BIRTHDAY PARTY

I wake up and it’s there. It’s in my head like a lump of lead, heavy and grey and poisonous, put in there for when I stir from sleep so I can’t miss it: Laura’s birthday. Old Me’s already yanking the reins. I might as well let him. Laura’s beside him, waiting to celebrate an ageless year. No fighting it today. No escaping or removing it or pushing it away by acting new. He’s got me.

Not that he’s really left me alone anyway; I’ve felt him moving around down there, pushing against my ribs. I’ve managed to subdue him of late, to knock him down before he’s had a chance to stand up. I know he doesn’t like his replacement, even though his replacement isn’t fully formed yet. It’s just a foetus waiting for the final touches to its features. Perhaps I’ll give final complete birth to him after today. Then he can rampage without boundaries.

In the meantime, take it away, Old Me. Do your worst, just for old times’ sake. I hand my body over to him and he picks it up, gets it out of bed and manages to do all the normal morning ablutions and eating and getting to work without incident.

Well done.

At work I work. In class, Johnny tries to broach sex positions, but I steer the class onto Chapter 6 – If I Had a Million Dollars. I think they can sense I’m not myself. If only they knew it’s actually more a case of being myself, my old self; Old Me is settled back into the routine of being quiet and morose and is about to let Laura step forward any moment, to let her out. I can sense it. I know him so well.

Another class follows. Writing exercises. I sit at my desk and stare at my sandaled feet.

—You don’t have to do this just for me, you know. Here she is.

—I know, but today is just a glitch on my road to recovery.

—Wallow in my memory one last time?

—If you left me alone, that’s exactly what I would be doing: one last time. I’d appreciate it if you both leave me be after this.

—I’ll try, but I can’t speak for him.

—That’s a shame. Anyway, happy birthday.

—Thanks.

—You know I don’t want to be a shit to you.

—I know.

She sits on my lap and puts her arms around my neck. Her cheek touches mine.

—I could stay like this forever, I say.

—So do it.

—Yeah. Right.

—You haven’t said you love me for a long time.

—You’re dead. Perhaps that’s a reason.

—It is my birthday.

—You know I love you. I always love you. I love you.

—I love you too.

Over Laura’s shoulder a student has his hand up.

‘Yes, Hendra.’

Laura nuzzles my neck, slides off my lap and leaves the class. I sniff and blink and clear my vision and go to Hendra. Once I’ve answered his question I move around the class, pretending to check the students’ work.

I finish at nine, don’t go into the staff room and instead walk out of the school. Outside Iqpal is sweeping the dry and dusty driveway.

‘You not wait for car?’ he asks, leaning on his broom.

‘Not tonight. Tell the others I’ve gone, please.’

‘I will. Take care, my friend.’

I smile at him. He knows I’m somewhere else. Something must be written in international language in the lines and grooves of my face. I flag down a motorbike becak.

‘Where go, Mister?’ asks the rider. He has a little leather cap on his head.

Where do I want to go? I should celebrate Laura’s birthday somewhere.

—Music? I ask, climbing in the becak as she squeezes in beside me.

—Yes. And a bar we can prop up.

I tell the driver a hotel bar I’ve heard Jussy mention; small and with live music. He pulls off without checking behind. The night feels cooler as it rushes by. Two-stroke fumes are heavy in the air as usual. Cars and other becaks beep me and I hear the occasional ‘Hey, bule,’ as we zigzag through the traffic. The city is still busy.

‘I very happy have you in my motorbike,’ shouts the driver over the sound of his coughing exhaust. ‘I like bule.’

‘Good. Thank you,’ I shout back. I feel like an adult in a pedal-car. My knees knock against the front rail and I have to keep my neck bent as the canopy is low. The driver sees my discomfort and pushes the canopy back. I can now sit straight. Laura rests her head on my shoulder.

‘Bule very big. Indonesian very small,’ he shouts and then laughs.

I push a smile onto my mouth. The fumes and breeze are making my eyes water. It somehow feels suitable. By the time we pull up outside the hotel bar I have to wipe moisture from my cheeks. I thank him and pay.

The hotel bar is plusher than others I’ve seen here, with chrome and glass tables and hidden lights shining up the walls. Girls sit alone or in groups on high chairs along one mirrored side. I know why Jussy likes this place.

—Oh. Prostitutes, says Laura.

—Do you want to go somewhere else?

—No. It’s got character.

I go to the bar and pull out a high stool from under it. The barman says hi and smiles.

‘Two double whiskies, please,’ I say.

He puts them on the bar in front of me.

Two? I’ve gone completely mad.

—Just drink them, numbnuts. No one’s going to notice.

I pour one glass into the other. The barman watches and I make a crazy finger swirl movement at my temple. He smiles and goes to serve a group of suited men at the other end of the bar.

—Where’s the live music? she asks.

I look around. There’s an empty stage, a few people dotted around, mostly men at tables chatting with pretty girls. The girls aren’t particularly dressed up, most just wearing jeans and T-shirts, more modestly dressed than the girls in the discos.

—I guess it’s the wrong day of the week. It is a Monday, I answer.

I put both hands around my whisky glass and slosh the large shot around.

—Go on, have some for me.

—For you.

I let it lie on my tongue for a couple of seconds then swill it around my mouth and swallow.

—Good? she asks.

—Not as good as the stuff you used to buy.

What am I doing? She’s not here. I am going mad; having little conversations in my head all the time with a figment of the memory of a dead person.

—But what if I’m not a figment? she says. I’m dead, alright. You’ve accepted that now, I know. But I mean what if I am here sitting next to you and you talk to me because you know I might be here and we’re having some sort of psychic dead-to-live chat? Imagine if you ignored me and I really was here, trying to communicate with you. I’d be really pissed off.

—Not likely, though, is it?

—Not likely. No. But let me be here today. Give me that much on my birthday. Please.

I finish the whisky without swilling; straight down with a touch of after-burn.

‘Alright. Alright,’ I say.

The barman looks at me.

—Not out loud, numbnuts. Keep it all in your head, otherwise I’m going to get embarrassed and leave.

I laugh.

—Watch it. He’ll kick you out if you get any more loopy.

I turn the laugh into a cough and rub my head. I blow out a long breath, point at my glass and hold two fingers up at the barman. He tops us up.

—Just today. Because I miss you. Because I fucking miss you.

The glass blurs in front of me. I put my head on my arms on the bar.

—Don’t cry here, baby. Not now.

She puts her arms around my neck and rests her head against mine. I can almost feel her breath in my hair.

—Not now. Not now, she whispers.

—I miss you.

‘I miss you,’ I sob into my arm, ‘I miss you so bloody much.’ The last words come out as gasps between sobs. They come out loud and into the room and I don’t notice or don’t care. My hands crawl over the back of my head looking for hers, but they fall through air into my hair. All I can do is pull at it, pull, pull.

Then a hand is on top of mine, warm and familiar. My other hand goes onto the top of it without looking up.

‘Shhh. Do not cry.’ A real voice. A living voice. Low and soft.

I look over my arm hoping for the impossible, but know it won’t be.

‘What is wrong?’ asks Eka. ‘Why cry?’

I slide my hands away from hers and sit up, wiping my eyes on my palms.

‘Here.’ She hands me a napkin and points to my nose. I wipe it and blow.

‘Sorry. I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘Tidak apa-apa. No problem.’

She is as beautiful as the first time I saw her. Dark Indian skin and large dark eyes, bar lights reflecting in them. They’re alive. Her hair falls thick over her shoulders and down her back. Laura is sitting silently, watching. Maybe.

The barman says something in Indonesian to Eka and she says something back and waves her hand at him. He moves away.

‘What is wrong, crazy English man?’ Eka pushes the whisky towards me. I take it and drink just a mouthful. It burns the inside of my cheeks.

—Go on, tell her, says Laura from the next stool, legs crossed, foot bobbing, I dare you.

I shake my head.

—You’re not here. You’re not here, no matter how hard I try to make you here, you’re not here.

—Are you sure? How can you be sure?

—I can’t, but—

‘My girlfriend died a few months ago. I have trouble forgetting her,’ I say.

—Ah, so that’s how it is then. Rather be with a pro than with your super-dead girlfriend. Nice. I’ll be off now. See you later. Thanks for the birthday drink, numbnuts.

I take a deep breath, swallow, widen my eyes and blink. Guilt crashes into my gut like a brick.

‘I talk to her sometimes,’ I say, ‘but I don’t think she’s really listening. She says she is, but I don’t think she is.’

—Oh yes, I am. And watching everything you do.

—I thought you were going?

—Haven’t made up my mind yet.

‘You are sad man. Crazy sad man. How do you know she not listens? Spirits are very clever.’

—This girl’s not as dumb as she looks.

If I could give Laura an icy stare, I would.

Eka pulls a stool out and sits next to me, legs crossed. There is a little skin showing between the bottom of her jeans and the top of her shoes.

‘I don’t know. I just think that it isn’t possible.’

‘Many strange things possible in the world. Many many. Perhaps you should believe she there.’

—Go on. Believe.

‘I’m going crazy believing that. Talking out loud all the time. Wanting to touch her, to feel her and not being able to. It’s better I don’t believe. I’m trying to get away from her. To forget her.’

—Forget me? Huh.

—God. Shut up.

‘So if you don’t want her spirit here, you must be strong. You must have new life.’ She prods my arm on the last two words.

‘Ha.’

‘What funny?’

‘That’s exactly why I came to this country. For a new life, a new me. A New Me.’ I finish my whisky and ask for the same again. ‘For you?’

—Yes, please.

‘Maybe I try this too.’ She sniffs my glass, looking at me over its rim. ‘Whisky?’

‘Yes.’

—Oh, don’t give her my drink.

‘Please.’

I order the same for Eka.

—Numbnuts.

—You still here?

‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ I say, hoping Laura will take the hint.

‘Sometimes here.’

‘To meet men?’

She laughs.

‘Yes. To meet men for money. I am bad girl.’

—Ooooh. Slapperrrr.

‘And you told me you weren’t a prostitute.’

‘No, not prostitute. I just take money from men. I am beautiful, so I can.’

—A pro, and modest with it. Charming.

Eka sips her drink and grimaces. ‘I never sleep with them first time.’

‘Second?’ I ask.

‘Sometimes. If I like. But not for you tonight. I think you need talk tonight. You not need sex.’

I don’t disagree. And nor does Laura.

‘It’s her…it would have been her birthday today. I haven’t thought of her much for a few days, well, not that I’ve noticed, and then I wake this morning and the first thought: it’s Laura’s birthday. My day ruined.’ I finish the drink. I’m not feeling drunk yet.

‘Poor Mr Crazy.’ Eka runs her fingers down my cheek. I jump. ‘I’m sure she is happy you remember. I’m sure she miss you. Please give me cigarette.’

We smoke in silence. I can sense Laura brooding nearby. More whiskies are poured.

‘You must live your life. You cannot stay in past. She understand.’ She stubs her cigarette out.

—I bloody don’t.

‘That’s what I’m trying to do,’ I say. ‘But there’s a big part of me just wants to think about her and live in the past. I just wish I could go back, change something. Stop her, so she misses the bus.’

‘Bus?’

—I don’t want to hear this sob story. I’m off now. Don’t you dare forget the slice-of-cake rule. And if you do, don’t catch anything.

I shake my head.

‘She died in an accident. She’d just got off a bus.’ The words are foreign and uncomfortable as they come from my mouth.

‘Do not think of past. Perhaps she will be reborn and when you are reborn perhaps you will be together again.’

‘Rebirth? You believe in that?’

‘Yes. I am Hindu. My ancestors came from India many years ago.’ She runs her fingers through her hair, it falls through her fingertips like silk. I want to feel it too. The thought surprises me.

—Men, comes a voice from somewhere in the back of my skull, you can’t help thinking about nooky, can you?

—You’re still eavesdropping, then?

No answer.

‘You talk to her again?’

‘No. Yes, a little.’

‘You want I go? Leave you two alone, crazy man?’ She has an eyebrow raised and her full lips smile.

‘No. Actually I don’t. I think she may have already left. Jealousy’s got the better of her.’ I raise my glass and knock it against hers. ‘Cheers. Here’s to strange coincidences.’ I down the glass again and finally my head spins.

‘What is coinci… coinc…?’

‘Coincidences. It means very lucky to meet you here tonight.’

‘I am happy meet you. But no pom-pom tonight.’

‘Sorry? Pom-pom?’

‘Sex. No sex.’

‘Good. I don’t think my girlfriend would like it.’ Good joke. I break into a mad and slightly high-pitched giggle which feels like it might become tears so I stop. Eka looks at me while I do it, but makes no comment or facial movement.

‘But we go to hotel and we sleep together, yes?’ One eyebrow raised.

—What do you think? I ask Laura, knowing full well she’s still loitering.

—Really? You want my opinion about her?

—Yes.

—Honestly and jealousy aside, I think you need solid company and whatever I may be, I can’t give you that. So go on if you really must, but no pom-pom.

—No pom-pom.

‘What says your girlfriend,’ asks Eka, looking at me from under a length of hair she is twirling between her fingers.

‘Yes. She says yes.’

—But no pom-pom.

‘But no pom-pom.’

—Now I’m really gone. Defo. Just ‘cos I want you to get a cuddle doesn’t mean I want to see it. Slice-of-cake rule; no eating, remember. So behave, Ice-Cream Boy.

—I will.

‘Good. One more whisky.’ Eka waves her empty glass under my nose.

We drink another whisky. She takes me to a cheap hotel in a back street somewhere. The guy who works at the desk calls her by her name. We go to a room. We climb into bed. She takes my clothes off. She massages me. She walks the length of my spine in bare feet. Bones crack. With each crack tension dies. Thoughts are squashed. She takes her clothes off. I press my body close against hers. We kiss. We hold each other. We sleep together, me in her arms, my head on her breast, a landscape of beautiful skin stretched out under me, dark and smooth. She strokes my hair. I try to stay awake to take her in, but I can’t. I sleep. No pom-pom.

I laugh at her and then my mind asks why she is telling such a joke; it’s not funny, so why would she say such a thing.

So I ask, ‘What?’ and laugh again, once.

‘It happened in Pilsen. The bus stopped for a break. They think she looked the wrong way.’

She is calm. How can she be if it’s true?

‘She looked the wrong way and then crossed.’ And her voice breaks up and there is sobbing and apologising and then, ‘She looked the wrong way and…’

I want her off the phone. I want it back in its cradle and I want to go back to my book and I want to return to the story and I want her off the phone so Laura can call and tell me it’s a mistake because it isn’t her. Of course it isn’t her.

Suddenly Jane’s voice is calm again.

‘Are you alone?’ she asks.

‘Yes.’

‘Can you call someone? Don’t be alone. Call someone.’

‘I will.’ Get off the phone. Laura is trying to get through.

‘OK. You will call someone? Get someone there?’

‘Yes.’ The phone is shaking against my ear.

‘We’ll call you tomorrow. I’m sorry. She looked the wrong way.’

Something is going out of my body. I can feel it leaving me. Something is leaving me.

‘Take care. Don’t be alone. I’m sorry.’ Jane hangs up and the phone rattles against the side of my head. I put it back in its cradle and it lies peacefully, as if it never said a word.

I sit on the arm of the chair and look at my book lying face down and splayed on the seat. I’ll read until Laura phones. I know she’ll phone and then I can phone her mum back and tell her the mistake.

I pick the book up and my eyes scan the mass of letters on the page and they roll and move and nearly form words but then fall apart again and I can’t find a sentence to start so I pick the phone up and dial and it rings and my mother answers and she is sleepy and I ask her to come and she asks what’s wrong and I say Laura and she looked the wrong way and then she says my god and I’ll be there soon and I put the phone back and it is still and silent again and the silence rings in my ears and something is coming up my throat and up under my skin and I don’t want it to come but it has to and it pushes up beneath my face and is trapped for a second under my eyes and what is in my throat comes out of my mouth and it is dark and black and piercing and full of guilt and my soul is trying to escape and be away from this and what is under my eyes also bursts out and it is acid that burns and the cry I make has no sound but it is deafening and I am curled up on the floor and my legs writhe and my hands pull at my face and hair and still this monster flows from my mouth like bile and finally it stops and there is knocking on the door and I am not alone and my mother holds me and holds me and holds me but I am empty and she is grasping a husk.

‘Come and lie on the bed and sleep,’ she says, and I follow and she cradles me from behind and every time I close my eyes I see Laura look the wrong way and step out and I see her see her mistake and turn too slowly as a car hits her but it is wrong and then I picture it again and this time it’s a truck and the next it’s a bus and the next it’s a car and each time it can’t be right because it can’t happen and I can’t imagine Laura not being.

Laura is always.

Laura is always and she will call and I get off the bed and go back to the phone and pick it up and listen for her voice but all I hear is the long long tone and I replace the phone and check it’s in its cradle and I pick it up and I hear the tone humming at me, and it hums and it hums and it hums.