it did I’d be first in the queue. But I’ve been around Penny long enough to know that the glow just clings to the individual. You can’t share it.
We are young and Penny has a lot of boyfriends. Men like Penny, they always have. I don’t know how she keeps track of her admirers though, because the phone that sits on the table in the small hallway isn’t plugged in. Penny polishes the ivory and gilt pretty much every day, making sure it shines and shows off its worth, but it remains silent. We could plug it in, but there would be no point, we can’t afford the line rental. Penny has no intention of getting us connected and never has.
I ask her why she bought the phone in the first place if she wasn’t going to be able to use it and she looks at me like I’m mad. ‘People will think we’re poor if we don’t have a phone,’ is her explanation. It makes me laugh, but she is serious. She knows the importance of appearance, does Penny.
Sometimes we see Paul. He’s living just outside London and occasionally turns up with a bottle of wine and stories of his endeavours that make me laugh until I cry, Penny squealing beside me. If I hear stories like Paul’s from other people I take them with a pinch of salt. With Paul, though, I know that, however unlikely they may be, they are true. Paul is in many ways larger than life. He dominates conversations and social events, finding childlike fun in everything. This doesn’t always go down well with others, especially when his dominating becomes domineering.
Mostly though, when in public, he entertains. He makes people smile and that makes him happy and theaudience either falls in love with him or at least begrudgingly admires him. When things are working for him, Paul is around. But then he disappears for months at a time and I know that, under the funny, Paul doesn’t find life all that easy. He’s stuck between me and Penny: too much hard and too much easy fighting inside him. Maybe that’s why, like you, he drinks too much and smokes too much. Maybe that’s his way out of the drift. He drives fast cars and earns silly sums of money, but nothing is stable around him. He spends more than he earns with a desperation that I think most people can’t see. I can, though. Even at barely twenty I can see. Still, you can’t tell Paul. No one can. And despite it all I love him and begrudgingly admire him.
I have boyfriends too. I don’t glow like Penny, but I am tall and slim and my sandy hair falls to my shoulders and when we go out together we look good – different enough, but both shining with youth. We often double-date, but there is nothing serious going on under the warmth of the wine and the man’s touch. Not for either of us.
Until that moment when, out of the blue, it happens. I meet him.
The One.
Whatever.
I often wonder how things would’ve been if we’d gone to a different bar or just gone home, but playing ‘what if’ games with the events of your life is a road tomadness and I don’t need any more of those. My head is a network of those paths that I can see when I shut my eyes. What is, is. What was, was.
He doesn’t speak to Penny as we push our way to the bar, my sister already peering around for some willing male volunteer to buy the drinks we can’t afford to buy for ourselves. He smiles straight at me. His teeth are white. I notice that. His smile is wide and his eyes twinkle under his dark hair. I smile back, the bar, the drink and even Penny forgotten.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ I say, right back. I fall in love in a snap. I can almost hear it inside. Within two months we are living in his large house in Notting Hill. I have a golden ring on my finger which proves his promise of unending love. I am the fairy-tale princess and have my fairy-tale ending. And all in that snap.
A year or so later, the snaps I hear are different. More varied. Subtle variations on a theme. I can hear the sharp snap in the air when his mood changes
We are young and Penny has a lot of boyfriends. Men like Penny, they always have. I don’t know how she keeps track of her admirers though, because the phone that sits on the table in the small hallway isn’t plugged in. Penny polishes the ivory and gilt pretty much every day, making sure it shines and shows off its worth, but it remains silent. We could plug it in, but there would be no point, we can’t afford the line rental. Penny has no intention of getting us connected and never has.
I ask her why she bought the phone in the first place if she wasn’t going to be able to use it and she looks at me like I’m mad. ‘People will think we’re poor if we don’t have a phone,’ is her explanation. It makes me laugh, but she is serious. She knows the importance of appearance, does Penny.
Sometimes we see Paul. He’s living just outside London and occasionally turns up with a bottle of wine and stories of his endeavours that make me laugh until I cry, Penny squealing beside me. If I hear stories like Paul’s from other people I take them with a pinch of salt. With Paul, though, I know that, however unlikely they may be, they are true. Paul is in many ways larger than life. He dominates conversations and social events, finding childlike fun in everything. This doesn’t always go down well with others, especially when his dominating becomes domineering.
Mostly though, when in public, he entertains. He makes people smile and that makes him happy and theaudience either falls in love with him or at least begrudgingly admires him. When things are working for him, Paul is around. But then he disappears for months at a time and I know that, under the funny, Paul doesn’t find life all that easy. He’s stuck between me and Penny: too much hard and too much easy fighting inside him. Maybe that’s why, like you, he drinks too much and smokes too much. Maybe that’s his way out of the drift. He drives fast cars and earns silly sums of money, but nothing is stable around him. He spends more than he earns with a desperation that I think most people can’t see. I can, though. Even at barely twenty I can see. Still, you can’t tell Paul. No one can. And despite it all I love him and begrudgingly admire him.
I have boyfriends too. I don’t glow like Penny, but I am tall and slim and my sandy hair falls to my shoulders and when we go out together we look good – different enough, but both shining with youth. We often double-date, but there is nothing serious going on under the warmth of the wine and the man’s touch. Not for either of us.
Until that moment when, out of the blue, it happens. I meet him.
The One.
Whatever.
I often wonder how things would’ve been if we’d gone to a different bar or just gone home, but playing ‘what if’ games with the events of your life is a road tomadness and I don’t need any more of those. My head is a network of those paths that I can see when I shut my eyes. What is, is. What was, was.
He doesn’t speak to Penny as we push our way to the bar, my sister already peering around for some willing male volunteer to buy the drinks we can’t afford to buy for ourselves. He smiles straight at me. His teeth are white. I notice that. His smile is wide and his eyes twinkle under his dark hair. I smile back, the bar, the drink and even Penny forgotten.
‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ I say, right back. I fall in love in a snap. I can almost hear it inside. Within two months we are living in his large house in Notting Hill. I have a golden ring on my finger which proves his promise of unending love. I am the fairy-tale princess and have my fairy-tale ending. And all in that snap.
A year or so later, the snaps I hear are different. More varied. Subtle variations on a theme. I can hear the sharp snap in the air when his mood changes
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