Solitaire

“THAT WAS ONE hell of a pee,” says Michael as I sit down. He’s still here. Part of me was hoping he wouldn’t be.

“You sound impressed,” I say.

“I am, actually.”

Becky, Evelyn, and Lauren are now talking across the table to some other girls from our year who I don’t really know. Lucas smiles briefly at me. Rita’s laughing and smiling, mainly at Lauren. They’re discussing a girl we used to know who moved to Truham for Sixth Form because she said that she “preferred boys to girls,” and now she’s organizing parties where everyone takes acid and rolls around on the floor.

“So you’re gay?” I ask.

He blinks. “Wow. This is quite a big deal to you guys.”

It’s not a big deal. I don’t really care at all.

“Do you find boys attractive?” I ask with a shrug. “Or girls? That’s one way to check. If you’re not sure.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You think I’m not sure?”

I shrug again. I don’t care. I do not care.

“Everyone’s attractive, to be honest,” he continues. “Even if it’s just something small, like, some people have really beautiful hands. I don’t know. I’m a little bit in love with everyone I meet, but I think that’s normal.”

“So you’re bisexual.”

He smiles and leans forward. “You love all these words, don’t you? Gay, bisexual, attractive, unattractive—”

“No,” I interrupt. “No, I hate them.”

“Then why label people?”

I tilt my head. “Because that’s life. Without organization, we descend into chaos.”

Staring amusedly, he stretches back again into the chair. I can’t believe I just used the word “descend.”

“Well, if you care so much, what are you?” he asks.

“What?”

“What are you? Gay, straight, all-around horny, what?”

“Er, straight?”

“And are you sure that you’re straight? Have you liked a boy before?”

I actually haven’t. Ever. This is because I have a very low opinion of most people.

I look down. “All right, then. I’ll let you know if I fall in love with a girl anytime soon.”

Michael’s eyes twinkle, but he doesn’t comment. I hope I haven’t come across as a homophobe.

“Are you going to remember what you came to tell me?” I ask.

He strokes his sharply parted hair. “Maybe. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.”

Soon after that everyone declares that they’re leaving. I accidentally spent sixteen pounds, so Lucas insists on giving me the extra pound, which I guess is pretty nice of him. Once we’re all standing outside the restaurant, he starts chatting earnestly with Evelyn. Most of the people here are heading to Lauren’s house for a big sleepover thing or whatever. They’re all going to get drunk and stuff even though it’s a Tuesday. Becky explains that she didn’t invite me because she knew that I definitely wouldn’t want to come (it’s funny because it’s true), and Ben Hope overhears her and gives me this kind of pitying look. Becky smiles at him, the pair momentarily joined in feeling sorry for me. I decide that I’m going to walk home. Michael decides that he’s coming with me and I don’t really know how to stop him, so I guess this is happening.

We have been moving in silence through the high street. It is all Victorian and brown, and the cobblestone road is sort of curved like we’re in the bottom of a trench. A man in a suit hurries past, and he’s asking someone on the phone, “Do you feel anything yet?”

I ask Michael why he is walking home with me.

“Because I live this way. This world does not revolve around you, Victoria Spring.” He’s being sarcastic, but I still feel kind of put out.

“Victoria.” I shudder.

“Huh?”

“Please don’t call me Victoria.”

“Why’s that?”

“It makes me think of Queen Victoria. The one who wore black all her life because her husband died. And ‘Victoria Spring’ sounds like a brand of bottled water.”

Wind is picking up around us.

“I don’t like my name, either,” he says.

I instantly think of all the people I dislike named Michael. Michael Bublé, Michael McIntyre, Michael Jackson.

“Michael means ‘who resembles God,’” he says, “and I think that if God could choose to resemble any human being . . .”

He stops then, right in the street, looking at me, just looking, through the panes of his glasses, through the blue and green, through depths and expanses, bleeding one billion incomprehensible thoughts.

“. . . he wouldn’t choose me.”

We continue to walk.

Imagine if I had been given some Biblical name like Abigail or Charity or, I don’t know, Eve, for God’s sake. I’m very critical of religion, and it probably means that I’m going to hell, if it even exists, which, let’s be honest, it probably doesn’t. That doesn’t bother me very much, because whatever happens in hell can’t be much worse than what happens here.

“Well,” I say, “I support the Labour Party, but people call me Tori. Like the Tories. If that makes you feel any better.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I’m too busy looking at the pale-brown cobblestones to see if he’s looking at me. After a few moments: “You support the Labour Party?”

I realize then that I’m freezing. I’d forgotten it was the middle of winter, and all I’ve got is this shirt and jumper and thin jeans. I regret not calling Mum, but I hate bothering her because she always does this sighing thing where she’s all like, “No, no, it’s perfectly fine, I’m not bothered,” but I can tell that she is most definitely bothered.

Silence and a faint smell of Indian takeaway continue all the way up the high street, and then we take a right onto the main town road where the three-story houses are. My house is one of these. Two girls walk past in gargantuan heels and dresses so tight that their skin is spilling out, and one of them says to the other, “Wait, who the fuck is Lewis Carroll?” and in my imagination I pull a gun out of my pocket, shoot them both, and then shoot myself.

I stop when I get to my house. It’s darker than the others because the lamppost closest to it is not working.

“This is where I live,” I say, and start to walk off.

“Wait, wait, wait,” he says. I turn back around. “Can I ask you something?”

I cannot resist a sarcastic comment. “You just did, but please continue.”

“Can we really not be friends?”

He sounds like an eight-year-old girl trying to win back her best friend after she accidentally insulted her new school shoes and got herself disinvited from her birthday party.

He’s wearing only a T-shirt and jeans, too.

“How are you not freezing?” I say.

“Please, Tori. Why don’t you want to be friends with me?” It’s like he’s desperate.

“Why do you want to be friends with me?” I shake my head. “We’re not in the same year. We’re not similar in any way whatsoever. I literally do not understand why you even care about—” I stop then, because I was about to say “me,” but I realized midway through that that would be a truly horrific sentence.

He looks down. “I don’t think that . . . I understand . . . either. . . .”

I’m just standing there, staring.

“You know, it’s said that extreme communism and extreme capitalism are actually very similar,” he says.

“Are you high?” I say.

He shakes his head and laughs. “I remember what I was going to tell you, you know,” he says.

“You do?”

“I remembered it the whole time. I just didn’t want everyone to hear it, because it’s not their business.”

“Then why did you come and find me at a busy restaurant? Why not just find me at school?”

For a second he genuinely seems to be offended. “Don’t you think I’ve tried?” He laughs. “You’re like a ghost!”

It takes a lot of willpower not to turn around and leave.

“I just wanted to tell you that I’d seen you before.”

Jesus Christ. He already told me that.

“You told me that yesterd—”

“No, not at Higgs. I saw you when you came to look round Truham. Last year. It was me who took you round the school.”

The revelation blossoms as rain begins to fall. I remember exactly now. Michael Holden had shown me attentively round Truham when I was deciding whether to go there for Sixth Form. He’d asked me what A-levels I wanted to do, and whether I liked Higgs very much, and whether I had any hobbies, and whether I cared much about sports. In fact, everything he’d said had been utterly unremarkable.

“But—” It’s impossible. “But you were so . . . normal.”

He shrugs and smiles, and the raindrops on his face almost make him seem as if he’s crying. “There’s a time and a place for being normal. For most people, normal is a default. But for some, like you and me, normal is something we have to bring out, like putting on a suit for a posh dinner.”

What—now he’s being profound? “Why did you need to tell me this? Why did you need to track me down? Why was it that important?”

He shrugs again. “It wasn’t, I guess. But I wanted you to know. And when I want to do something, I usually do it.”

I stare at him. Nick and Charlie were right. He’s absolutely insane.

He holds up a hand and sends me a slight wave.

“See you soon, Tori Spring.”

And then he wanders away. I’m left standing under the broken lamppost in my black jumper and the rain, wondering whether I’m feeling anything yet and realizing that it’s all very funny because it’s all very true.