Page 31 of Statistically Speaking
“Of course I did.”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“Of course I didn’t. I’m just a PE teacher, you know.”
“You’re much more than that, Karim,” I reply. “And thank you. For looking after me. For listening. For being so kind and patient with me. Now I think I’d better get home.”
We make the half-hour drive back to the north of the city in a comfortable silence, windscreen wipers swooshing against the rain, roads streaked with neon. I cradle the Wonky Cushion on my lap for the whole journey, telling myself that its magic power is indeed seeping through me. That I will heal, that I will be whole.
Karim is content to leave me to my thoughts, and as he pulls up outside my flat, I hear Bill let out one welcome woof. He seems to know it’s me, even in a strange car—dogs are surprisingly clever for creatures that spend so much time with their noses near bottoms. I realize, as I sit unmoving in the passenger seat, that I am still not ready to be alone. I am still not ready to face the fallout of tonight’s revelations. Not ready to put myself and my failings under the microscope that I so bluntly wield.
That “fun” comes in many shapes and sizes, and just might involve being in the company of another human being. I realize that I have opened up to Margie in ways I never thought possible, and that I can change—that I am capable of living more fully than I currently do. I have to believe that.
“Would you... like to come in?” I say, trying not to sound as eager as I feel. “Though I have to admit, I am using you as a distraction again.”
“I’ve been used for worse,” he says simply, switching off the engine and helping me carry the boxes of history project props up the stairs. I consider letting Margie know I am home, but she will already know—Bill has woofed, and she will hear my feet on the stairs. She will, knowing Margie, also hear Karim’s feet on the stairs and be full of questions in the morning. I smile at the thought of how excited she will be to interrogate me as I open the door.
He follows me in, puts the boxes down, and looks around with interest.
I follow his gaze and see my flat through his eyes: neat, clean, orderly. No pictures on the walls, no knickknacks, no clutter. Everything perfectly set up for one person to live a simple life. I know, because I am that kind of person, that I have four forks and four knives and four plates and four everything else—but most of them have never come out of their respective cupboards and drawers.
I feel the thread of some kind of cutlery-based analogy coming on, about how I have everything it takes within my grasp but have simply never chosen to use it.
“Nice place,” he says. “Better than mine purely on the basis that it doesn’t smell like unwashed socks.” I smile and potteraround. I light the scented candle, put on some music, get out an extra glass. I pour myself a glug of white wine that’s been open in the fridge for a bit too long, ask him what he would like, and laugh when he requests a glass of milk.
The rain has died down a little, and I open the French windows to the balcony. I grab us both a blanket and lead him outside. There is, as usual, only one chair—because I have never invited anyone here before.
That has never felt strange to me until tonight, but now I decide it is. I have lived here for a long time, and the only other person who has been inside was a plumber fixing a leak in the shower. Margie struggles with the stairs, so I always visit her, and none of my other so-called friends have ever felt significant enough to bring home. I know the other teachers at the school hold book clubs, dinner parties, sleepovers for their kids—all of that has seemed superfluous to me before.
Now, as I drag an extra chair outside for Karim, I wonder if it isn’t superfluous at all—or if the casual connections that other people make so easily simply scare me.
We settle together, blankets wrapped around our shoulders, chairs close enough together that our thighs touch. We look out at the water, at the bright red lights of the cranes and gantries, at the distant harbor, at the dark and windswept beach.
The foghorn is blaring, a single solitary note that always sounds like mourning. A sound so specific to this place that I will never hear it again without thinking of this view, this small corner of the world.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he says, sounding slightly awestruck. “I grew up in the Midlands, and I never get tired of this—thisfeeling that we’re looking out at the whole of the universe laid out before us.”
“It is beautiful,” I reply, smiling, “and that was very poetic for a PE teacher.”
“I have my moments,” he says, smiling back.
We sit, and we look, and we drink our drinks. Eventually, I feel his hand reach for mine, and our fingers entwine. It is a simple thing, a simple human thing, but it is what I need. I hold on tight, and wonder how I have convinced myself for so long that I need nobody.
I still feel a deep sense of loss about Katie—about my actual daughter, I suppose. About Baby—beautiful Baby, wherever she may be.
But I also feel a sense of discovery, of taking tentative steps into the possibility of a different kind of life.
The music gently floats out from the living room, swirling around us. It shuffles on to Florence and the Machine. “Never Let Me Go.”
“Ah,” he says, nodding his head wisely, “Florence. I think I once told you this was going-to-bed music.”
I stroke the skin of his palm. I look out at the whole of the universe, laid out before us.
“Well,” I reply. “Who am I to argue?”
I stand up, and he joins me. He reaches out, strokes my hair back from my face. His touch is gentle, warm, fingers tracing a soft path along my cheekbones, down to my neck. I lean into him and feel the solidity of his body pressed against mine. He is here. He is real. He is gazing at me in the darkness, his eyes intense, a small smile on his lips as his hands settle on my shoulders.
I smile back and, for once, neither of us has anything to say. He kisses me, and it is a sublime kiss. A kiss that blanks out the rest of the world. A kiss that will not allow me to worry, or be sad, or even to count.
