A Fucked Up Life in Books (18 page)

I spent two years of my life in a relationship with someone who didn’t read books. I do not give a shit whether someone reads or not, as long as there is something in their life which excites them like books do me. With this person in particular, while I spent every spare minute with my nose in a book, he spent every spare minute listening to music, playing music and talking about music. He had the same passion for music that I had for books, and it worked between us. He taught me about bands and line-ups and records, and I talked to him about my favourite authors and characters and genres.

The difference was, whereas I quite liked listening to music, he hated to read. While he used to get excited about this or that band, and I would put them on and listen, he still hadn’t read any of my favourite books.

Live 8
was coming up, and I’d managed to get tickets. I told him that in return for his ticket he had to at least try to read one of my favourite books on the train down to London.

I picked the first Harry Potter book –
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
. I knew that he would like it, if he tried. And maybe if he read this one then he might want to follow the series through.

We got on the train and he opened the book. I put headphones in and listened to The Doors (who I loved) and Primal Scream (who I’d never really heard but he loved). I listened to
Screamadelica
and loved it. Especially one song –
Come Together
. I told him how much I’d liked that song. He said that he wanted it played at his funeral; it was his favourite song ever. I told him what I wanted played at my funeral – I can’t remember what I said now though.

After an hour of reading he started to ask me a few questions about the book. I was so excited that he seemed to be enjoying it. We arrived in London.

We took a tube or two over to Hyde Park and stood amongst thousands of others watching the bands. We were there for Pink Floyd, who wouldn’t be playing for hours yet.

As it got later and colder a lot of people started to leave. There had been an announcement that all of the tubes were stopping early. We didn’t care, how difficult could it be to get back to the train station anyway?

As people left we moved forward and got closer to the stage. After a long gap of silence, Pink Floyd came on stage and played
Breathe
. We stood and shivered in the cold, never taking our eyes off the stage. It was beautiful.

When they finished playing he told me that watching them was the happiest moment of his life. We were buzzing, wandering about Hyde Park chatting and remembering our favourite bits and pulling our jackets tightly around us. It really was getting very cold.

We started to walk back in what we thought was the direction of the train station. There weren’t those handy London maps on every street back then, and we had a tube map which we were using as a guide. It wasn’t fucking working. I was very quickly getting really stressed; I was cold and tired and hungry. I wanted a cigarette and I needed a wee. This was fucking horrible.

We must’ve walked around for about two hours before we gave in and got a rickshaw to the train station. I was crying and he was trying to comfort me. He was still buzzing about Pink Floyd and I just wanted to be in my bed. He kept telling me what an amazing night it had been, and what an adventure we’d had, and I told him to shut the fuck up.

When we got there we had missed the last train home. The next one (which wasn’t even a fucking train – it was two buses and a taxi) wasn’t until 6am, and we were so tired that we went into the ladies’ toilets, (the only warm place sheltered from the wind in the whole station) huddled together and went to sleep on the floor. At least he did. I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there keeping warm and watching the time until we could go and get our bus.

I couldn’t sleep on the bus either, but he did. By the time we got back home I was exhausted, but he was wide awake, excitedly telling his family about the bands that we saw and how much fun he’d had. I excused myself, went upstairs, took my clothes off and crawled into bed.

Before I drifted off to sleep I heard the door open. He came in and asked me if I was okay. I was, I said, just tired. I closed my eyes again while he moved quietly around the room. He hadn’t got into bed though. I opened my eyes in time to see him take
Harry Potter
from my bag and settle down on a chair to finish reading it.

Last week I went to his funeral. I hadn’t spoken to him in a long time, but he hadn’t changed. He was brought in to
Come Together
by Primal Scream, and he went out to
Breathe
by Pink Floyd and
The End
by The Doors.

It was such a long time ago that I was with him that I almost felt out of place there. After he was buried I spoke to his family. His sister said to me, ‘You were the love of my brother’s life.’ And I cried. His Mum said to me, ‘My favourite song that he wrote was one he’d written for you.’ His Uncles, Aunties, friends and other ex-girlfriends came and sat with me and made me cry some more.

And his niece, who was so young when I knew her and who has now grown up into a beautiful young lady, said some things to me that are private and that I will never share with anyone. Those things are for me and her to remember together.

In return I shared this story with her. She was too young to remember it happening at the time, but her face lit up when I described how happy he had been that night in London, listening to the song that seven years later his family had chosen to say goodbye.

The Boyfriend and I were on our way to that brilliant mad Austrian’s exhibition at The Natural History Museum where he decided to get a bunch of animals, pump them full of plastic, burn off all the skin and display their insides to the world. I fucking love science.

Anyway, our day out started with a tube journey, which is where my story is set.

So, we were waiting for the train to arrive at our local tube station. I have a habit of not reading on the platform, but as soon as I hear the train chugging in, reaching into my bag and taking out my book so that I have it in my hand in case the train is packed and I can’t reach the fucker once I step on board.

I was reading
How To Be a Woman
, and when the train pulled in, I stepped on holding the book in my hands.

The tube was fucking rammed, which I wasn’t expecting with it not being during the week when me and all of the other bastard-faced commuters are heading into the city to get to work. I was glad I’d got my book out ready. The carriage that we got onto was quiet when we stepped on, but as the beeps started and the doors zipped shut I realised that we’d got on the train with a bunch of drunk and rowdy Glaswegian men who were off to watch some kind of sport or other.

Pretty quickly one man stepped forward and said hello to me. I said hello back to him. He looked at my book.

‘How to be a woman, eh? How do you be a woman then, eh?’ he asked me.

The Boyfriend and I looked at him.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not too far through it yet so I’m not really sure.’

He nodded sagely. ‘Is this your boyfriend?’ he asked, pointing at The Boyfriend.

‘Yes, it is,’ I responded.

‘Ah!’ said the man. ‘Hey, fellas! This lass is on the train with her boyfriend learning how to be a woman!’

The men on the tube roared.

Now, you know when there are nasty men and they are all shouty, and there are nice men and they are all shouty? These were the nice kind. They weren’t going to be mean to me. So at their roar, I gave them a little wave.

‘Now,’ the man looked at me. ‘Do you
love
your fella?’

I’m a bit funny about being in love. I don’t really like telling people that I actually do love, let alone strangers on the tube whether or not I’m in love with the man standing next to me, who is now holding my hand and trying to work out what the crest on the drunk man’s shirt is symbolising.

‘He’s alright,’ I said.

‘ONLY ALRIGHT?!’ roared the man. ‘POOR FUCKER! MATE!’ He turned to The Boyfriend. ‘You’re only
alright
!’

The Boyfriend laughed and shrugged and asked him where they were off to, and what was happening today.

The drunk man ignored him and turned back to face me.

‘Would you marry him, if he asked?’ he questioned me.

I laughed. I laughed a lot.

‘Fuck NO!’ I replied.

The carriage cheered me again. I’m a fucking hero!

‘You wouldn’t marry him?!’ the man said. ‘Mate!’ he turned to The Boyfriend, ‘You poor fucker.’

The Boyfriend did some more shrugging and laughing.

‘Now,’ the man said to me, ‘If he asked you now, right here, if he got down on one knee in the carriage and proposed and wanted to marry you, you’d say yes, wouldn’t you?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘MATE,’ the man turned to The Boyfriend, ‘Ask her to marry you! She’s fucking gagging for a wedding you can fucking tell! They all are!’

The rest of the men started hollering and cheering at us. The Boyfriend looked a bit uncomfortable. Neither of us wants to agree to get married in front of a bunch of rowdy Scottish men.

I turned to the man.

‘My Grandad said to me once that I should keep him keen. You know, love him and leave him. That’s how to be a woman, innit, just love ‘em and leave ‘em.’

The men roared. I’m a fucking hero!

‘I like you,’ said our main man. ‘You’re alright.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

Then it was our stop. We turned and said a cheery goodbye and the men all sang
Rule Brittania
for us as we got off the train. As the doors began to close I could hear:

‘Love ‘em and leave ‘em? HAAAAAAAArrrrrr!’

And the friendly drunken Scottish men in the carriage gave me a final cheer and wave as the doors closed and the train moved away.

I’m a fucking hero.

The Boyfriend and I had decided that this year we would go to Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We’d never been before, and for me at least it was a big deal because I had some close friends and also some family performing in various shows.

The reason we’d not been before was because of the expense, so this year we booked into some student accommodation so that we could have our own room and kitchenette and therefore save some money on eating out, and we also booked ourselves on the coach there and back, rather than forking out ten times as much to travel by train.

So we got up at the crack of dawn and headed to Victoria coach station in order to catch the coach that would take us ten hours to get to Edinburgh.

There is only one thing that you can do on a mammoth journey like this, and that is to take a mammoth book with you. I had saved
A Dance with Dragons
for such an occasion, and as well pulled out of London I whipped out my Kindle and got cracking.

Every other fucker on the coach was part of a family, and it was absolutely heaving with small children crying and whining and being sick. It was pretty disgusting, and after about three hours I put my book away, unable to concentrate on it with the little twat behind me kicking my chair and pulling my hair, and challenged The Boyfriend to a game of hangman.

We whizzed through a few games. My choices were fucking excellent, if I do say so myself:
Princess Margaret
and
Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream
being my proudest moments. His were less good, and I don’t remember what they were, but I remember the last game that we played.

He drew the lines on the bit of paper and I began to guess, going through the vowels first and then trying to work out the rest.

_EA_ / __I___E_

No fucking idea. What is it, I asked him. A film or something? No, he smirked.

I guessed some more and got some letters.

_EA_ / _HI__REN

Still no fucking idea, and a few more guesses down I was nearly a hangman, and that would simply not do.

‘D,’ I guessed, still with no idea what it could be. He filled in the blanks.

DEAD / _HI_DREN

‘AHHHHH!’ I exclaimed, so excited to have got it. ‘DEAD CHILDREN! Ha! Nice one, brilliant!’

The parents in front and behind us stopped their chattering to their horrible little kids and pulled themselves up in their chairs. The one in front of us looked at DEAD CHILDREN written in uppercase on our piece of paper, and then at us laughing, before pulling his child down in the seat and telling it to shut up.

The parent behind us did the same, but instead of telling the child to shut up gave it a more specific list of instructions.

‘Don’t kick that chair, don’t pull yourself up, you are pulling that lady’s hair, don’t speak to them and don’t throw your blanket over on to them anymore, do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME? They are VERY ANGRY.’

We sat in our chairs and laughed some more. Every so often muttering ‘dead children!’ and then exploding into giggles again.

I probably wouldn’t recommend being a ridiculously dark cunt in order to frighten every fucker within punching distance of you just to get a bit of peace, but we didn’t get disturbed for the rest of the journey, and so for us it worked.

And for me, it was one of those brilliant times in life when you realise that the person you are with is just right for you.

It’s my birthday today. I’m 28 years old and at the moment am sitting in my flat, on my own, and wondering where it all went wrong.

It’s been six weeks now since my boyfriend has been gone. I got home on a Friday night and where he should’ve been there was a note saying sorry.

In my bag that evening when I came in was my second-hand copy of
The Quincunx
. A bunch of us on Twitter were going to start reading it together for a bit of fun. When I saw the note I put my bag down, with the book still inside, and sat as still as I could on the sofa until I fell asleep.

The first week I carried the book around with me in my bag as normal, but I couldn’t concentrate to read it. It was too big to think about starting on my own, and so I looked elsewhere for things to occupy my mind.