1
Felicity
To begin with the shrill tones of the phone seemed like part of my dream, breaking into my sleep like a repetitive and unwelcome soundtrack. Gradually, my mind left the world of the imaginary and I realised it was the dead of night and somebody was calling me.
When I looked at the screen, I wasn’t surprised to see it was Jay.
‘What do you want?’ I slurred into the phone, my head still fuzzy with sleep.
‘Is this Felicity?’
The question cut through my grogginess. It was a woman’s voice – not Jay at all – though she must be using his phone.
‘Who’s asking?’ I said.
‘Felicity, it’s Georgia—’
I groaned inwardly, or maybe outwardly, I wasn’t too sure.
‘You need to come into town,’ she continued, ‘it’s Jay—’
‘What’s he done?’
‘He’s drunk,’ she said. She sounded on the verge of tears. ‘I was trying to get him home but he won’t move. He just keeps asking for you.’ She let a reproachful tone slip into her voice for that last bit and I couldn’t help but smile. She’d always been suspicious of me and Jay. She must be hating this. The idea put me in rather a good mood.
‘Fine,’ I said, doing my best to sound grudging, though in truth I was almost beginning to enjoy myself. ‘Where are you?’
‘In town,’ she said, ‘outside the old cinema—’
‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m coming.’
I didn’t bother getting dressed. I put my coat on over the top of my pyjamas and shoved my bare feet into a pair of trainers. It was only a ten minute walk from our flat into town. You’d be able to see the old cinema quite clearly from the window in our living room in fact, were it not for the row of office blocks across the street. I walked quickly, my hands thrust into my coat pockets, beginning to shiver. This was not the best time of year for Jay to start on his drunken antics.
I heard Jay and Georgia before I saw them. They were arguing. I could hear Georgia’s irritating, reedy voice carrying down the street – berating him for getting so drunk, demanding to know why he wouldn’t go home unless I came to get him.
‘Are you sleeping with her?’ she shouted at him. ‘Because if you are it’s over, Jay. It’s over—’
I rounded the corner and saw them illuminated by the streetlights, just in time to watch Jay cut Georgia off mid sentence by leaning forward and vomiting spectacularly onto the pavement in front of her. His sick splashed all over her tights and pink suede heels and she was so horrified that she was stunned into silence. She simply stared at her legs with her mouth open so that she looked even more stupid than she normally did. Barely a second went by before Jay was sick again, though what came out was mostly clear-ish liquid this time. Georgia stood frozen with disgust, looking from her ruined shoes to Jay’s face as though she simply couldn’t decide what to do with herself. The sight was so funny that I couldn’t help laughing, and the sound finally alerted her to my presence.
‘You,’ she said quietly, as I walked towards her. ‘You!’
Before I knew what was happening she flew at me, catching a fistful of my hair and twisting it in her hand, so I clawed at her face with my nails and she let go.
‘Come on then!’ I shouted at her, as she put her hand up to her cheek. I could see my attack had drawn blood. I gave her a hard shove, and she backed away from me, frightened. In desperation, she looked down at Jay, who was sitting cross-legged on the pavement, face oddly thoughtful as he watched us.
‘Look what she did to me!’ Georgia said to him. ‘Look at my face.’
He did as she asked, and as his eyes rested on the nail marks his mouth twitched a little and he started to laugh.
‘What the… what the hell is wrong with you?’ she demanded. ‘She attacked me!’
‘Go home, Georgia,’ I said.
She spun to face me again, wild and confused. I felt almost sorry for her, but at the same time, she should have seen through Jay long ago. It was painfully obvious to me that his relationship with her had been little more than a kind of sick joke.
There was a moment of silence as she considered what to do. I thought about trying to say something further, but there was no point. Nothing I could say would make things any better. With one final glance at Jay she began to walk away. ‘Fine,’ she mumbled, brushing past me with deliberate roughness. ‘You’re welcome to him.’
I watched her for a while as she stumbled along, unsteady in her ridiculous pink heels, until she rounded the corner and was gone.
***
‘You proud of yourself?’ I asked Jay. He was still sitting on the pavement, swaying slightly, as though to a tune only he could hear. His eyes were dull, and there was sick crusted at the corner of his mouth and on his chin, which I found strangely unnerving as I was so used to him looking immaculate. As if he could tell what I was thinking he rubbed his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket and spat on the pavement.
‘I hated her,’ he said vaguely.
‘I know you did,’ I said, feeling irritated and tired. ‘You always hate them. That’s how you like it, isn’t it?’
Jay gazed up at me. ‘Fliss,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Why am I on the floor?’
I managed to drag him to his feet, but instead of allowing me to lead him back home Jay made off in a different direction.
‘Jay,’ I called after him, ‘what are you doing?’
He ignored me and continued on at a rapid pace, leaving the centre of Coalton and taking seemingly random turns. I tried to catch up with him, but when I got close he’d sprint away from me. Even in his drunken state, his frequent trips to the gym and runs along the canal meant I had little chance of catching up with him and I became increasingly confused about where we were. Although I’d lived in Coalton all my life, the housing estate we ended up in wasn’t familiar to me. I had expected Jay to give up and slump down at the side of the road, maybe throw up again, but there was something of a grim purpose to the way he pressed on with his detour and I had to admit I was curious.
He slowed down when we reached a long, straight road with small cul-de-sacs and closes branching off. I tried to take his hand, but he shook me away. He was looking intently into the front gardens of the houses we were passing, as though searching for something.
‘Jay, for God’s sake,’ I said, ‘it’s the middle of the night, can we go home?’
He stopped outside a house that was having some work done on its paved driveway, and bent down to pick up a brick from a pile by the pavement. ‘Jay,’ I said, ‘what—’
He was off again before I could stop him, clutching the brick in his hand. I had no doubt in my mind that he intended to do some damage with it. Why, I had no idea. Jay was a law unto himself when he was in this sort of state. I’d had to step in many times in the past to prevent him getting in fights when we were out together.
I forced myself to run faster, and I caught him just as he stopped outside one of the houses. Half hidden behind a big fir hedge, it looked to be an eighties or nineties semi – a little bit scruffy, but otherwise unremarkable. I’d certainly never been there before, or heard Jay mention anything about who lived there. As far as I was aware, Jay didn’t really know anybody in Coalton; from how he told it he’d pretty much just stuck a pin in a map and decided to come and live here. He paused for a while, as if he was thinking through his next move, then he lifted his arm, but he’d waited too long and I was able to wrestle the brick from his hand before he could throw it. I held it out of his way behind my back and he tried weakly to get it away from me, but his heart didn’t seem to be in it any more, and he was in too much of a state to carry on fighting with me. He turned and started walking back the way he had come, then he paused beside a house on the corner, which had a wooden fence around its garden.
‘Jay,’ I said softly, as I made my way towards him, ‘let’s go now. Let’s go home.’
He stared at me a moment, then his face contorted in anger. ‘You should have let me do it!’ he yelled at me, and before I could stop him he drew back his fist and slammed it into the fence, leaving a splintered hole in the wooden panel.
In my shock I let the brick fall to the ground, while Jay cried out in pain and then knelt down on the pavement clutching his hand in his lap. While Jay whimpered and swore under his breath I took a quick look up and down the street and was thankful that nobody was around. When he started making sobbing noises, I crouched down by his side and put my arms around him.
‘What the hell, Jay?’ I whispered into his hair.
‘You should have let me do it,’ he told me again.
‘Do what?’ I said. ‘Put a brick through someone’s window?’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘Who lives there, Jay?’ I asked him.
He didn’t answer and I reached down to try to get him to show me his injured hand, but he’d hidden it away under his other hand in his lap.
‘Let me see it,’ I said.
I pulled at his wrist and he didn’t budge. ‘Let me see it, Jay,’ I told him again.
He gave in and let me pull his hand away from his lap, and I saw he was bleeding.
‘Does it hurt?’ I asked him.
He shrugged. He didn’t seem particularly upset any more.
‘It will when you’re sober,’ I told him. I pulled him to his feet and put my arm around his waist. This time he didn’t protest when I began to walk towards home.