2000 - Thirtynothing Page 11

  ‘We can go inside if you’d like.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘don’t worry. I’ll get used to it.’ She started ferreting around inside her duffel bag as she talked and brought out a packet of Silk Cut and a box of matches. Dig pretended to collapse. ‘No!’ he exclaimed, ‘surely not. Not you! Not Nadine Kite! You can’t smoke. It’s not natural!’

  She offered the packet to him, and lit them both up.

  ‘Shit, Deen. You are the last person in the whole world I would ever have expected to smoke. How long…I mean…when did all this start?’ He pointed at her mouth.

  ‘About a week after I started at St Julian’s,’ she said, exhaling. ‘You were treated like a freak there if you didn’t smoke. It was actively encouraged, in fact.’

  ‘But I thought that St Julian’s was supposed to be really old–fashioned and tough?’

  ‘Myth,’ she said, ‘complete myth. That’s what they want people to think, otherwise they’d only get people applying who wanted to doss around for two years.’

  ‘So it was good?’

  ‘It was the best. I’ve just had the best two years of my life.’ She told him all about the smoky common-room and the flexible timetables, the ‘Call-me-Tony’ teachers and the non-existent dress codes.

  They discussed Holloway Tech, where Dig had taken his A Levels and which sounded like quite a laugh. He’d got fairly good grades but he’d already decided that he didn’t want to go to university. He’d spent the summer doing unpaid work experience for a record company in Soho and now they’d offered him a permanent job as office assistant, starting on Monday.

  They talked about their families—his parents were fine and so was his little sister, who’d just started at primary school; her parents were fine, too, and her little brother had just got ten ‘A’ grades in his O Levels and was currently held on a par with Jesus Christ in the Kite household.

  ‘So,’ said Nadine, finally, ‘you were going to tell me about Delilah? About what happened with you and Delilah?’

  ‘Yeah. Right.’ Dig dropped the end of his cigarette on to the ground and crushed it with the heel of his moccasin. ‘I dunno, it was really weird. Things probably had got a bit stuck in a rut towards the end—neither of us had any money so we just used to stay in at mine most of the time. It all got a bit routine after we left school. She started doing this secretarial course, but she dropped out after the first couple of weeks because she didn’t like the teacher, or something, then she started on some YOP scheme, working in a florist’s and she hated that, too. So in the end she just got some shitty weekend job in a chemist, cash in hand, and that created a bit of friction because I had all this college work to worry about and I was making all these new friends, and she was just stuck at home all day with her old hag of a mother.’

  ‘Oh!’ exclaimed Nadine, remembering her one unpleasant encounter with Delilah’s mother years earlier. ‘You met her mother?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dig grimaced. ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘The devil’s daughter.’ He shuddered. ‘I think she was a bit unbalanced, a bit schizo. Delilah never wanted me to go to her house—she hated it there, spent more time at mine. So yeah, things were a bit tense, but I thought once I’d finished my A Levels I’d get a job, work hard, get promoted and then I’d be able to afford a flat, somewhere for us to live together. You know, I wanted Delilah to be a lady of leisure, I wanted to look after her. I really thought we were going to be together for ever. I didn’t think there was anything we couldn’t work out.

  ‘We even planned to get engaged on her eighteenth, we talked about where we’d live.

  ‘But the night after her birthday I came home from college and Delilah didn’t turn up. I phoned her at her mum’s and one of her brothers answered the phone and said she wasn’t there, he hadn’t seen her since that morning, but that she’d left with a big bag and there’d been a lot of shouting and his mum was really angry with her.

  ‘So all night, and the next and the next, I waited for her and I phoned her and nobody knew where she was and nobody seemed to give a shit…I mean, her family, they were just all so…fucked. I nearly went to the police. But then I thought of something. Wherever she was, she’d need money. And she was eighteen now, she could sign on, and I knew she would—she’d been talking about it for two years—so I bunked off college for a week and I hid behind a tree outside the DHSS, every day. She turned up on the Friday morning. She looked awful. Really awful. I almost didn’t recognize her. I ran up to her and I grabbed her, and d’you know what? She couldn’t even look me in the eye. It was like she was ashamed or something.

  ‘Anyway. In the end, she came back to my house. She stayed for a couple of weeks but she was so miserable—she didn’t want to go out, she didn’t want to watch telly, she didn’t want to have sex. I tried getting her to talk but she just kept saying that she was fine, nothing was wrong.

  ‘Then one day I got back from college and she wasn’t there. I asked my mum where she’d gone and she told me she’d popped out to get a paper. I knew instantly that something was wrong—Delilah would never pop out to get a paper. So I ran up to my room and all her stuff had gone. She’d left a note.’

  ‘What did it say?’ asked Nadine.

  ‘Oh, exactly what I’d been expecting really. Sorry to hurt you but I can’t be with you any more. It’s not that I don’t love you, I will always love you. But I have to go. It’s over. Please don’t try to contact me. Please forget about me.’

  ‘I went round to her mum’s place, demanded to know where Delilah was. But she just said, “I don’t know no one called Delilah. I ain’t got no daughter.” And then she slammed the door in my face. Scary bitch.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Dig shrugged. ‘Then just sort of trying to get over her, I suppose. Just getting on with things. Concentrating on my college work, revising, going to gigs.’

  ‘You haven’t seen her since?’

  Dig shook his head glumly.

  ‘Oh Dig,’ said Nadine, putting on her best sympathetic voice, while thinking ‘Good, I’m glad, I hated that girl.’ ‘You poor, poor thing. How are you?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, brightening, ‘I’m fine, I’m cool. I really am. It was bad for a while—very bad. But this work experience, it’s turned my life around. I know what I want now. I’ve got a direction in my life and that really helps.’

  ‘So…have you started seeing anyone else, you know…since?’

  Dig shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘I’ve been too busy, what with my A Levels and work experience and everything. Nah.’ He breathed in, looked up at Nadine. ‘What about you? You…seeing anyone?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ She shook her head. ‘No.’

  A smile tickled Dig’s lips.

  ‘What?’ smirked Nadine.

  ‘Oh. Nothing,’ he grinned.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Nothing!’ he repeated, light-heartedly. ‘Just wondering if you’d—you know—have you…lost it, yet?’

  ‘It?’

  ‘Yes. It. You know!’

  Nadine blushed crimson. She’d never talked about sex with Dig before. ‘Oh,’ she muttered, ‘right. That. No. Not yet.’

  Dig nodded knowingly and took a swig of his beer, a smile still lingering on his face.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘I’m only eighteen you know,’ she smarted.

  ‘Good,’ smiled Dig infuriatingly, ‘fine. That’s just great.’

  ‘I’m waiting,’ she said, getting more indignant by the minute. ‘It’s just not something I want to rush into, that’s all. I want to wait until I’m ready, and if I have to wait another ten years, then I will.’

  ‘Deen. Calm down, will you! I think you’re right. I think you’re absolutely right.’

  ‘Good,’ said Nadine firmly, squirming slightly.

  They fell silent for a second and sipped from their pints. Nadine looked up and found Dig staring at her
intently. She looked away, embarrassed.

  ‘That place suited you,’ he commented, obscurely, scrutinizing her face as he spoke.

  ‘What place?’

  ‘That St Julian’s.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nadine replied coyly.

  ‘You just seem so…different. You look so…so…’ A blush spread across Dig’s face as he searched for a word. ‘You look so…’

  ‘Ye-es?’ joked Nadine, tapping her fingernails up and down against the table-top.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Deen, you look…so fucking gorgeous.’ Dig’s eyes seemed to bulge slightly as he said this and his blush went up a few gears from pale pink to throbbing purple.

  Nadine snorted and burst into giggles, holding her cheeks in her hands. ‘Oh,’ she said finally, ‘thank you!’ Her blush matched his now, and the two of them sat side by side like a pair of matchsticks, giggling awkwardly. They stopped laughing every now and then and looked up at each other’s crimson faces and started giggling afresh.

  ‘Oh God—I am so embarrassed,’ said Dig, putting his head in his hands. ‘I can’t believe I just said that to you! To you! Nadine. My old mate, Deen!’

  ‘Neither can I!’ laughed Nadine. ‘In fact, I’m so embarrassed that I’m going to have to go to the toilet!’

  Nadine was still smiling by the time she’d walked from the beer garden, through the bar and to the toilets. She was still smiling as she peed and she was still smiling when she regarded herself in the mirror while she washed her hands. This was so weird. Seeing Dig again after so long, sitting in a pub with him like a grown-up, drinking and smoking and chatting like adults. And that, just now, that compliment. That was bizarre. Dig thought she was gorgeous. And the way he’d said it—it reminded her of something. It reminded her of a day years ago at the Holy T, a summer’s day when Dig had first set eyes on Delilah Lillie and he’d said that she looked just like Leslie Ash in Quadrophenia. And then he’d said, ‘Oh my God, she is absolutely beautiful,’ and she’d known then that she’d lost him. He’d used exactly the same tone of voice just then, when he told her that she was gorgeous—definitely—exactly the same.

  A shudder ran down her spine.

  They stayed in the pub until closing time, until a chill breeze had started blowing across their table and Dig had put one arm around Nadine’s shoulders to stop her shivering.

  His arm stayed there, on her shoulder, as they walked home, and Nadine wondered whether or not she liked it being there. What did it mean? Was she supposed to collude by placing her arm around his waist? Was it just a casual gesture, an act of affection? Or was it a prelude to something altogether unthinkable? After all those years of indifference and disregard, was Dig Ryan suddenly and unexpectedly going to do what she’d wanted for so long? Was he going to want her?

  Nadine tried to put these exciting but unsettling thoughts to the back of her mind as they wandered slowly through the Saturday-night mayhem of Camden Town. The streets were overrun with litter and people and pungent with the aroma of falafel and spicy sausages being fried up for the closing-time crowds. Dig and Nadine picked their way over old food containers and empty Coke cans and ignored the urgent whisperings of the dealers outside Camden Town Tube station as they passed.

  But what if something were to happen? What then? It would be the worst timing imaginable. Tomorrow was her last day in London. On Monday she was going to Manchester, to start a new life, to become a new person. Did she really want to start something here that would tie her to the past, tie her to London? Instead of spending her weekends getting to know Manchester, making friends, concentrating on her photography, she would be on trains, constantly whizzing up and down between Manchester Piccadilly and Euston, living out of a holdall, missing someone, wanting to be somewhere else.

  That wasn’t what she wanted.

  But then, wasn’t this—Dig, her, together, no Delilah, just the two of them—wasn’t this what she had always, always wanted?

  She looked up towards Dig. He was animated, chatting away about his plans for world domination in the music business, how he was going to give himself a year to eighteen months, tops, as an office assistant at Electrogram Records before he would start pushing his way forwards into the A&R department. A year or two there and then he would move sideways to a smaller label where he could be a big fish in a small pond, make an impact. It would be another year or so before he would discover the greatest guitar band in the world, make his name, make a packet and then—his master plan: Dig-It Records, his own label, a millionaire by the time he was twenty-five. Sorted. In the bag. No problem.

  He genuinely believed every word he was saying: it was going to happen, there was no doubt in his mind about that—his career progression, Dig-It Records, early retirement. All of it.

  He was, Nadine realized, as full of ambition and plans for the future as she was. He had no room in his life for a long-distance love affair, that much was obvious.

  They turned off Kentish Town Road and began the walk down Bartholomew Road towards her parents’ flat. She’d already decided she wouldn’t invite him in. Her parents would make a real fuss and say things like ‘Well, howdy, stranger’ and ‘Long time no see’ and ‘Here’s a blast from the past,’ and he’d have to make small talk with them for ages about what he’d been up to for the past two years and how his parents were, and it was late, too late in the night, for all that, so when they arrived outside her house she stopped at the bottom of the steps to the front door and turned towards him.

  ‘Well,’ she said, shyly, ‘thank you for rescuing me from the horrors of the Holy T reunion. I’ve had a really nice night. It’s been…er…’ She searched for the right words to bring the night to a close without spoiling it but Dig wasn’t really listening. He was anxiously staring into her eyes, his lips open and poised to say something, his body stiff, his fists tightly furled.

  ‘I have to see you again,’ he stated firmly, his mouth hard, his eyes nervous.

  Nadine shot him a look. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘of course…I mean…of course we will…it’s…er…’

  ‘No,’ he growled, ‘I mean I have to see you again. Soon. Tomorrow. What are you doing tomorrow?’ His voice was desperate, he was holding her hands in his, tightly, too tightly.

  Nadine was confused. She didn’t know what to say. She squeezed his hands back and decided. She wanted to see him tomorrow, romance or no romance. She wanted to spend her last day in London with Dig.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, finally, shrugging and smiling goofily, ‘I’m not doing anything tomorrow.’

  Dig smiled. ‘Let’s do something. We’ll do something tomorrow. You and me. Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah,’ smiled Nadine, relief at deferring the tearful farewells lighting up her face and widening her smile, ‘we’ll do something tomorrow.’ Her heart was racing, and a light sweat had broken out on the palms of her hands.

  And then, before she knew what was happening, before she had a chance to decide whether it was what she wanted or not, Dig had wrapped his arms tightly around her shoulders, brought his face down towards hers and kissed her squarely on the lips.

  Nadine was unresponsive for a second or two, her lips firmly glued together, her body tensed. But then the smell of Dig’s flesh under her nose joined forces with the quite spectacular effect his lips were having on her groin and suddenly she relaxed completely into the kiss. Dig’s mouth was soft and gentle, his breath tasted like hers, of beer and cigarettes. His tongue, which was now snaking its way around her teeth and into the crevices of her mouth, was sensual and alive. It was happening—it was finally happening—Dig Ryan was kissing her! She was being kissed by Dig Ryan! She and Dig Ryan were kissing!

  A Golf GTI with a loud engine and acid house music blaring from four open windows passed by and slowed down. ‘Oi—give her one for me!’ shouted a man in a baseball cap, laughing lecherously before screeching off again.

  Dig and Nadine smiled and slowly pulled apart, staring with wonder into each other’s
eyes.

  ‘Well,’ said Nadine, eventually, ‘I’d better get in.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dig, ‘right. OK. Give us a ring when you wake up, yeah? If it’s a nice day we could go for a picnic or something.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nadine nodded enthusiastically. ‘Yeah. That would be really lovely.’

  They exchanged another kiss and another look of wonderment and then Dig turned to leave. Nadine watched him for a while as he sauntered down Bartholomew Road towards Kentish Town Road. He had his hands in his pockets and an awkward, slightly loping walk, as if he wasn’t quite used to having legs yet. A warm feeling flooded Nadine’s heart, a feeling of familiarity and cosiness seasoned with excitement and freshness. That’s Dig Ryan, she thought to herself happily, that’s Dig Ryan walking down my road, having just kissed me so firmly and passionately on the lips and turned all my insides to semolina, that’s him, my soul mate, my dream man, the person I want to wake up with on Saturday mornings on a big pine bed. There he goes…

  She smiled warmly to herself and was just about to turn and go indoors when she saw Dig, at the head of her road and thinking no one was watching him, suddenly break into a hop, skip and a jump, leap on to a garden wall, punch the air with his fist and whoop at the top of his voice before turning the corner and disappearing from view.

  See-Through Dress

  The following morning Nadine knew exactly what she was going to do. She’d been thinking about it all night. What she was going to do was this: enjoy herself. She would go with the flow and let whatever unfolded unfold. She would act as if tomorrow was just any other Monday and not the end of her London life. And then, at the end of the day, when she and Dig came to say goodbye, she would walk away and say nothing about another meeting or discuss what happened next. She would walk away, go home, and forget that any of it had ever happened, forget that she had ever kissed Dig Ryan, forget that he had any feelings for her. And then the following day she and her mother would pack up her car and drive to Manchester and her new life would start, and her September Sunday with Dig Ryan would fade into a distant memory.