The Anniversary of Never by Lane Joel

Author:Lane, Joel [Lane, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Fiction, Fiction.Horror, Collection.Single Author
ISBN: 9781783800087
Amazon: 1783800089
Publisher: Swan River Press
Published: 2015-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

After the Fire

Theresa and I were friends at Birmingham University. We were in the same film and literary societies. We were going through the same kind of delayed adolescence: after years of protective family life and obsessive studying, the adult world was hitting us with the force of a revelation. I wrote poems about it; Theresa lived it. She was a thin-faced, rather sardonic girl who moved as if she was underwater. Her dark, tangled hair completed the illusion.

Over the three years of studying we spent a lot of time together. Theresa wanted me as a male best friend, someone who loved her but wouldn’t try to be her boyfriend. Someone she wouldn’t have to fall out with. I accepted that role, but never stopped being jealous of the boys who shared her narrow bed. There were times when I would have happily exchanged being her confidant and guardian for an hour in her arms. Even if it meant I was history the next morning. History is a good thing to be sometimes.

My happiest memories of Theresa are from those years. Walking with her down the long avenues of the university campus, past the old red-brick buildings and the clock tower, putting the world to rights. Drinking real coffee in her room, a subtly ordered nest of film posters, wood carvings, second-hand books and CDs. Arguing about the merits of Polanski, Tindersticks, or Militant. Watching foreign films, then finding a quiet table where we could relive the key moments.

We kept in touch after graduating, and somehow both stayed in the city. I studied for a doctorate, while Theresa became a journalist. We used to go and see local bands in Moseley, a suburb with a lot of student accommodation and live music. Both of those features would change before long. In the nineties, Moseley had about it a kind of bohemian aura: a mystical energy with little to sustain it except drugs, alcohol, and a music that was painfully retro even then. I fed on that as a writer; Theresa fed on it as a person. Some things never change.

Theresa was maybe eighteen months out of university when she met the love of her life. Mark looked rather like her but was thinner, almost gaunt. There was something of the gypsy or Middle European about him. When they started going out together, I heard a rumour or two to the effect that he was a jealous lover—and maybe not beyond knocking a woman around. I decided not to say anything about that to Theresa. She could look after herself. Maybe jealousy was still eating away at me, somewhere in the depths that I was so good at mining but couldn’t really face, then or now.

When I saw them together, Theresa was rather subdued. Mark gave the impression of being somewhere else in his mind, waiting for her to join him. About a month into the relationship, I met her for lunch. She was nervous, alternating between playful excitement and a worrying silence.

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