Iphigenia in Splott Page 3

  How it’ll be when he does call, and where we’ll meet and what I’ll wear and where we’ll go

  And how long we’ll stay there before we head back home and

  Will I move into his or will he move into mine and

  What kind of wedding and yes I get it

  Those are insane things to be thinking but

  This feeling – not alone –

  This feeling says, thinking all those insane things

  Is fine because

  They’re not insane, this time.

  They’re just what’s on the way.

  So I spend the whole day waiting, for him to call and

  He doesn’t.

  Okay.

  So

  The next day I text, just saying,

  Hey, it’s me, hope you’re alright.

  I get nothing back.

  And I know how it looks.

  It looks like I’ve been fucked and dumped.

  But looks are deceiving, ask anyone.

  Plus that can’t be it,

  Cos I’ve got this feeling.

  This feeling of not-alone.

  And the feeling makes me not panic, not freak out.

  It makes me think – rationally.

  It makes me think well if I haven’t been fucked and dumped then

  What else, could it be?

  It could be a million things.

  He might’ve written my number wrong.

  Or I might’ve misread his. I am basically fucking dyslexic.

  So I look at the receipt where he scribbled his number and yeah

  That five might be an eight. Actually so might that three.

  And is that one a seven or what?

  I have just texted some random most likely.

  So I

  Text again.

  Say about… fifty times.

  To all the different variations Lee’s number might be.

  I get a few answers: most confused, lots saying hi back to me, and

  Three pictures of erect penises.

  But nothing from Lee.

  (No, I’d know.)

  And so… I leave it. A while.

  Just playing it cool, like Lee obviously is.

  So I wait.

  Like a week.

  Or two.

  And I know. I know what it looks like.

  But I can’t bear it because

  Even though I know

  I don’t. Because this feeling, of not-alone

  Is still telling me: this is just some fuck up

  That he’s not been in touch.

  He feels same as you do and if you don’t find each other again

  You will lose the only thing that’s gonna to matter in both your lives –

  So I walk

  Through Tremorfa, out to Pengam, and

  Inside me still, this feeling, not-alone,

  Saying yes, this is fine, this is absolutely a sane way to behave.

  I get to the friend’s flat, and press the buzzer.

  No one there. Course not, it’s the middle of the day.

  I leave a note. With my number. Written in numbers,

  And letters, just in case.

  I’m imagining how it will be a story, me and Lee

  Tell people, how we had this one night together and then

  He lost my number, but thank God instead of stropping off

  I dropped a note round – and we were reunited!

  And as I turn to leave I hear something.

  But I’m not sure what.

  I look up, there’s – no one, at the window of Tom’s flat.

  I get home up the stairs flop down on the settee

  And there

  I cry

  Because I do know

  I know what that thing was I heard,

  Back at Tom’s flat. I know now and I knew then.

  It was someone, laughing.

  Not someone. It was Tom.

  Lee’s mate. He saw me

  And pretended not to be there.

  He saw me, come to post my meek little note.

  And he laughed.

  Because I have been fucked and dumped.

  I know it. I know.

  And at the same time

  In my heart, this feeling, still –

  Not alone. Not alone.

  And I can’t bear that feeling one second more.

  Cos that feeling is the most perfect and certain thing

  I have ever felt before –

  – and it is a lie.

  Into Leanne’s room, chest of drawers by her bed,

  Always loads of change. Scrape it together,

  Tip it in a carrier from under the sink, drag it over the road,

  Pile it up on the counter, and it piles just short

  For a half bottle of vodka. I tell the guy I’ll owe him

  And he just wants me gone, says, go on,

  Back up to the flat, can’t find a glass

  Why the fuck would I even need one

  Bottle to my open mouth, I breathe in and

  The first fumes of alcohol hit –

  – and my guts explode.

  Before I even take a gulp, I’m chucking right across the room,

  Again and again, I drop the bottle, I’m sobbing,

  I’m puking like I’ve never puked before

  Leanne pokes her head round the door.

  Was you in mine just now when I was sleeping? she goes then –

  Seeing me

  What the fuck is this fucksake?

  And I tell her.

  I tell her it all.

  She says you know what this is. Come on…

  But I don’t. Or I can’t. Or I won’t.

  Quick trip up Clifton Street, next thing

  I’m perched over the porcelain, pissing on a stick.

  Well? says Leanne, through the door.

  And I’m watching a little strip of white,

  Watching little spots go dark, join up

  Form themselves into two clear blue lines.

  And I realise.

  I am not alone.

  5

  The first thing I feel is

  Glad.

  Cos no way can Lee shrug me off now.

  So I just phone – the number I had down, which I knew was right, all along,

  I phone I say

  Lee. It’s Effie. We’ve got to meet. It’s important. Don’t ignore me,

  Because I won’t stop.

  I leave that message on the hour every hour morning noon and night for…

  Five days? And finally the penny drops

  That I really, really will not stop.

  Text pings back.

  He’ll see me, one o’clock, Fat Cat Café Bar.

  I spend three hours before we meet making sure I look

  Like the only girl a guy would need to fuck for the rest of his life –

  And that’s not for him. It’s for me. So I can be, confident like, at ease –

  And waiting there for me at the Fat Cat Café Bar

  Is not Lee. It’s Tom.

  And Tom says

  Hey,

  Seems like there’s been some sort of

  Misunderstanding?

  Lee thought you knew what was going on –

  It was only ever gonna be a one night thing.

  I mean – you had your tongue down his throat

  Before you even knew his name.

  And to be fair to you sweetheart,

  You put the kid back on track.

  Cos he’s not been able to – deal, with the physical side of things,

  Since the injury. And it’s been a real issue,

  For him, and his wife.

  The fucker’s fucking married?

  Well, you knew that. You saw the ring.

  But I saw no such thing. Cos I never thought to look.

  And the whole time Tom’s saying this, he doesn’t even look at me.

  Just plays with his phone. Cos he doesn’t give a shit?

/>   Or cos he knows he’s being a shit, and there’s a tiny bit of him ashamed.

  And there is a thought forming in my head. And I get out my phone. Call Lee’s number.

  Tom’s phone lights up in his hand.

  And for the first time Tom looks at me, says… yeah. Sorry.

  Lee didn’t dare give you his real number in case

  You know.

  I keep my mouth shut.

  Because I do, know. I do.

  Tom says look, Effie, you were

  Two people had a great night together.

  We all like a fuck, let’s be frank –

  And I see him seeing me.

  Stupid slag. Nasty skank.

  And I say –

  Yeah, I know. I’m just pissed off cos I thought I was gonna get a fuck

  Tonight.

  And I look at Tom.

  And I do not look away.

  And Tom puts down his phone.

  Says, shall I get you another glass of pinot grigio?

  I say make it a bottle why don’t you.

  And he basically fucking runs to the bar. I

  Pick up his phone.

  Swipe through his contacts.

  Find ‘Lee’. Listed is not the number I’ve got.

  I’m out the door.

  I ring – my sister-in-law.

  My sister-in-law works at a call centre for a phone company.

  She says, Effie, it’s more than my job’s worth and he probably isn’t even with us.

  I say,

  You fucking do this for me or I’ll tell Steve what happened in Bournemouth

  And so she says yes.

  And I give her Lee’s number.

  And she gives me his address.

  6

  Lee’s place is in Ely. Other side of the world but

  I jump on a number 18, I’m there in ten minutes.

  I spend the trip working out what to say, when I meet the wife:

  Hi, you don’t know me, but your bloke does. Intimately.

  Hi, you don’t know me, but we are what I like to call, cock sisters.

  In the end I settle on –

  Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m the girl your husband just knocked up.

  I hop off on Grand Avenue, though why you need a grand anything

  In a shithole like Ely I haven’t got a clue.

  My phone takes me to his place.

  Tiny terrace house. I get there and –

  – I don’t know what to do.

  And it’s raining, like always.

  The place opposite Lee’s is boarded up, like half the houses on the street.

  Grass that reaches for my belly in the front yard hides a wrecked car.

  I push through the battered back door.

  I’m there with the stink and grime who knows how long

  And then – a car, losing speed, Lee at the wheel.

  I move, back out the back, back round the road,

  And I see Lee, swinging his legs to the ground,

  Pulling his crutches out the boot, fixing them on the floor,

  Hauling himself up –

  Just as the front door of his house opens.

  And out comes

  His wife.

  One of these girls

  Who’s gone thinner than looks good on her.

  Too much skull showing through that skin

  A face that falls into a frown till she properly pulls it into a smile.

  And when she sees Lee she

  Doesn’t, smile.

  She just watches.

  And then –

  A girl – five, six, who knows with kids –

  Darts out the door, past her mum.

  Pretty little thing, and in her you can see

  How pretty her mum must’ve been, before.

  The little girl holds out her arms, to Lee

  And Lee

  Stops.

  Mum’s hand goes to her mouth.

  Lee lets the crutches, drop.

  And he takes a step

  On his own.

  And you can see it’s hard, you can see it hurts

  But he keeps on, he limps, skips, staggers,

  Half falls, but

  Makes it, to his little girl then

  Steadied by his wife, lifts the little girl up, flings her in the air

  She shouts,

  Daddy!

  And I remember

  I remember shouting like that

  And –

  And the wife says to me,

  Sorry, can I help you?

  Because I am standing on their drive.

  I have walked right up.

  I am no passer-by

  I’ve come with intent

  I have come to tell her –

  And Lee looks at me.

  This soldier.

  This man who has killed.

  This man who has seen his friends in bits

  He looks at me –

  – and I am scaring the life out of him.

  And he deserves what I am going to do

  He deserves it,

  And she deserves to know what a liar he is

  So I say, to his wife,

  Hi, you don’t know me, but –

  And I see Lee look away, bury his face

  In the little girl’s neck –

  I see her eyes close

  I see her lips move and though I don’t hear

  I know what she’s saying

  She’s saying

  Daddy

  And I remember

  I remember

  – sorry, you wanted what? the wife goes.

  I say

  – fuck –

  I say

  Yeah I’m just trying to find my way back to Grand Avenue?

  And she says, aw no you’re not far at all.

  And I turn.

  I walk away.

  I spare him what he’s got coming.

  And every step away from him hurts but

  I can take it.

  So I do take it.

  For that little girl.

  7

  The doctors.

  It’s rammed, like always.

  Three quarters of an hour in the rain before reception even opens

  So by the time we get in we’re soaked and sweltering, steaming up the place.

  A dozen chairs and three dozen bodies, coughing and sneezing and spitting.

  I can feel myself getting ill breathing in what these sickos are breathing out.

  The door opens – oh look. It’s fat mum

  Now with four inches of grey roots,

  And her massive buggy, and her massive kids.

  The whole room sighs as she unloads, taking up most of the floor,

  Everyone having to edge their way round her.

  We’re all waiting and bored and the doctor’s not even here yet.

  Fat mum’s flabby boy starts to whine, her alien baby howls,

  She rocks the buggy, tries to sing

  In her drippy little voice, but the baby screams harder,

  And every fucker in the room sighs, again.

  Sweat beading on fat mum’s head,

  She asks reception how long’s the wait.

  Reception says only the one doctor on again today so

  We’re looking two hours, at least?

  Fat mum rocks a bit harder, gives up singing,

  And fair play I would too, she can’t sing for shit

  She shouts at her little boy, he shouts back and

  She slaps his hand. And then he cries.

  And she kisses his head all guilty like and turns,

  Rolls her whole load out the door.

  The room sighs. Relief this time.

  When I get in to the doc I tell her: I can’t have a kid.

  I’ve got problems with drink and drugs and, I’m mental –

  Ask anyone.

  She makes me an appointment up at the Heath

  But it’s a fortnight to wait:

 
Two whole weeks.

  And feeling sick all the time and I can’t drink.

  It gets so I’m gagging from just the smell, even when Leanne

  Has a drop, which obviously is every fucking night.

  And one day Kev’s there, not quite sitting on a radiator,

  As I shoot for the bog, hands clamped over my mouth

  I hear Kev say, how the fuck’s she hungover? She han’t

  Been out for weeks.

  Leanne laughs. Oh, Kev love

  You thick twat. She’s up the fucking duff.

  I hear the door go,

  Kev’s feet bang down the stairs to the street.

  I go lie down, drift off, then, Christ knows when

  Kev is back.

  On his knees by the settee

  He says Eff, I know I’m a prick.

  But maybe this is what I need.

  A kid. Make me sort myself out.

  Cos I really think I could do it.

  I really think I could be a dad.

  See look at this –

  – and he gives me a roll of tenners.

  Maybe two hundred quid.

  I been down Cash Converters.

  Sold the Xbox, games, the lot.

  For you. For our family.

  And the thing with Kev is –

  Like, I know he is a person? With feelings?

  But I don’t think he is really.

  He’s like some big ugly dog that no one wants

  But no one can be arsed to drown.

  And next to him I’m basically a goddess

  And the idea of us getting together properly –

  A goddess – and a dog?

  It just makes me wanna laugh but –

  But what if that’s wrong?

  What if it is, him and me.

  Or what if it could be.

  He can see I’m thinking about it.

  I can see him, getting all excited.

  I look at Leanne and she’s like

  Once you got a kid, you’re sorted you get

  Child allowance, loads of shit.

  Kid’s basically a fucking meal ticket.

  Kev says I swear to you

  Everything

  All I got

  For you

  And our baby

  If you will please just keep it.

  And I say

  There’s one thing.

  And Kev says, you name it love.

  Because if I’m gonna take him seriously

  If I’m gonna take his life

  I can’t start with a lie.

  I say,

  You can be this kid’s dad.

  And live with him, and love him

  And do all that.

  But you gotta know

  You are not the father.

  Kev says

  Sorry what he fuck?

  It was some soldier I met, the Great Western, you remember.

  Kev says – hold on hold on hold on

  But we shagged that day, when we went out the Great Western.

  So it could be mine, it could be his.