Selfish People. Lucy English

… we all die … one day … everything dies …’

      Bailey brought in the tea tray. He looked critically at Declan and slammed the tray on the table. ‘I’m not listening to this jazzy crap!’

      ‘Everything dies, Bailey.’

      ‘Not right now it bloody doesn’t. Drink yer tea!’

      Declan sipped his grumpily. ‘I think there’s wine in the fridge.’ They started arguing about the tape and eventually settled for reggae. Bailey danced at one end of the room. Leah and Declan watched him. He danced awkwardly, but it was fascinating, he was so serious.

      ‘He practises in front of the mirror,’ whispered Declan.

      Someone was knocking on the door. It was Mike with a taxi and no money.

      ‘Where’s your bike?’ shouted Bailey. ‘Where’s your scooter?’

      ‘Oh Christ,’ said Mike. Declan found a fiver for the taxi man.

      ‘Where’s your bike, Mike?’ yelled Bailey.

      ‘I need a drink.’ Mike held his head. Bailey got the wine and glasses, which were like brandy glasses.

      ‘I have to go soon,’ said Leah.

      ‘No, not yet,’ said Bailey. She drank the wine. It was thick and red. Mike began rolling joints. Bailey turned the music up. Declan started rolling joints and soon the room was a Turkish bath of dope smoke.

      ‘I really ought to go,’ said Leah but she couldn’t move.

      ‘Have you noticed …’ began Declan, ‘about filo pastry … sometimes it’s much more … Greek than other times?’

      ‘What?’ said Mike.

      ‘It’s important … the Greekness of it … the essential Greekness.’

      ‘It’s mega important,’ said Bailey.

      ‘What is?’ said Mike.

      ‘All of it, right through to the last crumb, the last flake.’

      ‘It’s mega flaky,’ said Bailey, drinking all his wine and starting on Mike’s.

      ‘What? Just what is what?’ shouted Mike.

      ‘That’s another question entirely.’ And Declan handed Leah the fourth joint.

      I’m on the sofa, smoking and thinking, and what did I just think? That I’m myself, I’m Leah and I’m not somebody’s mother or somebody’s wife … I’m here because I’m myself … and the music is through the ceiling and all the furniture and down the street and inside me … it’s dreamy and perfect … ‘What time is it?’ she asked. Mike was going to bed.

      ‘It’s three … in the morning,’ said Declan.

      ‘My God! I really really have to go. I really do!’

      She got as far as the front door. Bailey was there, all brilliant colours and smiling.

      ‘Oh Bailey, I don’t want to go home!’

      ‘Well, don’t then,’ he said.

      She woke up on the sofa. Cold and under a musty-smelling blanket. She rushed into the kitchen. Bailey was making toast. Relaxed and clean in a different outfit. Leah looked at the clock. ‘Oh my God, half-past nine, oh my God!’

      He handed her a cup of tea. Her mouth felt like a furry glove.

      ‘Oh Bailey, what a thing! I’ve never … Al’ll be furious, he’s always furious and today’s bonfire night and I’m selling sausages at the Project …’

      She rang up Al. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry. I just got drunk and fell asleep …’

      ‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been up all night … I rang the police, I rang the hospitals.’

      ‘Oh Al …’

      ‘Couldn’t you have phoned, eh?’

      ‘I did think about it.’ She could hear children crying in the background.

      ‘Yes, your bloody mother is perfectly all right!’

      ‘I’m so sorry.’

      ‘Where the hell are you, anyway?’

      ‘I’m at Declan’s.’

      ‘And who the fuck is Declan?’

      ‘He’s Bailey’s friend.’

      ‘Bailey? Bailey. What, that ponce in the tracksuit?’

      She was about to say he wasn’t a ponce but Al shouted, ‘Oh I see!’ and slammed down the phone.

      In the kitchen Bailey gave her toast and a sympathetic smile. ‘Rough, was it?’

      ‘He thinks … but I didn’t … we didn’t … did we?’

      ‘Drink yer tea.’ She did and ate half a piece of toast and watched him eat four. He did have an incredible appetite.

      ‘Bailey, what shall I do?’

      ‘You’ll be all right.’ And he patted her hand.

      Bonfire night was dreadful. Al didn’t speak to her. She saw Bailey again briefly on Wednesday at the Project.

      ‘How are you?’ she asked, feeling flushed. He was in a hurry.

      ‘Mega naffed off. Declan’s mate died and he’s been writing poems ever since.’ And he was gone.

      Now he was watching television with a face like marble. Leah stood up.

      ‘It’s time to go,’ she said to the children. ‘Say goodbye to Bailey.’ She led them into the hall. He was still staring at the telly.

      ‘I’ll see you, Bailey.’

      ‘You probably will.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      Al had convinced himself Leah was having an affair with Bailey. The whole business became another thing to row about. They didn’t sleep together, they barely conversed, Al was fed up with his teacher’s course, Leah was fed up with Al and the house was full of mould and crumble. But these things weren’t important. Leah was bonking Bailey. ‘But I’m not,’ she said, quite desperately now. Al came back from college. They pushed tea into the children and put them to bed. Then it all started.

      ‘Did you go down the Project today?’ Leah was tidying up the kitchen. Al was smoking, smoking and watching her.

      ‘Oh yes … for a bit.’ She had her back to him.

      ‘For a bit of what!’ He laughed but there was an underlying hysteria in his voice.

      ‘I’m tired,’ she said, rinsing the last plate. ‘I think I’ll go to bed soon.’

      ‘No you won’t.’

      She looked at the window and the stained flowery blind and the wet night behind it. ‘I’m tired,’ she said again. Tired and dry and shrivelled up like an old leaf.

      ‘Why don’t you be honest with me –’ he tried to sound reasonable – ‘then we can deal with it. Why hide it. Why lie all the time?’

      She turned round. He was sitting with his feet on the table, rocking the chair. His hair was all over the place. He was wearing his blue stripy dungarees which were the only clothes he had that Leah liked. In the last two days he had managed to get red paint on them and coffee and tobacco ash.

      ‘You’ll break the chair,’ she said.

      ‘Fuck the chair!’ He looked