Page 117 of Don't You Forget About Me

All he cares about is his writing, I realise.

‘You know. When we first met, I couldn’t figure how someone so bright was a waitress. Now I can see it. You’ve got the chance to be immortalised in, let’s face it, a fairly uneventful life, and you’re rather be a bitter shrew. That’s incomprehensible to me.’

‘Well. I guess you just answered your own question about whether you’ll ever understand women then,’ I say. ‘See you later.’

Seconds later, I put my head round the door, catch him scowling murderously.

‘Hey, Robin. I think this is what they call a “teachable moment”.’

I don’t believe in fate, or karma, or Noel Edmonds’ cosmic ordering. Yet the timing still seems pointed, and cruel. As if there is someone up there, trying to tell me something.

After I lurk long enough to see the surly receptionist paste a ‘show cancelled’ sign on both doors, I leave West Street, high on the feeling of having faced the dragon and won. And then, heading towards my bus stop, I see him, across the street. His pin-thin, drawn wife has dark wavy hair and a hassled air, in a hoodie and tight jeans. He’s looking bored, and they’re debating where they go next, or how long they have left on the car parking meter.

It’s the first time I’ve seen him, since sixth form. I’ve jolted at the stray tagged photo, heard rumours of him being back to see his folks for Christmas, yet never seen his face. And now, here he is in the slightly baggier flesh.

I’m hardly unbiased, but it strikes me that he hasn’t aged well. Perhaps due to his former standing, I judge him more harshly. The mop of lead singer hair is the same length around his collar, but thinned and greasy looking, the eyes are pouchy, the set of the mouth is mean. The leanness you take for granted in youth has filled out. At school he was a superstar, now he looks like any other bloke.

The time though, something is different, there’s someone with them I’ve not seen before. He turns, stoops and picks her up, throws her over his shoulder with practised ease. She’s wailing, wearing stripy woollen tights and a tiny pinafore, maybe three years old. He kisses her cheek.

Richard Hardy is a father. Richard Hardy has a daughter.

What did I just use to vanquish the hold Robin had over me? Words. My words saved me.

I put my mobile to my ear and call Devlin.

‘Would you mind if I still do the last Share Your Shame thing, now I’ve left?’

40

I let Jammy out of his hutch for a roam around while I sit at the table and get my A4 notebook out.

‘Imagine if I had my own place,’ I say to Jammy, as he makes slow but steady progress in the direction of the sink, ‘This could be us every day.’

Karen is away for the weekend, back to see her parents in Aberdeen, and the timing couldn’t be better. Not that Karen going away would ever be unwelcome. I print at the top:

My Worst Day At School

It’s the final Share Your Shame subject, and although I haven’t decided if I can bear to get up and perform it, I know what I want to say.

I write. I write some more. I try to rephrase the first thing I wrote and score it out. It’s all so facetious, so striving to amuse, so false. In the peace of the kitchen, with the hum of next door’s maggot tanks, I try to banish the thought that keeps bubbling up, every time I look at the block print subject letters.

My chest rises and falls and eventually it heaves. Fat tears roll down my face and spatter the paper, so I move it from under me.

The door behind me bangs and before I have any chance to gather myself, or conceal the fact I’ve been weeping, Karen is in the kitchen, with sticky-uppy hair, a rugby top and her usual look of flushed belligerence. She drops a Karrimor rucksack down.

A pause.

‘What’s up with you?’

I try to talk, and I can’t, having to cup my hand round my mouth while I make a strange wheezy inhalation noise, the inward drawing of air in a sob.

‘Have you had some news or something?’ Karen says. Even in my diminished state, I notice how she’s sort of angry that I might’ve had a bereavement and that it’s affecting her enjoyment of her own kitchen.

I shake my head and fight to get control of my vocal cords.

‘I’m writing about My Worst Day At School for a writing competition at the pub,’ I gasp. ‘And I know they want something funny and light and easy. But my worst day at school. It was terrible. I think it might’ve ruined my life.’

I put my hands over my eyes and sob and wipe the tears, and afterwards, when I’m back in control, Karen is still staring at me. I gulp again.

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