Mike Shevdon - Sixty-One Nails

I walked down the path and through the gates to stand in front of her.

She looked at me, head on one side in that characteristic pose. She took in the dishevelled appearance, the bits of grass still caught in my hair. Deprived of sleep, chased, threatened and almost killed several times, I wasn't sure I understood anything anymore.

She got to her feet, shaking her head and chuckling to herself, and walked off down the lane. I trudged after her, more confused than ever. Had the fall addled my wits completely? Had she really kissed me or was I hallucinating? No, she had definitely kissed me. But then she stomped off in a huff and then laughed at me.

She paused, waiting for me to catch up and then walked alongside me. I felt confused and resentful at being made fun of, but she didn't say anything and after a while I subsided into a circular thought pattern leaving me no wiser.

We walked down a twisted lane, sunken between hedges as the light faded into twilight. There were glimpses of farmhouses and outbuildings through the hedge and the occasional distant tractor. A single car passed us, slowing as it drew level and then accelerating away once it was past. We crossed a bridge over a brook and started the climb up the hill on the other side. Real blackbirds scolded their alarm at our passing and there were occasional rustlings from the hedge beside the road that might, I suppose, have been a rabbit. She didn't speak and I had no idea what to say, so I stayed silent, mulling over what had happened.

My relationships with women had always been fraught. Even my marriage to Katherine had been difficult. We had been brought together by friends who thought we were made for each other, and at first that had been true. We wined and dined, and went to the theatre and talked of culture and art and politics. We were affectionate and even passionate. We stayed up late and spoke about history and philosophy and our jobs and even our friends, but never about us.

Our relationship was something we never discussed. I liked her a lot, but in the end it had been she who had seduced me. It was she who pushed our relationship from an intellectual exchange to a physical consummation.

Quite suddenly the relationship changed. I found the physical aspect of our relationship overwhelming. I was obsessed with her. I couldn't wait to see her and be with her. But she wanted something beyond the moment, beyond the enjoyment of each other.

We broke up on a Friday. I was looking forward to a weekend of Katherine. I thought everything was fine until she called me and told me it was over. When I asked her why, she told me she wanted more than just sex and when I said that I thought we had more than sex, she laughed and said that was the problem. I told her I didn't understand and she told me she thought that was true.

That was why I asked her to marry me. Not immediately, not then, but later. I found I couldn't bear the thought of living day to day without her. It wasn't until much later that I realised I couldn't live with her constant suspicion and innate mistrust. By then we had Alex, and everything had changed.

"You're quiet." Blackbird brought me back to the present.

"Hmmm?"

"We've walked about two miles and you haven't said a word."

"I was thinking."

"What about?"

"Nothing."

"Two miles of nothing?"

"Old stuff, stuff that's gone; things long passed."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No. It's history."

We walked on, rounding a bend and walking past a farmyard where a tractor was left running unattended, the driver presumably engaged in one of the buildings.

"Blackbird, why aren't we friends?"

"Aren't we?" She looked sideways at me. "I thought we were."

"But you said-"

"Back there? I don't know if we were friends then, but we are now, if you want to be."

"Would you do something, for me?" I asked her.

"What's that?"

"Stick with me, stay friends with me."

I waited while she considered my request. She didn't just say "OK", and I valued that. She treated my proposal seriously. Friendship wasn't something I offered lightly or trivially. It was a commitment to a way of being. It cheered me that she considered it carefully.

She skipped forward and turned in front of me, leaving me no choice but to stop or step around her. I stopped and she rested her hands on my chest.

"Do you know what you're asking?"

"Yes. No. Is it so terrible to be my friend? Does it mean something else to the Feyre?"

"No, it's not terrible and friendship amongst the Feyre has all the usual connotations. But do you know what it means when a guy says to a girl, let's just be friends?"

"Oh, I see. I didn't mean that. I meant be my friend as well, alongside anything else you can be, that you want to be."

"And what do you want, Niall?" Her eyes were sharp and focused.

"Honestly? Right now I want a good night's sleep somewhere where no one is trying to kill me and the comfort of knowing I have a friend in the world. Beyond that, I am prepared to see what tomorrow brings."

"A true answer and a fair one." She turned and continued walking, leaving me once more to catch up.

"So is that a yes, or a no?" I asked her.

She looked back over her shoulder. "It's not a no."

I caught up with her and settled back into her gentle pace.

"It wasn't exactly a yes, either," I pointed out.

"No, it wasn't, was it?"

And I had to settle for that. I figured that I had offended her earlier when she thought I was rejecting her attentions. Now she was more reserved.

"As your friend, Niall…"

"Yes."

"Would you confide in me? Would you tell me your secrets?"

"As your friend, I might, assuming I had any secrets."

"Hmm. So if you liked someone, would it be a secret?"

"Not a secret exactly, but it might be difficult to talk about."

"Why would that be?"

"She might be very complicated. I might not know where I was with her, even if I did like her quite a lot actually."

"She might be older than you?"

"She might, but that wouldn't necessarily be a problem."

"Then why would she be complicated?"

I sighed, wrestling with the theoretical realities. "Because she might have a lot of secrets of her own; because she might change in the wink of an eye and be someone different, someone I didn't know or someone else that I did, if I ever knew her at all. How would I know who she was?"

"How do any of us know? We only show the parts we want others to see. We might not be able to cloak it in magic or switch in a moment, but we can all be different people, if we choose."

"That's true I suppose, but it's hard to trust someone when you don't know who they are." And trust, as I had learned too late with Katherine, is where friendship and even love are founded.

There was a long pause while we walked along, side by side, in silence.

"You could get to know her," she suggested.

"Yes," I agreed, "I might just try that."

We walked along and after a few more yards, her hand slipped into mine and we walked along companionably. We could have been out for an evening walk if it weren't for the dark box in Blackbird's bag.

"Glamour has a kind of side effect," she said, apropos nothing in particular.

"It does? What kind of side effect?" I had visions of all my hair falling out or my teeth going green.

"It becomes second nature."

"How is that a side effect?"

"You use it all the time and it becomes the norm. It becomes part of you."

"Why is that a problem?"

She stopped and I halted, waiting for her to carry on. Instead she looked pensive, worried even.

"What's the matter?"

"Niall, do you like the way I look?"

"Is it important? I mean you look lovely, but looks aren't everything."

"Do you? Because I can change it if you don't."