Supper club, p.27
Supper Club, page 27
“I am so supportive,” he said. “I am a good boyfriend.”
“I know! Of course I know that!”
“And I deserve better than you,” he said, interrupting me. “Than this. I am trying to make you happy. But you insist on making me miserable. You act like a spoiled child.”
I remained silent, staring at the floor.
“Do you remember what happened last time you did Supper Club? You think I don’t know? What kind of maniac breaks into a shop and trashes it for no reason? Is that the sort of person I get to have as my girlfriend? Is it? Jesus Christ, you and fucking Stevie.”
“What about me and Stevie?” I shouted back, suddenly fired up. “What about us?”
Do it, I thought. Do it if you dare.
“It’s fucking weird, okay?” he replied. “You trailing around after her. It’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing” was a term I’d heard him attribute to Stevie before. It was a word many people used, men under their breaths in neon-lit bars, girls picking at salads in the office canteen. What was it about her that made others feel embarrassed? That specific word, the idea of an audience, a stranger’s exposure making you feel exposed. I wondered what Stevie exposed in Adnan. It made me want to be cruel.
“At least she’s trying to have an interesting life! Not just sitting on the fucking sofa!”
“An interesting life? Okay. Let’s look at Stevie’s life. She doesn’t have a real job. She’s apparently an artist, but she doesn’t make any art because she spends all her time sitting around telling you what to do—and you just run around after her, desperate for approval. She doesn’t even care about you, Roberta! It’s the most dysfunctional thing I’ve ever seen!”
I watched the heave of his chest as he drew breath, the muscles of his throat contract and expand. How much bigger his body was than my own. How much louder he could shout. I felt like I’d spent my life being yelled at by men in one way or another, learning how it warped and poisoned the air. How it forced you to crawl into the spaces outside it, no matter how small they were.
“You know what’s dysfunctional, Adnan? Your pathological need for everything to be nice all the time. Not everything is nice, okay, and I’m sorry I’m never nice enough for you. I’m sorry I’m just not nice enough for your nice, unchallenging, pathetic little life.”
A flicker of pain punctured his resolve, as if one of my arrows had finally hit, the pomp leaking out of him.
“Right,” he said, making for the front door, pressing his hands to his body like he was checking for injuries, though clearly it was just to feel for the familiar bulge of wallet, phone, keys. I realized I’d been waiting for him to run away. That perhaps I’d been waiting for that right from the start. “I’m going to my brother’s.”
“Fine,” I said. “Go.”
“You have a choice to make, Roberta, and I’m fucking serious. You can’t have it both ways. Why do you think you can have it both ways?”
He went for his jacket, though it was a warm evening, then pulled on his shoes, straining at the laces.
“This has to be over. I won’t stand for it anymore.”
He unlocked the door and stepped into the hallway. He lingered there in the half-light for what felt like a very long time, turned away from me. When he spoke, his voice was considered and flat. “Why is our life together not enough for you?”
I looked around at our home. How careful we had been in filling it. How there were still spaces on the walls where more pictures could go, gaps on the bookshelves for photos and plants. I looked at the teardrop-shaped stain where I’d spilled a cup of coffee. I thought about the drawer underneath the fridge where we’d found a beautifully carved wooden chess set and a black leather riding crop left behind by the last tenants. We knew all the secrets of this space. There was nothing left to learn. Sometimes I would lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling feeling a cavernous sense of yearning. But sometimes I would lie on the bed and feel that the room and the flat and Adnan fit me so perfectly that I could spend the rest of my life lying there and I wouldn’t mind at all.
“It is,” I said. “It is enough.” But it was too late, and it came out sounding like a question, and he’d gone before I’d finished anyway.
* * *
Some mornings I wake up and the first thing I feel is terror. The idea of being singularly responsible for keeping myself alive is terrifying. That I have to get up and leave the flat and navigate the world protected only by my own skin. Like looking at an object and finding that it is fundamentally not fit for any purpose. Like feeling suddenly attuned to the flimsy metal box of the speeding car you’re trapped within, recalling images of cars torn up in crashes, twisted and aflame. In those moments I feel certain I cannot breathe, do not understand the basic mechanics of breathing. The morning after Adnan left, the morning of Supper Club, I felt that terror. I lay very still in bed until it passed.
We’d arranged to meet at Renni’s flat and then have the club at a nearby park. The weather was glorious, and asserting ourselves in a public space seemed an apt way to end Supper Club. But that morning I had an idea. I rang Stevie and told her I wanted to do it here: I would host everyone at the flat.
“Um, will Adnan be thrilled about that?” she asked, and I told her I didn’t know what he’d be. I was trying not to care.
I spent the rest of the day cleaning and tidying, getting the food ready. Stevie came round just before we were starting, and I stationed myself in the kitchen—letting her do the job of greeting all the others as they arrived. She had made a cheddar-and-parsley roulade. Lina had made a lentil goulash, plus almond-and-white-chocolate blondies. Emmeline had made two different types of risotto. Erin had made lamb-and-asparagus mini pies and a strawberry-and-spinach salad. Renni had made bread-and-butter pudding using chocolate croissants. Andrea had made a hearty beef goulash plus zucchini with feta and mint. Sash had made a giant pumpkin cheesecake. The kitchen was a kaleidoscope of smells.
We’d decided not to wear costumes or do a theme, and it was strange seeing them all arrive as themselves. Renni in a bright blue bandage dress. Sash in an oversize T-shirt and heels. Lina in a crepe skirt and sheer buttoned blouse. While everyone fussed with her food in the kitchen, I ducked out to pick something to wear. I found a floor-length white linen dress, something I’d bought in a charity shop months ago and never had the opportunity to use. I knew I would get it filthy before we’d even started eating. As I walked back into the kitchen, everyone whistled and whooped. I thought, I am going to do a spin, and then I did one.
I went to check on my dish, a hunter’s stew made from dumpster-foraged vegetables and whatever else I had in the cupboards. I lifted the pot lid to stir it, left it simmering on the hob. Andrea came to loop her arms around me, pressing two pills into my hand. “We’re starting now?” I asked.
“Might as well,” she replied.
“What are they?” I asked, and she smiled and cocked her head. I clapped them to my mouth and swallowed.
We decided to push all the furniture back so we could eat on the living-room floor. There would be no courses this time; we laid everything out at once. I started with a spoonful of goulash and a side of salad, then had a handful of blondies, then went back for pie. Sash’s pumpkin cheesecake was a hit, and everyone agreed Emmeline’s beetroot-and-goat-cheese risotto was better than the one with sweet potato and chives. Stevie topped up everyone’s wine many times, and we raised our plastic glasses and called cheers. We carried on eating and talking for a long time, but still much of the spread remained. Even the wine hadn’t been finished. I wasn’t sure if this was a victory or a failure. I just knew I felt full.
“I mean,” Stevie said, casting her hand over the half-eaten buffet. “This is unlike us.”
Sash tore off a piece of pita bread. “Don’t appetite-shame me,” she said, tossing the bread across the room toward Stevie. Stevie removed it from her dense tangle of hair and dunked it into the stew.
“Don’t throw dry bread at me,” she said, lobbing it back. “You monster.”
It hit the shoulder of Sash’s white T-shirt, leaving an oily red streak. Sash yanked down the sleeve of her top to inspect. “This is fucking Comme des Garçons!” she screeched. “You’re the monster!” She dipped her hand deep into what was left of the beetroot risotto, squelching the fat pink rice between her fingers. Crawling over to Stevie, one arm suspended in the air, she wiped a sticky palmful across Stevie’s face. “There, there,” she said, in a mock-infant voice. “Hush now.”
Stevie began rubbing it into her skin like a lotion. “Beetroot has excellent regenerative properties,” she replied, picking off grains one by one and flicking them back at Sash.
I twisted round to see the white wall behind me flecked with beetroot. “Uh-oh,” Stevie said, noticing me. “I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not!” I feigned outrage. “You’re not sorry at all!” I picked up a couple of blondies, breaking them into chunks and volleying them at her one by one.
“Hey!” Emmeline called, standing up. “I think we all need to calm down!”
I saw Erin and Lina exchange a glance before tearing off custardy wedges of bread-and-butter pudding and hurling them at Emmeline’s midriff. Emmeline’s head dropped in sincere dismay as she contemplated the sticky, dripping mess that was her torso.
“The fuck,” she said, wavering between outraged and willing. She picked up the metal salad bowl, emptying a glossy pool of dressing and dregs over Lina’s head. Kicked the roulade toward Erin. She went to tip some goulash over Renni, then thought better of it.
“Hey!” Renni responded. “Don’t leave me out!”
“We couldn’t possibly!” Stevie called, and flung over a damp croissant, which landed on Renni’s bare leg. Renni dipped her hand into the goulash and splattered it at Stevie, who responded with a handful of cheesecake and a handful of stew.
I plunged both my hands into the risotto, eager to get involved, but was immediately overwhelmed by the sensation of granular sludge. “This feels amazing!” I shouted, and Renni crawled over to join me. We lovingly worked the sweet potatoes between our fingers, then switched to the beetroot, whispering about the varying qualities of each texture.
Eventually we tired of the risotto and looked up. The room had descended into chaos around us. Emmeline and Lina were wrestling in the corner while Sash chased Andrea with the pot of stew. A steady hail of blondie shards flew in varying directions. I clambered up and pulled Renni to her feet, leading her through to the kitchen. Throwing open the cupboards, the fridge, we found more ammunition, returning to the fray with a packet of cornflakes, a carton of milk, and a large selection of soft fruits. We flung the food at the walls; we flung it at each other; we poured it over ourselves.
Catching my breath, I waded through the bodies to find my laptop, plugging it into the speakers and streaking the keyboard with grease.
“Hey!” I called over to Stevie. “Tell me a song to get us dancing.”
“Wait!” she called, drawing out the word. Everyone turned to look at me, all ranged around the room, creaturely and grotesque and dripping in food.
“Before that, we have to do something else. We might have a surprise for you.”
She staggered out to the hallway and returned with a large white book. Holding it out in front of her, she paraded toward me ceremonially. As she got closer, everyone began singing happy birthday. When she reached me, she dropped to one knee, ready to be knighted. “Your birthday present,” she announced gravely, and I took the book from her.
“It’s all our stories,” Sash said, still breathless. “All our interviews.”
I opened it up. Each page contained transcriptions, printed testimonies signed by every member of Supper Club. Even Monica’s and Ashley’s interviews were in there. Or rather Rowena’s.
“You know,” Stevie said, “there are a couple of pages missing.”
I stared at her, too happy to make a coherent sentence. “It’s perfect. There’s nothing missing. I love it.”
“But there is something missing. We never interviewed each other.”
I flipped to the back of the book—four blank pages, and the same prompt on each. What are you afraid of?
I looked at the flat white space. It seemed both too little and too much.
Stevie gave me a gentle nudge. “Now’s your chance.”
She handed me a pen.
I felt the weight of the book in my arms, imagined how I might cradle it in order to write, trying not to smear it with the filth on my hands. “I think I need some air,” I said, and pushed through the gathered women, sliding open the balcony door. I heard Stevie follow me, then slide the door shut behind her. I leaned over the balcony, thinking about what I needed to say, the syntax of the sentence, the words I would use, the cadence. I couldn’t find them. There were no words. There was no order that would make sense of it. The minutes weighed down on me. In the end I just said it.
“I was raped.” I spoke the words into the wind, directing them away from the flat, away from my friends. “It was at university. Years ago. I didn’t know you then.”
Stevie stared at me. “I had no idea.” She stepped closer, and I noticed that my hand was gripping the railing too tight for me to actually feel it. She placed hers on top of mine and squeezed it very hard. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay. I know I can be weird about relationships, but, you know, it’s hard for me to feel normal about them. I was with this older guy back then—he didn’t assault me, that was someone else—but he was my lecturer. It seemed normal at the time, but I look back and think, ‘What the fuck? What was he thinking? I was literally a teenager.’”
Stevie put both her arms around me, hugging me awkwardly from the side. I didn’t cry, and I didn’t feel better either—if anything, I felt worse for having said it all out loud. But I had said it, and that was something. When she released me, I spread my arms out across the balcony railing, leaning into the feeling of being a little bit too cold.
“Here,” I said, gesturing for the book and pen.
What are you afraid of?
I sat cross-legged and started to write.
I am afraid of the dark. It seems silly to say, but it is true. I listen for noises: the moans and gives of the building, footsteps from upstairs, people making their way home, men and women shouting. I crawl the space for sounds.
Sometimes I think I hear someone outside my front door: the certain mass of a man shifting his weight. I hear the jangle of keys and the ratchet as they’re pushed into the keyhole. I hear the quiet but insistent pressure of a body against the door. I hear the wood splintering and falling apart. I hear his footsteps down the corridor and across the kitchen. I hear his sight adjust to the dark. I hear him lay a hand on the doorknob. I hear him ease open the door and advance toward my bed. I hear the graze of his trousers against the swell of my duvet. His knees level with my prone body.
Or if not the front door, perhaps through the window over the cooker. Sometimes I think I hear that: his body heaving over the frame, landing with a dull thud. Sometimes I think I hear him pacing on the balcony. Sometimes I hear his breath, low and steady, as he hides in the spaces between the walls. Sometimes I hear him easing out from under my bed, the slight friction of his clothes as he crawls. I hear the rub-rub-rub as he drags himself out, and I listen and listen, and I am certain he will be out soon, upright and looming over me—but he never comes, and it is just the sound of my own heart, beating into the mattress.
I am thirty years old, I thought. I handed the book back to Stevie.
“Now you,” I said. “Your turn. Not that I can imagine what you could possibly be afraid of.”
Stevie leaned with her back against the railing, staring at our reflection, superimposed with the shapes of our friends dancing inside. She shook her head, looking suddenly teary and defiant.
“I’m afraid you’re going to leave. I’m afraid you’re going to realize I’m not good for you. That I’m not good for anyone. I’m afraid everyone is going to leave when they figure that out.”
She flipped round to face outward from the balcony. The streetlights below. Across the road another party.
“It’s pathetic,” she said. “Admit it. It’s too pathetic even to write down.”
I looked at her carefully, the texture of her skin, prickled with chill, all the hairs of her arms standing up. I had never seen Stevie present herself as so uncompromisingly vulnerable, and I didn’t quite know what to do with it. The sheer courage it required. I was forever impressed by her audacity, even now.
“Write it down,” I said. “Write it down, and afterward we’ll burn it. We’ll burn the whole fucking thing. We’ll just set it on fire.”
Stevie took the book from my hands, looking at me hesitantly, and I nodded. I rested my gaze on the page, reading every word as she wrote it down. When she was done, I slung my arm around her.
“You’re weird,” I said. “I thought I was the weird one, but it’s definitely you.”
We turned to watch the dancing indoors. Everyone seemed to be moving in a way that she hadn’t before. There was a lot more energy. A lot more joy.
“Are we really going to burn it?” she asked.
I nodded. “But everyone should see this,” I added. Stevie waited while I ducked back inside, persuading the others to come out, squashing everyone onto the balcony. By the time I returned, she had dragged Adnan’s rusty old barbecue to the center of the gathered circle. She held out a yellow lighter to me, grinning like a maniac.
The flames caught at the bottom corner, then at the other pages, quickly engulfing the book. I held on to it until it almost burned my hand, then dropped it into the metal belly of the barbecue. It burned for longer than I expected, and people gradually quieted down, drifted back indoors. Stevie and I were the last on the balcony, watching the fire die, the pages turn to nothing, her fingers laced tightly through my own. “Come on,” she said. “Tell me one song you want to dance to, and we’re all going to dance to it. Everyone will dance to your song.”
