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Kiss and no tell

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I woke up and I could hear a shower running next door. I knew I was in his room, in his bed, kind of naked in his bed. None of that was a surprise. I hadn’t been so out of it that I didn’t remember, it just took me a bit of time to piece it back together. I tried to see if my clothes were in reach or if I was going to have to risk ducking out from under the duvet before he reappeared from the shower. I couldn’t see them.

So, last night. From the top. We’d met as planned at the Kandi Klub and as promised the girls had left us alone to talk. I had occasionally caught a glimpse of Leah pulling faces at me over his shoulder but nothing that he would see. He’d seemed a bit more sure of himself than usual which I’d hoped was him finally relaxing around me, the whole shy-nervous-sweet thing was starting to wear thin. I thought there was some chemistry but I didn’t usually like to really judge until I’d kissed someone. Someone said that was a bit shallow but I never thought so; I wasn’t judging him, I was judging us, together, whether or not we were going to be a thing. Okay, I was probably judging him a bit. I’m a spectacular kisser.

He’d had a couple of drinks already and I topped him up. He wasn’t drunk but he was definitely looser, it was the first time we’d danced together. Or, you know, sort of awkwardly facing each other in amongst our circle of friends who were also dancing. I don’t think you can dance together in an indie club anyway. It wasn’t even the sort of place that stuck a slow one on at the end. The DJ usually faded the lights up to Daydream Believer so the most you might manage is holding hands, lifting them in to the air, and swaying in a mass singalong. Anyway, we danced. After a while I beckoned him off the floor, gestured that we should get another drink.

I was probably a bit buzzy from the couple of beers I’d had and the dancing. As we walked toward the bar I’d grabbed his hand, met with no resistance, and guided him off to a table back under the stairs that led down from the entrance. I sat him down and he looked, momentarily, a bit startled, like he’d sobered up very quickly and remembered that he was Mr shy-nervous-sweet. I didn’t really want him to remember that, it was no good for my purposes, and so I leaned in and started to kiss him. He tasted faintly of beer but I assumed I did too so that was okay. I’d closed my eyes so I couldn’t see if we’d managed to banish the unsure guy between us but from the movement of his lips, the push back from his tongue, I was pretty sure we had.

I don’t remember that much about the taxi, other than it was unusual to get one. Most nights me and the girls would walk back home, grab something to eat on the way. He’d suggested it straight after I’d suggested that maybe I should go back to his. I thought I should spare him running the gauntlet with my housemates and, to be honest, I sort of preferred it this way round. It meant I could leave when I wanted to, either that night if our flickering chemistry didn’t catch light, or the next morning. Assuming I could find my clothes.

I remember how it started. I’d asked for the tour, before his housemates got back, and stopped him in his room. I kissed him again and asked if he minded if I stayed over. From that point on I kind of led him through it, unbuttoning his jeans, slipping my shirt off over my head, guiding his hands to my hips. After that it wasn’t so elegant, both of us fumbling at our remaining clothes, removing everything and doing that thing where you’re both sneaking a look but both racing for the security of the duvet at the same time. As I reached to kiss him again I must have caught him with the edge of my MedLet, enough for a short intake of breath, so I whispered an apology and took it off, put it on a table by the bed.

And that was it. Last night, from the top. I’ve missed a bit out obviously but, sad to report, it was quite a short bit in the end. Sweet but short. I don’t want to sound mean but the sex took less time than it took him to get the condom on. I wondered if we’d talk for a bit and he’d be one who might come back around for another go but he fell asleep almost instantly. I toyed with the idea of leaving then but I wasn’t sure if I could find everything in the dark without waking him and I didn’t want to have a conversation about wanting a main course but just getting a starter. I guess I do sound mean. I’ll dress up his performance for the girls though, I’m not that mean.

The shower stopped running and I listened to the sounds of him doing whatever it is that boy’s do in the bathroom. No toilet flushing, thankfully. He came back in, fully clothed, rubbing at his damp hair with a towel. He seemed to clock that I was a bit uncomfortable and picked up my clothes, which I now saw folded in a pile on a chair by the bathroom, and passed them to me. It was weird that all my bravado from last night was as easily undone by the thought of him picking up and folding my knickers away.

He left me to get dressed. I said I’d call him.

No kiss and tell

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“So how was it?” asked Leah as soon as Aps let herself in to the house.

“I am not taking questions at this time,” said Aps, slipping her denim jacket off and slinging it across the bannister in the hall. The last couple of weeks had been warm, late Spring looking like it was going to full bloom into Summer, and they’d all been grateful that lockdown had been short.

“Oh, you so are,” said Leah, grabbing her by the shoulders and guiding her into the kitchen. “Check you out with the strapless dress and the perfume and the hair cascading just perfectly across those exposed shoulders. It must be getting serious. Tell me everything.”

“Are you hitting on me?” said Aps, smirking. “It wasn’t for him. I dress to make myself feel good.” Leah raised her eyebrows and nodded sarcastically. “And anyway this is just an old halter my sister didn’t want anymore. Nothing special.”

April had heard their voices and set aside the essay she was working on to join them. She  stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and turned to Leah throwing her arms up in exaggerated surprise. “Leah, who is this pretty, pretty lady? You did not tell me we were expecting a guest?”

“We’re really going to have to do some more work on those gestures,” said Leah. “You need to give it the full Italian. Like I showed you. I’m only half Italian and even I can give it full.” She stood up and threw her arms explosively, catching the lightshade above the kitchen table, leaving it swinging in the ceiling.

“Hey, I’d quite like to get the deposit back when we leave,” said April, reaching up and grabbing the shade, stopping it from moving. “I’m prepared to sacrifice fully playing out a stereotype for that.”

“It’s only a stereotype because it’s true. I can say that, you can’t.” said Leah. “We’re an expressive people.”

“Expressive is not my strongest suit,” replied April. “Anyway, I think we’re getting sidetracked. You were going to introduce me to this mysterious, beautiful stranger. She looks sort of familiar. Like someone I used to know… just, I don’t know, just shinier.”

Aps ran the tap and poured herself a glass of water, listening to them continue their performance. She said nothing until she was reasonably sure they’d finished.

“Alright, I’ll spill,” she said. The others pulled up chairs.

“Wait, I need to prepare myself,” said Leah. “What are we talking, here? Is this all going to be strictly rated PG, mild peril, moderate swearing, or are we settling in for an 18?”

“Well, spoilers, there’s no scenes of a sexual nature,” said Aps. “There may be violence soon though if we make it to a fourth film.”

“I’m not going to pretend I’m not a bit disappointed at the lack of adult themes in this story but impending violence sounds interesting. Continue,” said Leah.

“There’s not that much to tell. It was nice. He was nice. Is nice. Listen, I do think I like him, he’s sweet and attentive and he’s pretty funny when he remembers that he doesn’t have to be nervous,”

“How many dates now?” asked April.

“If you don’t count the online chat in lockdown then this was number three. So there’s nothing to stress about, right? It’s early days. There’s something there. Or at least I think there is. Maybe he doesn’t feel anything. Maybe we’ll just be friends.” Aps smiled at them.

She had enjoyed the time with James again, a walk across the Downs and a coffee in Clifton. He’d told her about a couple of bands he wanted to see over the summer, they’d talked a bit about what it must have been to like to go to Glastonbury, what it must have been like to be in any big gathering outside of a place where all the usual health checks could be run on everyone attending. They’d talked a bit about their families, his parents were both in medicine but he didn’t have the grades and was studying Politics. He’d started to talk earnestly about the balance between individual freedoms and what was good for society but had stopped himself. Aps thought he’d misinterpreted her reaction, mistakenly thought she wasn’t interested but he’d changed the subject even after she’d said that her listening face looked a lot like her bored face. She told him about her sisters, joked that he’d probably get on better with her eldest sibling. They could make playlists for each other.

“Surely he took the hint when you said he might prefer your sister?” said April.

“Not so much,” said Aps. “The stupid thing is that I think he is interested, he’s just pretty shy and pretty bad at picking up signals.”

“Do you want us to intervene?” said Leah. Aps looked genuinely horrified.

“God, no. There’s a reason I haven’t suggested he comes back here. It’s taken me three dates to get him to hold eye contact for more than three seconds. I’m going to stick with it a bit longer. You have to promise, by the way, to behave on Saturday. He’s going to the Kandi and I said I’d see him there.”

“I’ll keep them in line,” said Cora. The others didn’t know how long she’d been there, she must have slipped in whilst they were talking and was stood leaning on the doorframe. “He sounds promising. Quiet and slow can work out good. Take it from me, Rob was like that early on.” She said it quietly, eyes down, but she lifted her head back up and smiled at Aps.

“You know we wouldn’t really freak him out, don’t you?” said Leah, contrite. “Unless you want us to, obviously.”

“Don’t worry,” said Aps. “I’m going to let him take it slow I think.” She paused. “Or I might see how many drinks he has Saturday and then just push him into a dark corner and kiss him.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Leah. “We’ll cut off his escape route.” She caught Aps’ frown. “Sorry, not that he will want to escape, of course.”

“Nobody would want to escape the pretty lady,” said April, clutching her hands together and shaking them in front of her face.

“Still not enough,” said Leah. “More expression.”

“They’ll be carving that on my grave,” said April.

 

Lockdown: Leah

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The lockdown started on Good Friday. They’d all seen the pulsing amber light on their Medlets, all checked the subsequent notifications on their phones. It was community based, nothing national, the sort of thing that cropped up every few months. More often than not they were false alarms.

“Looks like we’re spending Easter in here, together,” said Leah.

“How convenient, I’d been giving up staying in for Lent,” said Cora. “What is it? Standard trace and erase?” She mimed pointing a gun with her fingers, hands clasped together, brought them up to her lips and blew.

“You’ve been watching too much VSI,” said Leah.

“I love that show,” said Aps. She’d joined them in the kitchen, still in her dressing gown, hair bundled up in a towel. “You know the ‘erase’ is an anti-viral delivered through an injection? They just gave them those stupid dart guns in VSI to make it more dramatic.”

“Next you’ll be telling me real hazmat suits aren’t skin tight and cut to the cleavage.”

“Sorry to spoil it for you. Male Med Police officers don’t regularly have to strip to the waist because their suit’s been compromised either,” said Aps. “And I think they took a fair bit of license with the decontamination showers.”

“True,” said Leah. “I thought the point of a shower was to get clean. Some of those scenes are downright dirty.”

“We’re watching it tonight, right?”

“God, yes,” said Leah.”

In the end the three of them sat up watching old TV shows. April stayed in her room until later, finally coming down to join them as the credits rolled over some hospital drama she didn’t recognise. The others had gotten used to her taking time out to be on her own; just need some time back in my coffin was her stock response if any of them asked if she was okay. It was getting late and the room was dark save for the images on the TV. April lit the pair of candles they had set up above the fireplace and then flicked on the fairy lights that they’d draped around the picture above it. When they’d moved in it had been something the University had left, a picture of balloons lifting off over the Clifton Suspension Bridge, but they’d replaced it with a Rothko print that Cora had picked up in the village. A swathe of red paint with a careless blue rectangle at the bottom. As the weeks had passed they’d each started to stick photos on it, usually just mini print outs of pictures of their nights out.

“April bringing the vibes,” said Cora.

April bowed her head. “I will be your guide through this enforced vigil. I will tend the flames and be the keeper of the holy fairy lights from Wilkos.”

“We used to sit up at home on Good Friday,” said Leah. “It was the most Catholic my dad got. Nothing for the whole year, no confession, no mass, not a whisper, and then Easter would come around and it was like he’d had a visitation. I bet him and mum are sitting there now. He will have dusted off the painting of Saint Pio. It’s the only time he takes down his signed photo of the Inter squad from 2010.”

“You must miss them,” said Aps. “Has he come around yet?”

“It’s complicated,” said Leah. “I do miss them but me and dad are still barely speaking. He’ll appear sometimes in the background on mine and mum’s video calls. Ciao piccola. That’s about as much as I’ll get, maybe a wave, and then he’s gone again. I don’t know. When he gets his mind set he’s pretty hard to budge.”

“Like father, like…,” started Cora. Leah pulled out the cushion she was resting on and flung it across the room at her.

“Hey, I am not at all like that!”

“So, that whole performance last month when you made us stop the Uber because the driver had a Britain Rising tattoo on his neck and we had to walk home across the Downs at half one in the morning, wasn’t, you know, a bit like that?” said Cora.

“Not at all. He was an asshole. You guys need to take that stuff seriously. I know you think all these little far right nationalists are a bit of a joke but that’s how they start. They nearly ruined Italy. Dad hated what happened after all the first waves of infections. Everyone was scared and they took advantage of it, no-one really stopped to work out what we were signing up to,” said Leah.

“You were close, weren’t you,” said April suddenly. She’d taken her usual position on the floor, legs curled up underneath herself.

“Yes, we were. It’s a cliche but I was his princess, he was my papa. He taught me everything about his home – the language, the culture, food, football – and he used to take me out boating on the lake, just so we could talk I think. It was like he wanted to infuse Italy in to me, like he thought he had to make up for the fact that I wasn’t born there. And I loved it. I still love it. In all sorts of ways it is my home but it just got… I don’t know, it just got small.”

“You should call him,” said April. “Not tonight, not whilst he’s enraptured with Saint… what was his name again?”

“Pio,” said Leah. “He’s a biggie. Stigmata, healing, the works. Actually, with the whole stigmata deal you’d probably like him…”

April grinned. “I am a multi-denominational goth. If you insist on labelling me a goth.” She looked down at the long black dress wrapped around her legs, intricate lace detail decorating the hem. “Okay, I am looking pretty gothy today. But I’m interested in all faiths, all creeds, and all peoples, bleeding wrists not essential. Seriously, you should call him. While we’re in lockdown. Call him.”

It was late. Aps had already been yawning for the past half hour, so, one by one, they turned in for bed. Leah was last up, pausing to switch off the fairy lights, leaving their mosaic of pictures scattered across the Rothko illuminated just by the candles. The faces of her friends flickering in and out of view in the dancing light. One of the photos was a passport sized shot of Menaggio, one of hundreds she’d taken from the lake that summer she’d helped out running the ferries. The sun was slipping down past the mountains behind the town leaving it bathed in a warm, darkening orange glow. She touched the image with one hand, executed a half-remembered sign of the cross with her other, and whispered good-night.

Heart of gold

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Blame it on Bobby Gillespie. Blame it on the Scream team and Andrew Weatherall. Blame it on the Stones and acid house if you want to go back to the source. It didn’t really matter where you placed it but, afterwards, April knew exactly when they all came around. The precise moment that this one off tourist visit to an old indie disco moved from an exercise in humouring their friend to an essential, no the essential, part of their week. They wanted to get loaded. They wanted to have a good time.

They’d been in the club for about an hour before the DJ cued it up. April knew it instantly, the sleazy drawl of ‘I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have’, Primal Scream flirting with Exile era Stones before the full blown affair they’d have later. She knew what would happen as well. She knew the DJ would mix into Loaded during the breakdown, line up the horns across the two tracks, fade out the rock and roll and… wait for it, the drop into those skittering, circular drums once Weatherall had chewed up the original track and spat it back out as a floor filling, killing masterpiece. There was a reason songs had hooks and she knew they were hooked from the grins, from the telepathic agreement to move to the dance floor, exerting its own inevitable gravitational pull now, and she knew from the way Leah leaned in and shouted in her ear: I thought you said it was miserable music you can dance to. She wanted to tell her that was true but there was joyous, mindless, switch-your-brain off, don’t think it, don’t fight it, feel it stuff too. She just nodded her head and raised both hands in the air, span in a circle.

It became their escape. Each week, once they were past the health screen on the door, they descended the steps down into the old boat, moored up, set fast in the harbour, and it felt like stepping out of real life for a while. April liked to disappear into the fog of dry ice close to the stage, dancing on her own to the early songs – the miserable stuff as the others called it – whilst her friends squeezed round a table drinking beers, shouting across at each other over the noise. April would float between their table, swigging at an offered bottle, and back to the floor depending on what songs were playing. Within a few weeks the others knew when it was best to leave her to dance: Freakscene, Add It Up, Velvet Roof, You Got It. Any of those they just sat back and watched her spin and hop, face submerged under her black, cascading hair. Later on when the happy stuff started they all joined her.

They’d never had any trouble before. There had been some pretty low key attention, a few yelled conversations while dancing from some boys they’d gotten used to seeing there every week. Everyone tried to respect the distances you were supposed to keep now; it was kind of accepted it was harder in a club but that was why they had the room limit and the checks on the door. There was one guy that the others were convinced was interested in Aps; they’d catch him looking over or nervously skirting around their space while they danced but all it took to send him scuttling away was for one of them to beckon him over or catch his eye. Leah had taken to winking at him, an over the top, entirely unserious piece of salaciousness. He would always run a mile. Cora wasn’t sure but she thought that maybe Aps wanted them to leave him alone so she could start a conversation more naturally. But it wasn’t going to happen. This was always going to be their night and no-one else was really invited.

There was just that one time that the bubble burst, that reality crashed in. Leah had clocked them when they came in, three guys that immediately hit the bar, loud enough to be heard over the PA. They looked like they’d be drinking for a while, all in suits, ties removed. She didn’t know what the door policy was but the club sold itself as a broad church; she figured it would have been odd to turn them away just for looking too straight, too regular.

It was Cora that had wanted another drink. She signalled to the woman behind the bar  and shouted for a beer when she leaned over to serve her. One of the guys, pin stripe, white shirt, top three buttons undone, moved up the bar and leant in to her shoulder. “Let me get that for you.”

Cora stepped away, holding her hands up to try to indicate both that she was okay and that she didn’t want him in her space. She smiled, warily, and said: “No. Thanks. I’m good.”

He moved up the bar, stopping just short of her, and tried again. “Come on, I’m just trying to be friendly. Let me buy you a drink.”

Cora was about to step away again when she became aware that his friends, the other two, had moved behind her during the exchange. She felt boxed in. One of them touched her back, leaning in to her ear to tell her that his friend was a good guy, give him a break. She felt small and exposed, started silently weighing the distance from the bar to the toilets. The guy offering her a drink took another step, smiled, and ran his hand across her shoulder, pulled her in next to him. “I’m Adam. Pleased to meet you.” Cora tensed and moved to duck away but felt his grip tighten, heard the three of them laughing.

And then April hit him.

Everyone had a slightly different version of it later. The way April told it she had heard the music change to Pulp’s ‘Babies’ and wondered where Cora was. It was the tune guaranteed to get her on the floor. The four of them would shout ‘my god’ in unison with Jarvis at the end of the song and then shuffle away in their own approximations of his louche moves. She’d spotted her trapped at the bar and decided to shoot first, ask questions later. She hadn’t hit him that hard but her fingers were covered in so many rings that she’d left a small imprint of a skull in his cheek. The way Leah told it she’d heard the yells after the first punch landed, saw April clawing Cora away, and had run across to join them. In the confusion she’d kneed one of the others in the balls. The way Aps told it she had just been about to start talking to her shy admirer when all hell had broken loose at the bar, he’d slunk away, and she’d arrived just in time to join in the stage where security was separating them all. The men were asked to leave.

Later, when it was calmer, it hit the point where the DJ played out the happier stuff. They all knew the Primal Scream mix up by now and they all stood up to dance.

It was the part of the night where all their accounts matched: the four of them, arms linked, in a circle, singing to each other: you’ve got a heart of gold, you can’t be bought or sold, you’ve got a heart of gold, baby.

 

Some Kandi talking

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“Who’s this again?” Cora was lying back on the sofa, watching the reflected sunlight from April’s Medlet dart across the ceiling. The music was a dark, droning dirge filling the room. It felt like sinking into the warm honeyed embrace of every one night stand she’d ever had; seductive, noisy, edgy, maybe not that healthy but the kind of mistake you knew you were going to make again anyway. After Rob she’d made a few mistakes.

“It’s The Jesus & Mary Chain,” said April. “Happy When It Rains.”

Cora turned her hands in front of her face, moving them in slow circles in a gentle nod to April’s default dance move. “Another one of those songs? And, happy when it rains, really? Is that, like, your theme song?”

April leant down over Cora, her face looming closer and closer until it blocked out the rest of the room. She stopped about an inch from Cora’s face. “Embrace the darkness, my friend, embrace the darkness.” They both smiled. “Is that my mascara by the way?”

“Well, you have so much I figured you wouldn’t notice…,” replied Cora.

When the others arrived home a couple of hours later they were still in the lounge, Cora now sitting up cross legged, April sat on the floor in front of her, head back in her lap. Cora had braided a few strands of her hair, interlacing them with purple ribbon. April’s eyes were closed and she was softly mouthing the words to a song none of the others knew. I’m not like them, I can pretend.

“Well look at you two,” said Leah.

“April’s been educating me on all the miserable music that we were lucky enough to miss in the late 80s. Now I know why our parents fucked us up so badly,” laughed Cora.

“It’s miserable music you can dance to,” protested April, opening her eyes. “Not this one so much but all the other stuff. And you’re more than capable of being a fuck up on your own without blaming your parents.” Cora poked her tongue out in response.

“Is this Nirvana?” said Aps. She’d come in behind Leah, laden with shopping bags. “That guy that shot himself. You know, the one on the tee-shirt.”

“I’m sure that’s just how he’d like to be remembered,” said April. “Yes, it’s Nirvana. Kurt Cobain is your man. Icon of alienation and isolation.” She flicked off the music streaming on her phone, thumbs flying as she searched for something. She held up a picture of him, blonde hair falling round his face framing blue eyes, a pensive frown.

“He sounds more like he’s your man to be honest,” said Cora. “I like ’em a little sunnier. He’s hot though, I’ll give you that.”

Aps snatched up the phone to look more closely at the picture before rummaging back through one of the bags she’d carried in. She fished out a flyer which she passed over to April as she handed back the phone. “I knew I’d seen him today. I picked this up for you, April, thought it looked like your sort of thing. They were giving them out in the Union.”

The flyer was postcard sized and filled with a picture montage of bands April recognised. Pixies, Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr, Stone Roses, Sisters, Mudhoney, Violent Femmes, Cure, Cult, Pulp, Oasis, Blur, the Stones, the Beatles. Kurt’s face was lost in there somewhere, the same shot that had appeared first on her phone. She had seen him today. Emblazoned across the top it read: Kandi Klub presents Club George. Down the bottom were details of the venue: The Thekla, Saturday nights, room limit 100. She shook her hair loose from Cora’s fingers and stood up. “We have to go. Seriously, we have to go to this.”

Cora, curious, plucked the flyer from her and examined it. “You sure they stick to that room limit? Someone told me about The Thekla. It’s that club on a boat, down in the harbour.”

“They have to stick to it,” said Aps. “They’d be shut down within a week if they mess around with that. They’ll have checks going in as well.”

“Come on Cora, it’ll be fun,” said Leah. “I mean, we won’t know any of the music but you can just pretend we’re partying in April’s head for a few hours.”

“So there’ll be dry ice and a strobe?” said Cora looking at April.

“You better believe it,” she replied.

 

 

……

This one is part of the overall set of stories about April and crew but as they’re in Bristol, even in the near future, it seemed only right to send them to the Kandi Klub. I don’t think it exists any more but perhaps someone will pick it up again one day.

RIP DJ George and thanks for the memories.

Aps and Leah

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The night Leah arrived April and Cora still weren’t talking, they’d spent a couple of days avoiding each other either holed up in their rooms or ghosting out of the house early in the morning and slipping back in quietly after it got dark. I saw them both, separately, as they ocassionally surfaced for food or a drink and, with me, they were pleasant enough, if a little guarded. I didn’t push it. I hoped with some time that things would settle down and we could all start again. Otherwise it was going to be a very long term.

I liked Leah immediately. She’d arrived at about nine having spent the whole day in transit. Some of it was the actual travel but most of it was the usual series of checks through health security at both borders. Apparently everyone on her flight had been held for an extra set of precautionary tests for a couple of hours after someone showed a slightly irregular temperature. I made a mental note not to bother sharing this detail with Cora. It was tense enough in the house already. Leah seemed to have registered that the atmosphere was a little strained, I guess she picked up my awkwardness when she asked where the others were, but she didn’t press it when I said that they were keeping themselves to themselves at the moment. I think that was why I liked her. She seemed to pick up a lot that was unsaid and had the grace to wait to understand more without being pushy. I guess I envied that in her because it was so unlike me.

She had short, dark, almost black, hair. Audrey Hepburn short. She didn’t look like Hepburn but her hair was kind of similar. I commented that I thought it suited her and made the comparison but she looked confused and said she didn’t know much about old movies. I found a picture online and showed her on my phone; she found it hilarious and just said: I wish. I thought she was being modest, she had high, narrow cheeks and beautiful, laughing eyes that I would’ve killed for. She caught me looking at her but didn’t seem bothered by it. She smiled and it was me that broke eye contact.

We opened the bottle of wine that I’d originally bought for all of us and talked. She teased me a little when I told her about my year travelling, pretended to be upset that I hadn’t visited Italy. I didn’t want to admit that I’d avoided the hotspots in Europe, too many people I’d known had been caught out in lockdown and lost any time they might have been travelling. Like earlier she seemed to silently clock that this was what had happened and let it pass. She told me about her home. I told her about mine. It wasn’t really a fair contest: after she’d played her sun-kissed-banks-of-Lake-Como card I was always holding a losing hand. It definitely trumped a commuter belt town in the Home Counties where the most controversial thing that had happened in my lifetime was when they gave Aldi planning permission to open on the old leisure centre site. Most controversial outside of the Viral Health Act provisions, obviously, but I tried to ignore all that stuff that I couldn’t control.

After we’d seen off two thirds of the bottle some music started playing, audible through the ceiling above. April’s room. It was the first time I’d heard anything like that since the incident with Cora but she’d almost always had a pair of headphones round her neck when I’d seen her. Maybe her bluetooth had dropped out or something. Maybe she wanted to hear something vibrating in the air instead of right there inside her ear. I always preferred music through speakers, I liked to feel it through my body. It didn’t matter what it was, I wasn’t a massive bass-head or anything, I just liked the physical sensation of it. My parents had shown me some old video of when they used to go to festivals, before the restrictions, and it looked like heaven. Looking at them, arm in arm, swaying in a crowd to some 90s band everyone had forgotten left me feeling, I don’t know, left me sad. It seemed strange to grieve for something that you’ve never had but that was how I felt.

Leah looked at me, tilted head, questioning. No sorrow tonight. It’s my first one here. That was all she said before she stood up and, slowly at first, began to move to the music filtering down from above. She closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and danced. After a moment she opened one eye, almost comically, fixed it on me and commanded me to join her. I got up a little unsteadily, it was a while since I’d drunk this much, and the pair of us shuffled in an uneven circle in the middle of the room. The song changed, it was one that I recognised. April must have liked it as she turned it up. I was pretty sure it was The Cure. Close To Me? Was that it? I was spinning now. Maybe the room was spinning.

Leah snatched up the wine and took a swig, passing it across to me. One of the last things I remember was how intimate that had felt, drinking from the same bottle. Intimate and trusting. I drank, tried to take a step back in time with the music, stumbled and fell over, upending the rest of the bottle on my face. Both of us started laughing, neither of us could stop and when Cora and April appeared in the room to see what all the noise was they found us lying on the floor, shaking, faces contorted in manic smiles. I think they were so surprised that neither of them realised they were standing right next to each other. There was something infectious about the laughter. They both cracked and all four of us were left helpless, howling and cackling with uncontrollable glee.

We’re housemates now, okay? Like I said, Leah seemed to know what to leave unsaid but she seemed to know when to find the right words too. That was the start of things being good. They didn’t go bad until much later.

 

 

Leah

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Her father didn’t understand and his English was good enough that it wasn’t the language barrier that separated them on her decision. He will come around. Her mother had tried to bridge the divide, like she always did, but perhaps she felt like this one was all her fault. Leah didn’t blame her but she didn’t want to stay either. She loved them but it wasn’t enough.

The ferry was back running after the temporary lock-down and she wanted to ride the loop around the lake one last time before she left. Ciao Lia. Andrea was running the boat today and smiled at her as she embarked, waving away her offer the fare. Gratuito. She touched her fingers to her lips by way of thanks. She’d helped out last summer, it had been a good season uninterrupted by any significant outbreak. There’d been a stretch of two months that had almost felt like the kind of summers that her father had told her about; the ones he’d been chasing after when he dragged them back from England. The town had needed the visitors. The subsidies weren’t enough.

The boat was almost empty so she slipped through the door at the stern. Pooled diesel spills on the surface caught refracted rainbows and she stared at them, lost in thought, until they abruptly disappeared in a surge of spray as Andrea gunned the throttle. She inhaled, wanting to hold that smell, rust and oil and the dirty water around the dock, in her memory. It reminded her of when they’d first arrived. An eight year old girl, bouncing in excitement, one hand on the rail, the other clutching her father’s hand as they watched the picture-perfect rows of yellow and orange houses loom larger and larger as they approached their new home. She remembered the mountains framing the town and asking if they were living in a fairytale. Am I the princess, papa? He had ruffled her hair and laughed. Sempre. Sempre. She hadn’t realised he had meant it quite so literally. She rode the ferry across to Varenna, on to Bellagio, and then back.

When she’d told him she thought that her choice of University might soften the blow. He knew Bristol, it was where him and mum had met, they’d even settled there a couple of years after she’d been born. He’d worked as chef whilst mum had juggled looking after her and studying for an accountancy qualification she never finished. They’d always wanted for him to open his own restaurant – I will show them the real Italian food – but it was tough to save in those early years. After the vote in 2016 something changed. Leah never understood why he stopped learning English, why she spent so many evenings lying on her bed listening to raised voices downstairs, or why, one day, her parents sat her down and told her they were going to move. We’re going home. She’d always thought that was an odd thing for her mum to say: she was from Clevedon.

At first it’d been everything her father had promised. He’d taken back on running the family pizzeria, making good on his boast to show off the authentic cooking of his homeland, mostly to tourists but respected enough locally to generate a steady flow of covers even in the off seasons. Leah had gotten used to everyone spelling her name Lia and had quickly picked up Italian. In some ways those first couple of years were the closest her and dad ever were, their conversations running faster and faster as she raced ahead of her mum in her understanding. She even learned to swear in Italian before English, listening to him with his brothers watching Inter on the TV, shouting words she only deciphered by sharing them in the playground to delighted laughter and then explanation. It was the sort of explanation that involved graphic mimes with fingers poked between a circle made with the other hand which, eventually, had meant that her mum had needed to explain a number of other things to her. It was also the end of her being allowed to watch I Nerazzurri. Or, at least, to watch them with her father’s commentary.

It was only after the outbreaks that things changed. The first lockdown in ’20 had hurt the community – they lost friends, the visitors stopped coming, businesses closed – but they’d all assumed it would end. That things would return to normal. The town would bear a scar, they’d always remember, but eventually they would settle back into being the bustling summer hub on the banks of the Como that they’d been before. But then the mutated strains began to appear, each time they thought they’d dampened down the embers there’d be a fresh fire. It was years before the region even settled down into what they now understood as their regular rhythms: open for business, temporary lockdown, open for business, lockdown. At least we are healthy. Her parents put a brave face on it and, somehow, the three of them never fell ill, physically at least, but the staccato patterns of their new existence took its toll on them all.

Leah had decided to leave after the lockdown in ’27. It had been strain 31 or 32, she had given up keeping track, and she’d resolved to take up a place at University in England. In the end she’d deferred for another year, thinking that the promise of helping out in the restaurant and on the boats for one more season might placate her father. It just seemed to make her eventual departure harder, as if he’d read her postponement as a cancellation and felt twice as betrayed when she followed through on her plan to go.

Back from her farewell ferry trip she packed and prepared to leave. He was out and she didn’t expect him back before she had to get the train to Milan. Mum would walk her to the station. The last thing she packed was an old photo of the three of them, taken just after they’d first arrived, down at the front with the lake shimmering behind them. Mum and dad flanked her on either side, the three of them holding hands, smiles radiating in the late summer sun. She kissed the picture and, instead of placing it in her case, she flipped it over, grabbed a pen from her old desk, and wrote on the back of it.

Perdonami, papa. Your princess. Sempre.

 

April, Cora and Aps

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April moved seats so that she was as far from the door as possible. She wanted to give Cora some space; it wasn’t the first time that people had been uncomfortable around her.  She could hear voices in the hall, a soft Scottish accent lowered so that the words were inaudible. The other April speaking at a more natural volume but with a forced politeness, insisting that Cora came in and that there was nothing to be concerned about. I judge my own risk. April heard that.

April knew what Cora would be doing. Sure enough when they finally came through into the kitchen she was holding her phone, eyes moving from the screen to take in the room, and then back to the screen again. April’s arm was still exposed from where she’d shown her namesake her scars earlier but she wore her MedLet on her right wrist. She rolled up the sleeve and held up the black band, a pale green light emanating from a small face on its outer edge.

“Your phone would have lit up from the street, you know, if I was showing symptoms,” said April. She paused. “Hi, I’m April. But I think you alredy know that.”

Cora sighed and held up her hands. Still ensconced in their gloves.  “Look, I’m sorry. I just like to be careful. I know it’s not the best way to meet people.”

“I guess it’s more honest than those air kisses our parents told us about, right?” said April, smiling. “Listen, I wouldn’t ever put anyone at risk. I never skip a test. I wear my MedLet with pride. My CT is zero.” April knew that Cora would already know her contact trace number: your records showed your viral history and the number of people they thought you’d infected. If you’d had any of the strains it was very unusual to show a CT of zero. Some people liked to see their whole sequence of contacts but most stopped at the straight CT number because they didn’t want to know their CD rate: contact deaths. The official messaging was always the same: it’s not your fault as long as you followed the guidelines but it was hard not to feel culpable.

The other April had busied herself distributing the tea that they’d made just before Cora had arrived. She put two of the mugs on the table and took a sip of her own. Nobody else moved to drink theirs. There was an uncomfortable silence. April rolled her sleeves back down and muttered that she need to sort out her room, unpack. She left, circling Cora, allowing her to step further into the room so that there was always a distance between them.

The two of them left in the kitchen picked up some halting small-talk. Cora’s journey had been long but uneventful; they had both picked Bristol for science courses, April for Chemistry, Cora for Zoology; they had done similar A levels; neither of them had lived away from home before. Cora had no siblings. April did. They got on to nicknames and April let slip that her sisters had always called her ‘Aps’ for short and that maybe the house should do that, save the confusion with two of them having the same name. Cora nodded. She didn’t particularly want to be known as Cor. Only one person had ever called her that. Sensing that Cora had quietened again April – Aps – felt obliged to show that she wore a MedLet as well although she felt sure that she would have done her homework and known that she’d never been in isolation. She remembered something.

“You were never in ICU, were you?” Aps asked.

Cora lowered her gaze but Aps caught the momentary look of sadness in her eyes. “Not ICU, no, but I was in soft isolation once. Just a month. Precautionary, never had anything. Doesn’t go on your record. I don’t really like to talk about it, if that’s okay?”

“It’s not really okay, is it?” came a voice from the door. It was April.

“It’s not something I like to talk about.”

“But it’s okay to come in with all your I judge my own risk and your gloves and your suspicion? It’s okay to refuse to meet me at the door until you’ve run your checks, got the all clear from MedApp?” April saw the untouched tea on the table. “It’s okay to refuse the drink? Let me guess? You’ve got your own mug, haven’t you?”

Cora looked at the floor. “It’s not like that. I just…”

“Just want privacy the rest of us don’t get to have, is that it?” April was shaking her head. “Come on, I’ll leave it alone but at least tell me I was right about the mug.”

The air in the room seemed to have been sucked out. April was staring at Cora, Aps  had turned away, went to rinse the remnants of her tea out in the sink. Cora was slowly shaking in her chair, picking at her fingers until she suddenly peeled off the gloves and lay them on the table. She looked up at April, eyes pricked with tears but she didn’t break her gaze.

“I was in soft isolation because my boyfriend died. He picked it up. He should have been alright, he was healthy, no underlying conditions…” She punctuated each syllable of un-der-ly-ing-con-dit-ions by stabbing her finger into the table in time with her speech. “He should have been alright but he wasn’t. I was in isolation when they cremated him. Alone. He was alone. I was alone. So, now, you just leave me the fuck alone.”

April started to try to say something but Cora stopped her.

“And, yes, of course I’ve got my own fucking mug.”

 

Cora Forever

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Cora liked to walk the beach in winter. She usually waited for the flag to be changed over to red and she could hear it being slapped by the wind; if it was flapping out its warning then it kept most people away. Most of the newcomers anyway. The tide was going out, waves rising, breaking and leaving behind swirling, foaming eddies as the water receded. She always felt like the sea was breathing and the change to low tide was her favourite, those deep inhalations as water pulled away from the shore. If she closed her eyes she could feel her own breath align with the tide.

They’d arranged to meet in their usual place. It was half a mile down from the town but worth the walk to miss anyone not already put off by the weather. It was still dry but the clouds over the Firth were dark and she’d lived here long enough to know that they probably had an hour before the rain came in. She quickened her step and picked her way across the low dunes, grasses snaking around her ankles, down to the harder sand near the tideline. Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. It was Rob. Two words: they’re here. Cora broke into a run.

He was standing close to the water looking through binoculars across towards the Black Isles. He turned back to look at her as she approached, grinning, and gesturing towards the sea.

“I thought you were going to miss them.” He handed her the binoculars and pointed her in the right direction, guiding her gaze by holding her from behind and leaning his head in close to hers. “Have you got them?”

Cora took a moment to adjust to the focus, the sea magnified in the lenses, the small undulations of the waves exaggerated to vast, heaving swells. The sky was becoming progressively overcast and it was difficult to pick out much detail between the blue-grey of the sea and the encroaching clouds.

“I don’t see anything,” she said, almost lowering the binoculars but she felt his grip on her arm tighten slightly, a silent encouragement to give it a little longer. And then, in a line, breaking surface, three dolphins stencilled on the horizon. She held her breath, steadied her hands, and tracked them as they leapt, skimming the waves with an ease and grace that made her want to laugh or shout or scream. “I see them,” she said. “I see them.”

When the dolphins disappeared Cora twisted round, letting Rob pull her into an embrace, resting her head on his chest. Neither of them spoke and all she could hear was an asynchronous call and response between the ebbing tide in one ear and his heartbeat in her other. Gradually his pulse quietened, slowed, and she pulled her head up and kissed him.

“Your heart beats faster for the dolphins than it does for me,” she said.

“Does not,” he said. He bent to kiss her back but she wriggled free of his arms, laughing.

“Prove it!” she shouted. “Prove it or it’s just dolphins you’ll be kissing for the rest of the winter.”

Rob made a half hearted attempt to catch her but she was too quick. He watched her bouncing on the spot on the sand, ready to spring away from him: he’d spent the last two years chasing her and didn’t think he would ever tire of it. Chasing is good but being caught is better. That was what she’d said that night at McKendrick’s party just before she’d kissed him the first time. He could still remember the taste of her that first time, cherry brandy that she’d regretted the next day. No other regrets, though. He still had that text in his phone.

He found a stick back in the dunes and broke off the end; it was sharp enough to serve as a makeshift pencil in the sand. Cora watched, bemused, as he attempted to draw the shape of a large dolphin, bending over to make incisions in the beach.

“It looks like a shark,” she called.

“Does not,” he said. Pointedly he drew a large cross over his drawing and next to it etched out CORA FOREVER in large capitals, surrounding it with a roughly sketched love heart.

“It’s a bit cheesy,” she said.

“I give up,” he said, standing up and breaking into a sudden fit of coughing. Cora ran back to him, concerned, and rubbed his back until the coughs passed. “It’s nothing,” he said, noting the worry on her face.

“You sure? I heard one of the new families that came up from London had a case, the daughter maybe. She’s isolated now. It’s not right. We had nothing here until they started to come to get away from the towns.” She looked out across the water, the wind had picked up now and was whipping the waves, white-capped, spray rising into the air.

“It’s nothing,” he said again. “I was tested last week. Next one’s in a few days.”

“Just be careful, alright?” she said. She grabbed his hand and pulled him back towards the road at the top of the beach. “Come on, weather’s coming in.” They retreated up the beach as the rain started to fall, leaving behind CORA FOREVER as the only marker that they’d been there that day. The tide turned, inexorably, inevitably, in the night, the sea bit higher up the beach and washed it away.

April and April

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“How long were you in?”

We’d talked for a while before I asked her. I thought it came up naturally but as soon as I said it, as soon as I saw her eyes glance at the floor, I knew it’d been too soon. And now it was too late.

“I..,” she started.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s not my business.”

“It’s okay,” she said. There was a pause, her eyes now scanning the ceiling, a drawing in of breath, before she looked back at me. “I thought it was in the records but I can understand why you might want to know. I was in for six months. It was the 27 strain. I don’t know if you remember but it was a bad one.”

I nodded. I felt like I wanted to reach across and touch her hand. Something to signal that I understood but that felt too soon as well. Everyone was more guarded about their personal space now.

“Well, at the start they wanted me away from people for a good two months to be sure and then I turned out to be asymptomatic so they held me longer. Hardly anyone got off without symptoms on 27 so then they kept me to run tests. Just bloods and monitoring. Regular stuff. I got some scars to show off.” She rolled up the loose sleeve of her shirt, showed me the inside of her arm. It was criss-crossed with faint scratches and one longer, angry looking red line towards the crook of her elbow. She saw my face, I must have looked shocked. “It’s cool. It never hurt. The big one was just a new nurse, they all trained up on people a little less pale than me I think. Always took them a bit of time to work up a vein when they were new.” She laughed.

“Six months. Jesus. That must have been rough.”

“It wasn’t too bad. I’m pretty good in my own company and they gave you like the fastest wi-fi you’ve ever had. You never been in an ICU?”

I shook my head. “I got lucky. Tested every week and never seemed to pick anything up. I do remember 27, there were a few in our year that went in but nobody for six months. We all kept in touch with them….”

“At the start. You kept in touch at the start, right?”

She was smiling and I didn’t feel like it was accusatory, or at least not directed at me. I nodded. “Yeah, I guess. It was easier at the start. We were just kids. I like to think I’d be a bit more considerate if it was happening now.”

“It is happening now,” she replied. “Just not to us anymore. We’re clean, right? Too old to be a high risk spread and too young to be a high risk victim. There’s kids in ICUs every day.” She paused and seemed to note my look of apology. “I’m not blaming you. I’m not in contact with anyone in a unit, it is what it is. I guess we could all do more.”

There was an awkward silence. I broke it by pushing back my chair and offering to make tea. I hovered by the kettle, waiting for it to boil, whilst we continued talking.

“How come you didn’t know I wasn’t in a unit?” I asked. We’d all had our records shared.

“I didn’t look,” she said. “It’s not important to me.”

“Because you’re immune?” I started.

“Not that. It’s just not important to me. And they don’t know about immunity. They said I was so unusual in how my system responded to 27 that they thought I might be okay against all strains but I don’t think they know.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this all up. It was clumsy. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Honestly, it’s okay.” She smiled, held out her hand as if she sensed my earlier desire to physically connect. I crossed the room as the kettle clicked, at boil, behind me and touched her. She gave my fingers a squeeze and released. “Listen, all of this is hard. No-one gave out rules for how you’re supposed to navigate this stuff. I don’t take offence and I get why you’d be curious.”

“Thank you. I thought I’d blown it on day one.”

“No way. You kidding? Us April’s have got to stick together, right?”

“Too right. About that. Isn’t this going to get confusing?”

“What? You want me to be April 27 or virus April or something?” She raised her eyebrows, tilted her head. I thought she was joking. “I’m joking,” she clarified. “Just in case you haven’t figured me out yet. My sense of humour can be a little dark.”

“Let’s just play it by ear, then. Anyway I suppose it’s not a problem for us. It’ll just be the other two that might get mixed up.”

Almost on cue the buzzer rang. We both looked up and April indicated that I should go and answer it. I looked into the intercom camera for the second time that day and saw a short, slim woman, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, finger still poised over the door bell. A gloved finger. Disposable, surgical gloves.

“Hey,” I said into the intercom. “You must be Cora, right?”

There was a brief moment of static. “Yes, I’m Cora. Can you let me know which April you are? I’d prefer to be let in by the one that never isolated.” A slight pause. “No offence but I just like to be careful.”

I looked across at April to see if she’d caught the exchange. She shook her head, smiling. I couldn’t tell if she found it funny or insulting. She stood up and went across to the kettle to finish up making the tea. Pulled out three mugs. Just as I pressed the button to let Cora in April spoke:

“Let her drink some first but please let me tell her that it was me that made the tea.”