The Most Difficult Thing

The pub doors swung open, a bluster of wind edging through the heavy velvet curtain.

‘Look, Lucy isn’t charging me full whack. If we split the bills, you’d be doing me a favour, and I want you to live with me … Fuck sake, man, say yes?’

Meg had this way of making me feel like I was the most important person in the world. I thought of my parents, the nights I had cried myself to sleep after it happened, desperate for one of them to hear my heart tearing above the sound of their own; for them to come to me and tell me it was not my fault. For a split second, my brother’s face flashed in front of me, but the spectre disappeared at the sound of Meg’s voice.

‘Shit, are you crying?’ She leaned across the table and took my arm. ‘I’m not that bad!’

I pressed my sleeve briefly at the corner of my eyes, laughing, and when I looked up again, my skin bristled like a fox catching the first scent of the hounds. Harry: the man who would be the death of me.

It was the first time I had seen him since that night in the pub in the shadow of Canary Wharf, though my eyes had sought him out at the office the following day, self-consciously pulling at the sleeves of the jumper I had borrowed from Meg – deep red with a slight scratchiness to the wool. I even stayed late, making excuses to move around the office, in the hope that I might spot him; propelled by a naive notion that he might be looking for me, too.

Rather than giving up, something in me accepted his absence as a challenge. That evening after work, my legs moved more briskly than usual as I made my way back from Guildford station, energised by the thought of him. It was just past eight by the time I closed the front door and already the house was swallowed by darkness, a low light emanating from the living room.

I walked purposefully across the hall so that they would hear my steps momentarily hovering outside the room, giving my mother the chance to call out, to ask if I had had a good day. But the door remained shut, the only sound the canned laughter clattering out from the television.

Upstairs, at the end of the corridor I flicked on the lamp beside my bed, the featureless room coming into stark focus. The single bed, neatly made, a single chest of drawers uncluttered by anything other than a small make-up bag and a stick of deodorant, which my mother had pointedly removed from the bathroom and placed on my bed on my first day home, without a word. The spectacle of my return flaunted in our shared spaces was apparently too much for my father to bear.

By the bed there was the computer I had been given my first week at Sussex, as part of my grant. Pressing the door closed, I turned it on, my fingers trembling as I typed ‘Harry Dwyer’ into the search engine, holding my breath as a photo appeared on the screen. The first image might have been a disappointment if I had not been so desperate for any trace of him.

It was taken from a news conference: Harry in the crowd amidst a small throng of reporters. The image was poor quality, Harry’s face distracted by a scene just out of shot.

After a moment, I pressed the arrow on the screen and another, less recent, photo appeared of Harry having just scooped the Young Journalist of the Year prize for a piece on internal wranglings at Number 10. He was twenty-three at the time, which made him nine years older than me. For a moment I thought of my own path: the year spent working at the chain bakery in town after leaving school with an unblemished if unremarkable academic record; fending off awkward advances from Tristan, the general manager, who snorted when he laughed, and stood too close behind me at the counter, making comments about the position of my hairnet by way of exerting his power.

The three years at university, where my greatest single achievement had been meeting Meg and David and having, for the first time in my life, found both friendship and the space to breathe, space to become the person I was beyond the frameworks by which others interpret and define us. The fact that Sussex had accepted me onto an English and media degree without asking for an interview had not so much given me confidence in my ability as it had confirmed to me that I would get by better in life if people weren’t given too much information. On paper, the surface facts of my life – childhood in Surrey where my father ran a local business; my mother, otherwise a stay-at-home wife, lending a hand – were acceptable: I was acceptable. Delve any further, and … I inhaled hard, not allowing my mind to slip back to Thomas. Look forward, I reminded myself, focusing on Harry’s face, absorbing his successes, allowing myself to live vicariously through them, even if just for a moment.

Admittedly, it was a long way from the life I was living now. If you were to line up our achievements side by side, and draw lines between them – a habit I found impossible to break – you would notice a distinct distance between where I was now – commuting four hours a day to transcribe other people’s interviews and make endless cups of tea – and where Harry had been at the same age. But a lot could change in a year; I was dependent on that possibility. Though of course back then I couldn’t have known quite how much.

There was a stirring on the stairs, and instinctively I sat upright, pressing open a new tab on my web browser. Though I need not have bothered; as always I heard the footsteps speed up as they passed my door, despite my father’s attempts to make his feet lighter in the hope that I wouldn’t notice him, urged forward by his terror of being made to look me in the eye.

Refusing to give my father another thought, I returned to the previous tab. With another click of the mouse, I was met by a brief journalistic profile of Harry and his time as a reporter at the paper, alongside the same byline photo that had first caught my eye on the front page that morning in the smoking room. And then, with another simple click, there it was, on the second page of Google, a brief mention in the media pages of a rival paper:

Harry Dwyer was unceremoniously sacked today, just hours after his most recent scoop. The paper’s editor, Eddy Monkton, is believed to have seen off the Irish-born writer in characteristically pithy style, telling his former star reporter, ‘Dwyer – you’re fucked’. A talented self-starter, Dwyer rose through the ranks after dropping out of school and taking a job in the canteen of his local paper. Monkton refused to comment on the parting of ways.

But … how? My mind searched for answers to the impossible question of how this could be. How our lives could have intersected as they had and then, just like that, have been torn apart again. This had to be wrong. Determined to prove it so, I continued to trawl for clues until long after the light in the hallway had been clicked off – but there was nothing else to be found. No other mention of his being sacked, and no further explanation.

It is a visceral memory, the sadness I felt in that moment; I can still feel it, the deflation at knowing that if this brilliant, beautiful man no longer worked for the paper, there would be no chance of bumping into him again. It was real, that memory, it is impossible to believe it was not – and yet I will question it later, just as I have learnt to question everything. In the darkness to come, I will ask myself if I could have felt so instinctively connected to him at this point – or was I simply retrospectively filling in the details to suit the version of events that I needed to create in order to justify what I had done?

In any case, the sight of him in the Crown and Goose that night, his arm propped against the bar, a pint in front of him as he scanned the pages of the Evening Standard, seemed not so much astonishing as merely confirmation of the connection I had felt in the beginning.

Of course, what I should have asked myself was, what were the chances of him turning up like that in our local pub? And the real question: if I had known the answer, would I have run for my life?

‘What are you staring at?’ Meg turned, following my gaze, a smile creeping over her mouth as she spotted him too.

‘No way.’

I could not be sure if she was smiling for herself or for me. Despite the special connection I felt to Harry, it was clear I was not the only one to notice his rough impression of beauty. It was hard to ignore the looks he elicited as we all sat together in the bar that first night, the flutter of eyes noticing him as Meg stood and moved towards him, seemingly unfazed.

When he looked up, an amused smile formed at the edge of his lips. It was a struggle to pull my eyes away. After a moment, I heard the scrape of a bar-stool and when I looked up again he was standing above me.

‘You remember Anna?’

‘Of course.’

Harry reached down and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he drew out a chair and sat.

‘We’re celebrating,’ Meg announced, leaning a hand casually on his shoulder, the intimacy of her movements making me wince.

‘Oh really, why’s that?’ It was David’s voice this time. Arriving straight from work, he was dressed in a Barbour coat and navy scarf, his shirt untucked. A matter of months since leaving university, the mutation had already subtly begun, the sartorial shift from trustafarian to trust-fund manager made in incremental steps. At this stage, he was still a boy doing a poor impression of a man.

‘Anna has just agreed to move in with me.’ Meg raised her eyes at me, flashing a smile and leaning in to kiss David’s cheek.

‘Cool. Well if we’re celebrating we better have champagne – and shots.’

David laid his coat on the chair beside mine before turning to acknowledge Harry. Something in his face shifted; I can’t have been the only one who noticed.

‘Hello again, I didn’t realise …’

‘Nice to see you.’ Harry held out a hand, his self-assurance filling the room.

David paused, a moment too long, before accepting it, briefly, and then moving towards the bar.

By the time we left the pub, Camden High Street was a heaving mass of bodies and light, the smell of lead clung to the air. We were moving in a line, a marauding army stumbling towards an unknown threat. Unaware that the enemy already lay within.

‘Where are we going?’ David’s voice followed Meg and me as we stepped into the road, the sound of horns blaring across the street.

‘Fuck knows!’ Meg called back and we fell sideways, in unison, our bodies crippled with laughter, the sound of us, warped and distant, blowing back at me as if from the other side of the street.

‘Watch out.’ Harry’s hand hooked under my arm, guiding us across Parkway. Only once we had reached the phone box outside the pub did he let us go.

Meg whispered something to David, linking her arm in his before turning back briefly to the pair of us.

‘We’re just going to get something,’ she winked.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Anna?’

David’s eyes held onto mine.

‘She’ll be fine.’ Harry’s voice was assured, the sound of it steadying me.

I leaned back against the phone box, my eyes straining to keep him in focus, the sound of a bottle smashing in the forecourt of the Good Mixer pub, followed by a wave of laughter.

When he looked down, I turned my face away, self-conscious despite the sambuca, wary of how I must look under the sharp streetlight. Hoping that if I didn’t meet his eye, maybe he wouldn’t see me so clearly.

‘Why are you doing that?’ He seemed amused.

‘What?’ I laughed awkwardly, aware of my teeth.

‘That thing,’ he laughed, mimicking me, ostentatiously sweeping his head to the side.

‘I’m not.’ I pushed my hand out to quieten him and my fingers landed on his chest, the breath clamming up in my throat as he leaned slightly into my palm.

There was a moment’s silence then, the lights from the high street casting a golden haze that warmed the sky above our heads. The movement on either side of us slowed until it was just us, my face finally settling into perfect stillness under the softness of his gaze.

‘Sorted!’

Meg’s voice cut across us, and it was Harry who looked away first. Pulling my hand back, I turned to see David, his pupils black and bulging.

Within seconds of David and Meg reappearing, Harry had peeled away from me towards a door to the left of a bar with no signage, taking centre-stage on the short strip of terraced buildings running the length of Inverness Street. David’s grip held me back as a young man, slumped over and supported by friends, his top flaked with vomit, wobbled precariously in front of us.

‘Sorry, babe,’ one of them called out as we stepped back to make way.

Brushing past them as quickly as I could, I watched Harry and Meg disappear ahead of us into the club, Harry’s hand pressing against the small of her back as he guided her in from the street.

He is just looking out for her, I told myself. There is nothing more to it than that.

‘Maybe we should go somewhere else, it looks crazy busy in there. I’ve got some …’

David hesitated as we reached the entrance where little more than a handful of smokers gathered outside, hemmed in by a single rope. But I kept walking.

‘I don’t want to leave Meg,’ I replied without turning around.

Down a narrow flight of stairs, the club was heaving with people, a dark warren of rooms, loud and airless, house music vibrating against low ceilings and windowless walls.

The bar stood at the back of the central room, thick with bodies. The heat suddenly overwhelming, I wished I wasn’t wearing a shirt on top of my vest-top. David moved towards the bar, pulling me protectively by my waist. ‘What do you want to drink?’

‘Water,’ I called over the throb of noise, my eyes frantically weaving through the crowd, desperate to find Harry and Meg, but all I could see were strobe lights and contorted faces, spilling over one another.

When David finally handed me my drink, I sipped gratefully before screwing up my face.

‘What is this?’

‘Vodka and soda … I …’ he called over the noise, which drowned out his voice as I pushed my head back, so thirsty I drank it all in one go.

‘Steady,’ he pulled the drink away from me, laughing nervously, but I pulled it back and drank the dregs.

‘You should pace yourself … How are you feeling?’ he asked a few minutes later, his mouth pressed against my ear.

‘Let’s dance!’ I shouted back as the whole room exploded with movement, a wave of euphoria rising in one endless swell of rhythm and sound. Pulling off my top layer, I turned, my arms stretched wide, my teeth grinding out of beat, and found David, his arm around my back, his breath against my face, the smell of sambuca on his lips.

I cannot be sure how long we stayed like that, our bodies swaying in primal movements, before a sickness hit my stomach, acid rising, scraping at the inside of my throat, the walls suddenly pushing towards me.

Stumbling backwards, my leg pressed against a leather bench which I had not been expecting and I sank back onto it, grateful but also unable to sit still, my skin burning and then cold, so that I pushed myself to standing. I could feel the strap of my top slinking off my arm, but there was nothing I could think to do to pull it up again.

The room was a slush of noise by now, indistinct notes thrashing against one another as I felt my way along the wall towards the exit, my breath tightening as strangers’ bodies crushed against my own.

Finally, my fingers curled around something cold and angular. It was another wall, leading away from the crowd and into a smaller corridor, which was dark and thankfully cool. It was quieter here and I was alone. For a moment I half-stood, half-crouched, my back against the wall, the breath slowing in my chest, before, from the end of the corridor, I felt movement and I knew that I wasn’t alone. With an animal sense, I recognised the presence of another person, even as my eyes still struggled to adjust. Then a shuffle of feet, and another, followed by a voice.

‘Anna?’ It was Meg, her face moving towards mine, and then another voice behind her reaching in through the mist. Harry.

‘Shit, it’s Anna!’ Meg’s hands gripped my body as I slumped, David stepping in in time to break my fall.

CHAPTER 5

Anna

When I came to, the room was quiet.

Even with my eyes closed I could register a sense of space above my head. My body, heavy and unfamiliar, pressed down against the springs of a mattress.

‘Anna? Thank God, man.’

I stretched my neck, my movements slow and unfamiliar as Meg’s voice emerged, along with her pale face as she bent over me.

Sitting, I pulled the sheets around a T-shirt I didn’t recognise. It was her flat we were in – my flat, now – the curtains sagging against the window.

‘I took your clothes off, they were covered in sick.’ She did her best to make it sound casual.

‘I’m cold.’ My voice was raspy and Meg nodded, seemingly pleased by the specificity of the instruction, jumping up and leaving the room without another word. Seconds later there were more footsteps, heavier this time, less certain, moving towards the bed.

‘David, maybe wait a minute, yeah?’

Meg followed him back into the room, the duvet from her own bed bundled in her arms. But he was oblivious, his bloodshot eyes trained on mine.

‘I’m so sorry.’

He lowered himself as I pulled the covers tighter around my chest, still dazed, distracted by the taste in my mouth.

The outside world was an uncertain grey, I couldn’t tell if it was dawn or dusk.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘The MDMA, it was just a dab in your drink, I warned you …’

I felt myself back in the airless bar, David’s voice mouthing words I could barely hear as my eyes scanned the room desperately for signs of Harry. I had smiled as I turned back to him, masking my disappointment as I took the drink from his hand and downed it, my eyes wincing at the bitter aftertaste.

‘Leave me. I’m fine, it’s fine, I just need to sleep …’

‘I’m sorry, honestly Anna, I thought you knew … I thought it was what you wanted.’ His face was stained with desperation.

‘Just let me sleep. Please.’ I turned away from them both, the sound of their footsteps moving into the hallway, fading again a moment later.

When I woke again, the flat was silent, and the memory of the night before came back to me in waves.

Placing a pillow in front of my face in a futile attempt to stem the flow of thoughts, tears of shame pricked the corners of my eyes, the humiliation churning in my gut, heavy and hot.

How much had Harry seen? Was I sick in the club or only once we had come home? Fucking David. I said the words aloud. I never took drugs, never risked putting myself in a position where I wasn’t in control. I couldn’t. And yet, how was he to know? I had let them believe that I did, him and Meg. I remember the sharp taste of a pill on my tongue, on nights out in Brighton, those few seconds before I turned and spat it into my hands, disposing of it before either of them saw, terrified they would spot that I wasn’t one of them.

The flat was empty, silence ringing through the air as I moved slowly towards the kitchen.

On the table, there was a note.

Hope you’re feeling OK. Pizza and juice in the fridge. Make yourself at home. Mx.

Beside it, my keys, purse and phone, which Meg must have pulled from my pockets after stripping me down.

Desperate for a distraction, I pressed the home button on my phone and watched the screen light up. Rather than a message from my parents wondering where I was, I was met only by the date and time flashing on the screen against the backdrop of a photo taken by David on Brighton Pier, two summers previous – Meg and me, the wind whipping against our cheeks, our faces contorted in a scream.

It was the same day Meg had first asked me about David.

‘So what you going to do?’ We settled ourselves at a table in the corner of the Hop Poles while David went to the bar.

‘What do you mean?’

Meg rolled her eyes disbelievingly.

‘About David …’ She waited, and when I didn’t speak, continued, ‘He fucking loves you, man.’

I snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Oh please, tell me you’re joking.’

‘What?’

‘Jesus, you’re serious. Anna, the boy is infatuated. Have you noticed that he can’t be more than two feet away from you at all times?’

Along with incredulity I felt a prick of pride. My voice was less convinced as I continued, ‘Yeah well, I don’t know, maybe that’s because he likes you and I’m always with you—’

‘Anna.’ Meg slapped her hands against her face. ‘Honestly, do you really not realise … You don’t. Wow. I mean you’re smart but sometimes you’re so fucking dumb. He’s in love with you. If you can’t see that then you really need to learn to read people better.’

The digits overlaying the image read 20.12. Sunday night. For the first time in my life, I had slept through an entire day.

Sipping gratefully at a glass of too-warm water from the tap, I moved from the counter towards the sofa.

Meg must have had a clean-up while I slept as the detritus that was usually scattered across the floor had been stacked into a pile in the corner of the room, the remote control neatly aligned on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

Scanning mindlessly between channels, I settled on a film I did not recognise, my thoughts gradually fading into nothingness before a harsh buzzing noise reverberated through the intercom, causing me to jump.

Pressing the volume on the television to mute, I lay back on the sofa, holding the edges of the blanket I had dragged in from the bedroom, waiting for whomever it was to give up. A moment later, though, the bell sounded again, longer this time.

Aware it might be Meg, having forgotten her keys, I reluctantly stood, brushing away the covers before moving to the window.

The light inside the flat was off. The only potential clue to my presence was the glow emanating from the screen behind me as I nudged the curtain with my fingers, pressing my cheek against the glass. Looking down, my eyes ached as they struggled to focus, my breath forming a screen on the pane in front of me.

Using my thumb, I smeared the condensation away. As if sensing my movement, his face flicked up at me.

‘Fuck.’ I pulled back.

The buzzer sounded again. I couldn’t let him see me like this, but what choice did I have? Besides, I had already made the decision as I moved across the room towards the door. Pressing my hand against my thigh, I leaned forward into the mouthpiece, pressing the button before I could change my mind.

‘Hello?’

‘Anna?’

My palms were prickling. My face, in the reflection of the screen on the intercom, was hollowed out, and tacky with sweat.

‘It’s Harry.’ There was a pause, and then, ‘It’s bloody cold out here – are you going to let me in?’

My finger hovered for a moment over the button, before pressing down again.

‘What are you watching?’ Before I had time to fully register his presence, he was moving across the room as if being here was the most natural thing in the world.

‘A film.’ I turned to the counter, pulling desperately at my hair, twisting it into a bun.

‘You alone?’

‘Yeah.’

It was too late to turn away, to shield him from the circles under my eyes, the unwashed skin.

‘Would you like tea?’

He nodded, his eyes smiling. ‘You feel like shit, right?’

‘I don’t know what happened, I’m not usually—’

‘Course you’re not.’ His laugh was familiar. ‘I’m just glad you’re OK. That’s what I came to check. The club, I couldn’t find you anywhere and then I saw Meg and she said you weren’t well and had to go home and …’

The moment our eyes locked there was a rush through my body and I instantly felt like a fool for imagining whatever it was I had imagined might have happened between him and Meg in the time that they were lost in the club.