Kieran.Stories

I was pretending to be a mature student, with my man bag and crooked neck. I soon realised, though, that all the students at Edge Hill had terrible posture. It wasn’t only that they were constantly looking at their phones. There was a gloom on campus, weighing them down. I might have been projecting. I almost definitely was. On the phone thing: they never bumped into each other, texting and walking, which I found sort of miraculous. They were like starlings. I was pretending, in case someone tried to catch me out, to be an English literature student. I could hold my own on the subject. It was also Ileana’s subject. She only read so much because I had drilled it into her. ‘Books and music.’ She was a toddler. Mary had swanned off to Spain. I finally realised she wasn’t coming back. ‘That’s all, all, that matters.’ I probably had had a can, or two. Ileana nodded. It’s quite a thing when your baby or toddler nods. They actually understand. She was a living, breathing being. When I wasn’t walking between the library and Ileana’s halls, I was exploring Ormskirk, or trying to kip in the Polo which I had parked near the woods. On my third evening, I saw Ileana leaving the arts centre. She was heading into town with a group of friends, all in black.  

They set up camp in a bar called Disorder, which had apparently just recently opened. I was walking up a steel helical staircase behind a young couple. ‘It’s the same guy who owns the one across from Co-op,’ she said. Disorder was incredibly dark inside. When Ileana was nine, we went to Louis Tussauds in Blackpool. She convinced the lad guarding the Chamber of Horrors to let her in, even though she was under ten. It was off-season: dead. I was more nervous than Ileana about the Chamber, and I remember thinking that this lad probably sensed that. In the dark, surrounded by waxworks, Ileana navigated the passages with preternatural awareness. She stopped by Pinhead, pointed at his S&M chest and smiled. I laughed it off. In the car, it was Ileana’s turn to pick the CD. She was getting into Joy Division. I’d given her my old t-shirt and she’d worn it ragged. In Disorder, when Ileana went to the bar, I could see those signals from a radio pulsar on her chest. I opened my can of Red Stripe and settled in next to a freestanding bathtub filled with, for whatever reason, dead flowers. 

You could say I hadn’t taken Ileana leaving for university well. It was something like this: I had been looking forward to it, but then when it happened I realised how completely alone I was. At my lowest, I found Mary on Facebook and considered sending her a message. The idea of sending her a friend request was more of a stretch, somehow. I drafted a message in my notes app, too scared that if I wrote it in Messenger I would accidentally send it. 

“Mary – hope you’re good. Ileana (remember her?) is at university now. In fact, this morning, I dropped her off at her halls of residence. She’s in the cheapest block. Looking up at it from the car park, I was reminded of your dad’s stories about Dresden. He was a laugh! Anyway, I had to drive back alone, and now I’m sitting in my living room wondering what happens next. Started thinking about you… How is it being a ‘bargain loving brit abroad’? I see on the Facebook page that it’s 2 for 1 on cocktails every Thursday. Why Thursdays? Is business slow before the weekend? I have been snooping in Ileana’s room this evening. I have found things in drawers. Does this make me a terrible father? I have decided to leave her room. Remember when you read Great Expectations to me over two months before bed? I am living in Satis House now – maybe I always have been. Ileana’s off. I’m about to burn and then die from the stress.”

I was on my third can of Red Stripe and listening to another poem about bodily fluids. I had, so far, counted against my will three ‘cunts’. The next poet was one of Ileana’s gang. As he got up from the trestle table, she gave him an encouraging pat. She had her back to me. I looked briefly at the dead flowers. I supped. The beer was clawing. Unlike the previous readers, the boy performed without a script. He raised his arms to heaven. A beanpole. He lowered his arms but kept them horizontal. He was holding them out to Ileana. 

‘She draws me closer. Closer. I draw from her. She draws my blood. I am drooooool. We are the moment before the start of the next morning, and I am nothing, nothing, nothing without her luscious lips. Blood sets her going like a fat gold watch. We are endless.’ A long pause. ‘That’s all. Cheers.’ 

People clapped. Ileana applauded, too. I flicked the corner of my thumb. 

‘He stole that from Sylvia Plath,’ a woman said. She was on the other side of the bathtub. She was my age, I guessed. ‘Love set you going like a fat gold watch.’ Somehow, her talking set me at ease in the moment. 

‘Well,’ I replied, ‘at least he kept it brief.’ She smiled. Then she introduced herself, leaning over the tub. I told her my name, then said, ‘I think he’s my daughter’s boyfriend. So I am, excuse me, slightly terrified.’  

I hid in an alcove, my back against the silver shutters of a closed shop. I checked my digital watch. It had been too much in Disorder, and I was finding it difficult to shake the woman by the tub. In the darkness, I focused my eye on the entrance to the bar. The last stragglers filtered out. I moved my head to the right to follow Ileana. I started to move. I kept a safe distance. If I thought they’d seen me, I pretended to be on my phone, as if that would somehow explain my being there. But they were in a world of their own. There were five of them, including Ileana and the poet boy. Blood sets her going like a fat gold watch. Not only theft but clumsy, too. I decided to hate him. They were holding hands at the front of the group. The others were less awake. They dozed on, heads lolled, drunk, until they came to a row of terraces next to the library and then sped forward to unlock the front door. Ileana lingered by the picket gate with the boy. I was on the library steps, watching. I imagined something like, ‘Don’t go,’ from him, and maybe, ‘I’ve got a lecture in the morning,’ from Ileana, although I wasn’t sure if that was a reason not to spend the night with him, because surely that was going to happen; I had resigned myself to that. Don’t go. I crept across the road and found a hedge in the car park, opposite the bay window. 

I stared for a long time at the empty bedroom, waiting. I felt the strain behind my eyes. They were shot. Over the last year, building up to Ileana leaving home, I had become convinced that I was developing cataracts. I thought about it so much it seemed like a matter of time. I booked to see an optometrist but bottled it. Mary, of course, could see for miles. In my hedge, poked by unknown flora, I was thinking about Mary. And then the couple appeared. A lava lamp was switched on in the boy’s room. It was an orangey red. They were kissing by the window. Ileana put an arm around his neck. As I realised what she was doing, I found myself moving around my hiding place and down from the car park onto the pavement. Ileana took a step back from the boy and opened the curtains fully so the moon shone into the room. She turned her head to me in the middle of the road and swallowed, then drew the boy towards her. To his vagus nerve, ‘Closer.’ 

* 

‘The last supper. Dig in.’ 

‘What’re you gonna do tomorrow, after?’ 

‘I don’t know. Mooch? I’ve never been around Ormskirk.’ 

‘It’s pretty dead.’ 

‘They’ll be charity shops. And then I’ll come home.’ 

‘And wallow.’ 

She had left her knife and was eating the spag bowl with just her fork. 

‘Oh, of course, I’ll be in bits.’ 

‘Don’t cry, or anything.’ 

She was joking but it stung. 

I was less bothered about what I’d do tomorrow and more interested in how tonight would pan out.  

‘Do you want to watch a film after tea?’ 

‘Sure,’ but she sounded less than enthusiastic. 

‘They’ve put Don’t Look Now on the iPlayer.’ 

‘The iPlayer, that’s hilarious.’ 

‘It’s good, if you haven’t seen it.’ At one time, I had a firm grip on Ileana’s tastes. If she liked a film, it was because I had introduced her to it. But now, it wasn’t that simple. I had been divested of my main role as parent, as I saw it. 

‘I might go to Chloe’s. Obviously, last chance to see each other and that.’ 

‘Good idea. Do you want a lift?’

‘It’s alright.’  

Ileana twisted her spaghetti. I had made the sauce a little thick. The garlic was also overpowering, but maybe there was something in that, maybe on some level I would rather Ileana die from a garlic overdose than leave me for university. 

We washed up together. We alternated, usually, but that night we got through it together. I put the new Geese album on the speaker. Ileana was less keen on it than I was. I could tell she thought it was a bit soft, a bit whiny, too. But that was fine. She liked what she liked. After washing up, she went up to get ready for going out. I was on the stairs when she came out of her room. The landing light was on. 

‘How do you do that, with your eyes?’ 

Her make-up was immaculate, like her mother’s. I met Mary for the first time in Whitby. She complained about the rain while sitting in her corner of The Black Horse. I was on my year off after college, making my way around the coast in that Skoda with the mold in the footwell. I decided that because Mary was the type of girl I’d always been too scared to talk to, I would make it my mission to talk to her that night. She spoke about how she wanted to move somewhere hot, how she’d open a bar under the esplanade. She was wearing a long black dress and specs with green lenses. 

‘It’s just practise,’ Ileana said. 

‘Yeah. It’s good.’ 

Slightly embarrassed, I went into my room. I heard the front door open and shut downstairs. I texted: ‘Be safe – have fun.’ 

Behind the garage, she’d probably roll up, maybe have a smoke, then wing her way to Chloe’s. 

I watched Don’t Look Now on the iPlayer. It annoyed me. I would have enjoyed it more if Ileana had been watching it with me for the first time. I turned it off before the end and went on my phone, and that annoyed me. I went to get a beer from the fridge. I kicked the cupboard under the sink. I suspected that everything was about to go very quiet for me. The can was gleaming on the kitchen counter, perfect, like an advert. 

Then, on the windowsill, outside, a great-tailed grackle landed and tapped the glass with its beak. I let her in and she settled on my shoulder for a moment, before darting upstairs. A minute later, I could hear Ileana retching into the toilet. 

The next morning, we stopped at a services and had McDonald’s for breakfast. Ileana’s head was down. 

‘Worse for wear.’ 

‘What.’ 

‘You’re hungover.’ 

We were sitting on a table which looked out onto a lake. It was a nice services. It was quiet, too. We’d caught it at a good moment. 

‘I’m nervous.’ 

‘That’s normal.’ 

‘I was talking to Chloe about Mum last night.’ 

I left my McMuffin on its paper wrapper and looked at her, until she looked at me back. 

‘Right.’ 

‘Am I like her?’ 

‘You’re all the good bits of her.’ 

‘Not all.’ 

‘And you’re definitely the best bits of me. That’s just how it works.’

*

I had cleaned the house to within an inch of its life, until the whole place smelt of lemon and bleach. It was midday. I made myself a coffee. Over the sound of the kettle, I didn’t notice Ileana coming into the kitchen. He followed. Beanpole. I stood up straight. I had gleaned a few details about Aaron up to this point. He was also an English literature student. He was a big fan of Robert Aikman. He had a Joy Division tattoo: pulsars. Ileana selected these facts about Aaron because she knew I also loved Aikman, Joy Division, and books. ‘He saw my t-shirt, that’s what made him talk to me,’ she said, the morning after I had seen them through the bay window. ‘I’m sure that wasn’t the only reason,’ I said back. Ileana had seen me skulking about campus. She had seen me in Disorder, too. Of course she had. After she had bitten into Aaron that night, I started the long walk back to the car. But of course I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to sleep. Why had I done what I’d done? Every excuse was poor. It was past midnight when the great-tailed grackle landed on my bonnet. She had chosen that bird after seeing on a programme that I imagine was on around Sunday teatime. Some sort of American travelogue, possibly with Stephen Fry. On my car bonnet, it didn’t need to say a thing. She flew away, probably back to Aaron’s. I received a text a few hours later: ‘If you’re still around, meet me in Spoons at ten, I’ll get you a breakfast wrap.’ She told me I had nothing to worry about, Aaron was cool. He wanted to see where things went. ‘He likes me,’ she had said. ‘And I like him, too.’ In the spotless kitchen, I shook Aaron’s hand and he smiled. The lanky bastard. We had tuna pasta bake for tea.