Follow You Home

  She only had one tumbler, so she poured in some whiskey, took a couple of sips, then passed it to me, jumping up to put some music on. She staggered and half-fell onto the bed, giggling and saying, ‘Whoops.’ She was wearing jeans and a jumper but I could see the shape of her body through the fabric and longed to touch her.

  ‘It’s a bit like being a student again, isn’t it?’ I said, passing the tumbler back to her.

  ‘Yeah. Except I was a very boring student. I spent all my time in the library. Little Miss Boring.’

  ‘You were never boring.’

  ‘Oh, I was at uni. And I had a very boring boyfriend.’

  ‘The chairman of the debating society?’

  ‘Julian. He was never happier than when he was mass debating.’

  She smiled, then giggled, then laughed, and I joined in, and soon there were tears pouring down Laura’s cheeks and I was clutching my stomach. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop laughing. The joke wasn’t even funny, but it was a release of tension, or possibly a sign of how close we both were to hysteria.

  Finally, we got control of ourselves and Laura wiped her face with the sleeve of her jumper.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘My stomach hurts.’

  I held up the bottle, said in a ridiculous attempt at an American accent, ‘Rock and fucking roll, baby.’

  ‘Please, don’t set me off again.’

  I remembered what Erin had asked me to. ‘Laura, you know I’m seeing a therapist. I think it’s helping. Erin told me—’

  She held up a hand. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Please.’ She giggled. ‘I’ve managed to drink myself into a state of not giving a fuck, OK?’

  We were sitting very close together on the bed now. Laura still cross-legged, me with my legs stretched out before me. My head was woozy, my ribs sore; I was intoxicated and happy. I wanted to say something profound, something that would make Laura fall in love with me all over again, that would fix all our problems, make her change her mind about running away. But I couldn’t think of anything sensible, let alone profound. As I groped through the fog in my head, a song came on that we both loved, a piano intro, a softly plucked guitar, a deep male voice, and Laura turned her eyes towards me and whispered, ‘This song always reminds me of you, you know.’

  And then we were kissing.

  Shortly afterwards, when we were both naked, and I was inside her, I made a groaning noise and Laura shushed me, whispering, ‘Erin and Rob,’ and I was surprised to remember that they existed, that anyone else existed. Her skin against mine, her tongue on my lips, her fingers on my back, the heaviness of her breathing . . . these were the only things in the world. I’m sure I cried out when I came, and she did too, and then I was slipping into unconsciousness, her limbs wrapped around me, her sweat drying on my skin, and as sleep claimed me I felt happy, cured, alive.

  Until I woke up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was still dark outside, and the bed was cold and smelled stale, the scent of sex and whiskey heavy in the air. I found my jeans on the floor beside the bed and checked my phone. Seven-thirty a.m. I waited for a minute in case Laura had got up to go to the loo, and when she didn’t appear I got out of bed, retrieved my clothes, which were crumpled in a pile on the floor, and went downstairs.

  There were a couple of coffee mugs on the side in the kitchen but no sign of Laura. I assumed Rob must have gone to work and that Erin was still in bed.

  Where was Laura?

  I left the house. I felt wretched. My head throbbed and the rest of my body ached. I felt about ninety years old. Before leaving the house I had found a little box of painkillers in the bathroom cabinet and swallowed a couple.

  Camden was waking up, early birds heading to work, people queuing at bus stops. A couple of runners jogged by as I walked down towards the market. I had an idea of where Laura might have gone. I knew her favourite spot in this part of the city.

  As I walked, I thought about the previous night. Though it had only been a few hours ago I could only remember glimpses of skin against skin, a sense memory. I so wanted it to mean something and for Laura to feel the same way. But what were the chances of that? She had been drunk, emotional. We both had been. Sex with your ex. It was textbook.

  If my male friends could see inside my head, I thought, they would want to slap some sense into me, tell me to give up and move on. What they wouldn’t understand, though, was that I felt like I was drowning and Laura was dry land. I didn’t know how to get through this, through everything, without her. Why had we reacted to the aftermath of Romania in such different ways? One of us wanting to cling, the other needing to get away. A mutually impossible situation. Deep down I knew the answer.

  And I didn’t know what to do about it.

  I was right about Laura’s whereabouts.

  Camden Lock was one of her favourite spots, but only when it was quiet, when the crowds—who flocked to the market, the bars and noodle stalls, the goth boutiques and remaining record shops—had gone home or not descended on the borough yet. Down by the still water of the canal it was quiet, especially at this hour, in this weather. A few degrees colder and the water would freeze over.

  Laura was sitting on a low wall beside the narrow towpath, wrapped in her green parka. She stared at the water, not moving. I watched her from the market courtyard above, hesitant and unsure if I would be welcome. Perhaps, now I knew she was safe, I should sneak away, go back home and call her later. Or would I be better going down and talking to her now, telling her how I felt? I wrestled with the question. But before I could make a decision I saw something that overrode my dilemma.

  Somebody was watching her.

  I could see him standing beneath the bridge, half concealed by shadows. For a fleeting moment he came out into the dim morning light but he was wearing a hood so I couldn’t see his face. He was slim, with an athletic build. He stared at Laura, who was oblivious to his presence.

  ‘Hey!’ I shouted.

  Laura looked towards me, while the man retreated beneath the bridge into the darkness. I ran down the steps, ignoring Laura’s cry of ‘Daniel?’ and accelerated along the towpath and under the bridge.

  When I emerged on the other side, he was ascending the steps onto the main road. As if he’d hailed it, a bus glided to a stop and he jumped aboard. I ran as fast as I could, but as I reached the bus stop, panting and sweating, the bus set off. There was no sign of the man through the window.

  Cursing, I jogged back down the steps and walked along the path to Laura.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she said, her words harsh, breath pluming the frigid air.

  ‘That guy was spying on you.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You were spying on me.’

  I stepped towards her, tried to put my hand on her arm, but she jerked away. ‘Laura. I woke up and you were gone. I was worried about you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I still care about you, Laura.’

  Her long strawberry-blonde hair stirred in the breeze. Her nose was pink from the cold and two more spots of colour burned in her cheeks.

  She exhaled another cloud of ice. ‘Daniel. You need to stop this. Last night, we were drunk.’ She looked directly at me. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  She wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘I do.’

  Before I could respond she turned away and marched up the steps.

  I ran after her. ‘Laura, for God’s sake. This isn’t you.’

  ‘Please, Daniel. Don’t beg. It’s not you.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to beg! For fuck’s sake, why are you being so cold? That isn’t you.’

  ‘Maybe this is what I’m like now. This is the new me.’

  I shook my head. ‘I refuse to believe that.’

  I could sense the market traders
, who were setting up their stalls, watching us. I reached out to her and she shrank away. ‘You need to forget me. We shouldn’t have slept together last night. It was a mistake. I know you must’ve seen it as a sign that we were going to get back together. But we can’t be together anymore, Daniel. Ever. Nothing will change that. I’m moving away and you’ll never see me again.’ She put her hand on my forearm. ‘You need to forget about me and move on.’

  I opened my mouth to argue but thought better of it. She was right. I was coming close to begging, or at least verging on harassment. Her words hurt me but made me frustrated and angry too. The best thing I could do now was retreat, go home and give her the space she wanted. But before I went there was one more thing I needed to say.

  ‘Laura, that man was watching you.’

  She looked down at the bridge and shook her head. ‘No. He was just some random guy. You probably frightened the life out of him.’

  I hesitated. Was she right? ‘No . . . He was watching you. Specifically you.’

  Doubt crossed her face but then she shook her head again. ‘No. He wasn’t.’ She strode away again and I hurried to keep up.

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

  ‘Back to Erin’s.’

  She broke contact with me and walked away quickly, out of the courtyard and onto the High Street, which was teeming with people now. I stood there, frozen to the spot, for what felt like a long time. It wasn’t just the crushing realisation that she really meant it, that our relationship was actually over. It was more than that. Worse than that. I was certain the man under the bridge had been there specifically to watch Laura. And now I had to go back to my ransacked flat. As I trudged back to the main road, I felt a prickle on the back of my neck like I, too, was being watched.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I spent the whole day clearing up the flat, taking the opportunity to reorganise my possessions: re-shelving books by colour-coding the spines, arranging DVDs by genre, folding and neatly arranging my clothes. I filled three bin bags with rubbish, got rid of everything in my drawers and cupboards that I didn’t use or need any more, put my loose photographs into albums. I changed the bedsheets, vacuumed and cleaned every surface. When I was done the flat looked better than it had at any time since Laura had left, and I felt exhausted but calm. I found a chilled beer at the back of the fridge, sweaty with condensation, and sank into the sofa with it, trying not to think about anything at all.

  The intercom buzzed. Laura? I jumped up, lifted the handset. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hey, it’s me.’

  ‘Oh. Jake.’

  I buzzed him up. As he walked in, throwing his coat onto the back of a chair, he said, ‘Thrilled to see you too, Dan.’

  ‘Sorry. I thought—’

  ‘Holy shit.’ He was spinning in a circle, his mouth agape. ‘Have you had a team of cleaners in?’

  ‘Actually, a team of burglars.’

  ‘You what?’

  I explained while I made him a coffee. Jake didn’t drink alcohol, mostly because his mum was an alcoholic who had ripped their family apart with her drinking. He drank a hell of a lot of coffee though, ten or twelve cups a day, though he claimed he was naturally full of vim and energy, that his unflagging hyperactivity was not caffeine induced.

  Jake was disgustingly good-looking, so much so that going out with him could be a depressing experience, girls’ eyes sliding over me and fixing on him, this wiry, mixed-race guy with the boundless energy and charisma. His mum was a former model from Manchester, his dad a musician from Trinidad, and Jake had inherited her looks and his dad’s talent.

  ‘Fuck,’ Jake said, eyes wide, after I’d finished telling him about the burglary. I decided not to tell him about all the other stuff that had been going on, including sleeping with Laura. I knew he’d think I was an idiot. Jake had introduced Laura and me, spent the next few years telling us that we owed him and that we had better name our first son after him. When Laura left he had been shocked and disappointed, but although he wanted us to get back together he had also taken on the role of cheerleader, telling me I needed to stop moping and start living again.

  ‘So what’s happening with you?’ I asked, finishing my beer.

  ‘What do you mean? I told you about my gig tonight. We discussed it the other day. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘I . . .’ The truth was that I couldn’t remember. I had the vaguest memory of having a conversation with Jake earlier in the week but had no recollection of what it was about.

  ‘Anyway, you’re coming. You can’t sit around licking your wounds for the rest of your life. I’m worried about you, man.’

  ‘Where’s the gig?’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve forgotten . . .’ He told me again. It was a large pub near Euston. ‘Going to be some A&R people there. This guy contacted me after checking out my YouTube channel and wants to see me live.’

  I pictured myself in the crowd at the gig, all the people and noise.

  ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘Don’t say no, Dan. I don’t want to sound like a ponce but I could really do with your support. Come on, you really can’t sit around here festering forever. Come out, have fun. There will be girls there and everything. Tell them you know me and . . .’ He winked and made a click-click sound with his tongue.

  I sighed. ‘OK. I’ll come. But I’m really not interesting in meeting another woman.’

  He grinned and raised his mug. ‘Cheers. By the way, you really need to get some decent coffee. This stuff tastes like Nescafé.’

  ‘It is Nescafé.’

  ‘You know they murder babies, don’t you?’

  I zoned out for a moment.

  ‘Nestlé,’ he prodded. ‘They –’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. The baby milk thing.’ I got up and went over to the cupboard, retrieved the jar of coffee and dropped it in the bin. ‘Happy now?’

  He stared at me. ‘You really do need to get out more, Dan. You look awful. And you’re acting kinda crazy. Getting forgetful.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe you are what?’

  ‘Crazy.’

  The pub was rammed, even though it was a frosty Thursday night in November. I sat with Jake in a tiny room behind the bar where he was getting ready, tuning his guitar and hyping himself up, getting into the zone. For years he had sung in a series of bands that had got nowhere, never quite being what record companies were looking for, frustratedly watching lesser rival bands get signed and, sometimes, have hits. There was a guy called Zack Love—not his real name—who had at one point been in a band with Jake. Zack had left the band to go on The X Factor, reaching the live finals and having a few big hits. Word was that he was on the verge of breaking America.

  Zack’s success sent Jake into a tailspin of self-doubt and misery, but he had picked himself up and, propelled by rivalry with his former friend, started writing much better songs, working on his image and generally transforming himself. His YouTube channel had gained huge numbers of new subscriptions recently after one of his home-made videos went viral. As I left the backstage area, after giving him a good-luck hug, I could feel it. He was on the verge of a breakthrough.

  As I pushed my way through the crowd I overhead a pair of girls talking about Jake.

  ‘Did you see the new video he posted yesterday?’

  ‘God, yeah. Those biceps.’ She groaned. ‘Do you think he’s got a girlfriend?’

  ‘No, Tara said he’s single. But don’t get your hopes up . . . He’s mine.’

  ‘He’s probably gay anyway . . .’

  I smiled as I passed them, tempted to give them some inside info. At the bar, I bought two bottles of beer so I wouldn’t have to queue again for a while, and found a spot close to the stage, behind another group of excited young women. There were a lot of guys here too, but many of them
appeared to have been dragged along by their girlfriends.

  I wondered if Jake would still talk to me if he became properly famous. Or if he’d trade me in for a new bunch of rock-star-actor-model mates. Then I’d be properly alone, with my girlfriend living in Australia and my best mate not wanting to know me.

  I sank my first beer, drowning the encroaching self-pity.

  A hush came over the crowd as the MC announced Jake, and then the girls in the crowd, and some of the guys, were whooping and grabbing each other as he came on with his guitar and, with a little smile, started to play. He was great. I’d heard tons of his songs over the years, as he encouraged me to listen to his demos and go to his gigs, but there was no doubt this latest crop was a league above his earlier efforts. Envy had worked. Barring a severe dose of bad luck, he was going to be a star.

  As he played, I noticed a young woman with blonde hair standing near me. She was wearing tight black jeans and a purple top, very little make-up. She was stunning. The second time I glanced at her, she smiled at me and, before I knew it, she was standing beside me.

  ‘I love this guy,’ she said, her lips close to my ear, though the music wasn’t so loud that we couldn’t have a conversation. She had an Eastern European accent. I was immediately reminded of Alina and shuddered.

  ‘Are you OK?’ the blonde woman said. ‘You look like you saw a ghost.’

  I wanted to get away but the crowd around us was too dense. I was temporarily trapped. I made a conscious decision to relax. This woman was gorgeous, and maybe I needed to heed Jake’s advice, stop being such a recluse.

  I was about to tell her that Jake was my best mate but changed my mind. I could see how the conversation would go. She would be surprised, and I would try to impress her, but all she would want to know was if I could introduce her to Jake. Was this the way my life would go now? I would be known as Jake’s friend, a way to meet the big rock star.