You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) Page 7

  Being described as having amazing legs slightly took the sting out of being called mousy, but only just – amazing legs were, after all, a quality every single woman in the company possessed, and hardly a distinguishing feature.

  “Then what?” I said.

  “Aww, not much,” Roddy admitted. “Keep up the stalking though, he’s noticed you.”

  The next afternoon, as I rehearsed with the rest of the Corps de Ballet, going through the already-familiar steps over and over until they were perfect, I found my mind drifting away from my work to the upstairs rehearsal room where Mel was working with Briony, Francoise and Steph. I knew I should be happy for her, and I was, but my happiness was tainted with envy, and with anger at myself for feeling envious. Mel hadn’t got this through luck or nepotism, but because she worked bloody hard, relentlessly hard. She was talented, she took direction well, she had an innate musical talent that I lacked. Did all those things mean she was destined to be more successful than me, always? Did it mean I’d never catch up? I felt my self-confidence, never particularly solid, becoming even more shaky. Were she and Roddy talking about me, pitying me? My own self-pity was hard enough to deal with, without the imagined sympathy of others.

  But I needn’t have worried, because if there was anything on Mel’s mind other than her own performance, she gave no sign of it over the next few days. She talked incessantly about the show, how challenging it was learning the dance with just two weeks to go before opening night, how brilliantly Felix was understudying Jerome, how exciting and original Marius’s interpretation of the dance was.

  It was the coldest, wettest spring I could remember, and the weather reflected my mood. Getting out of bed, braving the freezing flat and the rainy, blustery walk to work became harder each day. I felt as if I hadn’t seen the sun in months. Everyone had colds – our stage make-up had to be slathered on each night over red, flaking noses and chapped cheeks. Jerome came down with flu and missed two days’ rehearsal for the first time anyone could remember, and speculation was rife over whether Felix would get his starring role after less than a month with the company. I desperately hoped he would, but if he felt the same he gave no sign of it – when I hovered on the outskirts of his group as we smoked on the roof, he seemed exactly the same as normal, careless and larky. Despite what Roddy had said, he paid me no more attention than usual, only greeting me with a casual, “Hey there,” and offering me his lighter. He didn’t even seem to have remembered my name.

  On Sunday, our day off, my longed-for lie-in was interrupted by the actors who rented the flat upstairs crashing home pissed after an all-nighter. I checked my watch – it was seven thirty, far too early to get up, but sleep refused to reclaim me. Reluctantly, I threw off the duvet and went in search of coffee.

  Mel was on the sofa watching telly, cocooned in a blanket.

  “Hi,” I said. “You’re up early.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I’ve got the most awful headache and my throat hurts.”

  “Oh God, you poor thing. Would you like tea? Paracetamol?”

  “I’ve already taken two. Shit, Laura, I feel grim. I should go back to bed, I suppose, but that would be…”

  “I know,” I said. That would mean admitting that she was ill, allowing the possibility of becoming iller still. “I was going to go out. Get a coffee, maybe go for a walk, do some shopping…”

  “I’ll come,” she said. “Take my mind off it. At least it’s not fucking raining.”

  “I’ll see if Roddy’s up,” I said, but when I tapped on his door he mumbled something about what the hell time was this, and couldn’t a boy get any rest, so I abandoned that idea.

  We bundled ourselves up in coats and scarves, forced our blistered feet into high-heeled boots, and went out. I bought coffee and a croissant, but Mel said she wasn’t hungry. She looked drawn and anxious, and she didn’t chatter away about the show – she didn’t talk much at all.

  “Shall we go to Selfridges and try on make-up?” I said. It was a prospect Mel usually relished, making the girls on the counters apply a full face of products neither of us could hope to afford.

  “It won’t be open for ages,” she objected.

  “We could get the Tube somewhere,” I suggested, realising that it had been weeks since I’d been further than about a mile from the flat. “Or go to a movie, or something. Somewhere warm. Or to the park.”

  “Whatever you want,” Mel said.

  Because we couldn’t decide, we ended up just walking along Shaftesbury Avenue and through Soho, quiet and ghostly at this time, when the shops weren’t open and the tourists hadn’t emerged. We walked along Oxford Street, but when I commented on the contents of the windows, trying to engage Mel in our favourite game of ‘when I have thousands of pounds to spend on clothes…’, but she wasn’t interested; whenever I stopped she rummaged in her bag for tissues and blew her nose. The first sign of enthusiasm she showed was when we passed Boots.

  “Let’s wait here until they open,” she said. “I need drugs.”

  “Look, why don’t you go home and go back to bed,” I said. “Tell me what you need and I’ll get it for you. You’re not well.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I just need something stronger than bloody paracetamol and I’ll be grand.”

  But she wasn’t. As the morning went on, she became paler and more miserable, and at last, when even the prospect of the Chanel counter didn’t enthuse her, I insisted we go back to the flat, and we spent the rest of the day slumped in front of repeats of Friends drinking tea.

  This was my life, I thought gloomily – six days’ work a week, from ten in the morning until almost midnight, with snatched breaks for fags and coffee. And on a longed-for day off, being too knackered and skint to do anything fun. It was what I’d longed for and worked for since I was six years old, and now I found it hard to remember what I was supposed to enjoy about it.

  It was the worst kind of Sunday afternoon, last-day-of-the-holidays feeling – a gloomy blanket overshadowing everything, blotting out the prospect of pleasure. On the sofa next to me, Mel looked as sunk in depression as I felt. I tucked my feet up, picking at a piece of loose skin on my heel, the legacy of an old blister, feeling the satisfying twinge of pain as it came loose.

  “Don’t do that, for Christ’s sake,” Mel snapped. “It’s gross. Make an appointment with the podiatrist if your feet need doing.”

  “No point polishing a turd,” I said, stretching my legs out in front of me and surveying them. All dancers have horrible feet, and mine, after a brutally busy winter season, were even more of a mess than usual, covered in calluses, my toes distorted from my pointe shoes. I’d stopped noticing them, and given up entirely on painting my nails – what was the point, when I’d never be able to take my shoes off in front of anyone who wasn’t a dancer too, and wouldn’t understand?

  “No foot-fetishist lovers for us,” said Mel.

  “No lovers, full stop,” I said. My social life felt as drab and featureless as my career. I hadn’t had a boyfriend since sixth form, and there wasn’t exactly a proliferation of likely candidates for the role. “Felix doesn’t fancy me. Roddy was just making shit up to make me feel better. Speaking of which, how are you feeling?”

  “Utter toilet,” Mel said. She was pale – even paler then usual – and shivering.

  “Go to bed, then,” I said. “No point both of us sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves.”

  “No point going to bed, either,” Mel said. “It’s even colder in my room. Besides, I want to watch the video of the Balachine Swan Lake before tomorrow.”

  “God, do you have to? We’ve watched that bloody thing about a hundred times. Go to bed – you look terrible.”

  “Cheers for that, Florence Nightingale,” Mel said. “Anyway, last time I checked, I live here too and I’m allowed to watch stuff on telly, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, watch what you fucking want,” I said. “You always get your own way, there’s no poin
t me arguing about it.”

  The atmosphere in the room had suddenly changed, from a reasonably good natured, if narky, Sunday night quarrel to something more serious.

  “Grow up, Laura,” Mel said. “You’re such a child sometimes. There’s no need to be a brat just because you’re jealous about my part.”

  It hurt because it was true. There was no denying it, no way for her to take it back now that it was said. I felt tears of anger and self-pity sting my eyes, and Mel looked like she was about to cry too.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, that really helps,” I said. “Nice one. Say whatever bitchy shit you want and then come out with some half-arsed apology and I’ll forget all about it, and you can go back to thinking you’re Miss Perfect. Or rather, First Artist Perfect.”

  I stood up, picked up my fags and lighter, and prepared to flounce out to the balcony, already planning to leave the door open so Mel would have to get up and close it if she didn’t want to be surrounded by smoky, freezing air. Then we both paused, hearing voices and laughter on the stairs outside.

  “…Not sure if the girls are in,” Roddy said, flinging the door open so it bounced back against the wall. “Oh, yes, they are.”

  He burst into the room, followed by a blast of cold, a smell of beer, smoke and pizza, and Felix.

  “God, there’s an atmosphere in here you could cut with a knife,” Roddy said. “Have you two been having a row? We’ve been to the pub, and we’ve brought fuckloads of dirty Domino’s. An entire week’s worth of calories, right here.”

  He dumped the boxes on the sofa next to Mel, who queasily averted her eyes.

  “And I brought Lawsonski back too,” Roddy went on. “He’s extra hot but he doesn’t have a stuffed crust.”

  “And more booze,” Felix held aloft a blue carrier bag jangling with bottles. “There’s cheap, shit red and cheap, shit white – that covers all the bases, right?”

  He smiled at me, and I felt myself blushing and wished I’d bothered to wash my hair that morning. Still, he looked pretty dishevelled himself, I realised – clearly the session in the pub had been a long one. His hair was messier than ever and there were dark shadows under his bloodshot blue eyes.

  “It’s Sunday, right?” he said. “I haven’t been to bed since…” he counted on his fingers. “Friday. Well, Thursday night, strictly speaking.”

  “You need to pace yourself, my son,” Roddy twisted the cap off a bottle of wine and sloshed it into four coffee mugs. “Here, get this down you. Hair of the dog that’s going to bite you tomorrow.”

  “A placebo,” Felix said. “No, that’s not what I mean. Something else beginning with P.”

  “Precaution?” Roddy said.

  “Prophylactic,” I said.

  “That’s a condom, isn’t it?” said Felix, and I blushed again, taking a gulp of wine.

  “What’s up with you, Melancholy?” Roddy said. “Come on, have a drink.”

  “I don’t think I should,” Mel said. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “Take another of those tablets you bought and have a glass of wine. You’ll be fine.”

  Mel sipped reluctantly. Roddy and Felix sat on the carpet, opened the pizza boxes and tore in. My mouth watered and I realised I hadn’t eaten anything since my breakfast croissant hours before, and I was starving.

  “Help yourselves,” Felix gestured towards the boxes.

  I took a slice and bit the end off, feeling the grease coating my lips. I’d pay for this tomorrow, I thought, but it was worth it.

  “What’s this then?” Roddy pointed at the telly.

  “Friends,” Mel said. “We were just going to put on the video of the Balachine Swan Lake, though.”

  “Bollocks to that,” Felix said. “It’s the weekend. Let’s have some proper music.”

  He rummaged through our CDs, which were a pitiful mixture of Mel’s classical stuff, my embarrassing girl band collection and Roddy’s country and western. I watched Roddy squirm – he never let anyone look at his CDs.

  “I thought,” Felix pointed an accusing finger at me, “you were into Metallica. You’ve brought me here under false pretences, Roderigo. ‘Come and meet my flatmate,’ you said, ‘you like the same music,’ you said. And what do I get? The fucking Spice Girls. It’s a poor show, mate.”

  He ate another slice of pizza. Even with cheese on his chin, he was the most desirable man I’d ever seen.

  “I have Metallica,” I said shyly, “but it’s on tape. Hold on.” I went to my room and rummaged around in the pile of clutter on my bedside table until I found what I was looking for. Thank God for the man at the stall in Camden, who, when I bought the T-shirt, had dropped a cassette box into the carrier bag, saying, “Here you go, love, I’ll throw this in for a quid.” And thank God for me being too polite to say that I couldn’t actually spare a whole pound on some horrible music I didn’t even like.

  “Here,” I handed it over to Felix. “I got this the other day. I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet.”

  He squinted at the blurry photocopied sleeve. “Holy shit. That’s the Death Magnetic demo. I’ve been looking for this forever. Where’d you get it?”

  For once in my life, I managed to act nonchalant. I shrugged and lied, “A friend of mine in LA sent it to me. We often exchange music, it’s our thing.” And I smiled in a sad, secret sort of way that I hoped Felix would interpret as evidence of a deep and passionate long-distance relationship with someone whose knowledge of heavy metal far exceeded Felix’s own.

  “Rad,” he said. “What are we waiting for?”

  He slotted the tape into our ancient stereo, and seconds later a loud whine of feedback filled the room, followed by a crashing guitar riff. Roddy and Mel winced; I tried to look enthusiastic.

  “Come on! We can’t not dance to this. Ever had a mosh pit in your living room, Roderigo?” Felix pulled me to my feet, snapped off the light and started to dance. Well – if it was dancing, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. His body moved like the flame from a Zippo lighter when you’re trying to spark up your fag on a windy day. He leaped and darted, seeming to be boneless and weightless. His hair flew around his head in a wild halo of shining darkness.

  I tried my best to copy him, gasping with exertion and laughter after a few minutes. Roddy and Mel watched us from the sofa, providing a running critique.

  “Your turnout sucks, Laura,” Roddy said.

  “Give us a pas de chat, Felix,” said Mel.

  When the track ended, we collapsed on the floor, panting for breath and giggling helplessly.

  “For Christ’s sake, no one ever, ever tell Anna I did that,” I said.

  “But you must headbang all the time,” Felix said. “It looks that way, at least.”

  “Yeah,” I lied, “But, you know, not in front of work people.” I ducked my head, hiding my flushed face behind my hair.

  “So, do you go to Hobgoblin?” Felix asked me. “My mates in Moscow all reckoned that’s the best. What’s it like? We should head over after work one Saturday.”

  “Um… yeah, that would be amazing,” I said. How the hell was I going to maintain the rock-chick image I seemed to have inadvertently acquired? I was desperate to carry on impressing Felix – if impressing him I was – but conscious that I was on extremely shaky ground. If only I had a bit more time, I could go online and research this stuff, buy a few CDs, pick Sadie’s brain – she’d always been the cool rebel one of us, she’d know about this stuff for sure. But I needed to make an impression, and make it now.

  I was saved by my phone trilling urgently from the depths of my handbag. It would be Sadie, I knew, making her regular Sunday evening call to find out whether I was okay, eating properly, keeping warm, and all the other annoying, trivial things she worried about. But right now her call wasn’t an annoyance – it was a lifeline.

  “’Scuse me a second,” I said, “This might be important.”


  And I grabbed my phone and headed out on to the balcony, where I spent ten freezing minutes with my back to the room, trying to look like I was talking to my mystery lover while patiently answering my sister’s anxious queries.

  When I turned around again, the room was empty. I felt utterly bereft – I’d played it wrong. They’d all gone out somewhere, or Felix had gone home, having got my pretend message only too strongly. Yet again, I’d fucked up, I’d blown my chance. I realised, standing in the dark, silent living room, that in those few frenzied moments of dancing together, Felix had given me a glimpse into another world – a world where letting go was fun, where music didn’t mean Tchaikovsky, where it was possible to want to kiss someone even though you both smelled of pizza. But it was too late now.

  I washed my face and cleaned my teeth in the freezing bathroom, then poured a glass of water and took it and my phone through to my bedroom. The door was shut – I didn’t remember closing it, but I must have done, when I went to find the tape. I pushed it open, turned on the light, and gasped. There, on my narrow single bed, under my duvet, was Felix, fast asleep, his dark hair spread out over my pillow and his impossibly long eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks.

  As quietly as I could, I put down my glass of water and squeezed in next to him, pulling the covers over us, breathing in the smell of him, relishing the heat of his body in the chilly room but not daring to touch him. Seconds later, I was asleep.

  Chapter 7

  “So how was your thing? You must have got in really late, I didn’t hear you at all.” Jonathan’s voice and the smell of coffee made me open my eyes, which felt sore and scratchy. For a moment I was barely sure where I was, or who he was – then Owen came running into the room and jumped on the bed, demanding a cuddle.

  “Come on then,” I moved over and lifted the duvet, and he squirmed in next to me and snuggled up, his hands leaving muddy smears on the white pillowcase.

  “Where’ve you been?” I said. “Playing in the garden with Daddy?”

  “We were playing dinosaurs,” Jonathan said. “It’s a bog out there. Sorry he’s a bit grubby. He was being a T-rex in the flowerbed.”