David Nicholls - One Day

‘I’d drive you to the tube, but—’

‘—best be on the safe side.’

They walk a little further.

‘Four more days to go!’ he says jauntily, to fill the silence.

‘Where are you off to again?’ she asks, even though she knows.

‘Corsica. Walking. Fiona loves to walk. Walking, walking, walking, always walking. She’s like Gandhi. Then in the evening, off come the walking boots, out like a light. .’

‘Phil, please — don’t.’

‘Sorry. Sorry.’ To change the subject, he asks, ‘How about you?’

‘Might see family in Yorkshire. Staying here, working mostly.’

‘Working?’

‘You know. Writing.’

‘Ah, the writing .’ Like everyone, he says it as if he doesn’t believe her. ‘It’s not about you and me, is it? This famous book?’

‘No it’s not.’ They’re at his car now, and she is keen to be gone. ‘And anyway, I don’t know if you and me are all that interesting.’

He’s leaning against his blue Ford Sierra, gearing up for the big farewell, and now she has spoilt it. He frowns, bottom lip showing pink through his beard. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I don’t know, just. .’

‘Go on.’

‘Phil, this, us. It doesn’t make me happy.’

‘You’re unhappy?’

‘Well, it’s not ideal is it? Once a week on an institutional carpet.’

‘You seemed pretty happy to me.’

‘I don’t mean satisfied. Good God, it’s not about sex, it’s the. . circumstances.’

‘Well it makes me happy—’

‘Does it? Does it really though?’

‘As I recall it used to make you happy too.’

‘Excited I suppose, for a while.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Emma!’ He glares down at her as if she has been caught smoking in the girls’ loos. ‘I’ve got to go now! Why bring this up just as I’ve got to go?’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘I mean for fuck’s sake, Emma!’

‘Hey! Don’t talk to me like that!’

‘I’m not, I just, I’m just. . Let’s just get through the summer holiday, shall we? And then we’ll work out what to do.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything we can do, is there? We either stop or we carry on, and I don’t think we should carry on. .’

He lowers his voice. ‘There is something else we can do. . I can do.’ He looks around, then when he’s sure it’s safe he takes her hand. ‘I could tell her this summer.’

‘I don’t want you to tell her, Phil. .’

‘While we’re away, or before even, next week. .’

‘I don’t want you to tell her. There’s no point. .’

‘Isn’t there?’

‘No!’

‘Because I think there is, I think there might be.’

‘Fine! Let’s talk next term, let’s, I don’t know — pencil-in a meeting.’

Heartened, he licks his lips, and checks once more for onlookers. ‘I love you, Emma Morley.’

‘No you don’t,’ she sighs. ‘Not really.’

He tilts his chin down, as if peering at her over imaginary glasses. ‘I think that’s for me to decide, don’t you?’ She hates that headmasterly look and tone of voice. She wants to kick him in the shins.

‘You had better go,’ she says.

‘I’ll miss you, Em—’

‘Have a nice holiday, if we don’t talk—’

‘You’ve no idea how much I’ll miss you—’

‘Corsica, lovely—’

‘Every day—’

‘See you then, bye—’

‘Here. .’ Raising his briefcase, using it a shield, he kisses her. Very discreet, she thinks, standing impassively. He opens the car door and steps in. A navy blue Sierra, a proper headmaster’s car, its glove compartment packed with Ordnance Survey maps. ‘Still can’t believe they call me Monkey Boy. .’ he mumbles, shaking his head.

She stands for a moment in the empty car park and watches him drive off. Thirty years old, barely in love with a married man, but at least there are no kids involved.

Twenty minutes later, she stands beneath the window of the long, low red-brick building that contains her flat, and notices a light on in the living room. Ian is back.

She contemplates walking off and hiding in the pub, or perhaps going round to see friends for the evening, but she knows that Ian will just sit in that armchair with the light off and wait, like an assassin. She takes a deep breath, and looks for her keys.

The flat seems much bigger since Ian moved out. Stripped of the video box-sets, the chargers and adapters and cables, the vinyl in gatefold sleeves, it feels as if it has been recently burgled, and once again Emma is reminded of how little she has to show for the last eight years. She can hear a rustling from the bedroom. She puts down her bag and walks quietly towards the door.

The contents of the chest of drawers are scattered on the floor: letters, bank statements, torn paper wallets of photographs and negatives. She stands silent and unobserved in the doorway and watches Ian for a moment, snorting with the effort of reaching deep into the back of the drawer. He wears unlaced trainers, track-suit bottoms, an un-ironed shirt. It’s an outfit that has been carefully put together to suggest maximum emotional disarray. He is dressed to upset.

‘What are you doing, Ian?’

He is startled, but only for a moment, after which he glares back indignantly, a self-righteous burglar. ‘You’re home late,’ he says, accusingly.

‘What’s that got to do with you?’

‘Just curious as to your whereabouts , that’s all.’

‘I had rehearsals. Ian, I thought we agreed you can’t just drop in like this.’

‘Why, got someone with you, have you?’

‘Ian, I am so not in the mood for this. .’ She puts down her bag, takes off her coat. ‘If you’re looking for a diary or something, you’re wasting your time. I haven’t kept a diary for years. .’

‘As a matter of fact I’m just getting my stuff . It is my stuff, you know, I do own it.’

‘You’ve got all your stuff.’

‘My passport. I don’t have my passport!’

‘Well I can tell you right now, it’s not in my underwear drawer.’ He is improvising of course. She knows that he has his passport, he just wanted to poke through her belongings and show her that he’s not okay. ‘Why do you need your passport? Are you going somewhere? Emigrating maybe?’

‘Oh you’d love that, wouldn’t you?’ he sneers.

‘Well I wouldn’t mind, ’ she says, stepping over the mess and sitting on the bed.

He adopts a gumshoe voice. ‘Well, tough shit , sweetheart, ’cause I ain’t going nowhere .’ As a jilted lover, Ian has found a commitment and aggression that he never possessed as a stand-up comedian, and he is certainly putting on quite a show tonight. ‘Couldn’t afford to anyway.’

She feels like heckling him. ‘I take it you’re not doing a lot of stand-up comedy at the moment, then, Ian?’

‘What do you think, sweetheart?’ he says, putting his arms out to the side, indicating the stubble, the unwashed hair, the sallow skin; his look-what-you’ve-done-to-me look. Ian is making a spectacle of his self-pity, a one-man-show of loneliness and rejection that he’s been working up for the last six months and, tonight at least, Emma has no time for it.

‘Where’s this “sweetheart” thing come from, Ian? I’m not sure if I like it.’

He returns to his search and mumbles something into the drawer, ‘fuck off, Em’ perhaps. Is he drunk, she wonders? On the dressing table, there’s an open can of strong cheap lager. Drunk — now there’s a good idea. At that moment, Emma decides to set out to get drunk as soon as possible. Why not? It seems to work for everyone else. Excited by the project, she walks to the kitchen to make a start.