Killing Cupid (11 page)

Thursday

I’ve got a terrible headache and feel as if somebody’s removed all the blood from my veins and replaced it with sand that’s been soaked in lager and dipped in an ashtray. I’ve just read what I wrote last night before I passed out. There’s an empty vodka bottle beside the bed which I shouldn’t have bought. I can’t afford it.

I vaguely remember going on the Web last night as well. Did I order more stuff?

Ow… my head. Need water. More sleep. I want to write more but it hurts too much so I’m going back to bed. At least I don’t have a fucking job to go to.

Afternoon. After returning to bed this morning I didn’t wake up again until four. I staggered out to the kitchen looking for water. Simon and Natalie were there. They both raised their eyebrows at me.

‘Have you been asleep?’ Natalie asked.

I grunted in the affirmative.

‘Haven’t been on Monster.com then?’ said Si. He’d promised me that he wouldn’t hassle me about finding another job, although I’d assured him that I would do everything I could to find one quickly. He was actually really good about it when I told him I’d been sacked. He said he could cover the rent for a month until I found something new. So I don’t know why he suddenly started going on about job hunting today. Maybe Natalie had been nagging him about it – worried that he might have less cash to spend on her, no doubt.

‘I looked on there yesterday,’ I said. ‘Total waste of time.’

Simon tutted but didn’t say any more, picking up his iPhone and manipulating the screen with his thumb. Natalie came over and touched my shoulder. ‘It’s difficult to find a job, I think,’ she said kindly. Her hair was messed up – I think she and Simon had thrown a double sickie today to be together. Natalie smelled faintly of sex. It was too much.

I had to get out. I bought a few cans of beer and went and sat down by the Lock. I had some thinking to do. And the fresh alcohol helped make me feel better; oiled the engine of my mind.

Seeing Siobhan with Kathy last night has made me realise that I should be her friend, and that it is possible because, clearly, there isn’t really a rule about socialising with her students. I want to ask her why she lied to me, and I want her to know how I feel. Or do I? Oh… I don’t know. I know from experience that it’s best to be friends with women first, and that you shouldn’t try to go beyond that stage too soon. But what if Siobhan only has room for one new friend right now?

Kathy.

Room for Kathy and none for me.

By the time I’d finished my last can of lager I knew that I was going to have to do something about Siobhan’s new friend.

I walked up past the college to the pub where I saw them having their cosy drink, the George V, and looked in through the window. No sign of Kathy. So I came home again, buying more cans of beer on the way home.

I’ll go back tomorrow, even though I don’t know what I’m going to say to her or what I’m going to do.

Oh fuck. Being in love like this is killing me.

Sunday

Went to George V again. Still no sign of Kathy.

Read TLA. Twice.

Googled Kathy and tried to find out where she lives but no joy.

Kissed Siobhan’s picture. A thousand times.

Monday

Oh.

Oh fuck. What a…

My hands are shaking so much I can hardly type. I don’t even know if I should be writing this down. What if . . ? But I need to get it out. I need to rid myself of it, like being sick when you’ve drunk so much you feel poisoned.

The day started like this:

I was woken by the doorbell. I turned over and it buzzed again. Opening one eye, I looked at the alarm clock. Half-eight – Si would be at work. I half-fell out of bed and went to the door, wearing just my boxer shorts. It was the postman.

He looked me up and down and raised an eyebrow. ‘Parcels for Siobhan McGowan.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ve got two parcels for a Ms Siobhan McGowan. Have I got the wrong address?’

‘Oh, no… No. She lives here but she’s not in.’

He handed me the parcels, gave me another look and turned around. I shut the door and studied the parcels, both of which were soft and squidgy, with TheBoutique.com written on the packaging. I opened them and found myself holding a black skirt and a low-cut top, both with a Prada label. That’s when I remembered: the other night, when I got home after following Siobhan, I’d been online, and I must have bought these using Siobhan’s credit card. Except this time I’d made a mistake and put my own address down.

But seeing the clothes made me feel really cheerful. I don’t know a huge deal about fashion, but even I could see that this was top-notch clobber, and exactly the kind of clothes that would really suit Siobhan; the type of stuff that for some reason she never buys for herself. She could wear this over her new underwear. Wow, she’d look hot.

This time, I wanted to see the look on her face when she saw them.

I put the skirt and top into a bag and, after getting dressed, made my way towards Victoria Gardens.

As usual, the road was pretty much deserted. There were a pair of magpies sitting on Siobhan’s roof. Two for joy: what a good omen. As I watched, one of the magpies stretched its wings and flew away. Damn. Still, it’s the initial sighting that counts. I think.

I went up Siobhan’s front path, took the clothes out of their bag and lay them carefully on the doorstep. Then I rang the bell and ran back down the path as quickly as I could. I crouched behind a car, ensuring that I had a good view of the door, and waited for Siobhan to emerge and find the clothes. How excited she would be: my card, the flowers, the underwear, and now this. It must feel like Christmas nearly every day!

I waited, but Siobhan didn’t emerge. She must be out again, I thought.

I counted to ten then stood up. I’d had another brilliant idea. I didn’t want to leave the clothes on the step all day in case some dishonest passer-by saw them and nabbed them. My new idea meant that I wouldn’t get to see Siobhan’s face when she found her new glorious garments, but I decided that was a price worth paying.

I walked back up her path, took out my key, scooped up the clothes and went inside. She must have gone out before the post, because it was lying on the floor. I picked it up and put it on the side table.

I really like Siobhan’s place and can’t wait till she invites me to move in, but I didn’t have time to hang around. I didn’t know if she’d just popped out to buy some milk or something. I went straight through to the kitchen and looked out the back window. There was the washing, hanging on the line. I unbolted the back door and went out into the garden. There were high walls surrounding the garden so I was confident nobody would see me, and I quickly did what I’d come to do. It was time to replace some of those scruffy old clothes that Siobhan slobbed around in with these new, flattering items. I pulled down an old pair of jeans and a misshapen T-shirt with I-heart-NY emblazoned on the front and pegged the Prada skirt and top up in their place. I noticed that the underwear I’d sent wasn’t on the line. Maybe she was wearing it that very minute. I would have liked to have gone up and looked through her chest of drawers to check, but I was worried about time. Before I left, though, I noticed a little gate set into the wall in the corner of the garden. I looked over it – it led out to an alley. I made a mental note.

Taking the jeans and T-shirt with me, I went back into the house, bolted the door behind me and hurried out through the front door.

When I got onto the road, I heard a miaow.

I turned. It was Siobhan’s cat, standing on the wall. Had it followed me out of the house? I hadn’t even seen it . It jumped down from the wall and ran across the road, stopping on the kerb and looking back at me.

Then I had another idea: maybe I could get Siobhan’s cat to deliver a message to her. I fished in my pockets and found a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote ‘I love you’ on it and crossed the road towards the cat. I was going to wrap the piece of paper around its collar.

As I neared the feline it tiptoed away, stopping just out of reach. It must be a girl, I thought, amused. It was a little tease.

‘Come on,’ I said, making little cooing noises. ‘Come to your future daddy.’

It blinked at me.

I crept closer, holding out the piece of paper, making little kissy noises now. Thank God there was nobody around to see, although I could hear a car coming down the street. I paused and stretched out my hand towards the cat, which was now washing itself. ‘Come on, you little…‘ I said, and at that point I sprang, throwing myself towards it, aiming to grab its collar.

I missed. I made contact with the fur on its back, but the cat slipped out from under my grasp and ran at top feline speed into the road – straight into the path of a car. Through the fingers I thrust in front of my face I saw a blur of fur, a flash of silver, heard a screech of tyres and then

BANG.

I opened my eyes and removed my hands from my face. The cat was nowhere to be seen. But the car…oh shit. The car had swerved and smashed into Siobhan’s front wall, sending bricks and dust flying. I saw a face through the car window, turning towards me: a woman, looking dazed and scared, but thankfully still alive, and with no sign of blood.

And what did I do? I ran. I got the fuck out of there, still clutching the carrier bag containing Siobhan’s old clothes. It was only when I got home that I realised that I must have dropped the piece of paper that said ‘I love you’.

But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened today.

It was only mid-morning when I got back here, and I hung around the house all day, fretting about what Siobhan would think when she saw the demolition job that car had done on her front wall. It would probably lessen the thrill of seeing her new designer gear. And what about the cat? Had it been hurt?

I had this awful flashback to that time when I was a kid. Annette had a new hamster, called Chips. I loved that hamster, wishing I was allowed one, but I wasn’t allowed to play with him. One day, everyone went out, leaving me alone in the house, and I rushed upstairs to get Chips out of his cage. He ran up and down my arm a few times, then I got bored and went to put him back. But the cage had a spring-door – and as I was putting Chips through the gap, I let go of the door and it snapped shut on his leg. He froze, I froze. I didn’t know what to do. Chips was lying completely still in my palm, this grimace on his little face, his teeth sticking out.

I put him back in the cage and hoped that maybe he would recover. I sat by the cage all day, talking to him, pleading with him to get up and start walking round the cage, maybe run on his wheel. But he didn’t. He just lay there giving me reproachful looks.

Mum’s reaction when she got home and they saw him…

All I can say is, thank God he lived, even if he did limp for a long time. I don’t know what she would have done if he’d actually died. And that’s how I felt this afternoon, worrying about Siobhan’s cat. Because if Siobhan thought I’d hurt her cat, it would be all over between us. And he was a nice cat too. Much nicer than a lot of the people I know.

By teatime I’d worked myself into such a frenzy of anxiety that I had to get out of the house. Si and Nat had come home and they kept asking me to ‘sit still for God’s sake’. And maybe because it was a habit I’d developed over the last couple of days, I made my way towards the George V. I could do with a drink even if Kathy wasn’t there. I wasn’t thinking clearly at all: I didn’t know what I would do if I saw Kathy. But walking to the pub I was reminded of how sickening it had been to see her and Siobhan chatting like bosom buddies. If only she would disappear, leave the class and never come back. Thinking about it made my stomach hurt.

When I got to the pub it was half-empty. Ten seconds later, so was my first glass of beer. I sat and drank and smoked while the pub began to fill up around me, growing steadily noisier, the tables around me becoming occupied as people stopped off for a swift half after work. For many of them, that swift half became a slow whole, the alcohol deadening the disappointments of another day in the office. I almost pitied them. How they would envy my freedom.

I was lighting my dozenth cigarette of the evening when I heard a female voice. ‘Alex?’

I looked up and saw Kathy. She wore a puzzled expression.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I often drink here,’ I said.

‘I’ve never seen you here before.’

‘I usually come during the day. And I haven’t been for a while.’

She narrowed her eyes and studied me for a moment. She looked around, probably trying to see if there were any other tables free. There weren’t.

‘Do you mind if I join you?’

I told her of course not and she went off to the bar to buy herself a drink. I was feeling much calmer now, the booze washing through me, tranquillizing me. Kathy came back to the table and sat down and said, ‘This is becoming a habit – drinking here with people from my writing class.’ Then a worried look crossed her face, just for a split-second. Maybe Siobhan had told her about the lie she told me about socialising with people from the class. She didn’t say any more about it.

For the first hour or so we talked about the class, about the other students. Kathy did a great impression of Brian. I found myself really enjoying the conversation, mainly because it gave me plenty of opportunities to say Siobhan’s name. I noticed that whenever Siobhan’s name was mentioned, Kathy got this look in her eye. But it didn’t stop me from enjoying myself. I almost forgot that I wasn’t supposed to like this woman: that she was my rival. She was funny and very intelligent. I knew how much Siobhan liked Kathy’s writing, and that irritated me, but then Kathy bought more drinks, and after we’d finished those I bought another round and by then I was feeling pretty warm and fuzzy. I even felt a bit sentimental, as if I was mourning something that hadn’t actually happened yet. It was a strange feeling.

Then, after I’d mentioned Siobhan for the twentieth time, Kathy said, ‘You like her don’t you?’