This is a Love Story (35 page)

‘But don’t forget about me, Sienna, please. We can still see each other loads. Chloe loves you. Nothing has to change. Do you promise that nothing will change?’ He mimicked moving his thumbs on an imaginary control pad, wincing slightly as if he’d read my thoughts.

I knew deep down that this would be the beginning of the end. Nick had to grow up one day soon, after all, but I just wished it could be with me. Then I pictured Chloe’s and Ben’s faces and felt guilty about my thoughts. Ben had just gone out for the day, I was due to see him later, yet I’d been daydreaming that Nick would suddenly turn around and tell me he loved me, just like I’d always loved him. If he’d said those words, would I have even given Ben a second thought?

Soon he would be so engrossed in lazy Sundays in bed with his girlfriend, coffee machine and matching dressing gowns that I would pale into insignificance. I suddenly imagined a wedding invitation plopping onto the doormat like a burning turd. We may only have been a worm’s bottom’s width apart at that moment, but it felt like the distance was already growing. An aching, yawning chasm we could both end up falling into if neither of us spoke soon.

Nick casually lit a cigarette. I had pissed around too long, and now he was about to start cohabiting with the gorgeous office temp I’d dismissed as just another one of those good shags he wouldn’t quite be able to commit to. All the others girls had just come and gone, something I’d taken for granted. I’d never imagined that he would actually settle down. He was so carefree – there was something truly magical about him, like he could do anything and get away with it. He was a free spirit, annoyingly unable to stick with just one person for long. But now he was talking about Chloe moving in with him.

Nick was, and always had been, superhuman to me. He even made the lazy curls of smoke leaking from his Marlboro Lights look cool – on anyone else, this would have looked like a small, obnoxious factory chimney hanging out of their gob, the kind that leaves a lingering smell like rotten eggs hanging limply over the surrounding town. Poor Chloe, she had done nothing wrong at all, just fallen in love with one of the most beautiful men to ever grace west London. He was a guy, she was a girl, and all that, and this was a love story. A love story that didn’t include me. I did play some part, but a crappy one. Like the time they made me the back end of a donkey in the school nativity.

It was Chloe who interrupted my train of thought as I sat at my desk, chewing my lip hard and remembering
that
Saturday. ‘Do you want a cup of tea, sweetheart?’ she asked, appearing as if from nowhere. I jumped out of my skin.

‘Oh, hi, Chloe. I’m OK, actually, thanks, hon. I have to go to a meeting in a minute and then I’ve got the afternoon off.’ I had no idea why I was telling her this. It had nothing to do with tea.

‘Afternoon off on a Monday? That sounds exciting,’ she responded, then she leaned in close and whispered in my ear, ‘Are you going to a job interview?’

‘Oh, no no no. I’m just doing something for a friend,’ I replied, hoping she didn’t think I was talking about Nick – because for once I wasn’t. She waltzed off into the kitchen with a spring in her step. I wondered if he’d told her yet.

When the meeting was finished I left the office and marched to Balham train station where I was to meet Laura. I was nervous. My heart was pounding in my chest. I knew this was a huge move that could potentially change Pete’s life forever – for the better. But I also knew that with that move came a risk. An enormous risk. I had seen on more than one occasion the horrible rages he was capable of flying into, and I knew this might well end the same way. This was such a bold thing to do, and I had a terrible fear that he would hate me for it.

As I weaved my way through the people I saw Laura standing by the ticket machines. You could spot her a mile off. Her hair was in thick blonde dreads, intermittently streaked with faded blue and red. She was strange-looking, but in a fascinating and beautiful way. She had a tiny nose piercing and small white teeth, set against a delicate face. A face almost too delicate to be surrounded by such a wild tangle of matted hair.

‘Hello, Sienna,’ she said, pulling me into a hug.

She wore baggy jeans and a black vest top with a pair of chunky trainers. She was the kind of girl I would have felt intimidated by as a teenager because she was a bit cool. Now I just looked at her and wondered about her past, where she’d come from and how she’d ended up doing this unusual job. An outreach worker, scooping up ruined lives from the city’s pavements.

‘Hello, Laura, thanks so much for this. I’m really nervous,’ I said, realising I was fiddling frantically with my hair.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll sort this out. Do you know where he’s likely to be?’ she asked, tilting her head to one side enquiringly like a dog. She pulled a large piece of pink bubblegum from her mouth and threw it into a nearby bin. Underneath one arm was a thin black folder with a pen attached to it.

‘Yes, I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to find him.’ I was starting to feel sick now.

This was terrifying. Was I doing the right thing?

‘Now, you remember what I said when we spoke on the phone?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

The phone call. The phone call . . . It had been long and I’d been nervous. It was all a bit of a blur now.

‘You know, about how he might react? It’s very common for people to be pretty aggressive when we approach them. Rough sleepers are incredibly settled in many ways; they can’t see a way out so often they’ve carved a whole new lifestyle, a whole new set of attitudes.’ She waved her arm through the air as she said this, as if to emphasise the drama of it all. ‘All I’m saying is that it might take more than one try, OK?’

More than one try? I wasn’t sure if that was an option. What if he rejected us the first time and then never spoke to me again? What if he ran off and disappeared and I didn’t get a chance to explain.

‘Come on,’ she said, pulling me gently away from the station.

‘I think he’ll be on the common near here. There’s this particular tree he likes, a fallen-down tree, actually, and I often find him there,’ I said, starting to shake now. The situation was making me hot with nerves, I could feel that my ears were bright red and my cheeks were flushed. This meant so much to me. It meant the world.

‘So, if we find him, I want you to go over just ahead of me and tell him who I am and that you contacted us at the charity, OK? I’ll be right behind you the whole time, and then let me take over, yeah?’ She looked into my eyes like this bit was really important and I really needed to pull myself together and just listen.

‘OK,’ I said. I had to trust her. These people knew what they were doing. I had learned all about how we could sort this out when I called them. How if Pete wanted to, he could go to a temporary hostel, which wasn’t great, while they got him a better hostel. Then, if he wanted to help himself, he might be able to get a job and a proper house. They would feed him at the hostel. He would have his own room. A chance.

We walked timidly on to the common, which was stretched out in front of us like a huge green blanket. Turning just a few corners revealed the fallen tree and to my relief there was Pete, sitting on top of it and fiddling with a stump of wood at his feet. I walked towards him slowly, the fear caught in my throat. He didn’t notice me until I was really close.

‘Pete,’ I said quietly.

He flinched. ‘Oh hello, love,’ he responded, looking at the woman behind me in confusion before something shifted in his face as he seemed to realise what was going on. I kneeled down to his level and put my hand over his.

‘Pete, I really don’t want you to be angry with—’ I tried to explain, but he interrupted me, leaning up and whispering into my ear, his stubble brushing my face.

‘Who’s that woman with the clipboard, Si? Who is she? What have you done?’ He sounded angry. His eyes were narrowed and the skin around them wrinkled. I recognised this hostility from the time I’d taken the photo from him for too long, and the time I’d asked him about the fight. I knew where it led. My words caught in my throat and got stuck there.

Laura seemed to pick up on this, and tiptoed into our space. ‘Pete, my name’s Laura and I’m here from a homelessness charity,’ she said warmly, holding out her hand in his direction.

He spat at the ground and grunted, pulling his grey T-shirt over his knees so it stretched to cover him.

The spitting. The fury. They were the traits of an angry, frightened teenager, far from the intelligent man I had grown to love. This wasn’t the Pete I’d come to know, the Pete I wanted her to meet. This was the angry Pete who threw beer cans at office windows. I’d been hoping it was just the alcohol back then, but he looked sober now and still as angry. I just wanted him to show her who he really was. How he was a bright, loving individual who had just got a bit lost. Come on, Pete. This is our chance . . .

‘What do you want, Laura?’ He raised his voice and threw his arms into the air. ‘You want to help me? I can tell you now, I’m not worth helping. I got myself into all this mess so I can get myself out. Alone.’ He pulled his knees even closer to his chest, the plastic logo on his top stretching and peeling where the paint was being torn apart. He scrunched his eyelids together in frustration.

‘OK, I think we should leave it.’ I turned to Laura. I’d got this all wrong. I never should have interfered. Laura ignored me and sat herself next to Pete.

‘Now, Pete. I just want to have a chat with you, OK? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We aren’t going to take you anywhere, we aren’t going to force anything upon you. Will you just talk to me for a bit?’ She looked at him but he kept his eyes to the floor, as if he was trying to bore down and communicate with the worms. I kept my distance, but listened to every word.

‘So how did this all start? You don’t mind if I write, do you?’ she asked, direct and to the point, pulling the biro from its clip on the board, poised for note-taking.

‘How can you help me? No one can. There’s nothing free in this world,’ he muttered, finally looking towards her. I was scared. Terrified, in fact, that I had made a huge error. An error that would undo three years of gentle friendship.

There was silence. Long, deep, cavernous silence. A squirrel ran down the tree trunk, gripping the bark hard with its claws and shuffling around nervously. Pete was distracted, watching its every move and starting to laugh to himself. But it was a strange laugh . . . A wicked one, loaded with frustration.

Suddenly, he seemed to soften, and after a few minutes he spoke. ‘My wife died. That’s when it began.’ He leaned back against the scratchy bark and put his head against it, looking up into the leafy canopy, shards of sunlight cutting through it like rows of glitter powder.

‘I was at work when I got the call. I used to be an events organiser – you know, music venues and stuff. I’ll never forget it. You would know it as the Oakwood Park rail crash.’ He paused again like he had with me so often. It was incredible how his mood could change so quickly. ‘The train derailed and she was in it – you probably know all the details anyway. I thought it was a joke so I just said “No” a lot. Then I turned on the news and there it all was – chunks of twisted metal, torn bodywork, like it was a bit of scrunched-up paper. And I knew my beautiful wife was inside, and I hadn’t been there to save her, to protect her.’ His tone started to grow angry again as he recounted the story.

‘What was her name?’ asked Laura.

‘Jenny,’ he said, in a gruff whisper, as if just saying the word felt like bleeding.

‘So I take it you used to live with her?’ she probed further, scrawling notes onto the paper, the pen scratching the surface hard. I could hear every stroke.

‘Yes. We rented a one-bed house in Balham. I couldn’t work after that, I couldn’t do anything. I tried, but I kept screwing up the bookings. Everything fell apart. Got kicked out of the house eventually, you know the rest . . .’ He sounded so angry when he said this. Almost angry with himself.

‘I don’t really, Pete. Everyone’s different. Do you think you might be able to tell me?’

He ran his hands through his hair, the frustration boiling over again, as though talking about this was the last thing he wanted to do.

‘Well, I started staying with friends and stuff, family, you know. But as much as people tell you you’re always welcome, you aren’t for long. You start getting in the way, leaving cornflakes in the bowl too long so they’re impossible to clean and stupid shit like that. You do stuff that annoys them, you do stuff differently to the way they’ve set their lives out, and then they don’t want you any more.

‘I started to resent this, because I was a bit bashed-up and broken. I got angry and systematically pissed off everyone in my path, until they all shut their doors. That was when I spent my first night on a bench.’ He stretched his legs out, as if remembering the feel of the wooden slats beneath his limbs for the very first time.

I listened and thought about all this rubbish with Nick, the stupidity of my pointless feelings. I thought about how we spend all our time thinking we’re in trouble because the toaster broke or the Digibox didn’t record
The X Factor
when there are people who have been shunned by everyone they know. I started to calm down for a moment as I realised we might be getting somewhere. But I was mistaken.

‘Look. I’ve tried, but you know, I don’t want to talk about this,’ Pete said bluntly, turning to look at Laura, his lips quivering slightly.

‘Are you sure you can’t just stay for a few more minutes, Pete?’ Laura asked, her body tensing up slightly.

‘No. No. I’m not staying. Just leave me alone, will you?’ he said as he got to his feet.

He walked towards me and looked me in the eyes. ‘Why, Sienna? Why do you keep trying to help me? Just stay away, OK?’ he whispered, before charging off into the distance again.

I couldn’t cope with this. Emotion was grasping at my throat again. I’d probably ruined it all now. Forever. I didn’t want Laura to see me cry, so I squeezed her arm as if to thank her and walked away. Quickly.