The Girl in the Slayer Jacket Page 2
There came the push of people around her, her eyes moving across the stage and amidst the audience, searching for friendly faces, the rattle of that familiar brand of hardcore from the support band on stage, each verse punctuated with diatribes directed by the singer in the direction of the bass player, sharp words that the latter shrugged off with a laugh but somewhat indicated things might not be going very well for the band.
Not bad, she thought, trying to move through the crowd, just not anything to write home about, and, besides, she had been listening to so much bleaker fare recently than the choppy rattle of the band’s guitar and the bark of the singer as he patrolled the floor, leaving her cold.
It was just as well. She couldn’t dance, at least not well, and even if the rattle of that hardcore was something she could have danced to, she hadn’t been able to dance when she was younger and now that she was older, she certainly did not believe she had improved.
This was her life, she thought suddenly, looking aimlessly about for Rosie, scanning the crowd for someone, anyone familiar, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone she would not admit she was looking for; this was her life, pushed about in a New Cross pub by people older than her, struck suddenly by how young the band on stage were, like wayward children, like Peter Pan’s Lost Boys up there on stage with their torn clothes and their dishevelled dreads, the discussion between the bassist and the singer escalating, until, at last, the singer decided he had reached his limit, and walked from the stage barefoot in search of food or alcohol or both. The band continued without him, grunting into the microphone in his absence.
Once, there had been someone else, once she would not have been alone at places like this. They would both run around like crazy and go to all these kinds of events, hand in hand. With sudden sadness, she remembered the touch of him, the feel of his arms about her, and she was suddenly cold, suddenly saddened by the loss, remembering how they had been so close in the recent past, remembering him as he had been when they had been at uni. In the end, she was incapable of changing, she thought. She couldn’t be the person he expected, couldn’t be the person that she expected. So, she ended up here, crushed amongst the crowd in a pub in New Cross, desperately looking around for someone she knew, someone she would like to know.
They had been undefeated for a while; they were on fire with all their silly passions, their shared romance with the world we weren’t a part of. Hand in hand. Running around like crazy. Changing the world.
The song finished, there came a round of polite applause. She looked out over the shifting crowd as they drifted in and out, congregating outside the pub and the adjoining hostel, a young girl with bare feet and pink hair, a massive camo jacket, tattered and worn, exchanging a handful of words with the drummer from a band she faintly remembered having seen once or twice. She looked so young, Madeline thought, and briefly, she wondered what it must be like to have grown up in those crust punk collective communes, she wondered what Tel Aviv was like for people so outside of everything, and she wondered how different they were as Jews, their experiences contrasting; she wondered if they had a way back, if they gave up the manner of their dress, the kind of music they made, would they readily be pronounced orthodox?
She felt a sense of bittersweet sadness that there was no chance of such acceptance for weird half-Jews like herself. She smiled sadly, cautiously at the girl with the pink hair.
Over here they called dry ice card ice.
* * * *
She stifled a yawn, leant back and waited, taking in the patented village pub appeal of the Holly Bush in Hampstead, where the staff of her place of employment had gathered for Christmas drinks, and looked about for anyone she might recognise, a sea of people in paper hats, reading aloud poorly printed jokes from crackers as endless indivisible renditions of past Christmas number ones filled the air around her, lingering somewhere atop the sedimentary layer of conversational chatter and the scent of mulled wine.
No one made a fuss if you were out every night in a row for a week when it was Christmas, Madeline thought sourly, a drink before her on the table as she half-listened to something she was being told, a story maybe, about someone or other’s boyfriend and the wrong sort of Christmas present. No one made a fuss if you were out every night as long as there was something like Christmas to justify it. It couldn’t just be that most of the things you were interested in happened to take place in pubs, it couldn’t be that the idea of seeing a band and not drinking felt a little weird to her; it couldn’t be social convention or anything like that, it had to be Christmas. That was the excuse, the only excuse that was acceptable during such a time.
Someone, again probably Rosie, had mentioned something about queer, sober get-togethers, possibly at DIY Space all the way across the river and over in Peckham—an area even more arduous to get to than New Cross—but that wasn’t her thing, nor had she ever considered terms such as ‘queer’ to apply to her; she was bisexual, sure, but wasn’t everyone bisexual, that’s what they said, right? It was natural. Like those monkeys, those bonobo monkeys on that island, wherever that was. She resisted the urge to fish her phone out of her pocket and look it up on Wikipedia, feeling that, if she did so whilst this story about someone or other’s boyfriend was being related, it might be perceived as impolite. But seriously, she thought, if she lived to be a hundred and never heard another story about someone or other’s boyfriend, it would be too soon.
“Boyfriend not here?” a voice asked calmly at her side.
She turned sharply, those stories of other people’s boyfriends now eerily silent, no matter how much she might suddenly have wanted to hear them in lieu of the confrontation about to take place. Callum stood awkwardly by the table, hands in pockets, a wry smile on his lips, the kind of smile that made him look younger than he was, that made him look less than his actual age.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to sound defensive, trying to sound displeased—and part of her was displeased, it was too soon to be doing this, too soon to be dealing with this.
He shrugged.
“Was in the area,” he muttered, as if even he did not believe this, “and, you know, it’s Christmas.”
She affirmed her disbelief in such seasonal excuses with a four-letter word, her eyes narrowing as she regarded him, a shock of hair the colour of sand, bushy eyebrows, two days’ worth of stubble, the hair going salt and pepper black and white along the jawline, and she was suddenly aware of the vastness of the distance between them, both in terms of experience and desire.
She looked away, looked anywhere but at him, looking straight down at her half-empty glass.
“Buy you another?” he gestured.
She did not look up.
“Piss off, Callum,” she murmured.
Again, he shrugged.
“Just trying to friendly.”
She kept her attention laser focused upon the half-empty glass before her, the weeping ice cubes dissolving into water, the viscous coke, the pitiful whiskey residue at the bottom.
“Piss off, Callum,” she repeated.
Another shrug.
“Just thought, you know, it’s Christmas.”
Sharply, suddenly, she looked up.
“We’re not friends,” she answered simply.
Yet another shrug, his expression casual, his eyes hurt.
“Yeah, well, I know that and all, just thought, you know, just thought…”
His voice trailed off.
What had he thought, she wondered, what had been going through his head for him to think that this was a good idea? There was a rule, a rule she personally swore by; you don’t try and make friends with your ex. Whatever happened, however good you once were, you don’t try and make friends with people you used to sleep with. It was simple, really.
“We don’t have anything to say to each other,” she said, maybe a little more sharply than she had intended.
A shrug, as if this was now a new nervous tic, as if it was something that he h
ad contracted in her absence, as if it was a natural development that followed infidelity.
“Yeah, well,” he said softly, “it’s Christmas and everything.”
She shook her head.
“We don’t have anything to say to each other.”
There was a moment’s silence in which it looked like he suppressed a shrug.
“Well, I’ll be off then, I guess,” he said at last.
She did not reply.
With an angry sigh, he straightened up.
“Yeah, Merry Christmas and everything, Mads,” he snapped as he stalked away.
She watched him go.
Why was she the bad guy here?
* * * *
She stood awkwardly in the doorway, smart heels, a simple green dress and her overly familiar jacket, faux leather and decorated in patches. She had gone to the effort of wearing a Christmas hat, although, standing there, it felt as if she shouldn’t really have bothered.
Six years, she thought. Six years since she had seen her father, and, here he was, older but not wiser, his Christmas jumper decorated with snowmen and reindeer, the candles of the menorah unlit upon the mantelpiece.
It wasn’t any of her business, she told herself, as she was rushed into the house on a wave of enthusiasm and festive greetings, the music playing softly from speakers, the dogs circling the room with wagging tails beneath the glow of the television set, and her younger brother brash and excited at the sudden reunion, the gathering of them all beneath the same roof for the first time in—
Six years, she thought again, smiling warmly at each and every festive sentiment, standing before her father and just not knowing what to say, not knowing how to say what she felt she should say. Things were different now, she told herself, she wasn’t the same girl from Bearsden, and yet, in that place, her younger brother’s car moving down the silent, lonely streets as he ferried her towards the old house, in that place, crossing the threshold of the house, seeing her father there after all this time, she was exactly the person she had always known herself to be, exactly the person she had tried so hard to forget. At once, everything was washed away, and she was a child, her mother rushing to embrace her, the dogs howling in excitement, her presentation before her grandfather in his wheelchair, his expression making it clear that he had no idea who she was or why she was there.
The faint aroma of food filled the house, the continual sound of carols and hymns and old men crooning out songs that she did not know the words to but recognised the tune of, and Madeline Calohan stood alone, waiting for her father to say something of meaning to her, to ask about her life, as her brother or his girlfriend passed, handing her a succession of different drinks to try, and the old man stood there in his Christmas jumper decorated with snowmen and reindeer, their brief conversation revolving around stupid things, little things, things of no importance.
Ask how I am, she wanted to scream, ask me what happened, ask me how I feel.
“How’s work?” he asked instead.
She shrugged in a non-committal manner.
“Just waiting to get fired,” she replied.
He nodded slowly, as if such was a reasonable concern.
“My work won’t let me go,” he said by contrast, “they keep saying one more lecture and that’s it.”
She nodded slowly.
“Oh, right.”
He had this story he liked to tell people, this notion that he was a lecturer for some online university and that it was his duty to inform his students of the majesty of the ocean’s life, help them understand the fragile ecosystem beneath the waves. Maybe something like it was true, she thought, but she had a hard time accepting the notion that her father, with little to no education himself, had suddenly been placed in charge of the education of others.
“How is your cat?” he asked, saving her from having to discuss the merits of his possible career any further.
“She’s fine,” Madeline answered hastily, more defensively than maybe was necessary. “She’s getting a bit older, but she’s okay.”
“Charlie was eighteen before he passed away,” he said, and she remembered the old family cat fondly. My cat, her brother said later, with indignity, was not eighteen when he died.
The images of the television, sound drowned out by the constant festive music from speakers communicating unseen with her brother’s girlfriend’s phone, continued to decorate the room with light. She glanced up at the menorah for a moment.
“You can have it,” her father said abruptly.
She turned to look at him.
“I can’t take that,” she said, somewhat alarmed.
He shrugged.
“If you don’t, I’ll just throw it away.”
She was silent, uncertain as to what she should say. Was he saying this because he thought she was more religious than she was, or was this a declaration of nihilism, of the fact that the old ways, ways he had told her were once so important, were in fact just so much hokum and bunkum, stories that no longer held any importance for him.
She felt a pang of guilt, a pang of sadness, she felt like she had felt when she had been a kid, when he had first tried to walk out. She felt let down.
“Thank you, Dad,” she said softly, inclining her head gently, “that’s very kind of you.”
At dinner, her plate filled with vegetables she would not have considered eating at any other time of year, they spoke of all of the wonder of the year, of the excitement of having her back for Christmas, of this being their first family Christmas in so long, and she sat there and felt like a fraud, a sham, wondering idly what it was that others were doing this time of year, wondering if it was just she who felt this way, if it was just she who carried with her this ridiculous weight, dressed up like someone she was not, her expression uncertain around people she had known all her life.
Beneath the table, she glanced frequently at the screen of her phone, watching the details of other Christmases unfold in the dim glow of platforms she had promised herself she would no longer post to, no longer update for fear of their predatory and misleading privacy policies. She saw photos of Rosie and her girlfriend in matching Christmas jumpers beneath the mistletoe of their perennially untidy flat in West Hampstead, she glowered at an image of Callum with some girl she did not know posted on Christmas Eve, and, at the very last, she felt her heart yearn at the sight of Agatha, lost somewhere in Poland, cheeks flushed red, dressed smartly and grinning cheekily.
Angrily, she turned her phone off, focusing intently on the Brussels sprouts and parsnip swimming in gravy before her, and she felt stupid, felt absurd, felt her cheeks burning simply from the sight of that one picture. It wasn’t as if she even liked her, she thought, she was an arse, she was full of herself, she was the last person Madeline wanted in her life—and yet here she was, sitting down at a table a million miles away, feeling awkward and jealous that she wasn’t there, that she hadn’t been here in so long.
“Seeing anyone, Mads?” her brother asked with a smirk, as if reading her expression.
She squirmed in her uncomfortable wooden chair, the same chairs that had not changed since her childhood.
“Not right now,” she answered awkwardly.
“London’s a big place though, right?” he continued. “You must have met someone.”
“Not right now,” she repeated, more forcefully this time.
He nodded.
“Sure someone will turn up though.”
In reply, she returned the nod.
“Yeah,” she murmured, “maybe. Not really looking.”
Grinning, he lifted his glass.
“Anyone’s better than that Callum prat though, right?”
Her cheeks flushed red, Madeline Calohan focused intently on her plate of Brussels sprouts and parsnips.
“Yeah,” she murmured in assent, “anyone’s better than him.”
* * * *
That year had been a tumultuous one for Madeline Calohan. In mint green and black, that o
ld faun at her back, she stood behind the till, presiding over an empty coffee shop, watching the faintest trickle of people pass beyond the glass doors.
The shop was silent, still bedecked in the remembrance of Christmas, the tinsel and seasonal promotions still valid expressions of the shop’s identity even though, in that weird window between Christmas and New Year, there was absolutely no interest in engaging with the past festivities of a few days ago; in that space between the 26th and 31st December, Christmas was dead, buried, best forgotten, everyone desperate to put away all the things they had professed to cherish about the season for fear that remembering such things would make them look at their everyday lives and realise how empty they were.
The news had rattled on endlessly about how Boxing Day sales had been poorer than in years, and men and women within the screen, clutching their microphones tight, had proclaimed this to be a symptom of the poor weather, of the increasing significance of Black Friday sales; none of them took into account the fact that no one had any money anymore.
She sighed and leant back, looking up at the ceiling, the sparse decorations mandated by head office that would soon need to be removed. She felt restless, felt let down by the non-event of going home, of coming back, of seeing people she had not seen in years and learning that the distance that had grown up between them was now too vast to cross. She tried not to think of her father, tried not to remember him as he had been on Christmas Day, tried instead to conjure up some better, kinder memory, some recollection from when he was not as wounded as he now seemed—some moment for which she would not feel bitterly responsible for, would not feel culpable for.
She thought again of the unlit menorah, thought of the spray paint that had daubed Hampstead and Belsize Park several days after Christmas, the poorly drawn stars, the letters 9/11 beneath, the suggestion being that Jews had been somehow culpable for what had happened in New York on that day, and she felt sick, felt angry, and helpless, stupid and lost, scared of the direction they were all crawling towards, scared of what would happen in the future.