That Girl From Nowhere by Dorothy Koomson
‘About this seat,’ I began. I slid carefully on to his lap until I was fully on top of him and we were face-to-face, my legs either side of his. ‘I quite like it too.’ Slowly, I took off my cream jumper, revealing my black bra underneath. ‘Looks like I’ll have to fight you for it.’
His breathing slowed and deepened, every muscle of his face was tense as though he was concentrating on staring into my eyes, trying to ignore how hard he’d become when I sat on him, while not wanting to stare at my breasts and my imperfect body on display to him. Seth suddenly smelt of a deep and startling desire, far more potent than I expected. When I pulled back a fraction, unsettled a little by how strongly he seemed to want this, his hands came up to rest on my back, then smoothed their way up and down my body.
As his fingers caressed my back, I reached for the top button of his jeans and suddenly his hands were on mine, stopping me from opening him up. I looked at him, his hazel-green eyes held mine.
‘If we do this,’ he said, keeping his hands in place, ‘will it mean something to you?’
I knew what he was alluding to: in college and afterwards, I’d slept with quite a few people, more than a few of them were his friends from our wider group. To him, to anyone who wasn’t me and wasn’t privy to my mind and my heart, it must have seemed that none of it meant anything. To him, to anyone else, it must have seemed that I had sex and walked away without so much as a backward glance. ‘Se—’ I began.
‘Cos this would mean everything to me,’ he interrupted.
I paused properly then. Everything? I thought. He wants me that much? Me? I knew he fancied me but this seemed extreme. ‘Everything?’ I asked.
His face, topped with brown hair that he’d had shaved off to a grade one, was open and unwavering as he looked at me. ‘I’ve waited nearly eight years for you, so yes, it’d mean everything.’
Of course it meant something. Sex always meant something to me but with him … Did he honestly think I would have risked rejection, our friendship, for nothing? That in eight years of knowing him I hadn’t at least thought about it? It wasn’t simply Dylan’s objection that had put me off, it was the thought of wrecking what we had and losing him as a friend. I bent my head and carefully placed my lips on the smooth soft bow of his pink mouth. ‘It means something to me,’ I replied before I kissed him.
Seth immediately kissed me back, pressing his lips on to mine, our tongues meeting before slowly intertwining. The kisses grew deeper, more urgent, more desperate. Suddenly, almost painfully, I wanted him. I ached for him between my legs, in the cavity of my chest, along the veins of my body. The longing for him was so fierce my breathing came in short bursts, I found it hard to keep air in my body.
‘There are condoms in the bedroom,’ he murmured between the urgent kisses.
I pulled away, looked him over again. ‘We don’t need condoms,’ I wanted to say. I always wanted to say that in the moments leading up to full sex. The temptation to be reckless, do something dangerous, personify stupidity for those few minutes, was powerful, instinctive. It was like a bright pink neon sign flashing in my head: Have unprotected sex … and end up paying for it for the rest of your life.
Unprotected sex with a virtual stranger was probably the reason I existed at all. I wanted to do it so I could validate my existence, prove that my being here wasn’t the worst thing in the world to happen. Like I said: reckless, dangerous, stupid. But that instinct was almost overwhelming with Seth, I’d never felt it so strongly. I wanted nothing more than to be as unsafe as possible with him because he’d always been my point of safety.
‘Have you changed your mind?’ Seth asked when I didn’t respond to his suggestion we move to the bedroom. ‘Cos that’s fine.’
Seth was here. My here. When I avoided looking backwards because the past was too painful to remember, and when I avoided looking forwards because the future was too terrifying to contemplate, I lived in the here. And here was where Seth was, too. He’d always been in my here. He was in my here and he would be in the future with me, and he would help me navigate the past if I wanted him to. Emotionally, Seth was here, in the same place that I was, at the same time. He was my here, and he was what love was all about. I could suddenly see that this wasn’t about sex, it was about everything I’d ever wanted being on offer with this man. ‘I haven’t changed my mind,’ I told him, the smile on my face even wider than it had been before. He grinned back at me.
Three days later he took that photo of me sitting on his sofa, grinning because I was with him at last. Giddy with excitement and joy and slight disbelief, underneath I wrote: With Seth, finally!! January 2004.
That moment the photo has frozen, preserved in a two-dimensional frame, is so clear, so vivid in my mind, I am almost there again. I can feel beneath me the material of the sofabed I’d slept on for six weeks. I can remember the effervescent excitement whizzing through my veins that bubbled up on my face as that smile. Then there was the touch of him, on my skin, on my lips, in my hair, inside my body. Tingles trilled through me every time another memory from those three days of being together wended through my mind. I am almost there, telling him the next morning that I didn’t really want to go home. Him asking me if I was saying that because it was what he wanted to hear. Me asking him why I’d say that if it wasn’t the truth. Him saying, ‘Because you’ve never shown any interest in me beyond the effect it had on Dylan.’
‘That’s not entirely true, and you know I stopped feeling anything like that for Dylan a while back.’
‘Maybe, but you’d also slept with a lot of my friends.’
‘Does that bother you?’ I replied.
‘Not any more. At the time I never understood why it was them and never me. I liked you so much and I made it so obvious, and you never even looked in my direction.’
‘You never tried it on, that’s why.’
‘All those guys tried it on with you, that’s why?’
‘Yeah, of course. I didn’t sleep with all of them, no matter what they told others. But I was never going to make the first move – not if there was even the slightest chance of being rejected.’ I’d been rejected from the moment I was born, from before I was born, probably. I avoided as much as possible being rejected as an adult – someone had to want me first before I would even think about wanting them. Except for Dylan.
‘But you tried it on with me last night,’ Seth said. ‘I’m not imagining it, you made the first move.’
‘Yes, I felt that much for you, I risked rejection.’
‘So, all this really is about me?’
‘Only you. These have been some of the best hours of my life. I’ve felt so wanted. So adored. You seem to understand me without me having to justify or qualify anything I say, or without having to censor myself … And I can’t believe I just said that aloud. Please don’t ever repeat that. Pretend I never said that.’
‘Too late, Smitty, I heard you loud and clear.’
I need to stop remembering. I need to not do this now. On my bed is a large cardboard box decorated in hand-coloured butterflies that I’ve had since I was a baby and that I keep all my special photos in. The ones I can’t put up because they’re too painful to look at every day but are too precious to throw away because they’re an important part of who I am.
I place the With Seth, finally!! picture in the butterfly box. I properly regard all the other photos tacked to my wall to form the tessellated wallpaper of my life, the collage of the people and times that make up who I am.
I always carry an instant camera to take photos of the people I make jewellery for, to capture on film things I see that inspire me, images I love. Yes, it’s easier – cheaper – to take photos on my phone, but there’s no feeling like holding a photo in your hand. Photographs are like crystallised moments of your history that you can’t simply swipe on from to find the better shot, to seek a version that’s more palatable to your sensibilities. Photos are the ultimate reality call as to how perfect or flawed you can b
These photos I put up wherever I live are like the crystallised elements of who I was, how I became who I am. There I am: with Seth. With Mum. With my niece Sienna. With Dad. With my cousin Nancy. With Dylan. With Karina, my former boss. With Primrose, Ayo and Clyde, my housemates in college. With all these people who made me feel real, relevant, as if I belong somewhere.
I continue to stare at the photos and see for the first time how many there are that say the same thing: With Seth. With Seth. With Seth. With Seth. With Seth. He’s everywhere. For nearly twenty years of my life he has been in my photos, been in my reality. For nearly two decades my life has been about this one person.
My fingers pluck the photo of me and Seth and Dylan, Xmas 1996, off the wall. I place it into the butterfly box on my bed. Next I remove With Seth on the last day of exams. Then comes down With Seth after studying all night. Then With Seth, the town hall in Vilnius (Lithuania), is removed … And With Seth before our cancelled engagement party … And Seth the Starfish in new bed in our new flat!!! Then Me with Seth, new bed in new flat. Then Me & Seth & Lottie – finally finished the campervan refurb. There are so many. So many. And I have to take them all down; I have to remove all these reminders and memories.
When I have finished editing him out, my wall of pictures is like Swiss cheese – there are holes everywhere. Now Seth has come down, I have to take her, my cousin Nancy, down, too. More holes, more Swiss cheesing of my life. And if I take her down, I have to take down Sienna, her daughter. And I have to take down Dylan because he is where it all began. And if I take down Dylan, there will be very few photos left. My life will be decimated.
I sit down on my bed, the firm mattress does not sag or give at all under my weight. The wallpaper made of photos has now become a latticework of photos – tenuously linked by my handwriting beneath or on the back of the pictures.
I know what I have to do. It’s absolutely obvious. I have to start again. Totally. People say all the time that something is completely devastated, as though anything can ever be partially devastated. My life has been devastated, I can’t partially reflect that on my wall.
I’m on my feet again, new purpose in my movements: I have to take it all down; I have to devastate everything and start again. That’s what the rest of me has done, so why not my visual history, too?
6
Smitty
‘A coffee, please.’
The tall barista who is displaying his gym-sculpted arms in a short-sleeved white T-shirt has his back to me when I stand up on the chrome foot rail and lean on the counter. Coffee, coffee, coffee. The perfect thing to get my body moving on my way to have a proper look at my shop. I haven’t told my mother about the shop, I’m still working up to that. It’s been a good four days, mainly because I have been holding my tongue, biting my tongue and swallowing my tongue. Actually, I’m surprised I still have a tongue left at all. But it’s been worth it. The flat has been peaceful, we’ve unpacked most things, we’ve bought a TV, DVD player and Freeview box, a kettle and toaster, pans and crockery, cutlery and wooden spoons. Other bits and pieces have migrated their way into the flat, and we’re waiting for the telephone line to be connected so we can get Wi-Fi, but it is a more than habitable home now. We can relax and enjoy it. Which is why I’m out early this morning. If I’m out before Mum wakes up, it’s a million times less likely that we’ll have a row about something stupid.
I’m surprised how quiet it is in this café, given its location practically on the beach. Three floor-to-ceiling glass walls give you unfettered views of the promenade, sea wall, and the unique beauty that is the grey-blue water as it stretches out and away until it touches the blue-grey sky at the horizon. The inside of the café is a mixture of tables and chairs, sofas and tables, and easy chairs and tables, all cleverly arranged so they are easily accessible from the stainless-steel serving counter. Beyond that there are a couple of doorways, I’m assuming they lead to the kitchen and the back office. The best thing about this café, though, is how close it is to the flat. I can make it in under seven minutes if I walk especially fast. It’s the perfect place to meet clients. When I walked in I spied a cosy sofa and chairs arrangement on the far side of the counter that would be sheltered and private enough for us to talk, but also comfortable enough to allow them to relax. I’m either going to have to be here from opening time when I have meetings so I can bagsy that space, or I’ll have to see who I can charm into setting it aside for me. First though, coffee.
The barista turns from playing with the coffee machine and makes his way slowly to the counter. He’s almost languid as he walks, unrushed and carefree – either he’s the owner or he’s a very laidback employee. At 7 a.m., I suspect he’s the former because no employee that laidback would even consider getting here at this time. It’s early spring, at this time the world is drenched in the orange-grey half-light of this side of the planet still turning to face the Sun. ‘Sorry, we’re not open yet,’ the barista says.
‘Oh. Well, the “open” sign is showing and the door’s open, so I just assumed …’
He listens intently, carefully, to what I say. When I finish, he rests his elbows on the counter, rests his face in his hands. Frowns then sighs. ‘I used to open this early, believe it or not, but no one ever came. It seemed to me those who were up this early and were walking to work, needed to get nearer to Brighton before they got a coffee. Probably because they’d had one already at home and by this point of the journey another was too soon. On a weekend sometimes I open up early, catch the clubbers on their way home. Especially Pride weekend – I have a lot of customers that morning. But mostly, I open at eight and it works.’
‘Right. So I’m not going to get a coffee from you?’
‘Not before eight, sorry.’
‘OK.’ I don’t move. ‘I’m not going to get a coffee even though I’ve stood and listened to you talk for far longer than a person who doesn’t know you should have to?’ I say.
He grins. Naturally he has flawless teeth because he is disturbingly, almost unrealistically, handsome. He seems to have been drawn and constructed from the blueprint for the perfect man, rather than birthed like the rest of the human population: the shape of his eyes, the size of his nose, the curve of his mouth, are all precisely proportioned, his dark brown skin is smooth and touchable, and his hair is shaved at the sides and at the back, short and neat on top.
‘I suppose I could make an exception just this once,’ he says. ‘It’ll teach me to remember to lock the door.’
‘Thank you.’ I unhook my bag from over my shoulder and place it on the black vinyl padded stool beside me. It’s not often my cheekiness pays off. I hop up on to the stool next to my bag.
‘Don’t get comfortable,’ he says. ‘It’s a coffee to go.’
‘I know, but there’s nothing wrong with sitting while I wait.’
He moves to the far side of his machine, places coffee beans into it. There’s a brief grinding sound before he removes the small metal basket, the shape and size of a small tea sieve. He taps down the top with what looks like a metal stamp. In all the times I’ve been to cafés to buy coffee, I’ve never watched someone make it before. There’s always been a queue, a rush, something better to look at. Watching him work is fascinating. When he fits the solid metal sieve thing into the front of the machine, he grabs a paper cup and stands it beneath the curved metal spout where he inserted the sieve.
‘Where are you coming from with that cute little accent?’ he asks over his shoulder. While he speaks he pushes a button and the black liquid of my coffee swirls down the curved spout into my cup.
‘ “Little” accent?’ I reply.
He bobs down in front of his fridge, removes milk and glugs some into a metal jug. He moves to the other end of the machine and places the jug over the spout that I know is the milk frother. It hisses a little as he heats and froths the milk.
‘Sorry, where are you coming from with that cute accent of yours??
‘Nowhere,’ I reply. In my head, in my heart, that is where I am from: nowhere. ‘I’m from nowhere.’
‘Everyone’s from somewhere,’ he says.
‘Not me,’ I reply silently.
‘I can’t place your accent. Usually I’m quite good with them, since I speak to so many people on a regular basis. But yours, it’s a mystery.’
‘I was born in Brighton and lived out near Lewes until I was about three, so that’s where most of my accent comes from, I guess. We then moved to a place called Otley just outside Leeds where I lived most of my life, I went to university in Liverpool, and recently I moved to Leeds proper, which has all probably influenced my voice. Add to that the fact my dad was Scottish, and my mum, even though she’s from Leeds, sounds like she grew up in Buckingham Palace, and you get an accent like mine.’ Add to that the fact that I’ve never felt I’ve belonged anywhere and you get a girl from nowhere. You get me.
The milk is frothed and hot, so he moves back to my cardboard cup and pours it in then spoons on the white foam. ‘Wouldn’t you say that was more “everywhere” than nowhere?’ the coffee guy says.
‘Depends on how you look at it, I suppose,’ I reply.
‘Most things do – depend on how you look at them, I mean,’ he says. The white, moulded plastic lid with the cut-out oblong drinking hole is fitted on to the cup with a dull pop.
‘Thank you for the coffee,’ I say to him. We stand at the door, his hand resting on the metal handle. I don’t want to leave. I’d like to sit here, experience the world through the picture windows, and to carry on chatting to this person.
‘It’s a cappuccino,’ he states. ‘I know you asked for a coffee, but you look like you’re going to have a cappuccino kind of day.’ He makes no move to open the door. Maybe he doesn’t want me to leave either. Maybe I’ve fascinated him enough for him to let me stay a while longer.