Trying to Throw my Arms Around the World

Tiny features

Tiny features

Vic straightened her neck and pulled her mouth into a wide grin. “I’m fucking with you, Lee,” she said. “Lou absolutely adores you. If I didn’t love her as a sister it would make me sick to bear witness to your endless smoochfest day in day out.” She picked a piece of toast from my plate and let the fork dangle in front of her mouth. “Now it just endears the life out of me.” I’d been half-living with Vic and Lou for the past three months but Vic still remained a bit of a mystery to me. “You two are just made for each other.”

“If you say so,” I muttered, unconvinced. “And don’t play me like that. I hate that.” Vic just sat there, grinning ear to ear, her convictions about my relationship with Lou shooting right through me.

“If these walls weren’t so thin, I’d think you didn’t get any last night, darling. Cheer up.” Obviously it had been a mistake to question Vic’s loyalties. I couldn’t figure out if her act was a decoy to protect Lou or a genuine attempt at reassuring me – whatever it was though, it hadn’t erased my doubts.

I didn’t hear from Lou all day. I was out with Liz who had left the twins in Andrew’s care for the night. It was her first proper outing in almost a year and she was tipsy after two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc, making her the perfect company to bitch and moan about Lou with – whatever I said wouldn’t register enough to settle in her long-term memory.

“No one believes me, Liz. They all think I suddenly fell prey to a bout of unreasonable paranoia, but I’m not imagining things. I mean, where is she now? Polishing Claire’s Prada shoes?”

“It’s just stubborn pride, Lee. You’ve been there. We’ve all been there.”

“I have my own pride to consider as well, you know. I can’t have my girlfriend run off with Claire Burns.” Then, out of nowhere, Lou turned up at the pub. She walked in, squeezing herself through the thick Saturday evening crowd, her eyes searching for our table. As soon as I spotted her I felt it again, that current of unconditional, foolish love throbbing inside me, and then, as if my subconscious was trying to warn me, that squashing sensation that comes with caution, with jealousy, with sensing that something’s not quite right.

“We need to talk, yeah?” she said, barely acknowledging Liz’s presence, her gaze fixed on me, her head slightly slanted, her hands buried deep in her pockets. Panic surged through me, gripped me by the throat and for a second I thought, this is it, it’s over, I know it. Under the table I grabbed Liz’s hand, willing her to stay, but she was too far gone to get it.

“I’d better go,” she said. “I don’t get much sleep these days.” Unable to speak, my tongue paralysed by ominous anticipation, I tried a beggar’s glance but her hand slipped out of mine and she swiftly made her exit. Lou sat down next to me and I still couldn’t say anything. The silence grew heavier, almost crushing. I could barely turn my head and look at her, that’s how terrified I was that she was about to walk out of my life to become nothing but a painful memory – just another good thing Claire Burns had robbed me of.

“I’m waiting,” she said, her voice splintered by some kind of too strong emotion.

“Waiting for what?” I asked and finally looked her full in the face, only to be floored again by its subtle magnificence, the small wrinkles under her left cheek, the lonesome freckle right above her nose – its tiny features only I could see.

To be continued…