the last time. We've been such good friends. It's not really sad when we stop, just strange and unusual.
My secret life had become a secret habit.
In 2007 I go on facebook and I look for him. I want to see if he got fat and old and grey, like everyone else did. I don't know why. He's better left blond and 19 but anyway, instead, I find another boy I slept with back then and we chat and he tells me 'oh, that... everyone knew, even Juliet'.
So much for my secret life.
Tell me, did you ever have a secret life?
Confess, even anonymously if you like.
