The A to Z of You and Me

E

Eyes

‘WHAT ARE YOU doing?’ says Dad.

‘Nothing,’ I say.

Even aged four I know not to admit I’m pretending to be car indicators with my eyes.

Embarrassing.

I’m holding the bull’s eye with the very tips of my latex-gloved fingers, but I can still feel the refrigerated coolness, the slippery deadness that might somehow come alive. I’m leaning as far away from it as I can, and I’m pressing at it with my scalpel, but it won’t go in, a scalpel, a fucking shitting crappy blunt school scalpel, and it won’t shitting fucking puncture the cold and slippery surface, and Kelvin says give it here, give it some welly, and he takes the scalpel off me and I shrink away as he stabs and it squeakily dodges, and he stabs and it bursts and flicks inky black juice at his face. He blinks and flinches and reaches for his eyes with his wrist, flashing the scalpel around near his other eye.

‘Oh, my — fucking hell! That’s — fuck!’

But that’s — no, that’s wrong. That’s not my eyes, is it? That’s just eyes.

What should it be? Should it be things my eyes have seen, or ways in which my eyes have been seen?

‘How’s my star patient doing today?’

Sheila’s head appears at the doorway, and I look up at her, give her a smile.

‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘That smile didn’t quite reach your eyes, lovey.’ And she’s in.

‘Didn’t it?’

‘No. You’re going to have to try harder than that to keep me happy, I’m afraid.’

I give her a big sarcastic smile, all the way up to the eyes and beyond. She laughs. She seems more relaxed now. More time for me. Perhaps Old Faithful’s condition has eased.

‘Nice try. How are you keeping?’

‘Fine.’

‘You finished that A to Z yet?’

‘Heh, no hope.’

‘No hope? Well, that doesn’t sound too good. Tell me what you’re up to.’

‘E. I was just thinking about eyes, actually.’

‘Well, the eyes will tell you whether someone’s smile is genuine or not.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. They’re a dead giveaway,’ she says, tapping her nose and winking.

‘My mum used to stare straight into my eyes to see if I was lying.’

‘Ha! Yeah! Look me in the eye and tell me honestly! I used to say that to my boys all the time.’

I feel a sudden surge of affection for this woman, now tucking my feet back among the sheets, who has tenderly and patiently and unquestioningly cared for me. She’s a natural mother. Maybe that’s what these care workers are. Natural mothers, all. And sort of innocent with it. Innocent, but having seen everything there is to see.

‘And there are cultures where you’re not supposed to look people in the eye, aren’t there?’ she adds. ‘Kings and queens — if you looked straight at them, they’d have your head chopped off.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Maybe they didn’t want you to know if they were lying or not,’ she says, simply, before disappearing out of the room for a moment. It’s a statement that chimes true in the silence.

She comes back cradling a steaming mug. ‘We used to have a rule,’ she says, with relish, ‘a rule about flirting with your eyes when we were out in the clubs. I used to be ever so good at it. You’d look at a fella for four seconds, and then you’d look away for four seconds. And then you’d look back at him for four seconds, and if he was still looking you knew he fancied you. I got ever so good at it!’

I shake my head and smile a smile that I’m sure this time reaches my eyes. There’s a sweet dimple that’s come out on her cheek, I notice. I can see her now, the mischievous young thing she must have been, still alive and well, just a little softer at the edges.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘I’m terrible, aren’t I?’

‘Well, you’ve got to use what you’ve got.’

‘That’s right! Use it while you’ve got it. Mind you, I haven’t had it for a long time.’

She squares a look at me before realizing how this sounds, and raises her hand to cover her mouth before disappearing quickly through the doorway. Out in the corridor I hear her cluck: ‘I’m being inappropriate with the guests!’

Glance across to the stage, your vivid blue eyes are looking at me. I catch them for just long enough to see you switch them away.

Did I imagine that? Your eyes, lit sharp in the surrounding dark, looking over the top of the microphone as you sing, looking across the back room of the Queen’s Head at me.

You look up again now. I look away.

Embarrassing.

You might think I fancy you. I wasn’t looking looking.

Look again.

The swash, the calligraphy of the eyeliner. Eyeliner makes whites pure white. You draw good eyes.

You look away, look down, faint sense of shyness, as your hair drops across your brow, and you check that your fingertips are pressing the right frets as you shift your hand along the neck of your electric guitar. You check too as your trainered foot switches on the guitar pedal, and the chords now begin to throb around the room, written across us in sound shaped by those same fingertips that deftly flicked out your eyeliner.

I feel it. I can feel it like that.

I am an eyes man.

That’s it: that’s what I should have said when Becca was going on and on all those years ago about whether I was a bum man or a boobs man or whatever. I should have looked her squarely in the eye and said with all confidence and conviction: ‘I’m an eyes man.’

Was it love at first sight?

People used to ask us this, didn’t they?

You’d say, ‘Yyyeah … sort of …’

I’d feel a bit put out when you said that.

Anyway, is it a worse love, if it’s not love at first sight?

I look behind me at Becca and Laura, being bumped and shouldered by an unusually enthusiastic crowd for a Thursday night at the Queen’s. Becca’s smiling and clapping and looking at me and nodding.

‘Is that your new housemate?’ I say.

Becca is dancing deep within herself, and nods and smiles without taking her eyes from the stage. ‘She moved in after Christmas.’

‘Is she a mature student?’

‘Trainee nurse.’

I return my gaze to you, and you’re checking back behind you at your amp, and glancing across to the semi-interested sound-man to your right, before engaging again with the microphone and singing, eyes closed, settling into a rich harmony with your simple distorted chords. I can’t quite make out the words, but the effect is mesmerizing.

Your eyes open again, and again you’re looking over at me, and as your chord diminishes, your solemn face gradually warms into a smile, and I’m thinking, you’re smiling at me. Jesus, you’re smiling at me.

You’re too good to be smiling at me.

But it only dawns on me now that, no. No, no: all this time you’ve been looking over at Becca, because you live with Becca. And it’s so obvious that this is what you were doing. You don’t know me.

Becca leans in to talk directly into my ear. ‘Isn’t her voice beautiful?’

I smile and nod. When I thought you were looking at me, and you weren’t — it felt like the first bit of good, the first glimmer of something — I don’t know.

My phone buzzes, and I push my hand in my pocket and pluck it out. Mal. Again. Wanting to sort out a meet-up for later. I wonder about sending him to voicemail, but I don’t want him to know I’m deliberately saying no. I hold it and watch the name until it stops and the screen dips dark again.

I slot the phone back in the right pocket. Always the right.

In the left, I pat the fold of ten twenties. Two hundred quid to go out and get absolutely muntered tonight.

Mal will have the gear by now. The two-hundred’s as good as spent.

But I just — I don’t really want to do it. I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m not into it.

Frowning to myself as your next song sets in, I’m thinking, I’ve given up on myself. Without having realized, I’d given up on the idea that anyone might find me remotely appealing.

What would I be able to say if you asked me about myself? Well, I could tell you I’m on a final warning at a job I’ve stalled in at the local garden centre because of repeatedly coming in two hours late and being too wasted to get through the word ‘chrysanthemums’ on a Sunday morning. I’ve got a sickie lined up for tomorrow. What? Yes, I live with my mum, technically, apart from the nights when I live at my sister’s to get fucked up with my mate.

This is not me. It’s not who I set out to be. How did I become this total moron I’m playing?

There’s not many times when all things fall away and you start to see yourself for what you are, but that’s what I’m feeling now. The shimmering sound from your amp burns the deadwood in my brain, and I’m thinking: I can do this. If I can just — just break away from what Mal’s waiting for on the other end of the phone — I can have the confidence to say to Mal — No, no, I know I said I’d go out and get smashed again, but I don’t want to go out tonight. I’m doing all this for no reason. Everything I’ve been doing for — for years — I’ve been doing for no reason.

I want to press reset in my head, and I don’t want to — I don’t want to do this any more.

Is — is that all right?

I don’t know.

My spongey brain blooms in all directions at the possibilities. Whatever it is you’ve got, to get you up there on that stage, that’s what I know I want.

You finish your final tune, lay your guitar carefully in its case, and pick your way over to us, thanking and smiling at people who offer congratulations.

‘Oh hiya!’ you cry, ‘I’m so pleased you made it down!’

‘I brought a few friends,’ says Becca. ‘Everyone, this is Mia.’

You make your greetings and kind words, and I manage to chip in an insignificant ‘well done’, which you modestly acknowledge.

Becca invites you to come and sit with us, but I’ve clocked before anyone else that there aren’t going to be enough seats. Instinct makes me stand, and I weigh up the options. I think, if I just go — go to the bar maybe, then you’ll have somewhere to settle.

‘I’m off to get a round in,’ I say. ‘Here you go, sit here if you like.’

‘No, no,’ you say, with a soft northern accent I hadn’t quite imagined, ‘let me — I’m sure I can get a stool or something from somewhere.’ You look around for any vacancies.

I offer to fetch a spare chair on my way back from the bar. You smile up at me, and I don’t know where to look, so I look away. Look back, and you’ve looked away.

‘What’s everyone having?’

I look at you directly with a look that means you’re included too.

‘Um, I’ll have an orange juice, please? If I can buy you one back.’

‘Orange juice? Nothing stronger? I have just been paid …’

Oh, your eyes. That killer feline cut. Are they blue, actually? I thought they were blue, but they might be green. They’re sort of a mixture. Really striking. I’m definitely an eyes man.

Becca wants a snakebite and black for old times’ sake, and Laura settles for a white wine because red wine stains whitened teeth.

I take myself away and jockey for position at the bar, creasing my twenty-pound note unnaturally lengthways, the better to jab at the barman.

What was it? OJ, snake-bite, white wine, Beamish.

I chance a look back over at the table, but your eyes aren’t on me. I can see you watching Becca animatedly explain something, while Laura pouts and nods. Oh God, I bet Laura’s off on her relationship anxieties with Mal. She just has to go over it and over it, and it never changes.

My pocket buzzes again, and it’s Mal. It’s always Mal.

I could tell him. I could tell him now, I don’t want to go. I don’t want–

The two-hundred — no, the remaining one-eighty — burns a hole in my pocket. No choice.

OJ, snake-bite, white wine, Beamish.

Hurry up, hurry up.

‘Yes, mate?’

‘Orange juice, a pint of Beamish, a snakebite and black, and a white wine, please, mate.’

Four drinks. It’s an awkward number to carry back from the bar. As the barman lines them up in front of me, I hand over the cash and weigh up the differently shaped and sized glasses. Do a couple of test huddles to see whether I’m going to be able to manage them all at once. Nope. Not a hope.

Finally I opt for dunking fingers and thumbs into mine, Laura’s and Becca’s with one hand, and carrying yours normally in the other.

Laura is not impressed.

‘Ugh, Jesus!’

‘’Scuse fingers,’ I say.

‘Some sort of tray?’ you suggest.

‘Would have been an option,’ I say, and genuinely wish I’d been sharp enough to ask for one.

There’s still no spare chair, so I settle the glasses and crouch between you and Becca. You make to move, but I gesture that you should stay seated.

‘All right, come on, share,’ you say, patting the seat beside your thigh. ‘You can get half a bum on there.’

We sit slightly back-to-back in a halfway sort of way. Sustained contact.

‘So what do you do then,’ you say, ‘seeing as you’re evidently making enough to splash the cash?’

‘Well, that’s me wiped out for the night,’ I say, the one-eighty making a neat but blatant rectangle on the thigh of my jeans.

‘Has it? Oh dear! Well, don’t worry, I’ll buy you one back,’ you say. ‘So how do you know Becca?’

I explain. ‘Oh, I see. Ah, I bet all you boys are madly in love with her, aren’t you?’

‘Ah, she’s lovely,’ I say, ultra carefully moderating my tone. ‘Not my type though.’

‘No? I’d have thought she was everyone’s type.’

I shrug. ‘I’m not everyone then, I suppose.’

Do you hold my gaze for a second longer than normal? I’m sure–

At this moment Becca leans across the table. ‘Cheers ears!’

‘Cheers!’ I say, and turn to you. ‘To a really good gig.’

We all strike glasses, but you pull me up short.

‘No, no, you’re not doing it right. You’ve got to maintain eye contact when you’re clinking glasses,’ you say.

‘Oh, is that what you’re supposed to do?’ asks Becca.

‘Wasn’t I?’ I say.

‘No, come on, do it again,’ you say. ‘Cheers!’

‘Cheeeers—’ I say and malcoordinatedly proffer my glass. ‘This is hard. I should be looking at the glass.’

‘Nope, then it doesn’t count,’ you say. ‘Try again. Cheers!’

‘Cheeeer—’

The glasses knock together: t-tinggg.

‘OK?’ I say.

You scrunch your nose up. ‘Well, technically it needs to be a cleaner ding.’

I try again, looking deep into your eyes. ‘Cheers.’

Tingggg.

‘Perfect!’ you cry, and grin at me.

‘It’s the spontaneity, I think, that really made it special,’ I say.

Definitely a lingering look there. Definitely.

My phone, trapped between us, buzzes once more in my pocket. You jump.

‘What’s that?’

‘Oh, sorry,’ I say, hopping up from my half of the chair. ‘I keep — I keep being phoned.’ I look down at Mal’s flashing name, and cry, ‘leave me alone!’ rather weakly at the screen.

Feeble. Feeble.

I look down at you, and you’re watching me with amusement. ‘You must be very popular.’

And still, your look sustains.

I don’t know what it is about you, but for the first time in — in years? — I can feel a little of the anxiety beginning to slip away. I’m able to keep your gaze. And it’s only now I realize how unconfident I’ve become lately.

My phone ceases vibrating.

I say: ‘You have lovely eyes.’

There it is. I have said it. Matter-of-fact.

‘Well, thank you,’ you say, a little taken aback. ‘That’s a sweet thing to say.’

No! It’s a terrible thing to say! Everyone will have said this to you!

But you smile.

And I smile too.

‘Ivo—’ calls Laura.

‘What?’ I look up at her, and she’s holding out her phone.

‘Mal wants you.’

And I can’t stay. I can’t fucking stay.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s been lovely to meet you, but I’ve got to—’

‘Ivo—’ Laura’s shaking her phone at me.

‘Tell him I know,’ I snap at her.

‘Oh, right,’ you say, disappointedly. You look instinctively away, and I can feel the disconnect.

‘You coming?’ says Becca to me, as she gathers up her bag and coat.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, trying hard to think of some way to pick up again on what we just had. ‘Hey, listen — I know we’ve only known each other for about three minutes, but would you maybe fancy coming out for a drink with me at some point? Unless …’

‘Oh—’ you say, surprised. ‘Well, yeah, yeah. That would be nice.’

‘Brilliant. I’ll get your number off Becca maybe, and—’ My phone starts again. ‘I’ve got to go, I’ll ring you, OK?’

‘OK.’

I stumble my way across the pub, trying to answer my phone and catch up with Laura and Becca.

‘Y’all right, our kid?’ says Mal on the end of the line. ‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been ringing for ages.’

I feel a tug on my arm, and I turn round to see you holding on to my sleeve. I mouth ‘what?’ at you.

‘Sorry,’ you say, ‘I was forgetting — I’m going home tomorrow. I mean home home, back to my mum’s up in the Lakes for Easter.’

‘Ah shit.’

‘You what?’ says Mal.

‘But, you know, after then perhaps?’ you say.

‘Yes, definitely,’ I say.

‘Here, let me get a pen, and I’ll write down my mum’s landline. Maybe give me a call there?’

You root around in your bag while Mal’s voice in my ear demands to know what’s going on.

‘Just hold on,’ I say to him, testily. ‘Here you go,’ you say, pulling out an old biro. ‘Have you got some paper?’

‘Write it on here,’ I say, offering the back of my hand.

You twist my wrist round with your palm, and write the numbers out nice and clear, and render a very professional-looking treble clef at the end.

‘So you remember who it was in the morning,’ you smile.

Ears

Ears. I haven’t thought about this for years.

It’s you again: it’s you, just after that Easter, on the railway station platform, surrounded by all those people.

Hours we’ve spent, talking on the phone this holiday. And it’s been so comfortable and warm, talking about anything and everything, how you missed your mum all term, but five minutes was enough to drive you round the twist. And we’ve got the tragic dad stories out the way too. And it feels — it feels right with you. I’ve told the dad story a thousand times, and I always find people embarrassingly back-pedalling. I constantly have to reassure them everything is fine and so on and so on. But when you told me about your dad, I was struck by how matter-of-fact you were.

‘Yeah, my dad left — what, back when I was fifteen? He was a drinker — still is, I think. And he couldn’t give my mum what she needed. I mean, for years they stuck at it, but it was never going to work. They were a real mismatch.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘I don’t blame him for it, though — he’s had some rough times, made some bad choices. But it doesn’t make him a bad man.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘I don’t see that much of him, because I think it sends him off the rails a bit. I think he feels bad, and I don’t want to cause that. It’s sad. But, you know, I don’t let it define me.’

I was almost able to hear your shrug on the phone. So I embarked on the thousand-and-first version of my dad story, and sort of found myself mimicking your matter-of-fact tone. It felt for the first time like I was telling it in a way that I wanted to tell it.

So now I know: I don’t have to be Laura about it. I don’t have to amp up the melodrama, because it’s a thing that has happened. It was sad, and it remains sad. No one’s going to take that away, for good or bad.

You called it sad-dad top trumps. ‘Ah, dead dad beats non-violent alcoholic every time.’

After weeks of talking almost every night until the early hours, I can’t believe we’ve only met once before.

You said, ‘How are you going to recognize me at the train station?’

‘Of course I’ll be able to recognize you.’

‘Ahh, yes, it’ll be my lovely eyes.’ Teasing me for what I said on our only actual meeting. ‘I’ll fix them on you like a gorgon and draw you across the station concourse.’

‘Nooo — actually, it’d be your enormous, deformed ears.’

You gasped and slammed down the phone. As a joke. I think.

Now I’ve managed to work out which train is going to be yours, and after the anxious eight extra minutes’ wait, my limbs tingling with the anticipation, it has flashed up as “arrived” on the board, and I’m beginning to worry that I genuinely might not recognize you. And if I don’t recognize you immediately, you’re totally going to read it in my face, and that will be the end of everything.

As the passengers begin to flow through, first in small numbers, but now in an unmanageable surge, my eyes flit around for the sight of you. The sight of something familiar. Something I might be able to recall from that night three weeks ago.

I’m wondering whether I’ve built all this up too much. And of course I have. I mean, face-to-face there might be nothing between us, no chemistry, no low pub lighting to give a bit of atmosphere. Just the flattened dabs of black chewing gum on the platform, the squat coffee shop, offering the same old coffee since 1989, only this time in a cardboard cup with a plastic lid, exactly not quite like the posh coffee chains.

Still no sign. I look behind me, half-expecting to see you leaning against a wall, looking at me and tapping your foot in disappointment.

When it all comes down to it, what the hell am I doing, leaving myself open to all this?

But no, look: there you are. Bobbing along the platform, already looking at me, already smiling, half hidden behind a disordered group of students. That’s you. I totally would have recognized you. And nestled unselfconsciously in your hair, a pair of pink bunny ears hover over your face like exclamation marks.

‘Hello!’ you say, dropping your bag when you finally reach me and giving me a kiss on the cheek and an enthusiastic hug.

‘Hello,’ I say, and all of my mithering melts away with the warmth and ease of our greeting.

‘It’s so lovely to see you, finally,’ you say.

‘Yeah! You too,’ I say. ‘So, what’s with the ears?’

You frown and look at me non-comprehendingly.

‘Ears?’

Ah ha. I get you.

‘Oh, nothing,’ I say.

‘Right,’ you say, airily. ‘So, are we getting the bus then?’

You turn and bend down to pick up your bag.

A fluffy white bunny tail, elasticked to the back of your jeans.

No, I’m not going to mention it.

I’ve got a laugh smouldering in my chest all the way to the bus depot.

Urgent electric siren now sears my ears and seizes my brain, jolts me awake, and my heart pound-pounds and the sweat starts to prickle and emerge out on to the surface of my skin.

What’s—?

I look around for some sign about what I should do. What should I do?

The siren settles in, oppressive on my ears, redrawing the shape of my skull with each regular blare.

It’s punctuated now by the sound of urgent footsteps.

I see Sheila flash past my doorway and stop a short way along the corridor.

Then a male voice, buried among the echoes. Jef, I think. I can’t make out the words.

‘No,’ replies Sheila. ‘Yes, but it’s been opened. Have you got the key?’

Another Jefish sound from off down the corridor, and I see Sheila relax and stroll back up towards my room.

She notices me and stops half in and half out of my doorway.

‘Sorry about this,’ she calls, keeping an eye up the corridor. ‘People are always pushing on the alarmed door. It says it right there: “Alarmed door”. What do they think’s going to happen?’

‘I haven’t seen anyone around,’ I say.

‘No,’ she sighs, without surprise. ‘It’s a bloody nuisance. Everything’s on electrics. They say to you, Oh, it’s going to be a big improvement on what you had before, and the next thing you know the whole bloody place has been improved out of all usefulness.’

She keeps an eye out the door, and rolls her eyes to Jef as he strides past, flipping a small bunch of keys in and out of his hand.

The door is slammed shut, its echo rolling down the corridor, and the blare stops dead, leaving the ultrasonic imprint in my ears, and my heart racing.

Was it you who sent a gust of wind to open the alarmed door and assault my ears?

Sometimes I could be persuaded.

Calm now, calm.

Hzzzzzzzzzzz.

Ah, there. Old Faithful.

‘Thanks, lovey,’ Sheila says to Jef as he comes back past.

‘All right,’ he says.

‘It won’t be long before they’re putting the respirators on the same circuit as the coffee machine,’ she says, coming fully into the room. ‘And we’ll have a double-shot latte and a side-order of dead resident.’

She dumps herself in the visitors’ seat and strains to lift her foot up to her other thigh, pushing her finger inside her shoe to ease an ache.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, through a comfortable mouth, ‘I probably shouldn’t be talking like that to you, should I?’

I smile, more troubled by the presence of her foot. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s good to see you care.’

‘Well, I do care. This is supposed to be a place of peace and tranquillity. But you still have to deal with all the efficiencies and management brainwaves like anywhere else. If you can’t escape the red tape here, you can’t escape it anywhere, can you?’